The Tools of the Trade

When working on language projects I like to work on paper. Computers are fine for writing text, but when you need space, and you're not sure where the next thing should go there is nothing like paper. I prefer to use wire-bound college-ruled notebooks. They stay reasonably neat and don't fall apart after a lot of use. The 5-subject size are big enough for making your own extensive dictionaries. The pens I use are pretty much determined by the paper. Until recently 'rolling-writer' and 'gel' ink pens made for nice, dark, readable text. But there has been a noticeable drop in the quality of the paper in brand of notebooks I've been buying. Bleed-through has gone from an occaisional problem with using both sides of the paper to one where there are sometimes marks on the next sheet. The older style ball-point pens like the Parker Jotters I used back in the late 1960's no doubt would work fine with the current paper. The ink in stick or throw-away ball points is a little feeble these days, but at least the Papermate brand pens I've been using lately are cheap and have a good supply of ink. Some brands of more expensive retractables have nicer ink, but run out of ink quickly.

Once you've chosen your paper and pens. The next thing to be concerned about is the alphbet you are going to use for your language. I say alphabet because other writing systems present problems for publishing unless you live in a country where a syllabary or writing with characters is the standard already. Using an alphabet like the Latin or Slavic will give you more possibility of using new letters borrowed from other languages. For my own language I use a modified form of the Icelandic alphabet. It has lot's of vowels and more consonants than are available on an English keyboard.

Doing preliminary work and even writing dictionaries in pen is fine, but it's very nice to be able to type on the computer once you start making texts. I don't know what kind of multi-language typing software is available at the moment. A few years ago the Transparent Language series of language learning software came with a program called Unitype Global Writer which allows you to type in scores of different languages including Chinese and Hindi. The program has a few bugs, but it still runs on PC's and I use it all the time.