In 30 seconds

npm install @johnmorrisdotca/kotoba

import { markGuess, readWordLists } from "@johnmorrisdotca/kotoba";

// Load only the list you play: each list is an entry point of its own.
const { EN_WORDS } = await import("@johnmorrisdotca/kotoba/words-en");
const five = readWordLists(EN_WORDS, 5)!;

five.allowed.has("crane");          // true: a word that may be guessed
five.answers.length;                // the words that may be hidden
markGuess("crane", "react");        // ["near", "near", "hit", "miss", "near"]

Who it is for

• Word-game makers: a five-letter game in English, French, German or Japanese, with lists already cleaned of names, brands, slurs and subtitle noise, and the marking rule every such game shares.
• Anyone needing a sound list of common words by length, with an easy tier inside the answers inside the words that may be guessed.

The lists

Each list is its own entry point, so a bundler splits it into its own file and a page fetches only the language and length it plays.

| Entry point | Export | What it holds | | --- | --- | --- | | @johnmorrisdotca/kotoba/words-en | EN_WORDS | English, by length: easy answers, answers, and every word that may be guessed | | @johnmorrisdotca/kotoba/words-fr | FR_WORDS | French, the same shape | | @johnmorrisdotca/kotoba/words-de | DE_WORDS | German, the same shape, with Ä, Ö and Ü | | @johnmorrisdotca/kotoba/pop-answers | POP_ANSWERS, POP_CATEGORIES | Pop-culture answers, each with its category as a clue | | @johnmorrisdotca/kotoba/pop-guesses | POP_GUESSES | Dictionary guesses at three and seven letters for the pop list | | @johnmorrisdotca/kotoba/kana-3, /kana-4, /kana-5 | JA_WORDS_3, JA_WORDS_4, JA_WORDS_5 | Japanese words of three, four and five kana, packed; read with unpack |

readWordLists(data, size) reads one length of an alphabet list; unpack(packed, size) reads a kana list.

The rules

| Export | What it does | | --- | --- | | markGuess(guess, hidden) | Each letter hit, near or miss, counting a letter only as often as the word holds it | | encodeHidden, decodeHidden, decodeGuesses, ALPHABETS | A hidden word and guesses written down and read back, checked against the language's alphabet | | readWordLists, unpack, KANA_SIZES | Reading the lists | | WORD_SCORE and the scoring functions | Points for a solved game: letters placed, rows to spare, speed | | Keyboard rows | The on-screen keyboard's rows for each language | | markKanaGuess, kanaBase, kanaFamily, kanaTone, kanaFound, toggleSize, cycleMark, … | Marking a kana guess, where a kana's voiced and small forms count as its family | | readRomaji, finishRomaji | Typing kana with a Latin keyboard | | Kana scoring | Points for a solved kana game | | GomojiLanguage, LetterMark, WordData, WordLists, Packed, KanaWords, … | The types | | VERSION | This package's version |

The name

Kotoba is 言葉 (ことば), "words" in Japanese.

Where the words come from, and their licences

The code is MIT. The lists are data under their sources' terms, written out in full at the top of each list file and in LICENSE:

• English: SCOWL 2020.12.07 (http://wordlist.aspell.net/), under its permissive notice.
• French: Lexique 3.83, ranked by hermitdave's FrequencyWords, checked against Wiktionary: CC BY-SA 4.0.
• German: LanguageTool's german-pos-dict, ranked the same way, checked against Wiktionary: CC BY-SA 4.0.
• Japanese: JMdict, the property of the Electronic Dictionary Research and Development Group: CC BY-SA 4.0 and the Group's conditions. Refreshed from JMdict's newest release every month (.github/workflows/jmdict-refresh.yml).

A word is a word only if a real dictionary of the language says so; a frequency count only ranks. The lists are made by the scripts in scripts/, never by hand.

Where it is used

Kotoba holds the dictionaries of Gomoji, the five-letter word puzzle of itsutsu.com, in English, French, German, pop culture and kana. Using it somewhere? Tell us.

The family

• Korokoro: dice, with exact odds and real sounds
• Kyuubu: a turning cube, with a solve you can follow
• Toranpu: playing cards, ten card games and three solitaires
• Domino: dominoes and Mexican Train
• Hitotsu: a colour-card game in the manner of UNO
• Tane: seeded random numbers and daily seeds
• Narabe: a rules engine for board games
• Tenka: a game of world conquest
• Kumimoji: a crossword tile race

Roadmap

• A demo site in the family's look: a five-letter game in every language
• The game modes of Gomoji (head start, twins, four at once, backwards, the dodger) as rules here, beside the marking
• More languages, each from a real dictionary of that language

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md.