Re: Dictionaries of agglutinating languages

On Tue, 3 Oct 2000, dirk elzinga wrote:

> On Tue, 3 Oct 2000, Robert Hailman wrote:
> > It would make the dictionary easier to use: pick out the root,
> > and the meaning of the derived term is right there, mit
> > definition.
>
> Yes. But it does require the user to be aware of the derivational
> history of a word--something which won't always be true.
When I'd just started on Valdyan I kept three dictionaries:
Valdyan-Dutch and Dutch-Valdyan alphabetically, and a dictionary by
root (and Valdyan isn't even an agglutinating language). This was
useful to keep track of derivations, but I never used it for anything
else, because I couldn't find my own words. It was ten years ago,
though, when I did everything in a text file on a 5 1/4" floppy and
even printed the dictionaries out to look up words in. With modern
tools it's a lot easier (though I still use plain text files for many
things).

   Irina

--
           Varsinen an laynynay, saraz no arlet rastynay.
irina@valdyas.org (myself)     http://www.valdyas.org/irina/valdyas