Type of site Online dictionary Headquarters Germany Launched 2009 (2009) | Available in multilingual | |
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Current status perpetual work-in-progress | ||
Plattmakers is a Low Saxon online dictionary project. With more than 18,500 word entries (as of August 2013) it is one of the most extensive Low Saxon online dictionaries. As each word entry can be rendered in several different Low Saxon varieties its effectively the most extensive Low Saxon dictionary available.
Contents
History
Plattmakers was created in 2009.
Features
The most prominent feature of the dictionary is the fact that its entries are stored in a special notation that allows to render them in different ways. The Low Saxon language has no fixed orthographic standard and each region differs in the way words are written down. The Plattmakers notation stores the word's linguistic features as present at around 700 AD. 700 AD was the time the latest common predecessor was spoken from which all modern Low Saxon dialects developed. The string is then processed by a rendering engine that applies any relevant sound shifts since then in chronological order and thus produces a phonological representation of the modern word. This representation is processed by a second rendering engine that applies modern orthography to the string. The software is thus able to reproduce any word in any dialect and orthography.
The dictionary provides Low Saxon annotations to the Low Saxon words and beside that also gives translations of the words into English, German and Dutch. The interface is available in Low Saxon, English, German and Dutch.
The site divides the Low Saxon language area into 128 subdivisions. For each of them a custom renderer is planned. The site also collects information on the area each word is used in and thus allows to distinguish words of general use from words only in regional use.