# Livonian dictionary access

> A grounding service over the real Livonian–Estonian–Latvian dictionary at
> livonian.tech. Use it to translate to/from Livonian with ATTESTED words and
> grammatical forms instead of inventing them. Read-only.

## What it does
- Looks up words in the Livonian dictionary (query in English, Livonian, Latvian or
  Estonian) and returns attested headwords, parts of speech, English glosses and
  example sentences.
- Returns full declension/conjugation (inflection) tables for a given word.

## How to connect (MCP)
Remote streamable-HTTP endpoint (no auth, read-only): https://livonian.valksor.com/mcp
  Native remote-url clients:
    Claude Code:  claude mcp add --transport http livonian https://livonian.valksor.com/mcp
    Cursor / Cline (~/.cursor/mcp.json):
      {"mcpServers": {"livonian": {"url": "https://livonian.valksor.com/mcp"}}}
    VS Code (.vscode/mcp.json):
      {"servers": {"livonian": {"type": "http", "url": "https://livonian.valksor.com/mcp"}}}
  stdio-only clients (Claude Desktop, Windsurf, Codex) — bridge with mcp-remote:
    {"mcpServers": {"livonian": {"command": "npx",
       "args": ["-y", "mcp-remote", "https://livonian.valksor.com/mcp"]}}}
    (Claude Desktop rejects a bare "url"; Pro+ can instead add it under
     Settings -> Connectors -> Add custom connector and paste https://livonian.valksor.com/mcp.)
Tools:
- search_livonian(query, search_language=eng|liv|lat|est)
    Returns dictionary entries plus "inflection handles" (vards_id + word_class).
- get_inflections(vards_id, word_class)
    Returns the full inflection table for a handle from a search result.
- romanize_livonian(text)
    Strips Livonian orthography (macrons, diacritics, capitals) to clean,
    pronounceable ASCII. Palatalized consonants (ņ ļ ŗ ţ ḑ) soften before a vowel
    (ņ+a -> nya) but go plain elsewhere (ikšiggiņ -> ikshiggin); the broken tone
    (si'zzõl -> siz-zul) and long-vowel diphthong glides (kīen -> kee-en) become
    hyphens. For an English-trained downstream (a voice/TTS, a search box). Pure
    transform, no dictionary lookup.
Typical flow (English -> Livonian): search_livonian("wet") -> pick a handle ->
get_inflections(vards_id, word_class) for the exact case/tense.

## How to call (JSON API)
- GET https://livonian.valksor.com/api/search?query=wet&search_language=eng
- GET https://livonian.valksor.com/api/inflections?vards_id=12127&word_class=s
- GET https://livonian.valksor.com/api/romanize?text=L%C4%ABv%C3%B5%20k%C4%93%C4%BC   (URL-encoded "Līvõ kēļ")
- GET https://livonian.valksor.com/api/health
- Interactive docs: https://livonian.valksor.com/api/docs  ·  schema: https://livonian.valksor.com/api/openapi.json

## Languages
search_language selects the language your QUERY is in: eng (default), liv,
lat, est. Headwords are always Livonian; glosses are English.

## Limits & caching
- Rate limited per client IP — do not use this as a bulk scraping proxy.
- Results are cached permanently (the dictionary is static); repeat lookups are
  served from cache and never re-fetch upstream.

## Attribution (required whenever you share or redistribute this material)
Data from the Livonian.tech platform (University of Latvia Livonian Institute),
licensed CC BY-SA 4.0; adaptations must be shared under the same licence. Cite the
specific database you used (per https://livonian.tech/en/referencing-and-quoting/):

Word lookups — Livonian lexicographic database:
  Ernštreits, Valts (ed. in chief), Viitso, Tiit-Rein, Vāvere, Signis, Damberg, Pētõr, Kurpniece, Milda, Balodis, Uldis, Tuisk, Tuuli, Kūla, Gita, Tomingas, Marili, Soosaar Sven-Erik, Sedláčková, Anna & Jurgenovskis, Toms. 2024. Livonian lexicographic database. Riga: University of Latvia Livonian Institute. https://livonian.tech/

Inflection tables — Livonian morphology database:
  Ernštreits, Valts (ed. in chief), Viitso, Tiit-Rein, Kurpniece, Milda & Vāvere, Signis. 2024. Livonian morphology database. Riga: University of Latvia Livonian Institute. https://livonian.tech/