Descending a conlang from English

[TBPO]

Do you ever tried to descend your conlang from English?

[VaptuantaDoi]

Do you ever tried to descend your conlang from English?

Yes.

[Arayaz]

Do you ever tried to descend your conlang from English?

Yep! Many people have tried their hand at it, including many on this board. I've never done it from Modern English, but I have done it from Old English.

[Khemehekis]

TBPO, if you're interested in future Englishes, you may want to look at Taylor Selseth's work. He posted as TaylorS here.

[Salmoneus]

The problem with future English languages in my experience is twofold.

Firstly, if the timeframe is only a few hundred years, the result is basically just English with a different accent. If the timeframe is thousands of years you can create a distinctly new language... but then the attraction of having it be descended from English is lost, because it could be any Germanic language. Finding that sweet spot where it's recognisably English-descended, yet distinct enough to be interesting, is really tricky.

Secondly, it's difficult if not outright impossible to devise a plausible future-history for a language set, say, two thousand years from now.


I've put quite a bit of work into English conlangs for around 500 years from now, which with a lot of handwaving I feel I can create a vaguely plausible world for, but the results (as you might expect from looking at English of 500 years ago) are always disappointingly tame.

[TBPO]

My newest Future English, Tsándydrj Gałáttich spoken in Dimension 0 of Alterverse, is mainly a concept in my head and I use it when I need. I developed only 2 phrases in this conlang:
Ńtygałáttich Psíslfys - Intergalactic Special Forces
Tsándydrj Gałáttich - Standard Galactic
Many people speak this language, but there are so many colonised planets that it developed into thousands separated language families (all belonging into Galactic family, Tsándydrj Gałáttich belonging into Inlish superfamily).

[Visions1]

Firstly, if the timeframe is only a few hundred years, the result is basically just English with a different accent.

Honestly, I'm a bit surprised. I have difficulty understanding broad Aussie English. I imagine that after even 200 years, in isolation it could become downright unintelligible. (Of course, that's assuming isolation.)

Still, I mean, I kind of see what you mean, assuming a globalized world and/or a more standard variant of English.

[lsd]

most conlangs are descended from English,
or from the L1 of its creator,
but it's not time that has corrupted it,
but rather a sick mind that wanted to escape from it...

[VaptuantaDoi]

most conlangs are descended from English,
or from the L1 of its creator,
but it's not time that has corrupted it,
but rather a sick mind that wanted to escape from it...

Sure thing buddy

[Visions1]

most conlangs are descended from English,
or from the L1 of its creator,
but it's not time that has corrupted it,
but rather a sick mind that wanted to escape from it...

Sure thing buddy

No really. I see this all the time in my conlangs (and I've seen a fair few of you guys complain about it too).
LSD is saying that our own linguistic background can bias our conlanging. For example, I notice most conlangs here are VO. Three guesses why - we all can speak English.

[VaptuantaDoi]

most conlangs are descended from English,
or from the L1 of its creator,
but it's not time that has corrupted it,
but rather a sick mind that wanted to escape from it...

Sure thing buddy

No really. I see this all the time in my conlangs (and I've seen a fair few of you guys complain about it too).
LSD is saying that our own linguistic background can bias our conlanging. For example, I notice most conlangs here are VO. Three guesses why - we all can speak English.

So that means we're all "sick minds"?

[Visions1]

I'd say yes. Maybe not you - I'm jealous of your ability to wrap your head around really non-Old-World languages - but at least plenty of us.
And forgive me, but that bias is there even still. Bias creeps in subconsciously. We can become aware of it and strive to decrease it, but like it or not, we speak and know what we do, and that affects our art.
I wouldn't have worded it the way LSD did. But if you look past the phrasing, it makes a lot of sense.

[lsd]

So that means we're all "sick minds"?

aren't we here for clanging...

[WeepingElf]

No really. I see this all the time in my conlangs (and I've seen a fair few of you guys complain about it too).
LSD is saying that our own linguistic background can bias our conlanging. For example, I notice most conlangs here are VO. Three guesses why - we all can speak English.

Surely, no conlanger is free of linguistic bias. The language I fell in love with when I learned it in school, and has informed my conlang style ever since, was Latin, and I openly admit that Old Albic has a European ring to it - it is an Indo-European language, and incorporates ideas from Hittite, Insular Celtic and Kartvelian, i.e. languages from the edges of Europe - but well, it is set in Europe (the British Isles around 600 BC, to be more precise), so I think I am doing nothing wrong here.

[Visions1]

It's no sin to have bias in art. I think in traditional forms of art, it's actually a good thing - genres can't develop unless a bunch of people do the same thing.
It's only a problem if you want to do something else.

[WeepingElf]

To get back to the topic, my science fiction worldbuilding project "The Trellis", set a few hundred years in the future, will feature a "Celestial English", which, however, will not be much farther removed from today's English than today's English is from Shakespeare's English. The real conlanging challenges are set by the alien sapient species of the Trellis. Alas, that project is currently not active, as I am focussing on my solarpunk stories and the Elvenpath right now, though I am slowly collecting ideas for it.

[Salmoneus]

I'd say yes. Maybe not you - I'm jealous of your ability to wrap your head around really non-Old-World languages - but at least plenty of us.
And forgive me, but that bias is there even still. Bias creeps in subconsciously. We can become aware of it and strive to decrease it, but like it or not, we speak and know what we do, and that affects our art.
I wouldn't have worded it the way LSD did. But if you look past the phrasing, it makes a lot of sense.

I'm not sure what I've done to offend you, but clearly I've pissed you off somehow - we all have - because going up to somebody and accusing them of having a "sick mind" is not a polite thing to do. I'm baffled by why you would try to start a flamewar on such a seemingly inoffensive topic.

Nor do I understand why you're accusing me of "bias". Am I a judge? Am I a reporter? If not, how can I be "biased" - what judgment or account have I given that is unfair or unjustly unrepresentative? Who am I biased against? What sort of prejudice do I supposedly have exactly and how is it manifested in conlanging? Who is it who has a right that I am violating exactly? Are you saying I'm racist, sexist, transphobic... what, exactly?

This seems like vastly and inaccurately inflammatory language.

[Salmoneus]

Firstly, if the timeframe is only a few hundred years, the result is basically just English with a different accent.

Honestly, I'm a bit surprised. I have difficulty understanding broad Aussie English. I imagine that after even 200 years, in isolation it could become downright unintelligible. (Of course, that's assuming isolation.)

If you'll excuse my diseased soul contaminating your thought process: whether you can understand Australians depends entirely on whether you have met many Australians (or seen them on television, etc). Any unfamiliar accent can be difficult to understand at first, until you "get your ear in". But once you become familiar with the accent, it's completely intelligible, indicating that it's underlyingly the same language.

Likewise, with an English descendent - or indeed, an English ancestor - you can make it LOOK alien by spelling it in a way closer to IPA. But using a different transcription scheme - one equally phonemic but more inspired by current written standards - suddenly makes it understandable. When the (un)intelligibility is the product of the chosen transcription scheme, it's not really a very different language, it just has some superficial transformmations. In the same way, there's lots of accents today that, when put on paper in IPA, look unintelligible - like Scouse, where voiceless stops are largely replaced by fricatives, or Southern in the US where most of the vowels seem to break into diphthongs - but actually can be understood around the world as soon as you listen to it for a certain length of time to understand how the surface realisations compare to those you expect.


But given that, at least in writing - or with a little time to get used to the spoken sounds - you can still understand most of Chaucer, from 600 years ago, and virtually all of Shakespeare from 400 years ago (give or take some wordplay and contemporary slang), we shouldn't expect the English of 500 years from now to be too alien.

[Visions1]

I'd say yes. Maybe not you - I'm jealous of your ability to wrap your head around really non-Old-World languages - but at least plenty of us.
And forgive me, but that bias is there even still. Bias creeps in subconsciously. We can become aware of it and strive to decrease it, but like it or not, we speak and know what we do, and that affects our art.
I wouldn't have worded it the way LSD did. But if you look past the phrasing, it makes a lot of sense.

I'm not sure what I've done to offend you, but clearly I've pissed you off somehow - we all have - because going up to somebody and accusing them of having a "sick mind" is not a polite thing to do. I'm baffled by why you would try to start a flamewar on such a seemingly inoffensive topic.

Nor do I understand why you're accusing me of "bias". Am I a judge? Am I a reporter? If not, how can I be "biased" - what judgment or account have I given that is unfair or unjustly unrepresentative? Who am I biased against? What sort of prejudice do I supposedly have exactly and how is it manifested in conlanging? Who is it who has a right that I am violating exactly? Are you saying I'm racist, sexist, transphobic... what, exactly?

This seems like vastly and inaccurately inflammatory language.

Firstly, you have not offended me in the slightest, and I neither am nor was upset at you at all.
Secondly, if this is a flamewar, it's the most peaceful one I've ever seen. I have had no intention of inflammatory language, and nor do I believe I've used any. I may have spoken firmly, but I've had zero intention of provoking people.
Thirdly, I'm not accusing you of internet-drama bias, nor anyone; I'm pointing out that every conlanger has unconscious linguistic biases that affect their conlanging, and that being aware of them can aid our artwork. An obvious one would be the fact we seem to make VO langs more than OV, due to basically all of us speaking Eurolangs (e.g. English) natively, which are generally VO. Another example would be a large amount of the terms in the polysemy game-thread being based on/related to English etymologies. People have complained about themselves going through this on the forum. This is simply a fact of doing conlanging.
Fourthly, I was explaining to Vap what I thought LSD was saying, since he can be very terse. He (if I understood correctly) referred to the fact we try to make conlangs as opposed to our mother tongues, but unconsciously end up copying them. He seems to either be referring to himself (like he usually does), or to conlangers in general.
Fifthly, I already clarified I disagree with how he said it, in any case.
Sixthly, I wasn't even talking to you.

I'm not upset. But now I am quite confused.

[Visions1]

Spoiler:

If you'll excuse my diseased soul contaminating your thought process: whether you can understand Australians depends entirely on whether you have met many Australians (or seen them on television, etc). Any unfamiliar accent can be difficult to understand at first, until you "get your ear in". But once you become familiar with the accent, it's completely intelligible, indicating that it's underlyingly the same language.

Likewise, with an English descendent - or indeed, an English ancestor - you can make it LOOK alien by spelling it in a way closer to IPA. But using a different transcription scheme - one equally phonemic but more inspired by current written standards - suddenly makes it understandable. When the (un)intelligibility is the product of the chosen transcription scheme, it's not really a very different language, it just has some superficial transformmations. In the same way, there's lots of accents today that, when put on paper in IPA, look unintelligible - like Scouse, where voiceless stops are largely replaced by fricatives, or Southern in the US where most of the vowels seem to break into diphthongs - but actually can be understood around the world as soon as you listen to it for a certain length of time to understand how the surface realisations compare to those you expect.


But given that, at least in writing - or with a little time to get used to the spoken sounds - you can still understand most of Chaucer, from 600 years ago, and virtually all of Shakespeare from 400 years ago (give or take some wordplay and contemporary slang), we shouldn't expect the English of 500 years from now to be too alien.

(Spoiler just to save space.)
Fair point, but I'm assuming two things here - already difficult accents, and isolation. English remains intelligible in part due to self-exposure. Suppose everything went to pieces and Australia got cut off from the rest of the English-speaking world. Well, expect Sinitic influence, mores strange vowels, and so on, and theoretically it could become much less intelligible much more quickly.