Brilliant Unified Spell-Check for Kreol Now in Use
27.03.2023
LALIT welcomes the brilliant “Unified Spell-Check” for Kreol that Ledikasyon pu Travayer launched last week in the wake of celebrations for Independence Day. “Spel-chek Inifye” can be loaded on to LibreOffice software.(1) Once installed on your computer, laptop or cellphone, it then checks your spelling as you go along with your typing, and even, like other spell-checks, suggests a list of words you might be looking for. This is a major breakthrough for the Kreol language. It has taken years of work by dozens, if not hundreds of people, (see the acknowledgements below) and includes as correct spelling either the government orthography or the more popular Ledikasyon pu Travayer orthography.
The “spelchek inifye” tool can also be installed on commercial systems like Microsoft for its Word and other programs.
LPT invites people like writers, journalists, transcribers in Court and Parliament, students, and anyone at all who speaks Kreol, to just write to LPT and ask for instructions on how to load the tool. Write to lptmail@intnet.mu – and in “subject” type “Reket pu Spelchek inifye” (this will help, when sorting mail for replying to you.
About the Spelchek inifye
Because Kreol has only been a widely written and read language over the past, say, four or five decades since about 1975-6, its spelchek is, by its very nature, a “work in progress”. In fact, Ledikasyon pu Travayer, in its traditionally humble fashion, refers to it as a “prototip”, as opposed as to the thing itself. LPT’s seminal dictionary was also published as a “prototip”, way back in 1984, and re-published and printed some six or seven times.
The “spelchek inifye” underlines any word it does not have listed on the tool. This then means one of two things, or perhaps both: either you have mis-spelt it, or it is not yet in the spell-check’s internal dictionary, or both. In fact, a shocking number of words have still to be collected for Kreol dictionaries in the future. But, though shocking, it is also completely normal. The more people help in looking for words not listed, the more complete the dictionary. Though, every dictionary becomes obsolete the minute it comes out. This is because all languages evolve, and dictionaries are, in reality, collections of how we actually speak a language, and how we speak changes.
In a recent two or three page document I drafted in Kreol, I found I had made two or three typos, which corrected, as well as finding two missing words, missing both in LPT’s original collection, and in Carpooran’s official one. First, I had written “farfelitid”, and it was underlined as not existing in the “spelchek inifye”, and when I checked in both dictionaries, I found not only was “farfelitid” missing, but so was “farfeli”. Both are common in ordinary Kreol. The other word that got underlined was the verb “prozet”. This too was not in the spell-check’s instructions nor in either dictionary. Neither are even “new” words, like, say, some of the words around computers or AI are.
Ledikasyon pu Travayer also, in its press conference at which it launched its prototype of a “spelchek inifye”, credited the immense help that it had, as an association, received from organizations and individuals in its preparations. We will, out of respect for all this work, list them:
1. Data Base for “spelchek inifye” list of words
The initial list of entries has been built using:
(a) Diksyoner Kreol-Angle, 1984, Ledikasyon Pu Travayer, GRNW, Republic of Mauritius
(b) 52 Issues of Revi LALIT, Digital version Nos 97-149 published between May 2011 to Dec 2022, covering a period of twelve years, from LALIT website www.lalitmauritius.org.
And supplemented by words from
(c) Stennding Orderz, March 2017. Kreol Translation of the Standing Orders and Rules of the National Assembly 1995 by Ledikasyon Pu Travayer.
(d) Input by team of volunteers who have checked the initial compiled list of entries
2. Developing the tool, itself
Raw data from the main source has been dumped in a single text file. Punctuations and numbers removed, then each word is listed on a line. The file is then trimmed to allow for a word to occur only once. Each one-word line is checked manually to confirm if the word exists. The final output is a digital list of around 18,000 one-word entry. To cater for a unified spell-checker, unified spelling to add entries with alternate spelling with “ou” and “ien” …
3. Testing the tool, itself
The technical team has tested the list in open source programs and other editing software commonly used. LPT has released a test version to volunteers who have responded to LPT public call for volunteers. Volunteers have manually checked the digital list and have provided spelling errors, alternative spellings and list of words missing. List of entries has been updated with input from volunteers and a final digital list for the prototype spell-checker was finalized.
The compilation of data has been done by LPT members. Members of technical team are members of LPT and supporters of the Kreol Language. LPT has not spent a cent on this project. All contribution to make the Kreol Repiblik Moris spell-checker has been voluntary and inspired to promote the Kreol Language and to give a tool to users to make writing in Kreol easier.
LPT has appealed to the public to give a hand. You can, in particular, either could you please as requested above, test the digital tool, or, after receiving the tool, send in words that you find are not in the list on the tool (in subject of your email, write – MO PU AZUTE DAN SPELCHEK INIFYE).
Ledikasyon Pu Travayer will send a copy of the prototype Spell-Checker to:
The National Assembly
Court Transcribers
University of Mauritius
Mauritius Institute of Education
Mahatma Gandhi Institute
Creole Speaking union
Electoral Commission
Departments of the Civil Service to be deployed on their system
Local Telephone companies to be made available to users of their SMS service
Trade unions and Associations
Lynux Community to make it available for all open source users
(1) “LibreOffice” is Free and Open Source Software that anyone can use, share and modify. It is produced by a worldwide community of hundreds of developers.
LC
