| Summary: | The main subject of the artic le is a pilot-project canied out at the Institute of Lexicographyin Reykjavfk, lceland. The purpose of the project was to investigate the practi calityof translating and adjusting the Swedish LEXIN-material fo r use as a base forbilingual dictionari es for fo reign immigrants in iceland, much like the original Swedish material has been used for decades in Sweden. The possibility of using thetranslations already made for the Swedi sh bilingual dictionaries for their Icelandiccounterparts was also evaluated. In the investigation, the main emphasis was put ontwo questions: (1) What is the proportion of absolute equi valents in the Swedish andIcelandic word li sts? (2) Does the adoption of the Swedish material yield an lcelandicword list that is representative enough for the vocabulary of lcelandic? The answer ofthe first question is important with respect to the use of translations toa third languageas direct equi valency is a prerequi site for their usage. The result of this part was satisfactory as the proportion proved to be 60-70%. In order to seek an answer to thesecond question, the vocabulary appearing in the Icelandic LEXIN-translation wascompared to two original Icclandic word li sts compiled on the basis of frcqucncy. Theresult of the comparison was that 50--70% of the words in the Icelandic li sts were representedin the LEXIN-translation and the di fference to a great part being cxplainableby specific lcelandic and Swedish vocabulary.
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