A word generator for conlangs with a simple and readable language-definition DSL.

Two reasons. First, PyConlangWordGen is a disgusting and awkward name. Neoglot (a word I coined to mean "speaker of new languages") is way cooler. Also, it symbolizes that this really not the same project as PyConlangWordGen, though it is a continuation of its (admittedly minor and unimpressive) legacy. I was fundamentally unsatisfied with the original PyConlangWordGen and its absolutely monstrous parsing code. Furthermore, I thought that the conlang-definition DSL could be improved quite a bit. I essentially stole the original syntax from Mark Rosenfelder's word generator on zompist.com. However, I found his DSL clunky to use and to parse (though this may have been due to my own lack of knowledge when I originally wrote PyConlangWordGen).

Introducing Neoglot:

cat consonant: m, n, p, t, ', h, w, l, s, sh
cat vowel: a, e, i, o, u

syll main: [consonant] (vowel | n | l) [vowel] [n]

This code snippet is equivalent to the following code snippet of Rosenfelder's DSL:

# Categories:
C=mnpt'hwls0
R=nl
V=aeiou

# Rewrite rules:
0|sh

# Syllable types:
V
CV
CVV
CR
CRV
CRn
CRVn

Neoglot is superior here in several ways. First, the syllable definition is much more concise. While the zompist.com DSL requires you to list every possible syllable type, Neoglot generates them automatically from a defined structure. Second, Neoglot supports category names longer than a single letter, enabling the user to use more descriptive names. Third, Neoglot supports phonemes of arbitrary length (digraphs, trigraphs, even duodecagraphs if that suits your fancy), eliminating the need for rewrite rules.

• Interpreter
  • Indented lines consider a continuation of the previous
  • Interpreter nevertheless gives the correct line number for an error
  • Phoneme categories
  • Syllable definitions
    • Mandatory vs optional elements
    • Multiple options within an element
    • Embed other syllable types
  • Illegality rules
    • Define illegal patterns
    • Define exceptions to illegality rules
    • Check for illegal patterns within a syllable
    • Check for illegal patterns between syllable boundaries
  • Transformations
    • Define phonemic transformations for certain environments, ie English intervocalic flapping
    • Define exceptions to transformation rules
    • Check for and apply transformations within a syllable
    • Check for and apply transformations between syllable boundaries
• Generator
  • Generate a specified number of words
  • Allow user to specify a range for length of words in syllables
  • Optionally generate text in sentence-style environments
  • Optional probability dropoff for phonemes and syllable types; the ones defined first appear more commonly
  • Command-line interface
  • GUI interface