Lexicona

Lexicona is a collaborative, open-access lexicon project that aims to assemble a comprehensive multilingual lexical database and its linguistic annotations. Initiated by an international group of linguists and software developers, the project operates as an online platform with a public API that enables researchers, educators, translators, and developers to explore, contribute to, and reuse lexical data.

Each lexical entry corresponds to a lemma and can include multiple senses, definitions, part of speech, etymology, example sentences, synonyms and antonyms, semantic relations, frequency indicators, and usage notes. The data model emphasizes cross-linking, allowing connections between related entries within and across languages, such as cognate relationships and semantic fields.

Lexicona sources data from scholarly dictionaries, corpora, and user submissions, which are reviewed by volunteer editors and domain experts before publication. The project emphasizes transparency, versioning, and provenance, with entries tracked by edit history and source citations. Data are released under open licenses suitable for research and educational reuse.

Technology-wise, Lexicona uses a modular, graph-friendly database design and provides a RESTful API, with exports in common formats such as JSON, RDF, and XML. The platform supports localization and script variants, facilitating inclusion of non-Latin languages and diverse writing systems.

Reception to Lexicona has been positive among language researchers and open-data advocates, who praise its openness and extensibility. Critics note that, as with many crowdsourced projects, data coverage and quality vary by language and domain, requiring ongoing governance and community engagement.

See also: lexicon, corpus linguistics, open data.