''OpenTaal'' ("Open Language") is a Dutch

foundation Foundation may refer to: * Foundation (nonprofit), a type of charitable organization ** Foundation (United States law), a type of charitable organization in the U.S. ** Private foundation, a charitable organization that, while serving a good cause ...

which provides free

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

language files to be used in

open-source software Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone and for any purpose. Op ...

spell checking In software, a spell checker (or spelling checker or spell check) is a software feature that checks for misspellings in a text file, text. Spell-checking features are often embedded in software or services, such as a word processor, email client, el ...

hyphen The hyphen is a punctuation mark used to join words and to separate syllables of a single word. The use of hyphens is called hyphenation. ''Son-in-law'' is an example of a hyphenated word. The hyphen is sometimes confused with dashes (figure d ...

ation,

thesaurus A thesaurus (plural ''thesauri'' or ''thesauruses'') or synonym dictionary is a reference work for finding synonyms and sometimes antonyms of words. They are often used by writers to help find the best word to express an idea: Synonym diction ...

and grammar checking.

Background

In 1996 a working group of the Dutch TeX User's Group created a word list for spell checking and hyphenation to be used in TeX software. This list is also used in

OpenOffice.org OpenOffice.org (OOo), commonly known as OpenOffice, is a discontinued open-source office suite. Active successor projects include LibreOffice (the most actively developed), Apache OpenOffice, Collabora Online (enterprise ready LibreOffice) a ...

and has been developed since. At the end of 2005 the

Dutch Language Union The Dutch Language Union (Dutch: , NTU) is an international regulatory institution that governs issues regarding the Dutch language. It is best known for its spelling reforms which are promulgated by member states, grammar books, the Green Boo ...

(Nederlandse Taalunie), the formal Dutch language institute, published a new version of the "Woordenlijst Nederlandse Taal" (Dutch Language Word list, also known as "the

Green Booklet The Word list of the Dutch language ( nl, Woordenlijst Nederlandse Taal ) is a spelling dictionary of the Dutch language (Dutch orthography). It is officially established by the Dutch Language Union (). Because of the colour of its published fo ...

"). The new spelling rules laid down in it are compulsory in government and education of participating countries since August 2006. To comply with the spelling changes, the existing free language files had to be adjusted. At the same time, the opportunity arose to have them certified by the Dutch Language Union. The OpenTaal project was founded to facilitate the collaboration of open source projects in this area.

Projects

Spell checking

OpenTaal provides files for spelling check which are being used in software such as OpenOffice.org,

Firefox Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements current and ...

Thunderbird Thunderbird, thunder bird or thunderbirds may refer to: * Thunderbird (mythology), a legendary creature in certain North American indigenous peoples' history and culture * Ford Thunderbird, a car Birds * Dromornithidae, extinct flightless birds ...

Safari A safari (; ) is an overland journey to observe wild animals, especially in eastern or southern Africa. The so-called "Big Five" game animals of Africa – lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant, and Cape buffalo – particularly form an importa ...

Opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librett ...

TinyMCE TinyMCE is an online rich-text editor released as open-source software under the MIT License. It has the ability to convert HTML text area fields or other HTML elements to editor instances. TinyMCE is designed to easily integrate with JavaScript l ...

and more. Some of this software receives custom files from OpenTaal while other software uses the generic spelling checker

Hunspell Hunspell is a spell checker and morphological analyser designed for languages with rich morphology and complex word compounding and character encoding, originally designed for the Hungarian language. Hunspell is based on MySpell and is backwar ...

. This is using its own custom file from OpenTaal. Even the Dutch

Wiktionary Wiktionary ( , , rhyming with "dictionary") is a multilingual, web-based project to create a free content dictionary of terms (including words, phrases, proverbs, linguistic reconstructions, etc.) in all natural languages and in a number ...

uses this list of correctly spelled words.

Word list

The Dutch Language Union has approved OpenTaal's word list and labelled it with ''Keurmerk Spelling''. Also OpenTaal has been granted funding by the Dutch Language Union to implement missing functionality in Hunspell.

Thesaurus

A thesaurus has been set up in which many different relations between words and meaning of words can be browsed and edited.

Grammar checking

OpenTaal also provides grammar rules which are used in the grammar checker

LanguageTool LanguageTool is a free and open-source grammar, style, and spell checker, and all its features are available for download. LanguageTool website connects to a proprietary sister project LanguageTool Plus, which provides improved error detection fo ...

. This is offering grammar checking via its own website but is also used by OpenOffice.org and Thunderbird. This grammar checker also identifies possible

false friends In linguistics, a false friend is either of two words in different languages that look or sound similar, but differ significantly in meaning. Examples include English ''embarrassed'' and Spanish ''embarazada'' 'pregnant'; English ''parents'' ...

Partners

Since 2012, OpenTaal has an official program for partners. These are third parties which have access to special partner products. From these collaborations the following has come forth. One partner has provided Dutch support for

Wordfeud Wordfeud is a multiplayer mobile word game developed by Håkon Bertheussen in 2010. Based on the principle of Scrabble, it allows players to play games with up to 30 friends and random opponents simultaneously. It received positive reviews from T ...

and another partner has made an educational poster on

diacritical marks A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacritic ...

in the Dutch language. Sander van Geloven
Diakritische tekens in het Nederlands
, educatieve poster, Hellebaard, Utrecht, 2012.

References

External links

* {{Official website Foundations based in the Netherlands Dutch language Dutch dictionaries 2005 establishments in the Netherlands