OpenTaal is a Dutch

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 foundation which provides free Dutch

Dutch language

Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...

 language files to be used in open-source software

Open-source software

Open-source software is computer software that is available in source code form: the source code and certain other rights normally reserved for copyright holders are provided under a software license that permits users to study, change, improve and at times also to distribute the software.Open...

 spell checking

Spell checker

In computing, a spell checker is an application program that flags words in a document that may not be spelled correctly. Spell checkers may be stand-alone capable of operating on a block of text, or as part of a larger application, such as a word processor, email client, electronic dictionary,...

, hyphen

Hyphen

The hyphen is a punctuation mark used to join words and to separate syllables of a single word. The use of hyphens is called hyphenation. The hyphen should not be confused with dashes , which are longer and have different uses, or with the minus sign which is also longer...

ation, synonym lists

Synonym

Synonyms are different words with almost identical or similar meanings. Words that are synonyms are said to be synonymous, and the state of being a synonym is called synonymy. The word comes from Ancient Greek syn and onoma . The words car and automobile are synonyms...

 and grammar checking

Grammar checker

A grammar checker in computing terms, is a program, or part of a program, that attempts to verify written text for grammatical correctness. Grammar checkers are most often implemented as a feature of a larger program, such as a word processor, but are also available as stand-alone application that...

.

Background

In 1996 a working group of the Dutch TeX User's Group created a word list for spell checking and hyphenation to be used in TeX software

TeX

TeX is a typesetting system designed and mostly written by Donald Knuth and released in 1978. Within the typesetting system, its name is formatted as ....

. This list is also used in OpenOffice.org

OpenOffice.org

OpenOffice.org, commonly known as OOo or OpenOffice, is an open-source application suite whose main components are for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, and databases. OpenOffice is available for a number of different computer operating systems, is distributed as free software...

 and has been developed since. At the end of 2005 the Dutch Language Union

Dutch Language Union

The Dutch Language Union is an international institution for discussing issues regarding the Dutch language. It was founded on 9 September 1980 by the Netherlands and Belgium...

 (Nederlandse Taalunie), the formal Dutch language institute, published a new version of the "Woordenlijst Nederlandse Taal" (Dutch Language Word list, also known as "the Green Booklet"). The new spelling rules laid down in it are compulsory in government and education of participating countries since August, 2006. To comply with the spelling changes, the existing free language files had to be adjusted. At the same time, the opportunity arose to have them certified by the Dutch Language Union. The OpenTaal project was founded to facilitate the collaboration of open source projects in this area.

Projects

OpenTaal provides files for spelling check which are being used in software such as OpenOffice.org, Firefox, Thunderbird

Thunderbird

-Creatures:* Thunderbird , a legendary creature in Native American culture* Dromornithidae, an extinct Australian family of birds* Thunderbird , a term used in cryptozoology to describe large, bird-like creatures-Computing:...

, Safari

Safari

A safari is an overland journey, usually a trip by tourists to Africa. Traditionally, the term is used for a big-game hunt, but today the term often refers to a trip taken not for the purposes of hunting, but to observe and photograph animals and other wildlife.-Etymology:Entering the English...

, Opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

, TinyMCE

TinyMCE

TinyMCE, also known as the Tiny Moxiecode Content Editor, is a platform-independent web-based JavaScript/HTML WYSIWYG editor control, released as open source software under the LGPL by Moxiecode Systems AB. It has the ability to convert HTML textarea fields or other HTML elements to editor instances...

 and more. Some of this software receives custom files from OpenTaal while other software uses the generic spelling checker Hunspell

Hunspell

Hunspell is a spell checker and morphological analyzer designed for languages with rich morphology and complex word compounding and character encoding, originally designed for the Hungarian language....

. This is using its own custom file from OpenTaal. Even the Dutch Wiktionary

Wiktionary

Wiktionary is a multilingual, web-based project to create a free content dictionary, available in 158 languages...

uses this list of correctly spelled words.

The Dutch Language Union has approved OpenTaal's word list and labelled it with Keurmerk Spelling. Also OpenTaal has been granted funding by the Dutch Language Union to implement missing functionality in Hunspell.
OpenTaal also provides grammar rules which are used in the grammar checker LanguageTool. This is offering grammar checking via its own website but is also used by OpenOffice.org and Thunderbird.