A dictionary is built by people checking other people's work.
That is the whole of volunteering here. No code to write. No money to give. No office to visit, no roster to join, no title required. You send a word, name, proverb or pronunciation — or you check one somebody else sent.
What volunteering here actually is.
Three things define the work: add what you know, let somebody else check it, and keep the record honest.
You add what you know
A word and its meaning is the centre of it — and so is a personal name, proverb, dialect form or recording.
Somebody else checks it
Every submission is read by a person before it is published. Corrections are reviewed the same way.
And that is the whole of it
There is no minimum and no commitment. One word is a contribution, and so is one correction.
Editors can only check what has been sent. A language with nothing in it cannot be edited into existence — it needs a first word from somebody who speaks it.
Africa has speakers.
It needs more records.
Twenty-six languages are listed in the register. Five currently hold words. Twenty-one have none at all. For those languages, the first entry is not a small thing — it is the beginning of a searchable record.
The gap is real
Nothing is stopping the twenty-one waiting languages from beginning. No permission is needed to write down a word you already know. What is missing is the person who writes it.
Speech becomes a record
A spoken word reaches the people in the room. A written one reaches a student, teacher, researcher, developer or family member who looks it up years later.
Twenty-one languages are waiting for their first word.
The number beside each language is its current word count. Every one is zero.
What is in it — and what is not.
Counted directly from the record. Nothing here is rounded up or estimated.
16,594
published
17,458
not published
41,672
example sentences
48
dialect varieties
Six kinds of contribution.
The dashboard offers five guided tasks. A correction begins on the page of the thing that is wrong.
A word
Headword, meaning, language, part of speech and an example. Dialect and source can make it much more useful.
Add a word →A proverb
The proverb in the language, English if you have it, and where you heard it. Untranslated proverbs are held rather than guessed.
Add a proverb →A dialect form
The name people call the variety, its filing code and the region where it is spoken.
Add a dialect →A recording
Your voice in your variety. The recording belongs to the exact word and credits you as the speaker.
Record a word →A correction
Every entry, name and proverb page has a proposal form. Corrections go to an editor; the previous wording is preserved so changes can be checked rather than silently overwritten.
Find an entry to correct →The contribution does not go straight into the record.
That distinction is deliberate. Ozituma is trying to build a record, not a pile of unverified submissions.
An editor, administrator or owner reads the submission before publication.
The previous wording is recorded on the way through, so a proposed change can be compared with what a source actually says.
A refusal carries a reason. You can edit the submission and send it again from your submissions page.
A proverb without a faithful English rendering may be held rather than published with a guessed translation. An unsupported origin account remains unsupported.
Six steps. One living record.
Make an account
Free, and only needed to contribute. Reading the dictionary, names, proverbs and API needs no account.
Write one thing
Choose a word, name, proverb, dialect form or recording. The essential fields come first.
Send or save a draft
A draft stays yours and is not put in the review queue until you send it.
An editor reads it
Every submission waits for editorial review before it becomes public.
A decision comes back
Published, merged or refused with a reason. A refused entry can be edited and sent again.
It enters the record
Once published it can be searched, read and reached through the free public API — while remaining open to corrections.
This can be a classroom activity.
The forms are plain web forms. They work on a phone, on a slow connection and without requiring a computer room.
A practical language lesson
A word entry begins with four fields: word, language, meaning and part of speech. Optional fields — dialect, example sentence, translation and source — turn the exercise into a lesson about what makes a reliable record.
Class-scale contribution
Thirty students writing ten words each would produce 300 entries. That is not a target or promise; it simply shows what this kind of work looks like at classroom scale.
If you hold a word list, school collection, printed dictionary, family history of names or recordings, you do not need to enter everything one-by-one. Email [email protected] and describe what you have.
If you speak a language,
you already have something to give.
You do not need a degree, official title, CV or formal role. What the editor reviews is the entry you send — not your status.
One word is enough.
The editors would rather have one word you are certain of than ten you are not. There is no minimum, no roster and no shift.
Your voice matters.
Recordings are one of the hardest gaps to fill. A recording belongs to the exact word and variety it represents and is credited to the speaker.
Everything else, asked and answered.
Do I need an account?
To read: no. To contribute: yes. Your account ties submissions to you and lets you see the decision on each submission.
Who reviews my submission?
An editor, administrator or owner — the roles with publishing authority. Every proposal is read before publication.
How long does review take?
No fixed review time is promised. The word form says an editor reads every submission, usually within a week. If something has waited longer than expected, email [email protected].
What happens after an entry is published?
It becomes searchable, receives its own entry page and is served through the free public API. It remains open to corrections.
What happens if my submission is refused?
A refusal carries a reason. From your submissions page you can edit and resend it. Nothing you wrote is simply lost.
Am I credited for what I send?
Recordings are credited to the speaker. Accepted corrections are recorded against the entry they changed. General word submissions are recorded against your account but do not carry a public byline.
Can I contribute from a phone?
Yes. The contribution forms work on phones and are designed to work without JavaScript. The recording form can accept an audio file or use the phone microphone.
Can a school or class take this on?
Yes. The forms are short and phone-friendly. Teachers can use the required fields as classwork and optional fields as homework.
Is Ozituma only for Igbo?
No. It is a dictionary of African languages. Igbo is the deepest part because that is where the work started, not because it is the boundary of the project.
What if I only know one word?
Send one word. One word is a contribution, and so is one correction.
What does volunteering here not involve?
There is no office, rota, code requirement, donation requirement, title, degree or CV. Donations are handled separately.
One word is a contribution.
If the language you speak has nothing in the record, you are exactly the person this page was written for.