No openly licensed Jorai–English dictionary exists, so this first edition was built from a source every Jorai reader knows: the Bible.
Collecting the words
All 66 books and 1,189 chapters of the 2016 Jorai Bible were read once, and every word was counted: 968,772 words in all, written in 5,581 different ways. Of these, 2,724 are ordinary words and 2,857 are names of people and places. Only single words, how often each occurs and where it first appears were kept; the dictionary does not reproduce the Bible’s text.
Drafting the meanings
Each Jorai verse was set beside the same verse of the World English Bible, a public-domain English translation. For every Jorai word the comparison showed which English words appear in the same verses. The word tơngan, for example, goes with “hand” far more often than chance. The same comparison with the Rhade Bible showed the Rhade word in the same place, often the same word in its sister form, and the Rhade dictionary’s meaning helped confirm the draft.
What was left out
- Names of people and places.
- A few words whose meaning the Bible alone does not make clear.
- A handful of spellings that look like printing slips in the Bible text.
What comes next
A fluent reader’s check is the next step for every entry. Words the Bible does not use, examples from daily life, pictures and pronunciation can follow. If you can help with any of these, please see Fluent Readers: Checking the Draft Meanings.