Skip to main content

Central Kurdish G2P (Graph2Phon)

PyPI version Streamlit App License: MIT Python 3.8+

A modern, high-performance, and linguistically accurate Grapheme-to-Phoneme (G2P) converter and Syllabifier for Central Kurdish (Sorani).

Designed specifically for training modern Text-to-Speech (TTS) models (VITS, FastSpeech2, Glow-TTS) by providing robust phonetization, stress marking, and syllable boundaries.

(کوردی) دەربارەی پڕۆژە

ئەم پڕۆژەیە ئامرازێکی پێشکەوتووە بۆ گۆڕینی دەقی کوردی (سۆرانی) بۆ فۆنێم و بڕگە. بەتایبەت دیزاین کراوە بۆ سیستەمەکانی دروستکردنی دەنگ و ڕاهێنانی مۆدێلەکانی زیرەکی دەستکرد.

خێراییەکی زۆر بەرزی هەیە و هەموو یاسا دەنگییەکانی زمانی کوردی (وەک پاڵاتەڵایزەیشن، بزرۆکە، و فۆکەس) لەخۆدەگرێت.

🔗 Live Demos

🌟 Why Graph2Phon?

Generic G2P tools often fail on Kurdish phonology. ckb-g2p (v3) combines architectural speed with linguistic depth to solve these challenges:

Feature Problem in Generic Tools Solution in ckb-g2p
Palatalization Treats all 'k' and 'g' the same. Distinguishes Heavy (Postalveolar t͡ʃ, d͡ʒ) vs Light (Dental t̪͡ʃ̟, d̪͡ʒ̟) based on vowel context (e.g. kwê → chwê).
Schwa Insertion Fails on clusters like "grft". Automatically inserts Bizroka (/ɪ/) to fix illegal consonant clusters (gɪ.ɾɪft) using Sonority Sequencing Principles.
Stress (Prosody) Ignores stress. Smartly assigns stress (ˈ). Handles Negative Verb shifts (nachu → ˈna.t̪͡ʃ̟uː) vs Nouns (kurd → kuɾd).
Ambiguity Confuses w (u/w) and y (i/y). Uses a generator-evaluator pipeline to pick the most phonotactically valid pronunciation.
Dialect Support Normalizes all sounds. Preserves emphatic consonants (sˤ, tˤ, zˤ) critical for authentic pronunciation.

🚀 Installation

From PyPI

pip install ckb-g2p

From Source

git clone [https://github.com/RazwanSiktany/ckb_g2p.git](https://github.com/RazwanSiktany/ckb_g2p.git)
cd ckb_g2p
pip install -e .

💻 Usage

Command Line Interface (CLI)

You can use the tool directly from your terminal:

# Basic usage (Syllabified)
ckb-g2p "سڵاو کوردستان"
# Output: sɪ.ˈɫäw kuɾ.dɪs.ˈtän

# Raw IPA (No stress, no syllable markers)
ckb-g2p "سڵاو" --format ipa --no-stress
# Output: sɪɫäw

# Batch Processing (Great for datasets)
ckb-g2p -i input.txt -o output.txt

Python API

from ckb_g2p.converter import Converter

# Initialize (loads cache by default)
converter = Converter()

# 1. Basic Syllabification
text = "من کوردم"
ipa = converter.convert(text, output_format="syllables")
print(ipa) 
# Output: ['mɪn', 'kuɾ.ˈdɪm']

# 2. TTS-Ready Output (with Pauses)
# Note: Punctuation is automatically converted to pauses (| and ||)
text = "سڵاو، ناوت چییە؟"
ipa_list = converter.convert(text, output_format="syllables")
print(" ".join(ipa_list))
# Output: sɪ.ˈɫäw | näwt ˈt͡ʃiː.ja ||

🗣️ Phoneme Inventory

We use a precise IPA set to capture allophonic variations critical for natural speech synthesis.

Consonants (Key Distinctions)

Grapheme IPA Type Description
چ t̪͡ʃ̟ Light (Dental) Standard "ch". Tongue tip touches teeth.
ک t͡ʃ Heavy (Postalveolar) Palatalized /k/ before front vowels (i, e, y). Like English "Chair".
ج d̪͡ʒ̟ Light (Dental) Standard "j". Tongue tip touches teeth.
گ d͡ʒ Heavy (Postalveolar) Palatalized /g/ before front vowels. Like English "Jack".
ڵ ɫ Velarized "Dark L", distinct from clear l.
ڕ r Trill Rolled R, distinct from tap ɾ.
ص sˤ Emphatic Emphatic 'S' (Sad), preserved for dialectal accuracy.

⚡ Performance & Caching

Graph2Phon uses a local SQLite database (lexicon.db) to store processed words.

  • First Run: Calculates phonemes (~1-5ms per word).
  • Second Run: Fetches from cache (<0.1ms per word).

To disable caching:

converter = Converter(use_cache=False)

🛠️ Configuration & Exceptions

The engine is driven by a YAML configuration file located at src/ckb_g2p/data/phonology.yaml.

Manual Overrides: If the rule-based engine fails on a specific word (e.g., a foreign name), add it to src/ckb_g2p/resources/exceptions.csv

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please run the test suite before submitting a PR:

pip install pytest
pytest

📜 License

MIT License. See LICENSE for details.

👨‍💻 Author

Developed by Razwan M. Haji.

Metadata

Release files for ckb-g2p 3.0.0

For a detailed explanation of source distributions (sdists) and built distributions (wheels), please see the package formats documentation.

Source distribution (sdist)

Source distribution for ckb-g2p 3.0.0
File Size Uploaded
ckb_g2p-3.0.0.tar.gz 22.5 kB Details

Built distribution (wheel)

Table of built distributions (wheels) for ckb-g2p 3.0.0
File Interpreter ABI Platform
ckb_g2p-3.0.0-py3-none-any.whl Python 3 none any Details

Total release size: 42.0 kB

Release files / ckb_g2p-3.0.0.tar.gz

Download URL ckb_g2p-3.0.0.tar.gz
Size 22.5 kB
Tags Source
SHA-256 checksum
How to use checksums
d25ceb1dcb0123b66a42862d54bb374cb77088075f15728a6647cbe3fedbd339
BLAKE2b-256 checksum
How to use checksums
e27a9fb93739bf6095dbede2b53ae8552295c477821ccc6ea67bd62d6d906a07
Upload date
Uploaded using Trusted Publishing?
What is trusted publishing?
No
Uploaded via twine/6.2.0 CPython/3.13.7

Release files / ckb_g2p-3.0.0-py3-none-any.whl

Download URL ckb_g2p-3.0.0-py3-none-any.whl
Size 19.4 kB
Tags Python 3
SHA-256 checksum
How to use checksums
eaf8165c7185e8ddd01846e051b790cc802e13df4b10124970370aec530c39c7
BLAKE2b-256 checksum
How to use checksums
36e2a19c3cc5fc9bff7fd6be74fffd713c22aba5ac09bcefcd64179937eb3325
Upload date
Uploaded using Trusted Publishing?
What is trusted publishing?
No
Uploaded via twine/6.2.0 CPython/3.13.7

Release history Release notifications | RSS feed

This release

3.0.0 This release

2 release files

2.0.1

2 release files

2.0.0

2 release files

1.0.0

2 release files

Anthropic, PBC Visionary sponsor Bloomberg Visionary sponsor Hudson River Trading Visionary sponsor Meta Visionary sponsor NVIDIA Visionary sponsor Microsoft Sustainability sponsor Depot Continuous Integration AWS Cloud computing and Security Sponsor Datadog Monitoring Fastly CDN Google Download Analytics Sentry Error logging StatusPage Status page