blog/data/2021-08-04-mekanikerordbok.txt

   1 Title: Mechanic's words in five languages, English, Norwegian and Northern Sámi editions
   2 Tags: english, docbook
   3 Date: 2021-08-04 15:30
   4
   5 <p>Almost thirty years ago, some forward looking teachers at Samisk
   6 videregående skole og reindriftsskole teaching metal work and Northern
   7 Sámi, decided to create a list of words used in Northern Sámi metal
   8 work.  After almost ten years this resulted in a dictionary database,
   9 published as the book
  10 "<a href="https://ovttas.no/nb/girji_mekanikerord">Mekanihkkársánit :
  11 Mekanikerord = Mekaanisen alan sanasto = Mechanic's words</a>" in
  12 1999.  The
  13 <a href="http://www.skuvla.info/skolehist/sveinl-n.htm">story of this
  14 work</a> is available from the pen of Svein Lund, one of the leading
  15 actors behind this effort.  They even got the dictionary approved by
  16 the Sámi Language Council as the recommended metal work words to use.</p>
  17
  18 <p>Fast forward twenty years, I came across this work when I recently
  19 became interested in metal work, and started watching educational and
  20 funny videos on the topic, like the ones from
  21 <a href="https://yewtu.be/channel/UCKLIIdKEpjAnn8E76KP7sQg">mrpete222</a>
  22 and <a href="https://yewtu.be/channel/UC5NO8MgTQKHAWXp6z8Xl7yQ">This
  23 Old Tony</a>.  But they all talk English, but I wanted to know what
  24 the tools and techniques they used were called in Norwegian.  Trying
  25 to track down a good dictionary from English to Norwegian, after much
  26 searching, I came across the database of words created
  27 almost thirty years ago, with translations into English, Norwegian,
  28 Northern Sámi, Swedish and Finnish.  This gave me a lot of the
  29 Norwegian phrases I had been looking for.  To make it easier for the
  30 next person trying to track down a good Norwegian dictionary for the
  31 metal worker, and because I knew the person behind the database from
  32 my Skolelinux / Debian Edu days, I decided to ask if the database
  33 could be released to the public without any usage limitations, in
  34 other words as a Creative Commons licensed data set.  And happily,
  35 after consulting with the Sámi Parliament of Norway, the database is
  36 now available with the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
  37 license from
  38 <a href="https://gitlab.com/petterreinholdtsen/mekanikerord">my gitlab
  39 repository</a>.</p>
  40
  41 <p>The dictionary entries look slightly different, depending on the
  42 language in focus.  This is the same entry in the different editions.
  43
  44 <p><em>English</em></p>
  45
  46 <blockquote>
  47 <dl>
  48     <dt><strong>lathe</strong></dt>
  49
  50     <dd><p>dreiebenk (nb) várve, várvenbea&#331;ka, jorahanbea&#331;ka, vátnanbea&#331;ka (se) svarv (sv) sorvi (fi) </p></dd>
  51
  52 </dl>
  53 </blockquote>
  54
  55 <p><em>Norwegian</em></p>
  56
  57 <blockquote>
  58 <dl>
  59     <dt><strong>dreiebenk</strong></dt>
  60
  61     <dd><p>lathe (en) várve, várvenbea&#331;ka, jorahanbea&#331;ka,
  62     vátnanbea&#331;ka (se) svarv (sv) sorvi (fi) </p></dd>
  63
  64     <dd><p>(nb): sponskjærande bearbeidingsmaskin der ein med
  65     skjæreverktøy lausgjør spon frå eit roterande
  66     arbetsstykke</p></dd>
  67
  68 </dl>
  69 </blockquote>
  70
  71 <p><em>Northern Sámi</em></p>
  72
  73 <blockquote>
  74 <dl>
  75     <dt><strong>várve, várvenbea&#331;ka, jorahanbea&#331;ka, vátnanbea&#331;ka</strong></dt>
  76
  77     <dd><p>dreiebenk (nb) lathe (en) svarv (sv) sorvi (fi) </p></dd>
  78
  79     <dd><p>(se): ma&#353;iidna mainna &#269;uohppá vuolahasaid jorri
  80       bargoávdnasis</p></dd>
  81
  82     <dd><p>(nb): sponskjærande bearbeidingsmaskin der ein med
  83     skjæreverktøy lausgjør spon frå eit roterande
  84     arbetsstykke</p></dd>
  85
  86 <dl>
  87 </blockquote>
  88
  89 <p>The database included term description in both Norwegian and
  90 Northern Sámi, but not English.  Because of this, the Northern Sámi
  91 edition include both descriptions, the Norwegian edition include the
  92 Norwegian description and the English edition lack a descripiton.</p>
  93
  94 <p>Once the database was available without any usage restrictions, and
  95 armed with my experience in publishing books, I decided to publish a
  96 Norwegian/English dictionary as a book using the database, to make the
  97 data set available also on paper and as an ebook.  Further into the
  98 project, it occurred to me that I could just as easily make an English
  99 dictionary, and talking to Svein and concluding that it was within
 100 reach, I decided to make a Northern Sámi dictionary too.</p>
 101
 102 <p>Thus I suddenly find myself publishing a Northern Sámi dictionary,
 103 even though I do not understand the language myself.  I hope it will
 104 be well received, and can help revive the impressive work done almost
 105 thirty years ago to document the vocabulary of metal workers.  If I
 106 get some help, I might even extend it with some of the words I find
 107 missing, like collet, rotary broach, carbide, knurler, arbor press and
 108 others.  But the first edition build from a lightly edited version of
 109 the original database, with no new entries added.  If you would like
 110 to check it out, visit
 111 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/publisher/">my list of published
 112 books</a> and consider
 113 <a href="https://www.lulu.com/search?contributor=Petter+Reinholdtsen">buying
 114 a paper or ebook copy from lulu.com</a>.  The paper edition is only
 115 available in hardcover to increase its durability in the workshop.</p>
 116
 117 <p>I am very happy to report that in the process, and thanks to help
 118 from both Svein Lund and Børre Gaup who understand the language, the
 119 docbook tools I use to create books, dblatex and docbook-xsl, now
 120 include support for Northern Sámi.  Before I started, these lacked the
 121 needed locale settings for this language, but now the patches are
 122 included upstream.</p>
 123
 124 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 125 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 126 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>