Kernerman Dictionary News • Number 12 • July 2004
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Rav-Milim Online The online version of Rav-Milim,
developed and maintained by Melingo
Ltd, is the only full Hebrew dictionary on the web. It offers several
features that are not included in the printed version. Morphological analysis This is a unique feature
of the online version, which is able to identify the correct lexical entry of
any word, even if it has multiple inflections. For example, the user can look for the
meaning of veyashkuhu [and they will water him], without
knowing the root or basic form of the word, and find the correct lexical entry – hishqa’[watered] – with its explanation,
translation and a full grammatical analysis of the inflected form. For Hebrew
this is a critical feature, because prepositional proclitics and pronominal enclitics
are attached to the word, resulting in many different forms for the same
word. In addition, the lexical entries appear with diacritical vowels (niqqud [pointing]), so
in case of an ambiguous word like SFR, it is easy to find out whether
we are looking for sefer [a book],
or safar [counted], or sapar [a
barber], or sfar [borderland],
etc. These features are particularly helpful for children, new immigrants and
other learners, who do not know where to look for a word in a printed
dictionary, especially when it is an inflected form.
Thesaurus The thesaurus provides
a rich selection of synonyms. Each synonym is linked to its own entry, making
it very easy to ‘click’ one’s way around the dictionary, travelling from a
word to its synonyms, on to their definitions, and onwards through a wealth
of linguistic information.
Bi-directional
Hebrew-English translation The addition of the
Hebrew-English and English-Hebrew translation provides the user with the
ability to translate any word. This, together with the fact that each Hebrew
entry appears with vowels, makes the dictionary a useful translation
resource.
Regular update A great advantage of
any online dictionary, and certainly of Rav Milim, is the ability to
constantly update it. Melingo continues to maintain and enhance the website,
and regularly adds new words that are released by the Academy of the Hebrew
Language, such as hetpes [stereotype] and dvekanut [perseveration], new
technological terms, such as netiqah [netiquette], or the latest slang, such as 'en matsav [No way!]. Not less important is the interactive
nature of the online dictionary, i.e., it allows users to suggest new words,
or to ask for clarifications about certain examples and illustrations, etc. Phrases and idioms The online version has
two ways of finding a phrase in the dictionary: by looking at the list of
phrases that appears under each component of the phrase, or by typing the
whole phrase, part of it or inflected form of it. For example, the idiom naga
le-libo [touch one’s heart] can be found under naga [to
touch] and lev [heart], as well as by typing any of the
forms or inflections nag'ah le-libi [(she) touched my heart], nog'im
le-libchem [(they) touch your hearts], yig'u le-libah [(they)
will touch her heart], etc.
Additional features
Melingo is an Israeli subsidiary of Encyclopaedia
Britannica Inc, located in Tel Aviv. With 13 years of R&D behind it, it
is especially focused on the highly complex objective of building Natural
Language tools for the sister Semitic languages of Arabic and Hebrew.
Melingo’s tools are incorporated in a variety of technologies, including
leading enterprise and web search engines worldwide, data mining and
extraction, automatic speech applications and sophisticated computerized
dictionaries.
K Dictionaries Ltd |
