An Advanced Dictionary? Similarities and Differences between "Duramazwi ReChiShona" and "Duramazwi Guru ReChiShona" *

Abstract

In this article a comparative analysis of Duramazwi ReChiShona (DRC) and Duramazwi Guru ReChiShona (DGC) is made. Both DRC and DGC are monolingual Shona dictionaries compiled by a team of researchers under the African Languages Lexical (ALLEX) Project, now the African Languages Research Institute (ALRI). During the compilation process, DRC was known as the General Shona Dictionary and DGC as the Advanced Shona Dictionary. A simple analysis of these titles shows that the dictionaries are similar in some ways and also different in others. The writer tries to show the ways in which DGC is regarded as a more advanced dictionary when compared to DRC. Although the argument of the article is mainly built on those differences which make DGC the more advanced, attention is also paid to the similarities between the dictionaries.

Keywords: allex project, alri, duramazwi rechishona, duramazwi guru rechishona, dictionary, shona, headword, sense, monolingual dictionary, corpus, idiom, proverb, pithy saying