Swahili Lexicography: Modern Dictionaries and their Users

Modern lexicography is connected to using computers, corpora and various sophisticated tools. Large amounts of data are automatically analysed in different ways and contribute to writing better dictionaries. In recent years, the progress in data availability and analysis has been enormous. But there is still an aspect of the dictionary production process which remains partly unrecognised: whether users are satisfied with the dictionary products, and whether the products assist their needs in the best way possible.
This book is concerned with the Swahili language and its lexicography. It deals with modern methods used in present lexicography and their application to lesser-resourced languages. It presents some issues related to the principles and practice of Swahili lexicography followed by a study concerned with Swahili dictionary user research. The analysis is carried on Swahili-Polish dictionary log-files in order to reveal what users actually look up in the dictionary, what are their search strategies and why looking up does not always go well. The study is carried out with the intention of formulating insights for Bantu lexicography on crucial aspects such as lemma selection and lemmatisation strategies. It is also a study on the Polish dictionary user and her/his dictionary habits.