[Lexicog] a student dictionary

[Ronald Moe]

Hi Naomi,

 

You are correct that the English should become the vernacular and the
Matigsalug should be the national (or regional) language. You will have to
think of English as the language being described and therefore the
vernacular. This is actually the correct way to view your situation and
should solve your problem. It is not just an ad hoc solution. This is the
way MDF was designed to behave.

 

MDF includes \?e fields because English is an international language and
most researchers would know English and very likely use it as the analysis
language. But this is confusing. MDF provides for three analysis languages.
The first 'e' can be English. The second 'n' can be the national language of
the country, but could be anything (e.g. French, Spanish, Russian, Chinese,
Japanese, Korean, anything you want it to be). The third 'r' can be a
regional language in the country, but it too could be anything. In fact the
'e' can be anything. MDF assumes English, but you can change it.

 

The important thing is to realize that 'v' is the vernacular language-the
language being described and 'e' 'n' and 'r' are analysis languages-the
languages used to describe the vernacular. In a monolingual dictionary the
'v' is both the vernacular and the analysis language. In a bilingual
dictionary the 'v' is still the vernacular, but the analysis language can be
'e' 'n' or 'r'.

 

Ron Moe

 

  _____  

From: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com
[mailto:lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Naomi Keith
Sent: Tuesday, July 28, 2009 6:06 PM
To: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com
Cc: robert_hunt at sil.org
Subject: [Lexicog] a student dictionary

 

  

Hi there,

We are in the process of making an English-Matigsalug student dictionary
aimed at being a resource for non-native English speakers. We are using
Toolbox, and are aiming for a fairly standard MDF structure.  However, it is
not completely standard, as it appears that Toolbox is more designed to use
English as a metalanguage, not as the focus language.

At the moment, the English fields are encoded with \?e, and the Matigsalug
fields are encoded with \?v.  Upon importing into Lexique Pro, it doesn't
seem possible to print the English example sentences, because MDF appears to
treat them as a translation field for another language, not a 'stand-alone'
example field. 

Does anyone have any suggestions about how to deal with this? I though
perhaps of making English the \?v field, and Matigsalug the \?n (national
language) - not strictly correct, but it would solve the problem, perhaps,
and would make the database more 'standard' in some ways.

Thanks very much,

Naomi Keith



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