README.md
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# Ting
Ting can convert between various systems for phonetically
writing Mandarin Chinese. It can also handle various representation
of tones, so it can be used to convert pinyin with numbers
to pinyin with tones.
Hanyu Pinyin, Bopomofo, Wade-Giles, Tongyong Pinyin
and International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) are supported.
## INSTALL
* gem install ting
## SYNOPSIS
To parse your strings create a `Reader` object. Ting.reader() takes two
parameters : the transliteration format, and the way that tones are represented.
To some extent these can be mixed and matched.
To generate pinyin/wade-giles/etc. create a `Writer` object. Use Ting.writer()
### Formats
* `:hanyu` Hanyu Pinyin
* `:zhuyin` Zhuyin Fuhao (a.k.a. Bopomofo)
* `:wadegiles` Wade Giles
* `:ipa` International Phonetic Alphabet
* `:tongyong` Tongyong Pinyin
### Tones
* `:numbers` Simply put a number after the syllable, easy to type
* `:accents` Use diacritics, follows the Hanyu Pinyin rules, there needs to be at least one vowel to apply this to, not usable with IPA or Bopomofo
* `:supernum` Superscript numerals, typically used for Wade-Giles
* `:marks` Tone mark after the syllable, typically used for Bopomofo
* `:ipa` IPA tone marks
* `:no_tones` Use no tones
## Examples
Parse Hanyu Pinyin
````ruby
require 'ting'
reader = Ting.reader(:hanyu, :numbers)
reader.( "wo3 ai4 ni3" )
# => [<Ting::Syllable <initial=Empty, final=Uo, tone=3>>,
# <Ting::Syllable <initial=Empty, final=Ai, tone=4>>,
# <Ting::Syllable <initial=Ne, final=I, tone=3>>]
````
Generate Bopomofo
````ruby
zhuyin = Ting.writer(:zhuyin, :marks)
zhuyin.(reader.("wo3 ai4 ni3"))
# => "ㄨㄛˇ ㄞˋ ㄋㄧˇ"
````
Generate Wade-Giles
````ruby
wadegiles = Ting.writer(:wadegiles, :supernum)
wadegiles.(reader.("qing2 kuang4 ru2 he2"))
# => "ch`ing² k`uang⁴ ju² ho²"
````
Generate IPA
````ruby
ipa = Ting.writer.new(:ipa, :ipa)
ipa.(reader.("you3 peng2 zi4 yuan2 fang1 lai2"))
# => "iou˧˩˧ pʰeŋ˧˥ ts˥˩ yɛn˧˥ faŋ˥˥ lai˧˥"
````
Since this is such a common use case, a convenience method exists to add diacritics to pinyin.
````ruby
Ting.pretty_tones "wo3 ai4 ni3"
# => "wǒ ài nǐ"
````
Note that syllables need to be separated by spaces, feeding "peng2you3" to the parser
does not work. The `Ting.pretty_tones(string)` method does handle these things a bit more gracefully.
If you need to parse input that does not conform, consider using a regexp to scan for valid
syllables, then feed the syllables to the parser one by one. Have a look at `Ting.pretty_tones` for
an example of how to do this, but note that it does not support special cases like erhua
(wanr2 = wan2 er) or non-standard Pinyin syllables like 嗯/"ń" or 呣／"ḿ" (which appear in the official
Unicode data and some textbooks).
### ting_table
The `ting_table` script will spit out a CSV table of all syllables and formats Ting knows about. Useful if you want to do conversion in other languages.
## REQUIREMENTS
* none, Ting uses nothing but Ruby
## LICENSE
Copyright (c) 2007-2017, Arne Brasseur. (http://www.arnebrasseur.net)
Available as Free Software under the GPLv3 License, see LICENSE.txt for details