ROME:  10th March 2005 -- Following a raft of suggestions from around the English-speaking world, the Salesian Thesaurus and Glossary is now in its 3rd update and can be downloaded from www.bosconet.aust.com  If you ever have difficulty following a hyperlink in austraLasia  - people were unable to connect with the www.vidimusdominum.org link earlier - then simply type in the given address in the URL box on your web-viewing program.  I am not sure why links occasionally fail after a copy-paste operation, but they do!

    Why should you consider downloading the SDB T&G?  It is the most complete explanation you will find in English of around 800 terms to be found regularly in Salesian literature.  Not only is it an explanation of terms, but it will offer some basic reflection and directions for reflection on many of those terms, occasionally giving at least a fundamental historical outline of a term's use.

    The most recent update has incorporated a number of suggestions that came from people who have been involved in translating Salesian texts into English, e.g from the US and UK.  It includes an increasing number of references to names and places, something lacking in the first editions.  Typographical errors have all but been eliminated.  The T&G maintains its stance of employing British rather than American spellings, however.

    A term introduced in T&G3 is 'linguaggio-language'.  A problem?  Well, yes.  English readers often feel a little uneasy when Salesian texts, e.g. those dealing with communications issues, speak rather freely of the need to learn the 'language' of the theatre, of art, of architecture.  Sure, language in a general sense, but...  So why do we feel uneasy?  Because English does not make the distinctions well-known to French and Italian.  Ferdinand Saussure, the 'father' of modern linguistics, distinguished between parole, langue and langage (Italian parola, lingua and linguaggio, obviously), those three terms moving from the most particular to the most general, respectively.  When we, in English, employ the term 'language' we usually mean 'langue' (or lingua), and even 'parole'.  When Italians use the term 'linguaggio' they refer to the other end of the spectrum, the most general.  Cinema and art, then, can be language in that sense.  It's not so confronting when we come to realise that.

    It could be worth downloading the update, then, if the above tickles your fancy!