History: Dictionary

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This page is a summary of information about the Lojban Dictionary: It's history, current form, and future design.

Dictionary Software and Data

Dictionary Discussion


Several pages on the wiki discuss the Lojban Dictionary. Those are collected here:

Dictionary Design


This section is an exploration of the issue started in this discussion about the dictionary backend.

What use cases will use Lojban dictionary data?


What end-use will this data put put to?

  • A print version of the Lojban dictionary
  • jbovlaste, the online dictionary. This includes editing and voting on dictionary entries
  • Flash card definitions, which are more concise.


What sorts of things *should* a Lojbanic dictionary store, ideally?

  • Are any of these use cases unsuitable for a dictionary? Are there use cases we haven't thought of that are suitable?
  • Can we separate a definition from its grammatical context? Are we treating Lojban gismu too much like a verb or noun in the way we handle them now?

What storage format is going to work for all of these use cases?

  • Each use of the dictionary data needs to view it in a different way. Can we design a format that can be shared between all users of the data?
  • Since the form of a dictionary entry is often unstructured text, What would a dictionary definition look like that supports all of our use cases without duplicating the definitions by changing their form? (e.g., a brief definition for a study card, a full definition for a print dictionary, and an archive discussion for the online dictionary?)

What prior art is there?

  • Dictionaries are not a new problem, how do other people deal with this?
  • Is Lojban fundamentally different because of its formal grammar? Is our thinking on this problem influenced by working with languages that don't have a formal grammar: Is a dictionary a compromise that we have a better solution for?

Design Proposal


gismu, lujvo, and selma'o have different storage requirements. The proposal below assumes they will be storted in a database, and describe the storage schema.

gismu

Field Description
gismu the gismu this row defines
lang the language this row is in
definition the definition of the gismu
x1 gloss for x1
x2 gloss for x2, NULL if there is no x2
x3 gloss for x3, NULL if there is no x3
x4 gloss for x4, NULL if there is no x4
x5 gloss for x5, NULL if there is no x5
xN gloss for xN, NULL if there is no xN


There is one entry in this table for each language/gismu.

lujvo

Field Description
lujvo the lujvo this row defines
lang the language this row is in
definition the definition of the lujvo
x1 gloss for x1
x2 gloss for x2, NULL if there is no x2
x3 gloss for x3, NULL if there is no x3
x4 gloss for x4, NULL if there is no x4
x5 gloss for x5, NULL if there is no x5
xN gloss for xN, NULL if there is no xN

lujvo-component


Field Description
lujvo the lujvo this row defines
component the component gismu or lujvo that is one part of this lujvo
lang
x1 The position this component's x1 place appears in the lujvo. NULL if it does not appear.
x2 The position this component's x2 place appears in the lujvo. NULL if it does not appear.
x3 The position this component's x3 place appears in the lujvo. NULL if it does not appear.
x4 The position this component's x4 place appears in the lujvo. NULL if it does not appear.
x5 The position this component's x5 place appears in the lujvo. NULL if it does not appear.
xN The position this component's xN place appears in the lujvo. NULL if it does not appear.


There is an entry in this table for each component of the lujvo.

selma'o

Field Description
selma'o the selma'o this row defines
lang the language this row is in
class the selma'o class of this selma'o
gloss the definition of this selma'o

History

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Information Version
Thu 14 of Oct, 2010 18:14 GMT Eimi from 128.252.20.177 11
Thu 14 of Oct, 2010 18:06 GMT admin from 173.13.139.233 10
Thu 14 of Oct, 2010 18:04 GMT admin from 173.13.139.233 9
Mon 13 of Sep, 2010 01:08 GMT alyn.post from 68.35.167.179 Add cpacuvisualization link. 8
Mon 13 of Sep, 2010 01:01 GMT alyn.post from 68.35.167.179 Add use cases according to design requirements section. 7
Mon 13 of Sep, 2010 00:53 GMT alyn.post from 68.35.167.179 Clarify text about use cases. 6
Mon 13 of Sep, 2010 00:27 GMT alyn.post from 68.35.167.179 Add selma'o table and make corrections to the lujvo table. 5
Mon 13 of Sep, 2010 00:04 GMT alyn.post from 68.35.167.179 Add two tables to define lujvo. 4
Sun 12 of Sep, 2010 23:41 GMT alyn.post from 68.35.167.179 add proposal for storing gismu. A poor proposal, but there isn't a better one here yet. 3
Sun 12 of Sep, 2010 21:12 GMT eyeonus from 132.178.238.2 Fixed the jbovlaste link, as it pointed to the non-existent "http://lojban.org/tiki/jbovlaste.lojban.org" and not to "http://jbovlaste.lojban.org/", described LODQ page. 2
Sun 12 of Sep, 2010 18:20 GMT alyn.post from 68.35.167.179 begin exploration of technical aspects of the dictionary backend. 1
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