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Case study · Language access

One archive, two ways to meet it.

Crucian, the Virgin Islands Creole of St. Croix, grew from the languages of enslaved West Africans, Danish colonial rule and centuries of Caribbean contact. We built a web app for deep study and a browser extension for quick lookups, both from one dataset.

dictionary terms
216
proverbs
78
two surfaces, offline-first
1 dataset
Crucian Archive web app home: the headline “A Language for Allawe,” a word of the day card, and three cards on syntax, etymology and morphology.Crucian Word Lookup extension, Today tab: the word chook with its definition, a Day 1 streak badge, and a Did you know card on Danish roots.

The problem

Studying a language and looking up one word are different moments. Most preservation projects pick one surface and underserve the other: a deep reference nobody opens daily, or a quick tool with no depth behind it.

How we built it

  1. One source of truth

    A single canonical dataset: 216 dictionary terms, 78 proverbs, grammar notes and a heritage timeline. Both surfaces read from it, so they can’t drift apart.

  2. A web app for deep study

    Installable, works offline, with light and dark themes.

  3. An extension for quick use

    Deliberately stripped down: a word of the day on each new tab, and right-click lookup of words on any page.

  4. Access over accounts

    User accounts and progress tracking were set aside in favor of offline-first, zero-login access.

Two surfaces

  • Web app: deep study

    The full dictionary, proverbs, grammar notes and a heritage timeline. Installable, works offline, light and dark themes.

  • Extension: Today

    A word of the day with its definition and a proverb card on every new tab.

  • Extension: Look up

    Right-click any word on any page, or search from the popup, for matching dictionary entries.

Through the Ansanm™ lens

Four decisions, each mapped to an Ansanm band
The challengeWhat we didAnsanm band
A Creole shaped by West African, Danish and Caribbean history, with little digital presenceA heritage archive that keeps the language and its proverbs in daily viewSocial band, Ansanm Framework
Study and quick lookups happen in different momentsTwo surfaces: a deep web app and a glanceable extensionContextual band, Ansanm Framework
Two surfaces risk two versions of the truthOne canonical dataset feeds bothDigital band, Ansanm Framework
An account means one more password to rememberZero login, and it works offlineCognitive band, Ansanm Framework

Results, and what’s next

Results

Live as an installable web app and as extensions in the Chrome and Firefox stores.

What we’d do differently: keeping the web app and the lighter extension in step adds work every time the dataset grows. A shared component library from the start would have cut that overhead.

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