EUROPEAN ASSOCIATION FOR LEXICOGRAPHY
Editor: Paul Bogaards. p.bogaards@let.leidenuniv.nl
This quarterly Newsletter is intended to include not only official announcements but also news about EURALEX members, their publications, projects, and (it is hoped) their opinions, and news about other lexicographical organizations. Please try to support this by sending newsletter contributions to Paul Bogaards at the email address above. The deadlines for spring (March), summer (June), autumn (September), and winter (December) issues are respectively 15 January, 15 April, 15 July, and 15 October annually.
The URL of the EURALEX web site is www.euralex.org
American lexicography suffered the loss on April 9, 2007 of Robert Knox Barnhart, the firstborn son of Clarence L. Barnhart, known as the dean of U.S. lexicographers, and brother of David K. Barnhart, a noted lexicographer in his own right. Born in Chicago, Robert moved as a child with his parents to Bronxville, N.Y., attended private school in Connecticut, and earned a bachelor s degree in history from the University of the South in Tennessee. By the time he returned to New York, in the early 1950s, his father had founded the firm of C.L. Barnhart, Inc., which produced reference books for various publishers. Robert joined the firm as an editor on the Thorndike-Barnhart series of school dictionaries, published by Scott, Foresman & Co., of Glenview, Ill., and on Let s Read, a simplified method of teaching reading that his father had developed with the linguist Leonard Bloomfield.
In 1961, when C.L. Barnhart Inc. contracted to produce a major new dictionary for Doubleday & Co., in New York, to be a supplement to the World Book Encyclopedia, I left Merriam-Webster to become an assistant to Clarence Barnhart on this project. Over the next two years, I worked closely with Robert and his father in developing the two-volume World Book Dictionary. Robert became its co-editor and I was named General Editor. The WBD was to be larger than the current college dictionaries, such as Clarence Barnhart s own American College Dictionary, and would be based on an up-to-date quotation file that Barnhart had begun in the 1940s. Published in 1963, the WBD was acclaimed for its novel features, such as its clear and simple definitions, easy pronunciations, many illustrative sentences and phrases, and the clarity of its usage notes.
Robert s personality had much to do with the success of this project and those that followed over the next four decades. He was soft-spoken and gentle-mannered, a thoughtful listener, and a highly dedicated editor. Throughout the years 1961-1989, during which we collaborated on a number of dictionary projects, our relationship was friendly and informal. He was constantly open to new ideas and eager to put them to the test. When we worked with his father on the pioneering series of new-words dictionaries, The Barnhart Dictionary of New English, between 1973 and 1990, he would grow excited whenever he came across a neologism in his reading that he thought belonged in the BDNE. He would then come into my office to relate his discovery like a child with a new toy. His enthusiasm was contagious.
We were fortunate in having Robert s wife, Cynthia, in charge of the day-to-day supervision of the staff and office, which freed Robert to devote himself to what he loved most, editing. Cynthia was bright, efficient, an excellent editor and manager. The couple had five children, three sons and two daughters, all of them contributing from time to time to our work, especially by reading books and periodicals for new quotes to add to the ever-growing quotation file. Robert and Cynthia were deeply involved in the education and progress of their children, whom they encouraged to pursue their varied interests, which ran the gamut from music and art to science..
Among the dictionaries Robert edited, perhaps none gave him greater pride than The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology, which was published by the H.W.Wilson Co. in 1988. This landmark work of over 1300 pages and 30,000 entries was a scholarly and yet highly readable overview of the development of the English lexicon. A number of distinguished scholars contributed to the book, including the linguists Einar Haugen, Ralph Paul de Gorog, Garry B. Holland, Sherman M. Kuhn, and Ralph Lawrence Ward.The book received the Outstanding Book in Art, Literature and Language Award from the Association of American Publishers. In 1995, an abridgment, The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, was published by HarperCollins, and also, in 1999, in a British edition as The Chambers Dictionary of Etymology.
Other dictionaries Robert edited included The Hammond-Barnhart Dictionary of Science (1986), also published as The American Heritage Dictionary of Science (1988), and the Barnhart Abbreviations Dictionary, containing over 60,000 entries with a reverse list of the full names of the abbreviations, published by John Wiley in 1995. Robert also built up the Barnhart quotation file to extract from it the neologisms that were added to an annual update of The World Book Dictionary.
Robert was a charter member of the Dictionary Society of North America,
and a contributor to Dictionaries, the Journal of the DSNA. Those of us who knew him,
remember him for his warmth, generosity, and dedication to the legacy of his father.
Sol Steinmetz,
Former editorial director of Random House Reference
IJL accepted by ISI Social Science Citation Index
The International Journal of Lexicography has been accepted by ISI to be included in the Social Science Citation Index in the Linguistics category. This is very good news. As the system requires two years of data (2008 and 2009) to determine usage, it will give our Journal an impact factor ranking in 2010.
The Board has been busy. A number of important structural tasks are now under way. These include revising the constitution, building a database of proceedings, creating a digital version of proceedings and updating the website.
Times change, needs change, so the constitution must change. The original constitution was written in 1984 and revised in 1994. It is now time to make some major changes to bring us into line with the present situation. A revised constitution is urgent so as to allow us to open a euro account on the continent or even adopt charity status should we so wish.
A consultation was started one year ago. Following this the situation was discussed at the EURALEX board meeting in June of this year and a revised document was drawn up. This is now online and open to discussion. We would like your comments before the 31st May 2008 so as to facilitate debate at the General Meeting to be held during the congress in Barcelona.
Some changes are radical, some refining of wordings. The most radical change proposed is the ending of the International Fellowship Fund. This was set up to assist with currency exchange difficulties. Most of the countries originally targeted are now members of the European Union and the source funding is no longer possible. We propose to change this to a discretionary fund based on a percentage of income. The fund will be used to assist young researchers and promote the association.
A minor change in words, but a major one in meaning is the revision of the inspection of accounts. The use of the word audit is now unfortunate as this means an expensive in-depth analysis by auditors, even the use of an accountant who simply charges £300 to say what we have done is right is a waste of money. So we propose elected representatives from outside the board. All the proposals can be seen now on-line at: http://www.euralex.org/official/Constitution.html
The database
A database listing all the papers in the EURALEX Congress proceedings is being built at the University Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain under the direction of Janet DeCesaris. This should be available for the 2008 congress and will be put on-line
Digital Version of Proceedings
Work is currently under way for the scanning and preparation of all papers published in EURALEX Congress proceedings since the very first congress. This is a very major undertaking, the results of which will be to make important material available to scholars and also promote interest in our website and association. Copyright remains an issue. We shall put out a letter requesting permission in the next newsletter.
Website update
The first major change in website management was the implementation of the domain name: euralex.org. This was done by Pavel Smrz who has continued to manage day to day operations on the site. We now realise that the site needs a full update and a move to a commercial server offering a wide array of services. We are hoping to put the site onto a new server shortly and implement a Content Management System, a means of enabling officers to update the pages that directly concern them when they wish, and WIKI facilities. This will be accompanied by a redesigning of the web pages and the inclusion of pages in languages other than English.
EURALEX International Bibliography of Lexicography.
In order to facilitate lexicographic research, Euralex has established the online International Bibliography of Lexicography. Eventually it will be integrated into the new Euralex website. At the moment the Bibliography already contains hundreds of items that are arranged both alphabetically and thematically. The Bibliography is still under construction. In fact it will always be under construction, as we want it to be as complete and up to date as possible. The more complete and up to date, the more useful it will be. It takes a lot of time and effort, however, to get the Bibliography at the desired level of completeness. At the time the job is mainly done by one of the members of the Executive Board, but this is obviously not a one-man job. We need help, your help, to maintain and extend the Bibliography. This is your chance to share your bibliography, including of course your own publications, with the international community of lexicographers. The Bibliography is also a perfect medium for smaller language communities to present their lexicographic state of the art to colleagues all over the world. Why don t you go to http://euralex.pbwiki.com/ and see what it can do for you and let us know what you can do in return. You will find an e-mail address at the site.
Anne Dykstra
Fourth International Conference on Historical Lexicography and Lexicology
The fourth
International Conference on Historical Lexicography and Lexicology will take
place at the Chateau Lacombe Hotel, Edmonton, Canada, from Thursday 19 June to
Saturday 21 June 2008. Proposals (in the form of 150-300-word abstracts) are
invited for 20-minute papers on any aspect of historical lexicology, the
history of dictionaries, and the making of historical dictionaries, from
antiquity to the present day. Papers may be given, and proposals may be
submitted, in English or French; interpretation services may be available at
the
conference. Selected papers from the conference will be published in a
proceedings volume.
Proposals should
be sent in the first instance to Prof. John Considine, john.considine@ualberta.ca , and should reach him by 31 January 2008. Acceptances or refusals
will normally be sent within fourteen days of the receipt of individual
proposals. It may be possible for the conference to subsidize the travel and
accommodation costs of Canadian graduate students who wish to present papers.
John Considine,
University of Alberta
Forthcoming events
2008
March
19, Cergy-Pontoise,
France : Journée des dictionnaires. Pour tous renseignements :
Jean Pruvost, Université de Cergy Pontoise, pruvost.jean@wanadoo.fr.
April
4, Québec, Canada : Troisième Journée québécoise des dictionnaires, sur le thème Les dictionnaires de langue française : de la Nouvelle-France au Québec contemporain. Pour tous renseignements : monique.cormier@umontreal.ca.
May
28 30, Marrakech, Morocco: LREC 2008, 6th Language Resources and
Evaluation Conference, Palais des Congrès Mansour Eddahbi. Conference
web site: http://www.lrec-conf.org/lrec2008/
June
19 21, Edmonton, Canada: Fourth International Conference on Historical Lexicography and Lexicology . Information: john.considine@ualberta.ca
30 June - 3 July, Bureau of the Woordeboek van die Afrikaanse Taal (WAT),
Stellenbosch, South Africa: 13th International AFRILEX Conference, 'Printed
and electronic dictionaries and the future'. Keynote Speakers: Prof. Piet
Van Sterkenburg (the Netherlands) and Prof. Ngo Kabuta (DRC). Information:
Dr. W. Botha, Editor-in-Chief of the WAT, P.O. Box 245, Stellenbosch 7599,
South Africa. E-mail: wfb@sun.ac.za. Tel.: +27 21 887 3113, Fax: +27 21 883
9492. Website: http://afrilex.africanlanguages.com/
July
9 12, 1er Congrès mondial de linguistique
française (CMLF-08). Pour tous renseignements: http://www.ivry.cnrs.fr/~ilfspip/spip.php?rubrique4
15-19, Barcelona, Spain: 13th International EURALEX Conference. The conference will be hosted by Pompeu Fabra University. Deadline for receipt of abstracts: October 31, 2007. Please see the EURALEX website for details. Email: euralex2008@upf.edu.