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Dictionary Artifacts

Dictionary data is distributed separately from the code package.

Japanese
UniDic-CWJ-derived indexed reading artifact by default, plus a separate SudachiDict-full-derived ja-sudachi artifact.
Chinese
CC-CEDICT-derived no-tone indexed pinyin artifact.

Artifact bundles include metadata.yaml, an indexed payload, checksum metadata, and dictionary license/attribution files.

Downloaded Artifacts

Most users should let the CLI install artifacts into the local cache:

# Default Japanese artifact: UniDic-CWJ
uv run python -m moine download ja

# Explicit Japanese sources
uv run python -m moine download ja-unidic
uv run python -m moine download ja-sudachi

# Chinese artifact: CC-CEDICT
uv run python -m moine download zh

# Same selectors are available from the Rust CLI.
moine download ja
moine download ja-unidic
moine download ja-sudachi
moine download zh

ja is the short default selector for the current Japanese artifact, which is UniDic-CWJ. Use ja-unidic or ja-sudachi when the dictionary source should be explicit.

Use list and where to inspect installed bundles:

uv run python -m moine list
uv run python -m moine where ja
uv run python -m moine where ja-unidic
uv run python -m moine where ja-sudachi
uv run python -m moine where zh

The default public assets are compressed tar archives. The downloader verifies the archive SHA-256 from the release SHA256SUMS manifest before extraction, then verifies the unpacked bundle metadata and payload digest before moving it into the cache.

Manual Artifacts

You can also download and extract a release asset yourself, then load the bundle by path:

from moine.ja import Dictionary

dictionary = Dictionary.load_bundle("/path/to/moine-unidic-cwj-202512")

from moine.ja import Dictionary

dictionary = Dictionary.load_bundle("/path/to/moine-sudachi-full-20260428")

from moine.zh import Dictionary

dictionary = Dictionary.load_bundle("/path/to/moine-cedict-20260520")

Runtime Lookup

mòine searches for default dictionaries in this order:

  1. Language-specific environment variables: MOINE_JA_DICTIONARY or MOINE_ZH_DICTIONARY.
  2. Directories listed in MOINE_DICTIONARIES_PATH.
  3. The local mòine cache used by uv run python -m moine download and moine download.

License Boundary

Dictionary artifacts carry their own license and attribution metadata. Keep dictionary licenses separate from the mòine source-code license when redistributing artifacts.

The source package license for mòine is MIT OR Apache-2.0. That license does not cover UniDic-derived, SudachiDict-derived, or CC-CEDICT-derived dictionary data.

Current Scope

  • Japanese uses one UniDic-CWJ artifact by default. SudachiDict-full is available as a separate ja-sudachi artifact. The Sudachi artifact recipe follows the upstream SudachiDict source-build note: Core uses the small and core files, while Full uses all three source files.
  • Chinese uses one CC-CEDICT no-tone artifact.
  • Additional benchmark datasets are intentionally outside the first OSS release scope.

Maintainer Details

Artifact schemas, build recipes, release checks, and license-boundary notes live in the repository maintainer docs: