Conlang Random Thread

[Vilike]

It's a lonely road, though. I've posted conlangs based on Chinese Languages and Classical Chinese writing and language but they didn't go over very well, so I try to nurse my wounds and carry on as time heals me.

Where can we see these conlangs? Sorry, I have trouble navigating your website.

[Richard W]

Here, I think it's all British and people older than me. Or was a year ago or maybe 5 or 10 years ago when I used to come around here from time to time.

British culture gets around. For example, it's not just Britons who appreciate the significance of 42 or the importance of knowing where one's towel is.

[Bob]

It's a lonely road, though. I've posted conlangs based on Chinese Languages and Classical Chinese writing and language but they didn't go over very well, so I try to nurse my wounds and carry on as time heals me.

Where can we see these conlangs? Sorry, I have trouble navigating your website.

If you just search the homepage for "conlang", you should be able to find them.

https://anylanguageatall411.blogspot.co ... w=flipcard

You have to search and then keep looking to see where things are. There's an organized list at the end but before that there are double listings as part of the sequential discussion of new additions.

## Conlangs by me

Writing systems this draws from:
Visuals : Modern Chinese, Khitan Scripts, Cuneiform
Mechanics: Japanese, Khitan Scripts, Tangut, Chinese, Egyptian, Ogham, Linear AB and Old Persian, Mayan, Brahmi.
Invented writing system 4 23 2015: Chinese for Philippines' Ilonggo language
http://anylanguageatalljournal.blogspot ... w=flipcard

,, 84 ,, Poem (Conlang) 5 23 2018 Mayflower Ship and Gun Parts in 1600s Faux Chinese
https://anylanguageatall411.blogspot.co ... w=flipcard


,, 137 ,, Conlang 9 18 2018: Many Cases, Many Moods, Pictoral Hieroglyphs
https://anylanguageatall411.blogspot.co ... w=flipcard

...

Alas, there are only three here. There's some more on my facebook groups about conlanging and then in some posts I've done here on Zompist Bboard and maybe the old Zompist Bboard. You can find my accounts because I post about the Atlantean conlang from the 2001 Disney film Atlantis the Lost Empire.

[chris_notts]

I was trying to do a translation of "The North Wind and the Sun" for Pñæk, and I'm still unhappy with my translation of this sentence:

Then the North Wind blew as hard as he could, but the more he blew the more closely did the traveler fold his cloak around him

The problem I have is that I was trying for a looser, less subordinate clause obsessed feel for Pñæk, since many grammars of lesser known languages report less subordination that in IE languages, but I'm really not sure how to translate the "the more ... the more" construction. The English version takes the form of two apposed zero marked relative clauses, which of course exist in Pñæk as well, but a translation along those lines feels too literal.

The construction marks that two events extended in time increase in intensity together, with a causal implication. The temporal overlap could be expressed either by apposition of imperfective clauses or by a "when/while" clause, and causative linkage can be marked by adverbs or in other contexts by the consecutive (although not in this case since the consecutive is only compatible with the perfective aspect). So the obvious translation would be something like:

The north wind was blowing more, but/thus the traveller kept tightening his cloak, and the wind failed/reached his limit

But I'm not sure how other languages express this. In Spanish it would be "contra mas ... mas ..." which is fairly similar to the English, but Spanish is another IE language. Does anyone have any more divergent examples of how this is expressed in other languages?

[chris_notts]

One possibility that I have considered, and seems in tune with a more oral culture, is clause reduplication:

The wind blew, the man pulled his cloak tight, the wind blew harder, the man tightened it more...

[bradrn]

… many grammars of lesser known languages report less subordination that in IE languages …

On a tangential note, I’d be very curious to know: where did you get this impression? If it was from some paper or article, I’d be very interested in reading it.

(Unfortunately I can’t help with your question, sorry; I don’t know much about subordination myself, hence my interest in reading about it.)

[chris_notts]

… many grammars of lesser known languages report less subordination that in IE languages …

On a tangential note, I’d be very curious to know: where did you get this impression? If it was from some paper or article, I’d be very interested in reading it.

(Unfortunately I can’t help with your question, sorry; I don’t know much about subordination myself, hence my interest in reading about it.)

I'm not claiming that all non-IE languages use subordination less, and in fact a number, especially V-final, are pretty obsessed with nominalisation and subordination for clause linkage. But even amongst these, I have read arguments that an old literate and legal culture correlates imperfectly with more complex and specific clause linkage and subordination options. I can try to find some references, but I'm not sure off the top of my head what to suggest.

[bradrn]

… many grammars of lesser known languages report less subordination that in IE languages …

On a tangential note, I’d be very curious to know: where did you get this impression? If it was from some paper or article, I’d be very interested in reading it.

(Unfortunately I can’t help with your question, sorry; I don’t know much about subordination myself, hence my interest in reading about it.)

I'm not claiming that all non-IE languages use subordination less, and in fact a number, especially V-final, are pretty obsessed with nominalisation and subordination for clause linkage. But even amongst these, I have read arguments that an old literate and legal culture correlates imperfectly with more complex and specific clause linkage and subordination options. I can try to find some references, but I'm not sure off the top of my head what to suggest.

Thanks chris_notts! It sounds like your original remark was just an overall impression from many sources; in that case, don’t worry too much about references. (I was asking just in case there did happen to be one particular article from which you got that conclusion.)

[akam chinjir]

I was trying to do a translation of "The North Wind and the Sun" for Pñæk, and I'm still unhappy with my translation of this sentence:

Then the North Wind blew as hard as he could, but the more he blew the more closely did the traveler fold his cloak around him

Correlative clauses could work: "How hard the North wind could blow, it blew that hard, and the traveler folded his cloak that closely around him." Though you're right that you could do it without any explicit clause linkage or subordination.

[chris_notts]

Thanks chris_notts! It sounds like your original remark was just an overall impression from many sources; in that case, don’t worry too much about references. (I was asking just in case there did happen to be one particular article from which you got that conclusion.)

One fascinating book on this, or at least a similar, topic is:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Syntactic-Chan ... 0199532222
Syntactic Change in Akkadian: The Evolution of Sentential Complementation

In early Akkadian, most complement clause equivalents were either coordinate clauses (i.e. not formally subordinate at all) or non-finite nominalisations. However, over the centuries written records of one of the earliest literary languages shows a clear rise in formally subordinate finite complements. Deutscher argues at one point in the book that this wasn't a coincidence, but due to the functional pressures on Akkadian as the language of one of the most complex states of the period.

[bradrn]

Thanks chris_notts! It sounds like your original remark was just an overall impression from many sources; in that case, don’t worry too much about references. (I was asking just in case there did happen to be one particular article from which you got that conclusion.)

One fascinating book on this, or at least a similar, topic is:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Syntactic-Chan ... 0199532222
Syntactic Change in Akkadian: The Evolution of Sentential Complementation

In early Akkadian, most complement clause equivalents were either coordinate clauses (i.e. not formally subordinate at all) or non-finite nominalisations. However, over the centuries written records of one of the earliest literary languages shows a clear rise in formally subordinate finite complements. Deutscher argues at one point in the book that this wasn't a coincidence, but due to the functional pressures on Akkadian as the language of one of the most complex states of the period.

Thanks! Interestingly enough, when you mentioned ‘an old literate and legal culture’ with reference to subordination, I immediately thought of Deutscher. (In particular, I’ve read his book The Unfolding of Language, where he does briefly mention that the earliest written records use less subordination.)

[cedh]

I was trying to do a translation of "The North Wind and the Sun" for Pñæk, and I'm still unhappy with my translation of this sentence:

Then the North Wind blew as hard as he could, but the more he blew the more closely did the traveler fold his cloak around him

Correlative clauses could work: "How hard the North wind could blow, it blew that hard, and the traveler folded his cloak that closely around him." Though you're right that you could do it without any explicit clause linkage or subordination.

Some back-translations from various conlangs on the web:

• "Then the north wind made much blowing, and the wanderer held the cloak to himself."
• "Mr Big Wind blew and blew, but the traveling person held on tight to his tunic."
• "The wind blows hard, but the stranger keeps holding the cloak under a firm grip."
• "Then the north wind blows as hard as he could, but in vain, as the poor sod wraps himself up in the robe just as hard."
• "Next, the north wind blew as strongly as possible, but as he was blowing stronger, the traveler wrapped his coat more closely around him."
• "Then the north wind blew as much as he was able, but whenever he blew more, the man also wrapped himself in the cloak as much as he was able."
• "The north wind blew strongly, but when he blew, the person firmly held his cloak close to himself."
• "The north wind began to blow with all his strength, but the man shivered as a result, and he pulled his cloak until it was tighter."
• "Then the North Wind blew with great force, but as he continued to blow, the traveller wrapped up more with the coat."
• "Then the North Wind blew as hard as he could, but as intensely as he blew, just so intensely did the traveller wrap his cloak about him."
• "Then the north wind blew as heavily as he could, but as long-lived as he blew, as close did the other one pull his cloak."
• "The north wind blew with all of his ability, and it blew harder and harder, and the traveller so wrapped his cloak tighter and tighter."
• "Consequently the north wind blew with his whole power, but no matter how strongly he blew, this is how closely the wanderer wrapped his coat."
• "And the north wind blew as strongly as he could, but although he continued to blow very much, the traveler merely pulled close his cloak near himself."
• "The arguing wind blew and blew with fury at the traveler, yet the traveler held their clothing firmly back from the wind."

Not quite as diverse as I hoped, but maybe there's a good idea in there for you...

One possibility that I have considered, and seems in tune with a more oral culture, is clause reduplication:

The wind blew, the man pulled his cloak tight, the wind blew harder, the man tightened it more...

I really like this version a lot.

[jal]

Thinking about how to translate it in Sajiwan. I have a "the more X, the more Y" construction, but it doesn't feel natural here. More something like:

Nes di Nohs Win blo a swong im ebl mek so, oba no mata omana swong im blo, swabla ya fol fi klok sem tay ron im.

Then the North Wind blew as strong as he was able, but regardless of how strong he blew, the traveler folded his cloak equally tight around him. This might work, since "swong" (strong) can be applied to folding as well.


JAL

[chris_notts]

Correlative clauses could work: "How hard the North wind could blow, it blew that hard, and the traveler folded his cloak that closely around him." Though you're right that you could do it without any explicit clause linkage or subordination.

In this translation the incremental causal linkage between the two events (the wind blowing harder makes the traveller tighten his cloak more) is an implicature. I would be interested to know how many languages favour this approach over a more specific construction of some kind.

[chris_notts]

Some back-translations from various conlangs on the web:

• "Then the north wind made much blowing, and the wanderer held the cloak to himself."
• "Mr Big Wind blew and blew, but the traveling person held on tight to his tunic."
• "The wind blows hard, but the stranger keeps holding the cloak under a firm grip."
• "Then the north wind blows as hard as he could, but in vain, as the poor sod wraps himself up in the robe just as hard."
• "Next, the north wind blew as strongly as possible, but as he was blowing stronger, the traveler wrapped his coat more closely around him."
• "Then the north wind blew as much as he was able, but whenever he blew more, the man also wrapped himself in the cloak as much as he was able."
• "The north wind blew strongly, but when he blew, the person firmly held his cloak close to himself."
• "The north wind began to blow with all his strength, but the man shivered as a result, and he pulled his cloak until it was tighter."
• "Then the North Wind blew with great force, but as he continued to blow, the traveller wrapped up more with the coat."
• "Then the North Wind blew as hard as he could, but as intensely as he blew, just so intensely did the traveller wrap his cloak about him."
• "Then the north wind blew as heavily as he could, but as long-lived as he blew, as close did the other one pull his cloak."
• "The north wind blew with all of his ability, and it blew harder and harder, and the traveller so wrapped his cloak tighter and tighter."
• "Consequently the north wind blew with his whole power, but no matter how strongly he blew, this is how closely the wanderer wrapped his coat."
• "And the north wind blew as strongly as he could, but although he continued to blow very much, the traveler merely pulled close his cloak near himself."
• "The arguing wind blew and blew with fury at the traveler, yet the traveler held their clothing firmly back from the wind."

Let's try to classify these based on the translation:

Clause linkage:
AND type - basic coordination, no counter expectations (but/however) - 2
BUT type - but/however used as a linker to mark failure of first action to achieve expected result - 13

Causal/simultaneous marking:
NONE type - clauses perfective/aorist/simple past, no marking of co-occurence - 2
VERB/ADVERB REDUPLICATION type - e.g. "blew and blew" to mark extended action - 3
IMPERFECTIVE type - present/progressive/imperfective used in one or both clauses, or a durative auxiliary like "keeps" - 3
AS/BECAUSE/WHEN type - causal clause linker used (potentially in addition to aspect) - 6
NO MATTER - lack of impact marked in first clause explicitly - 1

Adverbial reinforcement
NONE type - 7
JUST/AS WELL/MORE... type - 7

So the dominant strategy seems to be:

• Failure of the first action explicitly marked by a coordinator such as "but" or "however"
• Explicit causal or temporal overlap marking separately via "as", "when(ever)", "because", ...
• Possibly some adverbial reinforcement in the second clause especially (more or less evenly split)

It's interesting that basically none of these use a dedicated construction like English "the more ... the more ...". Does this mean that people tend to avoid creating such a construction in their conlangs? And is this avoidance correlated with a lack of such a construction in most natlangs, or is it people just assuming it's an English-ism when actually it's not? I have no clue how most natlangs express this construction, so I don't know the answer.

Given the dominance of the "but" strategy, it would also be interesting to know how many natlangs lack a direct translation of "but". I'm not convinced that a single, mono-morphemic marker that combines coordination and counter-expectation is present in all natlangs, although all can presumably express something similar with a combination of coordination and some form of adverbial.

I really like this version a lot.

It seems like a few others above also used reduplication, but normally in a tighter construction ("blew and blew") or ("harder and harder") to mark that the first event was durative, and therefore implicitly overlaps with the second.

[dewrad]

• "Then the north wind blows as hard as he could, but in vain, as the poor sod wraps himself up in the robe just as hard."

I am entirely intrigued: which conlang is this?

[chris_notts]

For the record, my original attempt was as follows:

A heas pra pasoan hlii hlii e gbe m nasdæ̀'r reñ, a bambiil ŋò caa gæn m choo ii kus i titè'r ka a heas hlii
[ʔɐ xæ͡ɑs pʰɾɑ pɐso͡ɑn xliː xliː ʔe gᵊbe m̩ nɐzdæˀɾ ɾeɲ ɐ bɐmbiːl ŋoˀ t͡ʃɑː gæn m̩ t͡ʃoː ʔiː kus ɪ tɪteˀɾ kɐ ʔɐ xæ͡ɑs xliː]
ART wind thus strong blow blow him arrive ART limit=LNK self, ART traveller however/consequently pull closed ART cloak well all LNK heart.beat=LNK REL the wind blow
"The wind kept blowing strongly on him until his limit, the traveller however pulled the cloak well closed every second that the wind blew"

I'm still debating whether <h> should be /x/ or /ħ/.

Notes:

hlii hlii = blow blow = keep blowing
gbe = arrive = until
nasdæ̀ = <-(V)s->ndæ̀ = <-process.nom->finish = finishing, finish
bambiil = <-(C)an->biil = <-actor.nom->wander = wanderer
ŋò = clausal adverb marking counter expectations, not a conjunction
titè = heart beat (onomatopoeia) = small unit of time (would a culture without clocks have a word for an exact unit like a second?)

[bradrn]

It's interesting that basically none of these use a dedicated construction like English "the more ... the more ...". Does this mean that people tend to avoid creating such a construction in their conlangs? And is this avoidance correlated with a lack of such a construction in most natlangs, or is it people just assuming it's an English-ism when actually it's not? I have no clue how most natlangs express this construction, so I don't know the answer.

I wouldn’t be surprised if this is what’s happened — “the more … the more …” certainly sounds like an English-ism. But I would like to know how natlangs express this as well.

Given the dominance of the "but" strategy, it would also be interesting to know how many natlangs lack a direct translation of "but". I'm not convinced that a single, mono-morphemic marker that combines coordination and counter-expectation is present in all natlangs, although all can presumably express something similar with a combination of coordination and some form of adverbial.

The Conlanger’s Thesaurus has this to say on the subject:

The range of senses between “and” and “but”can be divided into six senses, (1) sequential combination, “I shopped and came home,” (2) simultaneous combination, “she sang and danced,” (3) atemporal combination, “I shop here and they shop there,” (4) appositive contrast, “I bought a book, but my sister bought CDs,” (5) corrective contrast, “I didn’t buy a book but a CD,” and (6) counterexpectative contrast, “I bought the CD, but don’t like the band.” Each of the senses except (3), atemporal combination, may have an individual conjunction. Normally, the six senses are partitioned up,with contiguous senses having the same word, such as Hausa kuma covering 1–5 and amman for 6.

Several European languages have overlapping forms, with a general term covering several meanings while also having more specific forms available, such as Italian ma for senses 5–6, but bensì and però optionally usable for 5 and 6 individually.

So it sounds like a ‘but’ conjunction is pretty widespread, but it has a slightly different range of meanings depending on the language (as expected).

[Kuchigakatai]

The problem I have is that I was trying for a looser, less subordinate clause obsessed feel for Pñæk, since many grammars of lesser known languages report less subordination that in IE languages, but I'm really not sure how to translate the "the more ... the more" construction. The English version takes the form of two apposed zero marked relative clauses, which of course exist in Pñæk as well, but a translation along those lines feels too literal.

Due to what reasons do you call them "apposed zero marked relative clauses"? I'd say it's definitely apposition, but wouldn't "the more" count as a marker or subordinator, and wouldn't the first clause (or both?) count as adverbial (as opposed to relative) clauses?

I'd also like to add that the English construction already seems quite a bit non-subordinated, what with those apposed clauses with a repeating initial element... I think that a more typical use of subordination the way English usually goes would be, if it existed, "themore the North Wind blew, the traveler folded his cloak around himself".

Like cedh, I loved the way you reworded it in a later post though, very strongly avoiding both any subordination and also coordination and reduplication ("The wind blew, the man pulled his cloak tight, the wind blew harder, the man tightened it more...").

But I'm not sure how other languages express this. In Spanish it would be "contra mas ... mas ..." which is fairly similar to the English, but Spanish is another IE language. Does anyone have any more divergent examples of how this is expressed in other languages?

Why do you seem to be aware of that non-standard construction of the Spanish of Spain, but not the more standard (also only in Spain) "cuanto más... más...", or the Latin American "entre más... más..."?

It's interesting that basically none of these use a dedicated construction like English "the more ... the more ...". Does this mean that people tend to avoid creating such a construction in their conlangs? And is this avoidance correlated with a lack of such a construction in most natlangs, or is it people just assuming it's an English-ism when actually it's not? I have no clue how most natlangs express this construction, so I don't know the answer.

French, Italian, Standard Arabic, German, Latin and Ancient Greek do something similar to English and Spanish.
- French "plus... plus..."
- Italian "più... e più..."
- Standard Arabic ...كلما... كلما "kullamaa... kullamaa..." (kulla-maa being a compound that is literally "all" + interrogative-and-non-interrogative "what?/what")
- German "je [+comparative]..., desto [+comparative]"
- Latin "quō [+comparative]... eō [+comparative]..." (using an idiom with the normal relativizer and the normal anaphoric pronoun in the ablative singular, as correlatives; also "quō... hōc..." with proximal demonstrative hoc) and "quantō... tantō..." (same but using the words for "how much?" and "that much")
- Ancient Greek "ὅσῳ [+comparative]... τόσῳ [+comparative]..." (in the dative case, using the words for non-interrogative "how(ever) much" and "that much").

Standard Mandarin is still more interesting, using 越...越... "yuè... yuè...", in which 越 yuè is some sort of correlative adverb (or function word broadly) that can only modify a verb and marks continuous increments.

我越澆植，植越長大 wǒ yuè jiāo zhí, zhí yuè zhǎng dà
1S INCR water plant, plant INCR grow big
'the more I water the plant, the bigger it gets'

Mandarin adjectives are a type of verb, so there's not more to say about them. To modify nouns or adverbs ("the more people I consult, the more awkwardly the project gets handled"), you must reword the thing so that the predicates have verbs (possibly adjectival verbs, including 'be many/more': "the more ("INCR many") the people I consult are, the more awkward the handling of the project is").

Also interestingly, this construction is also the equivalent of the English adjectival "Xer and Xer", using 來 lái 'to come' as the first predicate forming the idiom 越來越 yuè lái yuè + [adjective].

植物越來越大 zhíwù yuè lái yuè dà
plant INCR come INCR big
'the plant is getting bigger and bigger' (lit. "the more the plant comes, the bigger")

Given the dominance of the "but" strategy, it would also be interesting to know how many natlangs lack a direct translation of "but". I'm not convinced that a single, mono-morphemic marker that combines coordination and counter-expectation is present in all natlangs, although all can presumably express something similar with a combination of coordination and some form of adverbial.

Classical Chinese is well known for not having a separate word for 'but', with 而 covering about all senses of bradrn's typology (I don't what it does for #5 though...). However it also really tends to use bare apposition of clauses for uses #1 and #3.

I also think Standard Arabic provides a violations of that typology... Arabic uses a separate word for use #5 (بل bal) and doesn't allow the words for #4 and #6 (ولكن (wa-)laakin, (wa-)laakinna) to take that role. This word بل bal is otherwise only used, as far as I know, in the idiom "not only... but also..." ("laa... faHasb, bal... ayDan", or, "laysa faqaT..., bal... ayDan"), which also has a corrective connotation I suppose.

Standard Mandarin is also interesting because it handles #5 by using coordinated or apposed copulas... and if apposed, the second one generally takes the emphatic adverb 就 jiù (literally 'then, right then, afterwards').

買的不是書而是光盤。mǎi de bú shì shū ér shì guāngpán
buy REL not be book and be cd ("what I bought is not a book and/but is a CD")
買的不是書，就是光盤。mǎi de bú shì shū, jiù shì guāngpán
buy REL not be book, EMPH be cd ("what I bought is not a book, really is a CD")
'I didn't buy a book, but a CD.'

This doesn't really violate the typological model there, but still, expecting apposed copulas?

[cedh]

It's interesting that basically none of these use a dedicated construction like English "the more ... the more ...". Does this mean that people tend to avoid creating such a construction in their conlangs? And is this avoidance correlated with a lack of such a construction in most natlangs, or is it people just assuming it's an English-ism when actually it's not?

I wouldn’t be surprised if this is what’s happened — “the more … the more …” certainly sounds like an English-ism.

I wouldn't be surprised either. But in this case, it's because I compiled the list of translations in order to provide inspiration, not as a source for statistical analysis, and so I purposefully didn't include any conlangs that used the English-type construction (of which there are quite a lot - but that again is probably an artifact of some (mainly novice?) conlangers tending to translate very literally).

• "Then the north wind blows as hard as he could, but in vain, as the poor sod wraps himself up in the robe just as hard."

I am entirely intrigued: which conlang is this?

Ran's Proto-Isles.