eard, a language teacher at Bucknell University, in Lewisburg,
Pennsylvania, created the website "A Web of Online Dictionaries" (WOD)
in 1995. In September 1998, the website provided an index of 800 online
dictionaries in 150 languages, as well as specific sections:
multilingual dictionaries, specialized English dictionaries, thesauri
and other vocabulary aids, language identifiers and guessers, an index
of dictionary indices, the Web of Online Grammars, and the Web of
Linguistic Fun (i.e. linguistics for non-specialists).

Robert Beard wrote in September 1998: "There was an initial fear that
the web posed a threat to multilingualism on the web, since HTML and
other programming languages are based on English and since there are
simply more websites in English than any other language. However, my
websites indicate that multilingualism is very much alive and the web
may, in fact, serve as a vehicle for preserving many endangered
languages. I now have links to dictionaries in 150 languages and
grammars of 65 languages. Moreover, the new attention paid by browser
developers to the different languages of the world will encourage even
more websites in different languages."

A few months later, Robert Beard co-founded a larger project,
yourDictionary.com, that included his previous website and was launched
in February 2000. He wrote in January 2000: "The new website is an
index of 1,200+ dictionaries in more than 200 languages. Besides the
WOD, the new website includes a word-of-the-day-feature, word games, a
language chat room, the old 'Web of Online Grammars' (now expanded to
include additional language resources), the 'Web of Linguistic Fun',
multilingual dictionaries; specialized English dictionaries; thesauri
and other vocabulary aids; language identifiers and guessers, and other
features; dictionary indices. yourDictionary.com will hopefully be the
premiere language portal and the largest language resource site on the
web. It is now actively acquiring dictionaries and grammars of all
languages with a particular focus on endangered languages. It is
overseen by a blue ribbon panel of linguistic experts from all over the
world. (...) Indeed, yourDictionary.com has lots of new ideas. We plan
to work with the Endangered Language Fund in the U.S. and Britain to
raise money for the Foundation's work and publish the results on our
site. We will have language chatrooms and bulletin boards. There will
be language games designed t