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

On Jan/11/2003, Jeffrey Henning wrote:

> 1. Do you regularly use language-gen software?
> [ ] Yes  [ ] No  {place an X in the appropriate box}
   "Yes" (writing into already quoted text is a no-no for me :-))

> 2. If yes, which one?
        My own, "wordpuker". It's a Perl program based in morphological
syllabic constraints. Or something alike, at least :-)

> 3. What do you like about the language-gen software you've looked at?
        I must confess that I didn't look into any other O:-) I did
wordpuker for fun, just to see if I could do something that emulated
something that Zompist wrote in his tutorial.

> 4. What do you dislike?
        I haven't yet found an easy way to "code" good-sounding
languages. Or to say it clearly: the words generated are still a bit
"too random". Anyway, the problem is not in the program itself (well,
not *all* the problem, I mean :-)), but also in finding a good "schema",
a good "formula" for a language.

> 5. What would you all like to see in such software?
        Everything that other (or was it you? :-m) poster wrote :-)
Wordpuker currently can use Lingua::SoundChange to simulate "sibiling
languages", generating first words in a language and then applying
sound changes to them. But anyway, it's not very intuitive yet. In fact,
I'll qualify it as very geeky :-)

--
        Roberto Suarez Soto