A Collaborative Stone-Age Conlang

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GoshDiggityDangit
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A Collaborative Stone-Age Conlang

Post by GoshDiggityDangit »

Is anyone interested in doing a collaborative conlang? All I know for it is that it is spoken in the Stone-Ages of a temperate equatorial land on a distant planet inhabited by beings so similar to humans as to make the distinction unnecessary. If there are people who want to, I can set up a Discord Server, Google Document, or we can work on it here. I could also do all of those!
“Like billowing clouds, Like the incessant gurgle of the brook,
The longing of the spirit can never be stilled.” ― St. Hildegard von Bingen
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Re: A Collaborative Stone-Age Conlang

Post by Allekanger »

I am interested! I'm quite into prehistory and the Stone Age lifestyle in general, so I think it could be fun helping create something from that inspiration. I have never collaborated in conlanging before though, but I'm really excited about it! [:)]

Is the Stone Age setting in the temperate equatorial area a background for further development of a culture speaking the language (i.e. mapping out the generalities of the environment they live in, their society etc), or is it more of a temporal and geographical limit regarding, say, vocabulary (i.e. no words for later inventions such as machines or unknown phenomena such as Northern lights)? What I mean to ask is: will there be elements of conlandscaping/conculturing, too, or is it strictly a collaboration on the language itself? I sense myself rooting for the former. [tick]

I had to look up what Discord Server is, but I think it seems helpful having that. And maybe a Google folder of some kind, for keeping notes.
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Re: A Collaborative Stone-Age Conlang

Post by GoshDiggityDangit »

Allekanger wrote: 27 Dec 2019 17:05 I am interested! I'm quite into prehistory and the Stone Age lifestyle in general, so I think it could be fun helping create something from that inspiration. I have never collaborated in conlanging before though, but I'm really excited about it! [:)]
Count yourself in then!
Allekanger wrote: 27 Dec 2019 17:05Is the Stone Age setting in the temperate equatorial area a background for further development of a culture speaking the language (i.e. mapping out the generalities of the environment they live in, their society etc), or is it more of a temporal and geographical limit regarding, say, vocabulary (i.e. no words for later inventions such as machines or unknown phenomena such as Northern lights)? What I mean to ask is: will there be elements of conlandscaping/conculturing, too, or is it strictly a collaboration on the language itself?
It is both, to give people as much or as little guidance as they want.
“Like billowing clouds, Like the incessant gurgle of the brook,
The longing of the spirit can never be stilled.” ― St. Hildegard von Bingen
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Re: A Collaborative Stone-Age Conlang

Post by GoshDiggityDangit »

Deleted
Last edited by GoshDiggityDangit on 30 Dec 2019 07:47, edited 1 time in total.
“Like billowing clouds, Like the incessant gurgle of the brook,
The longing of the spirit can never be stilled.” ― St. Hildegard von Bingen
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Re: A Collaborative Stone-Age Conlang

Post by Whitewings »

Is this for a coastal, plains, forest, or what? Many of the First Nations had no concept of a sea, others knew little else. Personally, I'd like to submit a phonology and phonotactics I like.

t d k
θ ð
r
l

i iː u uː
e eː o oː
a aː

Romanization
a e i o u
r l k d t th ð

Vowel hiatus and synaeresis are universal, with a macron to mark a long vowel.

Syllable structure
(C)V

Only pronouns and dedicated modifiers may be single syllables.

Morpheme structure
V.((C)V)

A root word can consist of up to three morphemes.

I know morpheme is almost certainly wrong, but it's the least wrong term I can think of.
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Re: A Collaborative Stone-Age Conlang

Post by GoshDiggityDangit »

Whitewings wrote: 29 Dec 2019 07:14 Is this for a coastal, plains, forest, or what? Many of the First Nations had no concept of a sea, others knew little else.
I was thinking coast and plains.
Whitewings wrote: 29 Dec 2019 07:14 Personally, I'd like to submit a phonology and phonotactics I like.

t d k
θ ð
r
l

i iː u uː
e eː o oː
a aː

Romanization
a e i o u
r l k d t th ð

Vowel hiatus and synaeresis are universal, with a macron to mark a long vowel.

Syllable structure
(C)V

Only pronouns and dedicated modifiers may be single syllables.

Morpheme structure
V.((C)V)

A root word can consist of up to three morphemes.

I know morpheme is almost certainly wrong, but it's the least wrong term I can think of.
It’s cute! I had another one, maybe we can come to a compromise.
“Like billowing clouds, Like the incessant gurgle of the brook,
The longing of the spirit can never be stilled.” ― St. Hildegard von Bingen
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Re: A Collaborative Stone-Age Conlang

Post by GoshDiggityDangit »

My idea for the phonology:

m n m̩ n̩ <m n m n>
t t’ d k k’ g q q’ ʔ <t t’ d c c’ q q’ 7>
f v v̩ s z z̩ x X <f v v s z z x X>
ð ð̩ <ð ð>
l w <l w>
i iː u uː <i í u ú>
e eː o oː <e é o ó>
a aː <a á>

l > ɬ / Vː_
CC̩ > Cə̆C̩ / C=C
C̥C̬̩ > C̥C̥̩
i(ː) > ɪ(ː) / unstressed
u(ː) > ʊ(ː) / unstressed
e(ː) > ɛ(ː) / unstressed

(C)V(G)
V: vowels and syllabic consonants
G: fricatives, liquids, and nasals
[X] doesn’t occur in coda position

Fixed Initial Stress
“Like billowing clouds, Like the incessant gurgle of the brook,
The longing of the spirit can never be stilled.” ― St. Hildegard von Bingen
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Re: A Collaborative Stone-Age Conlang

Post by GoshDiggityDangit »

I was thinking that these fellas could be seafaring, perhaps settling on some local islands, like the Chumash. I also think they should be in a parallel PN (Pottery Neolithic) period.
“Like billowing clouds, Like the incessant gurgle of the brook,
The longing of the spirit can never be stilled.” ― St. Hildegard von Bingen
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Re: A Collaborative Stone-Age Conlang

Post by k1234567890y »

hello

I want to make some proposals for the grammar:

1. SOV as the basic word order
2. postpositions instead of prepositions
3. the nonexistence of nominal cases
4. adjectives are nouns essentially meaning "someone/something that is...", thus adjectives modifying nouns are actually appositions meaning "X, (the) one being ADJ"
5. no definiteness marking, definiteness is determined by the context or by the use of demonstratives
6. isolating morphology without any inflectional affixes, that is, particles, adverbs, word order and context are important in determining grammatical information, but there might still be derivational affixes.
7. pro-dropping: personal pronouns are dropped when the persons can be inferred from the context
8. serial verb construction: multiple VPs can stack in the sentence.
9. clause-final conjunctions
10. preverbal relative clause without the need of complementizers or relativizers
11. the existence of copulae, that is, verbs with the meaning "to be"
12. predicative possession being constructed through the structure "X is with Y" instead of "X has Y", and there's no verb corresponding to English "to have", "to own", "to possess", etc.
13. the plural or collective form of nouns and the frequentative form of verbs are marked by full reduplication
14. considering that they are probably in a Pottery Neolithic era, they probably had developed agriculture, either horticulture or animal husbandry or both, it is likely that they would have a more sophisticated counting system(hunter-gatherers don't normally count as they don't normall have many belongings, and the numerals of the language of uncontacted hunter-gatherers are usually restricted and don't go up to something like 3 or 5, languages of hunter-gatherers that have constant interaction with agriculturalist communities may have a numeral system that go up to something like 10 though), I propose that they have a decimal system with 20 being derived from "person" or "whole body"(because a normal person has ten fingers and ten toes) and there are distinct suffix for "-ty"(i.e. thirty, fourty, etc.) than the word for "ten"
15. distrubitive numerals are marked by full reduplication.
16. the language is secundative, that is, the direct object for ditransitive verbs with the meaning "to give", "to send", etc. is the recipient, and the thing given is dealt as the instrument of the verb.

also proposal of personal pronouns:

- 1st sg(I, me): ka
- 2nd sg(you): ta
- 1st pl(we, us): kaka
- 2nd pl(you, y'all): tata
Last edited by k1234567890y on 30 Dec 2019 11:42, edited 2 times in total.
I prefer to not be referred to with masculine pronouns and nouns such as “he/him/his”.
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Re: A Collaborative Stone-Age Conlang

Post by GoshDiggityDangit »

1-5 sound good to me.
6; I think that there should be a little inflectional marking on verbs, but otherwise it sounds good.
7-13 sound good.
14; I like the system, but the suffix should be transparently related to ten. I was thinking about it, maybe it could be a shortened form of the word for “five” reduplicated and stuck to the end of the numerals. If it’s not one of those, it would catch me as unnatural.
15 and 16 sound good.

The reduplicated pronouns are throwing me off, but I like the forms. I’ve never seen that before!
“Like billowing clouds, Like the incessant gurgle of the brook,
The longing of the spirit can never be stilled.” ― St. Hildegard von Bingen
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Re: A Collaborative Stone-Age Conlang

Post by GoshDiggityDangit »

Deleted.
Last edited by GoshDiggityDangit on 07 Jul 2020 10:34, edited 1 time in total.
“Like billowing clouds, Like the incessant gurgle of the brook,
The longing of the spirit can never be stilled.” ― St. Hildegard von Bingen
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Re: A Collaborative Stone-Age Conlang

Post by k1234567890y »

well I am mainly here to give ideas.

Also for 6. if you want some inflections on verbs, what would the categories be?

And for 14, yeah maybe the "-ty" affix should be at least etymologically related to "ten", but you decide what to do.
I prefer to not be referred to with masculine pronouns and nouns such as “he/him/his”.
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Re: A Collaborative Stone-Age Conlang

Post by GoshDiggityDangit »

k1234567890y wrote: 30 Dec 2019 11:37 Also for 6. if you want some inflections on verbs, what would the categories be?
I was thinking a bit of TAM and some person-marking. For number seven, you suggested pro-drop. I was thinking that perhaps for a parent-child register, there could be explicit person-marking on the verb. And for the adult register, or whatever, person-marking isn’t used at all.
“Like billowing clouds, Like the incessant gurgle of the brook,
The longing of the spirit can never be stilled.” ― St. Hildegard von Bingen
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Re: A Collaborative Stone-Age Conlang

Post by k1234567890y »

GoshDiggityDangit wrote: 30 Dec 2019 22:48
k1234567890y wrote: 30 Dec 2019 11:37 Also for 6. if you want some inflections on verbs, what would the categories be?
I was thinking a bit of TAM and some person-marking. For number seven, you suggested pro-drop. I was thinking that perhaps for a parent-child register, there could be explicit person-marking on the verb. And for the adult register, or whatever, person-marking isn’t used at all.
can we have no person markings at all? or?
I prefer to not be referred to with masculine pronouns and nouns such as “he/him/his”.
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GoshDiggityDangit
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Re: A Collaborative Stone-Age Conlang

Post by GoshDiggityDangit »

k1234567890y wrote: 31 Dec 2019 01:34
GoshDiggityDangit wrote: 30 Dec 2019 22:48
k1234567890y wrote: 30 Dec 2019 11:37 Also for 6. if you want some inflections on verbs, what would the categories be?
I was thinking a bit of TAM and some person-marking. For number seven, you suggested pro-drop. I was thinking that perhaps for a parent-child register, there could be explicit person-marking on the verb. And for the adult register, or whatever, person-marking isn’t used at all.
can we have no person markings at all? or?
Of course, it was just an idea I had.
“Like billowing clouds, Like the incessant gurgle of the brook,
The longing of the spirit can never be stilled.” ― St. Hildegard von Bingen
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Re: A Collaborative Stone-Age Conlang

Post by GoshDiggityDangit »

I’ve got the Discord set up!
https://discord.gg/PRF3xtM
“Like billowing clouds, Like the incessant gurgle of the brook,
The longing of the spirit can never be stilled.” ― St. Hildegard von Bingen
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Re: A Collaborative Stone-Age Conlang

Post by k1234567890y »

one new proposal:

"first", the ordinal number for "one", is not related to the cardinal form of "one"
I prefer to not be referred to with masculine pronouns and nouns such as “he/him/his”.
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Re: A Collaborative Stone-Age Conlang

Post by GoshDiggityDangit »

To get things moving, I will use a coin to decide our phonology. Heads is mine, tails is Whitewings.

We are using my phonology.
“Like billowing clouds, Like the incessant gurgle of the brook,
The longing of the spirit can never be stilled.” ― St. Hildegard von Bingen
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Re: A Collaborative Stone-Age Conlang

Post by GoshDiggityDangit »

We’ve made a lot of progress! If you want to see some of it before I (or one of the others) post about it, join the Discord!
https://discord.gg/PRF3xtM
(Ignore Steve)
“Like billowing clouds, Like the incessant gurgle of the brook,
The longing of the spirit can never be stilled.” ― St. Hildegard von Bingen
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