Teach us something interesting

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mira
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Teach us something interesting

Post by mira »

This thread is for people to post interesting things relating to conlanging. Ideally add in some explanation for those less experienced with linguistics and conlanging in general. Examples of things one might post here is a brief explanation of an interesting way of denoting tense or person, or an interesting class system. Most stuff is welcome. Just don't judge what others say if you don't find it interesting as at least one person will.

Looking forward to reading all the interesting things everyone can come up with.

I'll start with a basic one:
In Inyi, all words are treated as nouns. For instance, seia means an act of eating. To make a noun a verb, it is conjugated (seiata : I eat). This is the same with adjectives and adverbs which are treated in much the same way as verbs.

Your turn! [:)]
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k1234567890y
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Re: Teach us something interesting

Post by k1234567890y »

In Lonmai Luna, there are many terms describing change, but there's no native term for the concept of sex and gender.

Is this how this thread works?
I prefer to not be referred to with masculine pronouns and nouns such as “he/him/his”.
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mira
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Re: Teach us something interesting

Post by mira »

k1234567890y wrote:In Lonmai Luna, there are many terms describing change, but there's no native term for the concept of sex and gender.

Is this how this thread works?
Yes this is how the thread works. It doesn't need to be part of a conlang, it can just be an interesting idea of how to convey some form of meaning. Some explanation would also be nice, such as an example.
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k1234567890y
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Re: Teach us something interesting

Post by k1234567890y »

It seems that the Seri language( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seri_language ) of the Seri people in Mexico has dozens of interesting ways describing modern concepts:

- hiisax cheemt iha - I am angry(literally "my.spirit stinks (Declarative)")
- hapaspoj cmatsj - newspaper (literally, "paper that tells lies(maybe because newspapers revel the lies told by politicians and greedy businesspeople?)")
- ziix hant iic iihca quiya - compass (literally, "thing that knows where places are")
- ziix haa tiij coos - radio (literally, "thing that sitting there sings")

I have incorporated the concept of "newspaper means a paper that tells lies" into one of my conlangs...
Last edited by k1234567890y on 26 Jul 2016 07:10, edited 1 time in total.
I prefer to not be referred to with masculine pronouns and nouns such as “he/him/his”.
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elemtilas
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Re: Teach us something interesting

Post by elemtilas »

In the Yllurian Spell-Singing Language, each word root & affix has its own melodic motif, meaning that a word is “spelled” in both letters and sounds. Three actions are required for success of the spell/prayer: a) conception of the spell in the sender’s mind; b) the physical writing out of the spell on a suitable medium; c) the spiritual casting of the spell by singing its words or playing its notes on the appropriate instrument.

Eight types of flutes may be used to play the notes, each having a different combination of tone holes. The type depends on which note series the sender desires to use; and the arrangement of the tone holes is determined by ancient custom. By far the most common flutes have three, four or six holes. The musical notes that spell the words are written upon a staff whose number of lines correspond to the number of tone holes in the instrument.

Also, although the details are by no means known, it seems to have been conceived as an invented language of sorts. It is OVS and follows a slightly archaic mode of Yllurian phonology.
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mira
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Re: Teach us something interesting

Post by mira »

elemtilas wrote:In the Yllurian Spell-Singing Language, each word root & affix has its own melodic motif, meaning that a word is “spelled” in both letters and sounds. Three actions are required for success of the spell/prayer: a) conception of the spell in the sender’s mind; b) the physical writing out of the spell on a suitable medium; c) the spiritual casting of the spell by singing its words or playing its notes on the appropriate instrument.

Eight types of flutes may be used to play the notes, each having a different combination of tone holes. The type depends on which note series the sender desires to use; and the arrangement of the tone holes is determined by ancient custom. By far the most common flutes have three, four or six holes. The musical notes that spell the words are written upon a staff whose number of lines correspond to the number of tone holes in the instrument.

Also, although the details are by no means known, it seems to have been conceived as an invented language of sorts. It is OVS and follows a slightly archaic mode of Yllurian phonology.
That is interestiong [xD]
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