What have you accomplished today?

[bradrn]

I also have a sort-of accomplishment — I finished a redraught of an old work of fiction, that I think both improved it enormously, and brought it to better match how I now conceive the world. It's also quite surreal, and I wonder how well it really fits in overall, but I always doubt my own fiction. It's about 20,000 words, so I suppose it's a long short story or novelette, or a rather short novella. It also, incidentally, resulted in my creating a word for "hell" in the internal language (下死原 Shita Insis, literally "Lower Death Meadow"), though it isn't a fire-and-brimstone hell, or a place of tournament, the overall realm of the dead simply being 死原 Insis, which doesn't have any sort of negative connotation internally, and it's at least strongly implied that the inhabitants of the main part of the fictitious world (or at least most of them) aren't aware of its existence.

As is to be expected, it's flowery, and full of rather long and convoluted sentences.

I love seeing examples of colorful and poetic names! Is this conlang on this board at the moment? I apologize that I'm sometimes confused by which ones are part of connected settings for various members. I try to lurk and learn.

It sort-of is. I had a thread, but the development of the language has evolved kind-of beyond it, and the document in which I'm working on articulating everything is very incomplete. I haven't updated the thread in a while, or said much of anything about the world, so I shouldn't think people would know much about it.

I’d really like to see more of it though! It always seems really interesting when you talk about it.

For one of my conlangs, I had a similar problem — the reference grammar was extremely incomplete, but I wanted to share it. I found that translating a text AND including grammatical notes worked really well as a way of showing off the language. You might be interested in doing the same. (I got the idea originally from Short Stories in Risha Cuhbi on the old board, which I still think is one of the best conlang presentations I’ve ever seen.)

[Rounin Ryuuji]

I love seeing examples of colorful and poetic names! Is this conlang on this board at the moment? I apologize that I'm sometimes confused by which ones are part of connected settings for various members. I try to lurk and learn.

It sort-of is. I had a thread, but the development of the language has evolved kind-of beyond it, and the document in which I'm working on articulating everything is very incomplete. I haven't updated the thread in a while, or said much of anything about the world, so I shouldn't think people would know much about it.

I’d really like to see more of it though! It always seems really interesting when you talk about it.

Very flattering (and a little surprising, we seem to have almost opposite tastes in languages); I've been pondering both reviving the old thread, or creating a new one because the old one is full of outdated notes and ideas and is now fairly well-buried, and it might be nice to have a clean start presenting it as it is now, especially since I've managed to somewhat articulate how the pitch accent works, and it's... fairly complicated, and one of the features I think really distinguishes it from Japanese.

For one of my conlangs, I had a similar problem — the reference grammar was extremely incomplete, but I wanted to share it. I found that translating a text AND including grammatical notes worked really well as a way of showing off the language. You might be interested in doing the same. (I got the idea originally from Short Stories in Risha Cuhbi on the old board, which I still think is one of the best conlang presentations I’ve ever seen.)

Not a bad idea. I do have some ideas for textual fragments.

[bradrn]

It sort-of is. I had a thread, but the development of the language has evolved kind-of beyond it, and the document in which I'm working on articulating everything is very incomplete. I haven't updated the thread in a while, or said much of anything about the world, so I shouldn't think people would know much about it.

I’d really like to see more of it though! It always seems really interesting when you talk about it.

Very flattering (and a little surprising, we seem to have almost opposite tastes in languages)

Maybe so, but I always enjoy reading about conlangs which clearly have had a lot of detail put into them.

I've been pondering both reviving the old thread, or creating a new one because the old one is full of outdated notes and ideas and is now fairly well-buried, and it might be nice to have a clean start presenting it as it is now, especially since I've managed to somewhat articulate how the pitch accent works, and it's... fairly complicated, and one of the features I think really distinguishes it from Japanese.

Personally I’d stay with the old thread, but that’s just my opinion.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

I’d really like to see more of it though! It always seems really interesting when you talk about it.

Very flattering (and a little surprising, we seem to have almost opposite tastes in languages)

Maybe so, but I always enjoy reading about conlangs which clearly have had a lot of detail put into them.

The details can really be the fun part, especially quirky etymologies. Seeing what other people do, though, I feel there's a lot about language I don't know, and often think, "Mine can't be very interesting". I guess that isn't true, which is nice.

I've been pondering both reviving the old thread, or creating a new one because the old one is full of outdated notes and ideas and is now fairly well-buried, and it might be nice to have a clean start presenting it as it is now, especially since I've managed to somewhat articulate how the pitch accent works, and it's... fairly complicated, and one of the features I think really distinguishes it from Japanese.

Personally I’d stay with the old thread, but that’s just my opinion.

It's going to be a while before I have anything presentable, so I guess I can just sleep on it till then.

[bradrn]

Very flattering (and a little surprising, we seem to have almost opposite tastes in languages)

Maybe so, but I always enjoy reading about conlangs which clearly have had a lot of detail put into them.

The details can really be the fun part, especially quirky etymologies. Seeing what other people do, though, I feel there's a lot about language I don't know, and often think, "Mine can't be very interesting". I guess that isn't true, which is nice.

Well, I’m really terrible at word derivation and adjacent areas, so I always find it very impressive when other people go into detail with that. (I think most conlangers don’t focus on that area.)

I've been pondering both reviving the old thread, or creating a new one because the old one is full of outdated notes and ideas and is now fairly well-buried, and it might be nice to have a clean start presenting it as it is now, especially since I've managed to somewhat articulate how the pitch accent works, and it's... fairly complicated, and one of the features I think really distinguishes it from Japanese.

Personally I’d stay with the old thread, but that’s just my opinion.

It's going to be a while before I have anything presentable, so I guess I can just sleep on it till then.

Don’t worry if it takes a while. It took me about 3 months to translate The North Wind and the Sun. (Although it was the first long text I translated, and I wasn’t working on it very consistently, and nearly every sentence sent me off on weeks of research…)

[Rounin Ryuuji]

I'm not too terribly worried; I've gotten through articulating more sound changes, which is nice.

[doctor shark]

My accomplishment for today:

[Travis B.]

Nice, as always.

[Karch]

I finally started working on Old Eastern Bay.

[xxx]

@ DrShark

have you already printed your collections of banknotes, and other official documents,

it could make a beautiful exhibition (with exchange office duely approcionner in cash according to the rates...)

in spite of the rise of the NFT, the documents you produce seem to call for the contact of paper...

[Raholeun]

The first translation of a poem I have ever done is completed. Hopefully more will follow soon. I am still unsure however about the manner and format of presentation. How much should one elaborate on fun syntactic tid-bits, on pieces of creative liberty taken here and there, on my interpretation of the poem or some historical information? Should I work for three years and at the end dump a pdf somewhere or work a bit more agile and try to release a finished product at regular intervals?

Time to slow down now..

[bradrn]

The first translation of a poem I have ever done is completed. Hopefully more will follow soon. I am still unsure however about the manner and format of presentation. How much should one elaborate on fun syntactic tid-bits, on pieces of creative liberty taken here and there, on my interpretation of the poem or some historical information? Should I work for three years and at the end dump a pdf somewhere or work a bit more agile and try to release a finished product at regular intervals?

Well, it depends of course on how long the poem is. When I did something similar I just had about a paragraph of annotations for each clause.

[Raphael]

The first translation of a poem I have ever done is completed. Hopefully more will follow soon.

Congratulations!

[linguistcat]

Actually yesterday, but I was looking for what consonants could be found before the different verb conjugation vowels in Old Japanese, and that meant searching verbs that might have been the right conjugation class with the consonant I was looking for, then checking to see if it was the same conjugation in Old Japanese. One that surprised me was OJ kasanu (modern: kasaneru), which was the only shimo nidan verb I found ending in -nu. I'm sure there are more but they're pretty rare.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

From what I can tell, verbs ending in -nu generally weren't that common.

[linguistcat]

From what I can tell, verbs ending in -nu generally weren't that common.

And mostly irregular! Hence why I'm happy to have found one that all sources I could find do confirm was shimo nidan from and early time. I did find a corresponding yodan verb kasanaru, so it's likely verbs that ended in -nu changed to have longer endings, including the nahen verbs.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

From what I can tell, verbs ending in -nu generally weren't that common.

And mostly irregular! Hence why I'm happy to have found one that all sources I could find do confirm was shimo nidan from and early time. I did find a corresponding yodan verb kasanaru, so it's likely verbs that ended in -nu changed to have longer endings, including the nahen verbs.

That one clearly has the copula with a regularised -ru jammed onto the end. That seems to have been a not-uncommon occurrence.

[Emily]

started working on a new conworld yesterday and sketched out the basic parameters for a set of proto-languages, and spent the whole day working out the basics for the first one (this one, currently named "proto-language 1", is PIE-like — fusional with strong hints at previous agglutination, gender system that's still coalescing, several cases — but most of the others will be very different; i'm trying to break out of my pseudo-europe comfort zone). figured out the rudiments of syntax and hammered out the nominal morphology, aa well as the numerals, and i just got done working through the verb endings. now to work on the basic vocabulary, or alternatively to go to bed

started working on "proto-language 4" during my downtime at work. so far i just have a rough phonology (4 POA's, a three-way B-P-Pʰ distinction for stops, 8-10 vowels, 6 tones) but i will be fleshing it out a little bit more. i need to hammer out the tones a little bit more, decide what to do with the vowels (currentlyi i have 3 central vowels, but i need to decide if i want them to be separate phonemes or just allophones of one phoneme), and then get to work on the grammar (my sketched out parameters just say "agglutinating, ergative-absolutive, prefixing instead of suffixing; VSO")

question: are there tonal languages that also have vowel harmony?

[Creyeditor]

Yes, many, many languages in West Africa and East Africa have ATR harmony and lexical/grammatical tone, like Akan, Yoruba and Maasai.

[bradrn]

(currentlyi i have 3 central vowels, but i need to decide if i want them to be separate phonemes or just allophones of one phoneme)

One alternative attested from some Papuan and Chadic languages is to make one central vowel epenthetic: it is absent phonemically but gets inserted at the surface between underlying consonant clusters.

(my sketched out parameters just say "agglutinating, ergative-absolutive, prefixing instead of suffixing; VSO")

‘Ergative–absolutive’ is practically meaningless. Do you have any more details?

question: are there tonal languages that also have vowel harmony?

One thing to think about here is that both of these tend to be autosegmental processes. I think tone and vowel harmony are on separate autosegmental tiers so don’t interact with each other, but I’d have to check to be sure.