Over half of the world’s people, i.e. those that speak a language with less than 100 million native speakers, do not have a language learning mobile app suited for their language or needs, according to Opensource.com.
Most of these languages are disregarded by mobile app developers, but Openwords is a start-up that aims to address this problem.
Openwords can mine massive, existing public data resources such as Wiktionary or the Apertium open machine translator and will thus be able to provide content quickly for populations without language learning apps. Other companies would need to build this content themselves, but Openwords uses pre-existing open data.
Openwords has already proved this concept can work by collating content for more than 1,000 languages and will be running a campaign to raise funds to complete the Openwords app that will provide a language learning platform for this open content collection.
Emphasis on freedom
The Openwords app will emphasise freedom. Whereas many existing apps do not allow learners to decide what they will learn, whereas Openwords will give learners this freedom while also allowing them to follow a default curriculum. It will also be free (gratis) for learners.
Most importantly, Openwords’ content is in the public domain. This means all Openwords’ educational content is copyleft and owned by the public. This is the major philosophical difference between Openwords and proprietary language learning apps. The Openwords app will function as a reader of open content. Whenever Openwords content is added or improved, contributors will be building something for everyone’s benefit.
Openwords aims to provide:
- Free, open domain, educational material.
- Diverse education material for populations without electronic foreign language learning content.
Openwords is asking the open source community for guidance on how to fulfill all obligations to the open source community successfully. Openwords has made a lot of progress in making the Openwords database available and has constructed an HTTP API available through Openwords.org, which hosts the Openwords word and language problem database.
Thank you for posting this Steve. I’m Marc the founder of Openwords.
We are just about to start a Kickstarter. & we also have a new video to share, and a language incubator program. We’ve already mined > 1000 languages. What language are you interested in?
Feel free to contact me if you have any questions. I’ll look through your site.
Thanks again!
Hi Marc
Thanks for your comment.
Keep me updated on progress as the project sounds fascinating.
I work in 5 languages, but have some facility in a few others.
As regards learning new ones, a bit more Greek would come in handy for my holidays, but I think that one would be a bit too mainstream for you & Openwords.
Keep up the good work.
Thanks Steve.
Regarding Greek. We have 28,661 words in the Greek-English and 1,644 Ancient Greek-English in the Openwords db. About half of the languages we’ve mined are available at Openwords.org right now. We are finishing the app to read that data and present problems to the learner.
Actually, Openwords isn’t specialized on non mainstream language. Openwords’ concept just happens to work rather well for them. So, we have content for all of your five languages!
More common languages are entirely within our purview.
I’ll definitely keep you updated. Thank you again for the post!
Marc
Hi again Marc
Your database’s modern Greek vocabulary is rather more extensive than mine! 🙂
Many thanks for your offer to keep me updated. Do you have a press/media list to which my email address could be added.
If so, it’s stevewoods189 (at) gmail dot com.
Best wishes
Steve