In one of his articles, an outstanding Georgian linguist Thomas Gamkrelidze discusses ecological problems from the standpoint of social sciences and humanities and introduces a very important term – ...ecology of culture. The present paper discusses the importance of preservation of our languages and cultures and the role of lexicography and lexicographers in this process. Issues of linguistic change, influence of a foreign tongue, defilement of a language, normativity and the normalizing function of lexicography, the role of a language in the development and preservation of national identity, as well as some other questions are addressed in the paper.
The article addresses some issues connected with the disciplinary status of lexicography. Drawing on the views of scholars such as L. Zgusta, R. Ilson, H. Wiegand, R. Gouws, H. Bergenholtz, S. Tarp, ...R. Lew and others, the author argues in favour of the viewpoint that lexicography is a science and that working on a dictionary is a scientific activity. The main issues tackled in the paper include understanding the complex nature of word meaning, the role of dictionaries in the description of word meaning and the development of lexical semantics. Attention is also paid to the definitional method of the study of word meaning, which is based on the analysis of dictionary definitions, components of the theory of lexicography, the relation between lexicographic theory and practice, and the teaching of lexicography as an academic discipline at universities.The author argues that the right approach to lexicography and its disciplinary status is particularly important in our era of globalisation. Only state-of-the-art lexicographic and corpus resources will secure the future of many languages, particularly lesser-used languages, and such resources will not be created until lexicography receives proper recognition as a science with "big interdisciplinary vocation" (Tarp 2017); until lexicography is turned into an academic discipline through advanced theory of lexicography, through teaching lexicography at universities, etc.Nog eens waarom leksikografie 'n wetenskap is. In hierdie artikel word 'n paar kwessies met betrekking tot die vakstatus van leksikografie aangespreek. Gebaseer op die sienings van vakkundiges soos L. Zgusta, R. Ilson, H. Wiegand, R. Gouws, H. Bergenholtz, S. Tarp, R. Lew en ander, argumenteer die outeur ten gunste van die siening dat die leksikografie 'n wetenskap is en dat die samestelling van 'n woordeboek 'n wetenskaplike aktiwiteit is. Die hoof-kwessies wat in hierdie artikel aangespreek word, sluit die komplekse aard van woordbetekenis, die rol van woordeboeke in die beskrywing van woordbetekenis en die ontwikkeling van die leksikale semantiek in. Daar word ook aandag geskenk aan die definisiële studiemetode van woord-betekenis, wat gebaseer is op die ontleding van woordeboekdefinisies, komponente van die leksikografieteorie, die verband tussen die leksikografiese teorie en -praktyk, en die onderrig van die leksikografie as 'n akademiese dissipline by universiteite.Die outeur argumenteer dat die korrekte benadering tot die leksikografie en die vakstatus daarvan besonder belangrik in hierdie era van globalisering is. Slegs die heel nuutste leksikografiese en korpushulpbronne sal die toekoms van baie tale, spesifiek minder gebruikte tale, verseker, en voor hierdie hulpbronne geskep kan word, moet die leksikografie behoorlike erkenning as 'n wetenskap met "('n) groot interdissiplinêre taak" (Tarp 2017) geniet; moet gevorderde leksikografieteorie in 'n akademiese vakrigting verander word, moet leksikografie aan universiteite onderrig word, ens.
There is a general lack of web-based tools for morphologically complex dead/old languages. Reading texts in such languages even with dictionaries is quite challenging. It is difficult to identify the ...lemma of a word form occurring in texts, which one could look up in a dictionary. The need for additional grammatical information about a word (classes of declension, conjugation, etc.) poses another problem. The Lexicographic Centre at Ivanè Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University (TSU) has embarked on creating a fully digitalized, web-based chrestomathy of Gothic and Anglo-Saxon texts with dictionaries and grammatical paradigms integrated in it, which would facilitate the study of these linguistically important languages. Each word of the digital versions of Gothic and Anglo-Saxon texts is hyperlinked to the corresponding headword from the dictionary. The dictionary entry itself, in addition to the meaning of the word, provides via another hyperlink all necessary information concerning the morphological class and inflectional patterns of the word in question. The paper describes the structure of the Chrestomathy and its modus operandi; analyses the dictionary component of the online resource and some lexicographic solutions; discusses lexicological and technical aspects of the online resource, etc. The method applied in the Chrestomathy can be successfully used in developing similar resources for extant, morphologically complex languages characterized with the abundance of inflectional and suppletive forms, such as Hungarian, Turkish, Russian, German, Georgian and many others.
The present article was inspired by the plenary lecture given by Rufus Gouws at the XX International Congress of EURALEX in Mannheim: "Dictionaries: Bridges, Dykes, Sluice Gates" (Gouws 2022). His ...emphasis on the lack of a dictionary culture and the responsibilities that not only lexicography has towards society, but that society also has towards lexicography is an important perspective that is relevant for many societies, including Georgian society. While Gouws uses this term as an umbrella term to refer to both the user-friendliness of dictionaries, on the one hand, and the ability and willingness of society to use dictionaries and their knowledge of dictionary-use skills, on the other, in the present article we concentrate more on the latter aspect of the term dictionary culture. Numerous studies conducted in the field of dictionary use since the 1970s have revealed that many users did not know how to use dictionaries, were not familiar with the structure of entries, could not identify what part of speech this or that word was, had no idea of homonymy, polysemy and related issues; this led to errors in comprehension, translation and other tasks related to foreign language acquisition. These studies, conducted in different countries, also clearly showed the need to teach dictionary use in schools and universities. Unfortunately, despite efforts from lexicographers and educators to improve this situation, and despite some positive steps taken in this direction which will be discussed in the paper, there is still no satisfactory teaching of dictionary use in educational institutions that would help create or sustain dictionary culture. The aim of this article is to discuss problems in dictionary use in the Georgian context and share our experience of introducing the teaching of lexicography and developing dictionary-use skills at Georgian universities.
There is a general lack of web-based tools for morphologically complex dead/old languages. Reading texts in such languages even with dictionaries is quite challenging. It is difficult to identify the ...lemma of a word form occurring in texts, which one could look up in a dictionary. The need for additional grammatical information about a word (classes of declension, conjugation, etc.) poses another problem. The Lexicographic Centre at Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University (TSU) has embarked on creating a fully digitalized, web-based chrestomathy of Gothic and Anglo-Saxon texts with dictionaries and grammatical paradigms integrated in it, which would facilitate the study of these linguistically important languages. Each word of the digital versions of Gothic and Anglo-Saxon texts is hyperlinked to the corresponding headword from the dictionary. The dictionary entry itself, in addition to the meaning of the word, provides via another hyperlink all necessary information concerning the morphological class and inflectional patterns of the word in question. The paper describes the structure of the Chrestomathy and its modus operandi; analyses the dictionary component of the online resource and some lexicographic solutions; discusses lexicological and technical aspects of the online resource, etc. The method applied in the Chrestomathy can be successfully used in developing similar resources for extant, morphologically complex languages characterized with the abundance of inflectional and suppletive forms, such as Hungarian, Turkish, Russian, German, Georgian and many others.
The Georgian language, the official language of Georgia, is the only written member of the Kartvelian language family, the indigenous language family of the Caucasus region. Georgian philology and ...lexicography have long-standing tradition, English-Georgian lexicography being no exception. Given the increasing use of ample electronic text corpora for lexicographical purposes, the team of Georgian lexicographers, working on the Comprehensive English-Georgian Dictionary (CEGD), subsequently the Comprehensive English-Georgian Online Dictionary (CEGOD), decided to compile an English-Georgian Parallel Corpus (EGPC). The aim of the project was to develop the methodology of building a parallel corpus of Georgian and assess its efficiency for Georgian bilingual lexicography. The work on the corpus is going on for over a decade. The ultimate aim is to create a standard for Georgian bilingual corpora that will be compiled in future. The article describes the content and composition of the EGPC, its structure, functionalities, search engines and so on. The article also deals with various studies conducted over years in order to assess and enhance the value, applicability and efficiency of the EGPC for the automatic or semi-automatic recognition, tagging and extraction of terminology, the compilation of terminological entries, as well as the entries for the English-Georgian Dictionary and those for the Georgian-English Learner's Dictionary, etc. Particular emphasis is laid upon the actual or potential applicability of the corpus for the lexicographical activities and for the machine translation projects. The findings of the study may be interesting for other under-resourced languages like Georgian. Keywords: PARALLEL CORPUS, TERMINOLOGICAL ENTRIES, ENGLISH-GEORGIAN DICTIONARY, GEORGIAN-ENGLISH DICTIONARY Georgies, die amptelike taal van Georgie, is die enigste geskrewe lid van die Kartveliaanse taalfamilie, die inheemse taalfamilie van die Kaukasiese streek. Die Georgiese taalwetenskap en leksikografie het 'n lang verbintenis waarvan die Engels-Georgiese leksikografie geen uitsondering is nie. In die lig van die toenemende gebruik van uitgebreide elektroniese tekskorpora vir leksiko-grafiese doeleindes, het die Georgiese span leksikograwe wat aan die Comprehensive English-Georgian Dictionary (CEGD), later die Comprehensive English-Georgian Online Dictionary (CEGOD), werk, besluit om 'n Engels-Georgiese Parallelle Korpus (EGPK) saam te stel. Die doel van die projek was die ontwikkeling van die metodologie vir die bou van 'n parallelle Georgiese korpus en die bepaling van die effektiwiteit daarvan vir die Georgiese tweetalige leksikografie. Daar word al meer as 'n dekade aan die korpus gewerk. Die uiteindelike doel is om 'n standaard vir Georgiese tweetalige korpora wat in die toekoms saamgestel sal word, te skep. Die artikel beskryf die inhoud en samestelling van die EGPK, die struktuur, funksionaliteit en soekenjins daarvan, ensovoorts. Die verskillende studies wat oor die jare uitgevoer is om die waarde, toepaslikheid en effektiwiteit van die EGPK rakende die outomatiese of semi-outomatiese herkenning, etikettering en onttrekking van terminologie, die samestelling van terminologiese inskrywings asook inskrywings vir die English-Georgian Dictionary en die Georgian-English Learner's Dictionary, ens., te bepaal en te verbeter, word in die artikel uiteengesit. Daar word spesifiek klem gele op die werklike of potensiele toepaslikheid van die korpus vir die leksikografiese aktiwiteite en masjienvertalingsprojekte. Die bevindings van die studie mag ook van waarde wees vir ander hulpbronskaars tale soos Georgies. Sleutelwoorde: PARALLELLE KORPUS, TERMINOLOGIESE INSKRYWINGS, ENGELSGEORGIESE WOORDEBOEK, GEORGIES-ENGELSE WOORDEBOEK
The Georgian language, the official language of Georgia, is the only written member of the Kartvelian language family, the indigenous language family of the Caucasus region. Georgian philology and ...lexicography have long-standing tradition, English–Georgian lexicography being no exception.Given the increasing use of ample electronic text corpora for lexicographical purposes, the team of Georgian lexicographers, working on the Comprehensive English–Georgian Dictionary (CEGD), subsequently the Comprehensive English–Georgian Online Dictionary (CEGOD), decided to compile an English–Georgian Parallel Corpus (EGPC). The aim of the project was to develop the methodology of building a parallel corpus of Georgian and assess its efficiency for Georgian bilingual lexicography. The work on the corpus is going on for over a decade. The ultimate aim is to create a standard for Georgian bilingual corpora that will be compiled in future.The article describes the content and composition of the EGPC, its structure, functionalities, search engines and so on. The article also deals with various studies conducted over years in order to assess and enhance the value, applicability and efficiency of the EGPC for the automatic or semi-automatic recognition, tagging and extraction of terminology, the compilation of terminological entries, as well as the entries for the English–Georgian Dictionary and those for the Georgian–English Learner's Dictionary, etc.Particular emphasis is laid upon the actual or potential applicability of the corpus for the lexicographical activities and for the machine translation projects. The findings of the study may be interesting for other under-resourced languages like Georgian.