Linguru makes dictionaries and software tools to assist language learners and their teachers. Below we describe how these dictionaries work. For more background on the nature of Linguru databases, see our philosophy page.
Linguru currently offers a Welsh-English-Welsh dictionary. You may download this product below.
The green words are links to the glossary.
Click on the picture above to see more pictures of the Linguru Browser.
Each Linguru dictionary is like a collection of reference books on a language -- a grammar, word tables, and a dictionary -- that grow and change over time. The typical user of the dictionary wishes to learn another language, to help others learn it, or both. At present, dictionaries are available for English and Welsh. Dictionaries for Spanish, Finnish, and several other major Western languages are currently under development. Linguru's goal is to make its tools available to everyone: all over the world, people should be able to work in their native language to learn any other language. "Any language" includes languages less often studied in school, those with less populous, economically influential speaker communities, which are typically not well served by electronic dictionaries and the Internet.
The Linguru Browser is a piece of software which each user must install on his or her computer to browse Linguru dictionaries. The Browser has two main functions: to fetch the information its user needs when she needs it, and to enable its user to share her knowledge with other users by adding it to the dictionary. In this section, we will describe each function of the Browser, the different versions of the Browser, and what machines can run it.
A common difficulty in learning a language is that one cannot find the information one needs to understand a text one is studying. The words seem not to be in the dictionary. The words in the dictionary have many senses, and it is difficult to discern which is appropriate to the context at hand. The dictionary definition is incomprehensible without knowledge of arcane abbreviations of arcane words. The word is best understood in the context of related words -- synonyms, antonyms, other forms derived from it, more general terms -- which the dictionary doesn't have space to list. Grammatical topics are not discussed in detail in the dictionary, but in some other book. It takes time to flip the pages of the dictionary. You can't find what you want unless you know what "alphabetical order" is in the language you are trying to learn; even then, you are not fast until you know which letters have thin sections of the dictionary -- q, perhaps -- and which thick -- t.
The Linguru Browser reduces or eliminates these difficulties. You can type whatever word interests you into its Find window and it will find it, regardless of whether you type in the citation form. Because the Browser does not need to conserve space on a page, the definition may be clearly broken up, and every sense can include examples, so it is easy to locate the correct one. Also, abbreviations may be replaced with complete phrases. If there is a word in an entry you do not understand, you can click on it, and the Browser will look for an entry explaining it. The dictionary contains grammatical as well as lexical entries, so one can quickly find explanations for arcane terminology (a certain amount of word-related jargon is inevitable in a dictionary). If you type anything into the Find window, the Browser will automatically scroll the index to reveal that section containing the sequence of letters you have typed. The Browser even enables you to look up parts of words: if you highlight light in the word highlight and click on the blue highlighting rectangle, the Browser will take you to the entry for light; if you highlight ing in highlighting, the Browser will take you to -ing.
For most languages one might like to learn, one can find both learners and teachers. Often these are the same people. Unfortunately, it is difficult to be one's own teacher: you can't teach yourself something you don't know. It can also be difficult for learners to find teachers who can teach them just what they want to know. The Browser allows anyone to enter a question regarding a particular topic, and anyone else can provide an answer. Good Samaritans can use the search window to find questions needing answers. Teachers can use the same feature to find the questions of their students.
The Linguru Browser software and Welsh and English dictionaries are available for free. Enhanced products will soon be offered to users who wish to receive higher levels of service.
The Linguru Browser is written entirely in the Java programming language, and therefore requires that the user obtain and install a Java Virtual Machine (JVM -- this is a piece of software required to run any program written in Java). This is optionally included with the software (note: the version bundled with a JVM is the default, so unless you uncheck a box on the download page, you will download a JVM). Versions are available for a variety of platforms, including Windows, Linux, OS/X and Unix. Because no Java 1.3 JVM is available for the classic Macintosh, Mac users must upgrade to OS X. OS X comes with a Java 1.3 JVM already installed.
Once a user has installed the Linguru Browser, she may run it like any other application on her computer. No web browser is needed. The user needs an Internet connection the first time she runs the software in order to automatically download the latest version of the dictionary. Afterwards, an Internet connection is required only to obtain dictionary updates and to edit entries.
Each dictionary contains a list of entries describing the vocabulary and grammar of a language. Every time the software is started, it automatically attempts to contact Linguru across the Internet to obtain all changes to the dictionary since the last time the Browser was run. If no connection is available, the user can browse the dictionary but cannot edit it. If a connection is available, the server will automatically bring the user's dictionary up to date, and the user in turn can modify the server's dictionary.
The only bilingual dictionary currently available from Linguru is the Welsh-English dictionary. If you wish to download the latest version of the Browser and use it to teach yourself or others Welsh or English, follow the links below.
The least powerful machne we expect the Linguru browser to run on is a Pentium 75 with 32 MB of memory. If you can run Java applets on web pages, you can run the browser.
As mentioned above, you do not need the version bundled with the JVM if you already have Java 1.3 installed on your machine. To find out what JVM you have, or whether you have one, type java -version at a command prompt. (To get a command prompt under Windows, select Start | Programs. You should see a program called Command Prompt.) If you have Java, the machine will tell you what version you have. If the version number is 1.3 or greater but less than 1.4, you don't need to install a new JVM. Microsoft's version of Java that comes with many Windows computers is version 1.1 and is not sufficient.
The Linguru Server aids in the distribution and management of all Linguru dictionaries. Linguru does not sell any server products at this time. In the future, we will license institutions to run servers so they can provide access to the Linguru dictionaries to a certain number of people at a reduced rate per individual. See the discussion above.