What have you accomplished today?

[Qwynegold]

Very small things, but I dug up a short reference grammar for a language I started and shelved two years ago. I had some fragments preserved in the story outline, but now I have some record of what I wanted to do with it. Therefore it is time to stay up far too late on a work night reorganizing and expanding my notes so I can turn it into more than a naming language. I also went through several old notebooks until I found the abugida that it uses.

That's nice, when you get new inspiration for old things.

[Qwynegold]

I posted the fourth scene/installment of my serialized story on Patreon. Not conlanging but I've basically been worldbuilding on the fly as I write it so it's been fun for that. The hardest part has been not talking about it elsewhere.

That's impressive. I've been wanting to write a novel for many years now, but so far I have done nothing. And I have no inspiration for a plot or for characters.

[Qwynegold]

stuff

Props & respect. Apologies aren't easy.

+1

(also for the record i'm not a "he")

Ah, sorry for assuming.

[Man in Space]

Wrote sound changes to Proto-Western Tim Ar. Then scrapped them. Rinse and repeat a few times.

[Gryphonic]

Last night's accomplishment was working out the new alignment and the cases I would need for this renovation project, and most of those specific particles. I remember that I was very excited at having a new direction. Unfortunately I was writing my notes at the time my sleeping medications took effect.
Today's work will be recovering whatever was lost to incoherency.

[bradrn]

Yesterday I finished translating ‘The North Wind and the Sun’ into my current conlang! Admittedly not a particularly impressive feat, but that still makes it the longest text I’ve ever translated into any of my conlangs. (Mostly because my perfectionism means that I end up searching the literature for days on end before I add a new grammatical feature to my conlang, so it can take me quite a while to translate the more complicated sentences.) Now that’s done, I intend to clean it up a bit at some point and post it here (with commentary).

Last night I finally finished writing this up, and posted it at https://www.verduria.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=802.

[Emily]

got it in my head to put reduplication into ka'ekala, and figured out the hows (last two syllables prefixed to the word, dropping consonants that would create illegal clusters) and whys (habitual aspect in active verbs, "very" in stative verbs, large size or large quantity in nouns) figured out in one day

[Emily]

redid how the telephone system works in my concountry, for some reason??

More: show

Telephone numbers
Transemilian phone numbers consist of three parts: region code, exchange code, and line number. The region code is a one-digit number indicating the general region of the country or other primary uses; this digit can be any digit from 1 through 9, though currently 6 and 7 are unassigned. The exchange code is a two-digit number indicating a specific exchange office, generally corresponding to a subregion or other related grouping; neither of these digits may be 0. Finally, the five-digit line number is the basic phone number itself; fax machines and phones for the deaf (and the few remaining teletype machines and landline Internet connections) have a final digit of 0, but otherwise 0 will not appear anywhere in a line number.

When one person calls another within the same exchange, all that is necessary is the line number. When calling from one exchange to another within the same region code, the caller dials the exchange code, the number 0, and the line number; when calling between region codes (including 8 and 9), the caller dials the region code, the exchange code, the number 0, and the line number. Because 0 can only occur as the fifth and final digit of a line number, any number with 0 as the third digit must necessarily be in a different exchange in the same region, and likewise a number with 0 as the fourth digit must be in a different region.

Thus, given the following phone numbers:

A: 3 24 46553
B: 3 24 71954
C: 3 65 32231
D: 2 77 88273

If A wants to call B, they simply dial 71954. To call C, they dial 65032231. And to call D, they dial 277088273.

Region code 1 is assigned to the provinces Gretsel and Echulda. Region code 2 is assigned to Stitshu and Dridza. Region code 3 is assigned to Ayênko and Zborgen. Region code 4 is assigned to Vulham and Shtshivo. Region code 5 is assigned to Tsimkra and Jholkmazhdi. Region codes 6 and 7 are not currently assigned.

Region code 8 is assigned to cell phones. The exchange codes within this "region" are different from landline exchange codes, but they are assigned geographically (the first cell phone exchanges began with 1 through 4, matching the landline region codes, such as 11-19 for Gretsel and Echulda or 41-49 for Vulham and Shtshivo, but as cell phone use has increased the region codes have expanded to higher numbers). Cell phone ownership is far lower in Transemilia than in the West, with about 25% of adults maintaining an active cell phone subscription in 2020. This is due in large part to the fact that every home is equipped with a cost-free landline as a basic utility, whereas a cell phone must be purchased and the owner must pay a subscription fee (usually annual) for their service. Cell phone ownership is most common among people with jobs requiring them to be reachable at all hours, although they are becoming more popular among younger adults in recent years, particularly in larger cities.

Region code 9 is assigned to state and social service agencies, such as the housing commission or the National Assembly. The exchange codes are assigned to individual agencies, subagencies, departments, and so on, and the individual line number will route to a certain desk. For most exchanges in this region code, the line number for the main desk, switchboard, or phone menu is 11111.

In printed material, the phone number is usually formatted with the exchange code in parentheses: 3 (24) 46553. Handwritten phone numbers will often substitute this format with hyphens: 3-24-46553, and this is sometimes seen in non-professional typed and printed material as well. The unpunctuated 3 24 46553 is occasionally encountered as well. In areas where an entire municipality or community shares the same exchange (typically rural areas or smaller towns), it is common to see phone numbers printed without region or exchange codes at all (simply "46553").

Special numbers and international calls
Transemilia has a set of three-digit dialing codes reserved for emergency use, all beginning with 10:

• 101: medical emergencies and paramedic services
• 102: fire services
• 103: police
• 104: hotline for sexual and domestic violence and child and elder abuse
• 105: public health emergencies or safety hazards (reporting downed power lines, gas leaks, etc.)
• 106: veterinary emergencies
• 107-109, 100: reserved for future expansion

These may be dialed from any phone, and are also reachable by fax, text message, and TDD. These numbers can even be dialed from a cell phone without an active subscription (as long as it has enough battery power to operate, of course).

The local operator and information directory can be dialed using the code 01 (or by dialing 0 and waiting five seconds without dialing another digit); this number can also be used for questions or complaints about the telephone service itself. Other codes from 02 through 08 connect callers to various non-emergency services. Callers who do not speak Transemilian can dial 09 to access services in other languages. Code 09 is run by the Foreign and Minority Language Services Agency, a government department dedicated to safeguarding minority language rights and coordinating language translation for government agencies and the public at large.

The Foreign and Minority Language Services Agency also runs the Foreign and Minority Language Relay Service, through which a person who speaks Transemilian and a person who does not can receive live conversation interpretation over the phone; each language has a hotline at a specific line number in the 9 (27) exhange code. Currently about 100 languages are represented through this service; for the English interpretation hotline, dial 9 (27) 26193.

The country calling code for Transemilia is +37. To call a foreign number from a Transemilian phone, dial 00 before the dialing code; e.g. to call a US phone number (760) 555-1212, dial 00 1 760 555 1212.

Telephones
The actual telephones themselves are sturdy devices, and many residences and workplaces have phones that date back decades. The state telecommunications agency is responsible for replacing damaged or non-functional telephones at no cost, and a working phone can be replaced with a newer model for a relatively low price (about an average day's wages); most rotary phones had been replaced with touchtone phones by the year 2000. All phones manufactured since the 1990s have displays that show the full phone number that is calling or being called; if said number belongs to an organization or establishment rather than a residence, the name of the organization will be displayed as well. As a privacy and security measure, residential and cell phone numbers do not display the person's name, but individuals can save phone numbers into the phone's memory, and the name they enter will be displayed when they call or are called by that phone number.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

redid how the telephone system works in my concountry, for some reason??

I actually enjoyed that.

[quinterbeck]

redid how the telephone system works in my concountry, for some reason??

IMO this is good enough for a full post, e.g. in a thread about Transemilia (which I'd be interested to read more about btw).

I might be missing some basic understanding of how telephone networks work, but how does the network know you're dialling an emergency number, and not just a number in region 1 that you haven't finished keying in yet?

[Rounin Ryuuji]

redid how the telephone system works in my concountry, for some reason??

IMO this is good enough for a full post, e.g. in a thread about Transemilia (which I'd be interested to read more about btw).

I might be missing some basic understanding of how telephone networks work, but how does the network know you're dialling an emergency number, and not just a number in region 1 that you haven't finished keying in yet?

From what we received, I'm guessing it understands this from the sequence 10-; the zero doing some sort of cutoff; they could presumably start using 20- and 30- for this, too, if they need to add more emergency services.

[quinterbeck]

redid how the telephone system works in my concountry, for some reason??

IMO this is good enough for a full post, e.g. in a thread about Transemilia (which I'd be interested to read more about btw).

I might be missing some basic understanding of how telephone networks work, but how does the network know you're dialling an emergency number, and not just a number in region 1 that you haven't finished keying in yet?

From what we received, I'm guessing it understands this from the sequence 10-; the zero doing some sort of cutoff; they could presumably start using 20- and 30- for this, too, if they need to add more emergency services.

Never mind, I misread - I thought the caller dialled a zero between the region number and the exchange number, but they don't.

[Qwynegold]

Today I did very little work, but it was important work. I decided that I will merge the lexemes "it" and "that" after all. Probably. I also expanded the dictionary definition of on (that).

[Travis B.]

redid how the telephone system works in my concountry, for some reason??

IMO this is good enough for a full post, e.g. in a thread about Transemilia (which I'd be interested to read more about btw).

Definitely agreed.

[Ahzoh]

I have two forms of the agent derivation pattern CaCāCum depending on whether one's to keep the weak consonants or not, becuase normally they're supposed to just elide without exception (indicated by the circumflex over vowels):

S-T-Y "to invade, to tresspass, to defy"; satû "I invade, I tresspass, I defy"

Code: Select all

satāyum   "enemy"     / satāyū    "enemies"
satāyu-li "the enemy" / satāyū-li "the enemies"
satā      "enemy of"  / satāyē    "enemies of"

Full elision:

Code: Select all

satûm   / satû
satû-li / satû-li
satā    / satê

K-M-ʾ "to get up, to stand up, to rise, to ascend"; kemû "I get up, I stand up, I rise, I ascend"

Code: Select all

kemēʾum   "ascender"     / kemēʾū    "ascender"
kemēʾu-li "the ascender" / kemēʾū-li "the ascendters"
kemē      "ascender of"  / kemēʾē    "ascenders of"

Full elision:

Code: Select all

kemûm   / kemû
kemû-li / kemû-li
kemē    / kemê

Guess I have three noun states now

[Emily]

redid how the telephone system works in my concountry, for some reason??

IMO this is good enough for a full post, e.g. in a thread about Transemilia (which I'd be interested to read more about btw).

Definitely agreed.

thank you both! but i'm not sure there's enough to warrant its own thread. it's just an eastern bloc socialist country i made for nationstates, and whipped up a conlang for that is semi-abandoned because it turns out it's a chore to try to pronounce anything in it. the only other thing i really wrote much about it is the history, which i mostly just stole from yugoslavia

[Emily]

i picked up a library book on luiseño the other day and got a lot of good inspiration for ka'ekala (so that it's not just a complete rip-off of hawaiian grammar), and this morning i got noun phrases mostly figured out! i might make a thread about that one actually

[Ahzoh]

Relative pronoun shenanigans in Vrkhazhian:

[Emily]

so i made a map of dialect differences in transemilian (so much for "semi-abandoned" i guess!). this map covers vowel differences only; i still need to work out consonant changes. (not so sure about the style for the legend but it was worth experimenting; also includes a chart of the differences so you can see them laid out. the different colors on the map represent the different provinces (labeled "Gretsel", "Stitshu", etc.) and the numbers represent the dialect areas, which correspond to the excel screenshot in the corner. the thick black line separating 1-5 from 6-11 rides the northern edge of a mountain range bisecting the country

[Rounin Ryuuji]

so i made a map...

This is inspiring.