@_esilas , do you know of any existing Swahili dictionaries with parts of speech (noun, verb, etc) that we can convert to an NLP++ .dict file?
Yes, their is a Swahili dictionary know as Kamusi and it comes as a hard copy. The dictionary contains all possible Swahili words with a detailed explanation about them.
That is a hard copy. But to transfer that to digital is what we need to do.
Here are some comprehensive Swahili word lists available on GitHub. Here are a few options:
- All Swahili Words Dictionary: A repository containing a text file with a collection of Swahili words.
- Swahili Wordlist: A word list that includes Swahili words among other language resources.
- Kamusi Project: A repository offering JSON and CSV data for a Swahili dictionary with over 16,600 words, including meanings, synonyms, and conjugations.
Do any of these have parts of speech?
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Part of speech according to the Swahili dictionary “Kamusi”
| English | Noun |
|---|---|
| Noun (cat) | Nomino (paka) |
| Pronouns (you) | Kiwakilishi cha nafsi (wewe) |
| Verb (eat) | Kielezi (kula) |
| Adjective (big) | Kivumishi (kubwa) |
| Adverb (quickly) | Vielezi (haraka) |
| Preposition (from) | Kihusishi (kutoka) |
| Conjunction (but) | Kunganishi (ila) |
| Interjection (wow!) | Kingizi (lo!) |
In reference to the GitHub repository, Kalebu/kamusi, I was able to identify the above 8 parts of speech, but some words still do not have an extensive definition. For instance, lo! (“tamko la kuonyesha mshangao, furaha au hofu”, kefle!) is a representation of an interjection but not highlighted to which part of speech it belongs to.
In reference to the GitHub repository, odolezal/wordlists, the Swahili words listed lack explanation as to what they mean and which part of speech a word belongs to.
I’m thinking we could use a LLM to query the part of speech using English for each word in the list.
I think that’s a brilliant proposal, and I would like to know when we could start working on it.
Thank you!
Let me know if you need any help or have questions…