PeakSlab launches offline dictionary webapp with custom Peak file format for obscure languages including Khmer, Lao, and others

PeakSlab is a project to build offline (PWA) dictionary webapps and tools for obscure languages. Current languages include Khmer, English, Lao, Chitonga, Lozi, German, Spanish, Indonesian, and Levantine Arabic.

The project uses a custom Peak file format that loads via casting to a C struct and includes 3 binary search indexes. The Peak format is smaller than TSV files and faster to load—.peak split (dual worker) achieves 2.08× speed compared with SQLite3, and .peak.zst split (dual worker) achieves 1.65× speed. Files are compressed using Zstandard and cached to the device automatically.

The creator positions offline dictionaries as an alternative to AI dictionary use, arguing that AI is slow, internet-dependent, prone to hallucinations, and untrustworthy. The project is released under GPL3 license and uses vanilla JavaScript and C code with no frameworks or npm dependencies.