| Abstract |
The New English-Irish Dictionary is a government-sponsored project that began in 2000 and is due for completion in 2012. The aim is to produce a modern bilingual dictionary containing c. 40,000 headwords which is to be published in both printed and electronic formats. When published this dictionary will be the first major dictionary published for Irish in over 40 years. The project is currently at the translation phase, and this paper focuses on the approach taken to attempt cover dialect variations in the modern spoken language. The methodology employed was divide the headword list into three distinct categories, each requiring a different level of translation.
Given the time and budgetary constraints of the project it was decided that only the 1000 (approx) most frequently occurring lemmas could receive a full dialectal profile. Translators from each of the three main dialects translate each entry, passing the entry on to a translator from the next dialect as they complete their part of the process. This translation work is carried out without reference to written sources. Once a translator from each main dialect has completed their work the entry is checked for completeness against set sources and labelled accordingly.
The main advantages of this process are as follows.
· It captures current translations that may not be covered in existing out-dated sources.
· It provides a dialectal profile of words, phrases and usages.
· It enables an element of dialectal marking in the final product, particularly in the electronic version.
· It enables the option to customise the electronic version, fronting any particular dialect.
· A given dialect may be selected as the default pronunciation in the electronic version.
· It enriches the bilingual database creating a useful research resource for other academic research projects. |
| BibTex |
@InProceedings{ELX10-052,
author = {Cathal Convery, Pádraig Ó Mianáin, Muiris Ó Raghallaigh},
title = {Covering All Bases: Regional Marking of Material in the New English-Irish Dictionary},
pages = {609-619},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 14th EURALEX International Congress},
year = {2010},
month = {jul},
date = {6-10},
address = {Leeuwarden/Ljouwert, The Netherlands},
editor = {Anne Dykstra and Tanneke Schoonheim},
publisher = {Fryske Akademy},
isbn = {978-90-6273-850-3},
} |
