This newsletter introduces how AI is being used by Dictionary & Lexicography Services.
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| Dictionary & Lexicography Services SIL International Fall 2025 |
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| At Dictionary & Lexicography Services (DLS), we’ve begun utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the effectiveness and engagement of our work. AI is a tool that can assist with tasks such as summarizing text, generating conversations, answering questions, and even creating images. Here are some of the ways we’re putting it to work: |
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| - ChatGPT to create clear, concise summaries for each lesson in the course. These summaries give you the key points at a glance and make it easier to review what you’ve learned. To see an actual summary, click on the button below to navigate to lesson C1. Overview of an Entry. Look for the Summary below the slides and click on it.
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- Notebooklm.google to create two-person “Deep Dive” conversations that bring course topics to life. These podcasts are designed to sound like a natural discussion, making the content easier to follow and more engaging. Click on the button below to listen to a Deep Dive podcast for the lesson A1. What is a Dictionary?
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- Chipp.ai to create an interactive chatbot for the DLS courses. It’s available to answer your questions about course content whenever you need help, offering quick and helpful responses. Click on the button below to try out the DLS Support Chatbot.
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- GPT Workspace to create images for Picture dictionaries. Finding culturally appropriate pictures that are both accurate and attractive is often a challenging task. GPT Workspace not only facilitates the creation of such images but also allows them to be generated in bulk. For more information, click here.
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| FLEx Parser workshop - Manila, Philippines |
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A FLEx Parser workshop was held in Manila August 11-22, with two DLS team members (Kevin Warfel and Beth Bryson) among those providing support. A principal goal of the workshop was to provide the 12 participants with the ability to configure one of the two FLEx parsers to assist in the task of interlinearizing text in the language they had each chosen to focus on. In the long run, this would streamline the otherwise potentially arduous task of interlinearization, which is often part of preparing for a checking session with a translation consultant or for an academic paper or publication. The process of configuring a parser for morphological analysis often leads to new discoveries about the interaction between stems and their affixes, including the realization that some of the basic forms are different than initially perceived. This potentially impacts the way that affixes (and sometimes stems) are displayed in a dictionary. Everything about language is interrelated—which is why it’s wonderful to be able to deal with so many different aspects of it all within a single application, FLEx.
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| LEX101 and LEX201 have now been translated into French, Spanish and Portuguese. Bahasa Indonesia is currently being translated. If there is another language you would like to see the courses translated into, please fill out this form. |
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| FieldWorks Development Status |
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FieldWorks 9.2.9 was released in June 2025 as the stable version of FieldWorks 9.2, and a patch update (FieldWorks 9.2.10) was released on July 1, 2025. The FW 9.2 series focused primarily on making it possible to export dictionaries to Word in a more streamlined way, without needing to go through Pathway. Read more... You may download FieldWorks 9.2.9/10 here: https://software.sil.org/field... |
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| Work is underway on a new lexical tool called FieldWorks Lite. It can be downloaded here: https://software.sil.org/field... There are several goals for this new tool:
- Provide a simpler interface for doing lexicography (similar to Language Forge or WeSay).
- Provide a better way of working across multiple tools: FieldWorks Lite syncs well with FLEx.
- A more flexible approach to Send/Receive.
- A tool that could serve as a lexicography plugin for Paratext.
A liaison has been identified to facilitate communication between FieldWorks Lite users and the development team. This will ensure that feedback and suggestions are effectively gathered. A Google Group will be launched soon to provide a central place for updates and discussion.
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| Rapid Word Collection Workshops |
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Rapid Word Collection (RWC) workshops use structured semantic domain questionnaires to gather thousands of words in just a few weeks, producing a draft dictionary for under-documented languages. Workshops require: A motivated language community A functional orthography A few bilingual participants and typists Good local coordination and funding
The process includes pre-training, team-based word collection, data entry, and cleanup, ending with a draft lexicon. Data is typically licensed openly and stored in a FLEx database. - Strengths: Efficient, community-driven, and produces large lexical databases quickly.
- Challenges: Funding, logistics, sustaining community motivation, and post-workshop data cleanup.
- Ongoing work: Developing online tools for continued editing and expanding adoption.
DLS is in conversation with three different parties regarding the hosting of RWC workshops in the Philippines, Indonesia, and Uganda. Please contact Kevin Warfel for more information: [email protected]. |
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| The Combine is a word-collection tool designed to be used in conjunction with a Rapid Word Collection workshop or a similar strategy driven by the use of semantic domains. Words are collected in The Combine, and then, after clean-up, they are imported into FLEx. Two new features are planned for a release later this year. - Multiple LIFT imports (e.g., from FLEx) will be possible, allowing data to be round-tripped between FLEx and The Combine as frequently as desired.
- In the Merge tool, it will be possible to exclude sets of potential duplicates that contain only protected entries.
For more information, please contact [email protected]. |
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| We continue to publish new dictionaries on Webonary. Currently, there are more than 350 published dictionaries; many also provide grammar descriptions. To apply for a Webonary account, please fill out this application form. |
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| DLS continues to create dictionary apps for the Google Play store. If you need help in creating a dictionary app, please fill out this application.
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| The Belize Kriol Dictionary is now available on the Google Play Store as a free, downloadable app. Anyone with an Android phone can download it by simply searching for “Belize Kriol Dictionary” in the store. Silvanna writes, This is very exciting! Thanks so much to you and the team! I just downloaded it and searched for random words and they immediately came up! Really useful as one can search for an English or Kriol word. |
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| FLEx Parser Workshop Invitation |
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A FLEx parser workshop is planned for August 10-21, 2026 in Nairobi, Kenya. This workshop is for field linguists, translators or other language personnel who assist a translation or language development project and need assistance to set up the FLEx parsers for a more efficient project. See Parser Workshop Invitation. |
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| Verna Stutzman, MA-Linguistics, MA-Counseling
Dictionary & Lexicography Services Coordinator
SIL International
[email protected] |
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| Copyright © 2025 SIL Global, All rights reserved. You are receiving this newsletter because you signed up on our Website. https://webonary.org
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