Hello, Wikipedians in India,
This just struck me: There's a very easy way to contribute to the Wikipedia in your language and to your language in general, and a lot of people are probably not aware of it.
Here it is: Modern web browsers like Firefox and Google Chrome allow you to check the spelling while you type. An important thing that a lot of people don't realize is that it works not just in English, but in many other languages, too.
If you use Firefox on Windows, go to this page: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/language-tools/
Find the spelling dictionary for your language in the list. Most major languages of India already appear there. Some important languages, like Kannada and Telugu are not there yet; i'm working on getting them there.
To make it work:
1. Click "Install Dictionary" and follow the instructions. 2. Restart Firefox. 3. Open some article in the Wikipedia in your language for editing. 4. Right-click in the editing area. 5. Make sure that "Check spelling" is checked. 6. Right-click again. Go to "Languages" and make sure that your language is checked.
Now check: Does the spell checking work as you would expect? Does it mark incorrect words in red? If you right-click words in red, does it offer sensible corrections?
If all works well, you'll be able to easily fix spelling and grammar errors in the Wikipedia in your language. It is an easy way to contribute to the Wikipedia in your language, because usually you can improve the spelling of articles even without knowing much about the subject of the article.
It is also possible that the dictionary is buggy or has missing words and marks correct words in red. If this happens, please write to me and i'll do my best to report these words to the maintainer of the dictionary, so that in the next version of the dictionary they will be checked correctly. (Let me say this again: Please feel free to write to me about technical problems in support for your language. I don't know any Indic language well, but i'm sure that i'll be able to help nevertheless.)
If you don't use Firefox, you should try it: http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all.html (There's a good chance that there's a version in your language!)
If you use Firefox on Linux or Mac, a spelling dictionary for your language is supposed to be already installed if you installed a language pack for your language in the operating system. If you are not sure how to do it or if it doesn't work as you expect, please write to me.
Spell checking is supposed to work in Google Chrome, too, but it supports less languages and i also found some bugs in its spelling functionality. You are still welcome to try it: go to Preferences (wrench) -> Under the hood -> Languages and Spell-checker settings, and then add your language.
I might be wrong, but i don't think that you can install custom spelling dictionaries in Microsoft Internet Explorer. If i'm wrong, please correct me; if i'm right, then well, that's another reason to try Firefox or Chrome :)
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
Other thing to be said about that (since we are now promoting Mozilla add-ons)
1. You can install several dictionaries :D (I have for both Portuguese versions, English, Spanish, French, Italian and German)
2. Since we are all wikipedians and happened at least once with all of use to lost all our work because the browser crashed, you hit the "close" button by mistake, or any other problem, this is a very good add-on which works on Firefox, Chrome and Safari (but use it on firefox because Firefox is the best one ;) ). The name is Lazarus, and you can download here (if you use FF): https://addons.mozilla.org/pt-PT/firefox/addon/lazarus-form-recovery/ or here (for the other browsers): http://lazarus.interclue.com/download
3. If you wanna put references on your text in WP, but is too lazy to format the refs, you can use: https://addons.mozilla.org/pt-PT/firefox/addon/cite4wiki/
I do have a - very long - list of all addons you can use in your Firefox (or directly in WP) to make it work with WP easier, if someone needs it help, just send me a mail off-list. _____ * *
*[image: Inline images 1]*
*Béria Lima*
* *
* Imagine um mundo onde é dada a qualquer pessoa a possibilidade de ter livre acesso ao somatório de todo o conhecimento humano.*
*Ajude-nos a construir esse sonho.* http://wikimedia.pt/Donativos**
* ** http://wikimedia.pt/Donativos*
On 17 March 2012 17:05, Amir E. Aharoni amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.ilwrote:
Hello, Wikipedians in India,
This just struck me: There's a very easy way to contribute to the Wikipedia in your language and to your language in general, and a lot of people are probably not aware of it.
Here it is: Modern web browsers like Firefox and Google Chrome allow you to check the spelling while you type. An important thing that a lot of people don't realize is that it works not just in English, but in many other languages, too.
If you use Firefox on Windows, go to this page: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/language-tools/
Find the spelling dictionary for your language in the list. Most major languages of India already appear there. Some important languages, like Kannada and Telugu are not there yet; i'm working on getting them there.
To make it work:
- Click "Install Dictionary" and follow the instructions.
- Restart Firefox.
- Open some article in the Wikipedia in your language for editing.
- Right-click in the editing area.
- Make sure that "Check spelling" is checked.
- Right-click again. Go to "Languages" and make sure that your
language is checked.
Now check: Does the spell checking work as you would expect? Does it mark incorrect words in red? If you right-click words in red, does it offer sensible corrections?
If all works well, you'll be able to easily fix spelling and grammar errors in the Wikipedia in your language. It is an easy way to contribute to the Wikipedia in your language, because usually you can improve the spelling of articles even without knowing much about the subject of the article.
It is also possible that the dictionary is buggy or has missing words and marks correct words in red. If this happens, please write to me and i'll do my best to report these words to the maintainer of the dictionary, so that in the next version of the dictionary they will be checked correctly. (Let me say this again: Please feel free to write to me about technical problems in support for your language. I don't know any Indic language well, but i'm sure that i'll be able to help nevertheless.)
If you don't use Firefox, you should try it: http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all.html (There's a good chance that there's a version in your language!)
If you use Firefox on Linux or Mac, a spelling dictionary for your language is supposed to be already installed if you installed a language pack for your language in the operating system. If you are not sure how to do it or if it doesn't work as you expect, please write to me.
Spell checking is supposed to work in Google Chrome, too, but it supports less languages and i also found some bugs in its spelling functionality. You are still welcome to try it: go to Preferences (wrench) -> Under the hood -> Languages and Spell-checker settings, and then add your language.
I might be wrong, but i don't think that you can install custom spelling dictionaries in Microsoft Internet Explorer. If i'm wrong, please correct me; if i'm right, then well, that's another reason to try Firefox or Chrome :)
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Telugu spell checker (Self plug:contributed by me )is at
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/telugu-spell-checker/
Spell checkers for indic languages have only limited success, due to the complex nature of Indic languages. Advanced algorithms developed in Universities are yet to reach the common users.
Regards Arjuna --------------------- Sent via mobile On Mar 18, 2012 1:35 AM, "Amir E. Aharoni" amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il wrote:
Hello, Wikipedians in India,
This just struck me: There's a very easy way to contribute to the Wikipedia in your language and to your language in general, and a lot of people are probably not aware of it.
Here it is: Modern web browsers like Firefox and Google Chrome allow you to check the spelling while you type. An important thing that a lot of people don't realize is that it works not just in English, but in many other languages, too.
If you use Firefox on Windows, go to this page: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/language-tools/
Find the spelling dictionary for your language in the list. Most major languages of India already appear there. Some important languages, like Kannada and Telugu are not there yet; i'm working on getting them there.
To make it work:
- Click "Install Dictionary" and follow the instructions.
- Restart Firefox.
- Open some article in the Wikipedia in your language for editing.
- Right-click in the editing area.
- Make sure that "Check spelling" is checked.
- Right-click again. Go to "Languages" and make sure that your
language is checked.
Now check: Does the spell checking work as you would expect? Does it mark incorrect words in red? If you right-click words in red, does it offer sensible corrections?
If all works well, you'll be able to easily fix spelling and grammar errors in the Wikipedia in your language. It is an easy way to contribute to the Wikipedia in your language, because usually you can improve the spelling of articles even without knowing much about the subject of the article.
It is also possible that the dictionary is buggy or has missing words and marks correct words in red. If this happens, please write to me and i'll do my best to report these words to the maintainer of the dictionary, so that in the next version of the dictionary they will be checked correctly. (Let me say this again: Please feel free to write to me about technical problems in support for your language. I don't know any Indic language well, but i'm sure that i'll be able to help nevertheless.)
If you don't use Firefox, you should try it: http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all.html (There's a good chance that there's a version in your language!)
If you use Firefox on Linux or Mac, a spelling dictionary for your language is supposed to be already installed if you installed a language pack for your language in the operating system. If you are not sure how to do it or if it doesn't work as you expect, please write to me.
Spell checking is supposed to work in Google Chrome, too, but it supports less languages and i also found some bugs in its spelling functionality. You are still welcome to try it: go to Preferences (wrench) -> Under the hood -> Languages and Spell-checker settings, and then add your language.
I might be wrong, but i don't think that you can install custom spelling dictionaries in Microsoft Internet Explorer. If i'm wrong, please correct me; if i'm right, then well, that's another reason to try Firefox or Chrome :)
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
2012/3/18 Arjuna Rao Chavala arjunaraoc@gmail.com:
Telugu spell checker (Self plug:contributed by me )is at
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/telugu-spell-checker/
Arjuna, this is very good! I wonder why doesn't it appear in the full list of spelling dictionaries. I filed a bug: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=736786
Spell checkers for indic languages have only limited success, due to the complex nature of Indic languages. Advanced algorithms developed in Universities are yet to reach the common users.
If the software is free, it can be distributed through Mozilla, OpenOffice and Google services like GMail and Google Docs.
In the particular case of Mozilla, the spelling dictionary can be included in the version of Firefox that people download, but only if it's licensed as GPL, LGPL and MPL. This requirement is strange to me, but Mozilla are very firm about it. Since you are the author of this particular dictionary, you can decide to license it this way, and then it will be installed to all users by default.
The other way to distribute it is just to advertise it any way you can - blogs, comments, Facebook, anything. Spelling checkers should be advertised more :)
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
Base Telugu words though old were already available under GPL, thanks to the efforts of IIIT, Hyderabad which digitized CPBrown English-Telugu dictionary. I just used it for Telugu spell checker. I did not package it as a dictionary, as the purpose is served by spell checker add on.
--------------------- Sent via mobile On Mar 18, 2012 5:10 AM, "Amir E. Aharoni" amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il wrote:
2012/3/18 Arjuna Rao Chavala arjunaraoc@gmail.com:
Telugu spell checker (Self plug:contributed by me )is at
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/telugu-spell-checker/
Arjuna, this is very good! I wonder why doesn't it appear in the full list of spelling dictionaries. I filed a bug: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=736786
Spell checkers for indic languages have only limited success, due to the complex nature of Indic languages. Advanced algorithms developed in Universities are yet to reach the common users.
If the software is free, it can be distributed through Mozilla, OpenOffice and Google services like GMail and Google Docs.
In the particular case of Mozilla, the spelling dictionary can be included in the version of Firefox that people download, but only if it's licensed as GPL, LGPL and MPL. This requirement is strange to me, but Mozilla are very firm about it. Since you are the author of this particular dictionary, you can decide to license it this way, and then it will be installed to all users by default.
The other way to distribute it is just to advertise it any way you can
- blogs, comments, Facebook, anything. Spelling checkers should be
advertised more :)
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Excellent Amir. Just a thought:
For those who do not know, there is an addon called Lupin's Anti-Vandal Tool [LAV] on the English Wikipedia. This tool is a typical RC patrol tool which shows edits on the fly. Part of this tool checks spellings on the fly and the user has the option of fixing them.
Perhaps this part of LAV could be ported? --
On Sun, Mar 18, 2012 at 11:14 AM, Arjuna Rao Chavala arjunaraoc@gmail.comwrote:
Base Telugu words though old were already available under GPL, thanks to the efforts of IIIT, Hyderabad which digitized CPBrown English-Telugu dictionary. I just used it for Telugu spell checker. I did not package it as a dictionary, as the purpose is served by spell checker add on.
Sent via mobile On Mar 18, 2012 5:10 AM, "Amir E. Aharoni" amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il wrote:
2012/3/18 Arjuna Rao Chavala arjunaraoc@gmail.com:
Telugu spell checker (Self plug:contributed by me )is at
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/telugu-spell-checker/
Arjuna, this is very good! I wonder why doesn't it appear in the full list of spelling dictionaries. I filed a bug: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=736786
Spell checkers for indic languages have only limited success, due to
the
complex nature of Indic languages. Advanced algorithms developed in Universities are yet to reach the common users.
If the software is free, it can be distributed through Mozilla, OpenOffice and Google services like GMail and Google Docs.
In the particular case of Mozilla, the spelling dictionary can be included in the version of Firefox that people download, but only if it's licensed as GPL, LGPL and MPL. This requirement is strange to me, but Mozilla are very firm about it. Since you are the author of this particular dictionary, you can decide to license it this way, and then it will be installed to all users by default.
The other way to distribute it is just to advertise it any way you can
- blogs, comments, Facebook, anything. Spelling checkers should be
advertised more :)
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
2012/3/18 Srikanth Ramakrishnan parakara.ghoda@gmail.com:
Excellent Amir. Just a thought:
For those who do not know, there is an addon called Lupin's Anti-Vandal Tool [LAV] on the English Wikipedia. This tool is a typical RC patrol tool which shows edits on the fly. Part of this tool checks spellings on the fly and the user has the option of fixing them.
Perhaps this part of LAV could be ported?
Of course, although it may be challenging. Theoretically it can work with any language, but in practice it's especially easy in English, because English has very easy morphology and words change very little by inflection, tense, number, gender etc. It's hard for many European languages, too, and it will be hard for languages of India, but it's definitely possible.
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
I agree, English and other Latin/Roman based languages are easier to implement as compared to Indic ones [as pointed out by Arjuna]. However, it would be great if we did have it in our languages. Nothing is Impossible after all.
On Sun, Mar 18, 2012 at 5:36 PM, Amir E. Aharoni < amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il> wrote:
2012/3/18 Srikanth Ramakrishnan parakara.ghoda@gmail.com:
Excellent Amir. Just a thought:
For those who do not know, there is an addon called Lupin's Anti-Vandal
Tool
[LAV] on the English Wikipedia. This tool is a typical RC patrol tool which shows edits on the fly. Part of this tool checks spellings on the fly and the user has the
option of
fixing them.
Perhaps this part of LAV could be ported?
Of course, although it may be challenging. Theoretically it can work with any language, but in practice it's especially easy in English, because English has very easy morphology and words change very little by inflection, tense, number, gender etc. It's hard for many European languages, too, and it will be hard for languages of India, but it's definitely possible.
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
2012/3/18 Srikanth Ramakrishnan parakara.ghoda@gmail.com:
I agree, English and other Latin/Roman based languages are easier to implement as compared to Indic ones [as pointed out by Arjuna]. However, it would be great if we did have it in our languages. Nothing is Impossible after all.
It's not so much a matter of an alphabet, as of grammar complexity. Western European languages like Italian and French and Eastern European languages like Hungarian and Polish are written in the Latin alphabet, but they have very complicated grammar, so writing a spelling engine for them is much more challenging than doing it for English. Languages of India should be quite close to it in terms of complexity, despite the different writing systems.
And above all, it's a matter of resources - French is quite complex, but there are much more resources (read: money) for it than for Telugu. But that's exactly why i propose everybody to at least try to use the existing tools: simply using the tools will help to uncover mistakes and missing words and fix them.
I'm really glad that we have a real spelling tool developer on this list :)
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
Can I contribute in any way for Odia (Language code "or")?
On 18 March 2012 17:59, Amir E. Aharoni amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.ilwrote:
2012/3/18 Srikanth Ramakrishnan parakara.ghoda@gmail.com:
I agree, English and other Latin/Roman based languages are easier to implement as compared to Indic ones [as pointed out by Arjuna]. However, it would be great if we did have it in our languages. Nothing is Impossible after all.
It's not so much a matter of an alphabet, as of grammar complexity. Western European languages like Italian and French and Eastern European languages like Hungarian and Polish are written in the Latin alphabet, but they have very complicated grammar, so writing a spelling engine for them is much more challenging than doing it for English. Languages of India should be quite close to it in terms of complexity, despite the different writing systems.
And above all, it's a matter of resources - French is quite complex, but there are much more resources (read: money) for it than for Telugu. But that's exactly why i propose everybody to at least try to use the existing tools: simply using the tools will help to uncover mistakes and missing words and fix them.
I'm really glad that we have a real spelling tool developer on this list :)
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
2012/3/19 Subhashish Panigrahi psubhashish@gmail.com:
Can I contribute in any way for Odia (Language code "or")?
Yes. Thanks for volunteering. I emailed the dictionary maintainer and i'll get you in touch.
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org