The Index Diachronica

[bradrn]

So, at this point I’ve posted a few mockups, and we seem to have decided on what the final result should be like, more or less. Now we just need to build this thing.

At the moment, I’ve been handwriting an HTML page for each family. This is annoyingly laborious and boring. It also limits the capability of other people to contribute. And, of course, it’s not particularly searchable. So we need a better solution for this.

What I’ve proposed is a custom-built CMS, which generates the website from some kind of simple text format. I still think this is a good idea. Initially, we could just make it generate static HTML files, basically automating what I’ve been doing by hand; once we’re confident it works well enough, we can extend it to support searching and so on.

But what does everyone else think?

Are there no comments on the above? If so, I’ll just go ahead and build it.

[SquiDark]

Hi all,

Sorry about the absence. I have been relentlessly jobhunting, but I finally got a position (PhD in biotech). So I will be contributing from time to time. I am not sure how busy the PhD will be but I have some free time before it starts.

[SquiDark]

So, at this point I’ve posted a few mockups, and we seem to have decided on what the final result should be like, more or less. Now we just need to build this thing.

At the moment, I’ve been handwriting an HTML page for each family. This is annoyingly laborious and boring. It also limits the capability of other people to contribute. And, of course, it’s not particularly searchable. So we need a better solution for this.

What I’ve proposed is a custom-built CMS, which generates the website from some kind of simple text format. I still think this is a good idea. Initially, we could just make it generate static HTML files, basically automating what I’ve been doing by hand; once we’re confident it works well enough, we can extend it to support searching and so on.

But what does everyone else think?

Are there no comments on the above? If so, I’ll just go ahead and build it.

I really like MediaWiki cuz I always thought it's pretty good for a huge collaborative work like this. What is the custom-built CMS you are talking about?

[bradrn]

So, at this point I’ve posted a few mockups, and we seem to have decided on what the final result should be like, more or less. Now we just need to build this thing.

At the moment, I’ve been handwriting an HTML page for each family. This is annoyingly laborious and boring. It also limits the capability of other people to contribute. And, of course, it’s not particularly searchable. So we need a better solution for this.

What I’ve proposed is a custom-built CMS, which generates the website from some kind of simple text format. I still think this is a good idea. Initially, we could just make it generate static HTML files, basically automating what I’ve been doing by hand; once we’re confident it works well enough, we can extend it to support searching and so on.

But what does everyone else think?

Are there no comments on the above? If so, I’ll just go ahead and build it.

I really like MediaWiki cuz I always thought it's pretty good for a huge collaborative work like this. What is the custom-built CMS you are talking about?

I’m talking about building our own software to build a webpage from sound changes. MediaWiki may be great in general, but for something like this which needs to be consistent and cross-referenced, I think it’s really not suitable.

[SquiDark]

Are there no comments on the above? If so, I’ll just go ahead and build it.

I really like MediaWiki cuz I always thought it's pretty good for a huge collaborative work like this. What is the custom-built CMS you are talking about?

I’m talking about building our own software to build a webpage from sound changes. MediaWiki may be great in general, but for something like this which needs to be consistent and cross-referenced, I think it’s really not suitable.

Fair enough, I was thinking about the public contribution aspect, but yeah that would be a consistency nightmare.

[bradrn]

I really like MediaWiki cuz I always thought it's pretty good for a huge collaborative work like this. What is the custom-built CMS you are talking about?

I’m talking about building our own software to build a webpage from sound changes. MediaWiki may be great in general, but for something like this which needs to be consistent and cross-referenced, I think it’s really not suitable.

Fair enough, I was thinking about the public contribution aspect, but yeah that would be a consistency nightmare.

For public contribution, I was planning to put it on GitHub, and allow anyone to submit a pull request with new changes. (This would also make review and moderation easier.)

[Zju]

So, at this point I’ve posted a few mockups, and we seem to have decided on what the final result should be like, more or less. Now we just need to build this thing.

At the moment, I’ve been handwriting an HTML page for each family. This is annoyingly laborious and boring. It also limits the capability of other people to contribute. And, of course, it’s not particularly searchable. So we need a better solution for this.

What I’ve proposed is a custom-built CMS, which generates the website from some kind of simple text format. I still think this is a good idea. Initially, we could just make it generate static HTML files, basically automating what I’ve been doing by hand; once we’re confident it works well enough, we can extend it to support searching and so on.

But what does everyone else think?

Are there no comments on the above? If so, I’ll just go ahead and build it.

Sorry, but I can't seem to find it - what is the syntax of this simple text format?

[bradrn]

So, at this point I’ve posted a few mockups, and we seem to have decided on what the final result should be like, more or less. Now we just need to build this thing.

At the moment, I’ve been handwriting an HTML page for each family. This is annoyingly laborious and boring. It also limits the capability of other people to contribute. And, of course, it’s not particularly searchable. So we need a better solution for this.

What I’ve proposed is a custom-built CMS, which generates the website from some kind of simple text format. I still think this is a good idea. Initially, we could just make it generate static HTML files, basically automating what I’ve been doing by hand; once we’re confident it works well enough, we can extend it to support searching and so on.

But what does everyone else think?

Are there no comments on the above? If so, I’ll just go ahead and build it.

Sorry, but I can't seem to find it - what is the syntax of this simple text format?

I haven’t actually discussed it yet, which is why you can’t find it! What I’m doing at the moment is this:

Code: Select all

# smot taku
@biggsHistorypolyPhonology2015

- *f / w / #_V *s
- *l / [l r]
/& condition not specified in source
- *s / h
- *ʔ /
+ Inferred from original text: ‘loss of glottal stops’

@davletshinSeeminglyOngoingSound2015

- *l / r
+ This change did not affect geminated *ll
- *r / l
/& in younger speakers

The idea here is that the beginning of each line determines its role: # to start a series of sound changes between two languages, @ for sources, - for sound changes (think of bullet points), + for notes, and / for natural-language conditioning factors. (/& when it entirely replaces the condition in the sound change, /+ when it merely adds to it. Even if it’s replaced by a natural-language conditioning factor, I’m trying to include as many environments as possible in sound-change format, to eventually support searching.)

The sound changes themselves I’m writing in Brassica format: because it’s capable of representing most of what we need, the syntax should be reasonably familiar, and I’ve written a reusable parser for it already. The sources are currently listed in a BibTeX file, with some extra metadata (transcription conventions etc.) in a YAML file. For the languages and purported subgroupings, I’m defining unique identifiers for each, listed in a CSV file (similarly to how other projects work such as Glottolog and WALS).

So far I’ve converted all the Polynesian changes over to this format. It seems to work pretty well, and is easy to read and write. Now I just need to write a parser for it. (‘Just’, hahaha… though it should actually be pretty simple.)

[Man in Space]

That’s cool. What constructive can I do in the meantime?

[bradrn]

That’s cool. What constructive can I do in the meantime?

Keep on compiling sound changes, I guess!

[bradrn]

…and we’re off! I’ve uploaded some initial code and data to https://github.com/bradrn/index-diachronica-redux. For now it can parse sound changes, but not convert them into a webpage; at the moment, it just dumps all the parsed data to the command-line, which at least lets me check that it works. I’ll keep on updating the repository as I improve the code.

(Incidentally, is Index Diachronica Redux good Latin? I’m sure someone asked here before, but I couldn’t find it…)

[bradrn]

I’ve been busy, but I finally got around to writing code to actually generate pages for the website itself. I don’t have access to my webserver just at the moment, but I uploaded a sample generated page to the repo, which can be viewed at https://htmlpreview.github.io/?https:// ... ample.html. The code is still a bit buggy in places — most notably, it can sometimes duplicate sound changes when sources disagree on subgrouping — but such problems should be fairly easy to fix.

[bradrn]

Just added cross-references for the transcription conventions for each source. Now, if you hover your mouse over a phoneme, you should get a popup showing the IPA transcription when it’s different.

[Man in Space]

Just added cross-references for the transcription conventions for each source. Now, if you hover your mouse over a phoneme, you should get a popup showing the IPA transcription when it’s different.

Whoa, that sounds cool! Does it work for cover letters?

[Raphael]

Just added cross-references for the transcription conventions for each source. Now, if you hover your mouse over a phoneme, you should get a popup showing the IPA transcription when it’s different.

Whoa, that sounds cool!

Yes, great work!

[bradrn]

Just added cross-references for the transcription conventions for each source. Now, if you hover your mouse over a phoneme, you should get a popup showing the IPA transcription when it’s different.

Whoa, that sounds cool! Does it work for cover letters?

I posted a link above, so you can try it for yourself! (For reference: https://htmlpreview.github.io/?https:// ... ample.html.)

But also: what do you mean by ‘cover letters’? Do you mean, like V and C and so on? If so, not right now, but it would be a trivial change.

[bradrn]

I’ve given us a proper (and hopefully temporary) home at https://bradrn.com/index-diachronica/. So far it contains the Polynesian changes I compiled, as well as some of Darren’s Skou changes.

At this point, I’d encourage everyone to begin adding their sound changes to the repository! I’ve added some information to the README which should hopefully make the process a bit clearer, but please let me know if there’s any issues.

[Man in Space]

I’ve never done this before, using GitHub—I’ve only ever been a spectator. This will be an adventure!

(Also I love how Iosevka looks in practice, but that’s me being a font and aesthetics nerd.)

[bradrn]

I’ve never done this before, using GitHub—I’ve only ever been a spectator. This will be an adventure!

Only a pleasant one, I hope!

(Also I love how Iosevka looks in practice, but that’s me being a font and aesthetics nerd.)

As a fellow typography nerd, I must confess to not liking it very much. But maybe it would look nicer if the rest of the website wasn’t ugly as sin. (Alas, all my design skills seem to melt away into nothing when confronted by the horror that is CSS.)

[linguistcat]

I will give it a try when I have some time. My writing community is having a holiday event this weekend.