alphabetic 0.0.6

A Python module for retrieving script types of writing systems including alphabets, abjads, abugidas, syllabaries, logographs, featurals as well as Latin script codes

Alphabetic

A Python module for retrieving script types of writing systems including alphabets, abjads, abugidas, syllabaries, logographs, featurals as well as Latin script codes.

Description / Background

Alphabetic is a small project that was born out of the need to find out the alphabet of different languages for a private NLP project. Determining the alphabet (or other script types) of a language plays an important role in a variety of NLP tasks and can be used, for example, to classify the language of a given text, normalize it by removing noisy/random strings, apply fine-grained regex pattern matching, and more.

Core functionality in a nutshell: given a specific language Alphabetic, first translates its name internally into a corresponding ISO code (either ISO 639-2/3 or ISO 15924) and outputs the corresponding script, which is categorized according to the writing systems listed in the following table (adapted from here):

Writing system	Each symbol represents	Example
Abjad	Consonant	Arabic alphabet
Abugida	Consonant accompanied by specific vowel modifying symbols represent other vowels	Indian Devanagari
Alphabet	Consonant or vowel	Latin alphabet
Featural system	Distinctive feature of segment	Korean Hangul
Logographic	Word or morpheme as well as syllable	Chinese characters
Syllabary	Syllable	Japanese kana

The distinction between the different script types is important in this respect and necessary in certain application scenarios, as otherwise it can lead to unexpected behavior. Perhaps you have already worked with the built-in string functions in Python? If so, you may have noticed the following questionable result:

print("伏伐休众优伙".isalpha())

# True

The answer True could be interpreted as meaning that the string, which is written in Chinese, is alphabetic. From a linguistic point of view, however, this is incorrect, as there is no alphabet in Chinese (the Chinese writing system is logographic). On the other hand, the following string, which is written in the Devanagari script, is in fact not an alphabet but an abugida:

print("अमित".isalpha())
       
# False

For this and other use cases Alphabetic can be employed.

Installation

The easiest way to install Alphabetic is to use pip, where you can choose between PyPI and this repository:

• pip install alphabetic
• pip install git+https://github.com/Halvani/alphabetic.git

The latter will pull and install the latest commit from this repository as well as the required Python dependencies. Note that the repo is updated regulary, while PyPi-packages are less frequently released (primarily after mayor bugfixing, refactoring, etc.).

Usage

A simple lookup of a language's script (e.g., alphabet) can be performed as follows:

from alphabetic import WritingSystem

ws = WritingSystem()
ws.by_language(ws.Language.Hawaiian)

# {"Hawaiian": ["A", "E", "H", "I", "K", "L", "M", "N", "O", "P", "U", "W", "a", "e", "h", "i", "k", "l", "m", "n", "o", "p", "u", "w", "ʻ"]}

By default, the output of by_language is a dictionary containing the name and the corresponding script of the selected language. To retrieve only the latter, use ws.by_language(ws.Language.Hawaiian, as_list=True). However, some languages such as Japanese have not one but multiple writing systems. In such a case, the output would look like this:

ws.by_language(ws.Language.Japanese)

# {"Japanese": {"Hiragana": ["あ", "い", ...], "Kanji": ["万", "丁", ...], "Katakana": ["ア", "イ", ...]}}

In case you want a pretty print of the output, use:

ws.pretty_print(ws.by_language(ws.Language.Dutch))

# A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

If the resulting script represents an alphabet, the result can be further filtered in terms of:

• Letter Casing:

ws.pretty_print(ws.by_language(ws.Language.Bosnian))

# Ђ Ј Љ Њ Ћ Џ А Б В Г Д Е Ж З И К Л М Н О П Р С Т У Ф Х Ц Ч Ш а б в г д е ж з и к л м н о п р с т у ф х ц ч ш ђ ј љ њ ћ џ

ws.pretty_print(ws.by_language(ws.Language.Bosnian, letter_case=ws.LetterCase.Upper))

# Ђ Ј Љ Њ Ћ Џ А Б В Г Д Е Ж З И К Л М Н О П Р С Т У Ф Х Ц Ч Ш

• Multigraphs:

ws.pretty_print(ws.by_language(ws.Language.Aleut))
      
# A B Ch D E F G H Hl Hm Hn Hng I J K L M N Ng O P Q R S T U Uu V W X X̂ Y Z a b ch d e f g h hl hm hn hng i j k l m n ng o p q r s t u uu v w x x̂ y z Á á Ĝ ĝ

ws.pretty_print(ws.by_language(ws.Language.Aleut, strip_multigraphs=True, multigraphs_size=ws.MultigraphSize.All))

# A B D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z a b d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z Á á Ĝ ĝ

• Diacritics

ws.pretty_print(ws.by_language(ws.Language.Czech))
                
# A B C C h D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z a b c c h d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z Á É Í Ó Ú Ý á é í ó ú ý Č č Ď ď Ě ě Ň ň Ř ř Š š Ť ť Ů ů Ž ž

ws.pretty_print(ws.by_language(ws.Language.Czech, strip_diacritics=True))

# A B C C h D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z a b c c h d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

For certain languages such as Chinese (simplified), which have a language code but no alphabet, a fallback strategy is used which maps the ISO 639-2 language code to an ISO 15924 code (as an example here: "chi" --> "Hans"). As a user, you do not have to handle this manually, but simply call up the language as it is:

ws.pretty_print(ws.by_language(ws.Language.Chinese_Simplified))

# 㑇 㑊 㕮 㘎 㙍 㙘 㙦 㛃 㛚 㛹 㟃 㠇 㠓 㤘 㥄 㧐 ...

Another important use case is to check whether a given sequence of characters represents a specific script of a writing system. This can be achieved as follows:

ws.is_abjad("גדולים או בינוניים") # True
ws.is_alphabet("גדולים או בינוניים") # False

ws.is_alphabet("dobré ráno") # True
ws.is_abjad("dobré ráno") # False

ws.is_logographic("早上好") # True
ws.is_syllabary("早上好") # False

ws.is_abugida("ምልካም እድል") # True
ws.is_abjad("ምልካም እድል") # False

ws.is_featural("좋은 아침") # True
ws.is_logographic("좋은 아침") # False

ws.is_alphabet("დილა მშვიდობისა") # True
ws.is_abjad("დილა მშვიდობისა") # False

Furthermore, you can also use Alphabetic to remove all characters from a given string that do not occur within the supported script types (abjads, abugidas, alphabets, etc.):

ws.keep_only_script_characters("#jüste BAD/good tösté X4567Y ßÜ משהו действует?!")

# Result: 'jüste BADgood tösté XY ßÜ משהו действует'

Features

• Currently 151 languages and corresponding scripts are supported, with more to follow over time;

• In total, Alphabetic covers six writing systems script types: abjads, abugidas, alphabets, syllabaries, logographics as well as featurals;

• Beside (true) writing systems, Alphabetic also offers Latin script representations (e.g., Morse or NATO Phonetic Alphabet);

• Alphabetic includes a complete list of all ISO 639-1/2/3 as well as ISO 15924 codes and enables bidirectional translation between language names and codes;

• At the heart of Alphabetic are json files that can be used independently of the respective programming language or application;

• Consistently documented source code.

Supported Languages

Open to view all supported languages

Language	ISO 639-2/3 code
Abkhazian	abk
Afar	aar
Afrikaans	afr
Albanian	sqi
Aleut	ale
Amharic	amh
Angika	anp
Arabic	ara
Arapaho	arp
Armenian	arm
Assamese	asm
Avar	ava
Avestan	ave
Balochi	bal
Bambara	bam
Bashkir	bak
Basque	baq
Bavarian	bar
Belarusian	bel
Bislama	bis
Boko	bqc
Boro	brx
Bosnian	bos
Breton	bre
Bulgarian	bul
Buryat	bua
Catalan	cat
Chamorro	cha
Chechen	che
Cherokee	chr
Chichewa	nya
Chinese_Simplified	chi
Chukchi	ckt
Chuvash	chv
Cimbrian	cim
Cornish	cor
Corsican	cos
Cree	cre
Croatian	hrv
Czech	ces
Danish	dan
Dungan	dng
Dutch	nld
Dzongkha	dzo
Elfdalian	ovd
English	eng
Esperanto	epo
Estonian	est
Ewe	ewe
Faroese	fao
Fijian	fij
Finnish	fin
Flemish	dut
French	fra
Georgian	kat
German	deu
Greek	gre
Guarani	grn
Haitian_Creole	hat
Hausa	hau
Hawaiian	haw
Hebrew	heb
Herero	her
Hindi	hin
Icelandic	isl
Igbo	ibo
Indonesian	ind
Irish	gle
Istro_Romanian	ruo
Italian	ita
Japanese	jpn
Javanese	jav
Jeju	jje
Kabardian	kbd
Kanuri	kau
Kashubian	csb
Kazakh	kaz
Kinyarwanda	kin
Kirghiz	kir
Komi	kpv
Korean	kor
Kumyk	kum
Kurmanji	kmr
Latin	lat
Latvian	lav
Lezghian	lez
Lingala	lin
Lithuanian	lit
Luganda	lug
Luxembourgish	ltz
Macedonian	mkd
Malagasy	mlg
Malay	may
Malayalam	mal
Maltese	mlt
Manx	glv
Maori	mao
Mari	chm
Marshallese	mah
Moksha	mdf
Moldovan	rum
Mongolian	mon
Mru	mro
Nepali	nep
Norwegian	nor
Occitan	oci
Oromo	orm
Osage	osa
Parthian	xpr
Pashto	pus
Persian	per
Phoenician	phn
Polish	pol
Portuguese	por
Punjabi_Gurmukhī	_pan
Punjabi_Shahmukhi	pan
Quechua	que
Rohingya	rhg
Russian	rus
Samaritan	smp
Samoan	smo
Sango	sag
Sanskrit	san
Scottish_Gaelic	gla
Serbian	srp
Slovak	slo
Slovenian	slv
Somali	som
Sorani	ckb
Spanish	spa
Sundanese	sun
Swedish	swe
Swiss_German	gsw
Tajik	tgk
Tatar	tat
Turkish	tur
Turkmen	tuk
Tuvan	tyv
Twi	twi
Ugaritic	uga
Ukrainian	ukr
Uzbek	uzb
Venda	ven
Vengo	bav
Volapük	vol
Welsh	wel
Wolof	wol
Yakut	sah
Yiddish	yid
Zeeuws	zea
Zulu	zul

Supported Abjads

Open to view all supported abjads

Abjad	ISO code
Arabic	Arab
Balochi	bal
Hebrew	Hebr
Hebrew_Samaritan	Samr
Parthian	Prti
Pashto	pus
Persian	per
Phoenician	Phnx
Punjabi_Shahmukhi	pan
Sorani	ckb
Ugaritic	Ugar
Yiddish	yid

Supported Abugidas

Open to view all supported abugidas

Abugida	ISO code
Amharic	amh
Angika	anp
Assamese	asm
Boro	brx
Devanagari	Deva
Dzongkha	dzo
Ethiopic	Ethi
Hindi	hin
Malayalam	Mlym
Nepali	nep
Punjabi_Gurmukhī	Guru
Sanskrit	san
Sundanese	Sund
Thaana	Thaa

Supported Syllabaries

Open to view all supported syllabaries

Syllabary	ISO code
Avestan	Avst
Carian	Cari
Cherokee	Cher
Hiragana	Hira
Katakana	Kana
Lydian	Lydi

Supported Logographics

Open to view all supported logographics

Logographic	ISO code
Chinese_Simplified	Hans
Kanji	Hani

Supported featural writing systems

Open to view all supported featurals

Featural	ISO code
Hangul	Hang

Design Considerations / Limitations

Once delving deeper into the world of writing systems, one is overwhelmed by the numerous difficulties that arise when organizing the various script types. This is particularly difficult when it comes to non-Latin scripts with their many variabilities and forms. Therefore, various design considerations were made to make Alphabetic as simple and usable as possible.

• For languages that exhibit several variants of alphabets, the more modern or the most frequently encountered form was used. References to sources such as Omniglot, Wikipedia and Britannica were used for this purpose.

• For Arabic scripts where the character form depends on its position, the so-called isolated forms were used.

• Multigraphs are considered as part of the scripts. However, if desired they can be suppressed. The same applies to diacritical marks (e.g., acute, breve, cédille, gravis, etc.).

• The function is_abugida is not fully functional because not all vowel forms are integrated yet.

• For so-called non-bicameral languages such as Hebrew or Arabic, where there is no distinction between upper and lower case, the respective filter letter_case= argument is ignored and the entire alphabet is returned instead:

ws.pretty_print(ws.by_language(ws.Language.Hebrew, letter_case=ws.LetterCase.Upper))
                                                   
# א ב ג ד ה ו ז ח ט י כ ך ל מ ם נ ן ס ע פ ף צ ץ ק ר ש ת

ws.pretty_print(ws.by_language(ws.Language.Arabic, letter_case=ws.LetterCase.Lower))

# ا ب ة ت ث ج ح خ د ذ ر ز س ش ص ض ط ظ ع غ ف ق ك ل م ن ه و ي

Contribution

If you like this project, you are welcome to support it, e.g. by testing it or providing additional languages (there is a lot to do with regard to the remaining languages). Feel free to fork the repository and create a pull request to suggest and collaborate on changes.

Disclaimer

Although this project has been carried out with great care, no liability is accepted for the completeness and accuracy of all the underlying data. The use of Alphabetic for integration into production systems is at your own risk!

Furthermore, please note that this project is still in its initial phase. The code structure may therefore change over time.

Citation

If you find this repository helpful, feel free to cite it in your paper or project:

@software{Halvani_Constituent_Treelib:2024,
	author = {Halvani, Oren},
	title = {{Alphabetic - A Python module for retrieving script types of writing systems including alphabets, abjads, abugidas, syllabaries, logographs, featurals as well as Latin script codes}},
	doi = {https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11580510},
	month = jun,	
	url = {https://github.com/Halvani/alphabetic},
	version = {0.0.5},
	year = {2024}
}

License

The Alphabetic package is released under the Apache-2.0 license. See LICENSE for further details.

Last Remarks

As is usual with open source projects, we developers do not earn any money with what we do, but are primarily interested in giving something back to the community with fun, passion and joy. Nevertheless, we would be very happy if you rewarded all the time that has gone into the project with just a small star 🤗