I've decided to make a thread where I can post random ideas and such, so that I don't make too many threads for things I subsequently abandon and flood the forum with them.
So behold, my garbage!
Table of Contents (or Index?)
For the reader's convenience, up-to-date posts are bolded, and outdated posts are italicized.
Edit: I'm not updating this anymore, and I don't list my languages in my signature anymore anyway. However, I'll keep the post, cause why not.
Updated July 29, 2024
2c2ef0
Spoken in: unknown
Notable features: only nouns, conveyed through colors
Resources: this very thread
The Areyaxi languages
Spoken in: Phosphorida, in Tyuns
Notable Features: confidential
Resources: confidential
Arskiilz
Spoken in: somewhere in UC1
Notable Features: way too many stops, including an allophonic [ɢʰ], which is objectively the best sound in the world; exclusively monosyllabic roots; closed class of 16 verbs; extremely permissive syllable structure. Also, it's a collablang with my beloved Sketch.
Resources: none out yet
Kahóra
Spoken by: the beings that hide in our dreams, the last breaths of dying men, the breeze hitting a moth's wings during its first flight, the whispered words of those we love, the deepest secrets of the universe, and Jeff at McDonald's
Notable Features: four consonant phonemes /ʃ x ʁ ʕ/ and two four vowels /æ ɑ æ̃ ɑ̃/, pitch accent, morpheme communism (what do you mean that's not a thing), fricative ordering. Also, it's inspired heavily by Sketch's dreams ─ all language-related dreams that we have must be incorporated into it somehow, in fact. It even originated from one of her dreams. See the thread.
Arayaz wrote: ↑13 Mar 2024 00:36
I've decided to make a thread where I can post random ideas and such, so that I don't make too many threads for things I subsequently abandon and flood the forum with them.
So behold, my garbage!
Lol. I was part of a Discord server where they basically made me an entire channel just to post about conlanging so it wouldn't clog the channels. After I left they removed it.
Khemehekis wrote: ↑13 Mar 2024 02:02
Laatiklantu was so cool. What happened to it?
I noticed some things I had done with it that weren't very naturalistic ─ e.g. its word order. I also disliked how clumsy it was with all its required morphology. I plan to reflect at least some of its spirit in a future language; that was going to be Izre, but the sound changes took it in a different direction, I guess.
I'm glad people liked it, though! It's on my list if I ever revive any.
Arayaz wrote: ↑13 Mar 2024 00:36
I've decided to make a thread where I can post random ideas and such, so that I don't make too many threads for things I subsequently abandon and flood the forum with them.
So behold, my garbage!
Lol. I was part of a Discord server where they basically made me an entire channel just to post about conlanging so it wouldn't clog the channels. After I left they removed it.
It's sad that they removed it ─ all those ideas, lost to time...
Khemehekis wrote: ↑13 Mar 2024 02:02
Laatiklantu was so cool. What happened to it?
I noticed some things I had done with it that weren't very naturalistic ─ e.g. its word order. I also disliked how clumsy it was with all its required morphology. I plan to reflect at least some of its spirit in a future language; that was going to be Izre, but the sound changes took it in a different direction, I guess.
I'm glad people liked it, though! It's on my list if I ever revive any.
I can see why you'd be consider about unnaturalistic things, considering Laakitlantu was meant to be a human language (right?)
It's in the nature of the scrapper to find that one fatal flaw with each of his/her languages, be it a logistical, proof-of-concept, or strictly aesthetic flaw.
♂♥♂♀
Squirrels chase koi . . . chase squirrels
My Kankonian-English dictionary: Now at 101,000 words!
Khemehekis wrote: ↑13 Mar 2024 15:17
I can see why you'd be consider about unnaturalistic things, considering Laakitlantu was meant to be a human language (right?)
It's in the nature of the scrapper to find that one fatal flaw with each of his/her languages, be it a logistical, proof-of-concept, or strictly aesthetic flaw.
Yep ─ I am a scrapper, through and through, and this is how I roll.
I actually had an idea to make a language family in UC1 (Unnamed Conworld 1) that contained "revivals" of all the languages I liked but killed in the end. Right now, that constitutes Laakitlantu, Anopí, Shelik, and Yoshó (and the latter two are basically the same thing). I wonder how on earth I could give them a common ancestor, though...
It's making me really annoyed that I can't post anything about Areyaxi, because it's my most developed culture, history, and languages. I promise, though, that the moment (this season of?) Tyuns is over (I don't know when that will be, though), I'm'a rush right on here and give y'all the biggest infodump you've ever seen.
Visions1 wrote: ↑13 Mar 2024 05:54
Lol. I was part of a Discord server where they basically made me an entire channel just to post about conlanging so it wouldn't clog the channels. After I left they removed it.
It's sad that they removed it ─ all those ideas, lost to time...
No, I still have what I made there (these cool deixis charts). I put 'em into a pages file
I've been thinking about the geography of UC1 (the conworld that contains Ruykkarraber, Ngama, and Izre). All I had established was that the Ruykkarranat civilization was on a relatively fertile river ─ that's what Ruykkarra means. I think it's in a Mediterranean climate. I had also decided that Ngama was spoken somewhat to Ruykkarra's north.
Now, though, I've thought out a bit more of it, and I've solidified some things:
Ruykkarra and the Ngama-speaking civilization are the only two major civilizations on a relatively small continent ─ mostly so that I don't have to think out interactions with other languages, lol.
The Warm Summer Mediterranean (i.e. Pacific Northwest, my favorite place) climate that I want to put Ruykkarra in only occurs along cold-current coasts, and I want there to be an upwelling at that coast as well ─ year-round if possible. Off the top of my head, I don't quite remember the circumstances that cause these features, but they occur in the equatorward half of the Ferrel cell, so between 30°-45° N/S. Ruykkarra is in the northern hemisphere (on a whim), and the river flows roughly along the east-west line ─ I'll say it's at 38°N.
The opposite coast is an Oceanic climate, along a warm current coast. Ngama is spoken there.
Last edited by Arayaz on 22 May 2024 16:07, edited 2 times in total.
I want to attempt another a posteriori diachronic language, after the failures of Techomonic and Goidheug. I'm not quite sure exactly what I'll do, though. I know that I want to go off of something that's well-reconstructed.
I'm definitely not going to work from Proto-Indo-European (we know how well that went even with an expert helping me).
I'm considering Old Chinese, since it's isolating (and I've been on an isolating-language kick recently), but I don't know anything about it, so I'd be going in blind. It seems to have a fair number of reconstructed words, but I also don't read any Chinese characters, so it would be hard to find one I needed.
I'm also considering Proto-Polynesian ─ I love its aesthetic, and it wouldn't be hard to just say "oh, in my alternate history, there's an extra island in the Pacific." But I don't think its grammar is well-reconstructed; the Wikipedia article is certainly much shorter than that for Old Chinese.
I might just remake Goidheug, working from Old Irish, since I actually got a handle on it when I tried (though I had to do some heavy analogy to get rid of some of the irregularity and unpredictability that plagued my failed attempt to learn the modern Irish language).
Or possibly I'd do a Romlang or Germlang ... but those feel very SAE (obviously), and I don't particularly appreciate the aesthetic of either.
Last edited by Arayaz on 19 Mar 2024 16:39, edited 1 time in total.
Arayaz wrote: ↑19 Mar 2024 01:08I'm considering Old Chinese, since it's isolating (and I've been on an isolating-language kick recently), but I don't know anything about it, so I'd be going in blind. It seems to have a fair number of reconstructed words, but I also don't read any Chinese characters, so it would be hard to find one I needed.
Most material would be probably in Chinese itself, of course, but there is some good material you could find in English too. I'll send you some links too.
Visions1 wrote: ↑19 Mar 2024 01:11
Proto-Semitic, Proto-Japonic, and Proto-Uralic are also thought to be well reconstructed.
I don't really wanna deal with non-concatenative morphology or vowel harmony. I might do Proto-Japonic ─ but its Wikipedia article doesn't have any grammatical information.
Arayaz wrote: ↑19 Mar 2024 01:08I'm considering Old Chinese, since it's isolating (and I've been on an isolating-language kick recently), but I don't know anything about it, so I'd be going in blind. It seems to have a fair number of reconstructed words, but I also don't read any Chinese characters, so it would be hard to find one I needed.
Most material would be probably in Chinese itself, of course, but there is some good material you could find in English too. I'll send you some links too.
Arayaz wrote: ↑19 Mar 2024 01:47
Oh, thanks! Do you know a bit about it, then?
A bit, yeah. Mostly from personal study; I haven't really worked with it in a conlanging sense. I took some interest in it since I was studying modern Chinese when I was still in university eight years back or so, and I tried to pick up a bit of Old/Middle Chinese vocalisations of classical characters.
The development of Chinese phonology over three thousand years is really fascinating honestly! Really worth looking into, if only just for inspiration's sake.
Arayaz wrote: ↑19 Mar 2024 01:08
I want to attempt another diachronic language, after the failures of Techomonic and Goidheug. I'm not quite sure exactly what I'll do, though. I know that I want to go off of something that's well-reconstructed.
maybe diachronic from one of your conlangs?
I'm considering Old Chinese, since it's isolating (and I've been on an isolating-language kick recently), but I don't know anything about it, so I'd be going in blind. It seems to have a fair number of reconstructed words, but I also don't read any Chinese characters, so it would be hard to find one I needed
if you have a copy of the China Construction Kit, then you could use the Old Chinese info and resources in there.
Arayaz wrote: ↑19 Mar 2024 01:08
I want to attempt another diachronic language, after the failures of Techomonic and Goidheug. I'm not quite sure exactly what I'll do, though. I know that I want to go off of something that's well-reconstructed.
maybe diachronic from one of your conlangs?
Ah, I should clarify: by "diachronic language" I mean an a posteriori diachronic language. Several of my conlangs ─ the Areyaxi family, for example ─ are a priori diachronic, and I plan to do the same for Ruykkarraber and Ngama. I'll edit my post to clarify.
I'm considering Old Chinese, since it's isolating (and I've been on an isolating-language kick recently), but I don't know anything about it, so I'd be going in blind. It seems to have a fair number of reconstructed words, but I also don't read any Chinese characters, so it would be hard to find one I needed
if you have a copy of the China Construction Kit, then you could use the Old Chinese info and resources in there.
Is it by Mark Rosenfelder? I've not heard of it. I'll look into it, though!
I've done some work considering the futures of Ruykkarraber and Ngama, the two proto-languages on this continent. I came up with the following sound changes to apply for Ruykkarraber (with local variation, to create a dialect continuum).
b d ɡ → v ð ɣ when not geminated and not following a nasal consonant
aj ej uj → ɛ eː y
aw ew iw → ɔ oː y
r ɣ → ʂ x when not preceding a voiced segment
ʂs → ʂʂ
Degemination
Loss of short vowels _C(j)V[+stress]; the (j) becomes [ i ] if present
Progressive assimilation of voicing in clusters (only obstruents are affected)
Coda stops → ʔ
ɣ → ∅
I applied these to my Lexember words and got the following:
Spoiler:
dheskhüna
a’
are’
keste’
inash
skendush
dhvi’sü
ze’sku
nedhzgu
isa
avridhvze’sa’
kthyadhush
adhzheni
tedhzeni
tedhusnyadhush
ēsadhush
aswandis
suru
vedhev
yä
spush
ari
nadhä
tkhari
tu’ri
ttidha’
i’fridhza’
dhe
Thoughts?
Last edited by Arayaz on 21 Mar 2024 20:43, edited 4 times in total.
Arayaz wrote: ↑19 Mar 2024 01:08
I want to attempt another a posteriori diachronic language, after the failures of Techomonic and Goidheug. I'm not quite sure exactly what I'll do, though. I know that I want to go off of something that's well-reconstructed.
I'm definitely not going to work from Proto-Indo-European (we know how well that went even with an expert helping me).
I haven't written off Techomonic (which really needs a more handy name!) entirely, and wouldn't call it a failure, even though I feel that you were overreaching yourself. I'm considering picking it up again later, but for now, it doesn't have high priority. And I can understand why you don't want to work from PIE again - PIE is quite a difficult language to work with, and not for the faint of heart.