The ‘specialist’ edition of Reuther’s dictionary generally reproduces the structure and content of the English translation by Philipp A. Scherer,1 but with editorial amendments and additions aimed at increasing its functionality and utility. It differs from the translation typescript in several ways:
- errors in the English translations of entries and examples have been corrected. Scherer was a native speaker of German and sometimes his translations show English grammatical or lexicographic mistakes, especially in the use of the articles ‘the’ and ‘a’ (see examples below) and word order, for example Scherer’s “to look well after” becomes ‘to look after well’;2
- complex translations have generally been divided into the basic meaning plus a Context note, for example:
- “a well-worn track, free of undergrowth” becomes ‘well-worn track’ Context: free of undergrowth;
- “to glow brightly, (e.g. sunset red)” becomes ‘to glow brightly’ Context: e.g. sunset red;
- “to turn away the news, e.g. when it doesn’t arrive” becomes ‘to turn away news’ Context: e.g. when it doesn’t arrive.
- “to be disturbed, aroused by the rain, (e.g. the grass)” becomes ‘to be disturbed by rain, to be aroused by rain’ Context: e.g. grass;
- complex translations have been unpacked to create two or more translations separated by a comma. This applies to multiple modifiers of a head noun, non-repetition of infinitive ‘to’ marker, or adverbs and prepositional phrases that have scope over several parts of a translation, for example:
- “clear, unobscured view” becomes ‘clear view, unobscured view’;
- “to eat, chew (e.g. tobacco) for someone else” becomes ‘to eat for someone else, to chew for someone else’ Context: e.g. tobacco;
- “to be disturbed, aroused by the rain, (e.g. the grass)” becomes ‘to be disturbed by rain, to be aroused by rain’ Context: e.g. grass.
- translations that express idioms are divided into their literal gloss and their idiomatic meaning, e.g. “[lit: to insult the water], i.e. ‘not to take any fish out of forbidden waters ” becomes ‘to insult water’ Idiom: not to take fish out of forbidden waters;
- translations of examples in the dictionary sometimes contain three different kinds of information, which we have tagged separately in the XML:
- a literal translation which gives a word-for-word English gloss (there are 2,667 of these);
- a free translation which gives the corresponding English meaning for the whole sentence (4,031 instances);
- contextual information about when or how the sentence might be used (appearing as a Context: note)
- an instance is the following. On page 313 Scherer’s translation has:
- jundru turu najinani kalabateriau turumanjujali ‘you fire when seeing, show yourself by means of a fire-stick, i.e. when you see a fire, then answer with a firestick. In other words, when you see a fire as a signal of distress, then indicate by means of a firestick that you are coming to their aid.’
- this is tagged as: <eg><di>jundru turu najinani kalabateriau turumanjujali</di><lit>you fire when seeing, show yourself by means of a fire-stick</lit><free>when you see a fire, then answer with a firestick</free><note type=”context”>in other words, when you see a fire as a signal of distress, then indicate by means of a firestick that you are coming to their aid</note></eg>
- Scherer’s footnotes, which appear at the bottom of the page in his translation manuscript, have been numbered as in the original and appear as pop-ups when the user hovers over the footnote number. German expressions in the footnotes are tagged and appear in blue italics in the display. Footnotes are not included in the user-friendly edition;
- page numbers are grouped together and appear in small type on a white background; {page 000} is the page number in Scherer’s translation (top right of the page in the original) and [Vol XXX, p. 000] is the volume number and page number in Reuther’s original (on the left-hand margin in Scherer’s translation);
- indented paragraphs after the main section of an entry in Scherer’s typescript are tagged as notes and classified into various types and subtypes, such as Mythology, Etymology, Ethnography-Death, Ethnograpy-Beliefs, Comparative. The full set of note types, with links to relevant entries, is given on the user-friendly edition website;
- where Diyari entries occur in contemporary sources they are added as *Spelling: and spelled according to the modern orthography. Alternative pronunciations are given as *Also:. Items which have not been recorded from Dieri teachers are given as *Spelling: CHECK;
- additions by the editor, including comments on Scherer’s translations or footnotes, appear as *Editor:, for example:
- *Editor: This hole is called dityi mingka ‘sun hole’;
- “tidna karaterina to bandage one’s foot” *Editor: Scherer’s translation is “for the foot to wrap itself up”;
- *Editor: Scherer’s footnote 2 here shows a misunderstanding. The Diyari expression mindrilkamayi literally means ‘run together with!’ and hence there is a sense of speed that Reuther’s “quickly” in his translation attempts to capture.
Note: this version of the Dictionary contains expressions and opinions that were common among missionaries and other non-Indigenous people in the 19th and early 20th century which Aboriginal people and others may now find offensive. Examples are “witchdoctor”, “heathen”, “pagan”, and “native”. In the ‘user-friendly‘ version of the Dictionary these are removed where unnecessary, or replaced by more appropriate terms, such as ‘Aboriginal doctor’, ‘traditional religion’ or ‘the Law’. There are 386 instances of such potentially offensive expressions. Readers who wish to avoid them can explore the ‘user-friendly’ edition.
Footnotes:
- Philipp Adolf Scherer was born on 25 July 1920 and died on 27 July 1999. He was the first archivist at the Lutheran Archives in Adelaide, South Australia. He is buried in St John’s church, Tanunda, South Australia.
- Hercus (2009: 285n2) notes: “P. Scherer … followed literal accuracy to the extreme, as shown in this extract where he puts ‘this’ in brackets because it was not there in the German original. This preoccupation is often to the detriment of idiomatic English”.