Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!ireqs3!ireq-robot!gamin
From: gamin@ireq-robot.UUCP (Martin Boyer)
Newsgroups: comp.text
Subject: Re: wanted "French digital dictionary"
Message-ID: <110@pellan.UUCP>
Date: 10 Jan 90 22:32:57 GMT
References: <1838@opus.cs.mcgill.ca>
Reply-To: gamin@ireq-robot.UUCP (Martin Boyer)
Organization: Laboratoire de robotique, Institut de recherche d'Hydro-Quebec
Lines: 44

clement@opus.UUCP (Clement Pellerin) writes:
>
>We would buy a French digital dictionary if only we could find one.
>We need a list of words like /usr/dict/words together
>with a spelling program to access the French dictionary.
>This is necessary to process the accents properly.

I have been looking for such a product for about two years and I haven't
found anything directly usable on Unix; I looked at the dictionnary files
from various (French) PC word processors and the format is *totally*
obscure (I couldn't identify a single word in it).  I will try to do the
same with the dictionnary from the French version of Interleaf but I
suspect that it isn't usable either.

Possible solutions are:

1. Get in touch with the company that did it for Interleaf and ask them to
package and sell the dictionnary by itself (a *lot* of people would *pay*
for this).

2. Do it ourselves.  Namely, set up a mailing list and ask contributors to
send lists of (correct) words.  It is simple to assemble, sift, and sort.
Then, look at something like ispell (from GNU) and see what can be done to
customize it.  From what I know about Unix spell, this is no easy task as
much of the English grammar is built in spell;  French has probably more
exceptions than English, making the algorithms intricate.

3. I heard that Sun Montreal is working on a French version of Unix,
perhaps they'd care to help (m'entendez-vous?).


My experience tells me that for anything this specific, nobody else is
going to do it.  Therefore, I am willing to start on solution 2 if there is
enough interest.  Start sending me mail at the address below if you are
willing to contribute.  DON'T send anything if you just want the results;
I'll post it if something gets done (in a year or two...).

Now, how about persuing the rest of this discussion in French?
Or in another forum (mail), before it gets too specific.
-- 
Martin Boyer                         ireq-robot!mboyer@Larry.McRCIM.McGILL.EDU
Institut de recherche d'Hydro-Quebec mboyer@ireq-robot.uucp
Varennes, QC, Canada   J3X 1S1
+1 514 652-8136