My expectation is that https://www.logos.com/product/15716/dictionary-of-latin-forms contains every word that the late William Whitaker's WORDS program has. Is that the intention? I had always believed that it was, but now I find that "moderaris" is in both the original WORDS and the oldest online version (https://archives.nd.edu/words.html), but not in the Faithlife resource.
I do not know whether I have been disappointed by a mistake or by an intentional limitation.
Not according to its preface?
Not according to its preface? "contains the WORDS output for over 300,000 possible forms taken from important Latin texts in the Logos Library"
"contains the WORDS output for over 300,000 possible forms taken from important Latin texts in the Logos Library"
So much for the Missale Romanum.
Kyle, any chance that this very important dictionary resource could be improved?
I'll look into. I might not have an answer quickly.Apparently it was a resource created by Logos based on digital data available to us in 2011.
Apparently it was a resource created by Logos based on digital data available to us in 2011.
That makes sense.
I highly doubt that the resource was created by manually inputting 300k words into WORDS one at a time. My best guess would be that Logos staff created a list of 300k words using a subset of the Latin resources that existed then and then fed that list into WORDS (after setting WORDS to display the desired data for each result), likely batching at some level. I'm not sure what the cap is for the number of words that WORDS can parse one at a time.
Provided my conjectures are accurate, the best way to improve the existing resource may be to compile a (much longer) list of Latin words from Faithlife's (now much larger) collection of materials and feed them through WORDS in bulk.
At minimum, you would want your combined word list to include everything it already has, plus every term from all of Faithlife's other Latin dictionaries (glossaries, lexicons), every word from Latin editions of Catholic magisterial/papal documents and the works of Aquinas, Latin Bibles, the monastic rules, the (Latin volumes of) Patrologia Graeca, the Loeb volumes... really, probably everything Faithlife's coded as Latin outside of Perseus, when it comes down to it.
If WORDS can take large enough batches of words all in one go, it shouldn't take too long to do, I think. I imagine the Logos-related tagging and formatting of the present edition was done using relatively straightforward scripts that you probably still have on file, or could rebuild without too much difficulty.
Delving into the technical details of things like how the late William Whitaker put together his source files may also yield better solutions.
I'll look into. I might not have an answer quickly.
That's OK.
As it is right now, the dictionary is quite good. But it could be (so much) better...
Sure hope 'Latin Forms' can deliver, when Enchiridion Patristicum ships.
https://www.logos.com/product/33107/enchiridion-patristicum
