﻿README – English Hunspell Dictionaries  
Maintained by Marco A.G.Pinto  
Licence information is provided at the end of this file.  


FREE SOFTWARE  
=============  
These spellcheckers are free software — free to use, share, modify, and  
redistribute under the terms of their respective licences.  

They are intended for a broad audience, including students, professionals,  
writers, developers, educators, and non-native speakers.  

The dictionaries cover several major English varieties and are maintained to  
provide accurate, reliable, and accessible spelling support across different  
countries and communities.  

Feedback, corrections, and contributions are welcome and help keep these  
dictionaries accurate, comprehensive, and up to date.  


ETHICS AND PRINCIPLES  
=====================  
Language is a shared human good. It should remain open and accessible to  
everyone, regardless of race, religion, gender, age, country, income,  
profession, or academic background.  

Marco's goal is to make these English dictionaries accurate, inclusive, and  
freely available to all users. Everyone should have equal access to words and  
spelling tools, whether they are the owner of a multinational company or the  
person sweeping the street.  

The project is maintained in the belief that language belongs to humankind as  
a whole and serves learning, communication, dignity, and opportunity. For this  
reason, the dictionaries are regularly updated and made available across  
several English variants so that anyone can use English with confidence.  

Marco lives a simple and modest life and has chosen not to monetise this work,  
allowing everyone to benefit from it freely. However, anyone who forks these  
dictionaries or uses them in another project is asked to credit this project  
in a visible place.  

The dictionaries are the result of many years of maintenance, correction,  
expansion, and careful review. They should not be presented as someone else's  
work after only a small number of words have been added or removed.  


DICTIONARY MAINTENANCE  
======================  
Marco maintains six main English dictionary variants:  
  • en_GB (British, “-ise”), since 25 Aug 2013  
  • en_GB-oxendict (British, Oxford “-ize” spelling), since 1 Mar 2025  
  • en_ZA (South African, “-ise”), since 1 Jan 2025  
  • en_US (American, “-ize”), since 1 Jan 2026 (alternative version)  
  • en_CA (Canadian, mixed “-ise”/“-ize”), since 1 Jan 2026 (alternative version)  
  • en_AU (Australian, “-ise”), since 1 Jan 2026 (alternative version)  

Notes:  
  • The project supports both “-ise” and “-ize” spelling conventions across  
    its different dictionary variants. Coverage is continually reviewed and  
    refined to ensure that words are assigned to the appropriate regional  
    dictionaries.  
  • en_GB and en_ZA are maintained in parallel. The South African dictionary  
    uses the British dictionary as its base while retaining and expanding  
    vocabulary specific to South African English.  
  • Before each release, en_US, en_CA, and en_AU are automatically converted  
    from en_GB using Proofing Tool GUI. The tool applies hundreds of conversion  
    rules and variant-specific wordlists to adapt spelling, vocabulary, and  
    morphology for each regional dictionary.  

    Whenever possible, inflected and derived forms are replaced with their  
    corresponding lemmas and Hunspell affix flags. Using lemmas makes it easier  
    to convert words accurately between English variants, reduces the number of  
    entries in the .DIC files, and makes the dictionaries simpler to inspect,  
    analyse, and maintain.  

    The converted files are then reviewed and refined where necessary.  

The en_ZA dictionary uses the same base wordlist as en_GB, which originated  
from the Aspell English wordlists distributed under the LGPL.  

Marco began maintaining en_GB after its previous maintenance had ceased. He  
later took over the maintenance of en_ZA and began developing alternative  
en_US, en_CA, and en_AU dictionaries alongside the existing upstream  
versions.  

The en_GB dictionary began as a subset of Kevin Atkinson's Pspell/Aspell  
wordlist, distributed under the LGPL. It was subsequently expanded and  
improved by David Bartlett, Brian Kelk, Andrew Brown, and Marco A.G.Pinto.  

The work has included:  
  • Removal of Americanisms from en_GB and en_ZA  
  • Removal of Britishisms from en_US  
  • Addition of missing words  
  • Correction of spelling and morphological errors  
  • Addition of hyphenated compounds  
  • Addition of thousands of proper names and place names  
  • Addition of thousands of plural and possessive forms  
  • Removal of duplicate entries  
  • Replacement of inflected and derived entries with lemmas and affix flags  
  • Support for ordinals and other affixed forms, such as 1st, 111th, and 1990s  


CANADIAN ENGLISH AND THE -ISE/-IZE QUESTION  
===========================================  
Canadian English is one of the most difficult varieties of English to support  
because it combines features of both British and American English.  

To better reflect contemporary Canadian usage and respond to user feedback,  
the Canadian dictionary adopts a mixed approach, combining selected British  
and American forms where appropriate.  

The dictionary accepts both “-ise” and “-ize” verb forms, includes commonly  
used American medical and scientific terms, and reflects the mixed  
British/American character of contemporary Canadian English.  

The goal is to reduce unnecessary spelling warnings while supporting the  
widest possible range of Canadian users.  


CONTRIBUTORS  
============  
Many people have provided valuable feedback, word submissions, corrections,  
and practical suggestions over the years — too many to list individually.  

Special thanks are due to:  
  • Cyberknight – Submitted numerous scientific terms during the project's  
    early years and helped create a legacy British dictionary extension for  
    older versions of Mozilla applications. Although Marco is no longer in  
    contact with him, his contributions remain a valued part of the project's  
    history.  

  • Babelfish (Peter C.) – Regularly contributed words and provided practical  
    suggestions that helped refine, correct, and expand the dictionary.  

  • Peter C. (not Babelfish) – Consistently advocated for a British dictionary  
    using “-ise” spelling. His feedback contributed to the adoption and  
    expansion of “-ise” forms in the default British dictionary.  

These wordlists aim to provide broad and reliable coverage of contemporary  
English across the Commonwealth and North America while preserving appropriate  
regional spelling and vocabulary.  

The original .AFF file was created by David Bartlett and Andrew Brown using  
MySpell rules and was distributed under the LGPL. Its purpose was to provide  
accurate morphological and affix handling rather than to minimise file size.  
Marco has continued to revise and expand the affix rules since 2013.  


MARCO A.G.PINTO  
===============  
Marco began maintaining the British dictionary in 2013 after it had gone for  
several years without an active release. He based his work on Mozilla's  
unobfuscated dictionary files, which made the wordlist and affix rules easier  
to inspect, maintain, and improve.  

Since then, he has corrected and expanded the dictionaries, refined their  
affix rules, added regional vocabulary, and developed tools to help maintain  
and convert the different English variants.  

Spelling and usage are checked against a range of reference sources,  
including:  
  • Oxford Dictionaries  
  • Collins Dictionary  
  • Cambridge Dictionary  
  • Merriam-Webster Dictionary  
  • Wiktionary, used with caution  
  • Wikipedia, used with caution  
  • Printed dictionaries and other physical reference works  

Some of the most demanding areas of dictionary maintenance include:  
  • Proper names and place names  
  • Possessive forms  
  • Plural forms  
  • Regional vocabulary and spelling differences  
  • Derived and inflected forms  
  • Hyphenated compounds  


HUNSPELL ENGINE  
===============  
Hunspell is an open-source spellchecking and morphological analysis engine  
developed by Németh László.  

It is designed to handle complex word forms, affixes, compound words, and  
language-specific spelling rules efficiently.  

Hunspell is widely used by major software projects and applications. Németh  
László's work has made a significant and lasting contribution to modern  
spellchecking and language-processing tools.  


TABOO AND OFFENSIVE WORDS  
=========================  
A NOSUGGEST flag is applied to certain taboo or offensive words to prevent them  
from appearing in spelling suggestions.  

Every effort has been made to identify and flag the most offensive terms.  
However, the list may not include every potentially offensive or taboo word.  

Some words have intentionally been left unflagged because, although classified  
as taboo by certain dictionaries, they are not generally regarded as swear  
words or inherently offensive in contemporary usage. Their acceptability may  
also depend on context, region, and intended meaning.  


CONTACT AND PROJECT LINKS  
=========================  
Marco A.G.Pinto  
  • E-mail: marcoagpinto@sapo.pt  
  • Project website: https://proofingtoolgui.org  
  • FAQ: https://proofingtoolgui.org/faq.html  
  • Changelog: https://proofingtoolgui.org/en_GB_CHANGES.txt  
  • GitHub repository: https://github.com/marcoagpinto/aoo-mozilla-en-dict  
  • Personal article: https://marcoagpinto.com  


CHANGELOG (2025+)  
=================  
2026-09-01 (Marco A.G.Pinto)  
           - Removed additional Britishisms from the US dictionary.  
           - Corrected the handling of “improvise” and “improvize”;  
             “improvize” is not a valid spelling.  
           - Enhanced flags, mainly for US English words.  
           - Added flag “á” for adjectival forms ending in “-like”.  
           - Added flag “é” for irregular plural forms.  
           - Improved the hyphenation dictionaries.  
           - Rewrote and expanded most of the README file.  

2026-07-01 (Marco A.G.Pinto)  
           - Made major updates to the Canadian and US dictionaries.  
           - Removed numerous Americanisms from the GB dictionary.  
           - Removed numerous Britishisms from the US dictionary.  
           - Added MAXNGRAMSUGS 7 to keep spelling suggestions more  
             focused and reduce noise.  
           - Switched to FLAG UTF-8 after running out of available flags.  
           - Added flag “í” for US English “-ist”, “-ist's”, and  
             “-ists” forms derived from single-L words.  
           - Added the apostrophe to WORDCHARS to recognise words such  
             as “'gainst”.  
           - Added the REP entry “teh” → “the”.  
           - Added possessive forms for most nouns ending in “-ness”.  
           - Added numerous derived forms, including plurals and  
             possessives.  

2026-05-01 (Marco A.G.Pinto)  
           - Enhanced flags, mainly for US English words.  

2026-03-07 (Marco A.G.Pinto)  
           - Released a critical update to correct an issue in the US  
             dictionary caused by Proofing Tool GUI automatically  
             removing prefixes from lemmas included in the removal list.  

2026-03-01 (Marco A.G.Pinto)  
           - Enhanced flags, mainly for US English words.  
           - Made major fixes and improvements to the US dictionary.  

2026-02-01 (Marco A.G.Pinto)  
           - Enhanced flags, mainly for US English words.  
           - Made major fixes and improvements to the US, CA, and AU  
             dictionaries.  
           - Added a British Oxford spelling dictionary to the  
             LibreOffice extension.  

2026-01-01 (Marco A.G.Pinto)  
           - Began maintaining alternative versions of the US, CA, and  
             AU dictionaries.  
           - Merged the GB dictionary into the ZA dictionary.  
           - Aligned all six dictionaries with the GB versioning format  
             for consistency.  
           - Removed numerous Americanisms from the GB dictionary.  
           - Converted the US and GB hyphenation files to UTF-8 with a  
             byte order mark and Unix line endings.  
           - Converted the thesaurus files to UTF-8 with a byte order  
             mark and Unix line endings.  
           - Improved the extension artwork.  

----------------

2025-03-02 to 2025-12-31 (Marco A.G.Pinto)  
           - Improved the handling of “-ise” and “-ize” forms.  
           - Corrected, improved, and added flags in preparation for  
             US English compatibility on 1 January 2026.  

2025-03-01 (Marco A.G.Pinto)  
           - Added new 96×96 extension icons for Mozilla GB and new  
             128×128 icons for LibreOffice and OpenOffice.  
-            Changed the default GB and ZA spelling convention to “-ise”.  
           - Unified the GB and ZA .AFF files.  
           - Merged hundreds of thousands of proper names from GB into ZA.  
           - Corrected and improved flags “O” and “W”.  

2025-01-01 (Marco A.G.Pinto)  
           - Created the official fork of the ZA dictionary.  


LGPL3 LICENSE  
=============  

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WORDNET LICENSE (THESAURUS FOR OPENOFFICE/LIBREOFFICE)  
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