Customizable word generation

[Murdoc]

I just wanted to see if anyone knew of something like this. Back in the day, I wrote word gen programs on my Atari XE computer (yeah, that long ago) in BASIC. The great part was that once it was done, I just had to change the letters and frequencies in order to make any new language.

Those days are long gone, as is the usefulness of my programming skills (and that program I made). Now I know that there are Traveller word gen progs out there, but I was wondering if there were any that were relatively easy to customize to make up new languages? The progs I know are all compiled, so not really that changeable, and even if I had the source, how easy could I recompile them?

Any thoughts appreciated.

 

[OjnoTheRed]

I've been working on a PHP / XML alien word generation thing. I'm basically going through Mega Traveller and using PHP and XML to create world, system and character generators (including alien names) not with any plans to publish, mainly as a way of teaching myself PHP. Weird, I know - but Traveller generation rules are just laid out so logically they are a great exercise. I'm happy to share the code I've got so far, and I've purposely set it up so all you have to do is edit the XML file. If you PM me, I'm happy to e-mail the code to you - if you would have trouble setting up PHP on your computer, happy to have a go at a Javascript treatment for you.

 

[Murdoc]

Hey, that'd be great! I've sent you a PM now. And I agree with you about MT, I also like how logical and easy to follow it all is. It's still my favorite system.

 

[FreeTrav]

The one that I wrote (and which is available in Freelance Traveller's Computer Connection) is table-driven, so you don't have to recompile it to come up with a new language with new frequency data; just build a new data file for the new language.

http://www.freelancetraveller.com/infocenter/swlist/others.html and scroll down to Word Generator (and Java Word Generator).

 

[inexorabletash]

I wrote one up in JavaScript for Part 2 of my "Using Your Model 2/bis Revisited" series in Stellar Reaches, but it appears to have fallen into the void. (I just poked Flynn to see what's up.)

I can post the code easily enough. It lets you define a new language as just a smattering of frequency data and you can also add additional per-language logic - but that's at the edit-a-text-file level.

It should be easy for someone to whip together an HTML form version that lets you edit the frequencies directly on a page.

 

[FreeTrav]

I wrote one up in JavaScript for Part 2 of my "Using Your Model 2/bis Revisited" series in Stellar Reaches, but it appears to have fallen into the void. (I just poked Flynn to see what's up.)

I can post the code easily enough. It lets you define a new language as just a smattering of frequency data and you can also add additional per-language logic - but that's at the edit-a-text-file level.

It should be easy for someone to whip together an HTML form version that lets you edit the frequencies directly on a page.

1. I'd be interested in seeing that code, and carrying it at Freelance Traveller.

2. I'd also be willing to carry your series as a column in the Freelance Traveller magazine. If you're interested, please contact me at editor@freelancetraveller.com off-forum.

 

[isomage]

I wrote a word generator that makes words based on a user-provided dictionary. It examines the frequencies of pairs of letters (or triples, or whatever you want) in the words provided and then constructs random words based on those probabilities.

It's an easy alternative to tweaking frequencies manually; you just provide a list of words that have the right sound, and you'll get words that sound like they came from that language.

Online version and PERL source code (module and example script): http://axiscity.hexamon.net/users/isomage/names/

 

[Murdoc]

Wow, so many options. Thanks guys! This will help me a lot.