Overview

Chat Text uses the Latin script with diacritics to encode most of Earth's natural language features, enough so that you can write every language using the same Latin-oriented system and be close enough to a realistic pronunciation, including nasalized vowels, tense consonants, clicks, and tones, amongst other things. All of the symbols are shown large and on the left of each box in the tables below.

In addition to a compact "Latin script with diacritics" version, there is also an ASCII version suitable for writing on a traditional keyboard. This is shown in a faint color in the upper right of each box in the tables below. It is also clearly mapped out in the source code as well.

Ease Chat

This is the simplified, diacritic-free version of Chat Text, as demonstrated with these example words. Since it is so minimal, it is much easier for an English speaker to read, hence calling it the Ease Chat Text. It's not perfect, but it gets the job done.

| english | ascii | simplified | | :--------- | :----------- | :---------- | | think | ciqk | theenk | | these | Ciz | zheez | | brother | brUCu$ | bruzher | | bend | bEnd | bend | | date | det | daet | | cat | kAt | kaat | | father | faCu$ | fazher | | eventually | UvE^ntxOli | uvenchuulee | | cool | kul | kool | | lately | letli | laetlee | | koala | kOwalU | kuuwaluh | | creature | kritxu$ | kreecher |

The simplified version is meant to be readable if you have some degree of English intuition, but it's not meant to be perfect like it would represent the words in English.

import chat from '@nerdbond/chat'

chat.ease('brUCu$') // => 'bruzher'

You can combine this with @nerdbond/text to start from native writing systems, and using that library convert to Chat Text ASCII, then simplify the ASCII into a somewhat readable form!

import talk from '@nerdbond/talk'
import chat from '@nerdbond/chat'

chat.read(talk.tibetan.read(someTibetan))

Flow Chat

This is the more rich formatting of the ASCII characters, using diacritics and trying to keep things relatively minimal while still being reasonably accurate with pronunciation. That is why we call it Flow Chat Text.

| ascii | simplified | | :--------------- | :----------- | | txaando^ | txaandȯ | | surdjyo^ | surdjyȯ | | Ha$!a$@!^rijE | ḥa̱̖ȧ̱̤̖rıjẹ | | H!u&_^th~ | ḥ̖ṵ̄̇tḩ | | eT!e_^mu | eṭ̖ē̇mu | | txya@+a-a++u | txyà̤áȁu | | hwpo$kUimUno$s | hwpo̖kụımụno̖s | | sinho^rEsi | sınhȯrẹsı | | batoo'aH | batoo'aḥ | | batoo'aHh! | batoo'ah̥ | | aiyuQaK | aıyuq̇aḳ |

import chat from '@nerdbond/chat'

chat.flow('eT!e_^mu') // => 'eṭ̖ē̇mu'

Syllables and Pronunciation

Using the library, you can also count the number of syllables in a word, and convert IPA text into ASCII Call Text.

import chat from '@nerdbond/chat'

chat.talk('kxɯʎʎikʰa̠da̠') // => 'kHOly~ly~ikh~a@da@'
chat.mark('kHOly~ly~ikh~a@da@') // => { size: 4 }

Tone Text

You can also transform Chat Text into Tone Text by writing it in ASCII, and running it through the tone text code, which is freely available and open source there.

import tone from '@nerdbond/tone'

// make it for the font.
tone.make('a+a+si-kiri-imu-') // => 'a3a3si4kiri4imu4'

License

Copyright 2021-2023 NerdBond

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.

NerdBond

This is being developed by the folks at NerdBond, a California-based project for helping humanity master information and computation. Find us on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Check out our other GitHub projects as well!