Flerspråkig lexikografi och obesläktade språk – erfarenheter från finska Islex

Abstract

The aim of the study is to explore some of the lexicographic problems editors encounter when they work on bilingual (or multilingual) dic-tionaries between unrelated languages such as Icelandic and Finnish. The problems that are used as examples are drawn from the Finnish version of the Icelandic-Scandinavian webdictionary Islex. In the article, we show how structural differences between the Scandinavian languages and Finnish call for special solutions in the Finnish edition. A special focus is on expression of ownership, problems that arise when lexical items are used without a context, and negations.