Analogical conceptual dictionary

The lexic of each language is a reflection of the culture in which it is developed and which it serves. A monolingual alphabetical dictionary of a given language evinces many of the cultural characteristics of the human group that speaks it.
Here are some examples:
The series "quixote, quixotism, quixotic, etc.” is the reflection of the cultural assimilation of the personage of Cervantes on the part of the Spanish-speaking people.
The definition: “house. Building covered by a “tejado” (structure made of “tejas” = roof tiles) divided in rooms ... “ would seem all right to Spanish people but there are languages that reflect cultures where houses are not buildings, neither are covered by roof tiles nor divided into rooms.
An Analogical Conceptual Dictionary of certain language, starting off
from a monolingual alphabetical dictionary, allows to extract (research phase) and systematically recover (consultation phase), besides the semes of each word, the cultural characteristics present in the monolingual dictionary in which it is based and, in addition, adds the 'echoes' or cultural associations that the researchers' experience suggests to them, plus some of the aesthetic findings of the writers that have written in that language.
This table contains part of the information recovered from the concept
"noche" (night) in the Zirano Castilian (Spanish) Analogical Conceptual Dictionary located at http://www.zirano.com. Each of the spanish words or expressions that appears in this table are related to the concept "noche" (night), they contain it:
acampada, claridad, acamarse, anochecer, ahogo, banco, cena, antemeridiano, postmeridiano, anochecer, anteanoche, alameda, día, asmático, anochecer, sereno, alcaraván, bandolina, disc-jockey, arropar, tarde, ambigú, bandurria, dondiego, bullanguer@, atardecer, temprana, ánimas, basura, equinoccio, cabareter@, brisa, erizo, clandestin@, crujir.
Some of them are clearly culturally-specific.
For example: “ánimas” = Ringing of bells at night in the churches calling to prayer for the deceased.
“Aquelarre” = Nocturnal meeting of witches and wizards, in which they invoke the Devil sacrificing a billy-goat.
As are ‘bandurria’, ‘cabaré’, ‘arma' ('to guard the arms').
Other clearly culturally-specific possible searches in Castilian Zirano involve Christmas, fiestas, bullfighting, etc.
An Analogical Conceptual Dictionary consists of a traditional Alphabetical Dictionary plus an Ideological Dictionary that works as underlying structure. The ideological dictionary that contains Zirano takes the form of a (Potentially) Universal Tree. It has an inclusive organization (penicillin, streptomycine, etc., are included in
antibiotics, antibiotic in drugs, and so on).
In the creation stage, the (Potentially) Universal Tree allows the marking of the words that contain a given concept. In the recovery stage it allows to the user to bring to the screen all the words that are related to the concept that is being consulted, as shown in the previous table. Yet another important characteristic of the (Potentially) Universal Tree is that it allows to access the information directly from any concept, however specialized or specific (for example 'vain',
'eyelash', 'slyly', 'volatile') or through multiword concepts (‘dry leaf’, ‘not to be possible to be measured’, ‘little serious’ are multiword concepts): the information can be accessed using everyday language. It also allows to sharpen or to thicken the searches: penicillin ←→ antibiotic ←→ drug.
The presence of several Ziranos (analogical conceptual dictionaries) in the Platform Zirano makes possible the creation of another tool that is called Zirano Cupola. It is a situated in a website that gives simultaneous, joint and balanced access to each one of the cultures present in it and their corresponding lexical repertoires. In addition it gives individualized access to each of them, constituting a very useful and practical tool to help fulfill the objective proposed by the UNESCO of the preservation of cultural and linguistic diversity.
Some examples: Bribri is an indigenous language of Central America. When Zirano Bribri is made, the concept ‘heaven’ will be associated to ‘underground’ because indeed for speakers of Bribri ‘heaven’ is situated
there, not in ‘the heights’.
We Western people associate the concept 'jealousy' with Othello. What other arquetipical jealous people exist in other cultures? Which were their life experiences?
In our culture we clearly recognize the pair 'mourning - black', many people know that in the Chinese culture the pair is 'mourning - white'.
But, how many other things do we not know?
The horizontal space organization in the culture of the Castilian speaking people: “left / right” is based on something as anthropocentric as the position of the heart in the human body. But cars do not have a heart, that’s why errors happen so that we must specify straightaway “from the point of view of the driver” or “seen from the front”. On what is it based in other cultures? Is there in any culture a system that is not ambiguous?
Do dogs bark, cows moo, sheep bleat and hens cluck the same way around the world? Would travelling animals need to attend a language school?

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