Zompist Bboard Again

Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Tue Jul 20, 2021 6:06 pm

Gryphonic wrote: ↑Tue Jul 20, 2021 3:42 pm

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.

bradrn wrote: ↑Tue Jul 20, 2021 8:55 pm

Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Tue Jul 20, 2021 6:06 pm

Gryphonic wrote: ↑Tue Jul 20, 2021 3:42 pm
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 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 20, 2021 10:19 pm

bradrn wrote: ↑Tue Jul 20, 2021 8:55 pm

Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Tue Jul 20, 2021 6:06 pm
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.

bradrn wrote: ↑Tue Jul 20, 2021 11:50 pm

Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Tue Jul 20, 2021 10:19 pm

bradrn wrote: ↑Tue Jul 20, 2021 8:55 pm

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 wrote: ↑Wed Jul 21, 2021 12:32 am

bradrn wrote: ↑Tue Jul 20, 2021 11:50 pm

Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Tue Jul 20, 2021 10:19 pm
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.

Raholeun wrote: ↑Mon Aug 02, 2021 4:36 pm 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?

Raholeun wrote: ↑Mon Aug 02, 2021 4:36 pm The first translation of a poem I have ever done is completed. Hopefully more will follow soon.

Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Wed Aug 04, 2021 6:18 pm From what I can tell, verbs ending in -nu generally weren't that common.

linguistcat wrote: ↑Wed Aug 04, 2021 6:28 pm

Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Wed Aug 04, 2021 6:18 pm 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.

Emily wrote: ↑Sat Apr 03, 2021 5:37 am 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

Emily wrote: ↑Thu Aug 05, 2021 12:16 am (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)

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

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