Source code of Whitaker's WORDS

[Carolus Raeticus]

Salvete,

while researching a different matter I stumbled upon the source code of William Whitaker's WORDS-programme (Latin vocabulary). Perhaps someone can use it. Mr. Whitaker died in late 2010 (his obituary can be found on the web-site Midland Reporter-Telegram).

The source-code itself can be found at this GitHub-page.

Kudos to William Whitaker for this contribution!

Carolus Raeticus

[hlawson38]

Hello Carolus: I have collected a little code that lets me use WORDS along with the editor Emacs.

For example, with this text in Emacs:

Montium custos nemorumque virgo,
quae laborantis utero puellas
ter vocata audis adimisque leto,
diva triformis,

I can put the cursor on say custos, strike the proper key, and Emacs will display the following:

custos N 3 1 NOM S C
custos N 3 1 VOC S C
custos, custodis N (3rd) C [XXXAO]
guard; sentry/watch; guardian/protector/keeper; doorkeeper/watchman/janitor;
jailer, warden; poll watcher; spy; garrison; container; replacement vine shoot;

This can be pretty helpful with hard passages.

I'm posting this because I haven't learned how to use textkit's private messaging function.

[Carolus Raeticus]

Hello hlawson38!

Thank you for sharing. Perhaps you could upload it somewhere others can access it. Personally I do not use Emacs (I tried and failed miserably, silly me), but it would be certainly good to have the option.

Vale,

Carolus Raeticus

[hlawson38]

Hello Carolus,

I'll be happy to write up a description how I did this, but I'm not sure where you mean for me to upload it. To this site?

Here's how the process works:

load some Latin text into Emacs
select (i.e. highlight) a word in Emacs
copy the word to the Emacs kill-ring (Emacs's form of in-program clipboard)
run Whitaker's words as an external program with the copied word as argument
display the output of Whitakers words in Emacs

[Alatius]

There has been some efforts done to clean up the code and develop the program further. Check out http://mk270.github.io/whitakers-words/
There hasn't been much activity the last couple of months, though, but it is a promising initiative.