GAELIC(5)

📦 version 0.50, in debian bookworm, debian trixie, ubuntu jammy, ubuntu noble, ubuntu questing, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

🌸 GAELIC — bestie's guide to the Scots Gaelic word list 💖

okay so picture this: it's gaelic(5), section 5 of the Linux Programmers Manual, and it's literally just a whole file of Scots Gaelic words. no cap. let's get into it 🦋

✨ NAME ✨

gaelic — it's a list of Scots Gaelic words, periodt. 👑

💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

okay so /usr/share/dict/gaelic is an ASCII file, and inside it is an alphabetic list of words, one per line. that's it. that's the whole vibe. one word, one line, alphabetically sorted, slaying in plain ASCII. 🎀

🗂️ FILES 🗂️

so here's the little symlink situation and honestly it's giving spider web 🕸️:

  • /etc/dictionaries-common/words is a symbolic link to a /usr/share/dict/<language> file. lowkey the middleman of the whole operation.
  • /usr/share/dict/words is a symbolic link to /etc/dictionaries-common/words, and this is the name by which other software should refer to the system word list. like, if you're some other program trying to find the words, this is the address you use, fr fr.
  • if you want more info on all this, go see select-default-wordlist(8). she explains everything 💜

also!! the directory /usr/share/dict can contain word lists for many languages, and the directory name is the language's name in English. iconic multilingual behavior 🌈. for example, /usr/share/dict/french and /usr/share/dict/danish contain respectively lists of French and Danish words if they exist. no promises, they might just not be there, and that's fine.

⚠️ important technical note bestie: such lists should be coded using the ISO 8859-1 character set encoding. not UTF-8, not whatever you feel like. ISO 8859-1. write it down. ✍️

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

go read these when you're done here, they're all part of the lore:

📜 HISTORY 📜

story time 🍓:

  • the word lists are not specific, and may be generated from any number of sources. like, they don't come from one special place, they just kinda... exist.
  • the system word list used to be /usr/dict/words. vintage!! for compatibility, software should check that location if /usr/share/dict/words does not exist. so it's giving "check the old spot too, just in case" energy. 🙈

🫶 AUTHOR 🫶

this absolute legend wrote it:

  • Alastair McKinstry <mckinstry@computer.org>

and that's the whole page, bestie!! this gem is from the Linux manual, dated 20 July 2002, and it's filed under GAELIC(5). drink some water, check your symlinks, and stay iconic 💖✨🎀🦋

📦 where this page comes from