Zompist Bboard Again

hwhatting wrote: ↑Mon May 15, 2023 8:52 am Another micronation?

Actually, a nation from my conworld that ended up being an excuse for another country to make banknotes and stuff for. :P

in modern gothic i took gothic's dual number (which only appeared in 1st and 2nd person pronouns and their respective verb conjugations, and which as in all germanica languages were on their way out) and instead of withering aeay i had them build up and develop new forms, so by the present day they have a fully developed dual number in every part of speech. historically it's basically unjustifiable that i did this, but if it were to happen i think that the way i did it is the most justifiable and believable possibly

I incidentally just finished yet another new banknote for another of my ongoing banknote revitalization projects.

no famous people in their country on the banknotes (and a biography to explain it)...

xxx wrote: ↑Wed May 24, 2023 1:41 pm no famous people in their country on the banknotes (and a biography to explain it)...

Not every country puts a person on every unit of currency they have.

Yeah, I mean, they chose architecture instead of famous people on the Euro banknotes, so...

OK, Euro banknotes are, well, not excruciatingly ugly, but not terribly beautiful either; it's pretty clear they were designed by a committee. I like doctor shark's banknotes a lot better, actually.

keenir wrote: ↑Wed May 24, 2023 3:11 pm Not every country puts a person on every unit of currency they have.

but for a conworld it is certainly more interesting, especially if you add an explanatory note...

Why? I think it's good to have some cultures use people, some using other things, on banknotes. Dr. Shark has used stock images of people in the past, so why not other things?

xxx wrote: ↑Thu May 25, 2023 4:59 am

keenir wrote: ↑Wed May 24, 2023 3:11 pm Not every country puts a person on every unit of currency they have.

but for a conworld it is certainly more interesting, especially if you add an explanatory note...

Explanations are always good, i agree - though that applies not just to faces on money.

I bet you'd have nice notes for what you put on currency for your conworld too.

I don't write much about my conlang projects... maybe I should. I feel like writing it down helps me to process thoughts and ideas and maybe others may be interested in what other conlangers are up to.

So I've just undone the Finnish-style consonant gradation stuff in my L* conlang that I put a good week of effort into last summer. It was around the time I was copying Finnish's noun cases system and thought consonant gradation would be a cool thing to include (which it is), so I spent a good week poring over Finnish grammars and sound changes in order to work it into L. Now that I'm revisiting the sound changes (again, because I'm never happy), I've decided that the gradation patterns add too much complexity and produces weird sounds that I've either gone off of or didn't fully notice until now. Anyhoo, it's gone, along with the proto-language's massive phonological inventory which has now been culled of its pre-nasalised plosives, palatalised plosives, syllabic nasals, syllabic liquids, and the horrible [ɨ ʉ] vowels as well as some very PIE stuff like [gʷʰ]. The truth is, when coining new words for the proto-language I wasn't utilising them as much as I could have been (because I kept forgetting about them), often just picking plain or aspirated plosives instead. I also chose to add /ɣ/ into the proto-language's phonology because, as it's a supposedly "unstable" sound, it can be used in pretty interesting ways - I have plans for it becoming /a/, /h ~ x/, /ŋ/ and /ɡ/ depending on environments in different daughter conlangs – I'm also open to other suggestions.

I've also decided to make L a bit less obviously Latin and Finnish influenced. Because this language has gone through so many stages of me going "oooh, look! Lets make this my anti-Celtic conlang!"**, then "ooooh look! Latin!", then "oooh look! Finnish!", and then "oooh look! Ancient Greek!" and then "ooooh look! What a fucking mess!" - which is where I'm at now - L has become something of a mess which really needs tidying up. So now that I've simplified the proto-language phonology I will go through the six pages of sound changes for Proto-PQL > Classical L* and remove the changes for those phonemes which have been purged and then look at the very Latin and very Finnish and very Greek stuff and tone it down, maybe just apply some simpler changes (don't ask me what, I have no idea yet).

I have also had to re-visit the sound changes for Proto-PQL > P* due to the deletion of some older phonemes. This has prompted me to re-think just how Welsh do I want it? Initially I wanted it to be very Welsh but with some striking differences because I was trying to avoid accusations of copying Sindarin - or trying to make something like it but the truth is, I don't find Sindarin to be that interesting. But now I think it's gone a bit too far down the Welsh rabbit-hole and I think I'll employ the same approach as L - take a look at the very Welsh sound changes and tone them down, maybe look for other inspiration or see what I come up with by myself.

Q - still pretty much non-existent. There are a handful of notes and scribbles as to what it should sound and feel like (Goidelic, basically), but nothing new. I did have the idea of incorporating the weird Armenian sound change of PIE /dw/ > Armenian /rk/ just to have a radical difference between Q and the others, but whether this ends up in the final cut I couldn't say.

I have also sketched out a Germanic-style family of conlangs (with the designations G, E, and N, i.e. Gothic, Old English, Old Norse). Not sure if I've ever mentioned them on here. At the moment they are just sketches and are very much on the back burner (along with Q). I've also sketched out (to a lesser degree) and very Ancient Greek inspired conlang (at least phonologically) which is to maybe be a language isolate... or it could be very distantly related to the GEN family. This is, of course, on the back-burner too and I have no idea if I'll ever get around to doing anything with it. My current priorities are to get L and P to a useable form, do some translations, share them, and then, maybe then, I'll start working on Q before I reach 40.

I have a week off work soon, which will be partly taken up by a list of jobs that the missus will undoubtedly have for me, but I intend to lend every spare minute to conlanging - even at the cost of missing the brilliant weather we're getting here at the moment. I would conlang in my garden but I don't have any garden furniture at the moment and patio slabs get ever so hot in the sun.

Happy conlanging!

* Yes, I'm aware that I really need to name these conlangs.
** This project initially began life as a single conlang - P which is very Welsh influenced. Some time later I decided to make a sister language and basically have it be the anti-P, which is no longer the case.

Jonlang wrote: ↑Sat May 27, 2023 4:45 am I don't write much about my conlang projects... maybe I should. I feel like writing it down helps me to process thoughts and ideas and maybe others may be interested in what other conlangers are up to.

Yeah, sometimes I find it helps too In any case, happy conlanging!

I'm reworking, yet again, the language I used to call Karaam. It's on its fourth or fifth iteration now I think?
There's something about conlanging that invites lots of reworking and trouble figuring out names for languages, I guess

If anyone followed or remembered... I didn't like the sound of language too much; one tell-tale is that it was difficult to pronounce; to some extent it's OK (lots of sounds alien to French or English), but it still felt unrealistic somehow. Also I had better ideas about the conworld's chronology, which means it should have had a lot more changes from the proto-language. (This means Simbri will get a major overhaul sometime down the line.)

Still at work on the latest iteration of Karaam. I'm pretty with it so far, plus I managed to put the Interlinear template at work on Mediawiki and that makes the language feel more real, somehow.

Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Thu May 25, 2023 7:16 am Why? I think it's good to have some cultures use people, some using other things, on banknotes. Dr. Shark has used stock images of people in the past, so why not other things?

I've actually generated faces rather than using stock images (consent and all), but, indeed, I've done a lot of both. And this country's notes have actually not used people on them in previous iterations, so consistency. The idea here is native fauna (and flora) in a subtropical archipelago, which is where the Pearl Islands are located, and the back featuring locations (which are just swiped from pictures I've taken of places I've traveled to, but don't tell anyone). And it's not an entirely novel approach: most current Argentine peso notes, the first post-Apartheid South African rand notes, Norwegian kroner, and Danish kroner notes all forego people in favor of animals, bridges, etc.

And using people can be divisive, while (to me) animals and more natural things can be somewhat more neutral.

Anyways, more money. For comparison, I've also included the older versions I've done of this note.

I've been somewhat productive in the money realm as of late.

Last night and today, I read about the different flavors of Modalities...(i always called them different types or modes before)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modality_(linguistics)

xxx wrote: ↑Wed Jun 07, 2023 2:37 pm
words to travel the world...

umm...can i ask what that means? (?what do the signs mean, that is)

keenir wrote: ↑Wed Jun 07, 2023 2:57 pm Last night and today, I read about the different flavors of Modalities...(i always called them different types or modes before)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modality_(linguistics)

Oh dear… Wikipedia is rather terrible for stuff like this. I can recommend Palmer’s Mood and Modality, as well as The Oxford Handbook of Modality and Mood.

bradrn wrote: ↑Wed Jun 07, 2023 7:54 pm

keenir wrote: ↑Wed Jun 07, 2023 2:57 pm Last night and today, I read about the different flavors of Modalities...(i always called them different types or modes before)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modality_(linguistics)

Oh dear… Wikipedia is rather terrible for stuff like this.

In this instance, I only mined it for the "may" vs "must" distinction, for the Conlang Sample Text (relay) at viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1296

I can recommend Palmer’s Mood and Modality, as well as The Oxford Handbook of Modality and Mood.

thank you.

keenir wrote: ↑Thu Jun 08, 2023 12:22 am

bradrn wrote: ↑Wed Jun 07, 2023 7:54 pm

keenir wrote: ↑Wed Jun 07, 2023 2:57 pm Last night and today, I read about the different flavors of Modalities...(i always called them different types or modes before)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modality_(linguistics)

Oh dear… Wikipedia is rather terrible for stuff like this.

In this instance, I only mined it for the "may" vs "must" distinction, for the Conlang Sample Text (relay) at viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1296

Well, in that case, I’m just impressed you got anything out of it at all. As usual for Wikipedia’s linguistics articles, the paragraph in question is muddled enough that I’m not sure I could understand it without prior knowledge.

bradrn wrote: ↑Thu Jun 08, 2023 12:25 am

keenir wrote: ↑Thu Jun 08, 2023 12:22 am

bradrn wrote: ↑Wed Jun 07, 2023 7:54 pm

Oh dear… Wikipedia is rather terrible for stuff like this.

In this instance, I only mined it for the "may" vs "must" distinction, for the Conlang Sample Text (relay) at viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1296

Well, in that case, I’m just impressed you got anything out of it at all. As usual for Wikipedia’s linguistics articles, the paragraph in question is muddled enough that I’m not sure I could understand it without prior knowledge.

To be fair, all I got out of it, was from a surface reading: that may and must were two of the options available to those who follow one of two subgroups of modality (epistemic vs deontic)...and read only a paragraph or two further, to see if there were other examples to be had.

*shrugs*