ling-md

A JS library to convert linguistics-flavored markdown to HTML.

This library uses markdown-it for converting markdown, with a few custom extensions specific to the ling-md format (see Notes below for details). It also enables several commonly-used markdown extensions that are also relevant to linguistics (such as footnotes).

After conversion, you'll probably still want to apply additional CSS styles to the HTML. For example, grammatical glosses like ^^fut^^ are converted to abbreviation tags such as <abbr>fut</abbr>, but abbreviation tags are not styled in smallcaps by default.

Usage

Install the library:

npm i @digitallinguistics/ling-md

Create a new parser instance and parse the linguistics-flavored markdown:

import Parser from '@digitallinguistics/ling-md'

const markdown = `The word *perro* in Spanish means ''dog''.`
const parser   = new Parser({ /* options */ })
const html     = parser.parse(markdown)

console.log(html) // <p>The word <i>perro</i> in Spanish means <q>dog</q>.</p>

Features

The library enables the following features by default:

Linguistics

Feature	Markdown	HTML
grammatical glosses	^^fut^^	<abbr class="gl">fut</abbr>
inline examples	The word *perro* is Spanish.	<p>The word <i>perro</i> is Spanish.</p>
inline translations	The word *perro* means ''dog''.	<p>The word <i>perro</i> means <q>dog</q>.</p>
interlinear glosses	```igl ninakupenda ni-na-ku-pend-a 1sg.SUBJ-PRES-2sg.OBJ-love-IND I love you ```	See documentation here.

General

Feature	Markdown	HTML
alerts	> [!note] > Note Text	See documentation here.
block attributes	# Heading {#intro}	<h1 id=intro>Heading</h1>
bracketed spans	[/lɪŋˈɡwɪstɪks/]{.phon}	<span class="phon">/lɪŋˈɡwɪstɪks/</span>
checklists	See documentation here.
definition lists	See documentation here.
fenced code attributes	```js {.code-example} console.log('Hello world!') ```	<pre><code class="language-js code-example">console.log('Hello world!')</code></pre>
footnotes	Here is a footnote reference,[^1] and some more text.\n\n[^1]: Here is the footnote.	See example here.
header anchors	# Header Title	<h1 id="header-title">Header Title</h1>
HTML	<b>bold</b>	<b>bold</b>
inline attributes	*perro*{.example lang=spa}	<i class="example" lang="spa>perro</i>
inserted text	++inserted text++	<ins>inserted text</ins>
marked text	==marked text==	<mark>marked text</mark>
math (LaTeX)	Euler’s identity $e^{i\pi}+1=0$ is a beautiful formula in $\mathbb{R}^2$.	(Outputs an image.)
smart quotes	"Hello world!"	“Hello world!”
tables	See documentation here.
strikethrough	~~This was mistaken text.~~	<s>This was mistaken text.</s>
subscript	~subscript~	<sub>subscript</sub>
summary + details	See documentation here.
superscript	^superscript^	<sup>superscript</sup>
table captions	See documentation here
table of contents	[[toc]]	See documentation here.
typography	-- --- ... 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 1/3 3/4	– — … 1<sup>st</sup> 2<sup>nd</sup> 3<sup>rd</sup> 4<sup>th</sup> ⅓ ¾

Usage Notes

• Most markdown libraries convert single asterisks (*perro*) to emphasis (<em>perro</em>), but ling-md converts them to idiomatic text (<i>perro</i>). Use **double asterisks** for bold instead. (See "you're using <em> wrong" by Facundo Corradini for more information.)

• Attributes may be added in a variety of formats. See the attributes-parser library for a complete list. The most common ones are:

  • .className > class="className"
  • #name > id="name"
  • attr=val > attr="val" (data-* attributes also work)

• There is no markdown shortcut for underlining. Use the <u> tag instead.

• You can enter interlinear glossed examples in Scription format, using fenced code blocks, like so:

  ```igl
  ninakupenda
  ni-na-ku-pend-a
  1sg.SUBJ-PRES-2sg.OBJ-love-IND
  I love you
  ```
  

  Note that you can enter multiple examples in a single code block, separated by a blank line.

  You can also pass options to both the scription2dlx and dlx2html libraries by including those options in the YAML header of the interlinear, like so:

  ```igl
  ---
  dlx2html:
    glosses: true
  scription2dlx:
    emphasis: false
  ---
  
  ninakupenda
  ni-na-ku-pend-a
  1sg.SUBJ-PRES-2sg.OBJ-love-IND
  I love you
  ```
  

API

marked

Provides access to the marked instance for further customization.

parse(md)

Parse a markdown string using the current options and return HTML.

Options

Option	Type	Default	Description
dlx2html	Object	See documentation here.	Options to pass to dlx2html (the library that converts interlinear examples to HTML). If options are provided in a YAML header within fenced code blocks, those options override these ones.
markdown	Object	{ html: true, typographer: true }	Options to pass to markdown-it. typographer and html are enabled by default.
plugins	Object	{}	Options to pass to any of the markdown-it plugins. Each key should be the name of the plugin, and the value is the options to pass to it. Example: { '@mdit/plugin-alert': { /* options */ } } You can see a complete list of the markdown-it plugins that are used in this library in the source code here.
translations	span|q	span	Whether to use <span class=tln> or a <q> element for translations. <span>s will wrap the inner text in single quotes.
scription2dlx	Object	See documentation here.	Options to pass to scription2html (the library that parses interlinear examples). If options are provided in a YAML header within fenced code blocks, those options override these ones.