The Wa Dictionary Database

Motivation

According to Gérard Diffloth, the world's foremost Mon-Khmer comparativist and the compiler of a large database of Mon-Khmer languages, a study of the lexicon of the Wa language is particularly important: "The Wa language, part of the Palaungic branch of Northern Mon-Khmer, plays a crucial role in determining the history of the Mon-Khmer family. The reason is simply that this language represents a very ancient state of affairs in the Southern Yunnan and Northern Shan State region, before the arrival of the currently dominating populations who speak unrelated languages (Tai, Tibeto-Burmese and Sinitic). It is therefore important, not only for linguists but also for historians, to have reliable and extensive lexical information on this language. The upheavals and displacements presently occurring within the Wa population make this task especially urgent."

Outcomes

1. Production of a Wa->Burmese/Chinese/English Dictionary containing around 12,000 Wa etyma, with data fields including Wa orthographical variants, Burmese, Chinese and English glosses, compounds and their morphological structure, pronunciation, part-of-speech, source of loanwords and an example illustrating common collocations. From the source database is derived both the scholarly dictionary and a dictionary for Wa speakers, with entries tailored to suit both constituencies, as follows:
   
   
   • Academic edition, with linguistic information included, English/Chinese/Burmese glosses only:
     
     

   • Wa-speaker end-user edition, including more orthographical variants and more translations into target languages; linguistic fields omitted:
     
     

   • Click here to see the above entry the way it currently appears "live" in our current dictionary database in Chinese orthography, in Myanmar orthography, or in parallel orthographies. It is actually split at the moment into several separate entries and you can see other parts here: Chinese orthography, Myanmar orthography, parallel orthographies and here: Chinese orthography, Myanmar orthography, parallel orthographies.
   
   
   
   • Guide to Symbols and Abbreviations used in the Wa Dictionary (PDF, 386KB, updated 2006-06-18)
   
   
   
2. Establishment of an Internet Database for Minority Languages of Burma. The Wa dictionary forms the foundation of a database for storing language corpora (the Wa corpus in the first instance) and lexicographical data for future lexicography or other research on other languages spoken in Burma. The resource is freely Internet-accessible and has the potential, where appropriate, to be contributed to and developed over the Internet by authorised and competent scholars and language fieldworkers.

It is anticipated to distribute the printed edition of the dictionary designed for Wa speakers free of charge in Wa-speaking areas.

Access to Current Draft Database

The on-line dictionary search pages are available for public inspection. Please send us your suggestions for improvement.