What languages influence your conlangs?

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Avjunza
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Re: what languages influence your conlangs?

Post by Avjunza »

Probably Te Reo and other Polynesian langs, Quechua, and recently Ancient Greek.
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Pabappa
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Re: What languages influence your conlangs?

Post by Pabappa »

Poswa and Pabappa are baby talk.

The first sketch of what I now call Pabappa is from a story I wrote when I was 11 years old. It was the first story I wrote in which the child superheros explore a new planet and meet up with children younger than themselves, and those kids turn out to have superpowers too. I gave them a language to match their young age. I had plans even back then that the language would be superficially simple (i.e. its phonology) but grammatically complex. However, in that novel, I only wrote three sentences in the language and derived a dozen or so personal names. Then I abandoned the language.

The new Pabappa still sounds like baby talk, of course, but now I have a proper grammar to go with it. No one language in particular has influenced me,.... it's a broadly European grammar with a few quirks that may or may not exist in the wild.

Poswa is far more extreme than Pabappa. The phonology is even more like baby talk than Pabappa's is (sample here), and the grammar is mind-bendingly complex. I wrote that Poswa is "A serious conlang hiding behind a very silly phonology. This could well be the language that babies all around the world speak, its grammar so impenetrably complex that we adults can only listen and wonder."

Grammatically this language takes influences from all around the world, though I've ended up rejecting ideas that didn't fit cleanly into the whole. If I had to pick just one language I'd say Inuktitut, because Poswa is polysynthetic and any clause in Poswa is grammatically equivalent to a single word. But I dont know that much about Inuktitut, so really I would say Poswa is not based on Inuktitut, but rather on what I imagine Inuktitut to be. For example, I somehow acquired the mistaken notion that Inuktitut has no pronouns, and so Poswa doesn't have pronouns either.

That leaves Moonshine. Another language I started in my childhood, I based it on what I knew then of Latin and Hungarian, with some influences from Hebrew. But again, this was pre-Internet and much of what I came up with did not resemble those languages in reality, but rather how I imagined them to work. Why did I pick Hungarian? Because I've long noticed that Hungarian is very space-efficient, often being the shortest entry when a given text is translated into multiple languages, and has independent coinages even for proper nouns, like Baktérítő "Tropic of Capricorn".

The new Moonshine has again moved away from my original goals so long ago, but I'd say that unlike Poswa it retains a strong European influence in both its phonology and grammar, though I'm only just now working out the basics of the grammar as I've uprooted everything I came up with when I was young in order to make the language fit snugly into its family tree.
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Nmmali
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Re: What languages influence your conlangs?

Post by Nmmali »

Pabappa wrote: 06 Sep 2020 19:02 The new Moonshine has again moved away from my original goals so long ago, but I'd say that unlike Poswa it retains a strong European influence in both its phonology and grammar, though I'm only just now working out the basics of the grammar as I've uprooted everything I came up with when I was young in order to make the language fit snugly into its family tree.
I think I can sympathize; it may not be the same circumstances, but my goals have changed within the past year or so, and so mine seems less broadly SAE-ish. I'm trying to get it down to be a combination of Japanese and what's typical of Germanic languages... with mixed results.
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Re: What languages influence your conlangs?

Post by Iyionaku »

Paatherye is an Indo-European conlang located in its own branch, but I didn't create it systematically; instead, I took from each branch what I liked.
The ablaut system comes from Germanic languages and the two adjectival declination patterns are specifically German. The phonology is closely modeled towards Indo-Aryan languages, specifically Sanskrit (but I dropped /o/ for good measure). The case system is its own development, lacking Instrumental but retaining a hypothetical Allative case. The verbal conjugation, with its combination of inflectional forms and auxillary verbs, is derived from Italic languages, while the distinction between normal past and retold past is from French. The negative verb comes from a non-IE language though (Finnish).
Lastly, the vocabulary is a mixture between Baltic languages, Sanskrit, direct derivations from PIE and three substrat conlangs: Bath'aso, Amaderic (an old Bengali rip-off) and an ad-hoc derivation conlang.
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GoshDiggityDangit
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Re: What languages influence your conlangs?

Post by GoshDiggityDangit »

Catralian takes its aesthetics from Latin, but its grammar is something I came up with myself. The influences on grammar from real-world languages are too many to count.
Kumarian is inspired by Tamil, Sinhala, and Japanese in particular.
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anonymous123
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Re: What languages influence your conlangs?

Post by anonymous123 »

Awatese is from an in-world language, but takes its inspiration from Austronesian and Amazonian languages. Honestly it's hard to tell at this point though lol

Canocua is obv from Iroquoian languages and I strive to achieve that general aesthetic with it
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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KaiTheHomoSapien
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Re: What languages influence your conlangs?

Post by KaiTheHomoSapien »

Lihmelinyan is primarily based on PIE reconstructions by Sihler and Ringe and takes special influence from Hittite. Sanskrit has also been an influence.

Arculese is also based on PIE, but on later PIE and specifically Italo-Celtic. It takes influence from Latin, Gaulish, and Sabellic.
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DV82LECM
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Re: What languages influence your conlangs?

Post by DV82LECM »

Japanese, Lakota, Muskogean, Greek, Latin.
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LinguoFranco
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Re: What languages influence your conlangs?

Post by LinguoFranco »

My first ever conlang was a mix of Spanish and Nahuatl. I didn't actually know any Nahuatl, so the language was actually based on the names I got from reading books, when some of the phonemes didn't exist in Classical Nahuatl, so it was based more on what I thought it sounded like.

Hecorajo (now defunct) started out based on Spanish, but incorporated some English phonology. It had most of the same consonants as English, but with Spanish vowels.

One of my main projects was an attempt to combine the elements I liked from Japanese and Nahuatl.
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eldin raigmore
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Re: What languages influence your conlangs?

Post by eldin raigmore »

Can’t really say.
Adpihi is supposed to have Japanese syntax, Semitic morphology, and Polynesian roots.
I guess though it’s really a kitchen-sink.

Ataivsh is an experimental engelang.
Edit: Arpien is an experimental engelang! Ataivsh is the conworld it’s spoken on.
Its lexicon and I guess its phonology and phonotactics are “influenced” by Polish, or meant to be.

The fact that I don’t know any of the above languages may cause me trouble.
Last edited by eldin raigmore on 01 Jul 2023 20:33, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: What languages influence your conlangs?

Post by WeepingElf »

Old Albic: Proto-Indo-European, Hittite, Georgian and Insular Celtic. Also, Quenya.
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MissTerry
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Re: What languages influence your conlangs?

Post by MissTerry »

Ancient Vedic Sanskrit. 90% of my conlang's words and roots and affixes are derived from the Sanskrit spectrum [spectrum meaning from ancient Vedic Sanskrit to modern Sanskrit]. Latin was a minor influence, as well as Esperanto. Like Sanskrit, my conlang has a little over 1,500 Dhatus [root/seed words] with which you can build and create new words as needed. I have a bunch of grammatically regular affixes. And about 15,000 base words. All of which can be snapped together to build up to 100,000 words as needed.
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eldin raigmore
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Re: What languages influence your conlangs?

Post by eldin raigmore »

MissTerry wrote: 14 Apr 2022 07:08 …. I have a bunch of grammatically regular affixes. ….
About how many of each kind of affix? And what are the limits to how many affixes a single word can contain?
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Lorik
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Re: What languages influence your conlangs?

Post by Lorik »

My now abandoned conlangs Lohdan and Adunî were inspired by Romance languages and also by Tolkien's conlangs in general. My newest conlang, Лохдан, is essentially Lohdan and Adunî mixed together with influence from Russian (and a bit from Portuguese too).
Native: :bra: | Fluent: :eng: :fra: | Intermediate: :rus:
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MissTerry
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Re: What languages influence your conlangs?

Post by MissTerry »

eldin raigmore wrote: 14 Apr 2022 14:05
MissTerry wrote: 14 Apr 2022 07:08 …. I have a bunch of grammatically regular affixes. ….
About how many of each kind of affix? And what are the limits to how many affixes a single word can contain?
I have a small handful of prefixes and suffixes, and very few number of infixes. The most I've used was 3 affixes with a word [or 4 if the affix is a single letter].
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Re: What languages influence your conlangs?

Post by Khemehekis »

MissTerry wrote: 14 Apr 2022 07:08 Ancient Vedic Sanskrit. 90% of my conlang's words and roots and affixes are derived from the Sanskrit spectrum [spectrum meaning from ancient Vedic Sanskrit to modern Sanskrit]. Latin was a minor influence, as well as Esperanto. Like Sanskrit, my conlang has a little over 1,500 Dhatus [root/seed words] with which you can build and create new words as needed. I have a bunch of grammatically regular affixes. And about 15,000 base words. All of which can be snapped together to build up to 100,000 words as needed.
Hey, that's great! You can add your conlang to https://www.frathwiki.com/Conlangs_with ... ,000_words
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Squirrels chase koi . . . chase squirrels

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

31,416: The number of the conlanging beast!
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MissTerry
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Re: What languages influence your conlangs?

Post by MissTerry »

Khemehekis wrote: 21 Apr 2022 02:40
MissTerry wrote: 14 Apr 2022 07:08 Ancient Vedic Sanskrit. 90% of my conlang's words and roots and affixes are derived from the Sanskrit spectrum [spectrum meaning from ancient Vedic Sanskrit to modern Sanskrit]. Latin was a minor influence, as well as Esperanto. Like Sanskrit, my conlang has a little over 1,500 Dhatus [root/seed words] with which you can build and create new words as needed. I have a bunch of grammatically regular affixes. And about 15,000 base words. All of which can be snapped together to build up to 100,000 words as needed.
Hey, that's great! You can add your conlang to https://www.frathwiki.com/Conlangs_with ... ,000_words
That's an interesting idea! I didn't know that page existed! I requested an account. If I get one, I'll figure out how to add my conlang to that list! Thank you!
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Re: What languages influence your conlangs?

Post by Khemehekis »

MissTerry wrote: 21 Apr 2022 03:38
Khemehekis wrote: 21 Apr 2022 02:40
MissTerry wrote: 14 Apr 2022 07:08 Ancient Vedic Sanskrit. 90% of my conlang's words and roots and affixes are derived from the Sanskrit spectrum [spectrum meaning from ancient Vedic Sanskrit to modern Sanskrit]. Latin was a minor influence, as well as Esperanto. Like Sanskrit, my conlang has a little over 1,500 Dhatus [root/seed words] with which you can build and create new words as needed. I have a bunch of grammatically regular affixes. And about 15,000 base words. All of which can be snapped together to build up to 100,000 words as needed.
Hey, that's great! You can add your conlang to https://www.frathwiki.com/Conlangs_with ... ,000_words
That's an interesting idea! I didn't know that page existed! I requested an account. If I get one, I'll figure out how to add my conlang to that list! Thank you!
You're welcome! Hope to see you on FrathWiki soon! It's a great wiki!
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Squirrels chase koi . . . chase squirrels

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

31,416: The number of the conlanging beast!
Khemehekis
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Re: What languages influence your conlangs?

Post by Khemehekis »

MissTerry wrote: 21 Apr 2022 03:38
Khemehekis wrote: 21 Apr 2022 02:40
MissTerry wrote: 14 Apr 2022 07:08 Ancient Vedic Sanskrit. 90% of my conlang's words and roots and affixes are derived from the Sanskrit spectrum [spectrum meaning from ancient Vedic Sanskrit to modern Sanskrit]. Latin was a minor influence, as well as Esperanto. Like Sanskrit, my conlang has a little over 1,500 Dhatus [root/seed words] with which you can build and create new words as needed. I have a bunch of grammatically regular affixes. And about 15,000 base words. All of which can be snapped together to build up to 100,000 words as needed.
Hey, that's great! You can add your conlang to https://www.frathwiki.com/Conlangs_with ... ,000_words
That's an interesting idea! I didn't know that page existed! I requested an account. If I get one, I'll figure out how to add my conlang to that list! Thank you!
Congrats on your new FrathWiki userpage!
♂♥♂♀

Squirrels chase koi . . . chase squirrels

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

31,416: The number of the conlanging beast!
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MissTerry
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Re: What languages influence your conlangs?

Post by MissTerry »

Khemehekis wrote: 24 Apr 2022 06:00
MissTerry wrote: 21 Apr 2022 03:38
Khemehekis wrote: 21 Apr 2022 02:40
MissTerry wrote: 14 Apr 2022 07:08 Ancient Vedic Sanskrit. 90% of my conlang's words and roots and affixes are derived from the Sanskrit spectrum [spectrum meaning from ancient Vedic Sanskrit to modern Sanskrit]. Latin was a minor influence, as well as Esperanto. Like Sanskrit, my conlang has a little over 1,500 Dhatus [root/seed words] with which you can build and create new words as needed. I have a bunch of grammatically regular affixes. And about 15,000 base words. All of which can be snapped together to build up to 100,000 words as needed.
Hey, that's great! You can add your conlang to https://www.frathwiki.com/Conlangs_with ... ,000_words
That's an interesting idea! I didn't know that page existed! I requested an account. If I get one, I'll figure out how to add my conlang to that list! Thank you!
Congrats on your new FrathWiki userpage!
Whoohoo! Thanks! I'm going to figure out how to add my conlang to that list you provided! It'll take me a while. I hope to contribute things there.
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