Understanding the Dictionary

The dictionary is comprised of dictionary words and word lists and is one of the main content types within Mukurtu. Dictionary words use a different set of metadata fields than digital heritage items, and are focused more on granular language elements rather than digital heritage broadly.

Dictionary Words

The core of a dictionary word is usually a combination of text and audio recordings. While we use the terms "dictionary" and "dictionary words", the tool is more flexible than that, and can support words, sentences, phrases, word parts, or other elements of language.

Some of the metadata fields within dictionary words are repeatable. These are word entries, and they allow users to create dictionary words that capture the nuance of language with word and spelling variations.

Note that all fields within the dictionary and across the entire Mukurtu platform support UTF-8 character encoding. If your language uses UTF-8 characters, you should be able to enter them using your existing keyboard and they should display without any customization.

Word Lists

Word lists are collections of dictionary words. They can be grouped in any way. Some common groupings are by topic, part of speech, language community, etc.

Dictionary Word Management

Dictionary words and word lists are managed within protocols. There are two user roles within a protocol that are dedicated to creating and managing dictionary words: the language steward and language contributor. For more information on these roles, refer to Dictionary Roles.

To configure the dictionary, refer to Configure the dictionary.

To create a dictionary word, refer to Create a dictionary word.

To create a word list, refer to Create a word list.

For a list of dictionary word metadata, refer to Dictionary Word Metadata.