"of color" meaning in English

See of color in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Adjective

Etymology: Attested since the late 18th century, initially in reference to a category of mixed-race (partially black, partially white) people in the Americas; compare French de couleur (attested since at least 1779 in gens de couleur), Spanish de color. The phrase continued in occasional use throughout the 1800s and 1900s and was used by e.g. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1963, around which time its modern meaning began to take shape. Use by black activists picked up from the 1970s (e.g. black women who used "women of color" at the National Women's Conference in 1977) onward, reaching wide circulation by the 1990s. Etymology templates: {{cog|fr|de couleur}} French de couleur, {{cog|es|de color}} Spanish de color Head templates: {{en-adj|-}} of color (not comparable)
  1. (chiefly US) Nonwhite; of a race other than white, for example black. Tags: US, not-comparable Derived forms (POC): BIPOC, QPOC Translations (of a race other than white): van kleur (Afrikaans), 有色 (yǒusè) (Chinese Mandarin), farvet (Danish), van kleur (Dutch), värillinen (Finnish), de couleur (French), racisé (French), farbig (German), di colore (Italian), de cor (Portuguese), de culoare (Romanian), цветно́й (cvetnój) (Russian), de color (Spanish), da màu (Vietnamese), croenliw (Welsh)
    Sense id: en-of_color-en-adj-aoEXWMKA Categories (other): American English, English entries with incorrect language header, Entries with translation boxes, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries, Terms with Afrikaans translations, Terms with Danish translations, Terms with Dutch translations, Terms with Finnish translations, Terms with French translations, Terms with German translations, Terms with Italian translations, Terms with Mandarin translations, Terms with Portuguese translations, Terms with Romanian translations, Terms with Russian translations, Terms with Spanish translations, Terms with Vietnamese translations, Terms with Welsh translations, Multiracial Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 61 39 Disambiguation of Entries with translation boxes: 54 46 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 65 35 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 70 30 Disambiguation of Terms with Afrikaans translations: 76 24 Disambiguation of Terms with Danish translations: 76 24 Disambiguation of Terms with Dutch translations: 72 28 Disambiguation of Terms with Finnish translations: 74 26 Disambiguation of Terms with French translations: 70 30 Disambiguation of Terms with German translations: 69 31 Disambiguation of Terms with Italian translations: 72 28 Disambiguation of Terms with Mandarin translations: 78 22 Disambiguation of Terms with Portuguese translations: 77 23 Disambiguation of Terms with Romanian translations: 74 26 Disambiguation of Terms with Russian translations: 75 25 Disambiguation of Terms with Spanish translations: 77 23 Disambiguation of Terms with Vietnamese translations: 77 23 Disambiguation of Terms with Welsh translations: 73 27 Disambiguation of Multiracial: 71 29 Disambiguation of 'POC': 66 34 Disambiguation of 'of a race other than white': 95 5
  2. (historical) Belonging to a category of people with mixed black and white ancestry in the Americas in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Tags: historical, not-comparable
    Sense id: en-of_color-en-adj-kd77WTuU Categories (other): Entries with translation boxes Disambiguation of Entries with translation boxes: 54 46
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Synonyms: of colour [Commonwealth, Ireland] Derived forms: MOC, WOC Related terms: colored

Alternative forms

{
  "derived": [
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0",
      "word": "MOC"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0",
      "word": "WOC"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "fr",
        "2": "de couleur"
      },
      "expansion": "French de couleur",
      "name": "cog"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "es",
        "2": "de color"
      },
      "expansion": "Spanish de color",
      "name": "cog"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Attested since the late 18th century, initially in reference to a category of mixed-race (partially black, partially white) people in the Americas; compare French de couleur (attested since at least 1779 in gens de couleur), Spanish de color. The phrase continued in occasional use throughout the 1800s and 1900s and was used by e.g. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1963, around which time its modern meaning began to take shape. Use by black activists picked up from the 1970s (e.g. black women who used \"women of color\" at the National Women's Conference in 1977) onward, reaching wide circulation by the 1990s.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "-"
      },
      "expansion": "of color (not comparable)",
      "name": "en-adj"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
  "related": [
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0",
      "word": "colored"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "American English",
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          "source": "w"
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          "_dis": "61 39",
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          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
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          "_dis": "54 46",
          "kind": "other",
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        {
          "_dis": "65 35",
          "kind": "other",
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        },
        {
          "_dis": "70 30",
          "kind": "other",
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        },
        {
          "_dis": "76 24",
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          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "76 24",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Danish translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "72 28",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Dutch translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "74 26",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Finnish translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "70 30",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with French translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "69 31",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with German translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "72 28",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Italian translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "78 22",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Mandarin translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "77 23",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Portuguese translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "74 26",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Romanian translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "75 25",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Russian translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "77 23",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Spanish translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "77 23",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Vietnamese translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "73 27",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Welsh translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "71 29",
          "kind": "other",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Multiracial",
          "orig": "en:Multiracial",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "derived": [
        {
          "_dis1": "66 34",
          "sense": "POC",
          "word": "BIPOC"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "66 34",
          "sense": "POC",
          "word": "QPOC"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1932, Duff Cooper, Talleyrand, Folio Society, published 2010, page 54:",
          "text": "It is to him that we owe the story that Talleyrand outraged the susceptibilities of the Philadelphians by his open admiration for a woman of colour with whom he frequently appeared in public.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010 February 18, Evan Narcisse, “Wrex in Effect, or, Deep Space and the Negro/Injun/Krogan Problem”, in The Atlantic, archived from the original on 2013-09-02, Culture:",
          "text": "But the vengeance I told myself I was getting for Wrex felt like a lie. I could win the game but he wasn't coming back. Being forced to lose my in-game comrade-who I thought of as a virtual person of color and as a brother-in-arms-affected me in a forceful way that I never expected. Mass Effect made me look at myself and think about the way races, classes and individuals bring their histories to bear.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2018 January 12, Greg Landgraf, “Blazing Trails: Pioneering African-American librarians share their stories”, in American Libraries, archived from the original on 2018-01-04:",
          "text": "She's also worked to help librarians forge connections through professional activities. Bell cochaired the first Joint Council of Librarians of Color (JCLC) in 2006, the first-ever shared conference among ALA's five ethnic affiliate associations: BCALA, the American Indian Library Association, the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association, the Chinese American Librarians Association, and Reforma.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2020 November 11, Christine Hauser, “Before Kamala Harris, This Vice President Broke a Racial Barrier”, in The Indian Express, archived from the original on 2020-11-10, World:",
          "text": "...historians and Native Americans are also revisiting the legacy of Charles Curtis, whose Kaw Nation ancestry gives him a claim as the first \"person of color\" to serve as vice president, although the term's current usage emerged decades later.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Nonwhite; of a race other than white, for example black."
      ],
      "id": "en-of_color-en-adj-aoEXWMKA",
      "links": [
        [
          "Nonwhite",
          "nonwhite"
        ],
        [
          "race",
          "race"
        ],
        [
          "white",
          "white"
        ],
        [
          "black",
          "black"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(chiefly US) Nonwhite; of a race other than white, for example black."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "US",
        "not-comparable"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "_dis1": "95 5",
          "code": "af",
          "lang": "Afrikaans",
          "sense": "of a race other than white",
          "word": "van kleur"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "95 5",
          "code": "cmn",
          "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
          "roman": "yǒusè",
          "sense": "of a race other than white",
          "word": "有色"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "95 5",
          "code": "da",
          "lang": "Danish",
          "sense": "of a race other than white",
          "word": "farvet"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "95 5",
          "code": "nl",
          "lang": "Dutch",
          "sense": "of a race other than white",
          "word": "van kleur"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "95 5",
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "of a race other than white",
          "word": "värillinen"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "95 5",
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "of a race other than white",
          "word": "de couleur"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "95 5",
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "of a race other than white",
          "word": "racisé"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "95 5",
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "of a race other than white",
          "word": "farbig"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "95 5",
          "code": "it",
          "lang": "Italian",
          "sense": "of a race other than white",
          "word": "di colore"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "95 5",
          "code": "pt",
          "lang": "Portuguese",
          "sense": "of a race other than white",
          "word": "de cor"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "95 5",
          "code": "ro",
          "lang": "Romanian",
          "sense": "of a race other than white",
          "word": "de culoare"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "95 5",
          "code": "ru",
          "lang": "Russian",
          "roman": "cvetnój",
          "sense": "of a race other than white",
          "word": "цветно́й"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "95 5",
          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "sense": "of a race other than white",
          "word": "de color"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "95 5",
          "code": "vi",
          "lang": "Vietnamese",
          "sense": "of a race other than white",
          "word": "da màu"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "95 5",
          "code": "cy",
          "lang": "Welsh",
          "sense": "of a race other than white",
          "word": "croenliw"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "54 46",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Entries with translation boxes",
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        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1801 (edition; original c. 1793), Bryan Edwards, The History, Civil and Commercial, of the British West Indies",
          "text": "[page 1:] Chap. 1. … The inhabitants of the French part of St. Domingo, as of all the West Indian Islands, were composed of three great classes: 1st, Pure whites. 2d, People of colour, and blacks of free condition. 3d, Negroes in a state of slavery. The reader is apprised that the class which, by a strange abuse of language, is called people of colour, originates from an intermixture of the whites and the blacks. The genuine offspring of a pure white with a negro is called a mulatto; but there are various casts, …. All these were known in St. Domingo by the term sang-melées, or gens de couleur …\n[page 67:] Chap. VI. Consequences in St. Domingo of the Decree of the 15th of May—Rebellion of the Negroes in the Northern Province, and Enormities committed by them—Revolt of the Mulattoes at Mirebalais—Concordat or Truce between the Inhabitants of Port au Prince and the Men of Colour of the 13th of September—Proclamation by the National Assembly of the 20th of September."
        },
        {
          "ref": "1995, Kathleen Mary Butler, The Economics of Emancipation: Jamaica & Barbados, 1823-1843:",
          "text": "Those who owned the smaller plots were mainly poor whites, free people of color, and free blacks, none of whom had been affected by emancipation.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "text": "For quotations using this term, see Citations:of color."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Belonging to a category of people with mixed black and white ancestry in the Americas in the 18th and early 19th centuries."
      ],
      "id": "en-of_color-en-adj-kd77WTuU",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(historical) Belonging to a category of people with mixed black and white ancestry in the Americas in the 18th and early 19th centuries."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "historical",
        "not-comparable"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0",
      "tags": [
        "Commonwealth",
        "Ireland"
      ],
      "word": "of colour"
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "Martin Luther King Jr.",
    "National Women's Conference"
  ],
  "word": "of color"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English adjectives",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English uncomparable adjectives",
    "Entries with translation boxes",
    "Pages with 1 entry",
    "Pages with entries",
    "Terms with Afrikaans translations",
    "Terms with Danish translations",
    "Terms with Dutch translations",
    "Terms with Finnish translations",
    "Terms with French translations",
    "Terms with German translations",
    "Terms with Italian translations",
    "Terms with Mandarin translations",
    "Terms with Portuguese translations",
    "Terms with Romanian translations",
    "Terms with Russian translations",
    "Terms with Spanish translations",
    "Terms with Vietnamese translations",
    "Terms with Welsh translations",
    "en:Multiracial"
  ],
  "derived": [
    {
      "word": "MOC"
    },
    {
      "sense": "POC",
      "word": "BIPOC"
    },
    {
      "sense": "POC",
      "word": "QPOC"
    },
    {
      "word": "WOC"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "fr",
        "2": "de couleur"
      },
      "expansion": "French de couleur",
      "name": "cog"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "es",
        "2": "de color"
      },
      "expansion": "Spanish de color",
      "name": "cog"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Attested since the late 18th century, initially in reference to a category of mixed-race (partially black, partially white) people in the Americas; compare French de couleur (attested since at least 1779 in gens de couleur), Spanish de color. The phrase continued in occasional use throughout the 1800s and 1900s and was used by e.g. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1963, around which time its modern meaning began to take shape. Use by black activists picked up from the 1970s (e.g. black women who used \"women of color\" at the National Women's Conference in 1977) onward, reaching wide circulation by the 1990s.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "-"
      },
      "expansion": "of color (not comparable)",
      "name": "en-adj"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "colored"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "American English",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1932, Duff Cooper, Talleyrand, Folio Society, published 2010, page 54:",
          "text": "It is to him that we owe the story that Talleyrand outraged the susceptibilities of the Philadelphians by his open admiration for a woman of colour with whom he frequently appeared in public.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010 February 18, Evan Narcisse, “Wrex in Effect, or, Deep Space and the Negro/Injun/Krogan Problem”, in The Atlantic, archived from the original on 2013-09-02, Culture:",
          "text": "But the vengeance I told myself I was getting for Wrex felt like a lie. I could win the game but he wasn't coming back. Being forced to lose my in-game comrade-who I thought of as a virtual person of color and as a brother-in-arms-affected me in a forceful way that I never expected. Mass Effect made me look at myself and think about the way races, classes and individuals bring their histories to bear.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2018 January 12, Greg Landgraf, “Blazing Trails: Pioneering African-American librarians share their stories”, in American Libraries, archived from the original on 2018-01-04:",
          "text": "She's also worked to help librarians forge connections through professional activities. Bell cochaired the first Joint Council of Librarians of Color (JCLC) in 2006, the first-ever shared conference among ALA's five ethnic affiliate associations: BCALA, the American Indian Library Association, the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association, the Chinese American Librarians Association, and Reforma.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2020 November 11, Christine Hauser, “Before Kamala Harris, This Vice President Broke a Racial Barrier”, in The Indian Express, archived from the original on 2020-11-10, World:",
          "text": "...historians and Native Americans are also revisiting the legacy of Charles Curtis, whose Kaw Nation ancestry gives him a claim as the first \"person of color\" to serve as vice president, although the term's current usage emerged decades later.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Nonwhite; of a race other than white, for example black."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "Nonwhite",
          "nonwhite"
        ],
        [
          "race",
          "race"
        ],
        [
          "white",
          "white"
        ],
        [
          "black",
          "black"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(chiefly US) Nonwhite; of a race other than white, for example black."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "US",
        "not-comparable"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with historical senses",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1801 (edition; original c. 1793), Bryan Edwards, The History, Civil and Commercial, of the British West Indies",
          "text": "[page 1:] Chap. 1. … The inhabitants of the French part of St. Domingo, as of all the West Indian Islands, were composed of three great classes: 1st, Pure whites. 2d, People of colour, and blacks of free condition. 3d, Negroes in a state of slavery. The reader is apprised that the class which, by a strange abuse of language, is called people of colour, originates from an intermixture of the whites and the blacks. The genuine offspring of a pure white with a negro is called a mulatto; but there are various casts, …. All these were known in St. Domingo by the term sang-melées, or gens de couleur …\n[page 67:] Chap. VI. Consequences in St. Domingo of the Decree of the 15th of May—Rebellion of the Negroes in the Northern Province, and Enormities committed by them—Revolt of the Mulattoes at Mirebalais—Concordat or Truce between the Inhabitants of Port au Prince and the Men of Colour of the 13th of September—Proclamation by the National Assembly of the 20th of September."
        },
        {
          "ref": "1995, Kathleen Mary Butler, The Economics of Emancipation: Jamaica & Barbados, 1823-1843:",
          "text": "Those who owned the smaller plots were mainly poor whites, free people of color, and free blacks, none of whom had been affected by emancipation.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "text": "For quotations using this term, see Citations:of color."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Belonging to a category of people with mixed black and white ancestry in the Americas in the 18th and early 19th centuries."
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(historical) Belonging to a category of people with mixed black and white ancestry in the Americas in the 18th and early 19th centuries."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "historical",
        "not-comparable"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "tags": [
        "Commonwealth",
        "Ireland"
      ],
      "word": "of colour"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "af",
      "lang": "Afrikaans",
      "sense": "of a race other than white",
      "word": "van kleur"
    },
    {
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "roman": "yǒusè",
      "sense": "of a race other than white",
      "word": "有色"
    },
    {
      "code": "da",
      "lang": "Danish",
      "sense": "of a race other than white",
      "word": "farvet"
    },
    {
      "code": "nl",
      "lang": "Dutch",
      "sense": "of a race other than white",
      "word": "van kleur"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "of a race other than white",
      "word": "värillinen"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "of a race other than white",
      "word": "de couleur"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "of a race other than white",
      "word": "racisé"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "of a race other than white",
      "word": "farbig"
    },
    {
      "code": "it",
      "lang": "Italian",
      "sense": "of a race other than white",
      "word": "di colore"
    },
    {
      "code": "pt",
      "lang": "Portuguese",
      "sense": "of a race other than white",
      "word": "de cor"
    },
    {
      "code": "ro",
      "lang": "Romanian",
      "sense": "of a race other than white",
      "word": "de culoare"
    },
    {
      "code": "ru",
      "lang": "Russian",
      "roman": "cvetnój",
      "sense": "of a race other than white",
      "word": "цветно́й"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "of a race other than white",
      "word": "de color"
    },
    {
      "code": "vi",
      "lang": "Vietnamese",
      "sense": "of a race other than white",
      "word": "da màu"
    },
    {
      "code": "cy",
      "lang": "Welsh",
      "sense": "of a race other than white",
      "word": "croenliw"
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "Martin Luther King Jr.",
    "National Women's Conference"
  ],
  "word": "of color"
}

Download raw JSONL data for of color meaning in English (7.8kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-11-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-10-02 using wiktextract (fbeafe8 and 7f03c9b). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.