06 Mar 2007

CLIWOC Multilingual Meteorological Dictionary 1750-1850
KNMI (Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute), De Bilt, Netherlands
Self-description: "CLIWOC Multilingual Meteorological Dictionary An English- Spanish- Dutch- French dictionary of wind force terms used by mariners from 1750-1850.
This dictionary [in PDF format, file size 684KB, compiled in 2003 by the CLIWOC (CLIWOC: A climatological database for the world's oceans 1750-1854 http://www.knmi.nl/cliwoc/index.htm) team, namely Ricardo Garc’a-Herrera, Luis Prieto, David Gallego, Emiliano Hernandez and Luis Gimeno Gunther Koennen and Frits Koek Dennis Wheeler and Clive Wilkinson Maria Del Rosario Prieto and Carlos Baez, and Scott Woodruff - ed.].] is the first attempt to express the wealth of archaic logbook wind force terms in a form that is comprehensible to the modern-day reader. [...] The key objective was to translate the archaic vocabulary of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century mariner into expressions directly comparable with the Beaufort Scale (see Appendix I). [... The dictionary] is based on over 15,000 logbook entries for wind force. [...]"
Site contents: Introduction, Acknowledgements, The Beaufort wind force and weather scales, An introduction to naval logbooks, The derivation of equivalence scales, Introduction to English terms, Dictionary of English terms, Introduction to Spanish terms, Dictionary of Spanish terms, Introduction to Dutch terms, Dictionary of Dutch terms, Introduction to French terms, Dictionary of French terms, Sea state descriptors in logbooks, Summary of wind force terms in Beaufort Scale order, References, List of general nautical dictionaries, Appendix I The Beaufort wind force and weather scales, Appendix II Alexander Dalrymple's wind force scale, Appendix III Translations of present day Beaufort wind force terms (in Dutch, French and Spanish), Appendix IV Sail plan and sail names of a typical ocean-going vessel of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
Extract: "KEY TO DICTIONARY ABBREVIATIONS BF: Beaufort Force [...] IU: infrequently used NDA: no definition available. This may be because the term refers to wind direction, .e.g. 'fair wind', rather than force, or because of uncertainty or imprecision regarding its point on the Beaufort wind force scale, e.g. 'baffling winds'. [....]
DICTIONARY OF SPANISH TERMS abonanzado:IU, BF 4 abonanzando:IU, BF 4 abonanzo: IU, BF 4 abrisado: IU, BF 2 afugado: IU, NDA. ahuracanado: IU, BF 12 alterados:IU, BF > 8 altivo:IU, BF 7 [....] vacilante:IU, BF 2 variable: NDA variando:IU, NDA variedad:IU, NDA ventolinas: BF 1 ventoso: NDA vivito:IU, BF 6 vivo:IU, BF 7 [...]"
URL http://www.knmi.nl/cliwoc/publications/hisklim5.pdf
The dictionary is also available from the web site of the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, UK http://www.nmm.ac.uk/upload/pdf/CLIWOC-dictionary.pdf
Internet Archive (www.archive.org) - [the site was not archived at the time of this abstract]
Link reported by: T. Matthew Ciolek (tmciolek--at--coombs.anu.edu.au)
* Resource type [news - documents - study - corporate info. - online guide]: Study
* Publisher [academic - business - government - library/museum - NGO - other]: Academic
* Scholarly usefulness [essential - v.useful - useful - interesting - marginal]: Useful
* External links to the resource [over 3,000 - under 3,000 - under 1,000 - under 300 - under 100 - under 30]: under 30