Zompist Bboard Again

Hello everyone,

I'm a beginner conlanger and I'm looking for some help with my first conlang. If you're interested, you can find the details below.

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About me
I'm a native hungarian speaker. Besides that, I speak english kind of fluently, german on a basic level and I know some esperanto, too. I'm a big conlang fan since my childhood and I've been playing with the idea of making my own conlang for years now. I have some very general knowledge about linguistics and I've read the Language Construction Kit (sort of).

About the project
Starting from zero, I'd like to create the basis of my first conlang with your valued help. It should get to the point from which I can finish it on my own. I have two (maybe three) months of relative freetime to do that. So the project starts on November 1 and probably ends on December 31.

Language concept
It should be simplistic conlang, a way for me to learn and gain experience. In other words, it doesn't need to be a full-fledged language. I'd like to draw from the languages I know, i.e. hungarian, english, german and esperanto. I have a vague concept in mind, and hopefully, you'll help me make it work.

Language backstory
First of all, this isn't really meant to be a fantasy language, so a backstory is kind of unnecessary. But some people like to draw inspiration from the backstory, so here is a short one I came up with:
It's the forgotten language of a paleolithic tribe of humans living in north-east Siberia. They live in small nomadic clans and have a shamanistic religion. They hunt various kinds of animals, mostly seals, walrus reindeer and mammoth. Mammoth is the hardest prey, so it is held in high regards among the tribesman. Btw, that's where the project's name come from.

What kind of help do I need?
Most of the time, I'll write about my ideas and ask for your opinion. I'm planning to do this on a weakly basis, and you can reply until the weekend. You help me as much as you want to. I appreciate even the smallest help. Critique and good advice is always welcome. Sometimes, I'll ask concrete questions about certain topics, but I'll try to keep it at a minimum level, because I don't want you to do the hard work for me.

What can I offer in exchange?
In short: not much (beyond the joy of conlanging). But if you have a great idea that you want to try out in my conlang, just throw it at me, and we'll see if it works. Plus, if you have any questions about the hungarian language, I can probably answer them.

How can you join?
Just let me know that I can count on you by leaving a comment in this thread. If you don't mind, tell me what your favorite topics are in conlanging, so that I know what you can help me the most with.

I'm looking forward to working with you,

Këkkytir

I’d be happy to help! I don’t know as much about conlanging as many of the other people here, but I’ll help when I can.

I’m just wondering: do you have any idea yet of what you want this language to look like, apart from it being ‘simplistic’?

It's the forgotten language of a paleolithic tribe of humans living in north-east Siberia. They live in small nomadic clans and have a shamanistic religion. They hunt various kinds of animals, mostly seals, walrus reindeer and mammoth. Mammoth is the hardest prey, so it is held in high regards among the tribesman. Btw, that's where the project's name come from.

Bad idea, if you keep the setting, you can forget drawing inspiration from your native language, except Hungarian. and probably german for phonology. You probably should pick an easier setting. Also, yes this is a fantasy setting. Fantasy doesn't have to be a D&D-like setting or even remotely medieval, or even possessing magic at all.

Most of the time, I'll write about my ideas and ask for your opinion. I'm planning to do this on a weakly basis, and you can reply until the weekend. You help me as much as you want to. I appreciate even the smallest help. Critique and good advice is always welcome. Sometimes, I'll ask concrete questions about certain topics, but I'll try to keep it at a minimum level, because I don't want you to do the hard work for me.

This is the right place. Even a pro conlanger needs it. Just make a scratchpad. (Or turn this post into a scratchpad)

In short: not much (beyond the joy of conlanging). But if you have a great idea that you want to try out in my conlang, just throw it at me, and we'll see if it works. Plus, if you have any questions about the hungarian language, I can probably answer them.

Well, we don't exactly want any reward. A good conlang is all we need.

As a starter, you can start reading: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/do ... 1&type=pdf. In short, get prepared for a complex agglutinative language. The syntax is SOV. The verb has complex nonfinite forms, with converb formation used the nominalization+case marking.

Xwtek wrote: ↑Tue Oct 29, 2019 12:34 am

It's the forgotten language of a paleolithic tribe of humans living in north-east Siberia. They live in small nomadic clans and have a shamanistic religion. They hunt various kinds of animals, mostly seals, walrus reindeer and mammoth. Mammoth is the hardest prey, so it is held in high regards among the tribesman. Btw, that's where the project's name come from.

Bad idea, if you keep the setting, you can forget drawing inspiration from your native language, except Hungarian. and probably german for phonology.

If I’m interpreting you correctly, you’re saying that Këttykir’s native language (Hungarian) won’t help him with this conlang? But the two closest relatives of Hungarian are Khanty and Mansi, both of which are spoken in Siberia (albeit the opposite side of it to what Këttykir wants). Many other Uralic languages (particularly Samoyedic) are also spoken in western Siberia. Additionally, the Paleosiberian languages are pretty agglutinative, from what I know; Hungarian should be a big help there.

You probably should pick an easier setting.

What exactly is hard about this setting?

Also, yes this is a fantasy setting. Fantasy doesn't have to be a D&D-like setting or even remotely medieval, or even possessing magic at all.

How is this fantasy? And also, what does fantasy have to do with this discussion? (Not criticising you, just wondering why you’re mentioning this.)

Sure. No problem. I'd be glad to help. I have no idea in what areas I could be most helpful but I'll be glad to offer feedback.

Xwtek wrote: ↑Tue Oct 29, 2019 12:34 am Bad idea, if you keep the setting, you can forget drawing inspiration from your native language, except Hungarian. and probably german for phonology. You probably should pick an easier setting. Also, yes this is a fantasy setting. Fantasy doesn't have to be a D&D-like setting or even remotely medieval, or even possessing magic at all.

I'm not sure there are any easy settings! Well, in any case, I like the idea of a paleolithic conlang.

bradrn wrote: ↑Tue Oct 29, 2019 1:46 am

Xwtek wrote: ↑Tue Oct 29, 2019 12:34 am

It's the forgotten language of a paleolithic tribe of humans living in north-east Siberia. They live in small nomadic clans and have a shamanistic religion. They hunt various kinds of animals, mostly seals, walrus reindeer and mammoth. Mammoth is the hardest prey, so it is held in high regards among the tribesman. Btw, that's where the project's name come from.

Bad idea, if you keep the setting, you can forget drawing inspiration from your native language, except Hungarian. and probably german for phonology.

If I’m interpreting you correctly, you’re saying that Këttykir’s native language (Hungarian) won’t help him with this conlang? But the two closest relatives of Hungarian are Khanty and Mansi, both of which are spoken in Siberia (albeit the opposite side of it to what Këttykir wants). Many other Uralic languages (particularly Samoyedic) are also spoken in western Siberia. Additionally, the Paleosiberian languages are pretty agglutinative, from what I know; Hungarian should be a big help there.

Well that's true, but just saying they're "both" doesn't really mean anything, because in terms of grammar the Paleosiberian languages are quite radically different from Uralic and from each other, and Khanty and Mansi are similarly quite different from Hungarian (because unlike Hungarian they haven't had massive influence from Indo-European). This language would almost certainly be lumped under "Paleosiberian" irl, which basically means you could do anything, though given Yukaghir exists you could definitely do a Uralic-esque Paleosiberian language, but I would recommend looking up about the different irl Paleosiberian languages for reference.

Xwtek wrote: ↑Tue Oct 29, 2019 12:34 am

It's the forgotten language of a paleolithic tribe of humans living in north-east Siberia. They live in small nomadic clans and have a shamanistic religion. They hunt various kinds of animals, mostly seals, walrus reindeer and mammoth. Mammoth is the hardest prey, so it is held in high regards among the tribesman. Btw, that's where the project's name come from.

Bad idea, if you keep the setting, you can forget drawing inspiration from your native language, except Hungarian. and probably german for phonology. You probably should pick an easier setting. Also, yes this is a fantasy setting. Fantasy doesn't have to be a D&D-like setting or even remotely medieval, or even possessing magic at all.

Why so harsh? Don't bite the newbies!

"Fantasy" generally indicates something with a supernatural element, or at least something that could not have occured on earth. It could, I suppose, be extended to cover distant historical stories, but don't pretend that that's somehow inherent to the word, rather than just being your own personal taste.

I don't see why this setting isn't "easy", or at least as much as any setting is "easy".

As a starter, you can start reading: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/do ... 1&type=pdf. In short, get prepared for a complex agglutinative language. The syntax is SOV. The verb has complex nonfinite forms, with converb formation used the nominalization+case marking.

First: who put you in charge? The language is this, is that, has such and such... says who? You may want it to be a certain way, but it's not your language, so why talk as though your word were law?

Second: while the OP could certainly decide to be inspired by modern Siberian languages, there's no earthly reason why they should be. The traits of linguistic areas last for hundreds or in some cases even thousands of years... but this is set probably sometime more than 5,000 years ago. We have no idea what languages were spoken then, or what they looked like. [note that although a 'standard average european' exists in modern europe, it already fails to fully apply to the language spoken here only two thousand years ago]

Actually, we do have one piece of evidence: we know that proto-Amerindian (the ancestor of all or almost all native american languages outside of the Eskimo-Aleut and Na-Dene families) was spoken in the Beringia region, iirc sometime in the 25-20k BP era. It's therefore not unreasonable to suggest that this language might be a close relative of proto-Amerindian - although of course it equally well might not be!

The problem here, though, is that we don't have any reconstruction of proto-Amerindian or any sense what it might have been like - because just looking at its thousands of descendents demonstrates how dramatically languages can change over long time period.


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So basically: the OP's scenario in effect imposes absolutely zero restrictions on what their language could be like.

Frislander wrote: ↑Tue Oct 29, 2019 6:57 am Well that's true, but just saying they're "both" doesn't really mean anything, because in terms of grammar the Paleosiberian languages are quite radically different from Uralic and from each other, and Khanty and Mansi are similarly quite different from Hungarian (because unlike Hungarian they haven't had massive influence from Indo-European).

I always thought that the Uralic and Paleosiberian languages were quite similar! Obviously I don’t know much about the area… Could you give an overview of how they differ?

Salmoneus wrote: ↑Tue Oct 29, 2019 3:35 pm

Xwtek wrote: ↑Tue Oct 29, 2019 12:34 am

It's the forgotten language of a paleolithic tribe of humans living in north-east Siberia. They live in small nomadic clans and have a shamanistic religion. They hunt various kinds of animals, mostly seals, walrus reindeer and mammoth. Mammoth is the hardest prey, so it is held in high regards among the tribesman. Btw, that's where the project's name come from.

Bad idea, if you keep the setting, you can forget drawing inspiration from your native language, except Hungarian. and probably german for phonology. You probably should pick an easier setting. Also, yes this is a fantasy setting. Fantasy doesn't have to be a D&D-like setting or even remotely medieval, or even possessing magic at all.

Why so harsh? Don't bite the newbies!

"Fantasy" generally indicates something with a supernatural element, or at least something that could not have occured on earth. It could, I suppose, be extended to cover distant historical stories, but don't pretend that that's somehow inherent to the word, rather than just being your own personal taste.

I don't see why this setting isn't "easy", or at least as much as any setting is "easy".

This is exactly what I wanted to say, and you said it much better than I ever could.

As a starter, you can start reading: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/do ... 1&type=pdf. In short, get prepared for a complex agglutinative language. The syntax is SOV. The verb has complex nonfinite forms, with converb formation used the nominalization+case marking.

First: who put you in charge? The language is this, is that, has such and such... says who? You may want it to be a certain way, but it's not your language, so why talk as though your word were law?

Second: while the OP could certainly decide to be inspired by modern Siberian languages, there's no earthly reason why they should be. The traits of linguistic areas last for hundreds or in some cases even thousands of years... but this is set probably sometime more than 5,000 years ago. We have no idea what languages were spoken then, or what they looked like. [note that although a 'standard average european' exists in modern europe, it already fails to fully apply to the language spoken here only two thousand years ago]

Actually, we do have one piece of evidence: we know that proto-Amerindian (the ancestor of all or almost all native american languages outside of the Eskimo-Aleut and Na-Dene families) was spoken in the Beringia region, iirc sometime in the 25-20k BP era. It's therefore not unreasonable to suggest that this language might be a close relative of proto-Amerindian - although of course it equally well might not be!

The problem here, though, is that we don't have any reconstruction of proto-Amerindian or any sense what it might have been like - because just looking at its thousands of descendents demonstrates how dramatically languages can change over long time period.

I’m not quite sure that I agree with this. Although the timescales are indeed too huge to deduce anything concrete, I had a look on Google Earth, and just about every language within 4000 km of NE Siberia is agglutinative (e.g. Eskimo-Aleut, Na-Dene, Paleosiberian, Mongolic, Japanese, Korean). So I would be very surprised to see a non-agglutinative language there, even if the style of agglutination is quite different to modern Paleosiberian languages.

But that's my point - you looked in two dimensions. You looked 4,000km in every direction, but not 4,000 years back in time, let alone 8,000.

There's nothing magical in the snow that forces these languages to be agglutinative because of where they are - that's just the languages that happen to be there now. And languages don't have to just stay agglutinative for thousands and thousands of years.

If you looked at northwestern Europe, you'd find that the vast majority of people have very pale skin. But if you're writing a story about mammoth-hunters in northwestern Europe, your characters would all be black (although, weirdly, most of them would have pale blue eyes). Things change!

Salmoneus wrote: ↑Tue Oct 29, 2019 7:01 pm But that's my point - you looked in two dimensions. You looked 4,000km in every direction, but not 4,000 years back in time, let alone 8,000. […] And languages don't have to just stay agglutinative for thousands and thousands of years.

This is true. But I can’t help but wonder: do we know for sure that non-agglutinative languages can turn into agglutinative languages? From my (admittedly limited) knowledge, we don’t have a single attested case of this happening, although I’d be happy to be proven wrong!

Then where do you imagine agglutinative languages come from? Did humans evolve with three languages - one agglutinating, one fusional and one isolating - and all their descendents have stuck to those categories ever since?

Note that if languages can stop being agglutinating, then they must be able to become agglutinating likewise - because otherwise, after a million years of evolution, statistically there would be no agglutinating languages left.

A quick search suggests that Armenian, Ossetic, Georgian, Cappadochian Greek, Tocharian A, Tocharian B, Lithuanian, Marathi and Bengali have all moved from fusional to agglutinating. Examples of the development of agglutination from isolating languages are considered to be more common.

Thank you all for your help and remarks, bradrn, Xwtek, Ars Lande, Frislander and Salmoneus! I didn't expect to get so much attention in such a short time! I think you all made a good point and I have lot to think about.
And please don't fight, I'm completely fine. I'm not a snowflake. Snowflakes are in Siberia. Actually, there are lots of them there. Hmm... maybe the mammoth hunters had 50 different words for snow

To be honest, I didn't give too much thought about the backstory, because it's a secondary thing to me. I don't insist on it. And I certainly didn't expect it to inspire you that much I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing, but I'll see if I can make use of something from siberian languages. Today, I've read about Paleosiberian, Samoyedic and the Uralo-Siberian hypothesis.

However, my original idea was to do as simple grammar as I can. I believe a complex agglutinating language would be more than I can chew right now. So I'm leaning more towards an analytic language. I would only use the setting to fill up the lexicon.

Frislander wrote: ↑Tue Oct 29, 2019 6:57 am

bradrn wrote: ↑Tue Oct 29, 2019 1:46 am

Xwtek wrote: ↑Tue Oct 29, 2019 12:34 am
Bad idea, if you keep the setting, you can forget drawing inspiration from your native language, except Hungarian. and probably german for phonology.

If I’m interpreting you correctly, you’re saying that Këttykir’s native language (Hungarian) won’t help him with this conlang? But the two closest relatives of Hungarian are Khanty and Mansi, both of which are spoken in Siberia (albeit the opposite side of it to what Këttykir wants). Many other Uralic languages (particularly Samoyedic) are also spoken in western Siberia. Additionally, the Paleosiberian languages are pretty agglutinative, from what I know; Hungarian should be a big help there.

Well that's true, but just saying they're "both" doesn't really mean anything, because in terms of grammar the Paleosiberian languages are quite radically different from Uralic and from each other, and Khanty and Mansi are similarly quite different from Hungarian (because unlike Hungarian they haven't had massive influence from Indo-European). This language would almost certainly be lumped under "Paleosiberian" irl, which basically means you could do anything, though given Yukaghir exists you could definitely do a Uralic-esque Paleosiberian language, but I would recommend looking up about the different irl Paleosiberian languages for reference.

Salmoneus wrote: ↑Tue Oct 29, 2019 3:35 pm

As a starter, you can start reading: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/do ... 1&type=pdf. In short, get prepared for a complex agglutinative language. The syntax is SOV. The verb has complex nonfinite forms, with converb formation used the nominalization+case marking.

First: who put you in charge? The language is this, is that, has such and such... says who? You may want it to be a certain way, but it's not your language, so why talk as though your word were law?

Second: while the OP could certainly decide to be inspired by modern Siberian languages, there's no earthly reason why they should be. The traits of linguistic areas last for hundreds or in some cases even thousands of years... but this is set probably sometime more than 5,000 years ago. We have no idea what languages were spoken then, or what they looked like. [note that although a 'standard average european' exists in modern europe, it already fails to fully apply to the language spoken here only two thousand years ago]

I'd like to thank Frislander and Salmoneus for pointing out that the setting does not impose strong restrictions on the language. I think 10000 years is long enough time to give me free hand in almost everything. I don't necessary want to be historically/geographically accurate either, even if it would be a great thing to do.

So, my first question to you is:

What do you think: is it a good idea to go for an agglutinative language as a beginner, or should I stick with my original plan of an analytic language?

I'm equally open to both possibilities, but I'm not sure I can do a complex agglutinating grammar properly. Hungarian can help, yes, but it gets super complicated after a while. Maybe a simpler agglutinating system like in german (without gender and inflection) would be the golden middle way. If the setting is the only obstacle, I wouldn't mind changing it at all.

bradrn wrote: ↑Mon Oct 28, 2019 7:12 pm I’m just wondering: do you have any idea yet of what you want this language to look like, apart from it being ‘simplistic’?

I have an idea about the phonology, which I'll share soon. I have some ideas about syntax and grammar too, but I don't want to go into details before the agglutinative/analytic nature of the language is decided.

Xwtek wrote: ↑Tue Oct 29, 2019 12:34 am

Most of the time, I'll write about my ideas and ask for your opinion. I'm planning to do this on a weakly basis, and you can reply until the weekend. You help me as much as you want to. I appreciate even the smallest help. Critique and good advice is always welcome. Sometimes, I'll ask concrete questions about certain topics, but I'll try to keep it at a minimum level, because I don't want you to do the hard work for me.

This is the right place. Even a pro conlanger needs it. Just make a scratchpad. (Or turn this post into a scratchpad)

That's good to hear

As a starter, you can start reading: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/do ... 1&type=pdf. In short, get prepared for a complex agglutinative language. The syntax is SOV. The verb has complex nonfinite forms, with converb formation used the nominalization+case marking.

Thank's for the link, it looks fun, I'll read it. SOV sounds good. I don't know how I feel about complex non-infinitive form of verbs, but I'd deal with this stuff at a much later stage anyway.

Ars Lande wrote: ↑Tue Oct 29, 2019 3:57 am Sure. No problem. I'd be glad to help. I have no idea in what areas I could be most helpful but I'll be glad to offer feedback.

Xwtek wrote: ↑Tue Oct 29, 2019 12:34 am Bad idea, if you keep the setting, you can forget drawing inspiration from your native language, except Hungarian. and probably german for phonology. You probably should pick an easier setting. Also, yes this is a fantasy setting. Fantasy doesn't have to be a D&D-like setting or even remotely medieval, or even possessing magic at all.

I'm not sure there are any easy settings! Well, in any case, I like the idea of a paleolithic conlang.

Thank's for the help, I'm glad you like the idea.

Salmoneus wrote: ↑Tue Oct 29, 2019 8:28 pm Then where do you imagine agglutinative languages come from? Did humans evolve with three languages - one agglutinating, one fusional and one isolating - and all their descendents have stuck to those categories ever since?

No, I already know that languages can become agglutinating, but I thought for some reason that they couldn’t stop being agglutinating. But of course the rest of your reply exposes the logical flaw in that argument — thank you!

Examples of the development of agglutination from isolating languages are considered to be more common.

I’d be curious to know: do you have any concrete examples of these?

Këkkytir wrote: ↑Tue Oct 29, 2019 8:36 pm Thank you all for your help and remarks, bradrn, Xwtek, Ars Lande, Frislander and Salmoneus! I didn't expect to get so much attention in such a short time! I think you all made a good point and I have lot to think about.

You’re welcome!

What do you think: is it a good idea to go for an agglutinative language as a beginner, or should I stick with my original plan of an analytic language?

I'm equally open to both possibilities, but I'm not sure I can do a complex agglutinating grammar properly. Hungarian can help, yes, but it gets super complicated after a while. Maybe a simpler agglutinating system like in german (without gender and inflection) would be the golden middle way. If the setting is the only obstacle, I wouldn't mind changing it at all.

My first conlangs were agglutinative. (And actually, all of them have been!) All languages are as complex as each other, but analytic languages have their most complex parts in the syntax, while agglutinative languages have more complex morphologies. Neither is necessarily ‘easier’.

(Also, I’m fairly sure that German is fusional, not agglutinative.)

From a design perspective, the main differences between agglutinative and analytic languages could be as simple as that in an agglutinative language, the functional morphemes associated with (e.g.) the verb have a fairly strict order and usually cannot be interrupted by arguments or adjuncts; you omit spaces between these morphemes; and you design your phonology so that it makes sense to think of the resulting complexes as individual words. (There's wiggle-room on all three points, though.)

For whatever reasons, it seems to be more common for this to happen in SOV languages than in SVO ones; or maybe it's better to say it's more common for it not to happen in SVO languages. (Verb-first languages are something else, but I don't know enough to say exactly what.)

bradrn wrote: ↑Tue Oct 29, 2019 1:46 am

Xwtek wrote: ↑Tue Oct 29, 2019 12:34 am

It's the forgotten language of a paleolithic tribe of humans living in north-east Siberia. They live in small nomadic clans and have a shamanistic religion. They hunt various kinds of animals, mostly seals, walrus reindeer and mammoth. Mammoth is the hardest prey, so it is held in high regards among the tribesman. Btw, that's where the project's name come from.

Bad idea, if you keep the setting, you can forget drawing inspiration from your native language, except Hungarian. and probably german for phonology.

If I’m interpreting you correctly, you’re saying that Këttykir’s native language (Hungarian) won’t help him with this conlang? But the two closest relatives of Hungarian are Khanty and Mansi, both of which are spoken in Siberia (albeit the opposite side of it to what Këttykir wants). Many other Uralic languages (particularly Samoyedic) are also spoken in western Siberia. Additionally, the Paleosiberian languages are pretty agglutinative, from what I know; Hungarian should be a big help there.

I actually mean Hungarian is the only language he can take inspiration from.

Also, I take back the idea that the language has to follow Paleosiberian sprachbund. I actually liked the setting. I just think that the language spoken must be un-European, then. However, it's a good idea not to follow Standard Average European sprachbund when the setting is not set in Europe. Some people will take the conclusion that you only know European languages.

akam chinjir wrote: ↑Tue Oct 29, 2019 10:12 pm For whatever reasons, it seems to be more common for this to happen in SOV languages than in SVO ones; or maybe it's better to say it's more common for it not to happen in SVO languages. (Verb-first languages are something else, but I don't know enough to say exactly what.)

I read (in WALS article?) the reason for that is because language with SVO order can parse the sentence easier. In language with neither head marking or dependent marking, it's pretty difficult to parse whether "man stone break" means "A man breaks stone" or "A man stone breaks" (This can be mitigated with obligatory article, or case marking, or to the lesser extent, head marking (person stone 3SG-3SG-break can only ever mean "A man breaks stone"))

Xwtek wrote: ↑Wed Oct 30, 2019 2:53 am I read (in WALS article?) the reason for that is because language with SVO order can parse the sentence easier. In language with neither head marking or dependent marking, it's pretty difficult to parse whether "man stone break" means "A man breaks stone" or "A man stone breaks" (This can be mitigated with obligatory article, or case marking, or to the lesser extent, head marking (person stone 3SG-3SG-break can only ever mean "A man breaks stone"))

That's an obvious motivation for case in verb-peripheral languages, sure---but does it play out the same way in SOV and verb-initial languages? In particular, are case-markers as likely to be aggluted affixes in both sorts of languages?

When TAM markers come after the verb, there's a very strong tendency for them to be affixes (aggluted or fused or whatever). You don't get nearly as strong a tendency when they occur before the verb, from what I understand. It's hard to see what that could have to do with distinguishing the verb's arguments. (There's an idea that the general preference for suffixes over prefixes has something to do with preserving the salience of word-beginnings, that could be part of the story.)

Xwtek wrote: ↑Wed Oct 30, 2019 2:53 amIn language with neither head marking or dependent marking, it's pretty difficult to parse whether "man stone break" means "A man breaks stone" or "A man stone breaks"

Um... no? Such a language would have pretty well-established conventions for how it's to be interpreted. The difficulty only comes for an outsider with no prior knowledge. To native speakers, it would be obvious.

bradrn wrote: ↑Tue Oct 29, 2019 9:17 pm

Salmoneus wrote: ↑Tue Oct 29, 2019 8:28 pm Then where do you imagine agglutinative languages come from? Did humans evolve with three languages - one agglutinating, one fusional and one isolating - and all their descendents have stuck to those categories ever since?

No, I already know that languages can become agglutinating, but I thought for some reason that they couldn’t stop being agglutinating. But of course the rest of your reply exposes the logical flaw in that argument — thank you!

I'm far from being an expert on this topic, but I think isolating languages can easily become agglutinating by merging separate markers into a chain of affixes. Then, affixes that frequently follow each other fuse together, especially if they are long. That's one way how an agglutinative language becomes fusional. I think hungarian verb conjugation shows signs of this process: sometimes you can make out the different suffixes, sometimes you can't. Maybe hungarian will become a fusional language in some thousands of years.

bradrn wrote: ↑Tue Oct 29, 2019 9:17 pm (Also, I’m fairly sure that German is fusional, not agglutinative.)

You're right, my mistake. What I meant is that I can easily imagine an agglutinative version of german.

Xwtek wrote: ↑Wed Oct 30, 2019 2:53 am I actually mean Hungarian is the only language he can take inspiration from.

Also, I take back the idea that the language has to follow Paleosiberian sprachbund. I actually liked the setting. I just think that the language spoken must be un-European, then. However, it's a good idea not to follow Standard Average European sprachbund when the setting is not set in Europe. Some people will take the conclusion that you only know European languages.

I must agree with you on this one. I should learn more about non-european languages, and given the setting, I can't think of a better place to start than the Paleosiberian sprachbund. I don't necessarily want to base my conlang on a particular language but it'd be good to have something besides hungarian.

Këkkytir wrote: ↑Wed Oct 30, 2019 5:33 am

bradrn wrote: ↑Tue Oct 29, 2019 9:17 pm

Salmoneus wrote: ↑Tue Oct 29, 2019 8:28 pm Then where do you imagine agglutinative languages come from? Did humans evolve with three languages - one agglutinating, one fusional and one isolating - and all their descendents have stuck to those categories ever since?

No, I already know that languages can become agglutinating, but I thought for some reason that they couldn’t stop being agglutinating. But of course the rest of your reply exposes the logical flaw in that argument — thank you!

I'm far from being an expert on this topic, but I think isolating languages can easily become agglutinating by merging separate markers into a chain of affixes. Then, affixes that frequently follow each other fuse together, especially if they are long. That's one way how an agglutinative language becomes fusional. I think hungarian verb conjugation shows signs of this process: sometimes you can make out the different suffixes, sometimes you can't. Maybe hungarian will become a fusional language in some thousands of years.

To my knowledge, this is correct.

(Also, please ignore all my previous posts on this topic — I’m still not quite sure what I was thinking when I wrote them! I do remember this information now, but I must have forgotten it when I wrote my previous posts.)

bradrn wrote: ↑Tue Oct 29, 2019 9:17 pm (Also, I’m fairly sure that German is fusional, not agglutinative.)

You're right, my mistake. What I meant is that I can easily imagine an agglutinative version of german.

What exactly do you mean by this? I’m struggling to understand what exactly it would mean for a language to have an ‘agglutinative version’.