How do words get into the dictionary? Using the word Omstekeard as an example, our dictionary writer Hindrik Sijens explains how. 

Frisian singer Marcel Smit sings a song entitled Omstekeard, a word that, much to the singer's chagrin, was not yet in the Frisian dictionaries. To get it in there already, he had once held a petition and recently at a performance of him at the Fryske Akademy's Akademydei, the lack of it came up again. The Akademy's dictionary makers present then decided to omstekeard 'put it in the dictionary'. Then, of course, the question reveals itself, when do you include a word like omstekeard in the dictionary? 

Never finished and never complete
First of all, Sijens says: "There are always words that are not in the dictionary, a dictionary is never finished and it is never complete. A language has an infinite number of words, it is impossible to include all the words in the dictionary. Missing words sometimes involve new words, called neologisms. Sometimes they are also words that have existed for some time but escaped the attention of the dictionary maker." An example of such a new word is snoadfoan for 'smartphone'. If you search for that on the internet, there are many finding places. The regular occurrence of snoadfoan, over a period of several years, makes it eligible for inclusion in the dictionary. In the Dutch-Frisian dictionary, it then appears as a translation after the Dutch(!) word smartphone. To do so, check the website Frysker, under the word smartphone.

Spoken language
There are also Frisian words that have been around for a long time but are not in the dictionary. This is because not all words are known to the dictionary writers. Think, for example, of words from the Frisian colloquial language, words that are not easily used in newspapers, on Omrop Fryslân's website, or in books. Dictionaries are usually made based on such written texts, but that does not mean that words from the spoken language cannot be included in a dictionary. Omstekeard is one such colloquial word that was not in the dictionary. The meaning of omstekeard is 'wrong way round': you can have your clothes or socks on omstekeard. Here again, if such a word is known to a larger group of Frisian speakers, if it is widely used, then it can be included in the dictionary. In the case of omstekeard, the dictionary writers present at the Akademydei of the Fryske Akademy reasoned that these criteria were met and therefore it was included in the Dutch-Frisian dictionary as a translation of the Dutch inverse. Look for it on Frysker, under the word omgekeerd.

• Listen to the song 'omstekeard' of Marcel Smit