THE NORWEGIAN LEXIN PROJECT

The Norwegian LEXIN project is based on a Swedish dictionary series of the same name. The LEXIN dictionaries are developed for immigrants with little or no experience in the use of dictionaries or other linguistic resources. In Sweden, the LEXIN dictionaries have been translated into more than 20 languages and are published both electronically and in printed versions. Since 1996 Uni Digital, commissioned by the Ministry of Education, Research and Church Affairs, the Norwegian Board of Education (from 1999), and the Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training (since 2004) has worked on developing corresponding dictionaries for Norwegian.

• Project leader:
  • Tove Bjørneset

• Project co-workers:
  • Øystein Reigem, programmer
  • Ampai Volan Johansen, translator Norwegian-Thai
  • Valentina Eremina, translator Norwegian—Russian
  • Lidia Roland, translator Norwegian-Polish

• Former project co-workers
  • Paul Meurer, programmer
  • Sindre Sørensen, programmer
  • Marianne Bakke, lexicographer/translator Norwegian-English
  • Kjersti Rongen Breivega, project manager/lexicographer
  • Ramin Darisiro, translator Norwegian-Kurdish
  • Eva Morken Endresen, lexicographer
  • Osman Guled (Cismaan Cabdi Guuleed), translator Norwegian-Somali
  • Kai Innselset, lexicographer/translator Norwegian-English
  • Gerd Jørgensen, Swedish-philologist
  • Bewar Kareem, translator Norwegian-Kurdish
  • Rune Kyrkjebø, consultant for digitalisation and graphical layout of printed editions
  • Anne Lindebjerg, consultant for digitalisation and graphical layout of printed editions
  • Hemachandran Markandu, translator Norwegian-Tamil
  • Odd Kjetil Rangnes, lexicographer
  • Salar Salih, translator Norwegian-Kurdish
  • Dhayalan Velauthapillai, translator Norwegian-Tamil
  • Nazareth Amlesom, translator Norwegian-Tigrinya
  • Nizar Hirori, translator Norwegian-Arabic
  • Hatice Hale Mutlusoy Avløyp, translator Norwegian-Turkish
  • Vahid Anari, translator Norwegian-Persian
  • Shagufta Parveen Shah, translator Norwegian-Urdu

• Norwegian illustrators:
  • Håkon Lystad (1, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29)
  • Ruilin Wang (2, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 32)
  • Trond Ivar Hansen (3, 4)
  • Cecilie Nygren (5, 6, 7)
  • Anette Kierulf (8, 9, 17)
  • Ken Martin Tvedt (10, 15a)
  • Caroline Kierulf (19, 20, 21, 31)
  • Entries 11, 12, 15b and 30 have been borrowed from Swedish LEXIN.
  • Entry 33 has been made on the basis of an idea from Swedish LEXIN.

The technical adaptation for the Internet and the development of a web user interface with interactive links between words and illustrations have been carried out by the LEXIN project at Uni Digital.

WHAT IS SPECIAL ABOUT LEXIN?

The target group for the LEXIN dictionaries are immigrants. The dictionaries are illustrated, lucid and user-friendly, making them a useful tool also for people with limited reading proficiency. The entry words are selected with the special needs of the target group in mind. In addition to words selected from the general vocabulary, the dictionaries contain social terms and expressions which are useful in order to navigate in the Norwegian society. About 2,500 of the entries are illustrated. The illustrations are divided into into 33 categories, such as "Family and relations", "The human body, external parts", "The human body, internal parts", "Post and bank", and "School and education". All the information about an entry word is located in the dictionary entry, such as information on parts of speech, explanations, examples (e.g. phrases, compunds, derivations and set phrases and idioms with easily understandable explanations), a selection of frequently used inflectional forms written out in full, and information about pronunciation without any special phonetic symbols. All this contributes to making the LEXIN dictionaries easier to use than traditional dictionaries.

BACKGROUND

In 1979, the Swedish Board of Education initiated a research and development project which aimed at developing dictionaries which could be used in teaching Swedish to immigrants. The background was the Swedish Parliament's decision to promote active bilingualism and improvement of the teaching of Swedish to immigrants. The project was given the name LEX–IN: Språklexicon för invandrare (Dictionaries for immigrants), and was carried out in collaboration with the (Swedish) National Institute for Teaching Materials and the Swedish Immigration Board. The basic development work was completed in 1984. After this, the Swedish Immigration Board took over the main responsibility for LEXIN. Since 1991 the Swedish National Agency for Education has been in charge of the project.

The Swedish dictionaries are published in various sizes: MINI (approx. 5,000 entries), MIDI (approx. 8,000 entries), STORA (approx. 17,000 entries), and MAXI (approx. 30,000 entries).

Swedish LEXIN's homepage:

NORDIC COLLABORATION

Early in the 1990's, the Swedish Government offered all the Nordic countries free use of the Swedish LEXIN database, to facilitate the production of similar dictionary series. In the autumn of 1996 the Norwegian Ministry of Education, Research and Church Affairs assigned the Norwegian LEXIN project to Uni Digital. In the pilot project, the Swedish source language material for the MINI edition was transferred into Norwegian. The following year, work on the STORA edition started, and this work continued until 1998. In 1999, the Ministry of Education, Research and Church Affairs left the overall responsibility for the project to the National Centre for Educational Resources (NLS), now the Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training. The same year, the work on transferring the rest of the Swedish source language material was completed.

The Norwegian LEXIN database consists of approx. 36,000 words (the number is based on entry words, compounds and derivations). The nature and complexity of the project required a database application with good searching and editing facilities. Consequently, Uni Digital developed a tailor-made application, Termbase, in collaboration with in-house programmers and lexicographers. Throughout all the stages of the project, this application has enabled us to handle the complex and comprehensive dictionary material in an efficient and secure way. The project group at Uni Digital has also developed a new and pedagogical web user interface for the electronic LEXIN dictionaries, with interactive links between words and illustrations.

The most characteric feature of this dictionary project is perhaps that it is the actual source language material which was transferred from Swedish to Norwegian. This was done consequtively while all the dictionary entries in the Swedish LEXIN database were analysed. All the equivalences between the various information fields in the Swedish and Norwegian dictionary records were mapped and established. In this way, we established electronic links between the Norwegian source language material and the Swedish translations into more than 20 target languages. About 80 percent of the Swedish source language material could be transferred into Norwegian in this way, which implies that the translations from Norwegian into the different target languages in Swedish LEXIN can be done much more rapidly than what would otherwise be possible. In 2001, a pilot project on the compilation of a Norwegian—English dictionary on the basis of the Swedish—English translations from the Swedish project was completed. A LEXIN group at the University of Reykjavik in Iceland has since 2001 worked on developing an Icelandic--English dictionary in the same way. The Icelandic project uses Termbase in their work.

Danish LEXIN's homepage:

Icelandic LEXIN's homepage:

Please consult the web site for Norwegian LEXIN for updated information about the project and about available and planned dictionaries. For further information, please contact the project group.