8. INFORMATION GROUP
1. STATUS FIELDS
To the left of the Information bars in the centre of the OVERVIEW layout (Overview centre: see Fig. 7.1) are two status fields, one for ‘Meaning’ and the other for ‘Transcription’. These fields are where comments can be made about the content of the record, or the way it was written.
Fig. 8.1 Status fields and information bars
MEANING STATUS (magenta)
The magenta ‘Meaning status' field is used to indicate the level of accuracy or certainty about a record. Typical entries in this field are ‘doubtful‘ ,’error [?]’, 'speculative' and even 'wild guess'. The ‘Meaning status’ field is often, but not always, used in conjunction with the cream ‘Comment’ information bar alongside, where the reason for the entry may be given. For example, if an ‘English JSM’ translation offered is uncertain, the ‘Comment’ bar might show ‘JS SPECULATIVE TRANSLATION’.
The light brown 'Transcription status' field is used to indicate the level of certainty about the interpretation of how a record was written down. Three typical entries from the ALLSYD database are:
“Briggu-Brigga”: COULD BE ‘Briggee-Brigga’
‘kannerabool’ PROB. AUTHOR ERROR FOR ‘kamerabul’—OCCURS 3 TIMES IN LANG LIST.
“Bur-boga”: THIS MIGHT HAVE BEEN bura-ba-ga RATHER THAN bur-ba-ga, GIVEN OTHER bura- WORDS FOR ‘rise’
Below is an entry showing ‘DOUBTFUL’ in the Transcription status field together with a comment in the long yellow ‘Transcription comment’ bar alongside it:
TRANSCRIPTION STATUS (light brown)
Fig. 8.2 In use are all three fields querying a transcription: at the top, ‘transcription status’ (light brown) and ‘transcription comment’ (yellow); and below, ‘doubtful transcription’ (dark blue)
Whether the transcription comment is actually appropriate concerning ‘large’ or ‘laugh’ can be considered in relation to the other records shown in Fig. 8.2.
CAPITAL LETTERS
Capital letters are often used in the ‘Comment’ fields to indicate that the text in capitals is commentary (by the Developer). Sometimes a comment might have a date after it, to show the progression of thinking on a particular topic.
Fig. 8.3 Comment in capitals
2. DOUBTFUL FIELDS
Allied to the ‘status’ fields are two ‘doubtful’ fields, both very narrow and used only within a record in the ‘records and analysis rows section’ of the OVERVIEW layout (see Fig.2.2). Again, one is concerned with meaning and the other with transcription. They are the red ‘Doubtful meaning’ field, located among the Translation fields (between English JSM and concept: see Fig. 3.16) and the dark blue ‘Doubtful transcription’ field, located among the Word fields (between Australian and respelt: see Fig. 3.5). Each is just wide enough to hold one of the letters 's' (speculative), 'g' (guess) or 'd' (doubtful). There is little difference between these three codes; any entry at all in the two narrow ‘doubtful’ fields is there to alert the user not to rely too greatly on what is presented.
Fig. 8.4 Records from the ALLSYD database where both dark blue and red ‘doubtful’ fields have entries. In some records the cream ‘Comment’ field at the far right is also used
3. INFORMATION BARS
COMMENT (cream)
The cream ‘Comment’ bar, as dealt with just above, is the place where any kind of comment or observation about the content of a record might be entered. It is not unusual for there to be uncertainty about a record, and the ‘Comment’ bar is where the progression of thinking about the status of a record is shown, by dated comments.
COMMENT TRANSCRIPTION (bright yellow)
The bright yellow ‘Comment transcription’ bar at the bottom of the set of four information bars is likewise the place to enter any observations about the way a record has been written down.
MEANING CLUE (green)
Information about what a record might really mean is often given in the green ‘Meaning clue’ bar, sometimes including examples from other Bayala databases. The fact that space in this field was limited, and the information contained therein perhaps relevant to more than a single record, led to the development of the elaboration bars, which enabled more extensive examples to be given that would additionally be available in all the different Bayala databases.
The Meaning clue bar is also where the summary lines end up. (It could be argued that it would be more straightforward for the summary lines to go the Meaning clue bar directly. But if this were done the Filemaker Pro database program would automatically delete any meaning explanations that had previously been put there. As a result it was considered better to transfer the summary lines through the ‘Word for word JS’ bar, copying them from there by hand when any existing information in the Meaning clue bar needed to be preserved.)
WORD FOR WORD JS (pale blue)
The pale blue ‘Word for word JS’ (wd/wd) bar began as a word-for-word, sometimes even word-for-syllable, translation field for an entry to explain its component parts. As the databases developed, this field was seen to be more useful as a stepping stone in the creation of summary lines.
The wd/wd information bar still serves its original function in the case of sentences and phrases.
JS IDIOMATIC / ANALYSIS GRAMMATICAL / LITERAL
As a need was still perceived for explaining the construction of records the following fields were developed and sporadically used in some of the databases:
Fig. 8.5 Occasionally used analysis fields
These fields too have at times been used for other temporary purposes.
3. SUMMARY LINES
Here are some records for water:
Fig. 8.6 Some records for ‘water’ from the ALLSYD and SOUTH databases
All the Sydney language words are respelt as badu, and all those from the SOUTH database respelt at nadyung. Although not much separates these language groups other than Botany Bay and the Georges River, and the Great Dividing Range, the words for ‘water’ are very different.
The records show how differently the two words could be spelt by the original recorders.
It is often useful to have a summary of a record, to show who made the record and where it can be found again. This is done through summary lines, and examples of such lines for the first of each of the records in Fig. 8.6 are given below:
“ba`rdo” badu “water” water Fulton AONSW [:254:1] [Syd] [NSW]
“nājūng” nadyung “Fresh water” water Everitt, Mary: Folder/Doc Afa [:[83]:20] [Gga] [nsw]
These summary lines can be more informatively presented in a table.
Fig. 8.7 Making a table
This is achieved:
—by copying the above summary lines and pasting them into the TextEdit application available on every Macintosh computer.
—Then under the Format menu selecting ‘Make Rich Text’.
—Then under the Edit menu, Select All, or simply using the keys ⌘A, which does the same thing, selecting everything.
—Then under the Format menu again, choosing the last item, Table.
If everything has been done correctly, a table as in Fig. 8.7 will result.
Such a table can be further and significantly enhanced by altering the type size and style, varying the column widths, adding colours, to match as far as possible those used in the database:
Fig. 8.8 Adjusting the table, with colours, type styles and headings
HOW THE SUMMARY LINES WORK
Summary lines are operated by a ‘calculation field’ constructed to produce them, and then by scripts that move the ‘line’ first to the pale blue ‘Word for word JS’ field ( by the key combination ⌘3) and then to the green 'Meaning Clue' field directly above it (by ⌘1). How this is done is described in 13.2 Technical Digression.