This README is the web page http://ispell-fi.sourceforge.net/
as it appeared in April 2004. It contains some details specific
to the installation and use with ispell, but also some more general
remarks about the scope of the dictionary.
- Kevin Scannell <scannell@slu.edu>
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ispell-fi: Finnish spell checking dictionary for ispell
Version 0.7 (3rd of September 2000)
by Martin Vermeer <mv@liisa.pp.fi> and
Pauli Virtanen <pauli.virtanen@hut.fi>
Finnish pages / Suomenkieliset sivut.
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This project aims at creating affix and dictionary files to allow
ispell to be used for spell checking Finnish language documents.
Both the dictionary and the affix files are distributed under the
terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 as published by the
Free Software Foundation. (See the file COPYING.)
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Current status
This spell check dictionary for ispell should cover a moderate portion
of common Finnish words.
The dictionary is usable, but not very suitable for serious use. (See
Flaws.)
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Three different sizes
Three different versions of this dictionary exists: small, medium and
large. These differ only by the number of words derived from other
words. (See statistics in CHANGELOG.)
The small version recognizes 756588 words, and requires 2.7 megabytes
of hard disk space. Ispell uses 5 megabytes of memory when using this
version, so it should be usable also on slower computers.
The medium version recognizes 1894529 words, and requires 5.3
megabytes of hard disk space. Ispell uses about 10 megabytes of memory
when using this version. This is the recommended version.
The large version recognizes 6678677 words, and requires 9.0 megabytes
of hard disk space. Ispell uses as much as 19 megabytes of memory when
using this version. Using it may be not worth the memory used.
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Installation instructions
You can get files mentioned here from the address
http://ispell-fi.sourceforge.net/. Like INSTALL.
1. Download the file finnish.dict.bz2
2. Download one of the following files:
+ Small version: finnish.small.aff.bz2
+ Medium version: finnish.medium.aff.bz2 (recommended)
+ Large version: finnish.large.aff.bz2
After this you should do either this:
3. Download build.sh
4. Run command "sh build.sh <size>", in directory where the files
are. (The size is either small, medium or large, corresponding the
affix file.)
5. Move the created finnish.hash file to dir /usr/lib/ispell/ (Or
wherever the other <language>.hash files are.)
or this:
3. Uncompress finnish.dict.bz2 and the affix file using the bzip2
utility.
4. Run "buildhash finnish.dict <affix file> finnish.hash", where
<affix file> is the name of the uncompressed affix file. Just
ignore possible warnings: everything should work if the
finnish.hash file is created.
5. Move the created finnish.hash file to dir /usr/lib/ispell/ (Or
wherever the other <language>.hash files are.)
Spell checking Finnish with ispell should work now.
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Flaws
Many words do not have some word forms included. More words should
therefore be tagged as roots for inflection.
Ispell has only elementary support for compound words, so they do not
work very well. For example there may be no suggestions for a
misspelled compound word.
Part of the names of countries (and places) are still written in
lowercase letters. Additionally their amount could still be increased.
The dictionary contains rather lot of not commonly used words, and
words of special areas (computers, linguistics). They may slow down
ispell and take unnecessary disk space and memory. However, I don't
know how big a benefit removing them would be. (But it is likely
rather hard.)
There are also a number of abbreviations in the dictionary. They may
cause some misspelled words to be accepted.
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Contributing
Additional word lists are appreciated, especially if they are both
extensive and spell checked. (And, of course, free to add to this
package distributed under the GNU GPL).
Please inform the authors (us) if ispell accepts a certainly
misspelled word when using this dictionary. Before that, however,
remember to make sure that the flaw is in the main dictionary, not in
your personal dictionary (which is usually the file
~/.ispell_finnish).
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Sources of the dictionary
* The original dictionary written by Martin Vermeer (which existed
in version 0.1, and before it).
* A word list downloaded from Internet address
ftp://ftp.uu.net:/doc/dictionaries/Finnish. It contains many
spelling errors and only lowercase letters, and needed a lot of
spell checking (automatic and manual), before it could be used.
* Quite a lot of words from ~/.ispell_finnish -file.
* 200 most common words. (According to Finnish Frequency
Dictionary).
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Sources of the affix files
These affix files are based on the affix file written by Martin
Vermeer. It existed in version 0.1, and before that. Also the book
Finnish grammar by Fred Karlsson (1983) published by Werner Söderström
Oy, and its Finnish version have been a great help.
Currently the affix files are partially automatically generated by the
genfisuffix program. If you are curious, you can get the source code
from the address genfisuffix/genfisuffix-0.7.tar.bz2.
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