Digitised and Born-Digital in One Application: Dutch Historical Dictionaries Online

Introduction by OpenMethods Editor (Delphine Montoliu): This post highlights the methodological process through the years of the digitization of four Dutch Historical dictionaries.

Dutch historical language has been described in four separate comprehensive dictionaries: the Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal (WNT, Dictionary of the Dutch Language, 1500-1976) the Middelnederlandsch Woordenboek (MNW, Dictionary of Middle Dutch, ~1250 – 1550), the Vroegmiddelnederlands Woordenboek (VMNW, Dictionary of Early Middle Dutch, 1200-1300). and the Oudnederlands Woordenboek (‘ONW’, Dictionary of Old Dutch, ca. 500–1200). Both WNT and MNW were paper dictionaries, that were digitised by keying and made available on CD-ROM. ONW and VMNW were born digitial dictionaries. To have a comprehensive view of the Dutch language, it was decided to put the four dictionaries online in one portal. Making it possible for users to query one ore more dictionaries simultaneously was a logical step to take because these dictionaries complement each other. The challenge was not only to give the user optimal access to the dictionary information, but also to do so without compromising the uniqueness of each individual dictionary.

 

Data model: encoding and enrichment

 

The first step was to define the underlying data model for the dictionaries in the portal.

Original publication date: 28/03/2016.

Source: Digitised and Born-Digital in One Application: Dutch Historical Dictionaries Online – DigiLex