Mother Tongues Dictionaries — Introduction
“The first dictionary app suite for endangered languages to combine a language agnostic design, customizable approximate search, cross-platform deployability (Web/Android/iOS), and open-source access.”
Mother Tongues Website
Mother Tongues is a web and mobile platform for endangered language dictionaries, which compiles and displays language data in the form of a user-friendly, searchable online dictionary. Originally designed to support a Gitksan online dictionary, Mother Tongues is language-neutral and has been used to support dictionaries of many languages.
While extensive, user-friendly guides have been developed for Mother Tongues, making this tool approachable for users to publish a dictionary, it still requires users to be comfortable or familiar with using Python, NPM, GitHub, and the Command Line. Therefore, we recommend Mother Tongues to users with some programming experience or who are prepared and willing to learn.
The final published front-end of a dictionary compiled with Mother Tongues is very user-friendly. An integral feature of Mother Tongues Dictionaries is the in-built approximate-search function, which supports users who are learners and languages where the orthography is difficult to type. Mother Tongues was built around the importance of this feature for the usability of Indigenous language dictionaries. The app and website interface of a Mother Tongues dictionary is simple, consistent, and uses straightforward commands and controls. Users of a Mother Tongues dictionary can search for a specific word, browse the entire dictionary, filter by a letter or category, or use the ‘Random’ feature to generate a list of words randomly selected from the dictionary.
Mother Tongues is not designed for compiling a dictionary from scratch. It is a web and mobile platform designed to assist in digitally publishing previously compiled lexical data. Mother Tongues is not intended to replace software designed for dictionary compilation. GitHub, Python, and the Command Line are used to build and publish the dictionary front-end, which can be shared with users as a mobile app or website.
Highlights
- Free and open source
- Specifically designed for endangered languages
- Built-in approximate search
- Unicode compliant
- Customizable
- Simple and consistent user-friendly interface
- Interface language can be translated
- Colours and images are customizable
- Supports multimedia (image and sound files)
- Entries can be found by users in multiple ways (i.e., through search, browse, randomize)
- Usable offline or with a weak internet connection
- Complete Mother Tongues Guides can be followed to build a dictionary front-end
- The Mother Tongues Starter on GitHub automates many of the steps needed to publish a Mother Tongues dictionary
Considerations
- Requires advanced tech skills
- Cannot be used to publish a print or downloadable dictionary
- Requires users to install Python and NPM, and use the Command Line
Alternatives to Mother Tongues
DAB and FirstVoices are alternatives for building dictionary apps. However, a language database must be compiled using SIL software for DAB, and FirstVoices requires users to create a FirstVoices archive and is only available to communities in British Columbia, Canada.
Living Dictionaries or FirstVoices are both good alternatives for users looking to build a community-run language website. Unlike Mother Tongues, communities using FirstVoices or Living Dictionaries do not have to handle their own web-hosting.
Mukurtu or Nunaliit can be used if users are working with developers and want to create an online database that goes beyond the traditional form and function of a dictionary.
TLex, Miromaa, or FLEx are more appropriate for users looking to compile language data for a dictionary. TLex and Miromaa each have a licensing fee. FLEX is free and can utilize the rest of the SIL suite.
Examples of Dictionaries Using Mother Tongues
Mother Tongues dictionaries are “currently used by over twenty different languages from 8 different language families” (Mother Tongues website).
Examples of dictionaries which have been made using Mother Tongues can be found linked on the Mother Tongues website (halfway down the home page). Some of the examples link to app stores to download the app while others, like Gitksan, will link to an example web dictionary which uses Mother Tongues.
Support Service
The thorough Mother Tongues Guides and Mother Tongues Starter on GitHub make building and publishing a dictionary using Mother Tongues straightforward.
Any questions or recommended improvements to Mother Tongues Dictionaries should be raised as an issue on the Mother Tongues GitHub repository. A guide to raising issues on GitHub can be found here.
Developer
Mother Tongues Dictionaries (MTD), formerly known as Waldayu, is developed by Aidan Pine. As of 2023, Mother Tongues is still actively supported.