| Abstract |
Estonian is a lesser used language of Europe (with about one million users) that belongs to the Finnic group of Finno-Ugric language. It has a large proportion of international words, which has resulted in extensive co-existent synonymy between native and international words. However, because of linguistic purism Estonian monolingual dictionaries do not treat the members of such synonym pairs on an equal footing. Usually, they give preference to native words, which in practice implies that international words are provided together with their native-language equivalents, but native words are without any reference to international words. Unfortunately, this kind of asymmetrical treatment is not helpful for language users and compilers of bilingual dictionaries; they need to develop synonym competence, which covers both international and native synonyms. Probably the best solution is symmetrical treatment, that is, both synonyms should be provided side by side on a regular basis, which contributes to their better knowledge. It is argued that the quality of bilingual dictionaries could be significantly improved by providing the synonym pairs together on a systematic basis. |
| BibTex |
@InProceedings{ELX2014-063,
author={Enn Veldi},
title={Concerning the Treatment of Co-existent Synonyms in Estonian Monolingual and Bilingual Dictionaries},
pages={829-835},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 16th EURALEX International Congress},
year={2014},
month={jul},
date={15-19},
address={Bolzano, Italy},
editor={Abel, Andrea and Vettori, Chiara and Ralli, Natascia},
publisher={EURAC research},
isbn={978-88-88906-97-3},
} |
