Original Alphabets in BDB

[Harvey]

Several years ago, in a training session at Brandeis University, it was pointed out that the Logos version of BDB included transliteration of cognates that BDB published only in the original Arabic, Syriac or Ethiopic alphabets. Helen said at the time that this could easily be added to Accordance's version of BDB. Are there any plans to do this?

[Joel Brown]

I believe these are included in BDB Complete, but someone else more familiar can verify this for me.

[Λύχνις Δαν]

In the complete it's not in the text but mousing over the Arabic shows the transliteration in Instant Details. You cannot click and hold to get the pop up on the text to cut and paste from it but you can shift when moused-over and then the ID pane can be copied from and you can paste it. For the Ethiopic and Persian which are done as images in the text there is no transliteration available that I can see.

 

I might add I cannot read any of these languages at all in either translit. or their regular script, thus strictly I don't know if its transliteration or transcription properly called. Here's an example though :

 

16    † אֵ֫בֶה n. [m.] reed, papyrus (etymology uncertain; = Ar. أَبَاءٌ, As. abu DlW, AGl) אֳנִיּוֹת אֵבֶ֑ה Jb 9:26 (craft made of reeds, light & swift, Heliod.Aethiop. X, 460) = כְּלֵי־גֹמֶא Is 18:2.

 

The ID shows : ’aba’aon when mousing over أَبَاءٌ 

 

HTH

D

[Harvey]

The "instant detail" information is very crude: In the case of Arabic, for example, it does not distinguish in transliteration between ت and ط (both translitated "t"), or between د and ض (both transliterated "d"). In the case of Ethiopic, no transliteration is offered at all, evidently because Ethiopic is reproduced in the text as images, rather than as individual alphabetic characters. And even if the "instant detail" information were accurate, it is much more useful for it to be included in the text, as in Logos, so that it is included when I print a BDB entry for students. Logos has it significantly over Accordance in this case.