MTL Toolbox

MTL Toolbox (https://learntaiwanese.org/MTLtoolbox/about.html) is software and data to help work with written Taiwanese using the Modern Taiwanese Language (MTL) writing system and other romanizations for Taiwanese.

Features

six Taiwanese dictionaries spanning from Japanese era to present day
full-text search engine accepts written Taiwanese as well as English, and Harnji
audio from government-compiled dictionary: DFT
syllable segmentation ("unjoining") and "bag-of-syllables" search
Seven Tones soundboard: table of all MLT finals with examples

How to search

We describe how to use "Taiwanese–English dictionaries full-text search". This interface is mainly for starting with MLT or MTL, which we may refer to as "M-style" written Taiwanese. After entering M-input (which could be one or more monosyllables, or "joined" words), press "Zhøe" to run the search.

Typical usage

input: Taiwanese word (often consists of two syllables joined together), for example:
- køefcie
the Toolbox "unjoins" your input (syllable segmentation by database lookup)
then it performs search using unordered collection of syllables (bag-of-syllables)
the results from historical works should be about the same as for:
- køea cie

more examples:
- chviafmng
- tøsia
- Taioaan

Monosyllable

for a monosyllable, exact matches are displayed by default, for example (PTC):
- goar
- lie
- ee

if the syllable is a DFT monosyllable, a navigation bar displays adjacent DFT monosyllables in alphabetical order
due to high number of matches, "monosyllable mode" returns monosyllable search results. To see all matching results, click "Khahzøe"

Other fields

The "en" button is used to direct the search to the English field (en). Harnji (hj) can also be input, although we do not attempt Chinese text segmentation.

Data

Local copies of:

HTB: Hiexntai-buun Dictionary
DFT: Dictionary of Frequently-Used Taiwan Minnan (in TL. We added MTL annotations and annotated over 5800 definitions in English for monosyllables)
MK: Maryknoll Taiwanese-English Dictionary (in POJ. We added MTL annotations)
EDUTECH: Liim Keahioong (2001-2003) EDUTECH: Taiwanese-English Dictionary Searched with Concise Atonal Spelling (in MLT with unified spellings (øe))
Embree, Bernard L. M. (1973). A Dictionary of Southern Min: based on current usage in Taiwan and checked against the earlier works of Carstairs Douglas, Thomas Barclay, and Ernest Tipson. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Language Institute. (in POJ. We added MLT annotations)
Lim08: Tai-Nichi Daijiten translated into Taiwanese. (original 1931 & 1932, in Taiwanese kana. Data in POJ. We added MLT annotations)

We also support searching other websites with conversion to POJ/TL:

Lim (2019): Tai-Nichi Daijiten
Taibuun/Hoabuun Svoarterng Sutiern

Technical notes

SQLite: FTS4 for full-text search
Token prefix queries: use the asterisk ('*') at the end. Similar to wildcard character in operating systems (normal wildcard search not currently supported by FTS)
- Example: Taioa*, 臺*
Specify a column-name followed by a colon (':')
- Example: thj:頭* (returns entries where Taiwanese written with Harnji begins with character for thaau)
Add carat ^ before token to require token to be very first token in its column
- Example: ^thaau

Acknowledgements

The MTL Toolbox uses data from the Maryknoll Taiwanese-English Dictionary, which was generously released to the public under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License.