Can anyone inform me as to how I go about getting my hands on the latest copy of "La Plena Ilustrita Vortaro de Esperanto" (The Complete Illustrated Dictionary of Esperanto). I dont mind paying etc, just don't know where to go to get it. On some threads I have seen others using the term "NPIV", is this refering to the same book? Also could someone please advise if this book is considered the last word (pardon the pun) in regards to esperanto lexography etc?

Tplanahath:On some threads I have seen others using the term "NPIV", is this refering to the same book?

Yes - more exactly, the latest copy is NPIV 2005. (NPIV 2002 is available as a downloadable pdf somewhere on the Internet.)

Tplanahath:Also could someone please advise if this book is considered the last word (pardon the pun) in regards to esperanto lexography etc?

Some people may consider it the last word but I wouldn't personally agree.

It is a well-respected dictionary but just because you find a certain word in it, with a certain definition, doesn't mean you should go around using that word. A member of the Academy of Esperanto once referred to it as "a sort of bin into which you throw everything - right, wrong, fit to be used or not". It contains *all* Esperanto words that its lexicographers could find, including some that are considered "evidindaj" (preferably avoided). These words aren't always marked as such. Some of PIV's definitions are strangely out of step with general Esperanto use, and with definitions found in earlier Esperanto dictionaries.

Older editions of PIV had some strange instances of Franco-centric definitions. For instance, Vieno was defined as (1) a river in France, (2) a city in France, (3) capital of Austria (in that order!).

Many of those problems have been fixed in the editions published in the last 10 or 15 years.

But you still have to be careful using PIV. Learn what the symbols mean and use them to guide your word choices (the Hebrew letter Alef, for example, isn't obviously related to poetry, but indicates that a word is poetic, so if you're not writing poetry you probably shouldn't use it). Don't assume that a word is official or recommended just because it's in PIV (though official words should be marked as such).

I don't have a copy of PIV, and most Esperantists don't have a copy. You can reach an extremely high level of Esperanto without PIV. But someone who wanted to write a text with a lot of highly specialized vocabulary would probably need PIV, which contains scientific plant names and other technical terms that you probably wouldn't find elsewhere.

For instance, Vieno was defined as (1) a river in France, (2) a city in France, (3) capital of Austria (in that order!).

Since the 2002 edition, the order is just the opposite.

You can order it there: http://www.esperanto.be/cgi-bin/mal/Web_store/we...

There is a project to provide PIV on the web:

http://vortaro.net/

cFlat7:There is a project to provide PIV on the web

It looks like a scam to me: as the newest edition of PIV was undoubtely created by computer, they could convert their data into usable state in a month at most, but they are asking for donations and showing nothing for more than year already.

erinja:I don't have a copy of PIV, and most Esperantists don't have a copy. You can reach an extremely high level of Esperanto without PIV. But someone who wanted to write a text with a lot of highly specialized vocabulary would probably need PIV, which contains scientific plant names and other technical terms that you probably wouldn't find elsewhere.

So, which dictionary or dictionaries would you recommend?

lingvokapablo:

erinja:I don't have a copy of PIV, and most Esperantists don't have a copy. You can reach an extremely high level of Esperanto without PIV. But someone who wanted to write a text with a lot of highly specialized vocabulary would probably need PIV, which contains scientific plant names and other technical terms that you probably wouldn't find elsewhere.

So, which dictionary or dictionaries would you recommend?

I have the PV (Plena Vortaro), which was the authoritative dictionary before PIV came around. It is much, much smaller and has no new editions, so it lacks modern vocabulary. But it is much easier to work with, it's less like having an encyclopedia on your desk, for the normal Esperantist who doesn't need to do anything complicated.

However, I seldom pull out my paper copy anymore. I mostly use online dictionaries; reta-vortaro.de is an excellent monolingual dictionary mostly based on PV. lernu's current Eo-Eo dictionary is also based on PV, I believe, with some additions. For bilingual definitions I use Wells' English-Esperanto-English dictionary, which is excellent.

The online PIV will likely be integrated somehow into the redesigned lernu!, which will launch early next year. I'm not sure when the free-standing online PIV will launch; hopefully it will be sometime this year, at least in beta version, and hopefully well before the launch of the new lernu. The website says that it depends somewhat on PIV's editors, who are updating some of the content prior to the launch. I happen to know that digitization of PIV has gone agonizingly slowly because the process has required a lot of human intervention (rather than completely automated processing). It's an unfortunate result of the strange and inconsistent formatting of the original source files. Different for every letter of the alphabet, if I remember correctly.

I have the PIV 2005 (see attached photo) and have found it extremely useful, especially in working on the ESPDIC (Esperanto-English Dictionary) project. In addition to being very comprehensive, it also has lots of usage examples, which is something you won't find in many other dictionaries.

That said, I don't think it's something that the average student or speaker of Esperanto really needs. I also have the Plena Vortaro de Esperanto kun Suplemento (essentially the PIV's little brother) and think it would make an excellent dictionary for the casual Esperantist. Unfortunately, I believe it's been out of print for several decades now. The PIV 2005 is usually available from the retbutiko of Esperanto USA : the cheapest option if you're in the United States.

http://esperanto-usa.org/retbutiko/index.php?mai...

If you're looking for a general-purpose dictionary, Butler's Esperanto-English Dictionary is excellent but also out of print. The best (and easiest) choice would be the new Wells dictionary. I wrote a review comparing the old and new Wells dictionaries here

http://esperanto-usa.org/en/content/old-wells-vs...

Hope some of that helps. Although people can (and will) debate endlessly about various aspects of the PIV, I'm just glad that an Espearnto dictionary of its size and depth exists at all.

Amike,

Paul

P.S. And if you need a large downloadable Esperanto-English dictionary, try ESPDIC :

http://www.denisowski.org/Esperanto/ESPDIC/espdi...

I'm planning a new release in the next month that should take the total number of entries from ~32,000 to well above 40,000.

Here's a photo of the Plena Vortaro de Esperanto kun Suplemento -- essentially a smaller version of the PIV. Out of print, but definitely something to keep an eye out for.