Pakistan, Sept. 19 -- Zoya Azfar is a 17-year-old student from Learning Alliance International with an interest in linguistics.

She created a website called Zuban Daraz, which is the first-of-its-kind, open-source dictionary aimed at collecting gendered words and phrases in South Asian languages. Users can also share their individual experiences with these words on the website. Zuban Daraz team sat in an interview to discuss her project in more detail.

What inspired you to create a dictionary documenting gendered language in South Asia?

The idea came to me from hearing stories from the women in my life, particularly my maternal grandmother. Everyone has painful memories, but what struck me was that a lot of them seemed to be anchored a...