top of page
Sydney Aboriginal languages - Bayala databases

11.1 FURTHER LAYOUTS

​

11.1 PRINCIPAL LAYOUTS

The database description to this point has been based on the OVERVIEW layout. Each database has several other layouts, of which the principal ones are:

​

—LINKS

—NARROW

—WIDER

​

The LINKS layout is nearly uniform in presentation across the various databases; the others may vary in certain particulars.

​
LINKS LAYOUT

The Links layout has a similar format in all the language databases but not identical content. Its purpose is to reveal links a word might have in other areas and in other languages.

At the time of compiling the present description of the Bayala Databases, the databases listed in the left column in the table below had links to those shown in the narrow columns. They could have all linked to all, but to do so would have made the LINKS layout unnecessary large, so a selection was made in each case.

The databases are linked through two fields: No Hyphens (NoH: brown) and ENGLISH JSM (JSM: yellow).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

​

The illustration below is a detail of the Links layout for the Allsyd database. It is finding links across the other databases for the word ‘mugu’. The JSM column on the right reveals that it has meanings other than the Sydney usage ‘hatchet’:

​

 

Aboriginal Languages of Australia - Bayala Database - Further Layouts

Fig.11.1 ALLSYD LINKS (part): NoH link field showing ‘mugu’ in other databases (North, South ...)

 

 

The illustration is of the top left-hand corner only of the full LINKS layout shown below:

Aboriginal Languages of Australia - Bayala Database - Further Layouts

Fig. 11.2 The full LINKS layout for the ALLSYD database

 

​

In the Sydney language, ‘mugu’ is the word for ‘hatchet’. This LINKS layout, focussed on the indigenous word, enables the user to find out what ‘mugu’ might mean in other languages.

And if the Sydney word for ‘hatchet’ is ‘mugu’, what is ‘hatchet’ in other languages? The right-hand portion of the following English-focussed LINKS layout gives the answers, as the detail below reveals:

Aboriginal Languages of Australia - Bayala Database - Further Layouts

Fig. 11.3 ALLSYD LINKS (part): JSM link field showing ‘hatchet’ in other databases (North, South ...)

 

​

While ‘mugu’ was the common feature in the previous portion of the layout, here it is ‘hatchet’, in the yellow JSM column at the far right.

Displayed are only five examples for each of the language databases on view. Scroll bars enable all the other examples for each database to be viewed.

NARROW layout

 

The NARROW layout is a single-line layout, in which the columns have been made narrow to enable much information to be displayed at a single viewing. The NARROW layout was one of the early developments of the BAYALA databases and it has largely been superseded by the OVERVIEW layout. However, should users visit it, it may contain some features of interest.

 

 

Language occurrence fields bar:

Aboriginal Languages of Australia - Bayala Database - Further Layouts

Fig. 11.4 Language occurrence check boxes (shades of blue)

 

 

 

In the above illustration, the fourth record, “Tuggarah” in the Australian (grey) column is being examined. The languages this word occurs in ar check in the row of boxes marked at the top, ‘x’ indicating a match, and ‘cl’ indicating not an exact match but ‘close’.

Only a few of the records have been subjected to such a detailed analysis. To find which have been so treated, is simply done by undertaking a search (command-F), and placing an asterisk in any of the language boxes and hitting ‘return’.

Search engine.

Aboriginal Languages of Australia - Bayala Database - Further Layouts

Fig. 11.5 An NoH, ReS, Aus and JSM search engine

 

 

The search engine responds when a word, typed in one of the central searcher fields, exactly matches one of the words in one or more of the fields in the database. The successful search in the illustration was for ‘dugara’ (not ‘dagara’), and yielded the two examples shown, with an indication that there were more, as the scroll bar is grey.

On the left there is room for only two responses for  searches for Aus, ReS and NoH. The right-hand side of the search engine is for JSM responses, fir which five line are provided. The JSM search field is below those five lines, the yellow field, marked ‘COAST LOOKUP JSM’ This early search-engine facility was superseded by the greater searching capability in the OVERVIEW layout.

​

WIDER layout

The WIDER layout is another single-line presentation. It features a more restricted collection of fields, though several are much wider than in other layouts in order to reveal more of their content.

bottom of page