Help Wanted: Word List Quality Improvements for Multiple Languages

[Hugo0]

Overview

We need help improving word lists for several languages. High-quality word lists are crucial for a good Wordle experience - our analytics show that word quality is the #1 user complaint (50% of feedback).

Languages Needing Help

🔴 Priority: Large Lists (Likely Over-Inflected)

These languages have unusually large word lists that likely include too many verb conjugations and inflected forms:

Language	Code	Words	Issue
Serbian	sr	17,956	Likely includes many conjugations
Slovenian	sl	11,730	Needs review
Persian	fa	11,252	Needs review
Norwegian Nynorsk	nn	10,522	Needs review
Greek	el	10,208	Needs review
Arabic	ar	10,163	May include conjugations
Korean	ko	8,921	Needs review
Georgian	ka	8,826	Needs review
Icelandic	is	8,284	Needs review

🟡 Priority: Small Lists (Need Expansion)

These languages have too few words:

Language	Code	Words	Issue
Vietnamese	vi	738	Needs more words
Latgalian	ltg	387	Very limited
Klingon	tlh	269	Canonical vocabulary is limited
Kinyarwanda	rw	20	Critically small

What Makes a Good Word List?

Include:

• ✅ Common nouns
• ✅ Common adjectives
• ✅ Common verbs (base forms)
• ✅ Words native speakers would reasonably guess
• ✅ 2,000-5,000 words is ideal

Exclude:

• ❌ Obscure verb conjugations
• ❌ Proper nouns (names, places, brands)
• ❌ Foreign loanwords that feel out of place
• ❌ Vulgar/offensive words

How to Contribute

Option 1: Create a Blocklist

Add words to remove in webapp/data/languages/{lang}/{lang}_blocklist.txt:

# Comment explaining why
word1
word2

Option 2: Suggest Better Sources

Know of a good frequency list or dictionary for a language? Comment below!

Option 3: Manual Curation

Review the word list and suggest changes via PR.

Technical Notes

• Word lists are in webapp/data/languages/{lang}/{lang}_5words.txt
• One word per line
• Words should be exactly 5 characters (varies by language script)
• Run python scripts/curate_words.py apply-all-blocklists to apply blocklists

Claiming a Language

Comment below with the language you'd like to work on to avoid duplicate effort!

Language	Claimed By	Status
Serbian
Persian
Greek
Vietnamese
...

Thank you for helping make Wordle Global better! 🌍