LughaKonnect
Most of Kenya’s languages have very little written down online, which leaves speakers and translation tools with almost nothing to work from.
A community-built dictionary and translation platform for Kenyan languages, with moderation and verification built in.
36Languages
- Data Architecture
- Multilingual Search
- Moderation & Verification
- Community Contribution
- Bulk Data Pipelines
The problem
A dictionary is only as good as the people who check it. LughaKonnect had to let anyone contribute without letting the quality slide. It also had to be useful today while laying the ground for proper translation later, and those two aims pull against each other more often than one would like.
What I built
Every entry is linked to English or Kiswahili, which act as bridge languages. That one rule does a surprising amount of work, since it lets the platform translate between Dholuo and Kikuyu even when nobody has paired the two directly.
What it does
- Search and translation across 36 languages.
- Bridge translation through English and Kiswahili where there is no direct match.
- Contribution flows for both words and phrases.
- A gaps view that shows contributors what is still missing.
- A moderation dashboard, so a person checks each entry before it is trusted.
- Bulk imports that are validated first and can be rolled back.
Under the hood
- Next.js on Supabase and PostgreSQL.
- The bridge-language rule is enforced by the database itself.
- Python tooling for preparing batches of related words.
Where it stands
It is live with 36 languages and grows steadily as speakers add and check entries. The smaller languages gain the most, because each new entry adds to very little.
Why it might matter to you
If you gather knowledge from many contributors and need it to stay accurate, the moderation side is the part worth studying.
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