|
The Handwoordeboek van die Afrikaanse Taal (the HAT) is the best known explanatory dictionary for the Afrikaans language. It is generally regarded as authoritative. Compared to the ''Woordeboek van die Afrikaanse Taal'' (the ''WAT'') it is a shorter Afrikaans explanatory dictionary in a single volume. The latest edition of the HAT, the sixth, was published in 2015, 50 years after the first edition of 1965. HAT6 comprises 1 636 pages. ==History== Understanding the history of the ''HAT'' requires cognisance of the relationship between the ''HAT'' and the ''Woordeboek van die Afrikaanse Taal'' (the ''WAT''), initially known as ''Die Afrikaanse Woordeboek''. During the 1920s earnest discussions were devoted to the compilation of an Afrikaans dictionary and in March 1926 the erstwhile Nasionale Boekhandel and the government of the day agreed to the publication of a monolingual explanatory dictionary with an extent similar to that of the Dutch ''Van Dale'' (a single-volume work) at the time. J.J. Smith, professor of Afrikaans at the University of Stellenbosch, would be the editor, and the aim was to complete the work within three years. With hindsight the time allocated to this task was completely unrealistic, but it does show with what urgency it was regarded. When the dictionary was not completed in the proposed time, the University of Stellenbosch took over Nasionale Boekhandel’s part of the contract, setting an (equally unrealistic) target of publishing the dictionary within five years. After about 20 years Prof. Smith’s health failed him. He took leave but did not resume his work on the dictionary. He was succeeded in 1947 as chief editor by Dr. P.C. Schoonees, a school principal from Vryheid. In the meantime the goal of the ''WAT'' had shifted quite drastically. A commission of inquiry recommended that a board of control be established. This placed the ''WAT'' undertaking on firmer footing. The secretary of education would serve as chairperson and the rector of the University of Stellenbosch as administrator. Hereafter the goal was no longer to compile a desk dictionary, but a comprehensive work that would record and explain the “complete” Afrikaans vocabulary, such as the ''OED'' (''The Oxford English Dictionary'') for English and the ''WNT'' (''Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal'') for Dutch. Such a work could certainly not be completed in five years’ time. Under Schoonees’s guidance the first part of the dictionary (A—C) was published in 1951, the second part (D—F) in 1955 and the third part (G) in 1957. It was now clear that dictionary could progress, but at the same it was equally clear that in spite of a sizeable expansion of the editorial team it would prove impossible to complete such a comprehensive work within a couple of years. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Handwoordeboek van die Afrikaanse Taal」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|