Conlang fluency thread

[masako]

ta pina
You're smart.

More: show

That is a sentence in Kalo, a minimalist language based on the five most spoken languages in the world; Mandarin, Spanish, English, Hindi and Arabic. It's still in its infancy, but I wanted to test it out.

I'm trying to make it very much UN-like Tokipona, but I get discouraged when creating morphemes that meet the desired goal and sound good.

[Yalensky]

eyá ni emai san tosó?
Do you have many languages?

eyá ni magge par ohá.
I have three main ones.

[masako]

Do you have many languages?

ha'ompe
Only three.

ehe na ke ua yotimi
I play with a few others.

[quinterbeck]

Arug ereh hi nona neinum rug nedon diheun neonye allum dihin mair, oem arug elgi hi weadeona yoinodu oi waina leo ranon irnim.
Sometimes I enjoy being at home with a large group of people, other times it becomes so loud I can’t think

Dunoa dum mehaide hoarnain eunai hou gaude
We ate pancakes together just now

Elde hi waina halmogem, gu med da mahya mehaideman hoarnain
Now I am tired, perhaps because I cooked all the pancakes

Ogu med da neohaini rug er doideneu orya goin allurug anyade
More likely because I got up earlier than usual today

[masako]

Now I am tired, perhaps because I cooked all the pancakes

tunara teban andi laneshanla
I'm always tired even if I haven't worked.

[Pabappa]

Pepažupiebi šažios.
spread.plague-by.hand-1P.instrumental-avoid-TR-1P.past today-GEN
I didnt spread any germs today with my hands.

[masako]

to ta uamepa ita
How can you be certain?

[Pabappa]

Pappatampabibom.
doctor-wine-bottled-C-1P.INSTR-1P.PAST-LOC
Because I used my hand sanitizer.

Pom pwas, pampasavombo, mažžap popifabo pampos. Šažios, fampos plampumpampabampi.
but now-GEN, feeding-disease-GEN-see-1P-LOC-1P, soap-ACC find.a.large.amount-TR-1P struggle.1P.GEN. today-GEN, diverge-1P-GEN root- wine-bottled-3P-POLITE.INCH.POSS-1P.PAST
But now, the plague has made soap hard to find. So today I bought vodka instead.

Yes, it's really happening. Hand sanitizer is hard to find and I heard people with corner stores are selling it at high prices, but the price of hard liquor is set by the state law at least here, so it can't be price-gouged, not legally anyway.

I'm not panicked about the virus just yet .... I use hand sanitizer for everyday use ... but I'm stocking up on things I suspect will be in short supply for a long time. Plampumpampaba is the word I used for vodka; the inflections ("polite translative possessive 3rd person to 1st person past") are all packed into the -ampi at the end, and the two /a/'s merge.

Pabampavo, džappo ... piššelwopi pabwapas piti ... pom peppapios šiva.
silly-surprise-see-1P, honest-1P ... buy-1P<CAUS>.1P.PAST warning.letter-GEN close.eyes-REFL-1P.PAST ... but problem-C-1P-GEN different.3P
I feel a bit silly to be honest ... buying it despite the warning .... but I've got other things on my mind.

[quinterbeck]

Irnona idelli oi daryada weheur neaweu gum yeum, nuhem rurihu u midouhmu
CONT-EXP-1s fail SBJ TERM-HAB-1s touch ABST-face INST hand RF-REL.ID lead ACT official
I keep failing to stop touching my face with my hands, as per official advice

[masako]

Because I used my hand sanitizer.

itla kotsik
This is not proven.

[jal]

Fo nof mi redi toc pon korona bayras, kos it me nof mi osban re kac im wan mons pas, afta im toc pon som sik Cayna man de jop. Im di sik fo tu wik, af bahn-op fil taya taya. Nes, tu ota swi a mi-dem cayl swel kac bahn-op. Fo lok mi neba afek.
I've likely been in contact with the corona virus already, as it's quite likely my wife had caught it a month ago, after she came in contact with sick Chinese people at work. She was ill for two weeks, having a fever and feeling exhausted. After that two of our three kids also got a fever. Luckily I wasn't affected.


JAL

[Glass Half Baked]

hasoo flu napaa
cataph-old flu 1st-see
Seems like regular flu to me. (literally: I see the old flu)

[jal]

Seems like regular flu to me. (literally: I see the old flu)

No, mi fayn dis no-sapos. Mi osban di kac flu cut kos im wok ina ahti ten, an tu wik bahn-op a long long taym fo olde flu.
No, I find this unlikely. My wife had gotten a flue shot since she works in health care, and a two-week fever is a very long time for the common flu.


JAL

[xxx]

go oen sbyg viei ievo voe
I hope you're all well now...

[Glass Half Baked]

tó yuna návi
I was wrong, then.

pairasa aro namáta pá
I guess I worry too much about the virus.

[Yalensky]

Na arnizhe im zhaimeve bulapse. Na im ta rabe zha mambre.
I don't want to talk about the plague. I think about it too much.

Zu shetesset "na" ra ildembla sheseshla sate kose? Ta zha vel santo.
Who else uses "na" for their singular 1st person pronoun? It seems pretty common.

Na ta ne fortsa le Quenya.
I stole mine from Quenya.

[Glass Half Baked]

Saava si "na" natira, vohi hihuu kviraa hinakee.
In Saava I say "na," but only on verbs.

[Kuchigakatai]

Zu shetesset "na" ra ildembla sheseshla sate kose? Ta zha vel santo.
Who else uses "na" for their singular 1st person pronoun? It seems pretty common.

Koreans (나 na) and the Laks of the Northeast Caucasus (на). Arguably Proto-Sino-Tibetans too (Classical Tibetan ང [ŋa], Yi ꉢ [ŋa˧], Burmese ငါ [ŋa], Old Chinese 吾 */ŋaː/).

Since much of the Americas has n-m pronouns, maybe there are some candidates there (Cheyenne affix base morpheme ná- 'I, we', Salvadoran Nawat naja '1S').

[masako]

namitla kalamohikyahue tanuaye
We discussed this on the old board.

ke "na" nya nkalo pyasampa
"Na" for pronouns is very common.

[Pabappa]

Zu shetesset "na" ra ildembla sheseshla sate kose? Ta zha vel santo.
Who else uses "na" for their singular 1st person pronoun? It seems pretty common.

Pwopo!
action.1P<CAUS>.deed.1P
Me!

Pippos, poposo bwabas šeriubos.
choose.avoid, language-GEN-Ø-1P this-GEN speak-own-language.1P-GEN
But not when I speak this language.


My language with na for 1st person singular was something I created around 1997 and I have kept the word in the lexicon for the parent language of my current languages, but only a few of my current languages have pronouns at all, and those are too poorly developed for me to even write a sentence.