Creating talking and illustrative dictionaries: An example of Ọrọ

Dictionaries are important linguistic products. In terms of functions and application, they are relevant for language teaching and learning as well as for language preservation. They vary in types, including general-purpose or specialized, monolingual or bilingual, illustrated or pictorial, print or electronic, talking, etc. This study created an online talking and illustrated dictionary of Ọrọ, a Lower Cross language in Nigeria which until now had no such resource. The research method adopted is qualitative descriptive while the sampling method combined both purposive and snowball techniques. Data for the study were collected from three native speakers of Ọrọ, with the lead consultant serving as a co-author of this article. Over 300 entries were made, sourced from the modified version of Swadesh Wordlist by the Nigerian Language Project. The online platform on which the dictionary was created is www.livingdictionaries.app, a web portal dedicated to creation of dictionaries for endangered and low-resource languages. The study found that, today, linguists and community members can make web-based dictionaries for any language at no cost by using already available tools such as the Living Dictionaries platform.