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| 1 | +README – English Hunspell Dictionaries |
| 2 | +Maintained by Marco A.G.Pinto |
| 3 | + |
| 4 | + |
| 5 | +FREE SOFTWARE |
| 6 | +============= |
| 7 | +These spellcheckers are free software — free to use, share, and modify. |
| 8 | + |
| 9 | +They are intended for a broad audience, including students, professionals, |
| 10 | +writers, and non-native speakers. |
| 11 | + |
| 12 | +Feedback is welcome to help keep these dictionaries accurate and reliable. |
| 13 | + |
| 14 | + |
| 15 | +DICTIONARY MAINTENANCE |
| 16 | +====================== |
| 17 | +Marco maintains five main English variants: |
| 18 | + • en_GB (British, “ise”), since 25.Aug.2013 |
| 19 | + • en_ZA (South African, “ise”), since 01.Jan.2025 |
| 20 | + • en_US (American, “ize”), since 01.Jan.2026 (alternative version) |
| 21 | + • en_CA (Canadian, “ise”), since 01.Jan.2026 (alternative version) |
| 22 | + • en_AU (Australian, “ise”), since 01.Jan.2026 (alternative version) |
| 23 | + |
| 24 | +Notes: |
| 25 | + • Both “-ise” and “-ize” forms are provided; some variants may still have |
| 26 | + missing or misplaced forms. |
| 27 | + • en_ZA and en_GB are maintained in parallel, with the GB dictionary having |
| 28 | + been merged into the ZA dictionary while retaining regional terms. |
| 29 | + • en_US, en_CA, and en_AU are converted from en_GB using Proofing Tool GUI, |
| 30 | + then refined for regional vocabulary. |
| 31 | + |
| 32 | +en_ZA uses the same base list as en_GB, originally from the Aspell English |
| 33 | +wordlists (LGPL). |
| 34 | + |
| 35 | +Marco began maintaining en_GB and en_ZA after previous maintainers became |
| 36 | +unavailable, and later began work on alternative en_US, en_CA, and en_AU |
| 37 | +dictionaries alongside existing upstream versions. |
| 38 | + |
| 39 | +The en_GB dictionary began as a subset of Kevin Atkinson's wordlist for |
| 40 | +Pspell/Aspell (LGPL) and has been expanded by David Bartlett, Brian Kelk, |
| 41 | +Andrew Brown, and Marco A.G.Pinto, including: |
| 42 | + • Removal of Americanisms in en_GB |
| 43 | + • Addition of missing words |
| 44 | + • Correction of errors |
| 45 | + • Addition of compound hyphenated forms |
| 46 | + • Thousands of proper/place names |
| 47 | + • Thousands of possessives and plurals |
| 48 | + • Removal of duplicates |
| 49 | + • Support for ordinals and affixes (e.g., 1st, 111th, 1990s) |
| 50 | + |
| 51 | + |
| 52 | +CONTRIBUTORS |
| 53 | +============ |
| 54 | +Many people have provided valuable input over the years — too numerous to list |
| 55 | +individually. Special thanks to: |
| 56 | + |
| 57 | + • Cyberknight – Submitted numerous scientific terms in the early days and |
| 58 | + helped create a legacy British Dictionary for Mozilla when modern |
| 59 | + WebExtensions were not yet widely supported. |
| 60 | + Although no longer in contact, his contributions remain a valued part |
| 61 | + of the project's history. |
| 62 | + |
| 63 | + • Babelfish (Peter C.) – Regularly contributed words and offered practical |
| 64 | + suggestions that significantly refined and updated the dictionary. |
| 65 | + |
| 66 | + • Peter C. (not Babelfish) – Advocated consistently for an “-ise” British |
| 67 | + Dictionary, resulting in the inclusion of many such entries and ensuring |
| 68 | + alignment with modern linguistic standards. |
| 69 | + |
| 70 | +These wordlists aim to represent modern English for the Commonwealth and |
| 71 | +North America. |
| 72 | + |
| 73 | +The .AFF file was originally created by David Bartlett and Andrew Brown based |
| 74 | +on MySpell rules (LGPL), focusing on accurate morphology, not file compression. |
| 75 | +Marco has refined the rules since 2013. |
| 76 | + |
| 77 | + |
| 78 | +MARCO A.G.PINTO |
| 79 | +=============== |
| 80 | +Marco forked the British dictionary in 2013 after years without updates, |
| 81 | +choosing Mozilla's unobfuscated version. |
| 82 | + |
| 83 | +Spelling is verified using: |
| 84 | + • Oxford Dictionaries |
| 85 | + • Collins Dictionary |
| 86 | + • Cambridge Dictionary |
| 87 | + • Merriam-Webster Dictionary |
| 88 | + • Wiktionary (used with caution ⚠) |
| 89 | + • Wikipedia (used with caution ⚠) |
| 90 | + • Physical dictionaries |
| 91 | + |
| 92 | +Main challenges: |
| 93 | + • Proper names |
| 94 | + • Possessives |
| 95 | + • Plurals |
| 96 | + |
| 97 | + |
| 98 | +HUNSPELL ENGINE |
| 99 | +=============== |
| 100 | +The Hunspell engine was developed by Németh László, an open-source tool used for |
| 101 | +spellchecking and morphological analysis. |
| 102 | + |
| 103 | +It is capable of handling complex word forms, affixes, and spelling rules with |
| 104 | +efficiency. |
| 105 | + |
| 106 | +Hunspell has become the standard engine for many major software projects, and |
| 107 | +Németh László's work continues to support and enhance modern language tools. |
| 108 | + |
| 109 | + |
| 110 | +TABOO/OFFENSIVE WORDS |
| 111 | +===================== |
| 112 | +A NOSUGGEST flag is applied to certain taboo or offensive words to prevent them |
| 113 | +from being suggested in spellchecking results. |
| 114 | + |
| 115 | +While every effort has been made to mark the most offensive terms, it is not |
| 116 | +guaranteed that all possible taboo words are flagged. |
| 117 | + |
| 118 | +Some words have intentionally been left unflagged because, although considered |
| 119 | +taboo in some dictionaries, they are not generally regarded as swear words in |
| 120 | +modern usage. |
| 121 | + |
| 122 | + |
| 123 | +CONTACT |
| 124 | +======= |
| 125 | +Marco A.G.Pinto |
| 126 | + |
| 127 | + • Website: https://proofingtoolgui.org |
| 128 | + • FAQ: https://proofingtoolgui.org/faq.html |
| 129 | + • Changelog: https://proofingtoolgui.org/en_GB_CHANGES.txt |
| 130 | + • GitHub: https://github.com/marcoagpinto/aoo-mozilla-en-dict |
| 131 | + |
| 132 | + |
| 133 | +CHANGELOG (2025+) |
| 134 | +================= |
| 135 | +2026-01-01 (Marco A.G.Pinto) |
| 136 | + - Marco began maintaining alternative versions of the US, CA, and AU dictionaries. |
| 137 | + - Merged the GB dictionary into the ZA dictionary. |
| 138 | + - Aligned all five dictionaries to the GB versioning format for consistency. |
| 139 | + - Removed numerous Americanisms from the GB dictionary. |
| 140 | + - The hyph US and GB files now use UTF-8-BOM Unix (LF). |
| 141 | + - The thesaurus now uses UTF-8-BOM Unix (LF). |
| 142 | + - Improved images for extensions. |
| 143 | + |
| 144 | +2025-03-02 to 2025-12-31 (Marco A.G.Pinto) |
| 145 | + - Better -ise/-ize handling. |
| 146 | + - Fixed, improved, and added flags for U.S. compatibility on 1-JAN-2026. |
| 147 | + |
| 148 | +2025-03-01 (Marco A.G.Pinto) |
| 149 | + - New extension icons for Mozilla (GB) in 96×96 and for LibreOffice/OpenOffice |
| 150 | + in 128×128 pixels. |
| 151 | + - The default GB and ZA spelling is now -ise. |
| 152 | + - Unified the GB and ZA .AFF file. |
| 153 | + - Merged hundreds of thousands of proper names from GB to ZA. |
| 154 | + - Fixed/improved: flag “O” and “W”. |
| 155 | + |
| 156 | +2025-01-01 (Marco A.G.Pinto) |
| 157 | + - Official fork of ZA Dictionary. |
| 158 | + |
| 159 | + |
| 160 | +LGPL3 LICENSE |
| 161 | +============= |
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| 164 | + Version 3, 29 June 2007 |
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