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Spell Check in Indian Languages

A Hercules task

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No Problem with English

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Right Click and choose the word

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Online /Browser Options

• All web email sites do offer spell checkFor e.g. Yahoo and Gmail

• Most blogging platforms do offer spell checker like typepad and blogger

• Since the Firefox browser has built in spell checker – it’s not a problem any more and you can check spelling in your browser no matter if the website has the function or not

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Hindi Spell check - Blogger

• http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=58226

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Hindi Spell Check - orangoo

• http://orangoo.com/spell/

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Marathi Spell Check - Manogat

• http://www.manogat.com

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Problems with Manogat Speller

• Online Only• Closed Source – Do not allow to share their

database with any other website• Sometimes the site is down• The words are not necessarily correct as

there are no experts involved to update / correct the database

• The Database is not backed up regularly

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NEED FREE & OPEN SOURCE

Spell Check database for Marathi

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The start

• The discussion was initiated by Omkar Joshi (The writer of “GaMaBhaNa” unicode editor)

• http://mr.upakram.org/node/114

• The basic editor with spell check facility was made available here…

• http://saraswaticlasses.net/shabdasampada/

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The Volunteers

• The volunteers could login to the user interface from…

• http://saraswaticlasses.net/shabdasampada/moderate/

• The volunteers are allowed to add / update words in the database.

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The Database structure

• There is a very simple MySQL table used to store all the words with the structure being as follows:

• CREATE TABLE `wordbase` (`word` varchar(50) NOT NULL,

• `verified` int(11) NOT NULL default '0',• PRIMARY KEY (`word`),• KEY `verified` (`verified`)• ) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT

CHARSET=utf8

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The Progress so far

• There are more than 5000 words already stored in the database and verified by experts as being correct.

• You can use the current version here…

• http://saraswaticlasses.net/shabdasampada/

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The word list can be used for Open office and Firefox

• Once the database is almost complete, it will be made available in Aspell and Hunspell engines.

• So that the same word list can be used for Open Office and Firefox.

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How to install hunspell marathi dic with firefox?

1) Install Firefox 2.0http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

2) Download Marathi Dictionary http://hunspell.sourceforge.net/mr-demo.tar.gz

3) Unzip the file and extract these two files (mr.dic and mr.aff) in the folder given belowC:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\dictionaries

4) Restart Firefox. The marathi spelling mistakes can be seen in Red.

5) The options appearing on the right click may or may not be useful.

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Install Marathi Dictionary in Open Office Writer - Part I

http://ftp.stardiv.de/pub/OpenOffice.org/contrib/dictionaries/mr_IN.zip

1) Start - Programs - OpenOffice.org 2.0 - openoffice.org writer2) File - Wizards - install new directories...3) Click on "English" link4) Click on "Start DicOOo" button.5) Current user setup6) If you have access to internet, click on "Retrieve the list"

option. ORCheck the box "Off-line language pack installation" and select the file mr_IN_pack.zip

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Install Marathi Dictionary in Open Office Writer - Part II

7) Choose "Marathi (India)" from the list and click on Next.8) "Hyphenation" and "Thesaurus" dictionaries are still not

uploaded. So don't select anything and simply click on "Next>>" twice.

9) Click on next to start the download10) Click on finish.11) Completely exit openoffice (all windows!)12) Close the Quickstarter by right clicking on it's icon near the

clock.13) Start openoffice.org writer14) Tools - Options - - Language Settings - Languages15) Select Marathi under "CTL" option.

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Call for volunteers

• We are looking for “Language Experts” with basic computer knowledge to help us add/ update the Marathi words those are being added into the database.

• The Volunteers will receive a fair remuneration • But Please remember it’s not a commercial

project, the final project is going to be free and open source! So the payment will not be at par with the software industry!