What is OpenTaal?

The project OpenTaal aims to create, maintain and distribute free Dutch language files that can be used by free and open source projects. The first milestone (an approved word list for spell checking) has been reached. Future goals and projects in progress are hyphenation, synonyms and grammar checking.

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. This list is also used in OpenOffice.org and has been developed since. At the end of 2005 the Dutch Language Union (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.

Participants

The project started as an initiative of the government programme OSOSS. From the beginning members of the Dutch TeX Usergroup and of nl.openoffice.org were involved. In the meantime other Dutch branches of open source projects have started to participate. Currently, GNOME-NL, KDE.NL, Mozilla.nl are newly welcomed partner projects. Anyone who considers the goals of the project important, is welcome to participate.

Instruments of the project

Besides this website (www.opentaal.org), OpenTaal uses a mailing list and a forum to discuss the working methods and roadmap. Everyone can use these to exchange ideas and discuss. In order to be successful, OpenTaal welcomes any contribution!