Links to Language Sites (Mostly)

 
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Notes about this page

Almanacs Top of this page

Archives Top of this page

Audio references Top of this page

Collections of Web links Top of this page

  • Analytical Q's list of color guides
  • Brian Kelk's list of word lists
  • Dogpile. An impressive collection of links. I want to spend more time exploring it and learning to understand it.
  • Editors' Association of Canada Among other things, links to grammar and style guides
  • ENGLISH online E. L. Easton. Materials for Teaching & Learning. A wealth of links to resources on many aspects of English.
  • Garbl's Writing Resources On Line Dozens of good links here
  • Megalist of Word Links
  • NY Times Editorial Room Search Index
  • Onelook has a list of links to dictionaries and to lists of links to dictionaries.
  • The Online Writing Lab at Purdue University. Resources for writers and teachers, links to search engines
  • refdesk.com
  • A Web of On-line Dictionaries Links to dictionaries in many different languages.
  • Worthless Word for Today (Has a list of links.)
  • Yahoo's etymology links
  • Yahoo's grammar, usage, and style links

Color charts Top of this page

  • Analytical Q's list of color guides
  • Color saturations Various saturations, with hex codes, of primary and complementary colors.
  • Lynda's browser-safe colors The Browser-Safe Palette only contains 216 colors out of a possible 256. That is because the remaining 40 colors vary on Macs and PCs. By eliminating the 40 variable colors, this palette is optimized for cross-platform use.

Dictionaries Top of this page

  • American Heritage Dictionary, Fourth Edition, from Bartleby.com.
  • British-American dictionary compiled by Mark Glicksman
  • British-American dictionary
  • Cambridge International Dictionary of English This may be the only available source for American pronunciations using the International Phonetic Alphabet. It's apparently a relatively elementary student's dictionary; don't look in it for "paronomasia", "syllepsis", "zeugma", or "allophone".
  • The Century Dictionary "An encyclopedic dictionary of English considered by many to be the finest ever produced in the US." - Oxford Companion to the English Language
  • dictionary.com This source provides definitions from a number of different dictionaries. In particular, it apparently accesses the complete contents of The American Heritage Dictionary Third Edition, including the discussions of Indo European roots that may be unique to that dictionary. You can go directly to the dictionary lookup, as illustrated by the following example, which will find definitions for 'enclitic': http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=enclitic
  • Famous People: Biographies for Over 130,000 Famous People
  • TheFreeDictionary.com English, Medical, Legal, and Computer Dictionaries, Thesaurus, Encyclopedia, a Literature Reference Library, and a Search Engine all in one!
  • Hyperdictionary One-step lookup for an English Dictionary, a Computer Dictionary, a Thesaurus, a Dream Dictionary, and a Medical Dictionary
  • Hypertext Webster Gateway Online dictionary
  • Information Please dictionary and encyclopedia
  • Latin dictionary online Copyright (C)1997 The University of British Columbia Mathematics Department Individual pages and projects are Copyright by their respective creators, as noted. Also, Java-based interactive version.
  • Macquarie Dictionary on line (by subscription only)
  • Merriam-Webster Online
  • Onelook automatically searches many dictionaries for the word you enter.
  • Onelook also has a list of links to dictionaries and to lists of links to dictionaries.
  • The Sharpened Glossary of Computer and Internet Terms A Dictionary of Computer Terms with Easy-To-Understand Definitions.
  • The Tech Terms Computer Dictionary where computer and technology terms are defined and explained.
  • Webster's 1828 dictionary Searchable.
  • Wordnet Lexical Database. In addition to definitions, this site offers synonyms, coordinate terms, hypernyms, hyponyms and familiarity.
  • WordReference.com Uses Collins dictionaries to provide English definitions and translations (French, German, Italian, and Spanish).
  • yourDictionary.com

Discussion groupsTop of this page

  • The sci.lang FAQ What is sci.lang for? Discussion of the scientific or historical study of human language(s). Note the "sci." prefix. The main concern here is with facts and theories accounting for them.
  • Unmoderated linguistics list An unmoderated mailing list for discussing all aspects of linguistics. So if you want to talk about language acquisition, philosophise about the nature of linguistics or just get your own particular pet peeve about language off your chest, this is the place.
  • The Word Wizard If you're fascinated by anything to do with words, then join our club, use our (FREE) services and have fun with other like-minded people.

Encyclopedias Top of this page

  • Britannica 1 August 2001: Britannica is no longer free online. The URL that formerly provided the free access now offers a paid subscription.
  • Electric Library presents Encyclopedia.com
  • Information Please dictionary and encyclopedia

Fun with words Top of this page

  • The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest Since 1982 the English Department at San Jose State University has sponsored the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, a whimsical literary competition that challenges entrants to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels.
  • Clichés The Book of Clichés
  • A Collection of Word Oddities and Trivia, by Jeff Miller
  • The Eggcorn Database An eggcorn is an unusual spelling of a particular kind, such as free reign (instead of free rein) or hone in on (instead of home in on).
  • Fun with Words from RinkWorks.
  • Generate random sentences: The web economy bullshit generator, the automatic press release generator, and the Postmodernism generator
  • Pronunciation tips Have fun with quizzes on the use of the SAMPA ASCII IPA alphabet.
  • Word-Origin Game In this game you'll be presented with 10 randomly selected word origin or word definition puzzles to solve; in each case the word or phrase is highlighted in bold, and a number of possible explanations for its origin will be presented.

Guides: Usage, Grammar, and Style Top of this page

Humor Top of this page

  • Bushisms a collection of Bush garblings with citations of when and where they occured at

Learning English Top of this page

  • Dave's ESL Cafe for people learning or teaching English as a second language. Various courses for pay.
  • ELT Web, English Language Teaching, a variety of resources.
  • Irregular English Verbs, Lists and tools for learning.
  • Language help Up-to-date and very extensive language help from Ruth Vilmi in Helsinki
  • Teachingfish.com "A full-service ESL web site which offers free teaching resources, an online English grammar, web boards, a job finder service, ESL games and activities, teaching tips and articles on ESL teaching."

Lexicons Top of this page

  • Financial Terms
  • The Jargon File A comprehensive compendium of hacker slang illuminating many aspects of hackish tradition, folklore, and humor
  • Net lingo: A "Best of the Web" site. Among other things, a place to look up computer terms and net jargon.
  • Netscape Communicator Glossary
  • Rhetoric vocabulary
  • Slang terms by city; many cities.
  • Webopedia A Glossary of Computer Oriented Abbreviations and Acronyms

Measurement conversion Top of this page

  • Measurement units Russ Rowlett's discussions and definitions of measurement units
  • National Institute of Standards and Technology General Tables of Units of Measurement. Appendix C of NIST Handbook 44: Specifications, Tolerances, and Other Technical Requirements for Weighing and Measuring Devices.

Miscellaneous, language related Top of this page

Miscellaneous, not language related Top of this page

  • AnyWho Phone numbers and addresses for millions of people.
  • AtomTime98 Set your system time to agree with the atomic clock in Boulder, Colorado.
  • CIA World Factbook
  • Country codes with links to flags, based on International Standard ISO 3166 Codes. Hosted by 'Network Startup Resource Center at the University of Oregon'
  • Ebert Movie Files The Ebert Archives contain Roger Ebert's movie reviews since 1985.
  • Eric's Treasure Trove quick answers to math questions, especially ones of definition and history. I found here detailed step-by-step instructions for solving a polynomial equation using Horner's Method. Now (010703) all I find is a notice to the effect that the site has been discontinued because of a copyright lawsuit.
  • The Internet Movie Database An Amazon.com company
  • Internet FAQ Consortium Select 'FAQ Authors' in the left-hand frame for help on writing a FAQ and getting it installed at news.answers. Select 'Search FAQs' in the left-hand frame to search the contents of thousands of FAQs for any string.
  • Liszt the mailing list directory
  • Los Angeles Public Library Catalog
  • Mapquest Maps and much more.
  • News of the Weird
  • Search Engine Watch
  • Universal Postal Union
  • Virus catalog by Symantec.
  • Virus hoaxes listed by Symantec.
  • Web Gallery of Art The Web Gallery of Art is a virtual museum and searchable database of European painting and sculpture of the Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque periods (1150-1750), currently con over 6,000 reproductions.
  • White House web site - Full texts of speeches and radio addresses.
  • The World Clock Current local times around the world (Standard version)

News Top of this page

Online reference books Top of this page

Online services Top of this page

  • Anagram Genius Give it a string and your e-mail address; it e-mails an anagram of the string to you.
  • Ask a Linguist Ask-A-Linguist is a service provided by The LINGUIST List, an Internet network for professional linguists. Although the list itself is restricted to messages relating to linguistic research, many LINGUIST List members are interested in language-related questions of all kinds; and a number of these have volunteered to staff this page. Ask-A-Linguist is designed to be a place where anyone interested in language or linguistics can ask a question and get the response of a panel of professional linguists.
  • Lydbury English Centre - On Line Grammar Home Page
  • Text analyser Enter text; it analyzes it
  • Wordsmith.Org Various word-related services by e-mail

Phonetic alphabets Top of this page

  • Another ASCII IPA reference, with comparisons to other systems. Includes a side-by-side tabulation of IPA and the notation used in five ASCII IPA systems, including Kirshenbaum and SAMPA.
  • HTML version of Evan Kirshenbaum's IPA FAQ
  • PDF version of Evan Kirshenbaum's IPA FAQ
  • The International Phonetic Association
    • Cassette or CD with sounds of IPA symbols
    • Diacritics chart
    • Full IPA chart
    • Nonpulmonic-consonants chart
    • Other-symbolschart
    • Pulmonic-consonants chart
    • Suprasegmentals chart
    • Tones & Word accents chart
    • Vowels chart
  • Pronunciation tips Practice using the SAMPA ASCII IPA alphabet.
  • SAMPA (Speech Assessment Methods Phonetic Alphabet) computer readable phonetic alphabet. 'It was originally developed under the ESPRIT project 1541, SAM (Speech Assessment Methods) in 1987-89 by an international group of phoneticians, [...]'
  • SAMPA for American English by J. C. Wells
  • SIL IPA Fonts are scalable outline fonts for both Macintosh and Windows systems.

Rhetoric vocabulary Top of this page

Spelling Top of this page

Thesauruses Top of this page

  • WordNet - a Lexical Database for English. The word "thesaurus" only begins to connote the sort of work that WordNet is. To fully appreciate it, you need to spend some time with it.

Urban legends Top of this page

Web-design utilities Top of this page

  • Make A Website by clicking a mouse and typing a few sentences
  • HTML5 Beginner's Guide, by Robert Mening
  • HTML-Kit is a free and easy to use Windows program designed to help HTML authors to edit, format, lookup help, validate, preview and publish web pages.
  • HTML advice from Lynda
  • W3C HTML Validation Service It checks HTML documents for conformance to W3C HTML and XHTML Recommendations and other HTML standards.
  • World Wide Web Consortium, all about it.

Web search engines Top of this page

Word lists Top of this page

Words about words Top of this page

  • A bit about words by Julian Burnside (Click on "Language Page", then "Articles about words and language".)
  • 'Chiasmus', an exhaustive discussion
  • Forthright's Phrontistery Welcome to the Phrontistery! I'm Forthright, your host as you search this site, which is academic in appearance and focus but which, I think, has lots of stuff for anyone generally interested in historical and linguistic topics, English language words and word-lists, etymology, prehistory, or social issues in general.
  • John Lawler's discussions of frequently asked AUE questions
  • Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day
  • Online Etymology Dictionary
  • Random House's Maven's Word of the Day
  • Vocabula
  • Wilton's Etymology Page
  • A Word a Day Anu Garg's 'A.Word.A.Day'
  • Word Detective by Evan Morris
  • Word Exchange Collins page promotes discussion on the meanings of words, allows dictionary searches, and even allows you to suggest new words for Collins dictionaries.
  • Word Spy
  • World Wide Words by Michael B. Quinion
  • Worthless Word for Today (Has a list of links.)
  • Yet Another English Language FAQ

Notes Top of this page

This page was adapted by Bob Cunningham from the Language Resources list in Markus Laker's AUE Resources package. Bob writes:

"I've partitioned the list into categories. Within each category all links have been alphabetized, with leading 'a's and 'the's being ignored.  Some language-related links have been left uncategorized, either because they seemed too difficult to categorize or because I haven't yet made a determined effort to categorize them.  Some links that Markus described as having 'nothing to do with language' have been left as a group."