Libphi

Libphi is a library which performs transformations of the type shown below. It is intended for use in phonetic input methods for the Thai language.

sawatdii → สวัสดี

Such an input method is aimed at Thai language learners, for whom using conventional Thai keyboards may be an unreasonable expectation. The design allows for some flexibility in input. 'swasdii', 'sawasdii', and 'swatdii' would all be recognized as 'สวัสดี'. A user who is knowledgeable about Thai spelling is able to leverage those skills, while less advanced users can type words according to their pronunciation.

Libphi can be configured to process input with varying degrees of phonetic ambiguity. For example, 'ป' and 'บ' may be represented with the same latin phonetics, or with separate representations.

This software is still under development, and has some known limitations. It cannot generate a character sequence which consists of a hidden vowel inside of an enclosing vowel. For example: the word 'เสมอ' cannot be typed as 'samoe'. The 'a' is hidden, and the 'oe' is an enclosing vowel (เ-อ).