Matapuna Dictionary Writing System

1. OVERVIEW. Matapuna, from a Māori word meaning ‘source’, is an open-source Dictionary Writing System (DWS) developed by Dave Moskovitz of Thinktank Consulting Limited in collaboration with the Māori Language Commission of New Zealand. It is a DWS much like Toolbox, iLex, or TshwaneLex, but unlike the others, it is entirely webbased. This means that its interface can be opened with any usual browser, which is a huge advantage if we consider that most users are now familiar with the Internet. Furthermore, its network feature makes it well-suited for collaborative dictionary projects, either in a Local Area Network or on the Internet. In the latter case, you and your team can access the project and do the work from any part of the world. Above all, Matapuna is a multiuser DWS, meaning that different users can log in simultaneously and work on the same project. Thanks to the self-archiving function of the system, all changes to the entries are recorded with the username of each author and the date of change. Because the system is highly flexible, changes in the data structure that are made in a later stage of a project will apply to the whole database. This is not true of some dictionary software. For example, in Toolbox, changes in the template apply only to subsequent entries, not the preceding ones. Matapuna has few technical requirements. If you run your project locally on your computer, you will need to install a Linux server as your operating system and at least 500 MB to 1 GB of RAM memory (today even most cheap computers have at least 1 GB RAM). Please note that typically you can download Linux-based server software free of charge. 1 If your project is hosted on another machine, you need nothing but a web browser. In such a case, the current operating system on your computer should be irrelevant. Matapuna can be used to compile bilingual as well as monolingual dictionaries. My own project is a monolingual dictionary of Fula (also called Fulfulde in the literature), a West African language. At present, there are only two interface languages—Māori and English. However, the system can easily be translated into any other language (Dave Moskovitz, pers. comm.). 2. DOWNLOAD AND INSTALLATION. Matapuna can be downloaded from a repository such as the one linked by the SourceForge URL in the summary. For more details, please go to the homepage as also indicated below in the summary. The program can be installed easily by executing the downloaded file. If, for any reason, you cannot run Matapuna on your own computer, you can get in touch with Dave Moskovitz and check if it is possible for him to host your project. Details are provided on the Matapuna website.