[GerardM (Re: [Wiktionary-l] English orthographies) writes:]

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In the UW, an etymology is not related directly to a spelling. Typically an etymology is linked to a "lemma". Lemmas are typically considered the combination of a meaning and a word.

Well, a set of words, in that in English "sing", "sang" and "sung" are the one lemma.

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You wrote that you are interested in UW because of a multi language database that you have particularly for/with Japanese. I do not what you want to achieve, but if your interest is in an analysis of the possibility to import your data in UW, then I would love to have a look at your data design. If you consider importing the content under the GFDL, I would be even more happy.

A good place to start is http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/j_jmdict.html There is an HTMLized sample entry at: http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/jmdict_sample.html

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One lesson that I will learn, is if I have all the features to include a Japanese dictionary.

For a number of reasons, Japanese is a good language to test a dictionary design against because it is very different animal to a typical Indo-European language. Then you have to consider languages like Chinese, or Arabic/Hebrew/etc. Semitic languages, as they bring in other challenges.

Cheers

Jim