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How do you record your words?

1mon 4d ago by lemmy.ml/u/libre_warrior in conlangs@mander.xyz

I'd love to hear how you do it. I haven't really found a good flow.

Just to be clear, it's a question of how you construct your dictionaries.

Spreadsheet. The first sheet contains, by column:

  • The word itself, in citation form. If the conlang uses Latin/Cyrillic/Greek I keep it in the original, otherwise I romanise the writing system, as close to possible to the original*. No idea how I'd deal with a logographic system.
  • Phonemic and phonetic transcriptions. Often more than one if I'm handling multiple con-dialects.
  • Part of speech: noun, verb, etc.
  • Declension/conjugation, if applicable. Heavily irregular words get marked "irregular" here.
  • Sandhi classes, gender, stuff like this, when applicable. Basically, ways this word interferes on other words.
  • Coarse translation, with one or two words.
  • Notes for subtle irregularities (e.g. "genitive in -n"), and a finer translation than the above.

The next sheets include declension/conjugation tables, separated by part of speech. Heavily irregular words get handled here, as their own conjugations/declensions.

*even if this means doing counter-intuitive stuff, like writing ⟨b̃⟩ for /m/ because it's how the native script handles it.