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Re: Using word generators (was Re: Semitic root word list?)

From:James W. <emindahken@...>
Date:Tuesday, January 9, 2007, 16:17
On Tue, 9 Jan 2007 08:37:06 -0700, "Elyse M. Grasso"
<emgrasso@...> said:
> When I was actively building the Cherani dictionary, I wrote a script > that > would generate lists of random phonemically valid Cherani words, > excluding > those already in the dictionary. Then I picked words that felt right for > the > meanings. Sometimes I needed to generate several selection lists before > I > found the right word, but having the random lists to look at helped > decrease > the Human/English bias in the final word lists. (Cherani was a non-human > language.)
I did a similar thing when I was working on a:seka`eni (it's still a living project, but just dormant at the moment). I created a list of 1-3 syllable words using Perl and then put them all in a spreadsheet (all 199,654 of them!). Then I made the spreadsheet so it would choose one entry at random. I'd collect several good (that is, ones I liked...) words into another list. Then when I needed a lexicon entry, I'd choose from the second list, based on the appropriateness of the match. If I only hand-created each word I'd never get anything done... :) -------- James W.