Dictionary & Lexicography Services is making a big push to have 100 dictionaries published on Webonary.org by October 2016. In this digital age, our emphasis is to publish early and often. Sign up for a Webonary account today.
Archive for News
Publish Dictionaries on Webonary
Two communities in Ethiopia begin dictionary development
(March 2015) Two communities in Ethiopia recently began the process of dictionary development. Mother-tongue speakers of Gwama and Koorete partnered with SIL’s Dictionary & Lexicography Services team and SIL Ethiopia to organize Rapid Word Collection (RWC) workshops. Read the full article at sil.org.
SIL linguists at LSA 2015
(January 2015) Verna Stutzman, coordinator of SIL’s Dictionary & Lexicography Services team, introduced Webonary.org to LSA attendees at SIL’s booth in the exhibit hall. Designed to integrate with the dictionary development program FLEx, Webonary is a platform for publishing multilingual minority language dictionaries online with a minimal amount of technical support needed. Read the full article at sil.org.
Madhya-Purbiya Tharu speakers begin the first dictionary for their language
(November 2014) Members of Nepal’s Madhya-Purbiya Tharu community recently participated in a Rapid Word Collection workshop—the first step in developing a dictionary for their language. Co-sponsored by the Mother Tongue Centre Nepal (MTCN) and SIL Nepal, the workshop was held in Kathmandu 9-17 September. Read the full article at sil.org.
Webonary now imports in the background + new status page
Webonary now imports xhtml files by default in the background. This allows you to close the browser after the file is uploaded to the server. You can go back to the import page to view how far the import has progressed:
Importing in the background is faster than displaying a progress counter and is therefore less likely to time out. If it does time out however, you can now resume the import without having to start from the beginning.
Also, you will now receive an email once the import has completed.
Community collaborates on the first dictionary for Suang Lotud
(November 2013) At the conclusion of a recent workshop in Sabah, Malaysia, mother tongue speakers of the Suang Lotud language had already collected over 5,000 words, the first step in creating a tri-lingual Lotud-Malay-English dictionary. Through a methodology called Rapid Word Collection (RWC), the workshop has provided a foundation for the ongoing process of dictionary building by community members. Read the full article at sil.org.
Communities pursue language development through dictionary workshops
(March 2014) Though separated by continents and oceans, two communities committed to developing their languages have recently taken a significant step towards the same goal: creating a dictionary for their language. Kaansa speakers in Burkina Faso and Malango speakers in the Solomon Islands recently completed a Rapid Word Collection workshop. Read the full article at sil.org.
Adding Comments
You can have users give feedback to individual dictionary entries. If you activate the comments, a link “Comments” will appear below an entry (in the search view). Example: Lou DictionaryTo activate the comments, go to “Settings” – “Discussion” and check “
Webonary Browse View
With Webonary it is now possible to generate all the following browse views: English – Vernacular, Vernacular – English and Browse by Categories. It is no longer necessary to upload the LexiquePro HTML files. This not only makes it much easier, but also if you reimport updated FLEx data, you no longer have to change it in two places. Finally, the Webonary browse view looks better on smartphones.
More info here.
Dictionaries on Smartphones
We changed the webonary.org theme so that the dictionary sites automatically adjust to the screen size of smartphones.
This is an email I received from one of our users: “In Ghana quite a number of people have these kinds of comparatively inexpensive smartphones. The mean salary of a government worker is around 300 USD. A smartphone is a big expense but affordable. So having the dictionaries accessible through mobile phones is an issue.”
We may still need to tweak the design a bit. Suggestions are welcome.
Webonary gives language groups the ability to publish bilingual or multilingual dictionaries on the web with a minimum of technical help.
With lexical data in FLEx, the process is simple: 1. 
