Compiling a general-purpose monolingual Ateso dictionary

Abstract

The study titled, “Compiling a General-Purpose Monolingual Ateso Dictionary,” was conceptualized against the background that a comprehensive style manual for compiling an Ateso-Ateso dictionary was lacking. Thus, the study set out to investigate the content that a general-purpose monolingual Ateso dictionary would contain guided by five specific objectives:(1) to analyze the structure of Ateso in order to establish Ateso dictionary content, (2) develop a style manual, (3) compile specimen dictionary articles, (4) test them among educated Ateso speaking resource persons for approval and (5) write sample dictionary articles based on the assessment of the test results. To accomplish this task, the study was pegged on the hypothesis and test implication that:if the specimen dictionary articles were approved by educated Ateso native speakers, then the style manual would be adopted for use as a viable tool for compiling the dictionary in the target language. To achieve the stated objectives and guarantee the viability of the developed style manual as an educational and research tool, qualitative and quantitative approaches were combined. Data on approval of specimen dictionary articles was generated through survey using questionnaire and focus group discussions. With the exception of a few respondents opposing the use of English abbreviations and short forms, the majority approved the dictionary articles as a true reflection of the Ateso language, bearing out the hypothesis. The study concludes that the Ateso language structure formed the content of the Ateso dictionary style manual hence the style manual could be adopted for use as a viable tool for compiling a general-purpose monolingual Ateso dictionary. Further research on the morphology of Ateso verbs, functionality of gender affixes, coining of Ateso terminology for science and technology fields could be undertaken.