Multilingual dictionary where every entry can have more than 2 languages.

Kreijstal commented 5 years ago

Project description

So basically allmost all dictionaries have entries between two languages, but it would be nice if there was a dictionary where entries in many languages could be written

This dictionary would have 1 entry per meaning, so it wouldn't blindly try to match words that match 2 meanings with an unrelated word in another language. For example it would work like this. Heaven and Sky in spanish are both "cielo", "Himmel" in german. They have the word paradise, but there is no word that means unambigously sky. So the entries would be

heaven....cielo [paraíso]....Himmel [Paradies]
sky....cielo....Himmel
paradise....paraíso....Paradies

so, every entry has one meaning per language, and optionally in the translation word you can have some explanation or disambigation of what is the real meaning of the word. The entries wouldn't be limited to 3 languages, they could be extended to any number of languages, but they should have the same meaning in all the languages, if a word has more than one meaning, then another entry should be created. Kind of like dict.cc but multilingual.

[Describe the project the best you can. Give any background information or link to resources that are necessary to understand the problem it is intended to solve. The more you elaborate on your idea, the easier it is to accomplish.]

Relevant Technology

[Write what technology is relevant. What language, what platform, any particular library/framework/existing project it is based on?] There are many open source dictionary software if you want to get inspired, it would be nice if the entries could be added wiki style since it is most likely impossible to do it yourself so an import function would be very handy. Of course because starting to translate things yourself is an absurdly huge project the best way to start with this, is to probably to scrap wiktionary

Complexity and required time

[Please only tick off one box in each category by changing [ ] to [x]. The labels on the project will then be updated by the maintainers as soon as possible.]

Complexity

[x] Beginner - This project requires no or little prior knowledge of the technolog(y|ies) specified to contribute to the project
[ ] Intermediate - The user should have some prior knowledge of the technolog(y|ies) to the point where they know how to use it, but not necessarily all the nooks and crannies of the technology
[ ] Advanced - The project requires the user to have a good understanding of all components of the project to contribute

Required time (ETA)

[ ] Little work - A couple of days
[ ] Medium work - A week or two
[x] Much work - The project will take more than a couple of weeks and serious planning is required

KOLANICH commented 5 years ago

en.wiktionary.org? en.wikipedia.org?

Kreijstal commented 5 years ago

en.wiktionary.org yes, that's the one you should scrap. I don't recommend scraping wikipedia, the articles don't usually correspond 1-to-1, but wiktionary does share that goal.

bdsl commented 4 years ago

This seems to be primarily a lexicography project rather than a software project. I'd start by finding out if if people want to do the lexicographic work before developing custom software.

open-source-ideas / ideas