Zompist Bboard Again

I posted this in the Akana forum, but that's pretty much dead. Anyway, since the last post in the Akana forum was in Sept of last year, I think it's safe to say it's dead. I wasn't around for it, but I would like to be involved in another conworld project. So, anyone interested?

I don't exactly have the best reputation here but i can grant sheer productivity. Anyways the best way to start this out is probably via a Reconstruction Relay given that is how Akana started (also i want another one and i will note i largely got along well with Bradrn and Darren).

What are the parameters of this world? Multiple races vs only humans or even some other race vs humans in one environment and other races in another or even human derived peoples changed by magic. Magic or no magic and if magic is it comprehensible (i myself have a disdain for hard magic systems and non-religious magic so i would propose magic being a substance of ideas and influence divided into matter and energy like components giving a 2 by 2 grid giving us Anima and Spirits of course). We could go sci-fi or science fantasy/space opera too or perhaps have that be an end goal of our project especially if we want to limit magic and still have a distinct aesthetic from Akana.

Also with permission from Bradrn and Darren if this world takes off i would like to move the languages from the family we worked on to here as well as the family i have here (although it has basically zero grammar and all these languages are wordlists). They will probably end up in an island chain.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PSn ... sp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/document/d/12PT ... sp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wS8 ... sp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/document/d/14j7 ... sp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1O-d ... sp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kSE ... sp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Or5 ... sp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bg0 ... sp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/document/d/18G5 ... sp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LTq ... sp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/document/d/14y4 ... sp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qlP ... sp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Y4b ... sp=sharing

foxcatdog wrote: ↑Thu Jun 26, 2025 12:51 am Also with permission from Bradrn and Darren if this world takes off i would like to move the languages from the family we worked on to here as well as the family i have here (although it has basically zero grammar and all these languages are wordlists). They will probably end up in an island chain.

Do what you want with your own languages, but at least mine was created for Akana, and I don’t want anyone else to move it elsewhere.

Thanks to Lērisama for redirecting me here! on the topic of conlangs, I happen to have just started work on 3 proto-conlangs for no reason other than the heck of it, that I planned to evolve into families for the same aforementioned reasoning. I could, if requested, provide the deets so far on them as a contribution to this conworld.

foxcatdog wrote: ↑Thu Jun 26, 2025 12:51 am Also with permission from Bradrn and Darren if this world takes off i would like to move the languages from the family we worked on to here as well as the family i have here (although it has basically zero grammar and all these languages are wordlists).

You can use mine but only on the condition that you attempt to pass them off as your own work, without my name attached.

Darren wrote: ↑Fri Jun 27, 2025 4:36 pm

foxcatdog wrote: ↑Thu Jun 26, 2025 12:51 am Also with permission from Bradrn and Darren if this world takes off i would like to move the languages from the family we worked on to here as well as the family i have here (although it has basically zero grammar and all these languages are wordlists).

You can use mine but only on the condition that you attempt to pass them off as your own work, without my name attached.

Wait, what? You’re requesting that foxcatdog plagiarises your work?

@Bradrn @Darren: If you wish these languages will remain on Akana but my family certainly won't. The Aesthetic of these families doesn't seem to match. Anyways i suggest a new relay (i am hankering for some languages to reconstruct a family from). I also have sketches of a "Tricontinent" language family spoken on three continents or subcontinents which could be used as a substrate for these families, it generally has a triconsonantal vibe or at least one which could evolve into one from a previously biconsonantal system. @nɒtɛndɚduːd such languages could form a substrate for the languages of the relay.

bradrn wrote: ↑Fri Jun 27, 2025 10:24 pm

Darren wrote: ↑Fri Jun 27, 2025 4:36 pm

foxcatdog wrote: ↑Thu Jun 26, 2025 12:51 am Also with permission from Bradrn and Darren if this world takes off i would like to move the languages from the family we worked on to here as well as the family i have here (although it has basically zero grammar and all these languages are wordlists).

You can use mine but only on the condition that you attempt to pass them off as your own work, without my name attached.

Wait, what? You’re requesting that foxcatdog plagiarises your work?

I have no interest in plagiarisation.

foxcatdog wrote: ↑Fri Jun 27, 2025 10:27 pm Anyways i suggest a new relay (i am hankering for some languages to reconstruct a family from).

I won’t have the time for one, I think.

bradrn wrote: ↑Fri Jun 27, 2025 10:24 pm Wait, what? You’re requesting that foxcatdog plagiarises your work?

Yes this is correct.

Okay, so there's already drama and we haven't even done anything yet.

@Foxcatdog Please hold your horses. We've not even started and you're already talking about substrates and other continents. Also please no plagiarism, even if it's with the consent of the ones being plagiarised.

Anyway, how's this for a proto-language inventory?:
/m n ŋ/
/p b t d k g/
/s x-h/
/l j w/
/r/

/a e i o u/

(C)V(C) syllable structure.

Yes, it's prosaic, but it'll do.

Its not spectacularly odd with its weirdest phonemes being *ŋ and *x, everything fits in with the english+ fantasy aesthetic. Also it could be derived from Tricontinental easily or perhaps be deeply related to the 13 languages i posted before. But anyways we need to set the parameters of the world first.

Uh, Earthlike? To be honest, I have no idea how to proceed with the astronomical situation.

I think you are confusing astronomical parameters with the more broad meaning of parameter ("a limit or boundary which defines the scope of a particular process or activity"). Anyways earthlike is Akana's jist so i suggest we do something different even if its in the bounds of no magic such as say lost civilisations, ancient aliens. If we are doing magic what do we want the magic to be like? Elemental, Ideas based do we want a fixed pantheon or a spirit world which can be molded by human influence or varies from area to area.

ophois wrote: ↑Sun Jun 29, 2025 8:24 pm Okay, so there's already drama and we haven't even done anything yet.

@Foxcatdog Please hold your horses. We've not even started and you're already talking about substrates and other continents. Also please no plagiarism, even if it's with the consent of the ones being plagiarised.

From everything I have seen here, it is probably best if you simply don't allow a certain someone to be part of your conworld project.

Travis B. wrote: ↑Mon Jun 30, 2025 2:30 pm

ophois wrote: ↑Sun Jun 29, 2025 8:24 pm Okay, so there's already drama and we haven't even done anything yet.

@Foxcatdog Please hold your horses. We've not even started and you're already talking about substrates and other continents. Also please no plagiarism, even if it's with the consent of the ones being plagiarised.

From everything I have seen here, it is probably best if you simply don't allow a certain someone to be part of your conworld project.

that's a wild thing to say out loud to a thread that the person being spoken of is active on, but from what I'm also seeing I certainly agree.

anyways here's those protolang phoneme inventories I was speaking of:

one that fits the engish+ aesthetic:

	Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar
Nasal	m	n
Plosive	p	t		k
Affricate		ts
Fricative		s		x
Approximant	w	ɹ	j
Lateral Approximant		l

	Front	Center	Back
Close	i		u
Mid	e		o
Open		a

and one that's a bit more foreign to naive english speakers, but not too far out there:

	Labial	Alveolar	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal	m	n	ŋ	ɴ
Plosive	p pʼ mb	t tʼ nd	k kʼ ŋg	q qʼ ɴɢ	ʔ
Tap/Flap		ɾ
Affricate		ts	kx
Fricative		s			h
Approximant	w
Lateral Approximant		l

	Front	Center	Back
Close	i(ː)	ɨ(ː)	ɯ(ː) u(ː)
Mid	e(ː)		ɤ(ː) o(ː)
Open		a(ː)

/ˌnɐ.ˈɾɛn.dɚ.ˌduːd/ wrote: ↑Tue Jul 01, 2025 2:06 am

Travis B. wrote: ↑Mon Jun 30, 2025 2:30 pm

ophois wrote: ↑Sun Jun 29, 2025 8:24 pm Okay, so there's already drama and we haven't even done anything yet.

@Foxcatdog Please hold your horses. We've not even started and you're already talking about substrates and other continents. Also please no plagiarism, even if it's with the consent of the ones being plagiarised.

From everything I have seen here, it is probably best if you simply don't allow a certain someone to be part of your conworld project.

that's a wild thing to say out loud to a thread that the person being spoken of is active on, but from what I'm also seeing I certainly agree.

foxcatdog essentially single-handedly ruined Akana, just so you know. (I wasn't involved in Akana myself, but one person, whose name I will mention if they give me permission to, ultimately pulled all of their work out of Akana retroactively because they were so sick with how foxcatdog had been behaving.)

/ˌnɐ.ˈɾɛn.dɚ.ˌduːd/ wrote: ↑Tue Jul 01, 2025 2:06 am anyways here's those protolang phoneme inventories I was speaking of:

one that fits the engish+ aesthetic:

	Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar
Nasal	m	n
Plosive	p	t		k
Affricate		ts
Fricative		s		x
Approximant	w	ɹ	j
Lateral Approximant		l

	Front	Center	Back
Close	i		u
Mid	e		o
Open		a

While this is a 'simple' inventory, it is still a nice one. One thing it does ask for, though, is significant allophony in the realization of /p t k/ and /s x/, something that could develop in different ways in its daughter languages.

/ˌnɐ.ˈɾɛn.dɚ.ˌduːd/ wrote: ↑Tue Jul 01, 2025 2:06 am and one that's a bit more foreign to naive english speakers, but not too far out there:

	Labial	Alveolar	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal	m	n	ŋ	ɴ
Plosive	p pʼ mb	t tʼ nd	k kʼ ŋg	q qʼ ɴɢ	ʔ
Tap/Flap		ɾ
Affricate		ts	kx
Fricative		s			h
Approximant	w
Lateral Approximant		l

	Front	Center	Back
Close	i(ː)	ɨ(ː)	ɯ(ː) u(ː)
Mid	e(ː)		ɤ(ː) o(ː)
Open		a(ː)

Just a minor point: /ɴ/ as an independent phoneme that contrasts with a /ŋ/ in the same position is quite rare.

Travis B. wrote: ↑Tue Jul 01, 2025 12:49 pmfoxcatdog essentially single-handedly ruined Akana, just so you know. (I wasn't involved in Akana myself, but one person, whose name I will mention if they give me permission to, ultimately pulled all of their work out of Akana retroactively because they were so sick with how foxcatdog had been behaving.)

You don’t have to ask; it (like much else related) is public record that I did that.

Man in Space wrote: ↑Tue Jul 01, 2025 2:06 pm

Travis B. wrote: ↑Tue Jul 01, 2025 12:49 pmfoxcatdog essentially single-handedly ruined Akana, just so you know. (I wasn't involved in Akana myself, but one person, whose name I will mention if they give me permission to, ultimately pulled all of their work out of Akana retroactively because they were so sick with how foxcatdog had been behaving.)

You don’t have to ask; it (like much else related) is public record that I did that.

I remember how you made a statement of withdrawing from Akana; though I, who has contributed three conlangs but wasn't involved with Akana beyond that, had not seem what was going wrong and caused that move. But it reminds me of my misadventure with Ill Bethisad, from which I quit, removing the two conlangs (Germanech and Nur-ellen) and one conculture (an early version of my Elves) I had contributed to it, because the other members did not take me seriously, and that did hurt. (Of course, people ridiculed me because my Elves did not really fit into this alternative history based mainly on the notion that Latin spread to countries where it did not spread in our world. Also, I felt a conservative bias which the others denied, but helped put me off.) Later, I started a new collaborative project called the League of Lost Languages, but that soon lost momentum, and I eventually declared it defunct. Since then, I have been highly skeptical of any collaborative conworlds, and I don't feel like joining any such project.

Travis B. wrote: ↑Tue Jul 01, 2025 12:49 pm

/ˌnɐ.ˈɾɛn.dɚ.ˌduːd/ wrote: ↑Tue Jul 01, 2025 2:06 am

Travis B. wrote: ↑Mon Jun 30, 2025 2:30 pm

From everything I have seen here, it is probably best if you simply don't allow a certain someone to be part of your conworld project.

that's a wild thing to say out loud to a thread that the person being spoken of is active on, but from what I'm also seeing I certainly agree.

foxcatdog essentially single-handedly ruined Akana, just so you know. (I wasn't involved in Akana myself, but one person, whose name I will mention if they give me permission to, ultimately pulled all of their work out of Akana retroactively because they were so sick with how foxcatdog had been behaving.)

Honestly, I feel that Akana went near-dead long before foxcatdog put the last nail in the coffin. At the end it seems to have been merely a setting to do reconstruction relays on.