In the same repertory of mlatin.dico and mlatin.aff, build the file mlatin.hash, necesary for ispell:
We can now use the spellchecker in a interactive way:buildhash mlatin.dico mlatin.aff mlatin.hash
Ispell does then suggestions for the words it does'nt know. It can replace (R) such a word, accept it temporaly (A), save it in a personnal dictionary (I), etc. Hit ? for a help online.ispell -d ./mlatin file
If the file is a TEX or LATEX file, use option -t:
To have a list of the errors detected, use option -l:ispell -t -d ./mlatin file
If you install the files mlatin.aff and mlatin.hash with the others dictionaries, usually in /usr/lib/ispell/, you will can run the spellchecker from any directory using option -d mlatin.cat file | ispell -d ./mlatin -l
In the project of edition of the scientific works of Francesco Maurolico, italian mathematician of the Renaissance (1594-1575), it was useful to correct the spelling of the transcriptions of the latin texts edited. A free spellchecker for latin did not exist a soon as we know, ispell gave us a free environment, relativly simple and quite well documented, to build one. We call it mlatin. This dictionary (affix file mlatin.affand vocabulary mlatin.dico) is free software with GPL licence.
A spellchecker of only latin orthography is it relevant ? Grammar and orthography seem indissociable in the Latin language, so much so that one can wonder about the effectiveness of this spellchecker. It is easy to do mistake in declension, and does