A Living Dictionary is a free, collaborative multimedia dictionary — built by you and your community, for generations to come. We support endangered, under-represented and minority languages around the world.
Name your language to begin.
A Living Dictionary is an online dictionary built by and for a language community. Every entry can carry audio recordings from named speakers, photos, video, phonetic transcriptions, example sentences, and translations into multiple languages. You can bring in existing word lists, export your data at any time, and work together with contributors anywhere in the world.
Our mission is to support endangered, under-represented, under-documented and minority languages — living languages spoken or signed by real communities. Living Dictionaries are led by community activists and linguists around the globe: fluent speakers and elders recording their voices, learners reclaiming a heritage language, and researchers working alongside communities. If that sounds like you, this tool was made for you.
Just the name of your language and a connection to the people who speak it. Because a dictionary carries a community's voice, the form asks whether the language community has given permission and how you know the language — for many endangered languages, consent and ownership matter deeply. If you are still seeking permission, you can say so; your dictionary starts private, and you choose when it is ready to share.
Your dictionary is ready right away — you land on its entries page and can start adding words immediately, from a phone or a computer. As its manager you can invite other managers and contributors, add the speakers whose voices bring entries to life, set up glossing languages and custom keyboards, and decide when to make it public. Public dictionaries join hundreds of others on our world map, searchable by anyone.