Languages

A language is a page in your story wiki, in a Languages category. The page holds the language's description and its sound rules; its words are kept in a plain file beside the page. The Languages tool, in the row across the top of the wiki, shows each language's lexicon and a name maker that makes names and words from the sound rules.

The name maker is not AI. It follows the rules you write, with chance to choose among what they allow, and it runs on your device. Nothing is sent anywhere and nothing is learned from anywhere else. The same seed gives the same names again.

Make a language

A new project does not have the category yet. Open Languages… and choose Add the Languages category, or choose Add from a template on the wiki page, then Languages (the Worldbuilding set has it too). Rescriptus never rewrites a category you already have, so an older project gets it this way. Then make a page in it with New entry: a new page starts with sound rules already filled in, so it can make names at once. Change them to suit the language.

Any category with a Consonants and a Vowels detail makes languages, so a category of your own can too.

The sound rules

They are ordinary details of the page, each one line of text:

• Consonants and Vowels: the sounds, separated by spaces, like k t s r sh. A sound can be more than one letter. A colon and a number say how common it is: t:2 is twice as common as a sound with none.
• Syllable shapes: C is a consonant and V a vowel, so CV CVC V makes syllables like ka, kat and a. Weights work here too: CV:4 CVC:1.
• Syllables in a name: how many a name usually has. 2-3 is two or three, 2 is always two, and 1:1 2:4 3:2 says how common each is.
• Sounds to avoid: sequences that are never made, like tl ii. ^ng means not at the start of a word, and ng$ not at the end. They are checked against the sounds and against the letters they are written with.
• How sounds are written: the sound, then the letters for it. sh=š ch=č makes names with š where the sound is sh. Write the sound the way you listed it, so the rules can be in either spelling.

A part that Rescriptus cannot read is left out and listed under Sound rules, as Rescriptus reads them in the tool, so you can see what it understood. The rest still works.

The lexicon

Choose a language in the tool to see its words. For each: the word, its meaning, its part of speech (any words you like; noun, verb and name are suggested), notes, and links to wiki pages. Search the lexicon looks at all of them, and Sort by orders the list. Add word adds one (Enter in a box does too), Change edits one and Take out removes one. Each can be undone for a few seconds with Undo.

Add all words to the dictionary gives every word of the lexicon to Rescriptus's own spellchecker (the one you switch on in Writing preferences), so a word in your invented language is not underlined. They go into your project's dictionary.txt, one to a line; words already there are skipped, and Undo takes out the ones that were added.

The name maker

Choose how many (up to 50), whether to make Names (with a capital) or Words, and how many Syllables. The list is made as you change them. Seed is any text: the same seed and settings give the same names every time, and New seed offers another. Each name has Keep, which puts it in the lexicon (as a name when you are making names), and Copy. Keep all in the lexicon keeps the whole list. Names the lexicon already has are not made again.

Shape them by the letters of lets the names follow the names you already have. It counts which letters tend to follow which two in those names, and prefers new names that read alike: the lexicon's names, every word in the lexicon, or a list you type. It needs at least three names. The sound rules still decide what is allowed, so a shaped name never breaks them.

Where it is stored

The page is a Markdown file like any wiki page, with the rules in its header:

consonants: k t s r sh:2
vowels: a e i o
shapes: CV:3 CVC:1
syllables: 2-3
avoid: ka ^ti ir$
spelling: sh=š

The words are in codex/languages/<page>.words.yml, beside the page:

words:
  - id: k7m2x
    word: kel
    meaning: water
    part: noun
    notes: also "river" in the old speech
    links:
      - places/the-silver-river

You can edit it by hand: comments and the order are kept when Rescriptus changes it. Renaming or moving the language's page moves the file with it, deleting the page deletes it (and Undo brings both back), and a link follows a page that is renamed. If you use more than one device, changes to the words on each are merged word by word. A file that does not read is shown as such and never written over.

Exports never include the lexicon, but Download everything does.