Słownik Warszawski dictionary undergoes digital transformation

The Słownik Warszawski, the largest Polish dictionary, is being transitioned into a digital knowledge base. Originally published in eight volumes between 1900 and 1927 by a team led by ethnologist Jan Aleksander Karłowicz, the work spans nearly 7,700 pages and contains approximately 265,000 entries.

Dr. Mirosław Koziarski has undertaken the grassroots effort to digitize and convert the dictionary into a modern database format. Having begun the project as part of his doctoral studies at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, he has continued the work as a hobbyist. Currently, about 86,000 entries—roughly one-quarter of the total content—are available online.

The digital platform allows users to search entries, perform statistical analyses, and compare historical terms with modern dictionaries. The collection is considered an invaluable resource for lexicographers because it preserves a vast array of general, dialectal, borrowed, and occasionalist forms of the Polish language.