9486: Re: 9424: FW: 9401: Re: 9398: dictionary: Coates comments

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: "Carrol F. Coates" <ccoates@mail.binghamton.edu>
>
I will not engage in any extensive debate with my distinguished (truly!--I
am not engaging in ironic epithets such as "eminent colleague) colleague,
Albert Valdmann.

My favorable review of the LEARNER'S DICTIONARY OF HAITIAN CREOLE (I hope I
have the title right, since the book is not in front of me) appeared
several years ago in THE FRENCH REVIEW.

The Kreyol-Kreyol dictionary is a must that I think will be produced
eventually by linguists/lexicographers of the language.  Felquiere Vilsaint
has produced a small one that I have used (but once again, limited lexicon,
some definitions less than valuable for understanding), but a team of
specialists is needed to produce the "Robert" of Kreyol....

My comment on the Valdmann LEARNER'S DICTIONARY... is not that of a
licensed linguist or lexicographer:  it is the comment of a user--the
"learner" might look up "bird" to find that it is under "Z"--"zwazo" but I
found it frustrating and not very useful in the research I was doing with
Kreyol texts, not because of the quality of the articles included, but
because of the quantitative limitations of included vocabulary.

One final question:  what is a "learner's" "dictionary"?  To me, the two
terms are contradictory, regardless of the language in question.  Professor
Valdmann knows as well as I do that a dictionary is not a "learner's" tool.