bilingual dictionaries: strange combinations

Natural languages and linguistics
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Kuchigakatai
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bilingual dictionaries: strange combinations

Post by Kuchigakatai »

http://www.amazic.cat/

I just learned of the existence of this online Catalan-Berber dictionary. What a great combination. I remember I once heard there used to be an online Catalan-Welsh dictionary as well.

All the languages I study are major so making a small bilingual dictionary between them wouldn't be as... amusing.

What other interesting bilingual dictionary language combinations do you know have been published?
Last edited by Kuchigakatai on Sat Oct 13, 2018 8:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Vijay
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Re: bilingual dictionaries: strange combinations

Post by Vijay »

IIRC, Glosbe lets you make a lot of weird combinations like that, and Travlang at least used to do this on a much smaller scale.
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xxx
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Re: bilingual dictionaries: strange combinations

Post by xxx »

the most exotic will surely be the bilingual dictionary between two conlangs...
Gulliver
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Re: bilingual dictionaries: strange combinations

Post by Gulliver »

xxx wrote: Sun Oct 14, 2018 1:54 am the most exotic will surely be the bilingual dictionary between two conlangs...
I don't know, I think that's a niche that would probably get filled. Two "franchise" constructed languages would be very unlikely, like Dothraki and Klingon.

Esperanto - Toki Pona or something really wouldn't surprise me.

I've got a French-Welsh dictionary, which isn't really that unusual considering there's Welsh-medium education in schools where French is taught and Welsh is the start of the show in terms of Celtic languages due to the number of speakers. It's a bit crap as it's basically a mirrored wordlist, but I don't have an English-Welsh dictionary (because I don't need one with the French one) so it's the best I have.
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Linguoboy
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Re: bilingual dictionaries: strange combinations

Post by Linguoboy »

Ser wrote: Sat Oct 13, 2018 7:08 pmI just learned of the existence of this online Catalan-Berber dictionary. What a great combination. I remember I once heard there used to be an online Catalan-Welsh dictionary as well.
I actually used that one regularly when I was learning Welsh. That was before the Geiriadur yr Academi had been published and there was no proper English-Welsh dictionary to be had, only glorified bilingual wordlists. It was remarkably comprehensive for the work of an amateur.
Qwynegold
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Re: bilingual dictionaries: strange combinations

Post by Qwynegold »

I have a Finnish-Japanese dictionary. When I bought two Burmese grammar books at a second-hand bookshop, the owner told me that he had just sold his Russian-Burmese dictionary the day before.

Don't know if these combinations are that strange though.
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xxx
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Re: bilingual dictionaries: strange combinations

Post by xxx »

Gulliver wrote: Wed Oct 24, 2018 3:10 am
xxx wrote: Sun Oct 14, 2018 1:54 am the most exotic will surely be the bilingual dictionary between two conlangs...
I don't know, I think that's a niche that would probably get filled. Two "franchise" constructed languages would be very unlikely, like Dothraki and Klingon.
Esperanto - Toki Pona or something really wouldn't surprise me.
Could be right, conlang users loves conlangs...in the same time monolingual conlang dictionary are rarest, that is strange...
Kuroda
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Re: bilingual dictionaries: strange combinations

Post by Kuroda »

It was online rather than published, but I remember a Sumerian-Malay dictionary. Since it was based on old files of Halloran's for the Sumerian, you could call it a conlang dictionary, I guess ;) This was nearly twenty years ago, though.
nimic_vostru
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Re: bilingual dictionaries: strange combinations

Post by nimic_vostru »

Qwynegold wrote: Sun Oct 28, 2018 4:20 am I have a Finnish-Japanese dictionary. When I bought two Burmese grammar books at a second-hand bookshop, the owner told me that he had just sold his Russian-Burmese dictionary the day before.

Don't know if these combinations are that strange though.
A Russian-Burmese dictionary isn't strange, but Finnish-Japanese would indeed be quirky.
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Tropylium
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Re: bilingual dictionaries: strange combinations

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RichardFromMarple
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Re: bilingual dictionaries: strange combinations

Post by RichardFromMarple »

Sometimes a lack of a dictionary between 2 particular languages can produce some odd results.

The bizarre "English As She Is Spoke" was written by Portuguese author who lacked an Portuguese - English dictionary, but had Portuguese - French & French - English ones to hand.
pecan
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Re: bilingual dictionaries: strange combinations

Post by pecan »

Nikolay Nevskiy's Miyakoan dictionary is not unusual for the languages included so much for the fact that it's in all of Russian, English, and Japanese; some definitions are given in one or two of these, others are in all three, but it's sufficiently inconsistent that you basically have to understand all three in order to read the dictionary. Also, it was compiled by a Polish student, and parts of the introduction are in Polish.
Birdlang
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Re: bilingual dictionaries: strange combinations

Post by Birdlang »

I’ve seen a dictionary that I forgot what languages it was, but there was a Germanic language with something like Hawaiian, maybe a Frisian or Afrikaans dialect of some sort?
I know it was a dictionary from a Polynesian language to a Germanic language.
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Raholeun
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Re: bilingual dictionaries: strange combinations

Post by Raholeun »

There allegedly exists a Georgian-Megrelian-Laz-Svan-English dictionary. It is said to be in print, but I never managed to locate just a single copy.
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