About This Dictionary:
This is a searchable (and temporarily expandable) Dholuo-English dictionary.
● The entries have been compiled by students enrolled in Professor Seth Cable's
Undergraduate Field Methods Course (Spring 2009).
● The graphic interface was designed by Professors Chris Potts and Seth Cable, and
coded by Chris Potts.
● The XML structure of the dictionary was designed by Professors Chris Potts and
Seth Cable
To Search for an Entry:
Click on the "Search the dictionary" button at the upper left-hand corner, then fill in the box with your search item. You can restrict your search to:
(a) the Dholuo words
(b) their English definitions
(c) their IPA-represented pronunciations
(d) the contributors' notes about the entry in question
Note that for Dholuo words, search is sensitive to the special diacritics for ATR and tone (see "Dholuo Orthography" below).
To View an Entry:
Rather than 'searching', you can also directly click to an entry of interest. The Dholuo words of the dictionary are listed at the left in alphabetical order. If you click on any of those words, the entry for that word will appear on the main screen.
Content of an Entry:
Entries consist of at least:
(a) The word written in the (augmented) Dholuo orthography [see below]
(b) A representation, in IPA, of the word's pronunciation
(c) A definition/translation of the word in English
Below this information, some entries also include a number of example sentences. Example sentences consist of:
(a) The sentence written in the (augmented) Dholuo orthography [see below]
(b) A representation, in IPA, of the sentence's pronunciation
(c) A translation of the sentence into English
(d) The sound file (on the course wiki) which the sentence appears on
(e) The time that the sentence appears on the sound file
Below the example sentences, some entries also include notes that the author(s) felt may be of use to the reader.
To Add an Entry:
Click on the "Add an entry" button at the upper left-hand corner, then fill in the fields. (This feature will be taken down at the end of the semester, when the dictionary is made a permanent, public archive.)
To Edit (or Delete) an Entry:
Click on a Dholuo word to call up the entry. Then, below the entry, click on "Edit or delete this entry". When you're finished, click "Submit." (This feature will be taken down at the end of the semester, when the dictionary is made a permanent, public archive.)
To Browse the Entire Dictionary:
Click on the button "View the entire dictionary", at the upper left of the page.
To Download the Dictionary in XML
The content of the dictionary is ultimately stored as an XML file. To download the XML file, click on "Download the dictionary in XML" at the upper left.
The Augmented Dholuo Orthography:
The "Basic Facts About Dholuo" page on the course wiki contains several documents describing the official, Roman orthography for Dholuo. This orthography is phonemic, and unambiguously represents most of the contrastive phonemic content of a Dholuo word. However, as discussed by Omondi (1982), this orthography nevertheless fails to represent certain features of the word's pronunciation that do affect its meaning:
(a) The ATR values of the vowels in the word.
(b) The tone of the vowels in the word.
Omondi (1982) thus develops an augmentation to the standard orthography of Dholuo that fills these gaps. She adds the following conventions to the standard orthography for Dholuo.
The Period Prefix:
The ATR values of the word's vowels are represented by the presence/absence of a period before the word:
(a) A period before the word (.rech "fish") indicates that the vowels of the word
are [-ATR] (lax)
(b) No period before the word (tedo "cook") indicates that the vowels of the word
are [+ATR] (tense)
Tonal Diacritics:
While the surface-phonetic realization of tone in Dholuo is a complex matter (Omondi 1982, Okoth-Okombo 1982), most authors seem to agree that, underlying, there are four tones a syllable of Dholuo can bear: two basic register tones -- high (H) and low (L) -- and two complex contour tones that can be created from them -- rising (LH) and falling (HL).
In the augmented orthography, these four tonal 'melodies' are represented on the vowel using standard tonal diacritics:
(a) High tone is represented with an acute accent: á
(b) Low tone is represented via the absence of a diacritic: a
(c) Falling tone is represented with a circumflex: â
(d) Rising tone is represented with a breve: ă
In addition to these four underlying tones, the surface forms of Dholuo are also said to exhibit a 'mid-tone' or 'down-stepped high tone' (Omondi 1982, Okoth-Okombo 1982, Tucker & Creider 1994). However, it is also widely recognized that this 'mid/down-step' is simply the surface realization of underlying L(ow) and/or H(igh) in particular environments (Omondi 1982, Okoth-Okombo 1982).
References:
Okoth-Okombo, Duncan (1982) Dholuo Morphophonemics in Generative Framework. Berlin: Dietrich Riemer Verlag.
Omondi, Lucia Ndong'a (1982) The Major Syntactic Structures of Dholuo. Berlin: Dietrich Riemer Verlag.
Tucker, A.N. & C.A. Creider (1994) A Grammar of Kenya Luo. Berlin: Dietrich Riemer Verlag.