[B-Greek] Comprehensive 1c Bilingual Koine Greek Dictionary [*Webster's]

Randall Buth randallbuth at gmail.com
Mon Aug 25 02:07:27 EDT 2008


On Sun, Aug 24, 2008 at 9:27 PM, Kimmo Huovila
<kimmo.huovila at helsinki.fi> wrote:
> On Friday, August 22, 2008, Randall Buth wrote:
>> The difference is that a monolingual dictionary does much of this without
> even
>> trying. Synonyms and word relations occur in the process of providing the
>> information about the entry and when giving citations.
>
> Agreed. I think that also in writing a monolingual dictionary it would be good
> to put conscious effort into this.
>
> So, the coice between a monolingual or bilingual dictionary is a matter of
> convenience. Perhaps less ink will be needed for word relations in a
> monolingual dictionary, but more care needs to be excercised to avoid
> circular definitions. Pictures and other illustrations (or a bilingual basic
> dictionary) may be needed to break circularity. I really don't care too much
> if the dictionary will be monolingual or bilingual as long as it is rich
> enough in information.
>
> Kimmo Huovila

All monolingual dictionaries are circular, though diffused. Care is
usually taken to avoid tautology and to avoid using a word itself in a
definition. If monolingual dictionaries are circular, it follows that
bilingual dictionaries are ultimately circular, too, though the user
tends to ignore the circularity within the target language.

Yes, we all want a tool to be 'rich' in information. This is tricky, though.
A monolingual dictionary for a learner is helping to build or to reinforce
the networking of terms in a language. its existence provides a basic
richness. And a richness that is rarely achieved through current tools
or pedagogy.
But if the tool is too exhaustive or has too much extraneous material
it can be fatiguing. LSJM is wonderful, but not always an efficient first
reference, especially if aiming for usage 1c BCE -- 2c CE. BDAG and
Lowe-Nida, too, are wonderful, but with hidden darkspaces because
of a lack of networking with whatever would fill out the basic first
century language.

ERRWSO
IWANHS


-- 
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicalulpan.org
randallbuth at gmail.com
Biblical Language Center
Learn Easily - Progress Further - Remember for Life



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