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https://alar.ink (Kannada-English dictionary) was built using https://github.com/knadh/dictmaker It addresses some of the things you’ve mentioned.
Thanks very much for the link to dictmaker, I will spend my weekend playing with it and see how I get along. Much appreciated! EDIT: after visiting your site, somehow my browser language has been switched to Kannada and I'm now finding myself highly amused at seeing Twitter threads in this script. Would love to know how you did that!
That's strange. Apart from the fact that the dictionary website renders utf8 Kannada text, there's nothing else to it. Can't imagine how the browser managed to switch its language based on text found on a webpage!