Conlang fluency thread

[masako]

ke otomoya hanyamaye yauen ehek kapik
/kɛ otomoːja haɲamaːjɛ jaːwen eːɦɛk kaːpɪk/
O sound-write nation-INTR use-ADV but-NEG ugly-NEG
The IPA is useful but (but also) not ugly.

[jupiter]

Yu mekop langwic man-dem mos ebl tali gut pas ray yuman-dem.
Your conpeople must be better in counting than actual humans.

su sa pa mu mi si mi ki wi mu mi ki ni nu su wi ju mi sa pa mu mi si ka ki ni nu mila mi sa ku sa nila ni ku si
desire CONT method speech same SUBJ same not MOD speech same not PRED SENT desire MOD living.thing same CONT method speech same SUBJ large not PRED SENT reason same CONT only CONT exist PRED one SUBJ
Well, this conlang isn't supposed to be a naturalistic one. The base one counting system is due to the fact that my entire goal making this conlang was to have as few words as possible.

(lit. "In the context of a desire, the said method of speech is not the same as other speech. In the context of the desires of this person, the said method of speech is small. In the context of this reason and [noun that embodies the concept of "only"], the number one exists." Or in other words, "I don't want this conlang to be the same as others. I want it to be small. This is why "one" is the only number that exists.")

There aren't even ordinal numbers; the last sentence in the first translation literally means "in the context of me, five speeches exist."
And for numbers that are too high to count reliably, the word "ka" is used, which just means "many."

(I wasn't sure how to translate this last part, mostly because of the quoting of translations. I would've been restating what I said previously and it wouldn't make much sense.)

Edit: making as few words as possible wasn't my entire goal, but it was a large portion of it. The other parts were removing phonemic stress, making every word have a degree of synthesis of one, and having easily-pronouncible phonemes.

[jal]

Or worse… this only works until five or six.

Humans can discern about four-five seperate objects (or sounds etc.), beyond that it's counting or guessing. I think in natural language, afaik there's no more than three repetitions ever, but I may recall wrongly.


JAL

[Travis B.]

Ńaŋ mbres byaw Bruow Zruoy Zruoy Da Nok Trhok!
Ńauŋ mbžeh byaw Bžuow Žuoy Žuoy Da Noʔ Tšhoʔ!
[ɲɑɴ mbʐeh bjɑw bʐuow ʐyøj ʐyøj da noʔ tʂʰoʔ]
people all hail.PFV god king king Donald_Trump
All hail God Emperor Donald Trump!

[bradrn]

Hoo?
/hoː/

Huh?

(Pity that this language’s vowel inventory is /a e i o/…)

[Travis B.]

May che daw źe kwur ńit kyan tśak tshau yai.
May che daw źe kwur ńiʔ kyaiŋ tśauʔ tshau yai.
[mɛj cʰe dɑw ʑe kʷyɻ ɲiʔ kjɛɴ tɕɑʔ tsʰɑ jɛ]
1S shall play EGO more use language Tshyak PL.INAN DEF
I should play with the Tshyak languages more.

[Travis B.]

Yu mekop langwic man-dem mos ebl tali gut pas ray yuman-dem.
Your conpeople must be better in counting than actual humans.

su sa pa mu mi si mi ki wi mu mi ki ni nu su wi ju mi sa pa mu mi si ka ki ni nu mila mi sa ku sa nila ni ku si
desire CONT method speech same SUBJ same not MOD speech same not PRED SENT desire MOD living.thing same CONT method speech same SUBJ large not PRED SENT reason same CONT only CONT exist PRED one SUBJ
Well, this conlang isn't supposed to be a naturalistic one. The base one counting system is due to the fact that my entire goal making this conlang was to have as few words as possible.
d

Claiming that one's language is not supposed to be a naturalistic one is not a good excuse for violating fundamental universals for all attested languages. (If someone finds a natural language with a unary number system I will eat my shoe.)

[jupiter]

Yu mekop langwic man-dem mos ebl tali gut pas ray yuman-dem.
Your conpeople must be better in counting than actual humans.

su sa pa mu mi si mi ki wi mu mi ki ni nu su wi ju mi sa pa mu mi si ka ki ni nu mila mi sa ku sa nila ni ku si
desire CONT method speech same SUBJ same not MOD speech same not PRED SENT desire MOD living.thing same CONT method speech same SUBJ large not PRED SENT reason same CONT only CONT exist PRED one SUBJ
Well, this conlang isn't supposed to be a naturalistic one. The base one counting system is due to the fact that my entire goal making this conlang was to have as few words as possible.
d

Claiming that one's language is not supposed to be a naturalistic one is not a good excuse for violating fundamental universals for all attested languages. (If someone finds a natural language with a unary number system I will eat my shoe.)

If you think the language only violates one fundamental universal, check again. No pronouns, no adpositions or case markings, and the sheer amount of semantic ambiguity is almost undoubtedly worse than either of those. I could probably go on but I'm not familiar enough with linguistic universals to know what other ones there are. Probably the only section of grammar that doesn't break some universals is the phonology.

In addition, I think my number system is more precise than, say, Pirahã's, since it can precisely distinguish numbers over 2. For large numbers that don't need to be precise, this language uses "ka" (many)

And there are so, so many other conlangs that break natlang universals. I know Kelen does (no verbs), Lojban probably does (don't know a lot about it but seems like a language that would), as well as any language that has inhuman phonemes, distinguishes things that no human language does (like Ithkuil's seven different possessive cases or toki pona's context marker), or has words for alien creatures. I've also made a language that lacks any real verbs, the only one being the copula (which admittedly was a lot easier than I'm sure Kelen was, but I don't know of any languages that have a copular verb and no other verbs).

(I used the term "universal" pretty loosely in that last paragraph, since I categorized any feature that human languages don't have as breaking the natural universal, similar to what you did with the unary number system.)

[Qwynegold]

Pot'a k'yapya kofōdōp' utto wingebeppi kenghutsek'ye.
[potʰɑ kʰjɑpjɑ kofoːdoːpʰ utːo wiŋːebepːi keŋhut͡sekʰje]
I'm trying to write in this language (Proto-Kunnu-lūjungo).

Pot'ak' p'a idutsek'ok'o 2010:ppi!
[potʰɑkʰ pʰɑ idut͡sekʰokʰo kɑkʰpʰokʰuːnːɑkːwibøsːepːi]
I started creating it in 2010!

[Travis B.]

su sa pa mu mi si mi ki wi mu mi ki ni nu su wi ju mi sa pa mu mi si ka ki ni nu mila mi sa ku sa nila ni ku si
desire CONT method speech same SUBJ same not MOD speech same not PRED SENT desire MOD living.thing same CONT method speech same SUBJ large not PRED SENT reason same CONT only CONT exist PRED one SUBJ
Well, this conlang isn't supposed to be a naturalistic one. The base one counting system is due to the fact that my entire goal making this conlang was to have as few words as possible.
d

Claiming that one's language is not supposed to be a naturalistic one is not a good excuse for violating fundamental universals for all attested languages. (If someone finds a natural language with a unary number system I will eat my shoe.)

If you think the language only violates one fundamental universal, check again. No pronouns, no adpositions or case markings, and the sheer amount of semantic ambiguity is almost undoubtedly worse than either of those. I could probably go on but I'm not familiar enough with linguistic universals to know what other ones there are. Probably the only section of grammar that doesn't break some universals is the phonology.

Pronouns, adpositions, and case markings are all not universal. (E.g. there are languages which mark 1/2 on the verb, on the adposition, or on the possessed noun or which lack pronouns in the typical SAE sense of the term. Likewise, adpositions are not universal by any means, and neither are case markings.)

[jupiter]

Claiming that one's language is not supposed to be a naturalistic one is not a good excuse for violating fundamental universals for all attested languages. (If someone finds a natural language with a unary number system I will eat my shoe.)

If you think the language only violates one fundamental universal, check again. No pronouns, no adpositions or case markings, and the sheer amount of semantic ambiguity is almost undoubtedly worse than either of those. I could probably go on but I'm not familiar enough with linguistic universals to know what other ones there are. Probably the only section of grammar that doesn't break some universals is the phonology.

Pronouns, adpositions, and case markings are all not universal. (E.g. there are languages which mark 1/2 on the verb, on the adposition, or on the possessed noun or which lack pronouns in the typical SAE sense of the term. Likewise, adpositions are not universal by any means, and neither are case markings.)

Like I said, I don't know a lot about linguistic universals. All I know is what google told me an hour and a half ago (and pronouns were one of those things).

In any case, my point was that I was intentionally not trying to follow universals, and that following them doesn't separate a good conlang from a bad one.

(and sorry for taking this waaaaay off topic, everyone)

[masako]

(and sorry for taking this waaaaay off topic, everyone)

ya tlina
Then stop.

[Travis B.]

Byas!
Byaih!
[bjɛh]
real
Nice!

[bradrn]

Yaazhbeeshim yem! Wookood Han’gol-ii min diyeebe, yem?

yaazhbeeshim

3s-1s-like

yem!

also

woo-kood

2s-place.down/write

Han’gol-ii

Hangeul-DAT

min

with.INSTR

diyeebe,

why

yem?

also

I like it too! Also, why do you write with Hangeul?

[Travis B.]

I like it too! Also, why do you write with Hangeul?

Ham guw gyew qha dyaŋ.
Haŋ guw gyew qha dyauŋ.
[haɴ ɡuw ɡjɤw qʰa djɑɴ]
Hangul seem DED good.
Hangul looks nice.

[Kuchigakatai]

[...]

Claiming that one's language is not supposed to be a naturalistic one is not a good excuse for violating fundamental universals for all attested languages.

I'd say it is... No language is known to have all three phonemes of /d/, /ɖ/ and /ᶑ/ (a retroflex implosive), but it's not hard to imagine a conlang that does. I think I can say no human language distinguishes a [ʃ]-like hiss sound when it's pronounced alone vs. when it's pronounced while a second mouth cavity does an [m], AND YET...

jupiter's conlang is basically Toki Pona gone in a different direction. I personally don't like that he has a punctuation morpheme, nu, glossed "SENT" (sentence), which is basically a period, but I guess it's an effect of his self-imposed limitation of "do not use punctuation". nu is not even used at the end of a paragraph, because then the visual paragraph break does the job. Otherwise, it's kind of alright...? I mean, that conlang surely limits expressiveness, but that is true of Toki Pona too, and I'd take a guess that jupiter is likely a fan of Toki Pona.

[masako]

I like it too! Also, why do you write with Hangeul?

nye...
'Cause...

Hangul looks nice.

tlalo ke hanmoya ayaha
Obviously Hangul is very beautiful.

More: show

Also, it's functionality is very appealing. It "fits" Kala extremely well based on phonotactics and syllable structure. Perhaps my favorite feature is that it works well vertically and horizontally.

https://footballbatsandmore.wordpress.c ... -for-kala/

For over a year I've been journaling using Kala in Hangul.

[bradrn]

More: show

Also, it's functionality is very appealing. It "fits" Kala extremely well based on phonotactics and syllable structure. Perhaps my favorite feature is that it works well vertically and horizontally.

https://footballbatsandmore.wordpress.c ... -for-kala/

For over a year I've been journaling using Kala in Hangul.

Yaazhbeeshim! Woosheʔel Kala min ang be?
/jaːʒbeːʃim || woːʃeʔel Kala min aŋ be/

yaa-zh-beeshim!

3s-1s-like

woo-sheʔel

3s-flow

Kala

Kala

min

with.INSTR

ang

now

be?

Q

That’s impressive! Are you fluent in Kala yet?

[jupiter]

jupiter's conlang is basically Toki Pona gone in a different direction. I personally don't like that he has a punctuation morpheme, nu, glossed "SENT" (sentence), which is basically a period, but I guess it's an effect of his self-imposed limitation of "do not use punctuation". nu is not even used at the end of a paragraph, because then the visual paragraph break does the job. Otherwise, it's kind of alright...? I mean, that conlang surely limits expressiveness, but that is true of Toki Pona too, and I'd take a guess that jupiter is likely a fan of Toki Pona.

mu nila nu ju mi sa pa mu wi pa mu tukipuna mi si na ni
speech true SENT living same CONT method speech MOD method speech toki.pona same SUBJ good PRED
Hey, good guess. I am a fan of toki pona.

nu su sa ka ki ni pa mu mi pu nu mila mi sa kila ni juli mu pu juli ki mu pu nu mila mi sa tali ni mu mi wi mi ki mu pu nu tali ki ni mu mi pu sa mu tu si ku sili ni nu mi si na ki ni
SENT desire CONT many not PRED method speech same OBJ SENT reason same CONT remove PRED low speech OBJ low not speech OBJ SENT reason same CONT make PRED speech same MOD same not speech OBJ SENT make not PRED speech same OBJ CONT speech all SUBJ one begin PRED SENT same SUBJ good not PRED
I added the word nu because in my goal to minimize the language, I decided to omit phonemic stress and intonation. I then needed to add it so that separate sentences could be distinguished.

nu ju ka ta sa pa mu mi si na ki ni sa mu sili ki ni ju mi si
SENT living many near CONT method speech same SUBJ good not PRED CONT speech begin not PRED living same SUBJ
In any case, I'll stop talking about this conlang since it seems to be so controversial.

[Travis B.]

nu ju ka ta sa pa mu mi si na ki ni sa mu sili ki ni ju mi si
SENT living many near CONT method speech same SUBJ good not PRED CONT speech begin not PRED living same SUBJ
In any case, I'll stop talking about this conlang since it seems to be so controversial.

Goy ńa yo cham. Byow kow ra kyan trhe leu ru juŋ gaw yo mbres.
Goy ńa yo chaŋ. Byow kow ra kyaiŋ tšhe leu ru juŋ gaw yo mbžeh.
[ɡøj ɲa jo cʰaɴ bjow kow ɻa kjɛɴ tʂʰe lɤ ɻu ʝuɴ ɡɑw jo mbʐeh]
EXIST.IMPF NEG 3S okay remember only language make.PERF PROX POSS.1P.EXCL tend.IMPF natural 3S all
Nah it is okay. Just note that our conlangs here tend towards being naturalistic, that is all.