Kozuka help

Kozuka (short for kotobazukashii (言葉 kotoba + 恥ずかしい hazukashii, literally "embarrassing words")) is a word-generation program for conlanging. The interface and pattern language are based off of Awkwords.

This page has some interactive elements that require Javascript to work. If you'd like live examples (they run in your browser!), please enable Javascript. (Also, you can run Kozuka without JS using the source code!)

Patterns

Patterns tell Kozuka how to generate your words!

Basics

Any text can be used within patterns, even capital letters, diacritics, or IPA characters.

Example

Output

Choices

Patterns between slashes (like a/b/c) choose between one of the given choices. Each has an equal chance of occurring, unless you suffix a choice with a weight (like a*2/b/c*3). This has the same effect as repeating the choice that many times, thus increasing the "weight".

Example

Output

Optional sequences

Patterns within parentheses (like (a)) will either be generated, or not! It's like having a choice between the pattern and an empty one. Each choice is equally likely.

Example

Output

Subpatterns

A subpattern (like [a]) is like an optional sequence, but it's always generated. It's useful for putting choices in the middle of patterns.

Example

Output

Filters

You can specify things that should never be generated with filters. They look like ^abc, and go at the end of any pattern. They can only contain plain text, not patterns. They also need to be placed after weights.

Example

Output

Notice that the above example never generates "pa"!

References

A reference (like {C} references another defined pattern by its name.

Example

Output

In the above example, "C" is set to "p/t/k/s/m/n" and "V" is set to "a/i/u".

Settings

In the controls section, you can choose the number of words to be generated, whether to put new lines between each word, and whether to filter out duplicates. (If you filter duplicates, you might get fewer words than you asked for!) Finally, the generate button will generate your words based on the main pattern and any other patterns you've added.

Saving & Loading

The save button will open a dialog to save your patterns and settings to a file. This produces a .json file with the data, which you can load back into Kozuka with the load button. Make sure to save often!

In addition, your data is saved into the browser's local storage, but you shouldn't rely on this, since it can get wiped pretty easily and doesn't share between devices.