feat: add words from fantasy, politics, religion, and adverbs by rauletaveras · Pull Request #2643 · Automattic/harper

rauletaveras · 2026-02-02T16:08:34Z

Description

This was effectively a sweep of my Obsidian vaults, particularly my worldbuilding vault where I engage in some philosophical analysis. Added words I felt were common enough to merit going in the dictionary. I'm still not sure whether the linguistics terms are widely-used enough. Happy to make any amends.

How Has This Been Tested?

Run cargo test and follow instructions (so far)

hippietrail

Looks pretty good. I made a few notes for things to add or change.

I would put all the ones at the end in alphabetical order too. Makes them much easier to scan quickly.

hippietrail · 2026-02-02T16:29:09Z

harper-core/dictionary.dict

 inheritor/NSg
 inhibit/~VGSd
-inhibition/~NSg
+inhibition/~NSgE # Add preffix "dis-" for "disinhibition"


Minor typo in your comment: s/preffix/prefix/

hippietrail · 2026-02-02T16:33:07Z

harper-core/dictionary.dict

 minstrel/~NSgV
 minstrelsy/Ng
-mint/~NgSVd>GJZ
+mint/~NgSVd>GJZU # Add prefix un- for "unmint", "unminted", etc.


I can't find much evidence for "unmint" but "unminted" seems legit. In such cases we just make entries for the derived form directly.

hippietrail · 2026-02-02T16:34:20Z

harper-core/dictionary.dict

 pidgin/~NgS
 pie/~NwSgV
 piebald/JNgS
+piebaldism/Ng # TODO: Check


It's in the OED

hippietrail · 2026-02-02T16:38:59Z

harper-core/dictionary.dict

+viscomital/J # As above, alternative version
+lingua franca/N # TODO
+linguas francas/N # TODO
+linguae francae/N # TODO


linguæ francæ is also a legit speling

hippietrail · 2026-02-02T16:40:43Z

harper-core/dictionary.dict

+idiolect/N # TODO -- term in linguistics for the variety of language spoken by an individual as compared to their broader dialect and language
+sociolect/N # TODO -- as above, but for a variety associated with a social class
+luthier/N # TODO -- person who makes/repairs string instruments, mainly violins
+ASMR/NOg # TODO -- "Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response"


I wouldn't say ASMR is a proper noun. It's not a person, company, country, etc.

hippietrail · 2026-02-02T16:43:48Z

harper-core/dictionary.dict

+Westphalian/J # political science and international relations
+archipelagic/J # As found in the phrase "Archipelagic state" in the "United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea"
+indefinitely/Ry
+polearm/N # TODO


Needs plural and possessive

hippietrail · 2026-02-02T16:44:01Z

harper-core/dictionary.dict

+indefinitely/Ry
+polearm/N # TODO
+kalimba/N # TODO
+subvocalization/Ng # phonetics TODO


Needs plural

hippietrail · 2026-02-02T16:45:30Z

harper-core/dictionary.dict

+polearm/N # TODO
+kalimba/N # TODO
+subvocalization/Ng # phonetics TODO
+synesthesia/Ng # TODO -- check also add "synaesthesia"


I think "synaesthesia" is legit, and "synæsthesia" too

hippietrail · 2026-02-02T16:45:53Z

harper-core/dictionary.dict

+subvocalization/Ng # phonetics TODO
+synesthesia/Ng # TODO -- check also add "synaesthesia"
+menarche/Ng # medicine TODO
+proprioception/Ng # medicine TODO


Add /m for mass noun

hippietrail · 2026-02-02T16:47:06Z

harper-core/dictionary.dict

+menarche/Ng # medicine TODO
+proprioception/Ng # medicine TODO
+
+--- Split these to their own PR


I thought some of these were already in, but maybe they were in my rejected PR to be counted as single tokens when the constituent words are not English words in their own right.

rauletaveras · 2026-02-02T21:02:51Z

Looks pretty good. I made a few notes for things to add or change.

Thank you for your very quick response and your suggestions

hippietrail

A lot of interesting words to go through, including more than a few that are new to me.

hippietrail · 2026-02-06T03:18:41Z

harper-core/dictionary.dict

 epaulette/NgS!@_₹
 epee/NgS
-epenthesis/Nm       # TODO: not count noun
+epenthesis/N


This is mostly a mass noun and when it's countable it has an irregular plural:

epentheses/N9 epenthesis/N0w

hippietrail · 2026-02-06T03:20:38Z

harper-core/dictionary.dict

 inheritor/NSg
 inhibit/~VGSd
-inhibition/~NSg
+inhibition/~NSgE


inhibition is both a mass noun and a count noun too so add /w

hippietrail · 2026-02-06T03:25:57Z

harper-core/dictionary.dict

+fae/Nmg # fantasy alternative for "fey"
+hewn/JT # past participle of "hew"
+Hmong-Mien/NgJ # linguistics
+Iaido/NOg # martial art


iaido doesn't seem to be a proper noun or need to be capitalized from a quick look around?

hippietrail · 2026-02-06T03:29:25Z

harper-core/dictionary.dict

+linguæ francæ/9g
+longsword/NSg
+luthier/NSg
+menarche/Ng # medicine


This seems to be a mass noun /m

hippietrail · 2026-02-06T03:30:49Z

harper-core/dictionary.dict

+Nilotic/NgJ # linguistics
+offeror/NSg
+orthopractic/J
+orthopraxy/NSg


orthopraxy seems to have mass noun and countable senses so /w

hippietrail · 2026-02-06T03:35:44Z

harper-core/dictionary.dict

+polysynthetic/J # linguistics
+praxis/Ng
+proprioception/Ng # medicine
+queenship/Ng


Treating queenship as both mass and count seems best /w

hippietrail · 2026-02-06T03:36:33Z

harper-core/dictionary.dict

+shortsword/NSg
+Sino-Tibetan/NgJ # linguistics
+sociolect/NSg
+sortition/Ng # Political science: a method of appointment to office by random draw


Looks like a /m mass noun to me. Abstract nouns are generally mass nouns.

hippietrail · 2026-02-06T03:37:05Z

harper-core/dictionary.dict

+sociolect/NSg
+sortition/Ng # Political science: a method of appointment to office by random draw
+subvocalization/Nwg # phonetics
+synaesthesia/Ng


Also a mass noun

hippietrail · 2026-02-06T03:37:43Z

harper-core/dictionary.dict

+synchronic/JQ # linguistics
+syncretism/Ng
+synesthesia/Ng
+synæsthesia/Ng


These three are also mass nouns.

hippietrail · 2026-02-06T03:39:09Z

harper-core/dictionary.dict

+synesthesia/Ng
+synæsthesia/Ng
+trimeter/N # poetry
+trimetre/N!@_₹ # poetry


These seem to have plurals. Nouns that don't end in s but don't have a possessive are pretty rare so I'd add /gS to them.

rauletaveras · 2026-02-06T13:43:49Z

Thank you kindly. I see the convention a bit better now. I particularly hadn't put together that "mass nouns" and "non-count nouns" are equivalent.

hippietrail

Did you miss one?

Everything else looks spot on.

hippietrail · 2026-02-06T14:41:16Z

harper-core/dictionary.dict

 polysynthetic/J # linguistics
-praxis/Ng
+praxis/Nmg
 proprioception/Ng # medicine


Did you skip proprioception by accident?

hippietrail · 2026-02-06T14:43:44Z

Thank you kindly. I see the convention a bit better now. I particularly hadn't put together that "mass nouns" and "non-count nouns" are equivalent.

Yes they're not really natural concepts either way unless you're into grammar or linguistics, or have learned a taught a foreign language. And terminology can vary. I try to mix up the terms I use to cover all bases.

hippietrail

I hope my explanations are not confusing. Let me know.

hippietrail · 2026-02-06T15:10:17Z

harper-core/dictionary.dict

+Indo-Aryan/N0gJ # linguistics
+Indo-European/N0gJ # linguistics
+Indo-Iranian/N0gJ # linguistics
+Japonic/N0gJ # linguistics


I wouldn't put /0 for these. That means it's singular, which implies it has a countable sense. But it's easy to test that language names are mass nouns in their primary sense because they don't need an indefinite article:

Do you drive car? ❌

Do you drive a car? ✅

Do you eat meat? ✅

Do you eat a meat? ❌

Do you study Japonic? ✅

Do you study a Japonic? ❌

In fact /0 only exists because I wanted singular countable to be the default since the original dictionary format didn't properly account for them as it was designed for a spell checker dictionary.

But defaults get overridden if other properties are set. So I made /9 for words which are specifically plural but then if a word was both singular and plural like "biceps" or "sheep", setting plural would override the default singular. So I made /0 to allow overriding it back again.

So technically /0 is only really needed for words which also need /9 but when I went through marking up all the irregular plurals I found it helpful to mark the singular forms of those with /0 for clarity to see that they go with a nearby word with /9 even though the /0 is not technically required.

Let me know if that doesn't make sense and I'll try to find another way to word it (-:

Thank you very much and sorry for rushing unnecessarily.

hippietrail · 2026-02-06T15:11:37Z

harper-core/dictionary.dict

-linguae francae/9g
-linguæ francæ/9g
+linguae francae/N9g
+linguæ francæ/N9g


These are irregular plurals that I invented /9 for so using /0 on lingua franca above would be consistent with what I was talking about in the other comment, unlike the ones on the names of the language families.

Left S on lingua franca because the plural "linguas francas" is attested. Thank you for your patience.

Left S on lingua franca because the plural "linguas francas" is attested. Thank you for your patience.

/S means "generate a regular plural form for this entry" which will result in "lingua francas" instead of "linguas francas" because Harper only has a few rules for variations of plural endings. You can see them in annotations.json. Native English two-word terms still mostly just pluralize the last word. Anything more exotic needs a manually crafted plural entry.

You can test the affixing annotations on the commandline like this:
just getforms lingua franca

Sorry I didn't spot this in my previous reviews.

hippietrail · 2026-02-08T00:42:06Z

harper-core/dictionary.dict

-linguae francae/9g
-linguæ francæ/9g
+linguae francae/N9g
+linguæ francæ/N9g


Left S on lingua franca because the plural "linguas francas" is attested. Thank you for your patience.

/S means "generate a regular plural form for this entry" which will result in "lingua francas" instead of "linguas francas" because Harper only has a few rules for variations of plural endings. You can see them in annotations.json. Native English two-word terms still mostly just pluralize the last word. Anything more exotic needs a manually crafted plural entry.

You can test the affixing annotations on the commandline like this:
just getforms lingua franca

Sorry I didn't spot this in my previous reviews.

rauletaveras · 2026-02-08T00:48:11Z

Whoops, failure in my explanation as Spanish thinking creeped in. The attested plural is indeed "lingua francas" (see the second paragraph on the relevant Wikipedia article) as generated by /S.

hippietrail · 2026-02-08T00:59:03Z

Whoops, failure in my explanation as Spanish thinking creeped in. The attested plural is indeed "lingua francas" (see the second paragraph on the relevant Wikipedia article) as generated by /S.

Huh OK I know I've looked into that before but I can't remember. I think you're right. I also probably recognize "linguas francas" from Spanish. Yep "lingua francas" counts so /S is the right thing.

rauletaveras added 2 commits February 2, 2026 12:05

feat: add words from fantasy, politics, religion, and adverbs

291f3e2

tests

37d67f6

hippietrail suggested changes Feb 2, 2026

View reviewed changes

add details and eliminate todos

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rauletaveras and others added 3 commits February 2, 2026 17:43

pass tests (hopefully)

85a6c32

Merge branch 'master' into second_contribution

fddb5cd

submission commit

2456712

rauletaveras marked this pull request as ready for review February 5, 2026 22:39

hippietrail suggested changes Feb 6, 2026

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addressing maintainer revisions

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hippietrail suggested changes Feb 6, 2026

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fix omissions

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hippietrail suggested changes Feb 6, 2026

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fix singular markers in language names

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hippietrail suggested changes Feb 8, 2026

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rauletaveras commented Feb 2, 2026 • edited Loading Uh oh! There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.

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rauletaveras commented Feb 2, 2026

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rauletaveras commented Feb 6, 2026

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hippietrail commented Feb 6, 2026

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rauletaveras commented Feb 8, 2026

rauletaveras commented Feb 2, 2026 •

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