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 <address@hidden
<mailto:address@hidden>> 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