index-en.html

<p>
This is the home page for GaelSpell, a powerful Irish language 
spell checker that has been freely available since the year 2000.
The latest version recognizes more than 390,000 words, and
we are continuously adding new words to the database.
If you notice any missing words,
<a href="cuidiu-en.html">we welcome all suggestions</a> from the community.
</p>

<p>
You can use GaelSpell on all major computing platforms
(Linux, Mac, Windows),
or even directly in your web browser thanks to a
<a target="_blank" href="http://www.potafocal.com/lit/">nice interface</a>
created by Michal Boleslav Měchura, and powered by the
GaelSpell web service.
There is additional information available on the 
<a href="sios-en.html">Download</a> page
to help you choose the correct version to download.
</p>

<p>
GaelSpell is open source software, available under the
<a target="_blank" href="https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html">GPLv2</a>.
All of the code and data underlying the spell checker are 
available from our development site on  
<a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/kscanne/gaelspell/">Github</a>.
</p>

<p>
Of course, because GaelSpell is a spell checker, it only checks spelling
and not grammar, so it doesn't pay any attention to a word's context;
e.g. it accepts “mo máthair” and “mo cuid Gaeilge”.
If you want to catch errors like these, you might have a look at
our grammar checker <a href="/gramadoir/index-en.html">An&nbsp;Gramadóir</a>.
</p>

<h2><a name="Features">Features</a></h2>

<ul>
<li><b>Large Word List.</b> With better than 360,000 words in the database,
GaelSpell accepts more than 96% of words in typical Irish texts,
personal names and placenames included.
The coverage is equivalent to a dictionary with around 39,000 headwords —
almost three times as big as a typical pocket dictionary (e.g. the Oxford or
the Collins Gem).
<li><b>Grammatical Completeness.</b>  I have written software which 
generates every inflected form of a dictionary headword when provided
with a limited amount of grammatical information.   For instance,
by adding the word <i lang="ga">fuaimnigh</i> to the underlying database 
as a second declension verb, more than 80 inflected forms 
are added to the word list (all verb endings plus lenition, eclipsis, 
prefix “d'” etc.)
<li><b>Accuracy.</b>  The only absolute rule when generating a spellchecker
is that there should be no misspelled words in the basic word list.
Every word in the GaelSpell database has been checked against
print sources at least once, and the software that generates the
inflected forms has been thoroughly tested as well.
<li><b>Frequent Updates.</b> I have provided major updates 
on a regular basis since the initial release and plan to continue this for
the foreseeable future.   
Candidates for addition to the word list are harvested via
statistical methods as part of the
<a target="_blank" href="http://crubadan.org/"><i lang="ga">Crúbadán</i></a>
web crawling project;
this is an effective way of keeping up with the latest terminology.
<li><b>Phonetic support (<i>aspell</i> only).</b>  The file 
<i>gaeilge_phonet.dat</i> provides a complete “coarse” encoding 
of the pronunciation of Irish.  This allows <i>aspell</i> to make more
intelligent suggestions when it comes across a misspelled word.  For instance,
where <i>ispell</i> gives no suggestions for the pre-standard 
<i lang="ga">imfhiosach</i>,
<i>aspell</i> uses the phonetics file to encode this as “*M*S*K”,
thereby recognizing and suggesting the correct spelling 
<i lang="ga">iomasach</i>.
</ul>