Retro-digitization in Greek dialectology and lexicography:

Challenges of morpho‑phonetic representation of the Cappadocian dialect

Io Manolessou1, Athanasios Karasimos2 & Georgia Katsouda3

Academy of Athens1, 3 & Centre of the Greek Language2

This study presents the first digital standardized encoding for a hierarchical annotated digital dictionary of the Cappadocian dialect. Given the need for a deeper understanding and representation of dialectal data at the different levels of linguistic analysis and the lack of an encoding standard, an encoding scheme/template has been created for a multilevel linguistic annotation and lexicographical representation.

This standard addresses, among others, the following issues:

  • System of phonetic transcription both in the IPA and in the Greek alphabet (use of diacritics, Unicode conformity, compatibility with previous transcription approaches, user-friendliness)

  • System of geographic identification (standardization of placenames on the basis of extensive research in the sources and evaluation of variants, alternative realization depending on the medium- print vs. digital, connection to digital map and geonames from geographical information systems)

  • System of example classification and presentation (on the basis of various types of examples: excerpts of transcribed oral interviews, older written sources, simple narration vs. phrases vs. proverbs vs. songs)

  • Overall system of data presentation (compatibility with the format of major dialectal dictionaries such as the Historical Dictionary of Modern Greek-ILNE, the dictionary of South Italian Greek-ILEIKI, the dictionary of the Pontic Dialect-ILP and the dictionary of the Tsakonian dialect-LT) and “translation” of the these older print formats into a state-of-the-art digital XML encoding, capable of addressing and covering any dialectal variety with minimum adaptations and of transforming into any dominant XML schema or Dictionary Writing System.

The proposed standard is compared to corresponding international attempts in dialectal e-lexicography (e.g. the online version of the English Dialect Dictionary —EDD Online), as well as to previous smaller-scale Greek projects (e.g. the Tridialectal Dictionary).

References

EDD Online: http://eddonline-proj.uibk.ac.at/edd/termsOfUse.jsp, University of Innsbruck.

ILEIKI: A. Karanastasis, Ἱστορικόν Λεξικόν των Ἑλληνικῶν Ἰδιωμάτων τῆς Κάτω Ἰταλίας. Athens: Academy of Athens, 1984–92.

ILNE: Ἱστορικόν Λεξικόν τῆς Νέας Ἑλληνικῆς, τῆς τε κοινῶς ὁμιλουμένης καί τῶν ἰδιωμάτων. Athens: Academy of Athens, 1933–.

ILP: A. A. Papadopoulos, Ἱστορικόν Λεξικόν τῆς Ποντικῆς Διαλέκτου. Athens: Epitropi Pontiakon Meleton, 1955–1958.

LT: Th. Kostakis, Λεξικό της Τσακωνικής Διαλέκτου. Athens: Academy of Athens, 1986–87.

Manolessou, I., Beis, S. & Chr. Bassea-Bezantakou. 2012. Η φωνητική απόδοση των νεοελληνικών διαλέκτων [The phonetic transcription of Modern Greek Dialects]. Lexikographikon Deltion 26: 161–222.

Tridialectal: Karanikolas, N., Galiotou, E., Ralli, A. et al. 2013. Structuring a Multimedia tri-dialectal dictionary. In I. Habernal & V. Matousek (eds.), Text, speech and dialogue. TSD 2013, Lecture Notes in Computer Science 8082, 509–518. Berlin & Heidelberg: Springler.