What is it?

A Ruby script that creates semi-random words that have the same "flavor" as words in a wordlist. Useful for rapid conlanging (eg, a naming language) where you want the words to appear similar to words from an existing language (or languages).

The idea itself was first proposed by Gary Shannon on the CONLANG-L mailing list several years ago.

Requirements

  1. Ruby
  2. a wordlist (optional; see SIL's English list for an example

Download

The current version of FlavoredWordGenerator can be downloaded here (last modified October 29, 2010).

Usage

Run the Ruby script like so: 

flavored_word_generator.rb [options] [wordlist1.txt [wordlist2.txt ... wordlistN.txt]]

   -n, --num=NUM                    Number of words to generator
   -m, --min=MIN                    Minimum syllables per word
   -x, --max=MAX                    Maximum syllables per word
   -d, --debug                      Show debug messages
   -q, --quiet                      Show only generated words and error messages
   -h, --help                       Show this help message

Each wordlist file should have one word per line. If you want to combine flavors from multiple languages, pass multiple wordlists. All will be used to generate your "flavored" words.

If no wordlist filenames are given, words are read from STDIN, one per line. Hit Ctrl-D when you're done typing in words.

To speed up word generation with big wordlists, dot files will be created for each set of wordlist files you pass in. Delete the cache file stored at .flavored_word_generator_.rb to force the program to re-analyze syllables for a given wordlist.

Defaults to words of 2-5 syllables.

Examples

Random English-like words: 

$ ./flavored_word_generator.rb wordlist-English-SIL.txt
Reusing saved syllables from .flavored_word_generator_wordlist-English-SIL.rb...
Generating 10 new words:
howbrormone
lisbubrates
fawle
golors
gyppeneme
trurst
maude
prorant
rationanies
mous
$ ./flavored_word_generator.rb wordlist-English-SIL.txt --num 3 --min 5 --max 7
Reusing saved syllables from .flavored_word_generator_wordlist-English-SIL.rb...
Generating 3 new words:
traffegalofagay
woemapselatiorist
dilelibexters

Credits

Inspired by Gary Shannon's email to the CONLANG-L mailing list detailing this method.