An Analysis of the Oxford Bilingual School Dictionary: Northern Sotho and English (De Schryver 2007)

The Oxford Bilingual School Dictionary: Northern Sotho and English (De Schryver 2007) is a welcome addition to dictionaries that have been compiled for school use in particular. Its novelty and appeal lie in the fact that the lemmas and Northern Sotho mini-grammar are based on a corpus of general language usage and school textbooks. It reflects current language usage and concerns in the modern world that learners can easily relate to, making it a popular alternative to the more traditional dictionaries. This bidirectional, bilingual dictionary is equally useful to native speakers of Northern Sotho learning English and to English-speakers acquiring Northern Sotho. Though the number of lemmas is restricted to 5 000 in the lemma lists for Northern Sotho and English respectively, the compilers nevertheless succeeded in meeting the basic lexicographic and grammatical needs of the learner. This review article aims to take a critical look at various features of the dictionary.


Introduction
The Oxford Bilingual School Dictionary: Northern Sotho and English (De Schryver 2007) has not without reason been awarded the esteemed SATI (South African Translators' Institute) prize in 2009. The user-friendly approach and layout in the two bilingual central lists together with a study section (which includes a corpus-based mini-grammar for Northern Sotho) and a reference section have set a benchmark for other African language school dictionaries to follow suit, such as the Oxford Bilingual School Dictionary: Zulu and English (De Schryver 2010). It plays an important role in filling a gap as a bidirectional dictionary for native speakers of Northern Sotho learning English and English-speakers learning Northern Sotho. This review article aims to take a critical look at various features of the dictionary based on the 3rd impression (2010) of the first (and thus far only) edition (2007). Errors that are noted should not be seen as criticism, but as contributions to the improvement of this work in a future revision cycle. Gouws and Prinsloo (2005: 39) emphasize that "[t]he user-perspective, so prevalent in modern-day metalexicography, compels lexicographers to compile their dictionaries according to the needs and research skills of well-defined target user groups". In the case of school dictionaries it is particularly important to pitch dictionaries at the level of learners and not to produce scaled down versions of more comprehensive dictionaries as these "seldom meet the needs of the target users and often are more of a hindrance than a help" (Potgieter 2012: 262).

Fit for purpose
The dictionary under review is a perfect example of a reference work inspired and driven by the needs and dictionary consultation skill levels of school learners as a well-defined target user group . Having established the general level of dictionary education among the prospective target users in South African schools, the compilers designed this dictionary not only to serve as a source of information, but also as an educational tool in support of the development of a dictionary culture among learners. This paperback edition of 608 pages, measuring 210 x 150 mm, easily fits into any schoolbag. The binding appears to be robust enough to withstand rough and frequent handling by learners. Nothing spoils a user's look-up activities more than a dictionary that falls apart after just a few consultations.
Mindful that the dictionary is aimed at school learners, the compilers do not confront the user unnecessarily with linguistic technicalities or lexicographic terms. For example: - The distinction between verbs and verb stems is not strictly maintained. The distinction would be important to a grammarian, but for the target user of this dictionary it suffices to know that prefixes are attached to verbs (as explained in the study section, page S21), although strictly speaking they are attached to verb stems.
-Instead of phonetic transcriptions, the compilers have opted for what they call 'pronunciation fields' as a guide to correct pronunciation. This term is self-explanatory and thus easily understood by the learner. The pronunciation field slot is only filled in cases where mid-low vowels are involved (marked by means of a circumflex), which are pronounced differently to their unmarked mid-high counterparts.
-For a lexicographic term like 'lemma' a much more descriptive word like 'headword' is used throughout the dictionary.
On occasion the dictionary is referred to as pukuntšu(ng) ya gago or your dictionary (cf. S16 and S23 respectively in the study section). This personalises the relationship between the user and the dictionary and no doubt adds to the user-friendly approach adopted in the dictionary.

Outer texts
The title of the dictionary is formulated differently on the outside cover 1 and the first title page 2 , which leaves one a little at a loss as to the correct way of referencing the dictionary. For the purpose of this discussion the title Oxford Bilingual School Dictionary: Northern Sotho and English was decided on, abbreviated as ONSD. 3 There are three outer texts presented in both Northern Sotho and English. 4 They are easily recognised by the grey marking along the edges of the pages. The front matter of 12 pages contains the table of contents, dictionary features and an introduction. The dictionary features (pp. iv-vii) can be grasped at one glance as they are presented diagrammatically. Unfortunately (and understandably so) the readability of this section had to be compromised by small print to fit in all the features. This might not be received well by a user who is in a hurry to have his/her look-up query answered and does not have time to first study the small print in the diagrams.
The middle matter text positioned between the Northern Sotho-English (NS-E) and English-Northern Sotho (E-NS) lemma lists comprises a study section of 28 pages (marked as S1-S28) including dictionary exercises in Northern Sotho and English for the inexperienced user. The activities are typical group activities, reminiscent of the outcomes based education (OBE) model. The activities encourage the students to collaborate, so that those in the group with (hopefully) some prior exposure to dictionary consultation would be able to assist the novices. Apart from useful templates on how to write e-mails, letters, etc., the study section also contains a corpus-based Northern Sotho minigrammar in both Northern Sotho and English. The study section does not inter-fere with the numbering of the central list, i.e. it is wedged between the NS-E wordlist (pp.  and the E-NS wordlist (pp. 255-552). The back matter comprises a reference section of 16 pages (marked as R1-R16). It includes images and names of animals, fruits and vegetables, the human body and sport. Furthermore, the provinces and official languages of South Africa, terminology pertaining to the school curriculum, numbers, weights and measurements all constitute very useful information for school learners.

Corpus-based examples
A revolutionary feature of the dictionary and a first for an African language, is that it was "fully developed from a corpus, using the most modern, internationally accepted dictionary-development processes" (TshwaneDJe Blog). The authenticity of example sentences was endorsed by a team of experts and mother-tongue speakers of English as well as Northern Sotho. The corpus from which lemmas were culled was based on general language texts and school textbooks. Receiving the SATI award for the dictionary on behalf of the team on 2 October 2009, Mamokgabo Mogodi explained how she decided on the example sentences: "For each word in the dictionary, I first studied hundreds of lines of text from the corpus. From this I saw how a word was really used and I could work out the different meanings it could have. For each meaning I then selected an authentic example sentence" (TshwaneDJe Blog). Despite this careful selection of example sentences, the meaning of a word represented by a lemma is not always deducible from the example sentence. The following serves as an example: The word 'veteran' is not a focal point in the example sentence and the learner may not necessarily be able to derive from the sentence exactly what a veteran is. Potgieter (2012: 268) emphasises that sentences which clearly illustrate the use of a word "are of a much higher quality and are of much more use to the learners" than sentences in which the word represented by the lemma appears in a non-focal position. In defence of the compilers of the ONSD, however, one needs to take cognisance of the fact that example sentences had to be extracted from the existing corpus. The compilers' point of departure was that no example sentences were going to be fabricated and thus they had to make do with the best possible contexts.
Many words used in the example sentences are not included as lemmas. This, however, should not be viewed as a drawback but rather as a beneficial "extra" as the learner's active vocabulary is reinforced during look-up activities. As pointed out by Potgieter (2012: 264) it is important that example sentences be selected carefully to "fit into the learners' world", no easy feat for the compilers of the ONSD, given the fact that they had to cater for the needs of two different language groups with divergent backgrounds.
In the E-NS section some English example sentences required a modification rather than a simple translation into Northern Sotho. Such modifications are well executed, a case in point being the lemma 'prefix' in the E-NS section (p. 452). In the English example sentence, 'prefix' is illustrated with reference to 'un-' in 'un-happy', but in the Northern Sotho example sentence the term is explained with reference to the prefix of a noun, such as 'di-' in 'di-kgoši' (chiefs), seeing that Northern Sotho does not form antonyms of adjectives by prefixation as English does in the case of 'un-happy'.
The example sentences and illustrative phrases are by no means stereotypical and depict an interesting array of topics in various fields, such as language, arts and culture, history, society, economy, science and politics. Through this the pedagogical function of the dictionary is well served and learners are afforded the opportunity to increase their general knowledge about a range of issues, apart from discovering the translational equivalent of their search word. The following may serve as illustrations: Language: (NS-E) p. 201 segalo: In addition to establishing that 'segalo' is inter alia translated as 'tone' in English, the user learns that Endemann was the first author to have realised the importance of tone in Sepedi.
Arts and culture: (E-NS) p. 432 opera: The user not only learns that the English word 'opera' is also an acceptable term in Northern Sotho ('opera'), but that "La Bohème" is an opera composed by Puccini.

Modernity
One of the criteria by which the quality of a dictionary is judged according to MacMillan (in Landau 1989: 308) is modernity. "Ensuring that this dictionary reflects current usage and concerns" (De Schryver 2007: x) is listed as one of the key concerns of the ONSD. The lemma list and illustrative phrases thus include many current and most frequently used words of the modern world that have become part and parcel of the Northern Sotho vocabulary. Through this the dictionary is fulfilling its social role, unlike older dictionaries, most of which "were compiled in the context of the limited role the African languages played" (Chabata and Nkomo 2010: 73) and which have been found to be "limited in scope, perspective and function and hence less effective now that the languages are being assigned a greater social role" (ibid.). The ONSD has not shied away from including loanwords as lemmas or using them in illustrative sentences to reflect the speech of current Northern Sotho speakers. Some of these words include the following: aphili (appeal), profense (province), projeke (project), rekoto (record), pasetše (passage), rasiti (receipt), websaeteng (on the website), dipotfolio (portfolios), faki (from Afrikaans 'vaatjie', i.e. barrel (of oil)).
It will be observed that many of these loanwords display consonant sequences that do not feature in indigenous words. However, in loanwords "foreign" combinations like pr, kr, ft and bs are acceptable and there is no need for them to be separated by vowels to achieve the typical open syllable structure of the African languages (Departmental Northern Sotho Language Board 1988: 22). Nevertheless, in some loanwords consonant sequences are regarded as "wrong", compare the lemma praebete where the user is referred to the "correctly spelt" lemma poraebete (p. 188).
In a number of cases loanwords have been used in the example sentences in the E-NS section, even though an indigenous word is available, for example p. 353 English: He will fill the hole with sand.
p. 489 English: Mpho and her sister look similar but they are not twins. N.Sotho: Mpho le sesi wa gagwe ba a swana, eupša ga se mafahla.
(There are quite a number of possible terms for "sister" in Northern Sotho; however, the distinction between them is not of any relevance here and sesi functions as a convenient generic term in the translated sentence.)

Lemmatisation approach
Two main lexicographic traditions have evolved for Northern Sotho, namely the arrangement of entries according to stems on the one hand and words on the other. The stem approach was hailed by Ziervogel and Mokgokong (1975: Preface, p.87) as the only scientific one. In this approach words are lemmatised according to the first letter of the stem, while the prefix (if present) is disregarded, for example, the word letolo (knee) is lemmatised as -tolo under the letter T. The advantage of this approach is that lemmas which are inflectionally or derivationally related can all be accommodated under the same lemma, thus saving space and affording the user insight into how the words are related grammatically and semantically. The user will, for example, find mmušo 'gov-ernment' and pušano 'democracy' under the lemma -buša 'reign' from which these words have been derived. The disadvantage of this method is that, unless the dictionary also lemmatises words like mmušo and pušano with a cross-reference to -buša, the less experienced user will be at a loss as to where to find mmušo and pušano. The stem approach is perceived as somewhat superior to word lemmatisation (Prinsloo 2009: 155), possibly because it serves the needs of the expert researcher. However, the stem approach is user-unfriendly and comes at a price for the novice in terms of accessibility and the time it takes him or her to find the required information.
The compilers of the ONSD have adopted the word-based approach for their macrostructural presentation. This statement needs to be qualified, however, since it does not apply to verbs: verbs are still entered as stems and not as words. Lemmatisation according to stems is the best option for verbs, according to Prinsloo (2009: 156).
The word-based approach is the most user-friendly approach for learners and optimizes their chance of finding required items. Even the general public with basic dictionary consultation skills will find the book accessible as no knowledge about the morphological structure of words is expected. They simply look up words in alphabetical sequence according to the first letter of the word, which is normally also the first letter of the prefix in the case of nouns. The needs of users who are unaware of the full forms of words and who consequently search for words under truncated spoken variants with zero prefixes, are also catered for. The truncated forms are listed with a cross-reference to their full forms, e.g.
p. 10 bakeng see SEBAKA p. 67 hlare see SEHLARE Lemmatisation according to the first letter of the word circumvents the problem of novices having to know the morphophonological rules of the language. Irregular nouns, for example, can be found in their expected alphabetical slots: p. 141 mmušo 'government': Learners simply look up this word under 'M'.
They do not have to know that this noun was formed from *mo-bušo in order to be able to look up its meaning under 'B', the initial letter of the stem -buša 'rule, reign'.
An unfortunate effect of the word-approach is that learners are deprived of the opportunity to see the relationship between words which are listed at a distance from each other under different article stretches (cf. mmušo and pušano, under M and P respectively). A further disadvantage is that entries by words take up much more space than entries by stems and in the case of the ONSD the compilers had to limit themselves to 5000 of the most frequent lemmas in both the Northern Sotho and English section. A problem (germane to all printed dictionaries) is that the lemma list can impossibly include the complete inventory of words in a language. The same restriction obviously does not apply to electronic versions of dictionaries. For further information about the nature, advantages and disadvantages of stem versus word lemmatisation, the reader is referred to Prinsloo (2009) who discusses these matters at length.

The nature of lemmas
Lemmas were selected on the basis of their frequency of occurrence in the corpus and limited to 5 000 items each for the two languages. An innovative feature is the star-grading applied to each lemma list, according to which the top 500 items are marked with three stars, the next 500 most frequent items with two stars and the third 500 most frequent items with one star. Not only words, but items larger than single words (compound words and phrases) as well as items smaller than words occur as lemmas (morphemes such as subject concords and object concords) -no doubt very useful to the beginner not yet able to distinguish between full words and parts of words. Apart from lemmas, there are also sub-lemmas, mostly confined to locative forms in the case of nouns (e.g.  nakong under nako 'time') and relative or plural forms in the case of verbs (e.g.  bonago and  bonang under bona 'see').

Access alphabet
Whereas Ziervogel and Mokgokong (1975) found it practical to use a combination of the standard alphabet and other article stretches (e.g. bj, kg, tš, etc.), the ONSD follows a strict alphabetical ordering in its access alphabet, which is most convenient for users who do not have advanced dictionary skills to deal with these types of exceptions to the regular alphabet. Where diacritics are involved as in the case of s and š, the diacritic sign does not upset the alphabetic ordering, compare for example p. 197 seaparo 'piece of clothing' šeba 'eat on the side' sebaka 'chance, opportunity' Invariably, it may happen that two words are written exactly the same except for one diacritic sign. The typical principle applied here is that the unmarked form always precedes the marked form (cf. Gouws and Prinsloo 2005: 98), for example p. 197 seba 'whisper' šeba 'eat on the side' The complete absence of the letters C, Q and Z in the Northern Sotho access alphabet simply conveys to users that the language does not contain words starting with these letters. The combination of a capital and a small letter to mark the beginning of each article stretch, for example Aa, Bb, etc. is a most welcome eye-catching feature enabling learners to find their way quickly to the desired place in the macrostructure of the dictionary. Besides this, the alphabetic letters in grey shading at the edges of the pages provide additional guidance. Guide words at the top of each page, indicating the first and the last lemma on that particular page, are very useful. Multiple word lemmas follow a strict alphabetical order. For this reason, a word like 'beard' precedes 'bear', because the latter is entered as a two word lemma 'bear fruit', in which the letter 'f' of the second word appears later in the alphabet than the final letter 'd' of 'beard'. The same principle applies to the lemmas 'theme' and 'them (in particular)' where the latter is regarded as appearing later in the alphabet compared to 'theme' because the word which follows 'them' starts with an 'i'. Because of the above system of alphabetisation, the entry 'we' is separated from 'we (in particular)' by 18 other unrelated lemmas (cf. p. 542/3).

Shaded information boxes
Shaded information boxes are devices that are commonly used as articleinternal microstructural entries. Gouws and Prinsloo (2010) aptly summarise the nature and function of text boxes as "salient dictionary entries … used to place more than the default focus on a specific data item". Text boxes provide example-specific guidance on matters such as pronunciation, restrictions on the range of application and contrast of related words. Shaded boxes have been used judisciously in the ONSD and do not come across as intrusive. They highlight potential areas of difficulty, for example, in the NS-E section, the user is alerted to the fact that the subject concord is not translated when it appears together with its subject in a sentence. Text boxes also help to avoid common mistakes in pronunciation and stress. As far as vowels and diphthongs in English are concerned, the rhyming method is aptly used in the E-NS section. For example, 'bow' (p. 282) is explained as rhyming with 'no', in order to distinguish it from the word 'bow' (as in 'bow down'). Stressed syllables of certain items are marked in italics in shaded boxes to make the user aware of the role of stress in changing an item's syntactic category, e.g. 'perfect' (adjective) versus 'perfect' (verb) (p. 443). Stress has not been pointed out consistently, though -compare 'rebel' (p. 464) and 'record' (p. 465), for example, which can each function either as a noun or a verb depending on which syllable is stressed. In other instances again, shaded boxes are used to alert users to common errors in the choice of words, for example non-mother tongue speakers of English often confuse 'borrow' and 'lend' because the same term is used for both in Northern Sotho (-adima). The dictionary compilers, anticipating this confusion, have therefore done well to draw the user's atten-tion to this difference in a shaded box under the lemmas 'borrow' as well as 'lend'.
Comment boxes would have been useful regarding discrepancies observed between the description of certain items as lemmas on the one hand and the way they feature in the example sentences of other lemmas on the other. The numerals for 'six' and 'seven' are a case in point: The structure of 'six' (p. 491) is given as '[DEM + SC +] selelago' or '[DEM + SC +] tshelelago' (verbal relative construction). However, different constructions are observed in some of the example sentences, e.g. dikgwedi tše tshela (p. 309), in which the SC and relative suffix -go are absent. In other instances only the SC is absent, e.g. dibeke tše selelago (p. 494). The numeral for 'seven' also employs the verbal relative construction, namely '[DEM + SC +] šupago' (p. 484), but under the lemma 'shed' (p. 485) a possessive construction is used, i.e. mengwaga ya šupa 'seven years'. The learner would have benefited from additional information regarding the possible alternative structures.

Standard spelling
A practical feature of the dictionary is that words which tend to differ from the standard orthography and spelling rules for Northern Sotho have been included. Users likely to look up words under the wrong spelling will find a cross-reference to the entry with the correct spelling, for example

Cross-references
The compilers were compelled to enter many nouns in their singular as well as plural forms as separate lemmas, because their inclusion was dictated by frequency of occurrence in the corpus. This "double listing" obviously takes up extra space, but the problem is addressed by means of cross-referencing and by only supplying an example sentence under one of the forms, usually the most frequently occurring lemma, for example p. 106 lebitla * noun 5/6 (pl. mabitla)  grave  Banna ba tla tsogela go epa lebitla leo. The men will get up early to dig that grave.  ' (p. 206), although 'dinoko' is also the plural form of a class 9 noun 'noko' with the meaning 'porcupine' (cf. p. 169). One can only surmise that the omission of the cross-reference of 'dinoko' to 'noko' was not considered by the compilers, because 'dinoko' referring to 'porcupines' did not occur in the 5 000 most frequent lemmas.

Suggested corrections
It is hoped that the errors and inconsistencies pointed out in the appendix will be useful should a revision of the dictionary be undertaken. The corrections have been grouped into four broad categories, namely inconsistencies in fonts and punctuation, typographical errors, translational inaccuracies and grammatical errors.

Conclusion
The compilers of this dictionary deserve great appreciation for their innovative approach. Just like the dictionary itself, the mini-grammar is also based on a corpus, constituting a first for African languages. What makes the dictionary particularly appealing as a school dictionary is that it is not rule-oriented. This means that all items can be accessed as lemmas and that there is no need for the user to first become acquainted with a set of derivational rules, which need to be applied to strip a word down to its stem, before it can be looked up (cf. Prinsloo 2009: 153-154). Prinsloo (2009: 157) points out that "learners generally lack sufficient knowledge of the morphology of verbs to isolate the verb stem". This dictionary is bound to make great inroads into schools towards popularising the acquisition and fostering of a deeper knowledge of Northern Sotho in the future. In the words of Landau (1989: 310) a dictionary is "an achievement of the intellect, and few works of the intellect are more useful to so many people over such a protracted period of time".

Translational inaccuracies or omissions
Unfortunately, where an example sentence in the NS-E lemma list contains an error, it invariably also surfaces in the E-NS section if the same example sentence has been used in the article treatment of the English lemma.
p. 5 anega 1 : the translation of the example sentence should be: Grandpa is telling one of the old-time tales, instead of Grandpa is telling you of the old-time tales. p. 203 seke 2 : the translation of ga/sa/se (…) seke is in the positive, i.e. '(must) become clear', whereas it should be in the negative.
p. 216 šupile: the English example sentence should read: They realized that he was referring to them … (instead of … that he was referred to them …). See also the same sentence on p. 466 under refer.
p. 222 temošo: 'beke ye' (this week) is given in the English example sentence as 'next week'.
p. S16 Righthand column: '…mahlaodi ao a dirišwago gantši mo Sesothong sa Leboa …' The above is the opposite of what its English translated text conveys on p. S23 (lefthand column), i.e. '… adjectives that are not frequently used in Northern Sotho …' p. S17 The last sentence before the heading Segalo is not reflected in the English version of the mini-grammar, namely 'Ga go na dithotharo tša dikantšufelo tše dingwe tšeo e lego gona polelong ya Sesotho sa Leboa'.
p. S21 Under the heading Suffixes, prefixes and negative morphemes used with verbs there are two sentences in the English version which are not reflected in the Northern Sotho mini-grammar, namely 'Other single and combined verbal extensions are used less often. Your dictionary will always show you the presence of verbal extensions, and a verb with extensions is always cross-referred to the stem or main verb from