Why This Project Exists

This project was born out of concern over the declining use of the Dusun language, especially among the younger generation. It is feared that in less than 50 years, Dusun may become extinct, as most current speakers are from the older generation.

One major cause for this decline is that many parents no longer speak Dusun at home. Instead, the national language is used in daily communication with children, contributing to language shift and eventual loss.

The Lack of Online Resources

The internet currently lacks sufficient material to support learning or preservation of the Dusun language. To reverse this trend, we need to contribute as much online content as possible—dictionaries, examples, reading material, and anything that can be used by learners and language models.

One key example is the Iban language, which is already supported on Google Translate. A major factor in Iban’s success is the large volume of Iban-language content available online, which helped train Neural Machine Translation (NMT) systems and AI.

What This Project Includes

1. Dusun Dictionary – A comprehensive database of over 12,000 (as of January 2026) Dusun words and phrases, serving as a daily-use reference. The dictionary is updated regularly and open to public suggestions. It provides the foundation for all AI-powered features and may serve as valuable training data to help bring Dusun to platforms like Google Translate.
2. AI-Powered Translators – Intelligent translation tools powered by advanced AI:
   • TO Dusun Translator – Translate from English, Malay, Mandarin, Korean, Japanese, or Spanish into Dusun
   • FROM Dusun Translator – Translate Dusun text into English, Malay, Mandarin, Korean, Japanese, or Spanish
   Unlike Google Translate, these tools use custom logic combining hand-crafted Dusun grammar rules with filtered dictionary entries and AI assistance—not pure NMT.
3. Learning Dusun Grammar & Lessons – Structured educational content covering key aspects of the Dusun language, including sentence construction (VSO word order), pronouns, negation, affixes, adjectives, prepositions, demonstratives, interrogatives, and more. This section is continually updated with new insights and examples, focusing on natural usage rather than formal textbook rules.
4. Common Phrases – Essential Dusun phrases for everyday conversation with English and Malay translations, helping learners quickly pick up practical expressions.
5. Chat with Dusun AI – Practice natural Dusun conversation with AI chatbot characters that respond in authentic Dusun language. Perfect for improving conversational fluency and getting comfortable with real dialogue.
6. Audio Expression – Listen to randomized Dusun sentences with English/Malay translations for immersive pronunciation practice. Helps learners develop proper accent and intonation.
7. Visual Learning – Learn Dusun vocabulary through images and visual associations for better retention. A picture-based approach to building your Dusun word bank.
8. Practice & Quizzes – Test your knowledge with interactive exercises and multiple-choice quizzes at different skill levels. Focus on sentence structures, affixes, and grammar comprehension.
9. Dialogs – Listen to audio dialogues with comprehension quizzes to improve your listening skills naturally through contextual conversations.

Looking Ahead

I hope that Dusun Dictionary (and the other linked modules) will, in some small way, help young people reconnect with their mother tongue. I also encourage more Dusun speakers and language lovers to build their own online dictionaries, contribute translations, or write blog and social media content in Dusun. Every bit helps form the parallel corpora — bilingual text datasets — needed to train AI and NMT tools to understand and sustain the language.