grascii 0.2.1

A language with tools to facilitate the study of Gregg Shorthand.

About the Project

Grascii is a language designed to represent Gregg Shorthand forms using the ASCII character set. It also encompasses the set of tools using the language to facillitate the study of Gregg Shorthand.

Made With

• Python 3

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Python 3.6+

Installation

Install the package:

$ python -m pip install grascii[interactive]

Note: The interactive extra is recommended for the majority of users. The interactive extra may be omitted when using the package as a library to reduce dependencies.

Verify the installation:

$ grascii --help

If the command fails, it may be that the location of Python scripts is not on your PATH.

You can also try:

$ python -m grascii --help

Grascii Language

The Grascii Language is designed to be straightforward for those who are familiar with Gregg Shorthand. That is, most strokes are represented by the letters that match their sounds. For example, the word Cross would be written as KROS.

For a more detailed overview of the language, see language.

Purpose

When studying shorthand, a student may come across a form which is unfamiliar, new, or represents an unknown word. Traditionally, a student could refer to the dictionary which maps English words to their corresponding shorthand forms. However, this technique can be tricky and inefficient as the student must guess the word in English to compare to the unknown form. This is likened to the process of using a dictionary to determine the spelling of a word. This is where the main tool comes in: Grascii Search.

Grascii Search

The Grascii forms of all entries of the 1916 Gregg Shorthand Dictionary have been collected. The Grascii Search Feature allows a user to query with a Grascii string to search the Grascii dictionary for similar matches which tell what corresponding English word goes with the form.

Basic Usage

Ex.:

$ grascii search -g AB
AB About
A|B Agreeable
Results: 2

Uncertainty

It is acknowledged that when looking at a form, a stroke may be mistaken for one of similar form whether by proportion error etc. Thus, Grascii Search provides levels of uncertainty.

Ex.:

$ grascii search -g FND -u1
FND Found
FND Fund
FTH Forth
FTH Further
SND Sound
Results: 5

The ND stroke could also potentially be an under TH or an MT/MD. The search accounts for these possibilities. F is also close to S or V.

Interactive Mode

For repeated usage, it is recommended to run Grascii Search in interactive mode. For more complex queries, it removes the need of using escape sequences on the command line.

$ grascii search -i

More Options

For more options, see search.

Grascii Dictionary

Grascii comes with a dictionary for the 1916 version of the Gregg Shorthand Dictionary.

There is also the ability to build and install your own custom dictionaries.

For more information, see dictionary.

Grascii Dephrase (Experimental)

Grascii includes an experimental phrase parsing module.

It is designed to give the phrase for the most common phrase constructions in Gregg Shorthand as well as to provide suggestions for never before seen phrases.:

$ python -m grascii.dephrase AVNBA
I HAVE NOT BEEN ABLE

Documentation

Documentation is available on Read the Docs.

Issues

The Grascii Dictionary is in the process of being reviewed for accuracy. If you find any incorrect entries, please let me know.

If you discover any issues with the program or have any suggestions, open an issue or pull request.

Contributing

You are welcome to contribute and make pull requests.

Dictionary

It would be great to have help adding more words to the dictionary and making dictionaries for other versions of Gregg Shorthand.

If you would like to help with this, please read the dictionary conventions in dictionary.

License

This project is under the MIT License.

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to the developers of Lark, Questionary, and appdirs.