What tools do you use for conlanging?

[gach]

MS Word, mostly. Notepad quite a bit for stuff I don't want to go into detail for.

I used to use the SIL dictionary program (I forget its name ...) for my main languages, until I accidentally deleted the source files when I got a new computer. (They were in a different place from all my other files. I kept the exported .rtf files though, so I didn't lose any information.) Now I just use Excel, which I think I actually prefer.

I remember that program, whatever it's called. I've thought about building my own program that does something similar, but I'm not sure that it would be better than excel, and I really hate the thought (not to mention the work!) of reinventing the square wheel! A web-framework would be at least somewhat better, because then you're not reinventing displaying things on a screen, because that's what html and css are for. But I'm still not sure that the end product would be superior to excel. Sure, I could search by tags easier, but remaking the other things that one takes for granted in excel isn't easy.

The SIL Shoebox? I've now and then looked at how it works for dictionaries and tried to decide what I should do myself. I'm definitely looking for recording dictionary items using some markup format but I need to decide what kind of markup would be the best and what fields I might need for the items. I'm not really that into having an interactive UI, what I really want is just an easily machine sortable database that lets me generate LaTeX source for various tidy PDF format dictionaries I might want to have (conlang > metalang dictionary, metalang > conlang finder index, etymological dictionary etc.).

[Particles the Greek]

Hey, I use emacs too!

But for conlanging, you can't beat these:
[picture of dice]

FYI, Emacs has a PRNG built-in, see function random. If you need pseudo-random floating-point numbers, use cl-random instead.

But that's not a lot of use when you don't have access to a computer, is it? Can you imagine trying that in the bath?

[KathTheDragon]

Fair enough, Archimedes.

[Pole, the]

But that's not a lot of use when you don't have access to a computer, is it? Can you imagine trying that in the bath?

Well, paper is of no use when you don't have acces to paper; paper isn't waterproof either. And computers have many advantages over paper.

[paman]

I use spreadsheets and HTML-files.

I have one spreadsheet file containing all possible syllables, where I keep track of all monosyllabic morphemes. My conlang has self-segregating morphology, which I achieve by having each syllable assigned to one of two sets, A and B, and then each morpheme has the shape zero or more A syllables followed by exactly one B syllable, and which set a syllable belongs to is recorded in this file. Also, a column in this file contain "=rand()", which allows me to select syllables randomly.

I have another spreadsheet file for bisyllabic morphemes. This file contains only actual morphemes, unlike the first file which contain all syllables regardless of whether they are morphemes or not. Each onset and rhyme has its own column allowing me to easily find minimal pairs. There is also a column indicating a category, like "animal" for each hyponym of "animal".

Then all that information is redundantly kept in HTML-files (written by hand with a text editor), which are organized more fluidly, but with all the most important morphemes in a single file.

The spreadsheets and HTML-files are kept synchronized manually.

The documentation is primarily for the inventory of phonological morphemes and the mapping between the phonological elements and the logical elements those encode. Most of the specifics when it comes to semantics and syntax is in my head, except that the HTML-files also contain a small corpus with translations.

[TaylorS]

Notepad++

[Chagen]

I use plaintext files and good old pen and paper as I used to conlang a ton in school.

It's as horrendously messy as it sounds. This is the conlang section of my writing folder:



(What the fuck I made a Japanese daughterlang? Holy shit I don't EVER remember making that)

This is a page from my Sunbyaku dictionary, which is basically this for 30 pages interspersed with awfully written paragraphs on grammatical features:



There's a part in this dictionary where I'm talking about Heocg for like 5 pages and then all of a sudden I'm talking about Sunbyaku for like 2 for no goddamn reason at all and then back to Heocg because I didn't organize this thing in the slightest

#YOLO

(Holy fuck why do cellphones have to have such stupid-large resolution cameras)

[Chuma]

I used Numbers (the Apple equivalent of Excel) until recently. Now I've just made myself a new little program. It stores the information in a simple text file. Dummy example of an entry:

Code: Select all

##
blaru
fury, furious, infuriate
#E infuriates #D; #D is furious with #E over #A
implies a lack of self control; case structure as in "warm"; see also "rage"
blaî + aru
wild + anger

This way, I can easily edit the entries directly whenever a function is missing in my program. Right now, the program only has a few functions, like searching based on translation or entering a new word. Since it uses regular expressions, I can search for more advanced things than in Excel, like word endings, words with two consecutive vowels, or whatever.

I'm planning to add more functions, like one looking for duplicates. Since my conlang is made to be unambiguous, it's important not to have homonyms. There are also some sandhi rules that could make otherwise different words sound the same, so the function has to take that into account.

I've also made a little word generator, even though I sort of think it's cheating, and prefer to think of words myself.

[din]

For Tormiott I use:

- A massive table in OpenOffice Writer (which is basically MS Word) for my dictionary. It's sorted by root word and it looks like this:



It now has a little over 400 roots and almost 1700 words. The grammar is less developed than the dictionary though, because I find words more interesting

The etymology is in curly brackets. When it says something like {+FORM15} it refers to a derivational prefix, which the language has a whole lot of (currently 119)

- Several documents describing the grammar of the language (each one is supposed to be a chapter of a bigger grammar book, which will hopefully exist some day)

- Several documents listing words by category (like prepositions, derivational affixes, numbers, units of time, etc.)

[Chuma]

The grammar is less developed than the dictionary though, because I find words more interesting

Maybe we should work together - I have lots of grammar but hardly any words, because I like grammar.

[shinkarom]

I used to use the SIL dictionary program (I forget its name ...) for my main languages...

I agree. Lexique Pro is an excellent program. (it would be nice if someone knew the competition, though. Are there any other programs like this?)

[tezcatlip0ca]

I used to use the SIL dictionary program (I forget its name ...) for my main languages...

I agree. Lexique Pro is an excellent program. (it would be nice if someone knew the competition, though. Are there any other programs like this?)

There's faiuwle's ConlangDictionary, but that has been updated very slowly...

[Birdlang]

I use gen for texts, gleb for making a random language I might add to my conworld, and I use SCA2 if I want to make a new language. I type the alphabets and IPA for them on the computer.

[Birdlang]

I use plaintext files and good old pen and paper as I used to conlang a ton in school.

It's as horrendously messy as it sounds. This is the conlang section of my writing folder:



(What the fuck I made a Japanese daughterlang? Holy shit I don't EVER remember making that)

This is a page from my Sunbyaku dictionary, which is basically this for 30 pages interspersed with awfully written paragraphs on grammatical features:



There's a part in this dictionary where I'm talking about Heocg for like 5 pages and then all of a sudden I'm talking about Sunbyaku for like 2 for no goddamn reason at all and then back to Heocg because I didn't organize this thing in the slightest

#YOLO

(Holy fuck why do cellphones have to have such stupid-large resolution cameras)

Wow, Sunbyaku looks really cool. I didn't know there were other people who use macrons on long vowels other than my languages and Cuêzi.

[alynnidalar]

Really? I always thought it was pretty universal.

[masako]

I use books...dictionaries and books on language from anywhere, a notebook (lined paper), and google.

I started conlanging back in ~1989 when the resources were few and far between, I prefer to keep it low-tech.

[ObsequiousNewt]

Really? I always thought it was pretty universal.

It is. That's the primary function of a macron (the other one being tone—level tone I think.)

[su_liam]

Used to have a collection of MySQL tables. Had a 'language' column so that I could mush the words from three separate English re-lexings(with some just plain batshit stuff; hey, I'm strictly monolingual!).

I had a little java app good for routine access, and had to dig out an SQL textbook to do anything outré. This happened with distressing frequency since I really didn't know what I was doing. The whole thing disappeared a couple computer upgrades ago, and I haven't really missed it.

If I ever start another conlang project, I'd probably just use sil or something.

[Ryan of Tinellb]

Grammar and Dictionary in Word, Wordlist in Excel. The Dictionary is a full one, with usage notes, etymology, descendants, etc. The wordlist just has orthography, pronunciation, name of language and gloss. I had evolved one language into another, and had lost track of the new phonology, so I created the Wordlist to be easily sortable. I was using the SCA2, but I now prefer to just push words through the grinder manually.

[احمکي ارش-ھجن]

Really? I always thought it was pretty universal.

It is. That's the primary function of a macron (the other one being tone—level tone I think.)

I use macron simply to indicate a different "o-like" and "e-like" vowel...

That is, the normal "e" and "o" represent the mid-open vowels, while the macron'd ones represent pure mid vowels.

[xxx]

I use my brain...
Sometimes paper & pen for compounding words...
.ttf file to make them pretty in libreoffice writer...
and each time, I delete them after...

[Bristel]

I use Pages on Mac for writing down ideas, Numbers (Mac) to do spreadsheets for dictionary entries, gleb for ideas sometimes, and gen + sca for things I don't do by hand. (Still need to figure out how to use gen and sca rules to "automate" some of my sound changes)

I've been doing all my sound changes by hand for Ercunic, and I'll probably have to add a few more sound changes, and redo all 1400 roots/words that I have currently. (especially need to focus on sound changes that change the quality of vowels due to stress or something)