DRAFT - 7/20/2006 English to Dinka Glossary Derived from SIL International's 2005 Draft Dinka-English dictionary For use alongside that dictionary Draft- for comment - 9 May 2006 Contact: Mike Brisco: Dept Haematology, School of Medicine, Flinders University of S Australia, Bedford Park, S Australia 5042 [email protected] tel (0061) 8 8204 4105 1 DRAFT - 7/20/2006 This document is derived from the draft Dinka-English dictionary, created by SIL International, in 2005. SIL is a not-for-profit, faith-based linguistics organization, specializing in languages that are not spoken widely. Their Dinka-English dictionary was mainly the work of John Duerksen. Roger Blench produced a Unicode version of the draft Dinka-English dictionary, available from his website. Blench kindly supplied a copy suitable for processing, and gave permission for copying. Sources: almost all entries are from the SIL/Duerksen work. Entries from Idris' 2004 paper, plus others from the web, are identified by (HFI) and (MJB) respectively. My understanding of lexicography, Dinka language, and Dinka culture, are very limited. I apologise, in advance, for any errors that are here. I shall be happy to correct them. Mike Brisco, 20 may 06 SIL http://www.sil.org/ Roger Blench's website & draft Dinka to English lexicon -see http://homepage.ntlworld.com/roger_blench/Language%20data.htm Idris, HF (2004): Modern Developments in the Dinka language. Goteborg African Informal Series - No3; Dept of Oriental and African languages, Goteborg University Sweden http://www.african.gu.se/downloads/gais03dinka.pdf 2 DRAFT - 7/20/2006 There is a need for a readily available English to Dinka dictionary. Expert groups in Sudan, Australia, Egypt are working to produce one, and they are the appropriate people to do the job. But it may be some time before they publish, and in the meantime, English-Dinka dictionaries are hard to obtain - at least in Adelaide. In Dec 2005 SIL International, a not-for-profit linguistics institute based in Texas, and specialising in minor languages, published on the internet, a draft Dinka to English dictionary. That dictionary was mainly the work of John Duerksen, and it incorporated the Dinka-English terms of the earlier Nebel dictionary. Roger Blench in the UK put the document into Unicode, and published it on his website. It was not clear whether SIL were also planning an English- Dinka version, and I could not find another English-Dinka dictionary on the internet. It occurred to me, that someone with no understanding of Dinka, could adapt the SIL document into English to Dinka, using word processing and database skills - provided that person was careful to preserve the meanings. The result would be a thesaurus or glossary, not a dictionary. However, as there seemed to be nothing else readily available, it seemed worth trying. Roger Blench of Cambridge UK,, who put the dictionary into unicode, kindly provided an MS Word version, gave permission to work with it, and to give the result to others. So, this document is based entirely on the SIL work, and I would like to acknowledge the work of SIL International, John Duerksen, and Roger Blench, in putting together, the documents on which my work is based. All I have done is add a few other entries, and adapt it for Australian usage, since my own contacts are Dinka people living here. SIL International, Blench and Duerksen deserve especial credit, for undertaking the expensive work of creating a Dinka-English dictionary, and for making their draft dictionary freely available on the internet, where anyone can download it . Creating a dictionary involves expert knowledge and much research. A dictionary is a significant piece of intellectual property. Theae days, intellectual work is often seen merely as intellectual property, and is rapidly placed in private hands, rather than being made available to anyone who wants to use it. This includes intellectual work generated by public institutions, e.g universities. They restrict the public'a access to that knowledge. The knowledge then becomes available, not necessarily to people who need it, or can use it, or have ownership of it - but only to those who have money and can pay, or who are fortunate enough to be able to persuade someone else to pay on their behalf. This trend to regard all discoveries or inventions as private property, has been applied broadly, especially in universities. Sometimes it is clearly beneficial, but it is being applied indiscriminately, and this rather than other needs, are tending to determine what research gets done in those places. I remain to be convinced, that this broad trend, has benefited humanity overall. This document is the result. It is more of a thesaurus than a dictionary,and you will need a copy of the SIL/Blench Dinka-English document at hand. I have just copied and pasted the definitions, added a few others from the internet, indexed them under English words, and removed some of the repetitions that were needed in Dinka-English, but are no longer needed in English-Dinka. The result is a rough and ready glossary from English into Dinka, perhaps full of errors, perhaps not very useful, it is hard for me to know. People can make of it what they will! This is not a dictionary - it is perhaps an early stage in putting one together, but much more work is needed, to make it easy to use, and also to expand the coverage. It is up to others with the appropriate skills to produce definitive, authoritative English to Dinka works. I have taken this task as far as I can. I welcome comments and corrections, and I intend to update the electronic version from time to time. Anyone who would like an electronic version of this document e.g as MS Word, so they can edit it - please just contact me. 3 DRAFT - 7/20/2006 I make this document freely available. You are free to copy it and give it to others - provided your copies refer to the original Dinka-English document, and acknowledge the SIL linguists and Blench, who put that document together. Mike Brisco 13 May 2006. 4 DRAFT - 7/20/2006 Mike Brisco's notes - 8 May 06: The source material - Dinka to English dictionary, This work is derived from that 200 page dictionary, which at May 2006 was available from Roger Blench's website, listed as 'unpublished material'. I'll refer to this as the Blench/SIL dictionary. You will need a copy of it with you. That dictionary is based on work of linguist John Duerksen, plus Dinka-English material from Arthur Nebel's Dinka-English dictionary. I have simply copied the definitions here. I have also added a few others from Idris paper, plus one or two from the Internet - for each, the source is identified. Reliability and proofreading: As a non-expert, my ability to evaluate sources, and proof-read, is limited, and I have not been able to check the final version as thoroughly as I would have liked to. Thus please do not rely fully on what is here - cross-check in the SIL/Blench Dinka-English dictionary, first. Regional dialects: Dinka has several dialects, with significant differences between them. This has two implications. First, English speakers looking for Dinka terms, need to take account of the dialect spoken, when choosing which of the words of phrases to use. Second, Dinka speakers looking up an English word, may find the word defined in a dialect other than their own. This document is mostly (75%) SW Rek dialect. others are from Bor (4%), Ruweŋ (7%), Agar(8%). The document retains the SIL/Blench 3-letter codes to identify dialect. For full details, see that document. In brief, the codes are: SWr Rek NE = North-eastern SWt = Tuic (west) NEb Abialaŋ NEd Donjol SC = south central SCa Agar NWE = North-western NWr Ruweŋ SA South-Aliap NWn Ŋɔk (Kordofan) SE = South-Eastern SW = south-western SEb Bor SWm Malual Biblical references e.g. Mat 10:32: Gospel according to St Matthew, chapter 10, verse 32 Sources: Sources other than the Blench/SIL dictionary are identified. HFI - added from Helene Fatima Idris paper -about 300 of these - see reference list DLIA - added from the Dinka Language Institute of Australia website. DLIA is based in Melbourne MJB -added by the compiler Dinka sort order a ä b c d, e ë, ɛ, ɛ,̈ g, ɣ, i, ï, j, k, l, m, n, ŋ, o, ö, ɔ, ɔ,̈ p, r, t, u, w, y The sort order still needs rigorous proofreading Font and typesetting. This document uses Doulos SIL - available free from the SIL website.. Doulos SIL is a Unicode- based font. 5 DRAFT - 7/20/2006 Australian expressions: As this document is intended for people settling in Adelaide, I have added a few common Australian expressions, (e.g. outback) and names of Australian animals, ( e.g. wild dog -dingo) where there is an obvious Dinka expression. These are clearly identified. Availability of materials: This resource needs much more work, to produce a useful dictionary. I invite and encourage others to take on that task. Copies of the document are available electronically as word files, and as excel spreadsheets - contact me by email. Basic notes on displaying and typing Dinka characters on a computer Most word processing programs are set up for an English character set. Displaying Dinka documents, and typing in Dinka, can cause problems, as Dinka contains several characters (ŋ, ɔ, ɛ, ɣ, ä, ë, ɛ,̈ ï, ö, ɔ)̈ not standard English fonts. This means that word processing files, and internet files in the Dinka alphabet, may not show up properly on your screen.