Wordfeud Languages

Besides Scrabble, Wordfeud is probably one of the most international word games. Scrabble can be bought in more than 30 languages. Its little brother Wordfeud can be played in up to eight languages including Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Norwegian, Spanish, and Swedish. According to the developers more Wordfeud languages are in process of planning.

Wordfeud in Danish

Wordfeud uses Retskrivningsordbogen 2002, made by Dansk Sprognævn for it’s Danish version. The Retskrivningsordbogen is the official book of Danish spelling and orthography. It includes about 85.000 keywords.

Wordfeud in Dutch

The Dutch dictionary is proprietary, created by TaalTik, using the OpenTaal dictionary as base material. TaalTik is a small enterprise started by a Dutch language fanatic and became quite popular after creating the word list for Wordfeud in 2011. Since that time, work has been done on that list, enhancing it and adding tens of thousands of words. OpenTaal can be translated into open language. It has been created by a foundation providing free language files to be used in open-source software spell checking, hyphenation, thesaurus and grammar checking. The Dutch version of OpenOffice.org is using this word list as well.

Wordfeud in English

The English version can be played internationally with the SOWPODS word list or the TWL word list for American English words. These English word lists are the official Scrabble word lists. So Scrabble pros can use Wordfeud as a training place whereas Words With Friends uses an unofficial and inconsistent word list called ENABLE. TWL is not only used in the United States, but also in Canada, Thailand, and Israel. It combines the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary (OSPD) with modifications to make it more suitable for tournament play with the National Scrabble Association Dictionary Committee’s Official Long Word List. The latter includes all acceptable 10 to 15 letter words that are not originally included in the TWL.
SOWPODS is a Scrabble word list used in all other English speaking countries. It is a combination of British words from the Collings English Dictionary and American words from the Official Tournament and Club Word List (TWL06). So the British known as Official Scrabble Words (OSW) and the American Scrabble Players Dictionary (OSPD) came together. Its name derives from both Scrabble lists put together. To keep it more simple and better to pronounce they made up the anagram SOWPODS.

Wordfeud in German

The German translation of Wordfeud is one of the newest versions available since end of June 2012. Finally, Germans can enjoy this fantastic game in their very own language. Unfortunately, the official website of Wordfeud does not provide information on the word lists that are used in the German Wordfeud.

Wordfeud in Norwegian

Another one of Wordfeud languages is Norwegian. The dictionary is from Norsk Ordbank. The Norsk ordbank is a large word database for Norwegian (both Nynorsk and Bokmål). The licence is GPL. This General Public License grants the recipients of a program or data the rights of the free software definition and uses copyleft to ensure the freedoms are preserved, even when the work is changed or added. Most of Wordfeud’s word lists are under this or similar licenses.

Wordfeud in Swedish

The Swedish dictionary is provided by The Swedish Academy (Svenska Akademien). Here you can switch between two options. There is a strict Swedish version and a normal Swedish version where all words with different endings are allowed. The publisher’s main objective is to work for the ’purity, vigour and majesty’ of the Swedish language, i.e. its clarity, expressiveness and prestige.

Spanish and French versions are available, too. So far we couldn’t find out which word lists are used in these versions. If one of you Wordfeud-enthousiasts finds out please let us know and we will update our list. What more needs be said? Oh yes, enjoy playing, viel Spaß, amuse-toi bien, god fornøjelse, buon divertimento, mycket nöje, que te diviertas, and feel success.