The CBB

Thanks for the help. I've got a clearer idea of what I want to do now.

I'm trying to create a new conlang. It's VSO (mostly) and I'm wanting to use auxiliary verbs to indicate aspect. However my verbs are fairly bare and don't have things like number, gender, or mood attached to them (it's a very isolating language). What I'm trying to figure out is if what I'm trying ...

Hopefully this makes sense (and sorry if my terminology is off): I'm wondering what languages do when quoting a person in writing or relaying what someone has said. For instance, in English you can say: "Eat this," said the man vs "Eat this," the man said vs The man said "ea...

I'm confused about how to create my derivational morphology (is that the right word?). Basically how to make nouns into verbs, verbs into nouns, etc. It seems like, generally, English just uses the word with no sort of inflection. Do a lot of languages do this? For instance, shine (n) vs shine (v). ...

Thanks for the suggestions. Nahuatal looks really interesting, I might try to study that one day. I think I like all of the American languages in general, but I'm fairly certain that speaking them is an effort in futility for me. All the languages suggested look pretty cool though in one way or anot...

So I hope this is the correct place to ask and isn't a particularly stupid question: I've been interested in studying and/or learning a language lately, but I can't seem to pinpoint one that I want to learn. I'm trying to look for something not too close to English, considering English is all I spea...

@Salmoneus I'm not fully clear on your intent here. You ask what you should do, or what would be appropriate, but we have no way to judge that. The appropriate construction is whatever the rules of your language demand - different languages have different grammars, so there is no single answer to wh...

My still yet unnamed conlang: I sit and write today's entry under the canopy of a swaying palm tree... What a tender illusion. Shui has maks skild ashïnon napok xiz so kaískitoks chashik talmik seto shushush... [ʃui has maks skild ash.ɪn.ən na.pok xiz so kaɪ̯s.ki.toks tʃaʃ.ik talm.ik se.to ʃu.ʃuʃ] 1...

So I'm continuing to work on translating sentences in my conlang and have come across a few more things I'm unsure if I'm handling correctly. Before my actual conlang questions, how do you do the small caps on this forum? The original sentence: She (Lusa) also possessed the ears and the tail of a ca...

Obligatory this language is in it's beginnings, things are subject to change, and after a long hiatus from conlanging, I'm so rusty and am probably doing something wrong or stupid. I really need to learn how to set my signature I guess. I'm always open to constructive feedback on my conlangs. This r...

My current conlang doesn't have a name yet. Also it's still very much in it's beginnings, but I should be able to translate the below with the only inaccuracy being how I handle "sleeping" in the first sentence, as I haven't decided to handle that yet (I suppose I could use a relative clau...

Ah, the Partitive looks interesting. I'm thinking I might stick with just using the genitive or juxtaposition though. In the case of the Partitive, could you use it to replace words like "some" or "any"?

I have a kind of stupid question here, but I'm still rather rusty and not sure how to translate this. "There once was a group of friends who were drinking rum." So with my conlang I'm working on, there's a genitive suffix, and I'm mainly confused on how to word "a group of friends&quo...

Adjectival clause = relative clause. Do you mean an adverbial clause? It depends on how 'who' behaves. You can make a clause "in the purpose that he keeps him company" which is a purposive adverbial clause. " gave him a companion who shall keep him company" is a relative clause....

Your gloss contains "who", which suggests a relative clause to me. A copula can be the main verb of a relative clause. English and many other languages allow this. It's worth noting these languages have verbal copulas. I don't know how your conlang's copula is best analyzed. The "who...

Working on my conlang by translating stories I've written for the conlang's culture and I've run into an issue with how to translate it (note story quality is low, but this is only a sentence or two or three, so whatever). "I shall give him a companion to keep him company," the Earth said....

I have some questions below the quote if anyone could please help me with Time to present some sample sentences. They have a VSO word order. Kïnø ïgøn kan tala- I travel on land Täzø ïgøn mulo- I make food. I feel like I need some sort of consonant like /h/ or a glottal stop as it is kinda hard to ...

A couple questions: I have a phonology that lacks , but has [p f m]. Outside of those, there are no more labial sounds in the language, There are plenty of consonants though, including [t d k g ʔ s z x j] etc. I'm wondering if it would be practical to just eliminate all labial sounds besides [m]? I ...

They also tend to have some reference to seasons, but more modern Haiku doesn't... I feel the need to be picky and say that an explicit reference to the season is a fundamental part of the haiku, modern or otherwise (along with a "cutting word"). You are talking about senryū, which is lik...

So first of all, I wasn't exactly sure where to post this, but I kinda felt that this forum was more appropriate than Translations. If this is the wrong spot, please let me know. Basically I've been on a Haiku kick recently, and then I thought: Why not do Haiku in my conlangs? So that's what this i...