News and updates
May 2024: Celebrating 14 years with improved Okinawan and Yaeyama search results
General updates
- 14+ years strong: JLect celebrates its 14-year anniversary! Thank you to all of you for your patronage;
I hope the site has been valuable to you over the years. Still today, JLect remains one of the very few online,
English-first search databases for the Japonic languages and dialects. For some fun facts:
- In 2023, JLect's two most popular entries were めっちゃ meccha and なんくるないさ nankuru nai sa!
- In 2023, JLect's most popular Japonic variety was Okinawan! Second place goes to the Kagoshima dialect, while third place goes to Hiroshima.
- From 2023 through early 2024, the varieties with the most new entries in JLect were Kagoshima, Okinawan, Amami and Kunigami!
New features
- Search Yaeyama: JLect now integrates with:
- The 鳩間方言 音声語彙データベース Hatoma hōgen onsei goi dētabēsu (The Audio Database of Hatoma Lexicon) (© CC BY-SA 3.0 DEED), by Shinichi Kajiku and Natsuko Nakagawa, published by the National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics. Filter must be set to either 'All' (limited to 5 results) or 'Yaeyama' for best results. Also note that it is currently not possible to search this dataset with English words; only Yaeyama or Japanese. Give it a try! アガーン, 赤い, ピーヤン, 寒い, etc.
- The ［関連データ］南琉球八重山語宮良方言の名詞アクセント資料 [Kanren dēta] Minami Ryūkyū Yaeyama-go Miyara hōgen No meishi akusento shiryō ([Relevant Data] Prosodic materials of the Southern Ryukyuan Yaeyama Miyara dialect) (© CC BY-NC 3.0 DEED), by Kenan Celik, Aso Reiko and Kohei Nakazawa. Same details regarding the filters applies. The only difference is that some basic functionality to search by English words exists for this dataset.
- Search Okinawan: JLect now integrates with the うちなーぐち活用辞典テキストデータベース Uchinaaguchi katsuyō jiten tekisuto dētabēsu (Dictionary of the Practical Use of Okinawan) (© CC BY-ND 3.0 DEED), by Shinsho Miyara, published by the National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics. Filter must be set to either 'All' (limited to 5 results), 'Ryukyu' or 'Okinawa' for best results. Also note that it is currently not possible to search this dataset with English words; only Okinawan or Japanese. Give it a try! あかむん, 開く, かむん, はかたん, etc.
Improvements and bug fixes
- 沖縄語辞典 データ集 (Okinawago jiten dēta-shū) search results:
- Design: The design of the Japanese→Okinawan search results has been significantly improved. It's now easier to differentiate core translations from referenced entries as well as example phrases. There are also quick links allowing you to quickly look up the Okinawan or Japanese terms listed in the entries.
- Empty search results: Several bug fixes have been made to fix empty search results. For instance, words with glottal stops should now correctly show up in the results.
March 2024: Fixed kana rendering for Okinawan search entries
Bug fixes
- 沖縄語辞典 データ集 (Okinawago jiten dēta-shū) search results: Several fixes to the automated katakana spellings have been made, notably to ⟨Zo⟩ being rendered as ゾ instead of ジョ; ⟨ti⟩ as チ instead of ティ; ⟨tu⟩ as ツ instead of トゥ; ⟨Se⟩ as セ instead of シェ; ⟨Ze⟩ as ゼ instead of ジェ. Also deployed a fix so that entries with フ or with a glottal stop will now up in the search results.
August 2023: Improved resources page
General updates
- Resources page: I have added a table of contents to the Resources page as the list of links to external works was getting too long and difficult to navigate.
June 2023: Kanji drawing feature now available on mobile
General updates
- Kanji drawing feature: The handwritten Kanji drawing pad is now available to users using touchscreen devices (like tablets or mobile phones). Additionally, the kanji coverage has been greatly expanded.
- Revamping entries: A few notable changes have been made to word entries. First, the "region" and "pronunciation" sections have been moved around to make them clearer in entries and to allow them to take more space. Their font size has also been very slightly increased. Second, the image renderings that were previously in the sidebar of entries have been removed in favour of stylized vertical text, something that wasn't fully supported by all browsers when JLect first launched over a decade ago. Hover over the vertical form to see an alternative font styling.
May 2023: Looking back & etymology improvements
General updates
- 13+ years: JLect has been running for 13 years now and that's something worth celebrating. It counts thousands of entries, with hundreds getting added each month and countless getting edited and improved all the time.
- Improvements to etymology sections: Going forward, some entries' etymologies will include not only regional cognates, but also select historical attestations, reconstructions, and notes for discussion where applicable. Some existing examples include かばん【鞄】, くだらない【下らない】, なま【今】, くにぶ【九年母】, まーすん, っくゎ【子・小】, etc.
- Reporting bad entries: Friendly reminder that you can use the button "+ amend/report" available at the bottom of each entry to report any mistakes (e.g. spelling mistakes, etymology errors, missing meanings, etc.) or suggest any changes. Some entries are quite old, so there are bound to be issues.
October 2022: Kanji search now available
New features
- Kanji search: As of October 2nd, 2022, it is now possible to lookup Kanji and get their Japanese
and Okinawan readings if available. Data for this is pulled automatically from the English Wiktionary project.
Future improvements to come. Give it a try: 苺,
食, 木, etc.
- Added animated kanji stroke diagrams generated using SVG data from the KanjiVG project (© CC BY-SA 3.0), by Ulrich Apel.
- Added glyph origin table from Wiktionary to showcase how characters looked like historically.
August 2022: Various website updates
It's been a long since there's been any formal update to this website. As of this month, there's quite a lot to share:
Security improvements
- Server migration: I made the decision to migrate this site and the framework that powers it to a more modern server infrastructure in order to improve the site's performance and solidify its security posture.
- Upgraded framework: In conjunction to the server migration, the site's framework and its libraries were also updated.
- Leveraging Cloudflare: Although small, this site gets a large amount of traffic from malicious bots attempting to compromise it. I've made the decision to move the site behind Cloudflare to try to reduce such traffic.
Forum changes
- Removal of legacy forum: The forum has been removed as it had not received any new posts in several years and the software that powered it was no longer supported. An archive of its content can be found on the Wayback Machine.
- Promotion of Reddit as alternative: You will now notice that JLect promotes Reddit in many places. It is currently the most active and accessible online community with specialized subreddits for learning Japanese (/r/learnjapanese), discussing the Japonic languages (/r/japonic), and talking about linguistics in general (/r/linguistics).
New features
- Search Okinawan: JLect now integrates with the 沖縄語辞典 データ集 Okinawago jiten dēta-shū (Okinawan Dictionary Data Collection) (© CC BY 4.0), published by the National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics. To try it out, search for an Okinawan word or a Japanese word to get results. Filter must be set to either All or any of the Ryukyuan filters in order to get results. Also note that it is currently not possible to search this dataset with English words; only Okinawan or Japanese.
- Word of the Day: The home page now features a new word of the day block!
Other
- Removed Kanji and Names tabs: These tabs were removed as the functionality had not been implemented and in order to avoid confusing users.
- Fixed Resources links: Many of the links under the Resources page had been broken for a while. They've now all been verified and updated, and many new ones have also been added.