A Structuralist Modality-Agnostic Universal Linguistics Software
Greetings fellow language enthusiasts! I'm writing this post to test the waters for interest in a software project I've been working on for about 4 months. I am the same guy who made the short lived "Der Spracherfinder" spreadsheet about two years ago under the username "Ylahres." Since then I've slowly gained experience in various programming languages. Nowadays I'm programming in Swift.
What is Oméredan? It is my little passion project with the goal of structuralist (non-stochastic) universal linguistic modeling. Its objectives are to provide the user
- Absolute determinism and internal consistency in their linguistic projects.
- The ability to model one or many physical apparatus used to communicate in a particular modality (e.g. phonetic, cheremic, bioluminescent, geological, or anything you imagine).
- The ability to define arbitrary distinctive features (DFs) per apparatus and the phonemes - or more generally, modemes - that those distinctive features constitute. Logical constraints will be possible to define relationships such as [+/- ROUND] depending on [+LABIAL] in order to exist. LaTeX support is planned.
- The power of my innovative "Arbitrarily Dense Information Structure" (ADIS), which models language as an N-dimensional fractal whose layers are templates - both rigid and recursive - and made from lower order layers. Each layer and the number of layers is fully arbitrary and customizable. You define it, Oméredan ensures your ADIS is logically stable.
- The distribution of superimposed features through another innovation of mine called "Featural Pointer Distribution" (FPD). Whether defining the semantic primes, lemmas, tone, stress, morphology, or whatever you imagine, FPD allows the distribution of such features across a signal. If you are a fan of the so called non-concatenative morphology, FPD will be your best friend as it natively supports non-contiguous, ordered indices associated with a feature like lemma.
- Tools for modeling prograde and retrograde diachronica, as well as language families. As a clarification, Oméredan will not simulate or guess. It will take in your input and compute the result. I imagine this will reduce the manual labor involved in applying sound shifts to your language projects.
- Access to a full suite of NSM primes, Leipzig Glosses, and the ability to define custom entries thereof. I'm looking at you, cursed conlang lovers. Go ahead and define the "Accusative-but-only-on-Tuesdays" case!
- Lexicon traversal, translation capabilities, and metrics for how similar a signal between two languages is. The ambition is to accept raw user input (say, in English) and translate into the modeled language or vice versa.
- And finally, on a more technical note, minimal memory footprint. I've implemented a hash-and-memoize system that makes duplication literally impossible and data retrieval operate at O(1) lookup speed.
My ambition as you can see is to create a unified tool for both formal and creative linguists. With that being the case, what better place to reach out than the conlang community? If this project seems interesting, let me know. I appreciate any constructive input and questions. I am particularly interested in knowing how Oméredan might actually be used and what features would be desired.
Thanks, and happy conlanging!