Hello,
I have been thinking of a way to organise data in Wiktionary that would allow for words to automatically show translations to other languages with much less work than is currently required.
Currently, translations to other languages have to be added manually, meaning they are not automatically propagated across language pairs. What I mean by this is showcased in the following example:
1. I create a page for word X in language A. 2. I create a page for word Y in language B. 3. I add a translation to the page for word X, and state that it translates to word Y in language B. 4. If I want the page for word Y to show that it translates to word X in language A, I have to do this manually.
Automating this seems a bit tricky. I think that the key is acknowledging that meanings can be separated from language and used as the links of translation. In this view, words and their definitions are language-specific, but meanings are language-agnostic.
Because I may have done a bad job at explaining this context, I have created a short example in the form of an sqlite3 SQL script that creates a small dictionary database with two meanings for the word "desert"; one of the meanings has been linked to the corresponding words in Spanish and in German. The script mainly showcases how words can be linked across languages with minimal rework.
You can find the script attached. To experiment with this, simply run
.read feature_showcase.sql
within an interactive sqlite3 session. (There may be other ways of doing it but this is how I tested it.)
I believe this system can also be used to automate other word relations such as hyponyms and hypernyms, meronyms and holonyms, and others. It can also allow looking up words in other languages and getting definitions in the language of choice. In short, it would allow Wiktionary to more effortlessly function as a universal dictionary.
Has something like this been suggested before? I would be pleased to receive feedback on this idea.
With kind regards, Wolter HV