Online Dictionary and Ontology Building for Austronesian Languages in Taiwan

Abstract

This paper provides a model of language documentation and conservation in Taiwan to illustrate how online dictionaries have been produced by a collaborative team, and how technology has been used in the process to create a formalized model of existing indigenous knowledge. Our interactions with the Yami community over the past decade have led us to believe that a cooperation framework involving three groups of experts provides necessary “scaffolding” before an “egalitarian” wiki style of online dictionary or ontology building can be attempted. In addition, ontology building requires triangulation of various sources of human interpretations. It is not possible to build an ontology only based on sophisticated machine reasoning. We hope this model of collaboration can serve as a feasible model for other projects in language revitalization and capacity building in the future.