What is PolyGlot: Language Construction Kit?
PolyGlot is a tool that is designed to help in the design, creation, and publication of constructed languages, or "conlangs." When I first got into language creation, I realized that there were no tools available that really met all of my needs. So I made one! Below, you'll find a list of its features, and if there's functionality you would like to see added, please feel free to request a new feature! PolyGlot is free and open source software that contains no advertising or other gross stuff. It is compatible with Windows, macOS, and Linux. Please enjoy!
Features:
- A lexicon with advanced search, classification, and word creation capabilities
- A grammar guide/syntax repository with complex formatting and search functionality
- User definable orthography, with automatic generation of word pronunciations (regular expression compatible for deep orthographies)
- Full integration of the Zompist Word Generator
- Support for lexicon imports from Excel sheets and CSV files
- Full word class system
- Full Part of Speech system, including enforced conjugation/declension rules and auto-generation of word forms
- Formatted publishing to PDF, generating dictionaries (both conlang to natural language, and vice versa), chapter format for all grammar sections, gloss keys, orthographic rules, etc.
- A statistical language analysis tool
- An Etymology Engine with graphical generation of etymology trees
- Customizable character macros, for difficult to type languages using many diacritic marks
- Support for importing and embedding custom fonts (useful for languages with nonstandard or custom character sets)
- User definable parts of speech with integrated glossing system
- User definable rules for declension/conjugation, which automatically generate all legal forms of words
- Conjugation rule debug window for the construction of highly complex conjugation/declension rule sets
- Full logographic engine for languages that incorporate abstract symbols or entirely ideographic writing systems
- Fully formatable grammar section, allowing language rules to be elegantly broken into chapters
- Recording and playback of spoken examples within the grammar section
- A useful phrasebook for commonly spoken phrases
- Supports exporting lexicon to Excel
- Interactive IPA chart with spoken examples and characters copied to clipboard (courtesy of https://www.internationalphoneticalphabet.org/)
- Language statistics window for analysis of current lexicon
- RTL character direction enforcement for applicable languages (useful with custom scripts)
- Lexical consistency check tool to ensure compliance to language rules as you evolve them
- A mass IPA conversion tool
- Swadesh list import tool
Comments and Reviews
A very niche-purpose program that is well-suited to the task it's built for. I'm still getting to know all of the features available but they have served me well so far.
I will say that despite the good execution of the main functionalities the UI is very clunky, and requires a bit of scaling readjustment that may be a bit awkward to some users; this may be a Linux-specific issue. There is also no way that I have found to change themes unless you want to mess around with the code or check which version you're using from the app. These don't bother me too much personally, just something to be aware of!