Is it ‘dyaryo’ or ‘diyaryo?’ ‘Imahe’ or ‘imahen?’
The Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino (KWF) is developing a software that aims to help address misspelling of words in Filipino, the country’s national language.
Targeted for launch in 2018, KWF’s first spellchecker software will operate much like Microsoft Word by alerting people about wrong spelling of Filipino words they type on computers and providing the correct spelling for these.
“It’s part of our campaign to promote use of Filipino,” said KWF language researcher Jeslie del Ayre who’s involved in development of the software. She said KWF will make the software available to the public free of charge.
She said KWF already has a prototype of the software. “We’re testing that prototype to improve it further,” she said.
“We also plan to install the software in national and local government offices nationwide for use in respective official communication, transactions and correspondence,” she noted.
According to del Ayre, the spellchecker software is based on KWF’s orthographic rules for the Filipino language. Orthography is a tool for teaching correct writing and reading in Filipino, the KWF said.
Orthographic rules for the Filipino language underwent reforms over the years, the KWF noted. The latest reforms are included in ‘Ortograpiyang Pambansa’ which KWF published in 2013.
Del Ayre said programmers from the National University offered KWF to help develop a spellchecker software for Filipino. “It’s KWF’s mandate to promote Filipino and other Philippine languages so our agency accepted their proposal,” she said. — Catherine Teves (PNA)
