Another odd idea: a creole made up of portmaneaus?

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xBlackWolfx
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Another odd idea: a creole made up of portmaneaus?

Post by xBlackWolfx »

I dont think portmaneau is the precise word i'm looking for, it's more like creating a word for a language based on the equivalent word in other languages, like how lojban generated it's vocabulary.

In my case, the vocabulary would be based on romance and germanic languages. I was toying with the idea after reading stuff about euro-centric conlangs and interlingua. But i found i liked how it looked and sounded so I'm considering fleshing it out.

The vocabulary is essentially words from various romance and germanic languages mixed into one. For example, the word 'mand' is based on the Germanic word 'hand' and the romance word 'mano'. And the word 'av' would be based on Germanic 'have/habe' and the French word 'avoir'.

But this doesnt seem to work very often. For example, how do you combine the romantic word 'langue/lingua' with the germanic 'speech/sprache'? And some of the words I'm conjuring up arent exactly very good blends. The word for 'cloth' is 'clok (pronounced like English cloak, it is also based partially on the esperanto word tuko)' which sounds nice to me though it doesnt really fit with the theme of the language. I was more invisioning something like a creole. But with the way it's heading, it'll just end up being some fictional relative of the germanic languages.

How do creoles develop anyway? How in the world do they generate their vocabularies?
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MrKrov
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Re: Another odd idea: a creole made up of portmaneaus?

Post by MrKrov »

I do know it's not by portmanteaus. The lexicon bit is where they normally just import it from one of the langs.

If you insist on portmanteaus than the word you're looking for to match langue/lingua is "tongue".
BagelBomb
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Re: Another odd idea: a creole made up of portmaneaus?

Post by BagelBomb »

Hehe, "tongua". I like it.
xBlackWolfx
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Re: Another odd idea: a creole made up of portmaneaus?

Post by xBlackWolfx »

actually most of the words will only be one syllable maybe two. i was thinking of using 'lang' to mean 'language', but 'tang' sounds better to me. but i was planning on naming the language 'urolang' (uro being short for urope, which obviously means europe), urotang doesnt sound as nice to me. edit: eh what the heck? the name was more meant to be a joke than anything else. how in the world do ppl decide what to name their language?

irregardless, i like this project and i'll definitly continue it.
Khemehekis
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Re: Another odd idea: a creole made up of portmaneaus?

Post by Khemehekis »

Someone used to have a website called Conlangs of Destruction, with such tongues as Mushroomese, that followed a similar idea except they combined two English words. "The heavens and the earth", for instance, was, "the heavana and the earld".
♂♥♂♀

Squirrels chase koi . . . chase squirrels

My Kankonian-English dictionary: 86,336 words and counting

31,416: The number of the conlanging beast!
kadani
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Re: Another odd idea: a creole made up of portmaneaus?

Post by kadani »

Incidentally, someone does this but between Basque and Finnish: http://miresua.wordpress.com/
Q: Il'isa sike'han suntes?
A: Xe'isa sike'han Sike'tes... kali.

In contrast to popular perception, I do have a life. I just choose to spend it conlanging.

Fluent: :deu: :eng:, intermediate: :epo:, learning: :rus:, interested in :tur: :con: Volapük
xBlackWolfx
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Re: Another odd idea: a creole made up of portmaneaus?

Post by xBlackWolfx »

Well my conlang is coming along fine, i have the phonology finalized and already conjured up more than 100 words. Here's some sample sentences:

Mje gir a men mobi: I am going to my car.

Ke tu var a gir a ten daum: Do you want to go home/your house?
*normaly it would be ak as in var ak sparl (want to speak) but since the verb begins with a velar plosive shortening it to simple 'a' sounds better

Ke men gat est ku: Where is my cat?
*word order doesnt change in questions. also note that all questions begin with ke even if they have an interrogative pronoun. though in such a case ke is pronounced sepertely from the sentence, like there's a comma after it.

Da kar girat asunden da mobi: The dog went under that car.
*da actually means that(over there) but it's sometimes used like the English word 'the'

What do you think?
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