2. THE BIG PICTURE
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Each database has a number of screens, or layouts, which enable the information to be looked at in different ways. There are two principal layouts:
—OVERVIEW
—LINKS
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1. OVERVIEW LAYOUT (links within the database)
The aim of the OVERVIEW layout is to present the User with as much information as possible on the one screen without needing to look elsewhere.
Fig. 2.1. The OVERVIEW layout of the ALLSYD database, for na: 'see’
While it appears confusing at first sight, it is in fact not much different from learning your way around a house. Each section is like a room with certain characteristics, as will be shown next.
The main part of this layout is the lower-third section. These are the database entries or records, and there are over 12 000 in the ALLSYD database, only a few being on view at any time. In Fig. 2.1 the “Naabaoú” record mentioned in Fig. 0.4 occurs in this section. It is the fourth word in the grey column to the lower left, with “Naabámi” immediately following it.
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Fig. 2.2. Analysis of the OVERVIEW screen in the databases
There are four ‘search’ portals. They occupy the basically vacant area in the centre of the screen in Fig. 2.1. They are vacant in Fig. 2.1 as nothing is being searched for in this view.
Above them are the ‘occurrences’ portals, brown to the left, and yellow to the right. In this view, on the left, all the occurrences of na (brown) in the database are shown; and on the right all occurrences in this database of ‘see’ (yellow) are presented.
At the top of the screen are the ‘elaboration bars’. Two of them in Fig. 2.1 have entries in the narrow column on the left, with a corresponding entry on the right of which only the top line can be seen. When this line is clicked, information about the entry is revealed.
OVERVIEW CENTRE
Near the centre of the screen, below the occurrences portals but above the search portals, are three smaller areas:
—Language info (area of the country, language name, and abbreviation)
—Extras (scientific name, informant, part of speech, function)
—Information bars (mainly comments on meaning, on transcription, and some clues and analysis).​
2. LINKS LAYOUT (links to other databases)
The aim of the LINKS layout is to reveal how a word shows up in other languages:
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Fig. 2.3 The LINKS layout for badu: 'water’: shows words for ‘water’ from Darwin to Hobart, Cairns to Albany
The analysis of the above screen:
Fig. 2.4 Analysis of the LINKS screen in the databases
On the left-hand (brown) side are revealed all the times the word badu occurs in the various databases shown. While some mean ‘water’, many do not.
On the right-hand (yellow) side, all the different words for ‘water’ in the languages covered by the databases appear.
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Barely noticeable in Fig. 2.4 but plain enough in reality are the thin vertical scroll bars at the right-hand edges of all the brown and yellow panels. When these are shaded grey, it indicates there are more records than are displayed. The additional records can be seen by sliding the scroll box (at the top of each scroll bar) down.
In Fig. 2.3 the grey areas in the scroll bars to the right of both the left- and right-hand sides indicate there are far more results than the few currently displayed. In instants the User can discover that common Nyungar words for water are gab, gabi, gaba; in Tasmania, li, ligana, lina; in Queensland, gumu, gung; in South Australia, aba, gabi, gawa as well as many others. They are all there for finding, without leaving the screen, all recorded with the source of each record along with page and line number.
The LINKS layout is dealt with in more detail in 10. Database Layouts.
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3. ‘COASTAL’ AND ‘INLAND’ COMBINED DATABASES
In the early days of development of the Bayala databases, as they were being compiled and as their range extended, an idea formed of how useful it would be if the User were able to look at words in the other databases when looking at a word in, say, the ALLSYD database. For example, in the Sydney language there are no convincingly clear words for ‘tree’, or ‘sea’. It would be helpful to be able to search the other databases featuring nearby languages for specific words for ‘tree’ and ‘sea’. Something might pop up perhaps revealing unnoticed words really meaning ‘tree’ and ‘sea’ in the Sydney language (BB) records. From this idea first came the notion of combining all the coastal databases (ALLSYD, NORTH, SOUTH) for look-up purposes into the one combined COASTAL file, and to do likewise for languages in the NSW interior by combining the WIRADHURI, KAMILAROI and MURUWARI databases into a single INLAND file.
This was just the beginning. When the relational capability of the database became available, it became possible to take searching far and wide a stage further. It became possible to look into other databases without leaving the one being examined, by peeking through ‘portals’. Portals are the various segments featured above in Figs. 2.3 and 2.4.
Here is an example of the value of this capability, and an illustration of how to apply it.
Fig. 2.5 "P. Nyímüng candle Mr D." nyimang CANDLE, Mr D. "Put out the candle, Mr D." pinch CANDLE, Mr D. Dawes (b) [b:33:17] [BB]
Dawes captured the word nyimang, which he wrote meant ‘put out’, i.e. extinguish. But the LINKS layout provided no matches in any of the databases for either nyimang or ‘put out’ (or ‘extinguish’).
However, given that the suffix -ng in the Sydney language often converts a word to a noun, a search was made for nyima on the LINKS layout, omitting this suffix. This at once produced results in the COASTAL and INLAND panels on the LINKS layout, and there was another in the ANTSOC panel. It was soon noticed that the meanings that appeared were not ‘put out’ or ‘extinguish’ but ‘pinch’. And it did not take much longer to realise that what the LINKS screen was revealing was that words beginning with nima- or similar, meaning ‘pinch’, were to be found far beyond NSW:
Fig. 2.6 Results for nyima as revealed by the LINKS layout
From these results the realisation came that nyimang did not mean ‘put out’ or ‘extinguish’ but ‘pinch’, which is indeed one way to put out a candle.
Fig. 2.7 ‘Pinch’, placed in the yellow EngJSM field at the very top, reveals words similar to nyima (ngina, ngyima, nima etc.) in various languages
Fig. 2.7 illustrates the computer’s power to search (here, for the word ‘pinch’). It was for this reason that the ‘English JS Main’ (Eng JSM) column was introduced, in which a simplest English translation was entered as a standardised equivalent of recorders’ variable English renderings of a basic idea. Examples of this simplification:
Fig. 2.8 Simplified translations in the right-hand column
For more on this see JMS Coined Words.
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In the same spirit of simplification, standardised respellings of the original Australian words were added for each entry, suggested by the multiplicity of spellings for a word, as in the case of the Sydney language word for ‘good’, recorded in at least 26 ways:
bidgeree, Bodgeree, Boó-gÄ•-rée, Boo´-jerry, bood-jer-re, bood-yer-re, Bood-yêr-rê, Boodgeree, boodgeri, Boodjeri, boojery, Bougeree, budgeri, budjeri, budjerry, budjery, Búdyeri, Buggerey, buggery, Boó-jÄ•-ree, Bùd-yee-ree, bud-ye-ree, butyiri
This example is dealt with in more detail in 12.3 Related Databases.
Fig. 2.7 also shows how complex words such as:
"nimma-Ä¡idyillinga" nima-ngi-dyili-nga "to pinch one's-self" pinch-self Günther (Fraser) [:101:46.2] [Wira] [NSW]
are respelt and analysed into the subsidiary blue columns.​