New lexicon of Louisiana French

The Dictionary of Louisiana French: As Spoken in Cajun, Creole and American Indian Communities is an 892-page lexicon of Louisiana French that takes into account regional differences in the spoken language. The book has just been published by University Press of Mississippi; associate editor and Indiana University professor Kevin J. Rottet is a member of DSNA.

From the story in the Opelousas (Louisiana) Daily World: One of the side effects of the project was the affirmation of Louisiana French in its many forms to be a true and legitimate language, despite its deviations from modern standard French, assistant editor and University of Louisiana history professor Barry Ancelet said. "A very important thing to understand about this dictionary is that what many people frequently described or assumed were deformations, mispronunciations or misuses or slurring, when we start looking into them, very often it turned out to be a preservation of an old form," he said. "One of the things this process proved to us is that our French is very well-rooted and in some cases, has precise distinctions and precise meanings contemporary French has lost." You can read the whole story at http://tinyurl.com/yedjkup.

Hey! Quit shoving!

The LA Times reported yesterday that "Google quietly rolls out Dictionary." See the story at http://tinyurl.com/yc5wo7h. And here's a link to the site itself: http://www.google.com/dictionary. It's getting a mite crowded in the lexicon shoppe.

Update on Chambers Harrap closing

The Edinburgh office is closing 31 December. For more information, visit http://www.thebookseller.com/news/101334-chambers-harrap-to-close-on-31st-december.html. See also our blog entry for 18 September 2009.

Hungarian dictionary fined for out-of-date definitions

Konyvmives Konykiado was fined HUF 500 thousand (approx. EUR 1700) by the GVH (the Hungarian Competition Authority) for the deception of consumers. The organization failed to indicate in its publication Hungarian Explanatory Concise Dictionary that the book contained a significant number of archaic expressions, based on previous dictionaries, and that it explained headwords several times with old-fashioned wording rather than in contemporary language. For more details, visit http://www.gvh.hu/gvh/alpha?do=2&st=2&pg=133&m5_doc=6015.

Chambers Harrap closes Edinburgh office

According to the BBC: "The news marks the end of a 200 year association with Scotland for the dictionary. Managers said they could not find a buyer for Chambers titles. It is planned parts of the business, Chambers and Harrap, which publish bilingual dictionaries, will be separated. Both had been hit by the steep decline in sales of dictionaries and reference books, with many people now getting information via the internet." For the rest of the story, visit http://tinyurl.com/mvfezb.

Wordnik beta site launched

Wordnik, http://www.wordnik.com/, "wants to be a place for all the words, and everything known about them." The project is helmed by DSNA members Grant Barrett, Erin McKean and Orion Montoya.

1,000,000th word foofarah

Well, I wasn't going to post about the supposed milestone, but as the Newspaper of Record quotes some of our members, here's a link to the article from today's New York Times' Week in Review section (is it a section if you access it online? Today I read the paper copy). I'm actually more interested in which library of dictionaries has been used for the illustration. Does anyone recognize it? Visit: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/14/weekinreview/14shuessler.html.

Violence at Greek-Macedonian Dictionary book launch

For more details about the incident, which occurred on 3 June 2009 at a promotional event for a 15,000-word dictionary prepared by Vasko Karadza, visit http://macedoniaonline.eu/content/view/6982/2/ .

Word buffs defend Canuck-written dictionary

"Word buffs defend Canuck-written dictionary"

The small team that put the Canuck into the Canadian Oxford Dictionary, along with thousands of other Canadianisms, has been sent to the pogey line.The team of four word experts has been laid off in a cost-cutting measure after sales of the old-fashioned book plummeted in the face of free online dictionaries.

http://tinyurl.com/4zghbn