Formative conlangs

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Solarius
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Formative conlangs

Post by Solarius »

What conlangs/conlangers/natlangs have influenced you the most?

In my early years as a conlanger, I was very influenced by Zompist's Kebreni. Nowadays, I'm especially influenced by Nortaneous in Phonology, and Ossicone's Amjati in Morphology. I also like to poach features from Japanese and French.
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Re: Formative conlangs

Post by Allekanger »

Oh, fun topic!

I've learned that my phonconology share a lot of inventory with the phonology of Inualeut languages. It is a polysynthetic language, but other than that, no vocabulary or such in common, unless by coincidence.

But I have no specific source of inspiration, just what feels right in my head and heart, I guess. It doesn't go with a conworld or so. It is just my own little way of saying stuff, really. I fear that because of this personal "relationship" with my own language, I tend not to like other people's conlangs, even tho I certainly realize they are very well put together. I normally just don't agree with them, somehow. Mostly phonologically, as weird as it might sound...

I've studied a few (natural) languages, but I tend to be happy just knowing a lot about them (their phonology, typology, special features etc.), so I end up forgetting most of what I've learned. I don't like learning new words and having to remember them and such, especially when I have no one to talk to. So I never really get into a language enough to make it a source of inspiration, be it a conlang or a natlang.
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Chagen
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Re: Formative conlangs

Post by Chagen »

Each of my conlangs--barring a few--are designed to evoke feelings of specific natlangs:

Adari: Latin
Kron: Japanese
Ngith: Navajo
Sunago: Japanese
Satkicz: Czech/Vietmanese
Cryset: German
Foxro: Japanese (only mildly)
Nūdenku waga honji ma naku honyasi ne ika-ika ichamase!
female-appearance=despite boy-voice=PAT hold boy-youth=TOP very be.cute-3PL
Honyasi zō honyasi ma naidasu.
boy-youth=AGT boy-youth=PAT love.romantically-3S
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Micamo
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Re: Formative conlangs

Post by Micamo »

Chagen wrote:Ngith: Navajo
wat
My pronouns are <xe> [ziː] / <xym> [zɪm] / <xys> [zɪz]

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Chagen
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Re: Formative conlangs

Post by Chagen »

I haven't talked about the Ngith at all yet.

Also, their lang is like Navajo in grammar, not phonology.
Nūdenku waga honji ma naku honyasi ne ika-ika ichamase!
female-appearance=despite boy-voice=PAT hold boy-youth=TOP very be.cute-3PL
Honyasi zō honyasi ma naidasu.
boy-youth=AGT boy-youth=PAT love.romantically-3S
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Micamo
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Re: Formative conlangs

Post by Micamo »

Chagen wrote:I haven't talked about the Ngith at all yet.
Well you should! I wanna hear about this.
My pronouns are <xe> [ziː] / <xym> [zɪm] / <xys> [zɪz]

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Re: Formative conlangs

Post by cybrxkhan »

Like Chagen, pretty much 99% of my conlangs are supposed to resemble natlangs, although this is only orthographically and (sometimes) phonologically. Aidisese is supposed to look like the bastard child of Japanese, Greek, and Roman; Djakhetian is supposed to look like, well, what people think is Ancient Egyptian; etc. The actual grammar might be something wildly different.
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Click
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Re: Formative conlangs

Post by Click »

Conlangs which have influenced me are High Eolic and Ismaîn to some extent.
Snowfall was made to look classical,like Latin.
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Re: Formative conlangs

Post by Valoski »

Latin, Finnish, Greek, Chinese(to a point), and Scandinavian languages.
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Re: Formative conlangs

Post by Avjunza »

I always did my best to avoid English once I got into serious conlanging. I liked Japanese, Te Reo Maori, Nahuatl and Spanish well enough, and the Scandinavian languages, so I took a fair few features from them for most of my conlangs. As well as that Zompist's LCK was/is a sort of base code for me, but also just anything I figure is a cool feature and think could fit in with whichever conlang I'm working on. In that regard there must be at least a couple dozen CBBers who've influenced me in some way :)
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Xing
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Re: Formative conlangs

Post by Xing »

Until now, I've taken influenced mostly from Polynesian and Micronesian languages.

Also a bit from Austronesian languages in general, as well as Semitic languages and some dialects of English. (But don't think this may show up more in my 'upcoming' conlangs, than in my present ones)
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Earthling
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Re: Formative conlangs

Post by Earthling »

Sinkutar is based largely on Quechua in morphology. The Northern languages (Taskoltian and Gubian so far) will probably be based on Indo-European languages.
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Re: Formative conlangs

Post by MrKrov »

I've already previously mentioned the main natlangs I'll sometimes nick from and I don't have any "formative conlangs".
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Chagen
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Re: Formative conlangs

Post by Chagen »

Micamo wrote:
Chagen wrote:I haven't talked about the Ngith at all yet.
Well you should! I wanna hear about this.
Eh. I don't have much about them yet. I made them when I realized I didn't have a "Jungle" race when I had all the other kinds--fire, ice technology, magic, etc.

However, unlike most other fantasy authors, I try to make them more than "Those weird brown people". Such as making them the main gunsmiths of Techaria.

As for their lang, I have almost nothing for it yet.
Nūdenku waga honji ma naku honyasi ne ika-ika ichamase!
female-appearance=despite boy-voice=PAT hold boy-youth=TOP very be.cute-3PL
Honyasi zō honyasi ma naidasu.
boy-youth=AGT boy-youth=PAT love.romantically-3S
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Re: Formative conlangs

Post by Solarius »

Chagen wrote:
Micamo wrote:
Chagen wrote:I haven't talked about the Ngith at all yet.
Well you should! I wanna hear about this.
Eh. I don't have much about them yet. I made them when I realized I didn't have a "Jungle" race when I had all the other kinds--fire, ice technology, magic, etc.

However, unlike most other fantasy authors, I try to make them more than "Those weird brown people". Such as making them the main gunsmiths of Techaria.

As for their lang, I have almost nothing for it yet.
If you wanna make it like Navajo, you should add Verbal classifiers.

As far as appearance goes, you should have nasality, vowel length, and tone. This combination, as executed in the orthography, is what really screams Navajo to me.
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Chagen
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Re: Formative conlangs

Post by Chagen »

The appearance is my own little invention. Ejectives and phonemic nasality on fricatives and vowels are the main distinguishing features.
Nūdenku waga honji ma naku honyasi ne ika-ika ichamase!
female-appearance=despite boy-voice=PAT hold boy-youth=TOP very be.cute-3PL
Honyasi zō honyasi ma naidasu.
boy-youth=AGT boy-youth=PAT love.romantically-3S
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Selinki
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Re: Formative conlangs

Post by Selinki »

Selinki has influences of finno-ugric and slavic languages
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eldin raigmore
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Re: Formative conlangs

Post by eldin raigmore »

Arpien is supposed to be influenced by Polish. Or would be, if I knew any Polish.

Adpihi is supposed to be influenced by Afro-Asiatic languages (especially those with a triconsonantal verb-root system), by Polynesian languages, and by Japanese. I don't know any of those languages either.

Reptigan is supposed to be a descendent of Adpihi. It might be influenced by some xenolangs and some computerlangs.
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Re: Formative conlangs

Post by Orion113 »

When I first started out, I wasn't so much influenced by other languages as I was by linguistic concepts. I'm sure I flirted with creating Kitchen-Sink Conlangs, but I like to think it gave me a very objective viewpoint. Especially going into my current project, which does draw on other languages. Notably Lojban and its descendant, Voksigid, but also Japanese, and in small part, Irish.
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