A8. Word-Collection Strategies

This lesson introduces methods for collecting words to build a multilingual dictionary. Strategies include:

1. Flypaper Method: Collecting words informally as they are heard in daily life.

2. Translating Word Lists: Using pre-existing word lists, like the Comparative African Word List, to quickly gather terms.

3. Blank Dictionaries: Generating potential words based on phonemic structures for verification by native speakers.

4. Elicitation Using Picture Books: Gathering terms for specific categories, such as flora and fauna, with visual aids.

5. Corpus-Based Collection: Analyzing texts (e.g., folktales, personal stories, and songs) to extract words, supplemented by tools like FLEx.

6. Rapid Word Collection (RWC): A workshop-based, highly efficient method using semantic domains to organize and collect words systematically, often yielding thousands of entries in just two weeks.

The lesson emphasizes the RWC method as the most effective approach and encourages communities to host workshops for dictionary development.

OpenAI. (2025). ChatGPT [Large language model]. https://chatgpt.com