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Re: [westasianconlangs] Dictionary listing question

Jim wrote:

<<I'm not too familiar with Arabic, but I've read a few short pages
about an Arabic-esque morphology for conlangs.  So, if one were to do
this, how would you list the words?...>

Since I made an Arabic-style conlang, and have an excellent qamuus, I think I'll add.  To repeat: Yes, it's just like that.  The root is listed, and (for Arabic specifically) the meanings of each of the patterns by number, I through X (if there is a meaning for each--there doesn't have to be).  The dictionary I have is only Arabic to English, but it's about as comprehensive as it comes.  I'd give you the ISBN, but I think it's in the garage...  Anyway, for my conlang, I did it alphabetically by root.  So, visually, if you scrolled down, on the left side of the page you'd see:

p t n

p t r

p d l

p d n

p d x

p n m

     etc.
In between each, I listed all the relevant forms in a specific order.  Rather than listing them by number, I listed them by class.  So there was a natural noun (which came first), then a verbal noun, then a natural adjective, then an instrumental noun, then an object noun.  So it would look like:

p t r

petIr (n.n.) one who teaches, teacher; patir@t (v.n.) teaching; p@tir (n.a.) didactic; p&tIr (i.n.) lesson; pAtor (o.n.) student

These would be indented, of course, but I don't think I could get the formatting over e-mail.

On the English to (Whatever Language) side of the coin, though, it'd take forever to list every single word, and you'd end up with a bunch looking alike, so for each root, I'd take the basic idea of the noun, and list it as follows:

teacher (n.) petIr (see p t r)

That way, for all words related to "teacher", rather than having to look up "lesson" and "teaching" and "to teach", you could save time and just go straight to the root.

It worked out nicely, even though I ended up abandoning that language.  (It was my first, and Esperanto-regular.)

-David