True Motu Dictionary Builder
🌏 Languages Documented: 1 (True Motu)
👥 Contributors: –
📝 Words Defined: – / 15,611
🎤 Audio Recordings: –
What is this?
A crowdsourced dictionary platform for documenting endangered languages, starting with True Motu (Motu korikori) — an Austronesian language spoken in the Port Moresby region of Papua New Guinea.
Community members contribute:
- Translations — what does each word mean in English?
- Audio recordings — how is it actually pronounced?
- Context — regional variations, generational differences, usage notes
The platform tracks consensus across contributors, flags disagreements for review, and builds a living dictionary that captures the language as it's actually spoken today.
⚠️ Not Hiri Motu: True Motu (ISO 639-3: meu) is the original, complex Austronesian language — not to be confused with Hiri Motu/Police Motu (hmo), which is a simplified pidgin trade language.
Why does this matter?
True Motu is endangered.
Most fluent speakers are elderly. Younger generations often understand it but can't speak it fluently. Without documentation, the language — and the culture embedded within it — will be lost.
This project aims to:
- Preserve the language before fluent speakers are gone
- Document how the living language differs from historical texts (like the 1973 Bible translation)
- Enable future generations to learn their ancestral language
- Train AI speech recognition so technology can support the language
- Provide infrastructure other endangered languages can reuse
Features
For Contributors
- 📝 Flashcard interface — one word at a time, low friction
- 🎤 Audio recording — record pronunciation directly in browser
- 💡 AI-suggested translations — based on aligned Bible verses
- 📊 Progress tracking — see your contribution streak and stats
- 👥 Community consensus — see what others have said
For Researchers
- 🔬 Demographic data — analyze by age, region, speaker type
- 📈 Generational analysis — which words are young people losing?
- 🗺️ Regional variants — track dialect differences
- 📤 Data export — full dataset available for research
For Admins
- 🛡️ Moderation tools — flag, warn, suspend, ban bad actors
- 📊 Trust scores — algorithmic quality detection
- ✅ Consensus review — resolve disputed translations
Tech Stack
| Layer | Technology |
|---|
| Frontend | Next.js 14, React, Tailwind CSS |
| Auth & Database | Supabase (PostgreSQL + Auth + RLS) |
| Audio Storage | Cloudflare R2 |
| Upload Handler | Cloudflare Worker |
| Hosting | Vercel |
| Cost | $0/month on free tiers |
Quick Start
Prerequisites
- Node.js 18+
- A Supabase account (free tier works)
- A Cloudflare account (free tier works)
- A Vercel account (free tier works)
1. Clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/Trevo88423/motu-korikori.git
cd motu-korikori/dictionary-app
npm install
2. Set up Supabase
- Create a new project at supabase.com
- Go to SQL Editor and run the schema from
dictionary-app/supabase/schema.sql
- Copy your project URL and anon key
3. Set up Cloudflare R2
- Create an R2 bucket called
motu-dictionary-audio
- Deploy the Worker from
dictionary-app/cloudflare-worker/
- Note your Worker URL
4. Configure environment
cp .env.example .env.local
Edit .env.local:
NEXT_PUBLIC_SUPABASE_URL=https://your-project.supabase.co
NEXT_PUBLIC_SUPABASE_ANON_KEY=your-anon-key
NEXT_PUBLIC_R2_UPLOAD_URL=https://your-worker.workers.dev
5. Seed the database
# Generate seed SQL from CSV files
cd dictionary-app
npm run seed:generate
# Then run the generated SQL in Supabase SQL Editor:
# Copy contents of dictionary-app/supabase/seed.sql
# Paste into Supabase SQL Editor and execute
6. Run locally
cd dictionary-app
npm run dev
Visit http://localhost:3000
Project Structure
motu-korikori/
├── README.md # This file
├── CONTRIBUTING.md # How to contribute
├── LICENSE # MIT License
├── SELF_HOSTING.md # Fork for another language
├── PROJECT_STRUCTURE.md # Detailed structure
│
├── files/ # Source data (15,610 words)
│ ├── motu_vocabulary.csv
│ └── aligned_verses.csv
│
├── align_bibles.py # Bible alignment script
│
└── dictionary-app/ # Main Next.js application
├── app/ # Pages
├── components/ # React components
├── lib/ # Utilities
├── supabase/ # Database schema & seeding
├── cloudflare-worker/ # Audio upload worker
├── DEPLOYMENT.md # Full deployment guide
└── README.md # App documentation
See PROJECT_STRUCTURE.md for detailed file listing.
Data Sources
The initial word list comes from the 1973 True Motu Bible (Buk Baibel long tokples Motu):
- Source: ebible.org/meu
- License: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 (Bible Society of Papua New Guinea)
- Words extracted: 15,611 unique words
- Verses aligned: ~31,000 (Motu ↔ English parallel corpus)
This gives us:
- Every word with frequency count
- Example verse in Motu
- Aligned English translation for context
Contributing
We welcome contributions! See CONTRIBUTING.md for details.
Ways to help
| Type | How |
|---|
| 🗣️ Native speaker? | Sign up and contribute translations + audio |
| 👨💻 Developer? | Check the issues, submit PRs |
| 🎨 Designer? | Help improve the UI/UX |
| 📚 Linguist? | Help with quality review and verification |
| 🌍 Have another language? | Fork this for your community! |
Fork for Your Language
This project is designed to be reusable for any endangered language.
See docs/SELF_HOSTING.md for a complete guide, but the basic steps are:
- Fork this repo
- Replace the word list with your language's data
- Update branding/copy
- Deploy your own instance
- Build your community
If you have a parallel text corpus (like a Bible translation), you can use our align_bibles.py script to bootstrap your word list.
Languages that could use this:
- Māori (New Zealand)
- Cree, Ojibwe, Inuktitut (Canada)
- Hawaiian (USA)
- Welsh (UK)
- Aboriginal Australian languages
- Any of the 7,000+ languages worldwide
Privacy & Data
- We collect: Name, email, age range, location, language background
- We use it for: Understanding regional/generational language patterns
- We never: Sell your data
- You can: Export or delete your data anytime
- Audio recordings: Used for dictionary and AI training (with consent)
See PRIVACY.md for the full privacy policy.
License
This project is licensed under the MIT License — see LICENSE for details.
The True Motu Bible text is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 by the Bible Society of Papua New Guinea.
Acknowledgments
- Clare — Native True Motu speaker and the inspiration for this project
- Bible Society of Papua New Guinea — For making the 1973 Bible translation available
- Living Tongues Institute — For Living Dictionaries, which inspired this project
- eBible.org — For hosting freely accessible Bible translations
Contact
