Multiple orthographies

[Lindsay Marean]

I'm wondering what strategies other people have used when working with
multiple orthographies for the same language.

Lindsay

[Oumar]

I use the variant field for orthographic or phonological variants
which I cross reference with the main entry.

Oumar

[Crockett]

If you really want to go all out in this, then I think you better go with
FLEx. It is designed for that.

I use Latin script in Toolbox, but I have a few fields in a right-to-left
script as well. If you want things to go smoothly with MDF, you can't do
much more than that. I put all forms of the lexeme in RTL in the phonetic
form and I manipulate the example sentence field to put those in RTL, too.

My main purpose in doing this is to let the user know how to spell the
lexemes in both LTR and RTL. I cannot do this with the verb paradigms I
have. Those are only in LTR.

Crockett

[ToolboxSupport]

Dear Lindsay,

I thought you'd get more responses.

I have seen people use the lexical citation form when they wanted to
work with the roman for the lexeme but wanted to print the dictionary
in the script.

I have also seen folk use the various "regional" fields for another
script.

If you are in India, where different states have different scripts --
and different from the national -- and the language you are working in
crosses state boundaries, then you just plain need more fields.

It *is* possible to add extra fields to the MDF set. Or I have an MDF-
alternative which I have never quite documented but which takes extra
fields more easily than MDF (and has options like don't reorder the
fields) -- but which doesn't necessarily have all the MDF options.

Anyway, depending on how many scripts you are trying to deal with and
how many extra fields this implies, you may need to let me customize
your project a bit. MDF on its own is fairly limited in its inherent
abilities to handle multiple scripts.

Toolbox Support

[Lindsay Marean]

Thank you! I actually am only working with one script (Roman), but
three different communities have three different writing systems for the
same language. One of those does have a special font, but it's
Roman-based (just some kind of strange diacritics).

I've chose one writing system to be the primary one I work with (so
that's what I use for \a forms for interlinearization and the \lx form,
for example). However, it would be nice to have information in the
other 2 orthographies, too, somewhere in the entry. I hesitate to use
\lc because I've been using it instead for a form of each word that can
stand on its own (instead of the bare lexeme) for the dictionary.

I was tempted initially to use \va, but I'd rather use that field to
note different varieties of the same word, or differences from community
to community or speaker to speaker.

I also thought about regional fields, but I'm using the national fields
for a related language and I'm not sure if adding regional field will
muck that all up.

The specific fields I'd like to add are these: 2 extra \lc fields (say,
\lca and \lcb), 2 extra \xv fields (\xva and \xvb), 2 extra \va fields,
and 2 extra \pdv fields. It's heartening to hear that extra fields can
be added to the MDF set. What all is involved in that process?

Thank you for getting back to me!

Lindsay

[Toolbox]

Dear Lindsay,

Sorry to be slow replying to you! I didn't realize it had been so long, but I've been trying to get a major project wrapped up and it's moving like molassas.

I've attached a document I wrote up a couple years ago about how to add a field to MDF. It illustrates with just one field and moves on as if that's all anyone would ever want. But you can do all your fields at the same time in each part (there are five places to modify).

This looks like a pretty easy set to add, but that doesn't mean that doing so will be trivial. Any time you have to tweak so many different places, it's challenging. Hmmm, I see that you will have interactions with the "xvBundle", and I think there is a "vaBundle" -- the document doesn't address the Bundles. Well, see what you can do and then let me know. I will help!

This won't make sense until you've worked through the document: the xvBundle (in MDFDict2.cct) allows a person to have more than one set of examples in an entry and keeps them properly interleaved. As each set is encountered, all the pieces are collected and stored in the right order as a set. But this is done in a slightly separate part of MDFDict2.cct than most of the fields are handled. The principles are still the same.

I have quite a bit happening the next week or two which is why I'm sending you the document. Sorry. I didn't think my schedule was so heavy when I made the original offer to help. If you don't have success let me know. Things may open up quicker than I expect and as I say, this looks like a *relatively* easy set to add.

Actually, let me know if you do have success! :D

Give me any feedback on the document. I've meant to make it available on the website and somehow have never gotten it there. Let me know what is missing!

--Karen