Open research · Public consultation
The languages migrants made.
Greeks, Italians and Spanish speakers in English speaking countries did not simply lose their languages. They took English words into them and gave each one a gender, a plural and a place at the kitchen table. Three dictionaries record those words, with the source of every entry and the voice of every family that sends one in. One is live. Two are open research consultations, and they need you. Everything is done in public: the sources, the method, the gaps and the decisions. What an ethnolect is, and why these words were hidden for so long.
The Italian dictionary is open in beta: searchable, sourced, and still without a name or an Italian editor. Both will come from the community, the way To Booko took its name from a word.
Open consultation from October 2026
It has no name yet. Help choose one, or send a word.
The Spanish dictionary is open in beta the same way, with Australia given the same standing as the United States, and its name and editors still to be found.
Open consultation from October 2026
It has no name yet. Help choose one, or send a word.
Open now
Name the Italian and Spanish dictionaries, join as an editor or adviser, send a word to any of the three or correct an entry. The full public record.
For the curious
Search a word your mother used and find out who else said it, where, and when it was first written down. Add one of your own. Argue about the spelling.
For researchers
Every entry names its sources, research is cited by page where the page has been checked, and every citation that has not been checked says so. The editorial decisions are explained. We would rather be corrected than quoted uncritically.
Ethnolects is led by a Greek Australian. That is a qualification for the Greek dictionary and a limit for the other two. The Italglish and Spanglish projects are therefore run as open consultations: the sourced material is on the table, the method is published, and the editing of each dictionary passes to people from that community as they come forward. How the consultation works and how to take part.