On glossaries, dictionaries etc.(was ت رجمة اليوم...)

["Djihed Afifi" <djihedlists at googlemail dot com>]

Chahibi,


Regarding the dictionary idea, I'm a bit puzzled on how it will fit
and its exact details...

Possibly, there are these *kinds* of linguistic references of
relevance to us in order of size/depth:

--A dictionary: an in depth description of each word in English and
its meaning in Arabic and vice versa. This aims at being the defacto
standard reference. The description is thorough and encompasses all
meanings of the words. This is more of a linguistic/pro-translator
project. There are already a few out there, but they are not
open/free. This will be a hard task I wouldn't think it can be done
easily (see Wiktionary[1])

-- A wordlist: shorter than a dictionary, aims at providing succinct
word by word definitions. This is the sort that can be implemented in
automatic *general* translation software, or for translation of
documentation.
This is possibly fulfilled by wordlist[2], a fabulous project, and not
far from being complete.

- A technical dictionary: similar to a dictionary but more specific to
its field, the specificity can be narrowed further to the field of
computers, etc. See [3] for an English/french example.

- A Glossary: sometimes referred to as a compendium, or a
terminological dictionary. This is very specific, and is very needed
ATM at arabeyes. This deals more with the terminological aspect of
words that we use in translation, it aims to be a 1 word by 1 word of
the most common words occurring in software in order to achieve
consistency. It needed to be an linguistically accurate translation,
as it deals with complex terminology, and that's what differentiates
it from a wordlist or a dictionary. Software strings are generally
short, specific, and the glossary needs to be like that, for example,
what's the equivalent of "Root"? "Frame rate"? "Terminal"?
"Interface"? "backend"? etc

This is not to say that each and everyone of these should be developed
at arabeyes. Even if we can't possibly develop all of these kinds, we
should clearly differentiate what each project would like to be in
order to set clear goals/lines. For instance, trying to claim that a
wordlist is a full dictionary, or that a glossary is a technical
dictionary is fallacious.

[1]http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Main_Page
[2]http://www.arabeyes.org/project.php?proj=Wordlist
[3]http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0415112249/002-3024335-5837653?v=glance&n=283155


Djihed