Nice... what platform is this on?

Thanks! This is JavaFX. I decided on that for now because I'm very familiar with Java already, and it also seems not to hard to make a mobile version with this.

+Paul Strack : I'm at a bit of a loss right now figuring out how you arrive at displaying the choice of Glosses as seen on eldamo.org - Eldamo : Sindarin : Edhel :

“Elf” ✧ PE17/045.0905; SA/edhel.001; WJ/377.3002; WJI
“Elven” ✧ PM/346.4001-1 (Eðel)

There are many Ref elements under this Word element


but how do you decide to display those particular two?
The logic I figured out was something like this:

> display the Gloss and Source attributes of the child Ref elements that:-
a) do have a Gloss attribute, and
b) refer to the same Form (ie, Edhel) as the parent Word Element

However, on the Eldamo page there is one that has Eðel as form ... how do you match that on Edhel?

There must be some sort of constraint, or otherwise I would think that Ref elements such as

would also show up. But they don't.

Is it maybe some sort of mapping happening, of the ð character on dh?
And if so, is there more like that?

Roman mentioned that Hiswelokë used a "normalised" form that could be used to match things like this; I can imagine that it might be interesting to have something like that. As Roman describes it:

This is also where the scholars/poets distinction comes in. Scholars will want Tolkien's exact spelling, they know what it means and how to use it. Poets will want the normalised form, lest the texts they write become an inconsistent mess.

Ideally, it would be something that can be turned on and off at will.

Imagine a "Poet | Scholar" switch :)

+Lúthien Merilin The gloss section only shows glosses and sources for uninflected forms. The glosses and sources of inflected forms (e.g. plurals) appear in the inflected section.

The word entry (both its form and its glosses) are a normalization of the ref elements. As such, the collection of refs into words is necessarily subjective. They are simply my assertion that a set of references are all examples of different forms of the same word.

Essentially, the refs are the "scholarly" represents, and the word are the "poetic" (or popular) representation, with the caveat that all the words reflect my own biases about Tolkien's languages.

One final warning: while I generally strive to make the ref elements as objective as I can, they are also filtered through my own knowledge of Tolkien's languages. For example, the nature of some inflections are educated guesses on my part, since the exact inflection is not always explicit in the source material.

I've been working on the data model for a long time, and the level of rigor I've applied during data entry has not always been consistent. There are numerous cases where the ref entries are not a completely accurate representation of the source material. I am also certain there are numerous typos in the data model; I am constantly finding new ones every time I review the material.

I am hoping your project can help increase the number of reviewers and improve the quality of the data in the data model.

In fact, the page you referenced above has errors:

eldamo.org - Eldamo : Sindarin : Edhel

The deleted forms under the variations are actually inflected forms and thus should not appear in that section.

Hi +Paul Strack - thanks for your comments!
This is very helpful ... so, let me see if I've got this straight: for the Glosses section, I should accumulate the 'gloss' and 'source' fields for all elements under an entry that do not have any child or, looking at that particular entry, indeed any child elements at all ... I'll try that out.

Also thanks for pointing that out that the Entry (Word) elements is a normalisation of the ref element. This clarifies things a lot.

+Lúthien Tinúviel That is correct if you want to replicate how Eldamo renders the glosses.

However you don't have to (and indeed shouldn't) slavishly replicate how Eldamo renders the data. You could (for example) render all the glosses with an inflection notation where appropriate.

Glosses
Elf
Elves (plural)
The Elves (class-plural)
All Elves (class-plural)

Some of the rendering choices I made are because I am producing a downloadable web site with static HTML pages and I am trying to minimize page size. Since you are producing an application and not a web site, you don't have the same constraints as me.

+Paul Strack I try and replicate Eldamo's rendering for now because then I'm sure that that's linguistically correct.

It can (and will) be changed later, but we'd need to think about that more carefully. This is a bit of a haste job given the Omentielva's schedule ...

+Paul Strack regarding your comment that the Word entries can be seen as 'normalised' and the Ref entries as the 'scholarly resources' connected to that Entry ... how should I then interpret a Deriv or Cognate (etc) directly under an Entry element (there's quite a few of those as well)?

I'm trying to interpret the notion of a Derivation (Cognate, Inflection) of a normalised Entry. I don't have the data list at hand now (I'm on my way to work) ... but does that occur only when there are no other forms available than the one displayed with the Entry itself? (well, and that particular Derivation of course, or whatever it happens to be)

I'm glad that you mentioned this particular distinction! Of course I read that a Ref is connected to a Source element but, let's say, the semantics of it weren't yet clear to me. But now it starts to fall into place.

+Lúthien Merilin The derivs and cognates under words are "normalizations" as well in the sense that they are my proposals for relationships that are not necessarily explicit in Tolkien's work. Sometimes they are supported by evidence (refs) and sometimes not.

So, the ones directly under the words are different only in the sense that there is no evidence (as apparent in available source references) for them?

Maybe it sounds odd that I did not figure that out before ;) - I viewed the whole matter as an abstraction. Knowing this makes it much easier to understand.

Another update

https://youtu.be/UygPH7-8-PQ