About

Aim

IsiNdebele on IsiXhosa.click is an online dictionary for IsiNdebele and English.

Usage

To search for a word, start typing either the English or the IsiNdebele word in the search bar to show live search results. You can click on a word to find more information about the word, such as examples and related words. The dictionary currently has ⁨227⁩ entries. You can also download the words as an Anki flashcard deck. Backups for the database are available as a collection of CSV files in a GitHub repository.

Submitting edits

If you'd like to help the project, submitting new words and editing old ones would be greatly appreciated! First, you will need to create an account with the site. To do so, click the Sign in with Google button in the top right. From your Google account, IsiNdebele on IsiXhosa.click will only record your email, in order for the team to email you about any issues regarding your account or the site, and your Google OpenID Connect ID, to identify you when you log in.

Publications and articles

• A poster describing the project (originally presented at the UCT Language Indaba )
• Our profile on SADiLaR's ESCALATOR site
• Our profile on UCT's DOT4D site
• Our profile on Rising Voices
• "isiXhosa.click: student-led project makes isiXhosa vocabulary easily accessible" , by Birgit Ottermann
• "IsiXhosa.click: online, open, user-friendly, and searchable isiXhosa-English dictionary software" , by Cael Marquard (presented at AfriLex 2024)
• "Using computational tools and a corpus lexicography framework in developing an isiZulu LSP Dictionary" , by Mthuli Buthelezi and Cael Marquard (presented at AfriLex 2024)

Terms of use and privacy policy

License

The database of IsiNdebele on IsiXhosa.click is licensed under the All rights reserved. This ensures that the information of the dictionary is freely usable by all, as long as appropriate credit is given, and edits are also released under this license. Similarly, the software is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License Version 3.

In simple terms, it means that you are free to

• copy
• reuse
• redistribute
• edit
• and build upon

• give credit (for instance by providing a link)
• indicate if changes have been made
• distribute the edited version under the ARR license

The source code is available from its GitHub repository, and the database of words, examples, and linked words is available on GitHub. The logo, designed by Jaydon Walters, is available under CC-BY-SA 4.0 in original resolution here.

Acknowledgements

Thank you to the following people and organisations, without whom this project would not have been possible:

• The South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR) for their valuable collaboration and for partially funding the project during the 2022 DH OER Champions grant project .
• The UCT Department of Computer Science, for hosting the site's server and partially funding the project.
• Craig Balfour, for his assistance in setting up the server at UCT.
• Mthuli Buthelezi, for translating the user interface of the website into isiZulu as well as other valuable collaborative efforts.
• Prof Maria Keet and the NRF-funded KeBoNa project, of which she is the PI.
• Dr Sponono Mahlangu

Contact

You can get in touch with us on our Discord server. Anyone is free to join and there are no obligations or requirements except to act respectfully 🙂.