n00b question on linguistic terminology

[benadam]

I have a very simple question which I'm honestly a bit embarrassed to ask, but I just haven't found the resource I want by googling it.

I'm in the process of writing up what I've got on my conlang, gathering it from scattered handwritten pages across a few notebooks. The thing is, I wrote it all using terminology that I, a non-linguist, understand. E.g. "the sounds of the language", rather than "phonology".

Now, I've picked up a fair bit of technical linguistic terminology from this forum, as well as reading lots of Wikipedia pages on linguistic topics, but I still don't feel I have a firm enough grasp on it to adequately describe my conlang. Is it possible to find on the internet a summary of the most important technical terms I'll need to know, and their basic meanings?

I feel like I must be missing something really obvious -- this thing MUST exist somewhere, but I haven't found it.

[Pabappa]

Well, there's https://glossary.sil.org/term , but I suspect you'd get a lot more use out of something written the other way .... a list of 900 linguistics terms isnt going to help you much if you have to know what they mean to know which one you want.

https://www.uni-due.de/ELE/LinguisticGlossary.html is shorter, but may be more useful as a starting point.

[benadam]

a list of 900 linguistics terms isnt going to help you much if you have to know what they mean to know which one you want.

Yeah, exactly, I did find that, but it was too much info to be helpful to me.

Thanks, I'll try your other link!

[Xwtek]

When reading a gloss, this can be useful: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_g ... reviations

[zompist]

It's not clear if you've read the Language Construction Kit. You're not going to learn as much from a list as from an introduction with explanations--- which that is.

[Curlyjimsam]

It's not clear if you've read the Language Construction Kit. You're not going to learn as much from a list as from an introduction with explanations--- which that is.

This is a good suggestion.

[Kuchigakatai]

I also liked Keith Brown and Jim Miller's The Cambridge Dictionary of Linguistics (2013). It's similar to SIL's online glossary in that it only includes commonly-used terms.



One good way to learn to describe languages, especially in terms of style (since describing languages in a simple manner to conlangers or linguists is a genre in itself), is to read descriptions of languages. Try grabbing three or four reference grammars from some library, of the type that is 200-300 pages long, and skim them.

Unfortunately, most of such books are written for language learners, so while they're fairly easy to read (in the sense of limiting themselves to odd terminology, not requiring being familiar with a syntax theory or a formal morphological model much), they typically don't have glosses. I don't think there's any grammar of Latin or Ancient Greek that can be read by somebody who hasn't studied those languages at least for a while, but there are others like the 2nd edition of Matthews and Yip's Cantonese: A Reference Grammar that can be, all thanks to glosses. The presence of glosses is generally a game changer.

I've heard some conlangers really liking the Languages of the World series by LINCOM Europa. These are a number of short grammars, from 30 to 100 pages, of a number of languages, most of them non-major, generally glossed.



Consider, too, the discussion in the thread "What Makes an Engaging Grammar?" from earlier this year.
http://verduria.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=425

I found Salmoneus' comment especially useful. Regardless of how well you write your grammar for others, I agree that ultimately a conlang grammar is of greatest use to the conlanger's author.

[Hallow XIII]

The one exception is when somebody else is using your language to write texts.

This, by the way, is highly recommended as a way of generating decisions on how things should work.

[chris_notts]

Many years ago, Describing Morphosyntax was a popular book used as an introduction for conlangers. I don't know if it still retains its popularity or not:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Describing-Mor ... 0521588057