This Python3 script translates to and from the Telsis language, the language used in the world setting of Violet Evergarden. The language is created by translating the source text into Tamil, converting the Tamil script into unaccented English alphabet characters, using a substitution cipher to swap the characters, and finally representing the results in the Telsis alphabet. The References section contains more information about decoding the language and the original script from which this translator is built on. This script can be used from the commandline, in interactive console mode, or as a Python library. A GUI is also available but it requires Kivy or PySimpleGUI. Detailed explanation of how to script works can be found here.

Note: Not for commercial use as this script uses the google_trans_new library which does not allow usage for commercial purposes.

unidecode
requests
Pillow

Install requirements (less PySimpleGUI or Kivy) with:

pip3 install -r requirements.txt

Kivy is required to run the GUI. See the instructions here on how to install Kivy. The Kivy app will also require the japanize-kivy package, which can be installed by pip3 install japanize-kivy, in order for the correct rendering of CJK characters.

To install PySimpleGUI, which is needed for the simple GUI:

pip3 install pysimplegui

For the GUI based on PySimpleGUI, the font file TelsisTyped.otf needs to be installed in the system font path. This can be ~/.fonts for Linux systems. For Windows, it will need to be installed.

usage: telsistrans [-h] [-g | -gx | -i | -t TEXT] [-sl SRCLANG] [-tl TGTLANG] [-d] [-f FONT]

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -g, --gui             graphical mode using Kivy
  -gx, --simplegui      graphical mode using PySimpleGUI
  -i, --interactive     interactive console mode
  -t TEXT, --text TEXT  source text
  -sl SRCLANG, --srclang SRCLANG
                        source language
  -tl TGTLANG, --tgtlang TGTLANG
                        target language
  -d, --display         display results in Telsis font
  -f FONT, --font FONT  font file

Either the source or target language must be specified in order for the translator to work. They must also not be the same.

If Telsis is specified as the source language, the translator will attempt to translate the source text into the given target language, which defaults to English if not specified. If a source language other than Telsis is specified, the translator will attempt to translate the source text into Telsis.

If Telsis is specified as the target language, the translator will attempt to translate the source text into Telsis, guessing the source language if it is not specified. If a target language other than Telsis is specified, the translator will assume the source text is in the Telsis language and attempt to translate the source text into the given target language.

The "display" option (-d or --display) can be used to show the results in the Telsis alphabet if the target language is Telsis. A font file must be specified for this to work. See the section on Fonts for more information.

Names that are not to be translated can be enclosed in backslashes.

The "gui" option (-g or --gui) will launch a GUI based on Kivy if it is installed. If you want to use a GUI based on PySimpleGUI, use the "simplegui" option (-gx or --simplegui).

GUI based on Kivy

GUI based on PySimpleGUI

The interactive console mode allows the user to enter the source language, source text, and target language for translation. If a font file is specified, the translated Telsis language result (if the target language is Telsis) can also be displayed in the Telsis alphabet.

To enter interactive console mode:

telsistrans -i

To enter interactive console mode and display the results in the Telsis alphabet:

telsistrans -i -d -f fontfile.ttf

where fontfile.ttf is the Truetype or OpenType font to use. For more information, see the section on Fonts.

To exit the interactive console mode, enter quit for the source language.

Translate from Telsis language (target language defaults to English):

$ ./telsistrans -t nunki -sl telsis
Thanks

Translate to Telsis language:

$ ./telsistrans -t thanks -tl telsis
Nunki

Translate to Japanese (source language assumed to be Telsis):

$ ./telsistrans -t nunki -tl ja
ありがとう

Translate from simplified Chinese (target language assumed to be Telsis):

$ ./telsistrans -t 谢谢 -sl zh-cn
Nunki

For longer text, enclose the source text in quotes:

$ ./telsistrans -t "I love you" -tl telsis
Nun annui noyirrikon
$ ./telsistrans -t "nunki posuk" -tl en
Thank you Major

Displaying in Telsis alphabet:

$ ./telsistrans -t "I love you" -sl en -d -f TelsisTyped.otf 
Nun annui noyirrikon

Names can be enclosed in backslashes so that they appear correctly in translated text. A backslash is also used as an escape character. If the use of backslash can result in such characters, leave a space after the backslash. See the first and third examples below.

$ ./telsistrans -t "I love Major \Gilbert\ " -sl en
Nun posuk Gilbert ui gikapmarikon
$ ./telsistrans -t "Posuk \Gilbert\ nunki." -sl telsis
Thank you Major Gilbert.
$ ./telsistrans -t "Thank you Major \Gilbert\ " -sl en
Posuk Gilbert nunki
$ ./telsistrans -t "Nun posuk \Gilbert\ ui gikapmarikon." -sl telsis
I like Major Gilbert.
$ ./telsistrans -t "Thank you \Gilbert\ , \Hodgins\ , and \Violet\." -sl en
Gilbert, Hodgins pukkap Violet nunki.

Note: Punctuation is sometimes not handled properly, so it is best to avoid using punctuation marks in the source text. For example:

$ ./telsistrans -t "\Gilbert\ , \Hodgins\ pukkap \Violet\ nunki." -sl telsis
Gilbert
$ ./telsistrans -t "\Gilbert\ \Hodgins\ pukkap \Violet\ nunki." -sl telsis
Thanks to Gilbert Hodgkins and Violet.

The issue seems to be with the handling of comma. A workaround is to use some other punctuation mark, like a semi-colon.

$ ./telsistrans -t "Nunki \Gilbert\ ; \Hodgins\ pukkap \Violet\ " -sl telsis
Thanks Gilbert; Hodgkins and Violet

The translator has been implemented as a Python class, which allows the script to be used as a library. The basic method is to create an instance of the telsis_translator class, and call either the lang2telsis method to translate to the Telsis language, or telsis2lang to translate from the Telsis language. The target text is found in results['tgt_text'] of the class.

from telsistrans import telsis_translator
translator = telsis_translator()
srctext = "I love you"
srclang = 'en'
translator.lang2telsis(srctext, srclang)
print(translator.results['tgt_text'])  # Print out results of translation
srctext = "Nunki posuk"
tgtlang = 'ja'
translator.telsis2lang(srctext, tgtlang)
print(translator.results['tgt_text'])  # Print out results of translation

Output of the above example:

Nun annui noyirrikon
ありがとう少佐

A font file for the Telsis alphabet is required to display the Telsis language results properly. A simple font file TelsisTyped.otf has been included in this repository. Alternatives include the Violet_evergardenV14-Regular.ttf file from this Reddit post or the Automemoryfont.otf from this Reddit post. The font file is specified by either the -f or --font option followed by the filename of the font file.

The font can also be used directly with the telsis_display command. For example:

$ ./telsis_display "Nunki posuk"
$ ./telsis_display "Nun annui noyirrikon" -f TelsisTyped.otf

For the simple GUI, the font file TelsisTyped.otf needs to be in your system. In Linux systems, you can place the file in ~/.fonts folder. If TelsisTyped.otf is not present in the ~/.fonts folder, the simple GUI will attempt to copy this file into the folder when it runs. In Windows, you will need to install the font. A function has been added to attempt to load this font for the simple GUI but it is still untested. (The advantage of using the Kivy GUI is that it can directly load custom fonts without the need for them to be installed in your system.)

Current version: v0.3.1

• v0.1: Initial version with basic operations from command line, interactive console mode, and use as library. Names can be handled by enclosing in backslashes.
• v0.2: Added simple GUI using PySimpleGUI.
• v0.3: Added GUI based on Kivy.
• v0.3.1: Fixed bug with handling of names; used a local copy of google_trans_new as the PyPi version is buggy.

TODO:

• More robust testing using available text in Telsis language
• Find a way to handle punctuation correctly
• Find a Google Translate Python library that allows commercial use (maybe the pygoogletranslation library or the Googletrans library)
• Ambitious goal: train a deep learning neural network to recognize Telsis language alphabets and convert them into English alphabets, then run translation on the result

• Original Python script by Valkren, which translates Telsis into English
• Reddit post on decoding the Telsis language

MIT License; see LICENSE file for more information.

The Noto Sans Serif CJK font used in the Kivy app is distributed under the SIL Open Font License, Version 1.1 which can be viewed here.

Copyright (c) 2021 Vivian Ng