A 'Sino-Turkic' altlang

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dva_arla
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A 'Sino-Turkic' altlang

Post by dva_arla »

To be honest I have yet to decisively decide a name for the language; the language itself is spoken in Outer Manchuria; are there any more ancient names for the region?

Priamurese
Sihotinese
Parhae, a.k.a Balhae
Hajtuq / Qajtuq / Hatuq < (corrupted from 海突 ‘Sea Turks’)
The latter looks the coolest; let’s temporarily take it as a provisional name. You may (and please do!), meanwhile, suggest other names.

Background

After a few months of hitting intellectual blocks everywhere I try to delve into my Modern Khotanese ‘revived-lang’ (amongst which are the limited availability of many important works on the mediaeval Khotanese language, many of which are available only at libraries thousands of kilometres away from where I live) I have, therefore, decided to embark on a less mentally-taxing project: a Chinese lexically-influenced Turkic language (the term ‘Sino-Turkic’ in the title was only used for dramatic effect. From now on I renounce—as a description of the language-- the quite unsettling term). Being, unlike Khotanese, a completely fictional language with no real precedent I could make it as ‘crazy’ and convoluted as I like, without fear of contradicting reality.

Hatuq is a Turkic language spoken in the Republic of Hatuq (or the Priamurian Republic?) which sits in Outer Manchuria, situated in OTL Russian-- and a bit of Chinese—territory. I had also considered several other spots (the Ta-lien peninsula, Shant’ung [which the Gokturks did reach, according to one of the Orkhon inscriptions] but figured out that a Turkic population there would be subjected to too much Chinese influence (linguistic and political), which would serve as a problem to, among other things, the development of a separate Sino-xenic system of reading -- a distinct reading (as in Korean and Japanese) wouldn’t be able to develop there; a populace placed there would most likely keep updating their pronunciation of Chinese loanwords in accordance with the current “official” pronunciations (the latest being “Mandarin” or Put’unghoa), as in Yellow Uyghur and other Turkic languages of Kansu). Which would be quite a bore.

Hatuq has seen heavy Chinese lexical influences due to four major cultural exchanges:
1) Pre-Mongolic cultural contacts—most intense during the Song dynasty, but not as intensive as the latter contacts.
2) Mongol occupation-- Kubilai Khan brought Chinese darughachi into Priamuria ( and Hatuq darughachi into China). It was during this time that Hatuq Sino-xenic pronunciation was fixed.
3) 15th century-- immigration of Chinese-- mainly Hui or Dungan -- craftsmen and merchants, which Korea and Japan lacks, having the effect of ‘vulgarising’ or ‘popularising’ Chinese loanwords (more on that later)
4) 19th century—mass importation of Wasei-kango loanwords, mostly signifying modern concepts and ideas.

The earliest borrowings, however, seems to be Mongolian (uus ‘country’, noköö ‘comrade’). Whether these borrowings are substrates or a result of early Mongolian political domination are still debated. Some loanwords must have entered during the formative periods of Hatuq, and some as late as the 13th century. Other loanwords are loaned by the Russians (pasiipa ‘thank you’, sek’p ‘church’) and Nivkhs , known to the Hatuqs as the ‘Nipsoh’ or ‘Nipjn’ (tah ‘fish abdomen’).

Samples from my sketches
-- do forgive the still unsettled orthography, I haven’t got it (and the phonology) completely figured out yet.

S'ni sööki (or söölik?) pince piite men “I write (to) you a love-letter”
Kki coh pu:ta: “two stacks of hay”
M’nin ata oon pjin paa? “My father has ten wives.”
Oon? Atam jiim paa! “Ten? My father has twenty!”
S'kyete Tee'it Mantutem "Number-one manty shop in the world"
Lejlan'ng sokohmi ööti "The martyrs died for the sake of the fatherland."
Sks-ss! /sx̩.s:s̩/ A vulgar insult.

Numbers:

(Note: In Hatuq it is, as a means of disambiguation from like-sounded monosyllables, common practice to label/name a Haas 漢字 by attaching, proceeding it its native Turkic equivalent in the genitive, cf. Korean eumhuns. pii-n’ng it literally means ‘one’s 1’.)

1 pii-n’ng it 一
2 kki-n’ng j 二
3 uc-‘ng sam 三
4 tööt-‘ng sh 四
5 bee^sh-n‘ng ngu 五
6 tti-n’ng lök 六
7 jtti-n’ng syy 七
8 sexs-‘ng paa 八
9 toxs-‘ng kü 九
10 on-‘ng shp 十

Features

- No phonemically distinctive voiced consonant save for /ʐ/ (at least in the modern standard), and, unlike Chinese, Mongolian, and a handful of Siberian Turkic languages such as Yellow Uyghur and Tuva, no distinctive aspiration either.
- Long vowels carry tones: level (or rising) long vowels derive from post-PT diphthongs and derhotacism, low (or dipping) long vowels derive from, among all other factors, trimoraic phonetic compounds, which gain this sort of tone due to the pitch-stress accent that Hatuq carries. E.g. PT *gelin > kelín > kiyín > kǐnju (bride).

History

The Hatuqs split from the main body of the Turkic people ~4-6th c., slowly drifting eastward from Mongolia, reaching the Amur during the 7th c., when they clashed several times with the Goguryo or whatever Koreanic people settled there. Oral tradition states that the Hatuq Kaghan either had a (quite drunken) game of dice or wrestling with the Korean chieftain to settle the lands southwards; the result stating that the Koreans would gain the whole Korean peninsula and the Hatuqs a tiny strip of soil around the Oluu Biike gulf and the Deer Island.

The deal, though, turned out quite profitably for the Hatuqs. Having honed both their shipfaring skills (by quite a stretch) in the shallow banks of the Amur they are finally ready to tackle the deep seas. This, coupled with Turanian martial blood, prepares them for the incredibly infamous but formidable destiny of their people. In two centuries the ‘Asian Vikings’ (as they famously came to be known by contemporary Western chroniclers) have pillaged the coasts of Yamato, in a century later the rich coasts of Southern China, and a century later they are building hideouts in Luzon. The ‘Ballad of P’kcu’ tells of a fisherman who sails down to said town to rescue his beloved... from a band of Japanese pirates. There are just too many tales an alternate historian can create!
But so as its people are known as (former) pirates is (OTL Vladivostok) known by another- more euphonic- epithet: ‘the Lübeck of Asia’. Despite its outlying position in the world map, Hatuq merchants have managed to establish themselves in many important ports of the Pacific and beyond, despite a home-base which is only worth ginseng and sea-cucumbers. The creation of Hatuq colonial possessions in the Pacific and the Americas are much tempting to add, but since this is mainly a conlang forum, they would have to wait for some other time and place.
In the 15th century, although the Kaghanate was pretty much independent, it saw a wave of immigration from Hui merchants and craftsmen. In 1839 the Kaghan swore an oath of fealty to Halay Tehhong 天皇. More on history later.

I must apologise for the chaotic mess of my scratchpad. Please do share your thoughts on this conlang of mine; every single comment is appreciated and serves to boost my will.

N.B. Just found out that Hatuq is the name of an actual town in Kirin. Now I am not quite sure whether to keep the name.
Last edited by dva_arla on 02 Aug 2020 21:44, edited 7 times in total.
Conlangs in progress:
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Modern Gandhari
?? - Japonic language in the Mekong Delta
Locna - Indo-European language in N. Syria
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dva_arla
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Re: A 'Sino-Turkic' altlang

Post by dva_arla »

Does anyone happen to have an etymological dictionary of Yakut, and Erdal's Old Turkic Word Formation?
Conlangs in progress:
Modern Khotanese
Modern Gandhari
?? - Japonic language in the Mekong Delta
Locna - Indo-European language in N. Syria
Wexford Norse
A British romlang, &c.
dva_arla
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Re: A 'Sino-Turkic' altlang

Post by dva_arla »

Perhaps I should change the name of the language (and the people) to Tüktin (< *Türk-Tekin, the mythical founder of the Tuktins)?

Phonology

Consonants


Tuktin contains no phonemic distinction of voicing or aspiration. Both phenomena, however, may occur in free variation. Some Tüktins, for instance, aspirate their plosives randomly and liberally. Aspiration may indicate emphasis, and voiced realisation of /s/ is somewhat common.

/m n ŋ/ m n ng
/p t k/ p t k
/ʈʂ/ c
/s ʂ ʐ χ/ s sh j h
/ɾ l/ r l


Vowels


/i y u/ i ü u
/ɛ ø o/ ê ö ô
/ɨ*/ '
/e o/ e o
/a/ a

Notes:
* An ultrashort vowel, often elided/reduced.

Orthography

I plan to eventually create a Phags-pa based orthography to write Tüktin. For now I will be using both Hangul and some sort of Romanisation inspired from (but not identical to) Vietnamese.

The letters below are ordered according to their collation-order (which differs from those of both Hangul and Phags-pa).

k ㄱ ng ㅇ
t ㄷ n ㄴ
p ㅂ m ㅁ
c ㅈ s ㅅ ṣh ㅊ h ㅎ
l ㄹ r ᄛ j ㅿ



Vowels


Tradition divides the vocalic inventory of Tuktin into three classes and the neutral aㅏ:

aㅏ ' ㆍ
Front: i ㅣ ê ㅓ e ㅑ
Front-rounded: ü ㅠ o ㅛ
Back: u ㅜ ô ㅗ o ㅡ

Note that the values of three of the vowels have been altered from those in the Hunminjong: ㅡ and ㆍhave their phonetic values switched, and ㅓhas been used for/e/. Double points indicate vowel-rounding a.k.a "umlaut" (with ㅑ being 'umlauted a') and not a preceding palatal glide as in Korean.

The ara-e ㆍis used sparingly; the Hangul ortography allows vowel-less syllable blocks, for example m's ᄆᅠᆺ 'we [inclusive]. (I'd need to figure out a way to allow the computer to string consonants into vowel-less blocks though... as well as a way to input the obsolete 'half-s' and ara-e)

Vowel tone and length

(this will have to wait until I outfit my keyboard...)

Both the Hangul and Roman transcriptions are provisional; I shall edit them if need be (and have the energy to do so). Meanwhile I shall work at a keyboard layout so that I can input both with much more ease.
Last edited by dva_arla on 02 Aug 2020 21:46, edited 3 times in total.
Conlangs in progress:
Modern Khotanese
Modern Gandhari
?? - Japonic language in the Mekong Delta
Locna - Indo-European language in N. Syria
Wexford Norse
A British romlang, &c.
yangfiretiger121
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Re: A 'Sino-Turkic' altlang

Post by yangfiretiger121 »

Please reorient the stops and nasals to be horizontal, like the other sonority classes. It's really disorienting to read a phonology vertically.
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dva_arla
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Re: A 'Sino-Turkic' altlang

Post by dva_arla »

yangfiretiger121 wrote: 02 Aug 2020 17:42 Please reorient the stops and nasals to be horizontal, like the other sonority classes.
I had arranged the letters according to their collation order (ABC, a-ka-sa, etc.) in Tuktin, but I'll add a separate list for the phonology.
Conlangs in progress:
Modern Khotanese
Modern Gandhari
?? - Japonic language in the Mekong Delta
Locna - Indo-European language in N. Syria
Wexford Norse
A British romlang, &c.
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Re: A 'Sino-Turkic' altlang

Post by yangfiretiger121 »

dva_arla wrote: 02 Aug 2020 20:54
yangfiretiger121 wrote: 02 Aug 2020 17:42 Please reorient the stops and nasals to be horizontal, like the other sonority classes.
I had arranged the letters according to their collation order (ABC, a-ka-sa, etc.) in Tuktin, but I'll add a separate list for the phonology.
Okay. Thanks for adding the phonology. I was thrown off by the last line of the orthography being, essentially, how it'd appeat in a phonology.
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Re: A 'Sino-Turkic' altlang

Post by dva_arla »

I have settled on a system to transcribe the three tones of Tuktin in the Romanisation. Any suggestions for the Hangul?

Tone 0 - short, high. The default:- ms 'we',
Tone 1 - long, level/high:- mơ̂ 'horse', tala̛ 'sea', Tư̈ktiˋn
Tone 2 - long, drop-rise (cf. Mandarin 3rd tone or An. Greek circumflex):- jiˋm 'twenty', pôˋxș 'scholar, shaman', ciˋș 'east'
Tone 3 - in the 'urban' dialects, same as tone 1; in the 'rural' dialects, gemination of the following consonant if a plosive, else same as tone 1.
E.g. j°pn 日本 is pronounced /ʐ̩:.pn̩ ~ ʐɨ:.pn̩ ~ ʐʊ:.pn̩/ in the 'urban' dialects, /ʐp.pn̩/ in the 'rural'. Note: the terms 'urban' and 'rural' here are provisionary; I haven't decided yet on a proper division of dialects.

Are the tone marks readable enough, and not liable to be confused with the quote- and other marks? Or any suggestions for a better notation? (honestly tone 1 does not read well anywhere not word-final)
Last edited by dva_arla on 08 Aug 2020 18:12, edited 1 time in total.
Conlangs in progress:
Modern Khotanese
Modern Gandhari
?? - Japonic language in the Mekong Delta
Locna - Indo-European language in N. Syria
Wexford Norse
A British romlang, &c.
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Re: A 'Sino-Turkic' altlang

Post by dva_arla »

Which should I use for /ʂ/?
a) ß
b) x
c) ş
d) sz
e) sh (might be confused for the sequence /sx/)
f) Other
Conlangs in progress:
Modern Khotanese
Modern Gandhari
?? - Japonic language in the Mekong Delta
Locna - Indo-European language in N. Syria
Wexford Norse
A British romlang, &c.
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Re: A 'Sino-Turkic' altlang

Post by Zythros Jubi »

b) x
Lostlang plans: Oghur Turkic, Gallaecian Celtic, Palaeo-Balkanic
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Re: A 'Sino-Turkic' altlang

Post by Bob »

dva_arla wrote: 01 Aug 2020 10:03 ...
If you need help accessing books on Khotanese, you need to make friends over the internet and facebook. Find me on facebook for further help, I'm the head admin of the Conlangs and Linguistics, Constructed Languages, Invented Languages facebook group.

I read all the posts here and thought it was really great. I'm one of few people on facebook or seemingly the rest of the internet who is into conlanging and tons and tons of East Asia and Central Asian languages, and can write in English. Though I'm mostly into Oracle Bone Script Chinese and Classical Chinese. And I've only ever dabbled or not done a lot in languages like Classical Manchu. But the interest is there and I've done a little bit over the years. I've made quite a bit of progress in studying and deciphering Tangut - considering it's a very difficult language / writing system that most people have never heard about and would even strain to care about.

But I just joined this group a couple months ago and am more of a regular on the top polyglots group for facebook, Polyglots the Community, where I am welcomed and celebrated. Though there are but few posts and replies on any sort of less-studied language - and groups on regional and minority languages or ancient languages are very few and far less busy in comparison.

I've done quite a bit with Sino-Tibetan languages but only surveyed and done some minor work on any Turkic language. Though the last year has seen me take a few weeks to do survey work on ancient and modern Southeast Asian languages and so I hope in the future to do work on Turkic languages which in a few weeks may delight connossieurs - such is my ability with language science. I am especially good with ancient languages and their translations and even decipherment. "It's a talent that I haven't always possessed. And here lately, please don't laugh, I use on behalf of the curious."
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Re: A 'Sino-Turkic' altlang

Post by sangi39 »

Bob wrote: 23 Aug 2020 04:56
dva_arla wrote: 01 Aug 2020 10:03 ...
If you need help accessing books on Khotanese, you need to make friends over the internet and facebook. Find me on facebook for further help, I'm the head admin of the Conlangs and Linguistics, Constructed Languages, Invented Languages facebook group.

I read all the posts here and thought it was really great. I'm one of few people on facebook or seemingly the rest of the internet who is into conlanging and tons and tons of East Asia and Central Asian languages, and can write in English. Though I'm mostly into Oracle Bone Script Chinese and Classical Chinese. And I've only ever dabbled or not done a lot in languages like Classical Manchu. But the interest is there and I've done a little bit over the years. I've made quite a bit of progress in studying and deciphering Tangut - considering it's a very difficult language / writing system that most people have never heard about and would even strain to care about.

But I just joined this group a couple months ago and am more of a regular on the top polyglots group for facebook, Polyglots the Community, where I am welcomed and celebrated. Though there are but few posts and replies on any sort of less-studied language - and groups on regional and minority languages or ancient languages are very few and far less busy in comparison.

I've done quite a bit with Sino-Tibetan languages but only surveyed and done some minor work on any Turkic language. Though the last year has seen me take a few weeks to do survey work on ancient and modern Southeast Asian languages and so I hope in the future to do work on Turkic languages which in a few weeks may delight connossieurs - such is my ability with language science. I am especially good with ancient languages and their translations and even decipherment. "It's a talent that I haven't always possessed. And here lately, please don't laugh, I use on behalf of the curious."
Okay:

1) Rather than sharing resources here, you're asking someone to seek you out on another sight, and, if possible, join a closed group. Personally, I'd class that as gatekeeping, and against the spirit of Rule 5 of the House Rules. If you personally happen to have a breadth of knowledge which could aid dva_arla in developing their project, why would you not post it here?

2) Again, the self-aggrandising noise. You're making us very aware of how great a resource you are (which, great, awesome, we could always do with more resources) but you don't ever actually seem to follow through on it, instead barging into threads to just point at yourself as important. If you can answer a question, or provide a hint or a helping hand, please do.

As mentioned in my other responses, if this sort of repetitive, contentless, self-aggrandising noise continues, I will consider it spam, and I will act accordingly.
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Re: A 'Sino-Turkic' altlang

Post by Salmoneus »

On your point 1: I don't think it's necessarily a problem to direct someone to an external resource, actually, if it's not done constantly. Regarding Bob's help: maybe he just doesn't like, or frequently check, forums? And more generally, in the context of 'make friends on Facebook', telling someone to look him up on Facebook is potentially useful, if Bob is visibly friends with other people on Facebook - it can introduce people into a network that might help them.


[Of course, in point of fact, forums like the CBB and ZBB are likely to be far more helpful that Bob's mates on Facebook, but Bob should be entitled to claim otherwise]
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Re: A 'Sino-Turkic' altlang

Post by jimydog000 »

I like <x> for /ʂ/ too.
Bob wrote: 23 Aug 2020 04:56
I'd be willing to overlook the spam and hero complex, if I knew what the expletive you were talking about. I'm genuinely curious what you researching languages has to do with conlanging. If you are deciphering ancient languages or partaking in a reconstruction project that would be pretty cool.
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Re: A 'Sino-Turkic' altlang

Post by sasasha »

dva_arla wrote: 05 Aug 2020 05:43 I have settled on a system to transcribe the three tones of Tuktin in the Romanisation. Any suggestions for the Hangul?

Tone 0 - short, high. The default:- ms 'we',
Tone 1 - long, level/high:- mơ̂ 'horse', tala̛ 'sea', Tư̈ktiˋn
Tone 2 - long, drop-rise (cf. Mandarin 3rd tone or An. Greek circumflex):- jiˋm 'twenty', pôˋxș 'scholar, shaman', ciˋș 'east'
Tone 3 - in the 'urban' dialects, same as tone 1; in the 'rural' dialects, gemination of the following consonant if a plosive, else same as tone 1.
E.g. j°pn 日本 is pronounced /ʐ̩:.pn̩ ~ ʐɨ:.pn̩ ~ ʐʊ:.pn̩/ in the 'urban' dialects, /ʐp.pn̩/ in the 'rural'. Note: the terms 'urban' and 'rural' here are provisionary; I haven't decided yet on a proper division of dialects.

Are the tone marks readable enough, and not liable to be confused with the quote- and other marks? Or any suggestions for a better notation? (honestly tone 1 does not read well anywhere not word-final)
For the Hangul, perhaps double the long stroke of the vowel for tone 1, add a connector on one end of the two long strokes for tone 2 (ideally the lower end for the vertically oriented ones, since this somewhat matches the tone contour), and add a second connector on the other end (creating a thin box) for tone 3.

You can't type this, of course, which means it probably isn't a very helpful suggestion.

I quite like your latin script tone markers, but I did think of an alternative that keeps a more uniform width per letter-tone combination: keep tone 1 as it is. For tone 2, use a dot or comma beneath. For tone 3, just use an apostrophe. (You could use 《》for quotes if you really wanted to avoid confusion between that and quote marks, but we manage the situation in English fine so personally I wouldn't worry).

1 - mơ̂
2 - jịm / ji̗m, pộxș / pô̗xș
3 - j'pn

My vote for /ʂ/ is ş (or your ș) bearing Turkic in mind. I think x for /ʂ/ in an environment where Pinyin is going to be very influential would bother me a little.

Overall I like what you're doing and am curious to see more. This is interesting in terms of alternate history; I particularly want to know how the Hatuq/Tuktin interacted with the Khitan and Jurchen.
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Re: A 'Sino-Turkic' altlang

Post by Bob »

sangi39 wrote: 23 Aug 2020 21:17 ...
I read what you wrote and think I get the idea.
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Re: A 'Sino-Turkic' altlang

Post by Bob »

jimydog000 wrote: 24 Aug 2020 03:06 ...
I put my research into my conlanging and my conlanging into my research.

I do work on deciphering ancient languages but mostly study how they were deciphered and why others cannot be deciphered. If anything, I mostly ever decipher conlangs done for books, tv, and movies.

Then again, I make a lot of interlinear glosses. But that's not decipherment. That's just trying to make interlinear glosses.

Otherwise, I make conlangs from time to time and try to go on these conlang online communities and write what I have time and energy for. If I get enough hassle, though, and I suspect it's just empty hassle or jealousy, though, sometimes I leave online conlanging communities and make guesses about their priorities.
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Re: A 'Sino-Turkic' altlang

Post by dva_arla »

First of all, I must thank every commenter to this board for encouraging me to move on with my conlang-projects -- all of which for most of the part are hampered and stunted enough.
Bob wrote: 23 Aug 2020 04:56
If you need help accessing books on Khotanese, you need to make friends over the internet and facebook. Find me on facebook for further help, I'm the head admin of the Conlangs and Linguistics, Constructed Languages, Invented Languages facebook group.
I will God willing find you in Facebook. Haven't used Facebook for so long, and to be honest I haven't comfortabilised and familiarised myself too well with the site/app, but I guess I must now -- if it means coming into contact with you and other conlangers resourceful and experienced.

I post on Khotanese here : viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7090 ; both of us might find it more convenient to discuss anything Khotanese-related there instead.

Wish you luck on the endeavours on Turkic -- May I ask what specific subject or language(s) are you currently working on?
sangi39 wrote: 23 Aug 2020 21:17 ...
,

With all due respect, admin, I do find your admonishments above are neither necessary nor deserved. In no way do I take issue with anything Bob has stated; his bid to help is most certainly welcome, and the "self-aggrandising noise" so much as it overbears you instead encourages me -- to note that a scholar of his standing notices my still-pitiful endeavour. As the "host" of this topic I feel that I must speak in his defence, and I bear the admin no personal ill-will.
Bob wrote: 26 Aug 2020 22:42
Then again, I make a lot of interlinear glosses. But that's not decipherment. That's just trying to make interlinear glosses.

Otherwise, I make conlangs from time to time and try to go on these conlang online communities and write what I have time and energy for. If I get enough hassle, though, and I suspect it's just empty hassle or jealousy, though, sometimes I leave online conlanging communities and make guesses about their priorities.
I've tried interlinear glossing for Khotanese and Persian, in order to fully grasp the syntax, stylistics, and other aspects of the language I cannot find fully dished out in the resources I find, and to learn the latter-- I find interlinear glossing a slightly effective way to acquire vocabulary, which I find out after some Khotanese words became permanently stuck onto my head.

I've tried both Fieldworks and Toolbox, and I find both very cumbersome, so much that they become a major source of frustration hence demoralisation, leading to the long hiatus from my previous post in this forum.
May I ask what software you have been using to make those glosses of yours? Said software might be more handier than those two..
sasasha wrote: 24 Aug 2020 18:50 Overall I like what you're doing and am curious to see more. This is interesting in terms of alternate history; I particularly want to know how the Hatuq/Tuktin interacted with the Khitan and Jurchen.
Contacts with the Jurchens / Manchurians wouldn't be too early since they are placed much southernmore to where the Tuktins live; contacts with the Khitans even later and less significant if they did exist at all.

The earliest contact would be with the Easternmore Tungusic languages: the Nanais and the Urch/Orok/Oroch (I do believe that the last three ethnonyms are cognates). The larger part of the ancestors of the Tuktins could just as well be Turkified Tungusid peoples. Tuktin therefore must have a solid Tungusic substrate.

There is also the matter of the Goguryeos... the Tuktins must have interacted with and taken loanwords from them. I imagine a scenario where the Tuktin homeland was occupied by the Goguryeans for 100 years or so, to be then liberated by a Tuktin haan who had retreated to the Shantar isles.. details to be awaited for. Unfortunately, sources on the Goguryean language are scant and hazy-- linguists can't even agree on its affiliation! Beckwith names it a distant relative of Japanese (Koguryo:The language of Japan's Continental Relatives); other sources cite Korean. This, my friend, is what scares me...
Conlangs in progress:
Modern Khotanese
Modern Gandhari
?? - Japonic language in the Mekong Delta
Locna - Indo-European language in N. Syria
Wexford Norse
A British romlang, &c.
Salmoneus
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Re: A 'Sino-Turkic' altlang

Post by Salmoneus »

Regarding Goguryeo:

AIUI, all that is really known is that Korea - or at least, the south of Korea - was once inhabited by speakers of Japonic, and that those speakers were overrun by invading Koreanic speakers from the north.

It's not entirely clear, however, when this transition happened, or which polities are associated with which group. It's likely that at least some states had a Japonic populace but Korean rulers, or transitioned from one language to the other over the course of the nation's lifespan.

None of this, however, should really matter for your scenario. You can absolutely have a bunch of loanwords from Koreanic. Even if Goguryeo was Japonic, perhaps Buyeo was Koreanic. And more to the point, even when the languages of Buyeo and Goguryeo were said to be related, the language of the Yilou - the actual pirates who previously inhabited the area your pirates would inhabit - was said to be totally different. So if you make Goguryeo Japonic, you could still make the Yilou Koreanic.

So you can definitely have Koreanic loans. And if you want you can justify having Japonic loans too. And of course the main influences in the area would in any case be Tungusic.
dva_arla
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Re: A 'Sino-Turkic' altlang

Post by dva_arla »

Salmoneus wrote: 27 Aug 2020 16:32 Regarding Goguryeo:

AIUI, all that is really known is that Korea - or at least, the south of Korea - was once inhabited by speakers of Japonic, and that those speakers were overrun by invading Koreanic speakers from the north.

It's not entirely clear, however, when this transition happened, or which polities are associated with which group. It's likely that at least some states had a Japonic populace but Korean rulers, or transitioned from one language to the other over the course of the nation's lifespan.

None of this, however, should really matter for your scenario. You can absolutely have a bunch of loanwords from Koreanic. Even if Goguryeo was Japonic, perhaps Buyeo was Koreanic. And more to the point, even when the languages of Buyeo and Goguryeo were said to be related, the language of the Yilou - the actual pirates who previously inhabited the area your pirates would inhabit - was said to be totally different. So if you make Goguryeo Japonic, you could still make the Yilou Koreanic.

So you can definitely have Koreanic loans. And if you want you can justify having Japonic loans too. And of course the main influences in the area would in any case be Tungusic.
I have thought of at least one possible Koreanic loan: -saam "-smith in e.g. ootussaam "goldsmith".

I have been meaning to include Koreanic loans for a while now. One must, however, mind that the Koreanic variety spoken in the south (viz. Silla and Baekje) differs from that spoken in Goguryeo and Balhae (I am leaning towards a Korean affiliation for Goguryean), with differences in phonological features and lects actually appearing in the languages. Any 'Koreanic' loan therefore wouldn't do -- the Koreanic loanwords must be of a 'Northern' extraction. Knowing what Goguryean "is" would let me determine the sort of Koreanic that influences Tuktin.

That, or a corpus of Koreanic loans into Tungusic languages and Jurchen / Manchurian, would be helpful.
Conlangs in progress:
Modern Khotanese
Modern Gandhari
?? - Japonic language in the Mekong Delta
Locna - Indo-European language in N. Syria
Wexford Norse
A British romlang, &c.
Zythros Jubi
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Re: A 'Sino-Turkic' altlang

Post by Zythros Jubi »

That, or a corpus of Koreanic loans into Tungusic languages and Jurchen / Manchurian, would be helpful.

See From Koguryǒ to T’amna*: Slowly riding to the South with speakers of Proto-Korean by Alexander Vovin, who proposed that proto-Koreanic were horseback invaders from Manchuria, while the original farming population in the Peninsula spoke Japonic languages.

PS, my Oghur conlang is dormant (with less than 2000 words) and I need more Oghur-specific roots, and I'm still undecided about noun case forms and mergers: Hungarian and Balkan languages have merged genitive and dative, while Chuvash has merged accusative and dative, and I'm unsure whether R-Turkic has -Ig/-Ug accusative form (if so, judging from Chuvash evidence, this form would collide with 2sg possessive), plus what to do with -DA and -DAn (Chuvash has -rA and -rAn after vowels and most consonants, and -tA/-tAn after n/l/r). There's a book titled West Old Turkic: Turkic Loanwords in Hungarian but there are some misconceptions like long *a became *ia.

Besides, the Austronesian conlang idea is more difficult because a Proto-(Malayo-)Chamic wordlist is too hard to obtain and the roots in that book is too few. Perhaps it's an independent branch within Malayo-Chamic like Moken-Moklen, with a flavor similar to Malagasy, i.e. used to allow only open syllables but with vowel dropping later. Another "hotspot" for conlanging is Macaronesia (Azores, Madeira and Cape Verde), for it is the largest inhabitable archipelago(s) with no pre-colonial population, and the Mascarenes is the second largest such area. I wonder what conlang can exist in Azores and Madeira, Berber, and possibly East Germanic even Celtic (via Iberia)? How difficult is it to make a Berber/Niger-Congo/Malayo-Chamic a posteriori conlang?
Lostlang plans: Oghur Turkic, Gallaecian Celtic, Palaeo-Balkanic
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