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How did the dictionary come about?
I have been interested in language learning for a long time.I used to spend much time daily or weekly in studying one language or another. However, as soon as I started teaching Arabic at the United Nations Office in Geneva, sixteen years ago, I reduced my time devoted to language study to a minimum. I had to think of providing teaching materials for my course, adapted to UN needs. There was an urgent need for that. There was nothing available, apart from some material existing on the market, which I deemed not corresponding to the UN spirit.
My study and passion for languages was solely personal and unambitious. Naturally, as I undertook the study of many languages at the same time, I had no illusions whatsoever of being good at them all, so as to be able to speak, write and read them more or less fluently. I realize that, in order to learn and master just one language, especially if it is very different from one's mother tongue, one must strive very hard. Furthermore, I do not believe in learning a language in a very short time, no matter how easy it is or it seems to be. In other words, I do not believe in fast language. I am saying this, because, I must admit, I am allergic to fast language to such an extent that it gives me nausea and a headache, just as fast food may give me indigestion and stomach ache!
In fact, all I seek in the study of a language is its history, its structure, its script system, the impact it has on other languages and the impact other languages have on it. In other words, its points of resemblance and differences in regard to other languages of the same or different families.
All this fascinates, excites and brings me pleasure and joy as I learn and try to decifer each letter, each symbol, each ideogram, each idiom, etc., endeavoring to understand what lies and hides behind all that. Thus, I get immediately, i.e. at the first contact, what I seek in my study of a language. I do not need to wait for months, years or for ever (who knows?) to benefit from my study and learning.
Although, as I mentioned, I had to reduce the time devoted to my personal interest in languages, a few years ago I felt an urgent need to resume my studies more intensively. They promised to be more interesting, hence more beneficial, and for professional reasons, in addition to personal reasons.
Being exposed constantly to students from different languages, cultures and backgrounds, and urged on by the difficulties they encounter in learning a language different from their own, I resolved to do my best to help such students by understanding and anticipating their problems, hence finding solutions to them, in the best way possible.
I think that, as a teacher, if I wish to be more effective to my students, it is imperative that I understand them. Naturally, in order to understand them, I must know them first. In order to know them, I must know their languages and backgrounds. I mean I must have some idea about and be familiar with their languages, at least some of them. I do not mean that each time I have, for example, ten students of different cultures in my class, I have to try to learn all their languages. One cannot learn as many languages as one wishes and master them all, while being a teacher at the same time.
I now devote a large amount of my leisure time to studying a number of the great world languages of different families, covering wide geographical areas, focussing on one single language, for some time, so as to have a general idea about the language, as regards the script system, grammar, structure, etc., as mentioned in §2. In fact, I find dealing with different languages as fascinating and interesting as dealing with different people who speak those languages, since those languages are but their invention and creation.
Thus, in addition to textbooks, cassettes, dictionaries, card indexes in different languages already accumulated, I keep on acquiring more and more material on languages.
Fortunately, my decision to resume my study of languages coincided with my purchasing an Apple Macintosh computer. The purpose of this acquisition was solely for preparing my Arabic teaching materials with translations in French and English. I did not waste my time; I learned the main computer techniques already while producing my material. I started first with an Arabic grammar in English and French (over 650 pages), followed by many other textbooks and booklets of all kinds.
Little by little I started to explore other possibilities until I heard about softwares such as MacChinese, MacKanji (Japanese) and MacCyrillic, which I acquired immediately. Then I began to experiment, by copying my notes, mainly vocabulary, entering new words in different languages, etc. I found it more interesting learning a language and, at the same time, learning how to work with it on a computer. In addition to MacArabic & Farsi, MacChinese, MacKanji (Japanese), MacCyrillic, later on I acquired other linguist's softwares, such as MacGreek, MacHebrew, MacHindi Sanskrit, MacKorean, MacHieroglyphics, etc., and deal with each one of these languages, once in a while.
When I completed the first list of words, I printed it for use and reference as a personal notebook. Some time later, I completed other lists and printed them. I must say that I had to use some special techniques for printing, because some scripts cannot be mixed in one single system.
I was so impressed with the result that I said to myself: It would be selfish to keep this work so nicely presented just for myself. Why not publish it and share it with other people who might be interested, no matter how few they may be?
It took me some time before I could convince myself. Finally I decided to publish it as a Multilingual dictionary, limited only to everyday words chosen carefully. I mean by everyday words, partly, in some region of the world or another. Let us take, for example, the word snow which is certainly an everyday word for the Eskimos, with its twelve different colors of white, but absolutely not for the Touareg, inhabitants of the Sahara Desert, for whom the word camel (with its thousand names) is an everyday word, but not for the Eskimos.
As soon as I completed the compilation, I printed a copy and had each language proofread by a native-speaking person who, I assumed, knew the language well (because to be a native-speaking person does not necessarily mean knowing the language well). Then I made the corrections and printed the final original copy, ready to be sent to the printer.
Even though I trust that the proof readers did their best to check all the text and tried to correct all the mistakes, I think that there are still some errors to be found.
Since the dictionary was published, nearly everybody who sees it asks me the stereotyped question: Do you speak all these languages? When I answer: No, the person seems to be shocked, not realizing that one may be interested in the study of a language not only for speaking, but with other purposes in mind. For this reason, I usually add: For your information, I am also studying Hieroglyphics, and I hope you will not ask me whether I intend to converse with the Egyptian mummies.
To end this article, I would like to give a short description of the dictionary, published in May 1991, by simply quoting the foreword:
This basic multilingual dictionary, printed in its first pilot edition, consists of two parts:
1) Part one, which is the general dictionary, consists of eight languages, two languages per page: English-Arabic, French-Chinese, Spanish-Russian, German-Japanese.
Words in this section are classified in Arabic alphabetical order with no reference to their root or derivation. All the words are numbered from 1 to 2500.
2) Part two consists of indexes, for cross-reference, to all the languages of the dictionary.
Criticisms and suggestions that may help to improve this dictionary are most welcome. |
