What the dictionary holds

A growing collection of how the world expresses mental health — in every language, every form, every context.

Moner Kotha (মনের কথা) is a community-led platform for building a global mental health dictionary. It is not a clinical service, a therapy app, or a symptom checker. It is a living collection of perspectives — words, objects, images, stories, and signed expressions — contributed by people across languages and cultures.

344

published concepts

reviewed dictionary records

platform languages

6 represented in entries

stories

from contributors

contribution formats

word · signed · object · image · story · feeling

Co-development and governance

Publication is a reviewed community process

New terms are not published automatically and no live language model writes definitions. Simplification and translation may assist reviewers, but publication requires accountable human review against the source record.

Submitted

Linguistic review

Clinical review

Lived-experience review

Published

Editorial board

Membership, lived-experience representation, affiliations and conflicts of interest will be published with decisions.

Scheduled review

Every published entry is reviewed at least every 24 months, or sooner after a substantiated safety or evidence report.

Translation validation

Forward translation, independent back-translation and cognitive interviewing are recorded before a translation is labelled validated.

Public changelog

Current edition: 332 Bangladesh field-lexicon families, 42 families added and 54 deepened in the latest source review. Evidence links are restricted to Researcher mode and support future correction histories.

Media learning layer

Entry media will be published only when the script, translation, consent and cultural framing have completed the same review workflow as the written entry. No synthetic lived-experience story will be presented as testimony.

60–90 sec

Explainer film

Scripted from reviewed entry evidence

Visual

Illustration

Alt text and low-bandwidth still included

Context

Myth versus fact

Corrects shortcuts without diagnosing

Consented

Lived-experience vignette

Contributor controls attribution and withdrawal

Interoperability

Take the vetted corpus where people already read and work

These prototype exports demonstrate the public contract without claiming a production API. A deployed service would add versioned endpoints, authentication, rate limits, stable canonical URLs and FHIR validation.

Open JSON export

A compact, machine-readable draft of public entry fields.

Download JSON

FHIR CodeSystem draft

A draft terminology resource for validation with health-system partners.

Download FHIR JSON

Hover-definition widget

A proposed embed contract for partner sites; production hosting is still required.

Words from the dictionary

Each entry is one contributor's perspective — not a fixed definition. Meanings change across regions, generations, and contexts.

Illustrative entry · editorial Word / Phrase Bengali South Asia

মন খারাপ

mon kharap

The state when the mind and heart are "bad" or not well — a heaviness, a low mood, a dimming of the inner self.

everyday distress mood

3 perspectives

Illustrative entry · editorial Word / Phrase Bengali South Asia

পাগল

pagol

Often translated as "mad" or "crazy" in English dictionaries, but পাগল carries a whole spectrum of meaning.

stigma sacred

4 perspectives

Illustrative entry · editorial Word / Phrase Bengali Bangladesh, West Bengal

তার ছেঁড়া

tar chhenra

Literally "wire torn" or "string snapped".

crisis breakdown

2 perspectives

Explore all 344 expressions →

What we are learning

Patterns emerging from early contributions — held tentatively, not as conclusions.

The same word carries many meanings

পাগল (pagol) means "mad" in Bengali — but also the holy fool, the passionate lover, the creative outsider. Loco in Spanish can be a term of endearment. مجنون is the sacred poet-fool of Arabic love poetry. Stigma and celebration share a single word across cultures.

Objects carry what words cannot

A stone on the chest. A frayed thread. An empty chair. Contributors across cultures offer objects as expressions of distress that no clinical term quite captures. "No connection to mental health in my context" is also a valid and valued response.

Many communities have rich vocabulary for distress

মন খারাপ for ordinary sadness. তার ছেঁড়া — a string snapping — for crisis. بھاری دل (a heavy heart) in Urdu. These are not lesser alternatives to clinical terms. They are different, finer-grained observations about human experience.

Translation always loses something

Contributors consistently note that their expressions lose something important when translated into clinical language. This platform treats the original expression as primary. Translations are always labelled as approximations, not equivalents.

Sign languages carry distinct meaning

Signed expressions for distress are not word-for-word equivalents of spoken language. Facial expression, movement, and spatial grammar carry meaning that cannot be captured in text. We are building ways to receive and represent them honestly.

Context shapes meaning as much as content

Who uses a word matters. When it is used matters. In some communities, an expression is common; in others, it is taboo. The dictionary holds contradictions side by side without resolving them.

Stories from contributors

Personal journeys in contributors' own words and languages.

Two children seen from behind walking through a brightly lit airport terminal at night

English · UK (diaspora, Bangladeshi origin)

The word my grandmother used

Growing up in Dhaka, I never heard the word "depression." My grandmother had a whole vocabulary — মন খারাপ for the ordinary, তার ছেঁড়া for crisis, বাতাস লাগা for something that came from outside and unsettled you. It was only when I moved to London and tried to explain to a therapist what I was feeling that I realised how much had been lost in translation...

A crowded street market, vendors and neighbours of all ages gathered around a roadside stall

Spanish · Mexico City

Nervios no es sólo ansiedad

Cuando digo que tengo nervios, no hablo de lo mismo que dice el psiquiatra cuando habla de "trastorno de ansiedad generalizada." Los nervios que siento vienen de mi familia, de la pobreza, de no saber si voy a poder pagar la renta. Los nervios son mi respuesta a un mundo que no está bien — no una disfunción de mi cerebro...

Read all 9 stories →

Photo stories

Visual expressions from contributors — covering pain and barriers, crisis and uncertainty, and personal achievements. All photos include author explanations and content notes.

Pain & suffering

Barriers to care

Crisis & uncertainty

Recovery & success

Open the gallery →

What this is

A community-led, multilingual platform for building a global mental health dictionary — collecting how people understand, express, and experience mental health across languages, cultures, ages, and communication styles.

Contributions may be words, signed expressions, objects, images, stories, or feelings. Short or long. Any language. No diagnosis required.

Two user types: general contributors and researchers. Research consent is always separate from community participation.

What this is not

Not a mental health service or clinical platform
Not a crisis support service
Not monitored for emergencies
Not a source of diagnostic information
Not a therapist, counsellor, or clinical chatbot
Not a conventional medical dictionary

Explore the dictionary Contribute an expression Read stories