Re: Duali - On Dictionaries

[Mohamed Kebdani <kebdani1 at iam dot net dot ma>]

في 21:32 جمعة 06 سبتمبر 2002، Mohammed Elzubeir كتبت:
> Salam,
>
   و عليكم السلام و رحمة الله،

  بعد ما تبادلنا رسائل على هامش هذه القائمة حول مشروع المدقق الإملائى، عرضت 
على الأخ محمد الزبير أن أكون أحد الخمسة الصحاح :) المنوطة بهم مهمة تحرير 
الملف المعتمد على معجم الجامعة العربية المذكور في رسالته.
  لن يجد الأخ الزبير أعرج مني :) فأنا لا أفقه في البرمجة قيد أنملة و معرفتي
 بالأنجليزية لا تتعدى حفض كلمات و عبارات ملفات README  :)) فالمرجو صبرا معي يا 
إخوة.
 المهم أنني تحت رهن الإشارة و أنا الآن أبحث عن نسخمة من المعجم الأساسي للــ   
ALECSO و قد بعثت في طلبه من الرباط.لعلني أعثر عليه فإن لم أجد فألجأ إلى مصدر 
آخر.

و السلام عليكم و رحمة الله.
محمد كبداني.  


> So I have finally gotten my hands on a proper Arabic dictionary,
> issued by none but the ALECSO (of the Arab League), 1989. Once
> I started browsing through the contents of the dictionary,
> I realized that my proposal for a dictionary generator is inherently
> flawed.
>
> I am rather disappointed that no one on any of the lists has
> ever bothered to look up into a dictionary and point out how a
> regular book-type dictionary would be organized. I have repeatedly
> pleaded that I do not have the resources to make some of the simpler,
> seemingly obvious distinctions between workable and impossible.
>
> For example, my proposal did not take into consideration the distinction
> between verbs and nouns. It is possible to narrow down the possibilities
> if the word is supplied with adequate 'harakat'. Without them, it is
> simply impossible to have a program guess if a sequence of characters
> makes up a noun or a verb.
>
> The dictionary I have in hand right now, puts them in their roots.
> Words that are a direct derivative of the roots are listed, but some
> which are not directly derived (yet share the first 3-5 first letters)
> are also listed under it.
>
> This gives a nice little insight as to how the spell-checker was
> intended to load the dictionary content into memory, but it was not
> how I intended to create it. It is much harder to reverse the process.
>
> The dictionary (book) has around 25,000 entries, that is, roots. I have
> come to the conclusion that Duali is simply not possible without an
> extensive data entry process.
>
> The following tasks are open for any takers:
>
> + Five data entry volunteers -- to enter a complete list of 25,000
>   roots, plus a number representation of their possible derivatives
>
> + One Arabic linguist/or even hobbyist -- to provide feedback and
>   listings of every possible derivative from any given word. That
>   not only includes the common but the rare as well. Most of those
>   possibilities are already listed, but the rarer ones are not.
>
> So, as you can tell, this is not a small project. Letting a script
> create a dictionary is simply not possible unless you want a toy
> spell checker. That is not something I had in mind ;)
>
> If anyone is interested, please do not be shy! Reply immediately.
>
> Thank you.

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