Do you use a database for your conlang project?

[mwandrias]

Hi folks,

I'm at a point where I wish to move beyond my endless spreadsheets and documents, and certainly something better than my three-ring binders of the old days. I'm hoping to find a searchable database I can use for my language projects, related to fiction I am writing or have written. (Of course, this request for a database is different than the Conlang Database I know some here have worked on to document the existence of the innumerable different conlangs.)

In my research, I learned about SIL Shoebox/Toolbox, which is not native to MacOS. I came across a couple of projects where someone was in the process of creating such a database, but then abandoned it. And, last night, I found ConWorkShop, which is pretty cool, although I'd like to have my data on my own computer rather than someone else's server and be able to generate my own reports and tables, etc.

So..... Do you have a database you like to use? Something you can sort by class, mood, voice, person, etc., etc.? Have sections for phonology, morphology, orthography, and so on? I'd really love it if there is already something out there -- and doubly so if it runs on a Mac!

Thanks,
Mike

[Qwynegold]

I haven't used anything myself, but have you had a look at worldanvil.com? Or how about just a simple wiki like frathwiki.com?

[alice]

I do, but it's currently in development.

[bradrn]

I currently use SIL Toolbox. It’s great — I highly recommend it! I should note that the MDF format it natively uses is plain text, so you can structure your data using MDF even if you don’t use Toolbox. (For this I recommend Coward & Grimes 2000, not just as an MDF reference but also as a more general guide to making dictionaries.)

[fusijui]

I'm also a long-time Toolbox user and booster (probably tiresomely so, to the forum). But if you're a Mac user, that is a problem*. I think there were some OSX versions of Toolbox many years ago (years even before Toolbox stopped being worked on, I mean), and it might be possible to dig that up somewhere. [Edit: No, I'm wrong.]

* Not just w/r/t Toolbox -- I really doubt there's much out there besides, perhaps, some individuals' personal projects in some state of completeness. Getting a Windows emulator would vastly expand your options!

[Vilike]

I also use Toolbox, only for dictionaries and texts though. When I was a Mac user, I managed to run it with Wine, then 10.15 Catalina broke all Wine support.

SIL has another, more supported tool oriented towards fieldwork; this goal translates well to those of conlangers (documenting a language 'on the fly'). Dictionaries, grammars, automatic interlinear glosses, you name it. Behold, FLEx.
However, it only has Windows and Linux installers, the save format is not readable in plaintext, it's very bulky, and I find the interface a bit daunting.

ConWorkShop is not that great for dictionaries. You're very constrained wrt the fields and the translations.

[WeepingElf]

Relevant.

My conlangs live in HTML files. Simple, convenient and unlikely to become unsupported one day. And obviously easy to prepare for web publication

[Zju]

I use my own thing, but it could use some more work.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

I use word processing documents. It somehow "feels" better, though I doubt I would recommend it to anybody.

[Chuma]

I mostly use Numbers (the Apple equivalent of Excel). I've tinkered with making a dedicated program, but just chucking everything in a big table usually works out to be easier than the stuff I create. Maybe I should try again.

[fusijui]

SIL has another, more supported tool oriented towards fieldwork; this goal translates well to those of conlangers (documenting a language 'on the fly'). Dictionaries, grammars, automatic interlinear glosses, you name it. Behold, FLEx.
However, it only has Windows and Linux installers, the save format is not readable in plaintext, it's very bulky, and I find the interface a bit daunting.

I've used FLEx for RW language projects and been reasonably satisfied. The bulk and interface are both real beasts though, like you say! I don't see myself using it for conlanging -- which, to me, is very much not anything like fieldwork; sort of too much machine for a light kind of job.

(BTW, there should be save options for FLEx that give you plaintext lexical & textual files, unless something's changed in the last few years!)

The advantage to using these tools, for a conlanger, I think, is that besides database functions you get, in the same package, varying degrees of textual corpus/analysis and morphological parsing tools, as well as lexicon building, formatting, and publishing functions (obviously).

And, at least in my experience, the data format is far less fussy and fragile to work with than HTML. (But then, I'm not a techie by inclination... I'd rather let some nice scrubbed-clean Bible geeks do the hard graft for me, it's good for their souls...)

[Torco]

i just use google sheets. easy, always online, and practically as functional as excel. i even have a little cell with code that i can tell it a word in english and it gives me my word in the conlang in quesiton.

[Vardelm]

i just use google sheets. easy, always online, and practically as functional as excel. i even have a little cell with code that i can tell it a word in english and it gives me my word in the conlang in quesiton.

I use Google Docs for all my stuff, but I'm not at the point of making vocabulary yet. I'm definitely thinking about what I could do with Google Sheets, though. I think it's possible to set things up so that data from 1 sheet can be imported into another, run some Regex functions on that, and then send that to the next sheet.

[Torco]

i just use google sheets. easy, always online, and practically as functional as excel. i even have a little cell with code that i can tell it a word in english and it gives me my word in the conlang in quesiton.

I use Google Docs for all my stuff, but I'm not at the point of making vocabulary yet. I'm definitely thinking about what I could do with Google Sheets, though. I think it's possible to set things up so that data from 1 sheet can be imported into another, run some Regex functions on that, and then send that to the next sheet.

yeah! gsuite is actually extremely friendly towards the bodge. you can make web apis that send data from a sheet to a json, make a sheet read another sheet, put value sets in cells... i once made a time entry system out of like three googledocs, and I didn't even use any javascript, just the OOTB cell functions.

[mwandrias]

Thanks for the discussion, folks. I appreciate the input!

Since my initial post, I found an app called PolyGlot. Is anyone else using this one? Pros and cons from your perspective?
http://draquet.github.io/PolyGlot/

At this early stage of getting acquainted with it, PolyGlot feels so open-ended that I find it challenging to set parameters, and have spent more time creating background structure to the database itself than working on the language. So far... However, I can also see that this instills a great deal of flexibility to encompass widely divergent languages.

Thoughts? Thanks!
Mike

[Vilike]

I tried PolyGlot once but it was four years ago. At the time I was tinkering with an etymological dictionary and the software wasn't up to the task. There was also a problem with the display of Cyrillic letters. But I told the developer and now that I see it's still up and running... I will give it a re-try.

[jal]

I have tried putting stuff in a database, but in the end free-format text is just the best. I use Google Docs exclusively. In the past, I used MS Word, and before that (in the DOS days) Wordperfect.


JAL

[Vilike]

I have tried putting stuff in a database, but in the end free-format text is just the best. I use Google Docs exclusively. In the past, I used MS Word, and before that (in the DOS days) Wordperfect.

How is a typical lexicon entry formatted?

[jal]

How is a typical lexicon entry formatted?

For Sajiwan, it's the word, between parentheses the derivation, then the part of speech (additionally with extra information, like v for verbs, vt for patientive ambitransitives (I used to call them "obligatory transitive verbs"), then the translations. I seperate small differences in meaning with a comma, larger ones with a semi colon. When there's different derivations or clearly a number of larger differences I may use a numbered list.

So a simple entry may look like this:

boro (< Eng. borrow) vt to borrow (from = fwom); to lend (to = indirect object)

A more elaborate one like this:

sapos (< Eng. suppose) v to suppose, to assume, to think, to consider (something to be something; see also ges); to be supposed to, to do by agreement (mi sapos fi kac im nes de - I'm supposed to meet her tomorrow); to believe, to expect, n expectations

And an even more elaborate one like this:

sen

1. (< Eng. sane) adj sane, not mat; sensible
2. (< Eng. saint) n saint
3. (< Eng. sense) vt to sense, to perceive; n perception
4. (< Eng. scent) n scent; v to smell
5. (< Eng. send) vd to send, to have something or someone transported to someone or some place (mi sen yu dem manggo - I sent you the mangos), to send someone to do something (im sen mi pon juti - she sent me for an errand); vt to order (someone to do something; im sen im fi kac bota - she ordered him to go get some butter; see also tel 1, tof an)

I still haven't completely fleshed out everything, but this is workable for me.


JAL