Compilation of a monolingual Lụgbarati dictionary.

Abstract

This research aimed at compiling a monolingual general-purpose Lụgbarati Dictionary. Lack of a Lụgbarati dictionary for the Lụgbara and Lụgbarati community led to the conception of the idea to write a dictionary in Lugbarati. What are available are Lụgbarati-English glossaries that do not qualify to be dictionaries. The corpus used for this study was a 198-page list of vocabulary at the end of Crazzolara’s book; A Study of Lugbara (Ma’di) Language (1960:175-373), and a 25-page list of Lụgbarati words in Dalfovo’s collection of Lụgbara proverbs; Lugbara (sic) Proverbs (1984:249-274). To write a standard monolingual Lụgbarati dictionary, the researcher developed a Style Manual for this study. The Style Manual is the blue print for the compilation of the Lụgbarati Dictionary. It gives guidelines on what introductory words to be used when defining the different word classes such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions, interjections, postpositions and pronouns; usage labeling; and what morphosyntactic information to be given. It is important to note that Lụgbarati terminology for linguistics has been hitherto lacking. The researcher coined words using the functions of these word classes. For instance, for a verb he used ‘yetaa, meaning, “to do” and vutivutia for postposition, meaning one that comes after. Such words are not in use in daily Lụgbarati. They were coined as a means to give ancillary information to the lexical items being defined. Finally, the Lụgbarati Dictionary was tested for acceptability in public places such as market places. It was necessary to do that because the final product is meant to be used by the communities that speak Lụgbarati.