CBB Conlang Relay XII - FINISHED!!

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Man in Space
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Re: CBB Conlang Relay XII - ONGOING (signups remain open)

Post by Man in Space »

When I'm ready to send the torch to you, do you want me to omit the English translation so that you can translate it without having seen it?
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CC = Common Caber
CK = Classical Khaya
CT = Classical Ĝare n Tim Ar
Kg = Kgáweq'
PB = Proto-Beheic
PO = Proto-O
PTa = Proto-Taltic
STK = Sisỏk Tlar Kyanà
Tm = Təmattwəspwaypksma
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Re: CBB Conlang Relay XII - ONGOING (signups remain open)

Post by Jackk »

Linguifex wrote: 21 Aug 2020 03:59 When I'm ready to send the torch to you, do you want me to omit the English translation so that you can translate it without having seen it?
Hmmm...
I have been seeing the partial English translations as we go so it shouldn't make too much difference.

Compromise: include your English translation of littlesalmon's text but not of your own. [:D]
terram impūram incolāmus
hamteu un mont sug
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Re: CBB Conlang Relay XII - ONGOING (signups remain open)

Post by Iyionaku »

Linguifex wrote: 21 Aug 2020 03:59 When I'm ready to send the torch to you, do you want me to omit the English translation so that you can translate it without having seen it?
What if you send Jackk two separate mails, one with DO NOT OPEN ENGLISH INSIDE or similar, and the other one with your torch?
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Re: CBB Conlang Relay XII - ONGOING (signups remain open)

Post by Salmoneus »

Irrelevant this time, but an idea for next time:

- the organiser ONLY provides the English, not a translation into their conlang, to the first participant of each group. The first participant translates into their conlang and passes it on;
- the torch passes down each loop until it reaches the last participant;
- the last participant passes their torch to the FIRST participant in the OTHER group, who provides the final translation into English.

Advantages:
- each participant (other than the organiser) gets to translate out of another conlang once
- each participant (other than the organiser) gets to translate into their own conlang once
- each participant (other than the organiser) gets to have their conlang translated out of once
- the last participant in each group has their text translated out of by the first participant in the other group; although they have seen the original English translation, it was a long time ago by this point, and their own original translation isn't part of the 'DNA' of the text they receive; this makes this final link more "genuine" than having the final text translated by the organiser, who not only saw the original English but also has seen the translation every step of the way.

Downsides:
- because the last translation is by someone who saw the original text, it's still not 'pure' in that sense. Ideally, you'd have four groups, split into pairs, translating two texts - that way, you could still have the 'comparing two versions of the same thing' effect, but nobody would have to see the same text twice; but of course, finding enough participants could be a problem
- the organiser doesn't get to do anything at all... (again, can be solved by having two texts, as the composer of one torch could be in the group translating the second torch)
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Re: CBB Conlang Relay XII - ONGOING (signups remain open)

Post by Man in Space »

Torch should be sent to you by midnight EST tonight. I’m just about done with it, just need to do a simple grammar write-up.
Twin Aster megathread

AVDIO · VIDEO · DISCO

CC = Common Caber
CK = Classical Khaya
CT = Classical Ĝare n Tim Ar
Kg = Kgáweq'
PB = Proto-Beheic
PO = Proto-O
PTa = Proto-Taltic
STK = Sisỏk Tlar Kyanà
Tm = Təmattwəspwaypksma
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Re: CBB Conlang Relay XII - ONGOING (signups remain open)

Post by Man in Space »

My apologies for the double-post, but the torch has been completed and remitted to Jackk.
Twin Aster megathread

AVDIO · VIDEO · DISCO

CC = Common Caber
CK = Classical Khaya
CT = Classical Ĝare n Tim Ar
Kg = Kgáweq'
PB = Proto-Beheic
PO = Proto-O
PTa = Proto-Taltic
STK = Sisỏk Tlar Kyanà
Tm = Təmattwəspwaypksma
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Re: CBB Conlang Relay XII - ONGOING (signups remain open)

Post by Salmoneus »

Congratulations, Ring 2!
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Re: CBB Conlang Relay XII - ONGOING (signups remain open)

Post by loglorn »

I mean if you get a really strict organizer, they wouldn't look at the partial translations along the way. Last time I ran one I only looked at the first four ones or so cause I wanted some fun translating from unknown languages still.

(Not to shade on jack, cause the cryptic updates one can give participants after looking at the partial translations are cool too)
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Re: CBB Conlang Relay XII - ONGOING (signups remain open)

Post by sasasha »

Hooray! This victory was obviously a 30th birthday present to me from the conlanging gods. [:3]
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Re: CBB Conlang Relay XII - ONGOING (signups remain open)

Post by shimobaatar »

sasasha wrote: 22 Aug 2020 19:14 Hooray! This victory was obviously a 30th birthday present to me from the conlanging gods. [:3]
Happy birthday!
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Re: CBB Conlang Relay XII - ONGOING (signups remain open)

Post by Jackk »

Final Wordcount of Ring 2:

83! [:D]
terram impūram incolāmus
hamteu un mont sug
let us live in a dirty world
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Re: CBB Conlang Relay XII - ONGOING (signups remain open)

Post by Salmoneus »

Well no wonder they won so easily - they've only translated the first half!
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Re: CBB Conlang Relay XII - ONGOING (signups remain open)

Post by Jackk »

Salmoneus wrote: 22 Aug 2020 21:52 Well no wonder they won so easily - they've only translated the first half!
[xD]

The initial text was only 97 words... we seem to have neatly grouped the participants into "will tend to translate tersely" and "will tend to translate verbosely", somehow! [:O]
terram impūram incolāmus
hamteu un mont sug
let us live in a dirty world
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Re: CBB Conlang Relay XII - ONGOING (signups remain open)

Post by DesEsseintes »

Torch sent to anonymous.
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Re: CBB Conlang Relay XII - ONGOING (signups remain open)

Post by anonymous123 »

DesEsseintes wrote: 23 Aug 2020 12:40 Torch sent to anonymous.
Torch received. Probably won't be able to work on it today but I'll get started as soon as possible.
ngąxayo peřwa a nałatą zehą, Irkąlą a tinąk a pehenątą zehą; nał a zehą, xąnituhąpąkałąpą he xąhatunąhąx; dą a zehą, xąnihąhaningnumąnwąpąnawe; nał a zehą, tan tukuhoyohoyopąnawe henąngahenąngatą a pwązi...
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Re: CBB Conlang Relay XII - ONGOING (signups remain open)

Post by Iyionaku »

Jackk wrote: 22 Aug 2020 21:57
Salmoneus wrote: 22 Aug 2020 21:52 Well no wonder they won so easily - they've only translated the first half!
[xD]

The initial text was only 97 words... we seem to have neatly grouped the participants into "will tend to translate tersely" and "will tend to translate verbosely", somehow! [:O]
Ok, that's super weird - when the text passed by me (and I was second or third in ring 2), my text had a whooping 117 words. So it went from 97 words up to 117, and then again down to 83. :wat:
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Re: CBB Conlang Relay XII - ONGOING (signups remain open)

Post by DesEsseintes »

Iyionaku wrote: 23 Aug 2020 17:06
Jackk wrote: 22 Aug 2020 21:57
Salmoneus wrote: 22 Aug 2020 21:52 Well no wonder they won so easily - they've only translated the first half!
[xD]

The initial text was only 97 words... we seem to have neatly grouped the participants into "will tend to translate tersely" and "will tend to translate verbosely", somehow! [:O]
Ok, that's super weird - when the text passed by me (and I was second or third in ring 2), my text had a whooping 117 words. So it went from 97 words up to 117, and then again down to 83. :wat:
My English translation of Loglorn’s torch was 217 words. I literally thought it would not end.
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Re: CBB Conlang Relay XII - ONGOING (signups remain open)

Post by shimobaatar »

Iyionaku wrote: 23 Aug 2020 17:06
Jackk wrote: 22 Aug 2020 21:57
Salmoneus wrote: 22 Aug 2020 21:52 Well no wonder they won so easily - they've only translated the first half!
[xD]

The initial text was only 97 words... we seem to have neatly grouped the participants into "will tend to translate tersely" and "will tend to translate verbosely", somehow! [:O]
Ok, that's super weird - when the text passed by me (and I was second or third in ring 2), my text had a whooping 117 words. So it went from 97 words up to 117, and then again down to 83. :wat:
Well, I personally have a tendency to be somewhat verbose, to borrow Jackk's word, so that initial bump is almost certainly my "fault", but I can't speak to what happened after my turn was over.

I went back to check out of curiosity: the text I was sent in Boral was 95 words, my English translation of the Boral text was 110 words, the text in Y²KS was 90 words, and my English translation of that was 109 words.
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Re: CBB Conlang Relay XII - ONGOING (signups remain open)

Post by Jackk »

I'm sure we'll see in plenty of detail what's been going on when we finish [B)]
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Re: CBB Conlang Relay XII - ONGOING (signups remain open)

Post by Salmoneus »

We probably shouldn't all post in detail too much at this stage, to avoid prejudicing the remaining translators (please, don't feel you need to bring it back down to 80 words!).

However, since I was shimo's "counterpart" in the other ring, I'll post a quick comparison:


Shimo's Boral text was 95 words. So was mine. Reassuringly!
Shimo's translation of the Boral was 110 words. I didn't write a fluent final translation of the Boral, but my notes - half proper translation, half just gloss - came to 108 words. So probably more or less the same length as Shimo's. Reassuringly!

Shimo's Y2KS translation brought it down to 90 words. My Old Wenthish, surprisingly to me, brought it up to 103. But thinking about it, although it's not a very analytic language in general, there's a couple of complex prepositions and a few grammatical particles in there, where other languages could easily cut corners, so I guess that makes sense to me.

Shimo's final translation was 109 words, very close to the original. My final translation, however, leapt all the way up to 130 words!

Looking at my translation, I think about 5 words are pure verbosity on my part (or, "making the translation flow better and remove ambiguity"). But another chunk is because I chose to translate some phrases into English more precisely, to show the style of the Old Wenthish, rather than choosing the most idiomatic modern English translation. If I "streamline" my English translation to a more concise and idiomatic translation of the Old Wenthish into English - if I were translating it as a book, for instance - then I get it back down to 108 words.


So I'd guess, assuming that Click translated rather literally, the Old Wenthish text probably added around 15-20 words of bloat to the Ring 1 torch. Although, to be fair, some of the bloat was of a kind that there'd be a high probability of a later translator cutting back out!

[what I mean is - and no, this ISN'T a real example from my text, but an obvious analogy in English: some languages are likely to translate "X's Y" as "the Y of X", and that adds two words immediately, if you translate that back into English literally; but you'd expect that at some point the torch would then reach someone whose language automatically translates a "the Y of X" construction back into "X's Y", so you wouldn't expect that sort of thing to add TOO much over the run of the torch]

-------------------


I'd guess that there's two main reasons for massive bloat, assuming it's not just very gradually accreted.

Firstly, the torch can run into someone whose language has obligatory marking of some category, and everyone else faithfully introduces obligatory marking. A big culprit can be evidentiality - suddenly every "he ate the fish" becomes an "according to popular knowledge, he ate the fish". Similarly, complicated tense marking can be an issue in this way, and you find yourself with "more than a day but less than three weeks ago..." appended to every sentence. And if you have a language with status-indexing personal pronouns, each "I hate you" can turn into "I, who am older, and yet much worse paid, than you, hate you, O person whose mother is a doctor yet whose Imperial Examination results are notably below average!"...

Secondly, the opposite can happen. When a torch runs into someone whose language doesn't have morphological marking for a certain category, they can try to indicate it through periphrasis, and everyone else faithfully copies it. So "I ate the fish" becomes "In the past, I ate the fish".




I'm actually a bit more curious how Ring 2 manages to make the translation shorter - since the Boral, compared to English, is not hugely baroque. Well, I guess we'll find out, eventually...
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