Multilingual Thesaurus and Interoperability

Abstract

This paper briefly describes a pilot project to design and develop a multilingual- English and eight other languages of India – thesaurus for ‘Education’. The thesaurus is derived from the bilingual (English-Kannada) Colon Classification (CC), (Ed. 7 revised). The CC number and Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) number are metadata in the thesaurus structure. The thesaurus for each language is separately built using Greenstone Digital Library software. The descriptors are hyperlinked. Descriptor terms, terms in the Scope Note (text), CC and DDC numbers are indexed. Two or more of the thesauri can be searched simultanseously. The advantages of using class number in the search and retrieval are mentioned. Other issues discussed include interoperability as key to effective interlinking among knowledge organising tools (KOTs) and in integrating two or more KOTs, and issues and problems in building multilingual thesaurus (thesauri) with particular reference to the cultural frames and languages of India.

http://dx.doi.org/10.14429/djlit.33.4883