The Filipino Monolingual Dictionaries and the Development of Filipino Lexicography

Abstract

This study tackles the development of writing Filipino dictionaries by presenting critical review analyses of the three of the most current Filipino monolingual dictionaries published by the two most authoritative institutions of Filipino language: the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino [KWF] (formerly the Institute of National Language, then became the Linangan ng Wika sa Pilipinas [LWP]), and the Sentro ng Wikang Filipino (SWF). The oldest of the three is the first edition of KWF’s (then LWP’s) Diksyunaryo ng Wikang Filipino (1989). The second is the centennial edition of the same dictionary (1998), still published by the KWF. And the last is the UP Diksyonaryong Filipino (2001), published by the SWF. The study primarily aims to provide a preliminary discussion of the development of monolingual lexicography of Filipino. The examination of these dictionaries is done by applying lexicographic principles in writing monolingual dictionaries. This study found several errors in the writing of these dictionaries and concludes that such errors were primarily due to the lack of substantial corpus collection.