2.12 SEARCH PANELS
There are five ‘search panels’, and they occupy the basically vacant area in the centre of the screen. They are currently vacant as nothing is being searched for in this view.
The centre of the screen is mainly taken up with the five ‘searcher’ panels. These enable the user of the database to conduct searches without leaving the screen being looked at.
1. Searcher: respelt panel: brown
Thus you can search for neKHet, or any other word, in the brown ‘Searcher: respelt’ panel, by entering the search item in the red-bordered field within the panel, bottom right. This produces all the occurrences of the word searched for, again supplemented by a scroll bar in case there are many instances — as is often the case.
Example: Based on the search results for ‘strong’ in the grey field in Fig. 2.126 below, you might want to see what there is in the database for the first item found there, djeri. Does it mean ‘strong’, or what? Just type djeri into the red-bordered box in the Searcher: respelt panel and the results appear at once. Three suggest ‘hard’ or similar, as well as ‘enclosing wall’. Perhaps the Ancient Egyptians thought of a wall as something hard, or strong. The panel thus can offer insights very quickly.
Fig. 2.121. Searcher: respelt: djeri
5. Searcher: EngJSM panel: yellow
In the yellow ‘Searcher: EngJSM’ panel on the right you can search for any English word to see if there are examples in the database. Of course, these are only the standardised renderings devised by the compiler for inclusion by the database.
Example: You might want to see if there are any words for, say, ‘brave’. Just type this word into the red-bordered box below the EngJSM panel and instantly the results come up:
Fig. 2.122 Searcher: EngJSM: ‘brave’
2. Searcher: baseline panel: orange/light brown
The ‘Searcher: baseline’ panel is related to the ‘Searcher: respelt’ panel, but only comes into play when the respelt entry has been broken up into constituent parts, where there are inflexions: prefixes and/or suffixes of various kinds. And such inflecting takes place a great deal in Ancient Egyptian. So to look up the original ‘whole word’, the database user needs to look for it in the ‘Searcher: baseline’ panel rather than in the ‘Searcher: respelt’ panel.
Example: You may have come across the word menekhet. Beginning as it does with me- and ending in -et, which are common prefixes and suffixes, it could be worth looking for the word by entering it in the red-bordered search box in the ‘Searcher: baseline’ panel. Some responses pop up; and you can tell there are more as the scroll bar is greyed out, the indicator that more examples will be revealed by scrolling.
The responses below show that the word has been analysed both as me-neKHet and as me-neKH-et; and that the word has been perceived as meaning ‘linen’ and ‘protect’. Whether this distinction in meaning is correct or not could be further investigated. As too could the distinction between neKH and neKHet be pursued, seen thus isolated in the brown respelt column in this illustration.
Simple enquiries of this sort can all be undertaken without leaving the record where the investigation began.
Fig. 2.123 Searcher: baseline: meneKHet
3. Searcher: glyph sequence panel: lilac
The third searcher panel on the left enables the user to look for a particular whole-word glyph sequence, such as <water branch string bun stander: stick>. This panel will only find exact instances of complete words, or entries.
Fig. 2.124 Searcher: glyph sequence: <water branch string bun stander: stick>
However, this panel is not the place for seeking a part of this sequence. You could by trial and error test for parts of the sequence, say <branch string bun stander: stick>, or <string bun stander: stick>, which yield nil results. Then you might discover that the central portion <string bun> does produce results, but only because this spells KHet, another whole word in its own right (meaning ‘thing’), which occurs often enough in the database.
Example: The panel will work for part of a glyph sequence if it forms another word in the database, so that that <string bun> within the sequence <water branch string bun stander: stick> brings up the following result:
Fig. 2.125 Searcher: glyph sequence: <string bun>
(It is possible to search for any glyph sequence at all in the database forming part of any longer string of glyphs, but not using this searcher panel. It is done by a specific search in the pink {identity JS} field. However, to do this means leaving the record being looked at. For more detail on this, see section 2.14.)
4. Searcher: meaning panel: grey
In the grey ‘Searcher: meaning’ panel you can search for the English translations that the original creators of the records used.
What is the difference between these two yellow (EngJSM) and grey (meaning) search panels? Well, in the yellow panel you might search for ‘river’, and get no responses. Or ‘brook’, with the same result. But a search for these words in the grey panel will yield results for these words, because the original compilers of the records used these words. But all watercourses in the database have been called ‘stream’ in EngJSM, so a search for ‘stream’ in the yellow panel will bring up all the ‘watercourse’ instances, however they might have been referred to by the original record compilers.
Example: While your database compiler has, in the {EngJSM} field, offered ‘strong’ as an interpretation for neKHet, you might want to check what any original sources might have described as ‘strong’. Typing ‘strong’ into the red-bordered grey search box below the ‘Searcher: meaning’ panel gives the results shown, with more available upon scrolling.
Fig. 2.126 Searcher: meaning: ‘strong’
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