Re: Language-generating software (was Re: Replies to my Introduction)

From: "Jeffrey Henning" <Jeffrey@...>
> 1. Do you regularly use language-gen software?
> [X] Yes  [ ] No  {place an X in the appropriate box}
> 2. If yes, which one?
1 - zompist's sounds program,

2 - a little utility I wrote in Java to randomly produce proto-proto-Trentish
roots, mutate them into Trentish roots, and create HTML suitable for pasting
into the lexicon page

> 3. What do you like about the language-gen software you've looked at?
> 4. What do you dislike?
sounds is nice, but it's been so long since I've done conlanging in a language I
used it for (Kirumb, mainly) that I've forgotten the bits I disliked about it.

> 5. What would you all like to see in such software?
I would like a do-everything program: lexicon, phonological changes (synchronic
and diachronic), make keeping track of cognates easy, create and manage
translations, interlinears, keep track of phonemes and orthography, language
families, oh, and automatically update all those things if I alter a sound or
spelling change somewhere.

a'coorse, while I'm dreamin', it'd be good to have it manage grammatical stuff
as well, or at least know that the lang is SVO, head-initial, pro-drop, affix Z
only applies to verbs, preposition X governs the ablative and that Y is a
feminine noun *if any of this helps it do translations smarter than Shoebox*....
heck, let it know the structure of the verb word and warn me if I put all those
Trentish affixes in the wrong order.

OY!  And unicode support.   the other dream function is to create and edit fonts
as well.  Make it smart enough to handle right-to-left and top-to-bottom
scripts.

also, as long as we're being honest here, I am not willing to pay any money for
such a program, so it'd have to be freeware, no-nag shareware, or *sane* adware.
I'd make such a program myself, if I had the discipline to sit down and do it,
but I really havnt been doing much lately

    *Muke!
--
http://www.frath.net/