Posted by Paula Radetzky on 02/19/06 05:45

I am a linguist who works on aboriginal languages with very few
speakers. I need to write down their folktales and translate *each*
word separately, right under it. For example,

Rubana-cu ya umusalu
dawn-ed when rained
'When it dawned, it rained.'

Obviously, the words in the first and second lines need to line up
right under each other. Tables are good for that.

The problem is with stories that are longer than one line. If I
continue typing the story, I want the TABLE CELLS from Lines 1 AND 2 to
wrap TOGETHER, as a pair. For example:

Rubana-cu ya umusalu. Masi sumusumukulu kia. Maaru ucani.
Ilaku ya
dawn-ed when rained then enemy came exist
one I tried

turukuuka. Ku-aku acalia puritongatonga.
kill not-I know throw.spear

'When it dawned, it rained. Then the enemy came. There was one that I
tried to kill. But I didn't know how to throw the spear.'

I don't want to create a new table for each line, because I often have
to cut and past these folktales into documents with different page
sizes, margins, etc. I don't want to have to redo the tables every
time; I just want this wrapping capability.

Does anybody know how to do this, or does anyone know how to work
around this problem? Or a macro?

I am trying to use NeoOffice, but if it works only in Word, I'll use
that.

Thanks a lot. You're helping to document and save dying languages!

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