Ethiopic Character Classes

Syllabic Classes: Equivalence of Family (row) and Equivalence of Form (column)

Character Class Aliases

Character Classes From Regexp::Ethiopic::Amharic

Character Classes From Regexp::Ethiopic::Tigrigna

Character Classes From Regexp::Ethiopic::Geez

Matching by Example

The following shows by example how the character classes may be applied to the ዓለምፀሐይ example. The majority of the examples also appear in the overload.pl script found in the examples directory.

Basic Property Matching

/([=አ=])ለም[=ጸ=][=ሃ=]ይ/

Will match ዓለምፀሐይ as ዓ is in the Amharic equivalence set of አ, ፀ is in the Amharic & Tigrigna equivalence of ጸ and ሐ is in the Amharic equivalence of ሃ. This expression only matches for Amharic equivalence classes.

 

/([=ዐ=])ለም[=ጸ=][=ሓ=]ይ/

Will match ዓለምፀሐይ as ዓ is in the Amharic & Tigrigna equivalence set of ዐ, ፀ is in the Amharic & Tigrigna equivalence of ጸ and ሐ is in the Amharic & Tigrigna equivalence of ሓ. This expression matches for Amharic and Tigrigna equivalence classes.

 

/[#ለ#]ም/

Will match ዓለምፀሐይ as ለ is a member of the "ለ family" and preceeds ም.

 

/[#4#]ለ/

Will match ዓለምፀሐይ as ዓ is a of the "4^th form" and preceeds ለ.

Form Range Matching

/[#4-6#]ለ/

Will match ዓለምፀሐይ as ዓ is a of the "4^th through 6^th form" and preceeds ለ.

 

/[#4,6#]ለ/

Will match ዓለምፀሐይ as ዓ is a of the "4^th or 6^th form" and preceeds ለ.

 

/[#ዘ-ገ#]/

Will match ዓለምፀሐይas ይ is a member of the "ዘ through ገ family range".

 

/[#መነበ#]/

Will match ዓለምፀሐይ as ም is a member of the "መ or ነ or በ family".

Form Range Operator Matching

/መ{#4-7#}/

Will match ዓለምፀሐይ as ም is the "6^th form" of the "መ family" and is within the specified form range of 4-7.

 

/ፀ{#1,3-5,7#}/

Will match ዓለምፀሐይ as ፀ is the "1^st form" of the "ፀ family" and is within the specified form range of 1 or 3-5 or 7.

 

/ጸ{#3#}/

Fails to match ዓለምፀሐይ as ጸ does not appear in the 3^rd form.

 

/[ሐጸ]{#4#}/

Fails to match ዓለምፀሐይ as ሐ or ጸ do not appear in the 4^th form.

 

/[ሐጸ]{#3,5#}/

Fails to match ዓለምፀሐይ as ሐ or ጸ do not appear in the 3^rd or 5^th form.

 

/[ለ-መ]{#6#}/

Will match ዓለምፀሐይ as ም is of the "ለ through መ" families and is of the "6^th form".

 

/[ለ-መ]{#3,5#}/

Fails to match ዓለምፀሐይ as no member of the "ለ through መ families" are present in the 3^rd or 5^th form.

 

/[ለ-መ]{#3,5-7#}/

Will match ዓለምፀሐይ as ም is of the "ለ through መ families" and is of the "6^th form" which is within the specified range of 3^rd or 5^th through 7^th.

 

/[ጸለ-መ]{#4#}/

Fails to match ዓለምፀሐይ as no member of the "ጸ or ለ through መ families" are present in the 4^th form.

 

/[ጸለ-መ]{#3,5-7#}/

Will match ዓለምፀሐይ as ም is of the "ጸ or ለ through መ families" and is of the "6^th form" which is within the specified range of 3^rd or 5^th through 7^th.

Negation Matching

/[ሐጸ]{^#4#}/

Will match ዓለምፀሐይ as ሐ is a member of "ሐ or ጸ family" and not of the 4^th form.

 

/[^ሐጸ]{#4#}/

Will match ዓለምፀሐይ as ዓ is not a member of "ሐ or ጸ family" and is of the 4^th form.

 

/[^ሐጸ]{^#4#}/

Is equivalent to the last expression. Only one negative is interpretted, this is because a double negative remains negative in Ethio-Semetic grammar.

Ethiopic Class Matching

if ( "ኩ" =~ /[#ከ#]/ )

Is a true expression because ኩ is a member of the ከ family.

 

if ( "ኩ" =~ /[#2#]/ )

Is a true expression because ኩ is a of the 2^nd form.

 

if ( "ኩ" =~ /[:ካዕብ:]/ )

Is a true expression because ኩ is in the class of ካዕብ.

 

if ( "ኩ" =~ /[:kaib:]/ )

Is a true expression because ኩ is in the class of kaib ("kaib" is a transcription of "ካዕብ").

Amharic Family Equivalence Matching

/[=#ጸ#=]/

Will match ዓለምፀሐይ as ሐ is a member of "ጸ family equivalence" in Amharic and Tigrigna.
 

/[=#ሀ#=]/

Will match ዓለምፀሐይ as ሐ is a member of "ሀ family equivalence" in Amharic. The expression does not match for languages.
 

/[=#ጸ#=]{#3-5#}/

Fails to match ዓለምፀሐይ as ጸ equivalence family members do not appear in the 3^rd through 5^th forms.

 

Utility Functions

The Regexp::Ethiopic package (as well as subclasses) export a number of utility functions that operate on Ethiopic characters and strings. Specify ":utils" as an import option to bring the functions into the local namespace.

getForm( char )

A utility function to query the "form" of an Ethiopic syllable. It will return an integer between 1 and 12 corresponding to the [#\d+#] classes. The function used in the following example:

will print the number 1.

setForm( char, form )

A utility function to set the form number of a syllable. The form number must be an integer between 1 and 12 corresponding to the [#\d+#] classes. Useful in substitutions as per:

where every matching character found will be converted into the first form.

subForm( char, form )

A utility function to set the form number of a syllable based on the form of another syllable. Useful in substitutions as per:

where every character in the class of [#ፀ#]) will be converted to the 'ጸ' family in the form number of the matched character. That is, if 'ፂ' is matched it will be converted to 'ጺ'.

formatForms( format, string )

A utility function somewhat analogous to sprintf for a sequence of syllables. The first argument is the format where the desired symbol sequence is provided. The second argument is the string to format. For example, the format string "%1%2%3%4" indicates that the first character of the argument should be in the first form, %1, the second character in the seconf form, %2, the third character in the third form %3, and the fourth character in the fourth form, %4. For the argument "አበገደ":

the output would be "አቡጊዳ".

Alias Strings

Alias strings are also exported by the Regexp::Ethiopic package (as well as subclasses) that are assigned the the values 1-12 corresponding to their form. Specify ":forms" as an import option to bring the strings into the local namespace. The names are assignments are given by:

Example use:

Notes on Functional Use

The overloading of Perl's regular expressions mechanism is the preferred usage for the Regexp::Ethiopic package. However, the overloading mechanism only applies to the constant part of the RE. The following would not be handled by the Regexp::Ethipic package as expected:

use Regexp::Ethiopic 'overload';

my $x = "ከ";
    :
    :
if ( /[#$x#]/ ) {  # $x is a variable, /[#ከ#]/ is constant
         :
         :
}

The above expression is not identical to /[#ከ#]/ because 'ከ' is constant whereas $x is a variable. The package never gets to see the variable $x to then perform the RE expansion. The work around is to use the package as per:

use Regexp::Ethiopic 'overload';

my $x = "ከ";
    :
    :
my $re = Regexp::Ethiopic::getRe ( "[#$x#]" );

if ( /$re/ ) {
       :
       :
}

This works as expected at the cost of one extra step. The overloading and functional modes of the Regexp::Ethiopic package may be used together without conflict.

Notes on Notation

The initial philosophy applied to syllabic character class development was to stick with existing POSIX definitions and notation ([=x=], [:x:], etc) and simply apply them in the context of a syllabary. Shoe-horning syllabic classes into POSIX norms has proven at times to be both awkward and confusing. After a lenghty experimentaiton period a clean break was made from the POSIX class symbols and class symbols are applied that appear to be intuitive and easy to type.

In large part, a complication for working with Ethiopic character classes easily has been the difference between the greater number of Ethiopic classes and available (while somewhat applicable) POSIX abstractions. There are four types of character equivalence that are of interest in Ethiopic regular expressions:

The syllable x is:

• [#xe#]: a member of the "xe" family.
• [#\d#]: in the syllabic form of \d.
• [=y=]: homophonically equivalent in writing to other syllables in phoneme char "y".
• [=#ze#=]: a member of a family that is homophonically equivalent in writing to other families (family equivalence "ze").