README — malagasy-numberwords (LaTeX package)

malagasy-numberwords typesets cardinal, ordinal, decimal, percentage, currency (ariary), and date number words in Malagasy, the Austronesian language of Madagascar.

The Malagasy numeral system composes numbers in reverse order (units before tens before hundreds), links constituents with connectors ("amby", "sy") whose choice depends on the morphological form of the following word rather than its position, and exhibits a recursive cyclic behaviour beyond one million rather than a fixed set of scale names. This package formalises these rules from written sources and native-speaker input.

Files in this package

• malagasy-numberwords.sty – main package (all six functions)
• fc-malagasy-numberwords.def – optional interoperability layer for the fmtcount package (see below)
• malagasy-numberwords-guide.pdf – usage guide (installation, examples, known limitations; mostly in French, with English code examples throughout)
• malagasy-numberwords-guide.tex – source of the above
• malagasy-numberwords-example.tex – minimal working example (all six functions); compile directly with pdflatex
• malagasy-numberwords-example-fmtcount.tex – minimal working example of the fmtcount integration
• LICENSE-LPPL – full license text (LPPL 1.3c or later)

Basic usage

\usepackage{malagasy-numberwords}
\MalagasyNumberToWords{2026}   % -> enina amby roapolo sy roa arivo
\MalagasyOrdinalToWords{59}    % -> faha sivy amby dimampolo
\MalagasyDecimalToWords{3}{14} % -> telo faingo efatra ambin'ny folo
\MalagasyPercentageToWords{25} % -> dimy amby roapolo isan-jato
\MalagasyCurrencyToWords{100000} % -> iray hetsy ariary
\MalagasyDateToWords{11}{10}{2003}

See malagasy-numberwords-example.tex for a complete compilable example.

fmtcount integration

The file fc-malagasy-numberwords.def is deliberately NOT named "fc-malagasy.def" (fmtcount's usual per-language naming convention), so that it stays easily recognizable as belonging to this package within the wider CTAN/TeX Live archive. Consequently, fmtcount's own FCloadlang command (which only looks for "fc-<language>.def") will not find it. Load it instead via:

\usepackage{malagasy-numberwords}
\usepackage{fmtcount}
\MalagasyLoadFmtcountSupport

\numberstringnum{2026}
\ordinalstringnum{59}

See malagasy-numberwords-example-fmtcount.tex for a complete compilable example. Note: fmtcount's own numberstringnum/ordinalstringnum are limited to the range 0-99999 (a limitation of fmtcount itself, not of this package).

Known limitations

• The LaTeX implementation is limited to values that fit in TeX's native 32-bit counters (roughly +/-2,147,483,647); values beyond that raise an explicit PackageError rather than producing a silently wrong result.
• Decimal numbers with a non-significant leading zero in the fractional part (e.g. "3.05") may be misread.
• Dates: only the overall structure is confirmed by a real source; the spelled-out day and year are an extrapolation (real sources keep both as digits).
• Currency: only Malagasy ariary (MGA) is supported; the sub-unit "iraimbilanja" (1/5 ariary) is not handled.

A companion Python package (with the same linguistic engine, plus a command-line tool) and a sourced linguistic corpus are maintained alongside this LaTeX package; see the project repository for details.

License

LaTeX Project Public License (LPPL), version 1.3c or later. Full text in LICENSE-LPPL; see also the license header inside malagasy-numberwords.sty and fc-malagasy-numberwords.def.

Author / Maintainer

RALAHADY Bruno Bakys <ralahadybru@yahoo.fr> TOTOHASINA André <andre.totohasina@gmail.com>