About this site

Local study archive — not an official Penobscot Nation publication

Archive (official text)

Penobscot Dictionary — official archive

The Search and Browse sections are a local copy of the Penobscot Dictionary online — 12,673 entries, 11,753 with audio recordings from the Penobscot Indian Nation, University of Maine, and American Philosophical Society (Frank T. Siebert manuscript).

Headwords, definitions, and examples match the official archive. Each entry links back to the official site.

Audio in this mirror has been loudness-normalized (~-15 LUFS) so recordings are easier to hear on phones and laptops. That is a study convenience only — not a change to the linguistic content. Hover part-of-speech labels (AI, INAN, Initial, …) for short explanations.

Lab (experimental)

Experimental Lab — verify with audio & speakers

The Lab is for learners without special keyboard fluency. Everything it shows is labeled system detection — pattern guesses, not official Penobscot.

English → possible Penobscot — type normal English; the Lab matches dictionary definitions and suggests forms (with reasoning).
Penobscot → possible meaning — type a form you heard (plain letters OK); shows meaning first, then prefix/stem guesses.
Themes — browse words tagged from English glosses (animals, body, objects, nature, food, …). Tags boost related Lab matches.
Perspective & kinship — browse by mother, father, child, my/his/her, older/younger, feminine endings, etc., with pattern hints.

Elsewhere: entry pages have an amber Related forms panel (including Related by meaning from theme tags); Search shows amber partial matches when you type a fragment of a word.

Always verify with audio and fluent speakers before trusting a Lab result.

Open Lab

Games (study practice)

Study games — practice with archive audio

Purple Games are listening and quiz drills using archive audio and theme tags. Start with Listen-3: hear a word, pick the matching English from three choices.

Open Games

Source code

This site is open source. Anyone may clone it, host their own mirror, or adapt it for community use:

github.com/Inphidel/penobscot-dictionary

git clone https://github.com/Inphidel/penobscot-dictionary.git
cd penobscot-dictionary
# serve the ready-made site/ folder (nginx, Apache, or python -m http.server)

Dictionary text and recordings remain credited to the Penobscot Indian Nation, University of Maine, and American Philosophical Society. Lab tools and Games are optional study aids in this package.

How to run locally

Windows: run restart.bat in the project folder, then open http://localhost:8080

python -m http.server 8080 --directory site
# open http://localhost:8080

Audio must be served over http/https — opening HTML files directly will not play recordings.

For maintainers — updating the mirror

This distribution ships with normalized audio already applied. Most users only need git pull (or copy the site/ folder) and serve it.

The official online dictionary appears stable and may not receive frequent updates. Re-crawling is optional and mainly for operators who want to check for new entries.

Important: re-downloading from the official site replaces MP3s with the original quiet recordings. If you run a refresh, also re-apply loudness normalization:

pip install -r requirements.txt
python scripts/spider.py          # optional — re-crawl official site
python scripts/finish.py          # rebuild data + site (overwrites quiet audio)
python scripts/normalize_audio.py # restore comfortable listening level
python scripts/build_site.py      # if you changed scripts only

Rebuild Lab pattern indexes only (no crawl):

python scripts/mine_affixes.py
python scripts/mine_semantic_tags.py
python scripts/mine_kinship.py
python scripts/build_site.py

Originals before normalization are kept in audio_original/ (local backup, not required for serving).