Help:Not identical
A translation of a DefinedMeaning should be marked as not identical when it does not mean exactly the same as the original DefinedMeaning, but it is a good translation. This was previously also called a nonindigenous meaning.
If the flag is incorrectly set, semantic drift may occur. The flag is currently represented by a checkbox named "Identical meaning?" when editing an entry.
No translation[edit]
It is OK, not to have a translation to a language, if no good one is available. There are words having no counterparts in other languages; for example, "Northern lights" in tropical indigenous languages, "tsunami" in desert area languages, or "wadi" in non-desert area languages. The best translation of "central processing unit" to pharaonic Egyptian is identical to that of "stone", so one can argue that this translation should not be added.
Example: hän[edit]
Both "ő" (Hungarian) and "hän" (Finnish) are genderless words that can mean either "he" or "she". There are no words in Hungarian or Finnish to describe just 3rd person masculine or 3rd person feminine. From this, it follows that 3 DefinedMeanings are required for these concepts: "3rd person, masculine", "3rd person, feminine" and "3rd person, unspecified". The following table shows what expression should be tied to which DM, and whether the "identical meaning" checkbox should be enabled or not:
| DM → | language | masculine | feminine | unspecified |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Expr. | English | he [×] | she [×] | he [_] she [_] |
| Finnish | hän [_] | hän [_] | hän [×] |
Legende:
| [×] | Added with identical meaning checkbox ON |
| [_] | Added with identical meaning checkbox OFF |
Example: soepkip[edit]
The current DM of Expression:soepkip reads "A usually old and large chicken that is generally used in the preparation of soup". If words are a hypernym (i.e., a broader term) of a DM, such as chicken in this case, they should not be added as a synonym or translation, but as having a "broader term" relationship to the DM at hand.
Exact meanings / Approximate meanings[edit]
A headline for Exact meanings and Approximate meanings represents the "identical meaning" flag, they are grouping DefinedMeanings on every relational data page.
