Re: Keeping an advanced dictionary in Org-mode?

[Christian Moe <mail@christianmoe.com>]

Hi,

Thanks, these pointers were really helpful -- whether I end up doing 
something similar, or using them to work out how I want to do this in 
Org, or using other tools I was able to discover in five minutes after 
you'd pointed me to the right search keywords!

( Like SIL's Toolbox:
http://www.sil.org/computing/catalog/show_software.asp?id=79 )

Yours,
Christian

On 6/6/11 4:50 PM, Alan E. Davis wrote:
> FWIW:
>
> I won't get into it much for now, but I have used a "band format" for
> lexical data.  There are other names for this type of free form
> database.  I wrote a crude elisp routine to recover entries into LaTeX
> formatted files.
>
> A "band" is a record, so to speak.  I am not very well qualified in
> this, but was able to use it to record lexical data.  You may find
> some linguists' websites where this or similar formats are
> elucidated.  A record starts with a double dotted key, and information
> categories may be made up on the fly, as marked by  single-dotted
> keys, preceded by at least two spaces.   I think it's convenient for a
> record to be delineated by a line feed, as well.
>
> ..HW <headword>  .D <local dialectZ>   .GE <English gloss>   .NS
> <scientific name>  .NCE <Common Name>   .NCs <Spanish Common Name>  .R
> <remark>  .RC <Remark on Cultural Signficance>
>
> This is just a made up case, but perhaps you can catch the drift.
>
> Here are a couple of simple cases from my files:
>
> ..hw tutubi   ,lang vis  .nce dragonfly    .source FSD
> ..HW sigai    .lang vis .ge (mollusc) shell, when empty
> ..hw soksok  .ec gecko  .cg  .la ilo  .src hanna .n
> ..hw locus  .ec octopus  .cg  .la ilongo  .src hannah .n see nucus
> [vis]; kuus [chuukese]
> ..hw tikling  .ec heron  .cg  .la vis  .from fsd
> ..hw nucus  .ec octopus  .cg  .la vis  .src fsd, hannah  .n related to
> chuukese kuus
>
> Fairly straightforward elisp would scan a record and wrapping each
> item in a particular typeface.
>
> To get an idea of the output.  Each line was output as an \item in a
> list.  This got to be a LITTLE cumbersome, perhaps, and someone good
> at coding would do it differently.  The idea is that a lisp routine
> scans the records and spits out list items.  This could be any kind of
> output, and perhaps org mode would be a good way to rig a routine to
> scan list items and output different band types as slanted (\sl),
> roman, or italicized components.
>
> \item [{\sl k\'{u}\'{u}s\/}$_{3}$]   \index{k\'{u}\'{u}s} \quad
> Small, night-time octopus.   HADJ  E\'{e}t.
>
> \item [{\sl k\'{u}\'{u}s\/}$_{4}$]   \index{k\'{u}\'{u}s} \quad
> Daytime octopus.   {\sc syn\/}:\ {\sl  nippach}.    {\sc alt\/}:\ {\sl
> k\'{u}\'{u}h}.    \HADJ  F\'{o}n\'{o}.
>
> \item [{\sl k\'{u}\'{u}sen neepwin\/}]   \index{k\'{u}\'{u}sen
> neepwin} \quad    {\sc see\/}:\ {\sl nippachin neepwin}.    Even
> though this is not said, it would be the correct way to say it. \HADJ
> Wonip.
>
>
> This may not be an appealing approach.  I am still pleased with the
> ability to flexibly add band keys on the fly, during data entry, and
> the potential to use LaTeX as a frontend.  HTML would also be useful,
> depending on how you wish to read your dictionary.
>
> Not a perfect system.  Linguists have done better.  Robert Hsu of the
> University of Hawaii built a system around SPITBOL and maybe SNOBOL4.
> I was hopelessly lost trying to use those, but elisp did what little I
> needed.  I think that it may be possible to organize a database using
> org-mode.
>
> For now, I have a capture template for data entry, such as it is:
>
> ("=" "lex" entry (file+headline "lexicon.org <http://lexicon.org>"
> "Unsorted") "* ..hw %^{Headword}  .gs %^{Scientific Name}  .ge
> %^{English Gloss}  .ec %^{English Common Name}  .cg %^{Category}  .la
> %^{Language}  .src %^{Informant} .n %^{Note} %?  .dt %u " :prepend t
> :immediate-finish t)
>
> Again, FWIW.  To me, a great deal.  Maybe to others, not so great of a
> deal.
>
> Alan
>
>
> On Mon, Jun 6, 2011 at 7:38 PM, Christian Moe <mail@christianmoe.com
> <mailto:mail@christianmoe.com>> wrote:
>
>     Hi,
>
>     Is anybody using Org-mode to build an advanced dictionary with
>     sub-entries, tags etc.? Would you be willing to share a setup?
>
>     For example, the obvious way to build a dictionary would be to use
>     a dictionary list (I borrow a few English-French lines from the
>     wonderful WordReference.com site):
>
>     - pine ::
>       (/paɪn/)
>       1. /m noun/ [bot.] pin; *stripped ~* pin décapé.
>       2. /intr verb/ languir (*for* après; *to do* de faire)
>
>     This looks nice, but unfortunately, you cannot set tags or
>     properties on dictionary terms, so it's not particularly amenable
>     to fancy searching, mapping etc.
>
>     On the other hand, you could do something like this:
>
>     * pine
>       :PROPERTIES:
>       :Pronunciation: /paɪn/
>       :END:
>     ** pin                                  :bot:
>        :PROPERTIES:
>        :Word_class: noun
>        :Gender:   m
>        :END:
>        *stripped ~* pin décapé.
>     ** languir
>        :PROPERTIES:
>        :Word_class: verb
>        :Transitivity: intr
>        :END:
>        (*for* après; *to do* de faire)
>
>     It's a pain to do, and because of outline folding, it could be a
>     pain to look up meanings, and you might need to do some serious
>     post-processing on the export to make it look anything like a
>     dictionary. But when you're done, you could extract a list of all
>     botanical terms (:bot:), or of words and pronunciations only... etc.
>
>     So for my growing pile of translation notes, I might like to keep
>     that kind of thing. But there are so many ways it could be
>     organized - what do you put in subheadings? what in entry text
>     below subheadings? what in tags, what in properties? etc. So if
>     someone has an example that works for them, I'd like to see one.
>
>     (Org may not be the best tool for this job, of course, but it's
>     the right tool for me...)
>
>     Yours,
>     Christian
>
>
>