Phd in CIVILIZATIONS OF ASIA AND AFRICA

Research: Persian lexicography and digital resources: compiling an implementable Italian-Persian digital dictionary

Melissa Fedi, curriculum Studi arabi, iranici e islamici, 38° ciclo

Research project:
Compiling of an implementable Italian-Persian digital dictionary starting from the terms belonging to the lessico di base drawn up by Tullio De Mauro.
Due to the inadequacy of existing Italian-Persian dictionaries, this research project aims at producing an Italian-Persian digital dictionary that is compiled according to scientific lexicographic criteria.
This research project consists of two sections:
A) a short theoretical introduction that includes
- establishing a lexicographic methodology suited to the specific case of the Persian language, based on:
1. handbooks of lexicography
2. essays on Persian lexicography
3. introductions to Persian bilingual dictionaries
- an outline about the history of Persian lexicography
B) collecting and processing of linguistic data, that is the core activity of the project
Data will be provided by two sources:
• Italian entries will be taken from the Nuovo vocabolario di base della lingua italiana by T. De Mauro, 1980 (revised in 2016; referred to as VdB): about 7000 words: a vocabulary whose meaning and use all of us knows because of learning it at school or because of its being tightly related to the context of the everyday life
• translation equivalents will be firstly selected from the Vocabolario persiano-italiano by A. Coletti and H. Gruenbaum, Nuova edizione rivista e aggiornata ed. by P. Orsatti, 2021, using IT tools (Python) which mark and extract text strings; translation equivalents will be then double-checked consulting monolingual Persian dictionaries, frequency dictionaries of Persian and Persian mother-tongue informants
In order to produce an Italian-Persian digital dictionary, the obtained linguistic data will be processed and entered into a database system developed through a relational database management system (MySQL)
-A complex relational database will be developed, including the following fields:
• entry
• main translation
• additional translations
• phraseology
-A Sapienza-related web page will be built to release online the Italian-Persian digital dictionary
-Being the Italian-Persian digital dictionary conceived as implementable, the web page will serve both as a system that can be queried by users and as a data entry form; it will be implemented by students of Persian for their university internship; it will be extend adding the words of the vocabolario comune and the technical terms.

November 2022 – today: PhD Student in Civiltà dell’Asia e dell’Africa at Istituto Italiano di Studi Orientali (ISO) – Sapienza Università di Roma

Title of the project:
Persian lexicography and digital resources: compiling an implementable Italian-Persian digital dictionary

Supervisor: Mario Casari, Sapienza Università di Roma; co-supervisor: Daniela Meneghini, Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia

October 2019 – September 2022 Master’s Degree in Persian Language and Literature
October 2015 – September 2018 Bachelor’s Degree in Arabic Language and Literature