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The ‘anchor language’ refers to the language to which all other languages in an entry are connected. The definitions in other languages should be as similar as possible to the definition in the anchor language.
Generally, the anchor language is the source language of the text where the term originally appeared. However, if the concept is country-specific, the anchor language should be one of the languages of that country (which should be indicated in the ‘Origin’ field). For animals, plants, and other life forms, the anchor language should usually be Latin.
The anchor language serves as the reference point for assessing the reliability of terms in other languages. The ‘reliability’ value indicates how well a term in another language corresponds to the concept defined in the anchor language.
 You must designate one language as the anchor language for each entry. |
- When creating a new entry:
When creating a monolingual entry, the language you select at the top of the creation form is automatically set as the anchor language. When creating a bilingual entry, the language in the left column of the form is set as the anchor language. To change this, click the ‘anchor language’ icon in the right column to set that language as the anchor.
- For existing entries:
If necessary, you can change the anchor language by editing the ‘Anchor language’ field at the language-independent level (LIL).
IATE contains numerous legacy entries without an anchor language. When working on such an entry, set an anchor language and ensure that the concept is clearly delineated in that language.