Dictionary entries explained

A Latege entry consists of at least three parts. First is the latege headword in blue which is followed by its phonetic pronunciation in brackets and the plural form in blue. Second is the part of speech in abbreviated form in italic type. (See the List of Abbreviations where these are expanded) In the example at the right, the grammatical category is noun and the word belongs to noun classes 5 (singular) and 6 (plural). Third is the definition(s) which shows the meaning of the Latege headword. Multiple definitions that are similar are  separated by commas and end with a semicolon. Sometimes, after the semicolon is a Latege sentence in italic in blue font and a translation into French to help in comprehension.  Finally, in brackets there may be other details such as the semantic category for the word.

In the first example given above, the Latege word, ‘Tswí’, only has one meaning. Sometimes, words have multiple distinct meanings, like in the next example "-tsúa". These are called senses and are indicated in the dictionary by sense numbers. Each sense begins with a number followed by a closed parenthesis. In this dictionary the various senses are listed under a single Latege headword.


Occasionally you will notice that the headword is immediately followed by a small lowered number. The lowered number is used to distinguish what we call homonyms. Homonyms are words that have the same pronunciation and spelling but are unrelated in meaning.


When you want to look up a Latege noun you should look for the singular form of the noun.  In the example above, in order to find the word that means 'boucle d'oreille' (earring), look for the headword ‘tsíká’, rather than ‘atsika’, which is the plural. If there is a plural form it will be listed after the singular form and preceded with the label pl:. In the example, ‘atsika’ is the plural form. In some instances the plural form is more common and will be listed as the headword. If there is a singular form, then it will be preceded with the label sg:. The numbers that follow the part of speech n indicate the nominal class of the word and its plural form. To see an explanation of the nominal classes of Latege, see:  The Noun Class System and Noun Phrases of Latege.

 
 
When searching for a verb, look for the form saying 'la base'. This will be the infinitive form without a prefix. A verb in the infinitive form in Latege will begin with ka- (katiga = 'parler' (to speak), katende = 'écrire' (to write). In order to find the base form of the verb, remove the ka- and look at the remaining part. (*tiga, *tende). The asterix before the remaining part indicates that it is not a grammatically complete form except in the singular form of the imperative, and that normally it is necessary to add at least a subject prefix and a temporal prefix. To see a detailed explanation of the Latege verb structure, see:  Le système verbal du latege.

 

 

Explication varVariants of Latege words are alternate pronunciations from other dialects. The variants are listed in parentheses immediately after the headword or after the plural form of a noun, and indicated by the abbreviations var.lbr.  The variant form appears in blue and is a link to its place in the dictionary according to its initial letter.  You can click on the links to jump from a word to its variant form and vice versa.Explication var de

 

 

Explication synLexical relationships such as synonym, specific-general, source-product are also indicated in the dictionary by an abbreviation in aqua-colored letters and in italics. The synonym is in blue and serves as a link to the entry in its location in the dictionary.