Middle English Mouse Dictionary
The Middle English Mouse Dictionary is a prototype browser extension for Firefox that assists in reading middle english web pages by showing dictionary information about middle english words when they are highlighted or double-clicked. It tracks which words you add to your personal word list for each tab, and displays them in a sidebar, which can be opened from the right-click context menu.
Install the extension here.
Roadmap
At present this is a prototype, written in pure JS to be as simple as possible. In time we intend to:
- Add additional dictionaries.
- Implement fuzzy matching to combat orthographic complexity
- Improve the UI and UX
- Adapt for Chrome/Safari and Manifest V3
- Move over to a framework if we deem it suitable
- Get funding and/or support from institutions
Places you can test this
- Try reading Gawain and the Green Knight.
- The University of Michigan's Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse.
- Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies, University of Kent's MEMSlib.
- Harvard's Geoffery Chaucer Website.
- The International John Gower Society's Original Language Editions.
Acknowledgements
- Dictionary: an error-corrected digitzation of J.R.R. Tolkien's "A Middle English Vocabulary" dictionary, provided by James K. Tauber of the Digital Tolkien Project.
- Dictionary: a digitization of A. L. Mayhew and Walter W. Skeat's "A Concise Dictionary of Middle English From A.D. 1150 To 1580", hosted by GiTenberg.
- Logo: the font in the logo is "Old English Gothic Pixel Font", designed by ColorSwitchFan25 and used under the SIL Open Font License (OFL)
