EuroWordNet is a multilingual database with wordnets for several European languages (Dutch, Italian, Spanish, German, French, Czech and Estonian). The wordnets are structured in the same way as the American wordnet for English (Princeton WordNet, Miller et al. 1990) in terms of synsets (sets of synonymous words) with basic semantic relations between them. Each wordnet represents a unique language-internal system of lexicalizations. In addition, the wordnets are linked to an Inter-Lingual-Index, based on the Princeton wordnet. Via this index, the languages are interconnected so that it is possible to go from the words in one language to similar words in any other language. The index also gives access to a shared top ontology of 63 semantic distinctions. This top ontology provides a common semantic framework for all the languages, while language specific properties are maintained in the individual wordnets. The database can be used, among others, for monolingual and cross-lingual information retrieval, which was demonstrated by the users in the project.

To add Semantic Knowledge to any Resource.

Java, Php, Perl are used for the Demos. MySQL is used by the Database containing MCR.

Java, Perl, Apache and MySqL are required for the use of MCR.

This tool was created in the framework of the EuroWordNet project. The most important results were: 1) the wordnets for each separate language (Dutch, Italian, Spanish, French, German, Czech and Estonian) linked to the English WordNet,; 2) the addition to Wordnet1.5 of relations not covered in the Princeton Wordnet for English,; 3) WordNet1.5 in EuroWordNet format; 4) an Inter-Lingual-Index (based on WordNet1.5) to connect the different wordnets and other ontologies; 5) the shared top ontology; 6) Polaris: a wordnet editor to create and edit wordnets linked to EuroWordNet; 7) Periscope: the EuroWordNet viewer in which all this can be viewed and selections can be exported; 8) a report on the demonstration of the results in information retrieval tasks.

It was developed in the framework of an European Project called EuroWordNet: Building a multilingual wordnet with semantic relations between words, which lasted 3 years, from 1996 to 1999.

There are a lot of related publications, including Deliverables and Reports that can be found at http://www.illc.uva.nl/EuroWordNet/docs.html