Peer Review

Lexilogos

Material Detail page

Reviewed:: Jan 29, 2004 by World Languages

Bookmark

Ratings

Overall Rating:

Content Quality:

Effectiveness:

Ease of Use:

Overview:: Lexilogos is a resource site that contains a plethora of online dictionaries in
a wide variety of languages, dialects, and patois. Additionally it contains
links to Atlas sites, a virtual planetarium, an assortment of clickable maps,
and
assorted image and photo collections. After one year on the web, Lexilogos
receives 50,000 hits per week and has changed hosts four times as it
has grown. Now hosted on a server in Geneva, Lexilogos is undoubtedly one of the
most diverse collections of online dictionaries and related reference materials
on the web.

The work of one individual, Xavier Negre, Lexilogos began as a
result of the author's personal fascination with word origins and meaning.
Dedicated to the notion of remaining "pop-up free", the author is resisting
going commercial. In the process, his informative site has gained the attention
of a variety of web authors who share his expertise in the reference field and
who themselves maintain successful online collections. He acknowledges these
experts on the site and invites them to help him assure the continued quality of
Lexilogos.
Type of Material:: Reference
Recommended Uses:: Reference
Identify Major Learning Goals:: Lexilogos is a reference tool that can be used in linguistics and language
courses.
Target Student Population:: Those wishing to learn more about the origin and definition of words, family
names, and place names will find Lexilogos invaluable.
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:: The main site is in French, but provides versions in a variety of other
languages.

Content Quality

Rating:
Strengths:: This resource groups not only the dictionaries of a particular language
together, but other relevant resource tools as well. For example, if one goes to
the Arabic dictionary page, one will not only find Arabic dictionaries, but
portal sites in Arabic and related links to Arabic media, language, and culture
sites. This is the structure for languages around the world.

There are whole pages devoted to famous quotations, online versions of the Bible
and the Koran in a variety of languages, along with image banks and
photo collections.

The collecton is distinctive in its selection of pertinent
external links. Users are always a very flew clicks away from what they are
looking for.
Concerns:: It will be an arduous process to keep up with the various external links on
Lexilogos. Broken links are not frequent at the moment and the author seems
judicious in the choice of items.

As the already huge collection grows (and the author's desire to be inclusive
will insure this) a new organizational scheme will probably become necessary. As
it is right now, it is possible to fall upon "gems" in the collection, which may
be difficult to do as the collection increases.

Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool

Rating:
Strengths:: Every faculty member wants their students to find a good dictionary and to learn
to use it correctly. This site provides a great deal of reference material to
work with for this purpose. There are specialized dictionaries, tools that deal
with commercial and legal jargon, maps, atlases, the more. Some of the clickable
maps can be projected in the classroom to study the use of languages in the
various regions of a given country. The material is readily adaptable for a
range of powerful learning activities.
Concerns:: There is a section on translation that provides links to online translators,
tools that are not generally held in high esteem by world language faculty due
to their frequent inaccuracy. Lexilogos makes no policy statement regarding the
validity or accuracy of these tools, but simply provides them like any other
tools. It will be up to faculty to alert their students as to the quality of
these translators and the danger of relying on them for accurate translation.

Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty

Rating:
Strengths:: Lexilogos has a warm and inviting interface that piques the interest of the
user by including regular new features. The new items take center stage, while
the main collection of dictionaries are available on the left-hand column of
links. On the right, media links, photo collections, and miscellaneous resources
may be found. There is a detailed site map and a "Coup de coeur" feature, where
users can click on a little heart to tell friends about the site.
Concerns:: When one is on the home page, the most direct way to get the complete list of
dictionaries by country is by clicking on the orange "dictionnaire en ligne"
link below the logo banner. This may not be an intuitive click for some users
and might be more noticable in a more prominent position on the screen.

Creative Commons: