Zompist Bboard Again

Imitation French Beginner Conlang 5 9 2020 (Not entirely by Me)

Here's a conlang by me but also by someone else with the initials that sound like "victor". The part this person made is actually a "pseudo-conlang", a "re-lex" of English. I'll make some changes so that it's a conlang.

It's night. Come back home.
TI LA MOW.
COM LA HOMEN TE.
happen TI the:Female LA night:Female MOW.
Frequentive COM the:Female LA home HOMEN Subjunctive TE.

It's morning. Time to dine.
XAS THE MON.
DE O THE THIE.
happen XAS the:Male THE morning:Male MON.
eat DE of O the:Male THE hour THIE.

Get to the kitchen and see.
GE TE LA KITENNE SE ANDE.
go GE Subjunctive TE the:Female LA kitchen KITENNE see SE and ANDE.

...

Comments:

I think it should be pronounced like French as far as possible.

I made it into an imitation of historical and modern Romance and Germanic languages. There's some other influences, mostly from Chinese and Vietnamese: How there's no affixes and there's a sentence-final position for a Subjunctive particle when the sentence has no verb. Having "and" follow its noun or whatever is something that Latin and Greek do, some other languages too.

I'm currently making a conlang with lots of references to Swahili, "The Bantu Conlang" or "Ancient African Conlang", so there's a bit of that in there, the Frequentive and Subjunctive. The Subjunctive also makes reference to the 1600s Massachusett of the 1643 Key into the Language of America as presented by O'Brien and Strong Woman.

The "happen" verb and how it's so different to indicate grammatical gender might be a Mayan Hieroglyphic idiomatic thing and a grammatical thing like in Indigenous New World (Amerind, Native American) languages.

If I wanted to take another step towards exoticism, I could have put the articles after the nouns. Though then it would be more like Latin. Though grammatical gendered thematic vowels in Latin are suffixes, not particles.

But I read a ton of historic German and Romance languages, plus they're very popular for recent conlangs posted to this group, so I thought: Sure, why not? These texts are easy for me to obtain, inexpensive, and interesting in their own ways. I also can already actually read these languages very well, even without side by side translations. Of any era.

Also, me, I like epic and dramatic historic texts with either interesting vocabulary or implied tremendous profundity. I do mundane texts for conlangs, sometimes. I take interest in social history.

...

Here's some art for this one:

Here's a painting of Ancient Roman kitchen utensils and vessels.



Here's where it's from:

https://www.italymagazine.com/featured- ... oman-style

Bob wrote: ↑Fri Jul 03, 2020 5:59 am Frequentive COM the:Female LA home HOMEN Subjunctive TE.

How do you get "come back home" from this?

Subjunctive TE

"Imperative" seems a better fit for te, given how it's being used.

Bob wrote: ↑Fri Jul 03, 2020 5:59 am The "happen" verb and how it's so different to indicate grammatical gender might be a Mayan Hieroglyphic idiomatic thing and a grammatical thing like in Indigenous New World (Amerind, Native American) languages.

That sounds pretty interesting — I hadn’t heard of a ‘happen’ verb being used for impersonal constructions before, so thanks for telling me about this! But I looked in several Mayan grammars and couldn’t find anything about such a verb; could you give a source I could use to look into this further?

bradrn wrote: ↑Fri Jul 03, 2020 8:04 am

Bob wrote: ↑Fri Jul 03, 2020 5:59 am The "happen" verb and how it's so different to indicate grammatical gender might be a Mayan Hieroglyphic idiomatic thing and a grammatical thing like in Indigenous New World (Amerind, Native American) languages.

That sounds pretty interesting — I hadn’t heard of a ‘happen’ verb being used for impersonal constructions before, so thanks for telling me about this! But I looked in several Mayan grammars and couldn’t find anything about such a verb; could you give a source I could use to look into this further?

Oh, I think I'm referring to verb suffixes or even totally different verb roots that indicate transitivity, not completely different verb roots reflecting subject noun class. Just get a reference grammar of any Mayan language or Valentine's Ojibwe grammar, called Anishnaabemowin or something, Zompist fortunately has a copy of that masterpiece.

KathTheDragon wrote: ↑Fri Jul 03, 2020 7:48 am

Bob wrote: ↑Fri Jul 03, 2020 5:59 am Frequentive COM the:Female LA home HOMEN Subjunctive TE.

How do you get "come back home" from this?

It's idiomatic. The Frequentive refers to actions that happen on a regular basis and then the Subjunctive here expresses a suggestion.

KathTheDragon wrote: ↑Fri Jul 03, 2020 7:48 am

Subjunctive TE

"Imperative" seems a better fit for te, given how it's being used.

I know, I know, but I wanted the idiom to be that the Subjunctive is used here. I don't think it's that outlandish, from what I remember of real languages I've studied. I think the Subjunctive is usually used for a polite form. But here this one is just glossed as it is, so that's the idiom, the way it says it.

I got to have some fun, right?

Bob wrote: ↑Fri Jul 03, 2020 10:04 pm

bradrn wrote: ↑Fri Jul 03, 2020 8:04 am

Bob wrote: ↑Fri Jul 03, 2020 5:59 am The "happen" verb and how it's so different to indicate grammatical gender might be a Mayan Hieroglyphic idiomatic thing and a grammatical thing like in Indigenous New World (Amerind, Native American) languages.

That sounds pretty interesting — I hadn’t heard of a ‘happen’ verb being used for impersonal constructions before, so thanks for telling me about this! But I looked in several Mayan grammars and couldn’t find anything about such a verb; could you give a source I could use to look into this further?

Oh, I think I'm referring to verb suffixes or even totally different verb roots that indicate transitivity, not completely different verb roots reflecting subject noun class. Just get a reference grammar of any Mayan language or Valentine's Ojibwe grammar, called Anishnaabemowin or something, Zompist fortunately has a copy of that masterpiece.

I think I must have misinterpreted what you said here, sorry! I thought you were saying that having a ‘happen’ verb was a Mayan thing, but it sounds like you actually meant to say that having verbal suffixes is a Mayan thing — is that correct?

Bob wrote: ↑Fri Jul 03, 2020 10:07 pm

KathTheDragon wrote: ↑Fri Jul 03, 2020 7:48 am

Bob wrote: ↑Fri Jul 03, 2020 5:59 am Frequentive COM the:Female LA home HOMEN Subjunctive TE.

How do you get "come back home" from this?

It's idiomatic. The Frequentive refers to actions that happen on a regular basis and then the Subjunctive here expresses a suggestion.

But then where do you get ‘come’ from? I can see nothing in that sentence with a directional meaning.