[vicsireland] Re: dictionaries.
- From: RobbieS <robbiesin@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: vicsireland@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2012 13:43:02 +0100
I have made several Irish dictionaries over the years in Microsoft Word. I
have always arranged them alphabetically as I went along, but this thread
provides other food for thought, and leaves some other questions out there.
Here are some observations, not in any particular order of importance.
WinGléacht first appeared as part of a BBC Northern ireland publication
called "Now You're Talking", way back in 1995 - in floppy disc format. The
state publisher (An Gúm) of the print version of O'Dónaill and the man who
digitised it fell out over copywright, and this delayed the production of a
compact disc version.
I contacted An Gúm in 2002 asking them to get to work on it, and they
estimated it would be another 12 years or so before this project would come
to fruition.
In 2003 I procured a cd version of WinGléacht from UCD's Irish Department.
Tey were not generally available, and I came across several people
(including a librarian and an academic) who had the cd but would not share
it.
When I put it in my pc I was disappointed for two reasons:
a). the colour-scheme was incompatible with, and would not adjust to my
High Contrast Accessibility settings in Windows, so that it gave me white
writing on a white background, etc. I never tried to use it with Jaws.
b). it was by no means the full text of O'Donaill.
So, I set about digitising Ó Dónaill. I'd got up to the word *scól*, when
I had to postopne its completion. I wasn't able to edit with the same
alacrity or efficiency with failing sight.
There are more than 40 MB in all, with each letter being in its own
respective word doc. On completion, I've a mind to put them all into one
.pdf, in much the same way UCC did to Dineen's dictionary. The latter is
available for download online.
While digitising Ó Dónaill, I made three more smaller dictionaries (about
10 MB each). They are based on the Collins Pocket Dictionary published in
1999, but they are different. One is English-Irish, the other is standard
Irish-English and the third is Irish-English with the briathar táite
(Munster irish). I'm re-editing these all the time, but I wish there was
an easy way I could share them. 10 megs tends to freeze people's emails.
With Irish as one of the three core subjects up as far as the Leaving Cert,
it's amazing in this day and age that vips don't have the same access to
Irish texts and dictionaries as other students. It is our language as much
as anyone else's.
I would like to have done my post-grad in Irish, but UCD's irish Department
said that I would have had to have done my primary degree in irish first.
I see there point, but inaccessibility to texts was a decisive barrier.
Regarding searchability of a Word doc, the Search or Find function in Word
is quite useful. You press Ctl+F, write an English or Irish word in the
text field, and perss enter. There are two disadvantages to this: that you
have to have a fair idea of the spelling, and that you will not necessarily
get the most relevant result first, but it works fine. btw. to get a fada
in Windows, with English (Ireland) language settings, right-Alt+A,
right-Alt +E etc. should do the trick. If you are using Jaws you have to
do a lot of customization, either of Jaws, or of your keyboard settings in
Windows to get a different keystroke combination.
Ideally, when I'm finished Ó Dónaill, I'd be able to put it on a website
with a Search field, and all the results would be relevant in a way similar
to Google or focal.ie.
Finally, regarding the two columns tip sent by Caitríonna, and perhaps, the
Excel and table suggestions sent by Flor and Cearbhall, it may be worth
remembering to leave a column after the main word to put in details such as
*verb, adjective, preposition *etc. or whatever abbreviation you have for
these. With noun-types this is particularly useful, since there are eight
noun declentions (four male and four female), and knowledge of which type
of noun a word is is extremely useful in how you modify it in different
contexts. Flor's tip about leaving a column for associative headings or
categories (e.g., Medical, Literary, Archaic, etc.) is a great idea.
Wouldn't it be great if we could have tags or filters so that you could
search for words with only, for instance, the medical association, or
better still, medical association in a particular dialect, or a default
mechanism that one could only look for the contracted verb (Munster),
orwords associated with the Ulster dialect etc.
If anyone would like me to attempt to send them any of my lexicography by
email, feel free to contact me offlist.
Regards and well done to the good work,
Robbie
On Mon, Aug 6, 2012 at 6:36 PM, Flor Lynch <florlync@xxxxxx> wrote:
> Damien,
>
> Do you have anyone - someone who is fluent in irish - to work with,
> between classes? They then could help you with translation and further
> notes, dealing with the 'immersion' side of things (which you could pace
> according to your requirements). Looking at An Teanga beo and other
> irish-language articles in the irish times, I do have someone locally who
> can answer my questions!
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Damien O'Connor" <
> damienmoconnor@xxxxxxxxxx>
> To: <vicsireland@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Monday, August 06, 2012 1:39 PM
> Subject: [vicsireland] Re: dictionaries.
>
>
>
> Hi Cearbhall.
>>
>> Basically, I'm learning Irish. I'm following the TEG a2 sylabus at the
>> moment. I Have a teacher who comes to my house once a week. If you visit
>> www.teg.ie you'll notice that apart from an english translation of the
>> sylabus and some other general information, there is nno english
>> translations of the actual lessons. I'm therefore having to create my own
>> notes e.g. grammar and my own dictionary. It's my intention to take the a2
>> exam next may and then move up to the next level. Whilst I understand the
>> "total emersion" principle, It doesn't work for me personally. I have to
>> understand what I'm saying and why I'm constructing sentenses in a
>> particular way and to do that, I need the english translation of what I'm
>> working with. I hope this clarifies things.
>>
>> All the best
>>
>> Damien.
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>>
>>> From: vicsireland-bounce@freelists.**org<vicsireland-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>>
>> [mailto:vicsireland-bounce@**freelists.org<vicsireland-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]
>> On Behalf Of Cearbhall O'Meadhra
>> Sent: 03 August 2012 15:46
>> To: vicsireland@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> Subject: [vicsireland] Re: dictionaries.
>>
>> Damien,
>>
>> I would like to understand exactly what you doing. Would you like to
>> explain
>> in more details?
>>
>> If you created your own custom dictionary in MS Word would that solve the
>> problem?
>>
>> All the best,
>>
>>
>> Cearbhall
>>
>> T: +353 (0)1 6364364 m: 08333 23487 E: omeadhrac@xxxxxxx
>>
>>
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