Conlang Random Thread

[Glass Half Baked]

If you're concerned that starting from Old Japanese and applying cat sound changes yields Modern Japanese, why not just start from Modern Japanese?

[linguistcat]

If you're concerned that starting from Old Japanese and applying cat sound changes yields Modern Japanese, why not just start from Modern Japanese?

Because I'm looking at cat youkai in Edo Period, and I wanted to start with cat spirits that came to Japan in the Heian Period. But looking at a future Japanese spoken by cat youkai could be fun too.

[Glass Half Baked]

OK, well then if the cats just magically show up a thousand years ago, why must they start speaking Old Japanese, and not their own language? Or a para-Japanese conlang based on some hypothetical pre-Old-Japanese?

[Travis B.]

OK, well then if the cats just magically show up a thousand years ago, why must they start speaking Old Japanese, and not their own language? Or a para-Japanese conlang based on some hypothetical pre-Old-Japanese?

And there has been work on reconstructing Proto-Japonic...

[Raphael]

I don't think linguistcat needs a better justification for conlanging choices than "I want it that way".

[Travis B.]

I don't think linguistcat needs a better justification for conlanging choices than "I want it that way".

Agreed -- there is no need to apply supposed 'reason' to the linguistics of cat youkai.

[linguistcat]

I don't think linguistcat needs a better justification for conlanging choices than "I want it that way".

Agreed -- there is no need to apply supposed 'reason' to the linguistics of cat youkai.

This but also the cat youkai did derive from Chinese cat spirits, so maybe I should focus more on Middle Chinese, although I don't really want to do the amount of research I'd feel necessary to be satisfied, so Old Japanese is a good starting place for me. While there is work on Proto-Japonic and Pre-Old Japanese, we just don't know as much about them as the language that was actually written down in some form.

[Travis B.]

I don't think linguistcat needs a better justification for conlanging choices than "I want it that way".

Agreed -- there is no need to apply supposed 'reason' to the linguistics of cat youkai.

This but also the cat youkai did derive from Chinese cat spirits, so maybe I should focus more on Middle Chinese, although I don't really want to do the amount of research I'd feel necessary to be satisfied, so Old Japanese is a good starting place for me. While there is work on Proto-Japonic and Pre-Old Japanese, we just don't know as much about them as the language that was actually written down in some form.

Well Middle Chinese is actually rather well-researched by this point, and is much better-defined than Old Chinese, which are there are far more questions about. Of course, there is still the argument that the inventory defined by people such as Baxter is merely categories based off the Qieyun and like rather than an actual phonology...

[bradrn]

Of course, there is still the argument that the inventory defined by people such as Baxter is merely categories based off the Qieyun and like rather than an actual phonology...

As I recall, this is the perspective taken by Baxter & Sagart themselves.

[Man in Space]

Preliminary attempts at a native Kgáweq’ script, based on the one Xander Vedejas created for me years ago.

[WeepingElf]

Looks good!

[quinterbeck]

Preliminary attempts at a native Kgáweq’ script, based on the one Xander Vedejas created for me years ago.

I like it! Interested to see how vowels or other marking combine

[linguistcat]

As a tangent to my last statement and conlanging vent, am I right that you could take a diphthong and pretty much turn it into a vowel somewhere between the two as a pretty simple sound change?

Because if so this has simplified some things for me greatly. If not, what would you say the general rule is for diphthong -> single vowel?

[Travis B.]

As a tangent to my last statement and conlanging vent, am I right that you could take a diphthong and pretty much turn it into a vowel somewhere between the two as a pretty simple sound change?

Because if so this has simplified some things for me greatly. If not, what would you say the general rule is for diphthong -> single vowel?

The general rule for a diphthong changing to a monophthong is that you don't have to justify changing it to any vowel between its start and end points, its start and end points included, with the rounding of either endpoint.

[linguistcat]

As a tangent to my last statement and conlanging vent, am I right that you could take a diphthong and pretty much turn it into a vowel somewhere between the two as a pretty simple sound change?

Because if so this has simplified some things for me greatly. If not, what would you say the general rule is for diphthong -> single vowel?

The general rule for a diphthong changing to a monophthong is that you don't have to justify changing it to any vowel between its start and end points, its start and end points included, with the rounding of either endpoint.

Awesome. I have some work to do on Middle Chinese real quick It only took me about 20 years to gain a basic intuition for sound changes I guess. Thanks for verifying what I was thinking.

[foxcatdog]

The Amarin grammatical component *na has had quite the history going from a particle used exclusively to link verbal components, to one exclusively used to link noun components and full circle. It serves two functions in Middle Amarin.

*a) In possessive nominalisation it links the pronoun to the verb
*b) Indicates the location where an action happens.

In addition it has also degraded and combined with verbal elements to form new directional suffixes as well as degraded to form possessive suffixes on nouns.

[bradrn]

Preliminary attempts at a native Kgáweq’ script, based on the one Xander Vedejas created for me years ago.

A few questions:

1. I second quinterbeck’s question — how do the vowels work?
2. What writing implements do the Kgáweq’ use? What would this look like when handwritten?
3. The aesthetic reminds me quite strongly of the Aurebesh cipher developed for Star Wars. Was this intentional?

(And also, tangentially: what font did you use for the Latin labels? I like it, yet it doesn’t look like your usual choice of TT Marxiana…)

[jal]

I second quinterbeck’s question — how do the vowels work?

Why would vowels be needed?


JAL

[malloc]

Recently I have been experimenting with number systems for one of my projects, in particular a combination of sexagesimal and duodecimal. For instance, one would express the number 2025 as something like two-dozen-nine sixties and three-dozen nine. Admittedly this system is rather more complicated than pure duodecimal and it seems difficult to explain why it would evolve in the first place or persist long term. Then again, plenty of ancient Near Eastern cultures used a similarly messy sexagesimal system for thousands of years and we still have traces of it today in our timekeeping.

[bradrn]

I second quinterbeck’s question — how do the vowels work?

Why would vowels be needed?

Yes, that’s one possible answer to my question — that vowels are unwritten. But I’d like Man in Space to confirm that, if so!

Recently I have been experimenting with number systems for one of my projects, in particular a combination of sexagesimal and duodecimal. For instance, one would express the number 2025 as something like two-dozen-nine sixties and three-dozen nine. Admittedly this system is rather more complicated than pure duodecimal and it seems difficult to explain why it would evolve in the first place or persist long term. Then again, plenty of ancient Near Eastern cultures used a similarly messy sexagesimal system for thousands of years and we still have traces of it today in our timekeeping.

Note that a lot of premodern cultures only really need a means of counting to 10. (For instance, only numbers 1–10 are reconstructable to PIE.) Above that point, there is a lot of variation in counting systems — I don’t think sexagesimal needs any special justification.