goodmami/wn

What it solves

Wn provides a standardized way to explore and query wordnets—large lexical databases of semantic relationships between words—across multiple languages. It simplifies the process of downloading, indexing, and analyzing linguistic data, offering a modern alternative to older tools like NLTK for wordnet exploration.

How it works

The library uses a SQL-based backend to store wordnet data, which ensures fast startup times and efficient querying. It supports the WN-LMF 1.4 format and includes a built-in index that acts like a package manager, allowing users to easily download specific wordnets (e.g., Open English WordNet) via a command-line interface. It also integrates the Collaborative Interlingual Index (CILI) to enable queries across different languages.

Who it’s for

Linguists, NLP researchers, and developers building applications that require semantic understanding, lemmatization, or taxonomic exploration of words across various languages.

Highlights

• Multilingual Support: First-class support for wordnets in numerous languages, including English, German, Portuguese, and many others via the Open Multilingual Wordnet collection.
• Interlingual Queries: Ability to perform queries across languages using the Collaborative Interlingual Index.
• Semantic Analysis: Includes six different similarity metrics and tools for exploring taxonomies.
• Linguistic Utilities: Built-in support for lemmatization (including Morphy for English) and unicode normalization.
• High Performance: SQL-based backend for improved query performance and fast initialization.