| Reta Vortaro | |
| Screenshot Size: | 256px |
| Commercial: | No |
| Type: | Multilingual online dictionary |
| Registration: | Required to make edits |
| Language: | Esperanto |
| Content Licence: | GPL[1] |
| Author: | Wolfram Diestel |
| Launch Date: | 1997 |
| Current Status: | Active |
Reta Vortaro ("Internet Dictionary", often known by the Esperanto short form ReVo) is a general-purpose multilingual Esperanto dictionary for the Internet. Each of the dictionary's headwords is defined in Esperanto, along with additional information, such as example sentences, to help distinguish the subtle shades of meaning that each particular word form may have.
Headwords also have translation equivalents in various national languages. Over 60 percent of the headwords have French, German, Russian Hungarian and/or English translations; over half the words have Dutch, Slovak, Czech, Polish and/or Belarusian translations; and over 30 percent of the words have Spanish, Portuguese and/or Catalan translations.
Italian, Bulgarian, Romanian, Persian, Indonesian, Swedish, Breton and several other languages are also represented, though with smaller numbers of Esperanto headwords.[2] In addition to indices of headwords linking to the various national languages represented, Reta Vortaro also has multiple thematic indexes, a thesaurus and a bibliography of sources consulted.
The project was initiated at the end of 1997. The original purpose had been to create an electronic version of the massive dictionary known as Plena Ilustrita Vortaro de Esperanto (1970 and 2002 editions), but due to a lack of interest on the part of the PIV editors, at least partly due to concerns at the time over harming sales of the printed volume — since alleviated, as PIV now has both a reprinted paper edition and a free online version — the Reta Vortaro project changed its focus to creating a separate Internet-use dictionary. One of its major sources is the Plena Vortaro de Esperanto (1930, with the 1953 supplement of Gaston Waringhien).
Contributions are added through an e-mail editing server, for which anyone can register. Lexical items are formulated in XML. Editorial discussion takes place via the mailing list. The content and the tools are licensed through the GNU General Public License (GPL).
The many differences between definitions and translations provided by the PIV and by ReVo are clarified by an understanding of various "language policies". While the PIV tries to create a complete dictionary by proposing Esperanto terminology for previously missing words in general usage and even to try to prescribe and correct de facto language use through its definitions, the purpose of ReVo is to record and describe Esperanto as it is actually used. ReVo demands that volunteer editors provide two or more sources for a newly cited word, at least one of which is not from a dictionary.
Various "snapshots" of ReVo's development have been taken over time.
In addition, the dictionary had large thematic vocabulary subsets, with geography at 1298 words; mathematics at 1,290; zoology at 1,108; politics, sociology and administration at 1,069; botany at 1018; medicine and pharmacy at 809; economics, finance and commerce at 762; technology at 620; cooking at 564; chemistry and biochemistry at 510; computer science at 497; music at 491; history at 446; etc.
One who knows the Esperanto root-form of a word (for nouns, this is the word without the -o ending; for adjectives, the word without the -a ending) can look up a web page giving the Esperanto word's meanings, along with related words and example sentences.