science

Lingua Libre

Lingua Libre is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Lingua Libre rather than just read about it. In short: Lingua Libre is an online collaborative project and tool by the Wikimédia France association, which aims to build a collaborative, multilingual, audiovisual speech corpus under a free license. It mostly consists of a rapid recording online service which allows the user to chain hundreds of recordings.

Lingua Libre — illustration

Key takeaways

Lingua Libre belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Lingua Libre to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Lingua Libre from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Lingua Libre is an online collaborative project and tool by the Wikimédia France association, which aims to build a collaborative, multilingual, audiovisual speech corpus under a free license. It mostly consists of a rapid recording online service which allows the user to chain hundreds of recordings. Contributors have produced content in 310+ languages.

Description Lingua Libre enables the recording of words, phrases or sentences of any language, oral (audio recording) or signed (video recording).

Words are presented to the speaker in the form of a list, created on the spot, in advance, or by reusing an existing Wikimedia category. The speaker simply reads the word displayed on the screen, and the software moves on to the next word when it detects a silence after the read word. This principle, borrowed from the open source software Shtooka recorder with the help of its creator, Nicolas Vion, makes it possible to record several hundreds of words per hour. The recordings are then uploaded automatically from the web client to the Wikimedia Commons media library. In spring 2021, Lingua Libre was offline due to a fire in Strasbourg, but no audio recordings were lost.

Use of the recordings The recordings can be consulted either on Lingua Libre or on Commons. They are mainly used on other Wikimedia projects, for example to illustrate entries on Wiktionaries or proper nouns in Wikipedia articles. The re-use of the recordings in a language teaching context is envisaged. Language learners can freely download pronunciations and use them on GoldenDict, a popular dictionary software. Thus, audio recordings can be used as “Pronunciation Dictionaries” on GoldenDict without needing internet connection. The recordings are also reused in Natural Language Processing projects, for example to drive Mozilla's DeepSpeech speech recognition engines.

Versions Lingua Libre was initiated on January 23, 2015 and has had three successive versions:

Lingua Libre v.1 (2016) As part of the Languages of France project, which aims to document and promote the regional languages of France on Wikimedia and Internet projects in general, the conception of Lingua Libre started in November 2015, partly funded by the DGLFLF (General Delegation for the French language and the languages of France). The first version of the project was launched in August 2016. Only suitable for audio recording, Lingua Libre was shown during a workshop on Occitan language in December 2016, and then presented to the online Wikimedia community and at international events in 2017.

Lingua Libre v.2 (2018) A complete rebuilding was launched at the end of 2017. The new version of Lingua Libre is based on MediaWiki, uses Wikibase and OAuth to better integrate into the Wikimedia environment. The interface is translated via Translatewiki.net so that the project can be used by a large number of communities. The new version of the site was ready in June 2018 and opened to the public in August 2018.

Lingua Libre v.2.2 (2020) In 2020, important changes were made to the platform; a new look was developed especially for the site, the .org domain replaced the .fr domain used until then, and added support for sign languages through video recording.

Statistics In the first two years of the project's launch, approximately 10,000 recordings were made. The transition to v.2 was accompanied by a sharp increase in the contributions. The number of recordings multiplied by 10 in less than a year, exceeding the 100,000 threshold in May 2019. These recordings were made by 127 speakers in almost 50 languages. By September 2020, the platform had more than 300,000 recordings in 90 languages with more than 350 speakers. The 500,000 recordings milestone was reached in June 2021, thanks to 540 speakers of 120 languages.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Lingua Libre

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Lingua Libre claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Lingua Libre before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Lingua Libre ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Lingua Libre

In research: Lingua Libre appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Lingua Libre in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Lingua Libre is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Corpus linguistics, Creative Commons-licensed databases, Internet properties established in 2016, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Lingua Libre outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Lingua Libre in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Lingua Libre means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Lingua Libre out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Lingua Libre in simple terms?

Why does Lingua Libre matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Lingua Libre?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Lingua Libre.