Die agtste deel van die Woordeboek van die Afrikaanse Taal

Abstract

English Title: Volume VIII of the Woordeboek van die Afrikaanse Taal ("Dictionary of the Afrikaans Language")

English Abstract

Since its inception in 1926 as a government funded project, the Woordeboek van die Afrikaanse Taal has undergone repeated editorial changes which caused extensive delays in the publication of volumes I-VIII (1951-1991) and, quite understandably, elicited serious criticism. With the publication of Volume VIII the letter K is at long last completed. It has taken three decades to compile the words starting with K. Such a delay is totally unacceptable and one can only hope that the future volumes will appear in reasonably quick succession. Volume VIII seems to be a volume in transition concerning editorial policy. Great progress has been made in avoiding the much criticised encyclopedic approach of preceding volumes, the articles are better structured, semantic definitions are on the whole succinct, but the quotations are still too numerous and without any clear sequence. The main points of criticism expressed in this article concern (1) the random choice and ordering of quotations; (2) the lack of consistent etymological references, (3) the lack of historical principles.

However, Volume VIII contains many signs of promising developments which seem to indicate that the future volumes will be the fruit of clearly defined editorial policies, resulting in speedy, yet thorough publications.

Keywords: afrikaans, anglicism, citation, compositum, definition, derivation, dictionary, editorial policy, english, etymology, historical principles, idiom, (verbal) illustration, lemma, lexicography, loanword, neologism, regiolect, sociolect, standard language, terminology, variant