LITUANUS LITHUANIAN QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES   Volume 30, No.4 - Winter 1984 Editor of this issue: Jonas Zdanys ISSN 0024-5089 Copyright © 1984 LITUANUS Foundation, Inc.

Mokslinės ir techninės informacijos terminų žodynas — Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms

compiled by A. Trečiokaitė. 

Vilnius, The Supreme Board of Encyclopaedias, 1983. 228 p. 4000 copies. 2.20 rb.

Information on the title page indicates that this dictionary is a publication of The Lithuanian Research Institute for Scientific-Technical Information and Technical-Economic Analysis (Lietuvos Mokslinės-Techninės Informacijos ir Techninės-Ekonominės Analizės Mokslinio Tyrimo Institutas (LIMTI). The editorial board of dictionary consists of: J. Zujus (a responsible editor), K. Gavenis, Z. Kirklys, V. Stonienė, A. Trečiokaitė, L. Vladimirovas.

Over the years, the rapid progress of information science and the growth of scientific literature in this field has been reflected in an equally rapid quantitative and qualitative change in vocabulary. During this time, concepts in information science were more specifically stated, and interrelations between information science and related disciplines were more accurately drawn, thus facilitating a more clear definition of terms. In response to these recent developments and considering the importance of the work leading to the development, improvement, and standardization of terminology, the above mentioned institute (LIMTI) has taken up the publication of this dictionary of Lithuanian technical terms.

The principal tasks which this dictionary fulfills are manifold. It is to serve as an aid for translating texts on information theory and practice, to present the state-of-the-art of the system of terms in Information science, to promote their normalization and to provide the background material for the preparation of a more extended dictionary of this kind.

The dictionary comprises 1320 terms covering various areas of information theory and practice, as well as those of related disciplines.

The main part of the dictionary is an alphabetic list of terms (with synonyms) and their definitions in Lithuanian. Each term is accompanied by equivalent terms in the Russian and English languages. Each term appearing in the dictionary is assigned an entry number. Equivalent terms in Russian and English are cross-referenced to the same entry number.

Of the 1320 terms given in the dictionary, 640 are basic terms, and the remaining 676 terms are supplementary or explanatory terms. The latter are arranged topically following the appropriate basic term, e.g., 19. analysis, 19.1 information a., 19.2 a. of text, 12.2.1 grammatical a. (of text), 19.2.2 morphological a. (of text), 19.2.3 syntactical a. 19.2.4 statistical a., 19.3 content a.

From 642 basic terms about 440 are literally borrowed from the international vocabulary (mostly adapted from the English language or coined from an English root). It appears that lexicographers in the various republics of the Soviet Union are expected to emulate the Russian practice of Russification of international terminology. Yes, an additional notice on the verso of the title page indicates that this dictionary was examined by the Terminology group of the Institute of the Lithuanian Language and Literature of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences; yet there are a number of terms, particularly those coined from Russian transliterations of English words, that probably ought not be included in a dictionary of Lithuanian technical terms. For example: 86. "Bitas" (binary unit of information; a unit of information equal to the amount of information obtained by learning which of two equally likely events occurred), in Russian "Bit", in English "Bit, binary digit". 97. "Deskriptorius", in Russian "Deskriptor", in English "Descriptor" (not listed in Webster!). 110. "Displėjus", in Russian "Displey", in English "Display". 113.21 "Relevantus dokumentas", in Russian "Relevantnyj d.", in English "Relevant D.". 147. Entropija, in Russian "Entropya", in English "entropy" (Webster 1980 gives four definitions). 152. Failas, in Russian "Fail", in English "File". 158. Fleksografija, in Russian "Fleksografya", in English "Flexography". 160. Fondas, in Russian "Fond", in English

"Holdings, stock, collection, file". 175. Fonoteka, in Russian "Fonoteka", in English "Phonogram records library". 352. Konverteris, in Russian "Konverter", in English "Converter, re-recording device". 537. Sintaktika, in Russian "Sintaktika", in English "Syntactics". 564 Sistemotechnika, in Russian "Sistemotechnika", in English "System technics, system engineering". 636. Videomagnetofonas, in Russian "Videomagnetofon", in English "Videotape recorder, videophone".

Following the main part of the dictionary, there is a selected list of acronyms commonly used in Information Science. There are 22 Lithuanian, 327 Russian and 314 English acronyms. Each acronym is explained in Lithuanian. At the end of the volume there is a bibliography (226-228 p.) of sources used in the compilation of this dictionary.

In the preface, the editors indicate that the dictionary is partially based on the USSR standard list of terms, but that many terms are only a suggestion from the above mentioned Institute (LIMTI). Users of this dictionary are encouraged to submit comments and other suggestions. It appears that a large part of the terms listed in this dictionary is not yet stable in usage.

Finally, it seems that this dictionary is based on the "Dictionary of Informatics Terms" published in 1975 in Moscow by "The International Center of Scientific and Technical Information". 752 p. This dictionary has a total of 2235 terms in 14 languages (Russian, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Spanish, Macedonian, German, Polish, Rumanian, Serbo-Croatian, Slovak, Slovenian, Czech, English and French). A superficial and casual comparison of the Russian and English terms from the last dictionary with those in the Lithuanian dictionary reveals that, for the most part, the terms coincide. On the other hand, the 14 language dictionary is arranged according to a subject classification scheme which is not followed in the Lithuanian dictionary. The Lithuanian dictionary was printed by the offset technique, however the diacritical marks were entered by hand. It looks that this edition was prepared and issued only as a temporary publication.

JONAS DAINAUSKAS