kwak-orth

Introduction

kwak-orth is a library designed to convert between the various orthographies of the Kwak'wala language. The library also comes with a simple command-line/terminal program that allows simple conversion of plain-text files encoded in UTF-8.

Usage

Program Usage

To use the simple conversion, first you'll have to compile it (see below). Then, you have two options:

1. Look through ".stack-work" until you find "kwak-orth-exe(.exe)", and then copy that file to an easy-to use location. If necessary, copy the ".bat" files from "batch_files" to that location as well to allow drag-and-drop operation. This option should work even if you copy the program to other computers of the same architecture. If on Mac OS, look at command_files/README.md for info on how to use drag-and-drop operation.

2. Run the program through stack. This has the advantage of re-compiling the program each time the code changes, ensuring that the program is completely up-to-date. To do this, run stack run -- followed by the commands you want to run in the program. For example, to see the input options, run stack run -- --help. If that doesn't work, try running stack run kwak-orth-exe -- ... instead.

For information on how to run the program in command-line/terminal/bash mode, run stack run -- --help in the library or else run kwak-orth-exe --help if on Windows, or ./kwak-orth-exe --help if on Unix-like systems.

Note: On Windows, you may have to run chcp 65001 before running the program. The batch files take care of this themselves.

Compiling

To compile this library, you will need the Haskell Stack tool. Information on how to install GHC, Cabal, and Stack can be found on the Haskell Website. After ensuring you have GHC, Cabal, and Stack installed, navigate to the kwak-orth directory in your terminal/command prompt/etc... and run stack build. This will install all necessary packages to compile the library and program, and then compile them. Afterwards, you can use stack run or stack run kwak-orth-exe to ensure that the porgram works properly.

Library Usage

The library works by first parsing text data, and then converting it into an internal representation consisting of a string of "sounds" and plaintext strings. This internal representation is then run through an "outputter" that outputs the "sounds" according to the orthography and just outputs the plaintext as input.

The parsers can be found in the "Kwakwala.Parsers" directory, while the output functions can be found in the "Kwakwala.Output" directory.

For more information on the individual functions and modules, run stack haddock, which will produce a set of HTML files with information on the code.

Acknowledgements

Orthography Information

Information on the various orthographies used comes from a variety of sources.

The main source, used for both U'mista and NAPA, is from Chris Harvey's Language Geek website, which contains information on Kwak'wala Orthographies.

Wikipedia was the main source used for the IPA, traditional NAPA, and Georgian orthographies.

The Boas orthography is based on a sample of his works.

Testing

The test suite contains example sentences taken from the FirstVoices phrase database. It can be found at FirstVoices Kwak'wala.