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Description:
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The purpose of this alphabetically-arranged Plautdietsch-English,
English-Plautdietsch word finder is to provide a handy reference tool for
people who are looking for a word to use, for which they already know its
equivalent in either one or the other of the two languages. The mother
tongue of the compiler is Plautdietsch, and he has long been occupied with
collecting lists of words in the dialect. He has especially looked for
words not totally common in the daily speech of the speakers of the
dialect. He has, nevertheless, relied heavily on the work of other
plautdietsch writers, and especially on compilers of plautdietsch
dictionaries. There is in existence a variety of such dictionaries, each
with its own system of orthography. The system chosen for this work is the
same as that used in the author's earlier publications, based closely on
Reuben Epp's 1996 publication "The Spelling of Low
German and Plautdietsch." Minor departures from that system will not be
noticeable, although they are outlined in the Introduction.
A notable feature of this word finder is the addition of a special section
of neologisms, words not formerly found in Plautdietsch vocabularies; for
example, words in the fields (among others) of
medicine, the law, the arts, sports, the military, modern technology, etc.
Traditional, conservative opinion will probably object to the inclusion of
this type of thinking, but if the dialect is to show its
capability of dealing with contemporary life and adapting to it, serious
consideration may have to be given to it. Plautdietsch is spoken by ca.
400,000 people (Canada 50,000; Germany 100,000; Kazakhstan 50,000; Latin
America 140,000; Kazakhstan 50,000; USA 20,000).
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