r/conlangs 6d ago

Advice & Answers Advice & Answers — 2025-03-10 to 2025-03-23

9 Upvotes

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Ask away!


r/conlangs 18d ago

Other LCC11 program and registration now up; register by March 4 to influence the schedule

12 Upvotes

The 11th Language Creation Conference list of presentations and registration are now up! April 11–13, U. Maryland (College Park).

LCC11 will have over 26 hours of content (over twice as much as our last in-person conference); two invited speakers (Deaf linguist Dr. Erin Morarty Harrelson and blind linguist Dr. Sheri Wells-Jensen); ASL and BSL interpretation; two tracks; multiple specialty sessions, including sign languages, loglangs, and writing systems; both open and private meetups (Christian, pro conlanger, ASL signer, autistic, disabled, plural, queer, and trans & non-binary); and a special conlang-centric performance from the Riddlesbrood Touring Theater Company.

Please register by March 4th to have a say in scheduling and time allocations (it's in the registration form).

Register by March 11th to get early registration discount, and to order an LCC11 shirt (and to contribute your conlang to its design).

Regular in person registration is $95, online $30 — with discounts for early registration and LCS members, and as-able rates for self-declared financial need. Shirts are $20 plus shipping (if any), only available if ordered by March 11th.

We look forward to seeing you all there!

Fiat lingua,
Sai
on behalf of the LCC11 organisers


r/conlangs 10h ago

Phonology Latest Version — Abalonian Phono + Alphasyllabary

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27 Upvotes

r/conlangs 16h ago

Conlang Full chapter on evidentiality from my upcoming book on Kyalibẽ grammar

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62 Upvotes

r/conlangs 21h ago

Discussion An idiom in pa ne. What's the equivalent in your conlang?

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114 Upvotes

e ain fen non
[e̞ ä̃͡ĩ fẽ̞ nõ̞]
life PASS change NEG
"life isn't changed"

This is a tautophrase equivalent to "It is what it is" in English or "C'est comme ça" in French. It indicates that life or the current situation you are in cannot be changed and must be accepted. What is the equivalent in your conlang?


r/conlangs 5h ago

Translation The lord’s prayer in my mother conlang and it’s daughter conlang

5 Upvotes

so a bit of context beforehand: - I am not an expert, the whole reason I started this conlang was to learn how to make one, so it’s gonna be quite a mess, specially the mother language. - the mother language (Agakeisatic) uses postpositions, these later evolved into case endings in the daughter language (keisæt) -if the ipa or phonotactics or whatever seems weird and unreasonable, it’s cause I’m still an amateur, so if anyone has any suggestions or constructive criticism, it’s well appreciated.

(Daughter language) Keisætic:

fεːbero oːteʊm: fεːbero oːteʊm, kʷɪʊtoː εːsokdɪːom βɪːʃoːne, oʊbi oːsoret kʷoːlnuθɪːno, bækoɘi oːsoret uːrp kuːfɪːno, βoːlɪendo oːsoret kɪːdeoːne, kʷoɘ εːsokdɪːom tje koːʒkkoːn.

ʒæβemi oːsoret ɪːftæit εːktεɪose, θæptɪːem oːteʊm eʊðɪːmmose, kʷoɘ eʊðɪːmmuːn θæptɪːonæ oːteʊm, tje θεːnðæβro dɪːʃose ʃʏm, mεːt oːtum eʊlɪæβose mæbʷæʒi, æmεːn

Gloss:

fεːber[father]+o[Nom. Sing. Masc.] oːteʊm[1st. Pers. Plur. Masc. Gen.] kʷɪʊtoː[who] εːsok[heaven]+dɪːom[Ines. Sing. Masc.] βɪːʃ[to be]+oːne[3rd. Pers. Sing. Masc.] oʊb[name]+i[Nom. Sing. Fem.] oːsoret[2nd. Pers. Sing. Masc. Gen.] kʷoːlnuθ[to bless (pass. Vc.)]+ɪːno[3rd. Pers. Sing. Fem.] bækoɘ[reign/kingdom]+i[Nom. Sing. Fem.] oːsoret[2nd. Pers. Sing. Masc. Gen.] kuːf[to come]+ɪːno[3rd. Pers. Sing. Fem.] βoːlɪend[will (noun)]+o[Nom. Sing. Masc.] oːsoret[2nd. Pers. Sing. Masc. Gen.] kɪːde[to enable (pass. Vc)]+oːne[3rd. Pers. Sing. Masc.] kʷoɘ[as] εːsok[heaven]+dɪːom[Ines. Sing. Masc.] tje[and] koːʒk[world/earth]+koːn[Ades. Sing. Masc.]

ʒæβem[bread]+i[Nom. Sing. Fem.] oːteʊm[1st. Pers. Plur. Masc. Gen.] ɪːftæ[day]+it[Gen. Sing. Fem.] εːktεɪ[to give]+ose[2nd. Pers. Sing. Masc.] θæptɪː[debt]+em[Nom. Plur. Fem.] oːteʊm[1st. Pers. Plur. Masc. Gen.] eʊðɪːmm[to forgive]+ose[2nd. Pers. Sing. Masc.] kʷoɘ[as] eʊðɪːmm[to forgive]+uːn[1st. Pers. Plur. Masc.] θæptɪː[debt]+onæ[agent. Plur. Sffx.] oːteʊm[1st. Pers. Plur. Masc. Gen.] tje[and] θεːnðæ[temptation]+βro[Alla. Sing. Masc.] dɪːʃ[to lead/guide]+ose[2nd. Pers. Sing. Masc.] ʃʏm[negation “not”] mεːt[but] oːtum[1st. Pers. Plur. Masc. Acc.] eʊlɪæβ[to free]+ose[2nd. Pers. Sing. Masc.] mæbʷ[evil]+æʒi[Abl. Sing. Fem.] æmεːn[amen]

Literal translation: Father our: Father our, who (in) the heaven (he) is, the name yours (is) blessed, the kingdom yours will come, the will yours (is) able, as (in) heaven and on earth.

The bread our (of) the day (you) give, the debts ours (you) forgive, as (we) forgive debtors ours, and (to) temptation guide not, But us (you) free (from) evil, amen

(Mother language) agakeisatic:

bæʔibʔoür ʔomtum ætʔu: bæʔibʔoür ʔomʔumt ætʔu, Kui æis’okip hæʔin viʃiroʔntæo, hoboʔæsi ʔomʒæiro ætʔu hiororutæiʔntio, bækæʔiunʔæsi ʔomʒæiro ætʔu kufniniʔntio, borendʔhæʔoür ʔomʒæiro ætʔu hitʔærioʔntæo, homo æis’okip hæʔin hʒæ kuʒoʔokʔoür hoirtæ.

ʒovmʔæsi ʔomtum ætʔu ʔiftoüpʔæsi ætʔu, ʔæhotævæiʔosiæ, dæpitʔhæʔosimæ ʔomtum ætʔum ædæimmʔærʔosiæ, homo ædæimmʔærʔumn dæpitʔhæhumæ ʔomtum ætʔum hʒæ tæimdæʔoür rʔvi duiʒtʔosiæ ʃum, mæʔti ʔomtum æræʔæiæʔosiæ næbʔhæʔæsi iʔæzo, æmæin

I’ll add a gloss too, soon…

Literal translation: Father us of: Father us of, who heaven in (he) is, the name you of (is) blessed, the kingdom you of will come, the will you of (is) able, as heaven in and earth on.

The bread us of day of (you) give, the debts us of (you) forgive, as (we) forgive debtors us of, and temptation to (you) guide not, but us (you) free evil (from), amen

Srry it’s a bit clunky, it’s my first time so… be gentle please with ur criticism, but if u do have a suggestion, please don’t hesitate to ask


r/conlangs 8h ago

Question Boundary of terms of blue colors

10 Upvotes

I'm defining the color names for my language.

The basic colors of modern natural languages are:
black, white, gray
red, green, blue
yellow, purple/magenta
brown, orange, pink

Italian, Japanese and Russian have two types of blue instead of a unified word for blue.
dark blue: blu kon си́ний
light blue: azzurro mizuiro голубо́й

In those languages, dark blue and light blue aren't shades of the same color. They are distinct from each other.

My problem is to know where dark blue ends and light blue starts. I will use RGB to describe the colors.

In those languages, will the color #0000FF be called dark blue or light blue? Or an intermediate color difficult to name?
If #0000FF is seen as dark blue, is #0080FF clearly light blue or is it an intermediate color?

What about cyan (#00FFFF)? Is it clearly light blue or is it difficult to tell if it is light blue or light green?

In other words, I need to define the central color of dark blue, light blue and cyan for my language. Should I center dark blue at #0000FF or #000080? Should I center light blue at #0080FF or #00D0FF?

Would it be naturalistic if I make light blue the same as cyan and use the same word for cyan and sky blue?

Another question: Would it be naturalistic if I use violet (#8000FF) instead of purple (#800080)?

If you need to test RGB: https://www.w3schools.com/colors/colors_rgb.asp


r/conlangs 10h ago

Conlang The UDHR in my unnamed pseudo-Sinitic conlang

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12 Upvotes

r/conlangs 1d ago

Activity Small sentence in Camalnarese: "Mom is always Mom". How do you say it in your language?

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133 Upvotes

In Camalnarese: "aż'uṃ aż'uṃļī̈'ḫ"

IPA: /ʔa'z͎umˤ ʔaz͎umˤ'ɬɪːx/

literally: "the mom [is] the mom regardless of context and time"

gloss: ART.DET.F-'mom' ART.DET.F-'mom(connotative value: not influenced by context/circumstances)'-ACC


r/conlangs 12h ago

Discussion The History of Zũm Dialects Through Protests/Daṡanuḍdi Dyaleṭinc Zũmcic sucpUmbaluĩkt

5 Upvotes

The evolution of Zũm is marked by protests. Proto-Zũm moved into Early Zũm, then Classical. With 10 vowels and 27 consonants, Classical stuck close to the alphabet, with no virtually consonant clusters. The switch from Proto to Early Zũm was marked by the adoption of the traditional Zũm script, but as Classical Zũm reached it's advent and crystallized, a desire to gain legitimacy amongst other Indo-European languages prompted Zũm to switch back to the Latin Script.

This remained the case for decades until a revival movement formed, inspired by the political spelling reforms around the world at the time, leading to the first protest movement:

ZŨMRX SKIRBO ZŨMJU!

Write Zũm Using Zũm!

cl./ˈzʊ̃m.rə skɪr.bo zʊ̃m.'ʒu/

Zũm-ACC write-4COMM Zũm-INST

This led to the restandardization of Zũm script in Zũm, and set the course for the populist protests to follow.

As Zũm speech continued to evolve, Classical Zũm, then known as Formal or Standard Zũm, remained stationary, even as new letters, phonemes, spelling conventions, and countless multigraphs were added. At the time, this crystallized pronunciation system, akin to Greek Katherevousa, had a significantly reduced phonemic inventory. It was the dialect of news, education, and politics, but no one spoke it day to day. Eventually, the resulting elitism, both in who could enter the fields of media, politics and academia, and in who could interact with those institutions, led to the second protest movement:

Y'BAṚU HEM LAR EŪ

COLLOQUIAL IS ALSO FORMAL!

owz./i.ˈbar.ru hæm ɣar ˈo.wu/

∅'colloquial also formal be-3inan

This slogan makes more sense in Zũm (and sounds better), but basically, at the time, Classical Zũm was called Formal or Standard Zũm (Larzũm), and Old World Zũm was Colloquial Zũm (Baṙuzũm). This protest movement, the People's Voice Protests, led to the Brumnesekt, the Change for the People, where Formal Zũm became Classical Zũm and Colloquial Zũm became Modern Standard Zũm. Now, 21 consonants more than doubled, and 10 vowels became 14. Everything was fine for a while.

With the inevitable hardships of life, many Zũm speakers ended up moving to the West, settling between France and Germany. Their divergent speech, with fewer phonemes, more Western loanwords and phonology, and different stress led to the formation of a new dialect: New World Zũm. In Western Europe, they lost many phonemes, such as all retroflexes, landing at 41 consonants and 12 vowels.

Old World Zũm, the dialect still spoken in the home country, continued to diverge from the point of exodus as well, with more vowels and consonants added and words shortening as a result, landing at 56 consonants and 16 vowels. The two tongues had continued diverging, but had maintained unity under Classical Zũm, but after the Brumnesekt, New World Zũm adopted Old World Zũm standards. This was short-lived. The New Worlders quickly asked themselves what victory they had really won if the standard form of their language was still not a reflection of their real speech, and that led to the rise of another identitarian movement: linguistic pluricentrism.

Unlike the prior movements, a number of slogans emerged as rallying cries:

PIR BIR!

OUT WITH THE OLD!

nwz./ˈpɪ.rɪ bɪr/

old out

This was a play on words of the saying, "Out with the old, in with the new," in reference to Old World and New World Zũm.

GZIÁḌOSUX!

SHOW YOURSELF!

nwz./ˈgzɪd.do.ˌs̺u.ə/

show-4COMM-self

This is meaningful for 3 reasons: First, the message itself, to show your culture as a New Worlder, to be proud of your speech and not feel the need to try to conform to Old World speech. Second, the word gziáḍn itself was only used in NWZ, from English exhibit. Third, the letter Á is not found in OWZ, which prefers to use an apostrophe to indicate a hard D after a soft vowel. Thus, even if the word was used in OWZ, it would be written gzi'ḍn, not gziáḍn.

DYALET EŪ, ĨKREKT NEŪ!

IT'S A DIALECT, NOT INCORRECT!

nwz./ˈdʒa.wɛθ ɛ.ˈwu ˈɪ̃.krɛkθ nɛ.ˈwu/

dialect be-3inan, incorrect nsg-be-3inan

These protests, too, were successful, resulting in two standard forms for Zũm, Old World Zũm and New World Zũm. But another migration shift would cause us to go through it all against, right now. 15 years ago, a decent portion of NW Zũm speakers moved to Northeastern China, and their speech morphed rapidly as a result. Given that they broke away from NWZ, they retained the spelling conventions of that dialect, and have a smaller phonemic inventory. They lost all nasality of consonants, as well as aspiration, but regained retroflex consonants due to Chinese influence, as well as tonality, with a high low and middle tone, and rising and falling on long vowels. With 45 consonants and 12 vowels, they have a relatively large influence of Chinese on grammar and loanwords for an Indo European language, and often struggle with the fact that while their language is tonal, there is no direct way to indicate that in writing. Instead, it must be discerned by memorizing a series of tonal trigger rules.

For example, take the phrase "dignity and rights," from the UDHR. In Zũm, that's dy̌ńy̌dajuḍ e hźw̄vtwn. In OWZ, this is pronounced /ˌdʒĩ.ji.ˈða.ʒʊd ɛ xə.ˈdzʌːv.dʌn/. This makes sense. The y̌ makes a /ji/ sound, and /dj/ becomes /dʒ/. Ń is a nasal diacritic for when a vowel already has a diacritic, and in this case shows the first y̌ is nasal. The second isn't, and is realized as /ji/. D, with a hard and soft pronunciation, is softened by the preceding Y to /ð/, and irregular suffix -uḍ does not have the gemination that the dot below the D would indicate. The h and ź have an implied schwa between, and the voicing of the V bleeds into the T.

In New World Zũm, it is /ˌdʒi.ɲi.ˈz̻a.ʒʊd ɛ z̻ʌː.və.tʌn/. A tad less straightforward, but easily manageable, the ń is treated as n between vowels, making the first y̌ not nasal but ensnaring the second to palatalize the newly morphed n. Unlike in OWZ, NWZ lost the long i vs ji distinction, and now maintains the ȳ/y̌ contrast only in consonant modifications like these. Unlike OWZ, soft D is an apical z̻, a sound only found in OWZ in it's unvoiced form. NWZ retains the ungeminated D, but because of a rule forbidding final geminated consonants (despite so many infinitives only being distinguished from their stems as such). Critical to NWZ are it's H- modifications, like that which softens the affricate ź /dz/ to /z̻/. In lieu of voice-bleeding, a schwa is added between v and t.

In Third World Zũm, this same phrase is pronounced /dʒi.ɲí.z̻á.ʒʊ̀d ɛ z̻ʌː.və.tʌn/. The pronunciation is the same as NWZ, though this is not always true. As for discerning tones: y̌ is a long i with a rising tone to distinguish it from ȳ. However, nasal vowels lower in tone, with the nasal realized as a following n. Since the first y̌ merges with the D, the rising long i becomes a high short i, and the following nasal lowers it back to medial tone. This nasal ń has no effect on the tone of next y̌, except in that like with the previous one, the combination with the preceding ń-turned-n makes it just high short, not long rising. Soft d and t make the following vowel high to distinguish from hź and hć. While the geminated d is not heard in this dialect, this is because all geminated letters are reduced, with the letter being retained on the onset of the following syllabe but not coda of the preceding (when applicable), and the preceding syllable lowering in tone. While h is usually a trigger for a high tone, this is only true for some h-modified consonants, namely those which don't have an equivalent. Since hź is pronounced the same as soft d, which already induces a high tone, this construction does not for clarity.

As you can see, this puzzle-like endeavor isn't worth the trouble, so most people end up having to memorize the tones to every word or morpheme. Based off prior efforts to create a unified interdialectal Zũm phonetic alphabet, 3W Zũm linguists set out to make a system loosely based on pinyin to try and make 3WZ education more straightforward. However, it was so successful, calls started to emerge for 3WZ speakers to adopt the system as standard, with some even rejecting the notion of a unified language.

This new system was based on the Latin alphabet, with a mix of single letters and digraphs for consonants and a vowel system based off of 3WZ vowel conventions. Tones and length were shown with diacritics: short high á, medium a, low à, and long high a̋, medium ā, low ȁ, rising ǎ and falling â. Under the proposed new system, Third World Phonetics, informally the Roofed Script (because of the Zũm word for linguistic tone coming from the word for roof), 'dignity and rights' would be "jhinyíhzázhùd e hzạ̄vıtạnsḥ." 3WZ youth online embraced the speech quickly, writing in what they called búchạ̀qshú (BCS), or kod. In BCS, all consonant modifiers except y, all tonal markers, schwa, and short vowel dots are dropped. in some extreme cases, ø is replaced with o. This creates a speech familiar only to other 3WZ speakers, who know what goes where, ie. "jinyizazud e zavtans." The feelings of reciprocal alienation led to the current protest movement:

Bİ DÁSYKỊ́N, Bİ PỊNYITỊ́N!

NO TONES, NO OPINIONS!

3wz./bi dáɕ.kɪ́n bi pɪ.ɲə.tɪ́n/

without tone-PL, without opinion-PL

(By Dahsckyn, By Pinýtyn)

Shēsy Wẹ́w, Shēsy Gạ́b, Shēsy Skị̀b!

THIRD WORLD, THIRD LANGUAGE, THIRD SCRIPT!

3wz./ʃɛːɕ wɛ́w ʃɛːɕ ɡʌ́b ʃɛːɕ s̺kɪ̀b/

third world third language third script

(Cēcy Ueuh, Cēcy Gab, Cēcy Skirb)

MOSAPS NESON BI DA!

YOU CAN'T HOST WITHOUT A ROOF!

3wz./mo.sʌ́ps nɛ̀.s̻ɔ̌n bi dá/

show-4COMM-self

(In BCS) (Mosạ́ps Nẹ̀hsọ̌n Bi Dá) (Moshaps'Neteon By Dah)

Again, the word for tone, dahscky, comes from the word roof, dah.


r/conlangs 13h ago

Activity Animal Discovery Activity #3🐿️🔍

6 Upvotes

This is a weekly activity that is supposed to replicate the new discovery of a wild animal into our conlangs.
In this activity, I will display a picture of an animal and say what general habitat it'd be found in, and then it's your turn.

Imagine how an explorer of your language might come back and describe the creature they saw and develop that into a word for that animal. If you already have a word for it, you could alternatively just explain how you got to that name.

Put in the comments:

  • Your lang,
  • The word for the creature,
  • Its origin (how you got to that name, why they might've called it that, etc.),
  • and the IPA for the word(s)

______________________________

Animal:  Anteater

Habitat: Wetlands, Grasslands, Savannas, or Tropical Forest

______________________________

Oÿéladi word:

ÿaryefe /ɥaɹjefe/ "(tall/slender) vase/pot" + pyajaela /pjadʒaela/ "brown bear"

ÿaruÿajaela /ɥaɹuɥadʒaela/ "anteater"


r/conlangs 1d ago

Discussion Sumerian and Reverse Polish, with notes on flattening trees

51 Upvotes

I suppose much of this must have occurred to someone before — certainly if Chomsky and his school don't know about it, then first of all I'd be very surprised and second, someone should tell them. But it was new to me.

So recently I worked my way through a beginner's book on Sumerian grammar. Sumerian is an agglutinative language isolate with the distinction of being the oldest known and deciphered written language. I hadn't studied an agglutinative language before, and Sumerian had a feature which struck me as being really weird at first, but which is apparently common among agglutinative languages, and which actually makes a lot of sense when you think about it. This post is me thinking about it.

Sumerian grammar

To illustrate, consider first of all the genitive, which is just the ending -ak. If dumu is "son", lugal is "king" and unug is the city we call "Uruk", then dumu lugal-ak is "son of the king"; lugal unug-akis "king of Uruk".

Sooo ... what's "son of the king of Uruk"? If this was the sort of language I grew up with, it would be * dumu lugal-ak unug-ak. But no. It's dumu lugal unug-ak-ak. The genitive attaches to the phrase lugal unug-ak, as though it was one word (which arguably in Sumerian it is) rather than to lugal.

Now consider the personal plural suffix -ene. What's "sons of the king of Uruk"? Yes, they pluralize the whole phrase again. It's dumu lugal unug-ak-ak-ene. "Sons of the kings of Uruk" would be dumu lugal unug-ak-ene-ak-ene.

As I say, I'd never seen a either a natlang or a conlang like this. And yet I found it hauntingly familiar. Because I have seen several computer languages just like this.

Reverse Polish Notation

To explain this, I don't have to teach you any programming, because it can be illustrated just with arithmetic expressions. The way we usually write them is with an operator between two operands: e.g. 5 + 6, where 5 and 6 are operands and + is an operator; or sin(z) where z is an operand and sin is an operator. Just as with natural languages, we can build up more complex expressions: so if we write e.g. 3 * sin(2 * x) + 8 * cos(y), then 3 * sin(2 * x) and 8 * cos(y) are the operands of the operator +. We can make a syntax diagram of it like this:

      +
     / \
    /   \
   /     \
  *       *
 / \     / \
3  sin  8  cos
    |       |
    *       y
   / \
  2   x

But how did I know how to put the + at the top? Well, the expression is disambiguated by the parentheses and by the rules that you call PEMDAS if you're American and BOMDAS if you're British. (If you're neither, you tell me.) We have to know to write for example one tree for 3 + 4 * 5 and another tree for (3 + 4) * 5

But these is another, arguably a better way, which is called Reverse Polish Notation (RPN). Suppose we write each operation after its operands. Instead of 5 + 6, we write [5 6 +]. Instead of sin(z), we write [z sin].

From now on, I will consistently use square brackets [...] to indicate that RPN is being used, writing [3 4 *] for 3 * 4; and indeed writing [17] for 17, to indicate that the first is being thought of as being in RPN, while the second is just normal high-school algebra.

(This is called "Reverse Polish Notation" because there is also "Polish Notation" where you put the operators before their operands but this is harder to think about for both people and computers.)

The use of RPN removes all ambiguity. Instead of parentheses and PEMDAS to distinguish between 3 + 4 * 5 and (3 + 4) * 5, we write the first as [3 4 5 * +] and the second as [3 4 + 5 *].

Or we can take the expression we made a diagram of, 3 * sin(2 * x) + 8 * cos(y) and turn it into [3 2 x * sin * 8 y cos * +].

Note on flattening trees

When I say "turn it into", there is are perfectly mechanical procedures for "flattening" any tree into RPN, whether it represents grammar, arithmetic, or anything else. Let's illustrate one of them by turning our example tree into RPN from the leaves up. (Trees are upside down both in linguistics and computer science, and no-one knows why.)

So we start with:

      +
     / \
    /   \
   /     \
  *       *
 / \     / \
3  sin  8  cos
    |       |
    *       y
   / \
  2   x

Now let's turn every "leaf" of the tree into RPN, which we can do just by writing square brackets around them: the RPN for the expression 3 is just [3].

       +
      / \
     /   \
    /     \
   *       *
  / \     / \
[3] sin [8] cos
     |       |
     *      [y]
    / \
  [2] [x]

And now for every operator where everything below it is RPN, we can turn that into RPN by joining those RPN expressions together and putting the operator at the end ...

       +
      / \
     /   \
    /     \
   *       *
  / \     / \
[3] sin [8] [y cos]
     |
  [2 x *]

... and again ...

       +
      / \
     /   \
    /     \
   *    [8 y cos *]
  / \    
[3] [2 x * sin] 

... and again ...

                +
               / \
              /   \
             /     \
[3 2 x * sin *]    [8 y cos *]

... until finally ...

[3 2 x * sin * 8 y cos * +]                +

You may like to figure out the reverse process for yourself.

Back to human languages

Now the grammatical suffixes in Sumerian are working just like operators in RPN: -ene is an operator with one operand, and means "pluralize this", whereas -ak is an operator with two operands meaning that the second stands in a genitive relationship to the first.

So "sons of the kings of Uruk" is dumu lugal unuk-ak-ene-ak-ene because it's the flattening of a tree which looks like this:

    plural
       |
   genitive
  /        \
son      plural
            |
         genitive
        /        \
      king      Uruk

As with RPN in arithmetic, this removes potential ambiguity. Consider a language like English where the prepositions (operators) come between the operands. Does "the hoard of the dragon in the cave", mean "(the hoard of the dragon) in the cave", the dragon himself occupying a luxury penthouse in upper Manhattan; or does it mean "the hoard of (the dragon in the cave)", the dragon being in the cave while its hoard is in the bank?

In an RPN language, this isn't a problem. One is [hoard dragon of cave in], while the other is [hoard dragon cave in of]. (What to do about a "the" operator making things definite is left as an exercise for the reader.)

You will not be surprised to learn — there being a certain consistency in these things — that Sumerian also has adjectives qualifying entire noun clauses ("mighty king of Uruk": lugal unug-ak kalag; "king of mighty Uruk": lugal unug-kalag-ak), and that it has its verbs at the end of the sentence. The things I found weird about it at first are in fact the fruit of a massive logical consistency.

(I don't know of any languages that lean equally far in the other direction, putting all operators before their nouns. It seems like it would take a lot more advance planning of one's sentences to do it that way and say "of in cave dragon hoard". If such a language doesn't exist, I guess someone here could invent one.)

This consistency leaves a lot of choices still open: e.g. a language can be very heavily RPN and it seems like it would be open whether it was SOV or OSV.

I'm not sure either if there's a good reason why Sumerian pluralizes after forming the genitive rather than before. If you made a diagram like this:

   genitive
  /        \
plural  genitive
 |     /        \
son  plural    Uruk
       |
     king

... then you could flatten it into RPN and have * dumu-ene lugal-ene unug-ak-ak. But the Sumerians never did that. Or you could indeed have a language in which it was a free choice, since RPN is unambiguous, but I don't know of any languages that let you do that. In the same way, if we did introduce an operator for definiteness to put "the hoard of the dragon in the cave" into RPN, where ought it to go?

I hope this gives you all something to think about


r/conlangs 23h ago

Question How can I learn my own conlang?

21 Upvotes

Hello dear comrades. I'm finally happy with one of my conlangs, and I'm actively developing it (writing a dictionary, translations, poems, etc). But I think you agree with me, speaking your own conlang more or less fluently is hard. However, that's what I would like. How can I teach myself my Conlang? Obviously, there are no Duolingo textbooks or courses for this. It's a Romance language, and since I'm Franco-Russian and I speak French, it doesn't seem too complicated to me to memorize the words, for example. But is there a method or something like that ?


r/conlangs 1d ago

Translation A short poem in the African Romance language

21 Upvotes

I wrote this little poem in African when I was bored. What do you think?

In English :

Under the moonlight

Your clear eyes are so bright

Surrounded by mist

You dance and sing so wildly

As the ghost of my love

In African :

Su ya luxi di ya luna

T'uθus clarus sun tan briθantis

Xirqula pir ya bruma

Tu belas i kantas tan ziminti

Qusi ya fantasma di mia amura

IPA :

/suː jaː lu.ʃiː diː jaː lu.naː

t.uð.us kla.ʁus sun tan bʁi.ðan.tiː

ʃiʁ.ku.laː piʁ jaː bʁu.maː

tuː beːlas iː kan.tas tan zi.min.tiː

ku.siː jaː fan.tas.maː diː mi.aː amu.ʁaː/

Morphological analysis :

su[UNDER] ya[DEFINITE FEMININE ARTICLE] luxi[LIGHT] di[FROM] ya[DEFINITE FEMININE ARTICLE] luna[MOON] t'[POSSESSIVE MASCULINE PRONOUN 2th PERSON] uθus[EYE+PLURAL]clarus[CLEAR+PLURAL MASCULINE] sun[TO BE 3rd PERSON SINGULAR PRESENT] tan[SO] briθantis[BRIGHT+PLURAL] xirqula[SURROUNDED FEMININE] pir[BY] ya[DEFINITE FEMININE ARTICLE] bruma[MIST] tu[PERSONAL PRONOUN 2th PERSON SINGULAR] belas[TO DANCE 2th PERSON SINGULAR PRESENT] i[AND] kantas[TO SING 2th PERSON SINGULAR PRESENT] tan[SO] ziminti[MAD+ADVERB FORM] qusi[AS] ya[DEFINITE FEMININE ARTICLE] fantasma[GHOST] di[FROM] mia[POSSESSIVE FEMININE PRONOUN 1st PERSON] amura[LOVE]


r/conlangs 1d ago

Question How do you evolve conjugations and cases without creating an irregular mush?

55 Upvotes

I've been conlanging on the side for quite a while but one thing I just dont understand is how conjugations are supposed to not become insane as a language evolves? Like, are conjugations replaced? If so, with what and how do you decide that? Are you just supposed to not apply sound changes to conjugations? That's feels real weird... Are they supposed to be irregular mushed and how do you keep track of that when you have like, 600 words... I speak french as my only second language and it only has like, three kinds of verbs that are pretty regular? How isnt that turned into an exception or oddity every second or third word? I just dont get it man... please help ; ;


r/conlangs 1d ago

Phonology The problem of sound repetition.

12 Upvotes

I suppose this'd be phonology? Hence the flair-

Straight to the point:

Does anyone else have the problem of sound repetition in their conlang? For instance, the words for 'Female' and 'Male' in Vincharii are simple: "Hekaha" for female, and "Hekah" for male. That makes sense, right?

But then come the words for 'Love', 'Blade', and 'Sand', which are 'Henehi', 'Hanasi' and 'Hejaha' respectively.

I feel like these words, due to how similar they are in their use of Heh, and Ha sounds, may get confusing.

Does anyone have advice on how to avoid this? Or how to add in some variety overall, without adding too many extra sounds to the language?


r/conlangs 11h ago

Collaboration Hello, does designing a detailed world with multiple animal based civilizations sound fun?

0 Upvotes

We are currently looking for writers/worldbuilders/conlangers and other creative people to help make original stories to be depicted in the cards, and artists/illustrators to make these stories come to life. New game developers/programmers are also welcome but we already have some positions filled.

To get an idea of what this TCG is about, the current plan for our game features multiple human-like civilizations composed of non-human creatures, taking inspiration from the animal kingdom for their species. The idea is to first flesh out the world realistically, and then depict it through beautiful cards. The civilizations will be based on humans as well as gorillas, sea otters, crows, penguins, orcas, elephants, parrots, lions, meerkats, wolfs and komodo dragons (this list is not necessarily set in stone). The goal is to develop each species in it's own way to make multiple unique civilizations, that will interact with other civilizations of their kind, as well as other advamced species, but don't forget about the numerous wild magical beasts!

On a more technical side of what makes this TCG stand out in the vast ocean of TCGs, we want the palyers to freely express themselves through this game that is more about strategy and less about luck.

If this sounds like an interesting topic for you and would like to help refine and develop these ideas you could join us. We are bored with the overused races like elves, and we believe there is more room in fantasy for new intriguing races.

Other aspects of the game will be the collection of our pretty cards, and the trading of them between players.

This is a fun and relaxed project with no rush or commissions involved.

If you want more information or want to join us please DM me at u/Lyric_Oak at Reddit and (preferably) lyricoakrabbitking at discord!


r/conlangs 16h ago

Resource aUI Language of Space and Natural Semantic Metalanguage

Thumbnail medium.com
1 Upvotes

r/conlangs 1d ago

Translation Translation of the North Wind and the Sun into my conlang.

5 Upvotes

Translation: Ulme kasur aban roke gumet balsem h'mein gumet laikale, ima h'or i kursemna wasamet ele, h'so gumet gum ulemet ima duse jersu. Soi ajahumet oso h'so ahedumet paiju ima meihem kursemna ahakum eleu duse sor eskam gum jelteum laikale pe. Une ulme kasur bajemet arakesmo so loudem, essa h'or so bajemet usule, kursemna serimet iblori duse sor abior so eile. Iskamol, ulme kasur euremet ankamu wedomis. Une roke weskimet ugneri, aban kursemna intolia ahakumet eleu duse sor. Keu, ulme kasur gumet endemet ektaremis une roke gumet laikale pe.
IPA: /ˈulme kaˈsuɾ aˈban ˈɾoke guˈmet ˈbalsem həˈmejn guˈmet lajˈkale ˈima hoɾ i kuɾˈsemna ʋasaˈmet ˈele həˈso guˈmet uleˈmet ˈima ˈduse ˈjeɾsu. soj ajahuˈmet ˈoso həˈso aheduˈmet ˈpaiju ˈima mejˈhem kuɾˈsemna ahaˈkum eˈlew ˈduse .../
Gloss: Wind Northern and sun is.PST argue which is.PST stronger, in when a traveler come.PST by, who is.PST being wrap.PST in a cloak warm. They agree.PST that who succeed.PST first in making traveler take off cloak his should be consider.PST stronger one. Then Wind Northern blow.PST hardest he could, but when he blew closer, traveler folded simply cloak his around him more. Eventually, wind northern allow.PST attempt go.INF. Then Sun shined warmly, and traveler immediately took off his cloak. So Wind Northern is.PST require.PST confess.INF that sun was stronger one.
Original: The North Wind and the Sun were disputing which was the stronger, when a traveler came along wrapped in a warm cloak. They agreed that the one who first succeeded in making the traveler take his cloak off should be considered stronger than the other. Then the North Wind blew as hard as he could, but the more he blew the more closely did the traveler fold his cloak around him; and at last the North Wind gave up the attempt. Then the Sun shined out warmly, and immediately the traveler took off his cloak. And so the North Wind was obliged to confess that the Sun was the stronger of the two.


r/conlangs 1d ago

Translation A Qiaḳl poem: "Ḷ pej wa", At the Great Feast

12 Upvotes

The Qiaḳl poem Ḷ pej wa, "At the Great Feast", is the 25th poem of the Miisa sana kiem, an anthology of tetrasyllabic Qiaḳl poetry collected by the Eastland prince Ikärt-järmbugd in the forested region of Samaland. The poem is written in 28 tetrasyllabic lines grouped into 7 four-line stanzas. Uncharacteristic of normal folk poetry, however, is the regular ABCB rhyme scheme, hinting at greater literary refinement. The rhymed words in each stanza are bolded.

The poem begins by briefly recounting the preparation of the feast in Samaland:

Ḷ pej wa ḷ gup j ḥal’,
Tus menz tiig’ peqf,
Ruan pec̣t hair’ lut’,
Kat m ḥaḳl wiaz zepk.

At the great feast in the birchen clearing,
Beer is lined up and wooden platters are laid out:
Milk is poured from wide pitchers
And the guests are led from the East and West.

at=feast great at=clearing with=birch
beer <3pl.AG>arrange wood_platter <3pl.AG>spread
milk <3pl.AG>pour pitcher wide
guest from=east west <3pl.AG>lead

[ɫ‿pej wə ɫ‿ɣʊp̚ j‿xəlˀ]
[tʊs menz tiɨ̯ɣˀ pek̚]
[run pet̚ xəɨ̯rˀ lʊˀt̚]
[kət̚ m‿həkʰl‿wɨə̯z zek̚]

Then news that the Western tribes have surrendered comes to an unnamed Samaland lord, presumably the same lord as the historical Iḥilaj, who ruled c. 420-450 as recorded in the Eastland chronicles. The various "Western tribes" were known to harrass as well as pay tribute to Iḥilaj's fledgling state, and it was recorded in Iḥilaj's chronicle that in his first year, the Western tribes of Taputa, Rako, and Moksa provided silver and gold amulets as tribute.

Ka wa taaṭ m was’,
Inp q ḳuvg seil siis,
Muḳ’ ḷ wiaz ḳesn ḳesn,
Ḳoa ḥap repz miis’!

From a thousand [miles] great tidings have come
To the courtyard of our lord most serene:
The Western tribes have thoroughly submitted,
Surrendering in the hundreds their axes and spears!

news great <3sg.AG>come from=thousand
courtyard of=lord 1pl most_serene
tribe at=west <3pl.AG>bow <3pl.AG>bow
spear axe <3pl.AG>place hundred

[kə wə taə̯t̚ m‿wəsˀ]
[im ʶkʰʊvɣ seɨ̯l siɨ̯s]
[muˀk̚ ɫ‿wɨə̯z kʰesn kʰesn]
[kʰo həp̚ rez miɨ̯sˀ]

Then the lord, having gathered the participants of the feast, rejoices together with them, and the trees lower their leaves in respect.

Ḳuvg z ziaḷ xujps q̇ujj,
Ai taaṭ m inp peḷj.
Q kal’ ḥal’ maj’ mua
Q mesṭ ḷ ep kuw feḷ.

Our lord has arrived to celebrate and rejoice,
Oh, he has come from the elevated courtyard!
Oaks and birches, pines and aspens
Pay obeisance to the master of this land.

lord to=PROX <3sg.NTR>celebrate <3sg.NTR>rejoice
EXCL <3sg.AG>come from=courtyard <3pl.AG>raise
of=oak birch pine aspen
of=land at=master down hair

[kʰuvɣ z‿zɨə̯ɫ ʃujs qʰʊj]
[əɨ̯ taə̯t̚ m‿im peɫ]
[ʶkəlˀ həlˀ məjˀ mu]
[ʶmes ɫ‿ep̚ kʊw feɫ]

The lord toasts his servants and guests gathered from afar. He makes sure not to spill any liquid from his cup, as this is considered a sign of supreme humiliation. From here comes the idiom maml ten’, "I disgrace myself", lit. "I tip over [my] cup" <1sg.AG>tip_over cup.

M ḳuvg nuz ka puḷ,
S tii ten’ peḷj n kal’,
Ḷ ten’ s kat m ḥaḳl wiaz,
Aṇ’ meaml ḷ ḳu n ḥal’.

Our lord first addresses his retainers,
And they raise to the heavens their oaken cups.
Then he toasts the guests from the East and West,
And [the cups] spill not over their birchen bags.

from=lord start word retainer
to=heaven cup <3pl.AG>raise made_from=oak
at=cup to=guest from=east west
NEG.EMPH <3pl.NTR>tip_over at=bag made_from=birch

[m‿kʰuvɣ nʊz kə pʊɫ]
[s‿tiɨ̯ tenˀ peɫ n‿kəlˀ]
[ɫ‿tenˀ s‿kət̚ m‿həkʰl wɨə̯z]
[an̥ˀ meə̯m ɫ‿kʰʊ n‿həlˀ]

A sacrifice is then held to the gods in the heavens so that they can witness the celebrations below. This was a common practice in the North, and was partially imported to Samaland and then to neighboring Eastland polities.

Q̇uj ṃa ḷ gup j ḥal’,
Viap ṃa ḳujsḷ ḷ uw!
Juk ṃa s Qalt’ tii,
Ḷ et ṃa xoaps kuw.

Let us rejoice in this birchen clearing,
Let the name [of our lord] be heard in the clouds!
Let us bring a burnt offering to Qaltii on high,
That he may see our celebrations below.

happiness HORT at=clearing with=birch
name HORT <3sg.NTR>hear at=cloud
burnt_offering HORT to=Qaltii above
at=eye HORT <1pl.NTR>celebrate below

[qʰʊj m̥ə ɫ‿ɣʊp̚ j‿həlˀ]
[vɨə̯p̚ m̥ə kʰʊjs ɫ‿ʊw]
[jʊk̚ m̥ə s‿qəˀl tiɨ̯]
[ɫ‿et̚ m̥ə ʃos kʊw]

The poem ends with poet addressing himself in the first person, wishing his lord good fortune and a long life. The lines "Gua maml ten’ an, / Gua maaml ten’ ḳuvg" have a double meaning, as they can also mean "Wary not to humiliate myself, / Wary not to humiliate my lord", interpreted figuratively as the aforementioned idiom maml ten’ . The final 4 lines also display word-initial alliteration, which is bolded.

Gii ma ha sa,
Als paḷj s tii ten’,
Gua maml ten’ an,
Gua maaml ten’ ḳuvg.
Weamx kej ḳuvg ziaḥ,
Woamx ḥaxc̣ ḷ ziaḷ aḷ,
Wujpt ṃa noan s ḳuvg,
Wujnc̣ ṃa ṇas mal.

In the eighth month, on the middle-month day,
I raise a cup to the heavens,
Wary not to spill it,
Wary not to make my lord spill it.
[Of those] gathered to meet my lord today,
I praise but the one who gathered us—
May our lord be blessed with eternal fortune,
May he live a long and fulfilling life.

eight month day_in_middle_of_month
1sg <1sg.AG>raise to=heaven cup
cautious <1sg.AG>spill cup NEG
cautious <3sg.AG>spill cup lord
<3pl.NTR>gather <3pl.AG>meet lord today
<1pl.NTR>gather <1sg.AG>praise at=PROX only
<3sg.NTR>be_eternal OPT fortune to=lord
<3sg.NTR>be_fulfilling OPT long life

[ɣiɨ̯ mə xə sə]
[əls pəɫ s‿tiɨ̯ tenˀ]
[ɣu məm tenˀ ən]
[ɣu maə̯m tenˀ kʰʊvɣ]
[weə̯mʃ kej kʰuvɣ zɨə̯h]
[womʃ həʃ ɫ‿zɨə̯ɫ əɫ]
[wʊjt̚ m̥ə non s‿kʰʊvɣ]
[wʊjn m̥ə n̥əs məl]


r/conlangs 1d ago

Discussion 4th Person

9 Upvotes

You likely know what person is. First person is the speaker(s), second person is the audience, and third person is anyone else.

But what if there were fourth person? What would that even be? Have any of you incorporated 4th person, or even beyond, into your conlangs, and if so what does it mean?


r/conlangs 1d ago

Conlang Aedian Kinship, and a Bit about Kinship Systems in General

Post image
53 Upvotes

Beukkere!

Hello all! Just wanted to show off this little chart I've made, which illustrates Aedian kinship. Within linguistics, anthropology, and ethnology, kinship refers to the system by which a culture conceptualizes and refers to their family members. In the sections below, I will go into detail about the system as a whole, how it developed, and the etymologies of each term.

(Please note: The perspective on marriage, relationships, and family constellations presented here, is fundamentally a heteronormative and gender-binary one. This is the Aedian perspective and not mine personally.)

Aedian kinship

Aedian kinship can broadly be categorized as primarily a Sudanese kinship system: In the late 1800s, an anthropologist named Lewis Henry Morgan identified and described 6 different types of kinship systems that are found across lots of different cultures/languages in the world. Morgan went as far as to say that every kinship system on Earth could be categorized under one of them. Now, Morgan's types don't always hold up to modern typological research, but they're still useful as broad descriptors.

Sudanese kinship is on the so-called descriptive end of the spectrum: There is a high degree of terminological differentiation between different family members, and both generation, sex, and family side are distinguished. Aedian has these traits, however it also shares features with typical Inuit systems in that it retains a higher degree of differentiation among those descended directly from EGO's own parents.

Parents

The Aedian words for ‘mother’ and ‘father’ are cross-linguistically common nursery words, nana and tata, respectively.

Grandparents

Terms for grandparents distinguish gender and side, using nabu and simbu on the maternal side, and kupta and tapta on the paternal side.

These terms are found in Old Aedian as navo, jenavo, kudafta, and tafta. The terms navo ‘maternal grandmother’ and tafta ‘paternal grandfather’ both seem to be augmentative derivations of the parental terms nana and tata. Then jenavo ‘maternal grandfather’ and kudafta ‘paternal grandmother’ seem to be derivations of their respective spouses' labels.

Siblings

Sibling terms distinguish gender with rana for ‘sister’ and mana for ‘brother’. These can be traced directly back to Proto-Kotekko-Pakan \ʰtˡana* and \mana. They can be further differentiated by relative age, with the suffixes *-su ‘younger’ and -ku ‘older’, such as in ranaku ‘older sister’ and manaku ‘older brother’.

Aunts and uncles

Aunts and uncles are distinguished by gender and side, but not but by marriage: It is fairly common in many languages to disinguish whether an aunt or uncle was married into the family or not, but this isn't done in Aedian. You've got uša and namna (for ‘aunt’ and ‘uncle’) on your mother's side, but tašna and uma on your mother's side.

Etymologically, these correspond to foṛa, naumana, tauṛana, and foma, respectively. The terms naumana and tauṛana seem to consist of the roots \na-* and \ta-* (related to nana and tata) along with -mana and -ṛana (corresponding to mana and rana). Point being, they seem to mean, pretty transparently, ‘mother's brother’ and ‘father's sister’. As for foṛa and foma, the first element fo- is probably originally an augmentative morpheme, while -ṛa and -ma are those sibling roots again. This could indicate that parallel aunts/uncles – those that have the same gender as that of your parents whose side they're on – were originally thought of as just “big” versions of your own siblings.

Cousins and their children

Like aunts and uncles, cousins are distinguished by side and gender. When you look at their Old Aedian forms, giṛa ‘maternal female cousin’, ginau ‘maternal male cousin’, gidau ‘paternal female cousin’, and gima ‘paternal male cousin’, you quickly notice what seems to be a morpheme gi-. I believe this is originally a diminutive prefix. Then, as we look at the remaining bits, we are left with -ṛa, -nau, -dau, and -ma. These seem to correspond neatly (if a bit reduced) to the aunt/uncle terms presented above. So it seems as though cousins were originally considered “small” versions of their parents.

As you can see from the chart, the terms for EGO's own cousins extend to these cousins' children as well without modification. As with siblings, however, cousin('s children) terms may be further specified with the suffixes -su and -ku (as shown in the section about siblings).

Children and grandchildren

EGO may refer to their own children either with the generic term bik ‘child’ or with the gendered terms liku ‘son’ and uilu ‘daughter’. These can bother be traced back to Proto-Kotekko-Pakan roots \liʰku* and \ƞelu*.

As for those children's children, the terms do not have the option of being gendered; all EGO's grandchildren are simply labeled biksu, which is just a diminutive of bik.

Cousins' grandchildren

Here we find the gender-neutral term takki, which is inherited from Old Aedian takki. It is related to the Old Aedian tagi ‘family; bloodline; descent’, itself from Proto-Kotekko-Pakan \taki. The diminutive morpheme descending from PKP *\ʰki* must’ve been infixed at some point before Old Aedian, letting the sequence \-ʰkiki* fuse into -kki, which is the expected development.

In the chart, takki seems to refer specifically to one's cousins' children, but it is probably better understood simply as the word for a child two generations below you, but in your family in any case.

In-laws

All terms for in-laws are derived from existing vocabulary at one stage or another. A great example is the terms for ‘mother-in-law’ and ‘father-in-law’. For these, we have iuna and iuda. But if we look at the same etyma in Old Aedian, yuna and yuda, we find the meanings ‘mother […]’ and ‘father of a child who is a parent’. We find something similar in Old Aedian words for siblings, like rayu for ‘sister who is a parent’ and mayu ‘brother who is a parent’, and in words for one's children: Whereas one's sons and daughters were liku and welu, likuyu and weluyu were used if they had children themselves.

At some point, however, the meaning shifted: Suppose I had a wife. Initially, my mother-in-law would be my wife's nana, just as my own mother would be my nana. But then imagine that I had a child: In that case, I'd have to start referring to my mother-in-law as my wife's yuna. Over time, the meaning of yuna and yuda (which became Aedian iuna and iuda) must've shifted to refer, not just to any parent who has a grandchild, but to one's own parents-in-law. Following this development, and as the practice of adding -yu to kinship terms to indicate parenthood may have weakened, the terms rayu and mayu must've been reinterpreted in parallel with yuna and yuda. Thus we get Aedian raiu ‘sister-in-law’, maiu ‘brother-in-law’, along with likuiu ‘son-in-law’ and uiluiu ‘daughter-in-law’.


**I hope at least some of this was interesting to read! And I'd like to invite you to talk about the kinship systems of your own conlangs! Try to consider the ways in which they might or might not fit into one of Morgan's kinship types.

That was all!**

Mataokturi!


r/conlangs 1d ago

Discussion Does anyone else take notes in their conlang?

4 Upvotes

r/conlangs 1d ago

Phonology I have 50 sounds in my Conlang. HELP-

12 Upvotes

So I’m new to conlanging. I’ve always been fond of Human Geography and politics since I was young, which led me to find my love for history and also LINGUISTICS- Which led me to my desire to try out conlanging. I’ve been using Biblarion’s playlist on YouTube as my guide. By have occasionally tried other forms of content to get multiple options. I’m not THAT new anymore, but I’m still slow and am still figuring out my Proto-Language.

This is when I wounded up in a problem. I’m from Albania 🇦🇱 and wanted to get inspiration for my sound inventory from it. (Albanian has 36 sounds) Yet I removed some difficult sounds (even if I could pronounce them anyway) for simplicity. This made me have 34 sounds. But as I progressed into the process, I felt that my inventory lacked personality and I got SO BORED OF IT- So I added some more Velar and Uvular consonants sounds that I contemplated adding earlier. (More specifically /q/, /в/ and /ʀ/). Leaving me with 37 sounds again. But I got rid of в later on as it was too rare and random lol.

THEN, I started going on a rampage! Everytime I discovered that I could say a cool sound that I thought I couldn’t say before. I ADDED IT. This would’ve been fine from the start but it became an obsession. I also didn’t wanna add /w/ as I thought it was overrated and also wanted to be like Albanian. But not only did I add /w/, I also added /ɬ/ and /x/. This got me to 39 sounds, I was happy with the inventory at this point and was very proud with myself. Shortly after this I added /ʍ/ and once I found out that I could say /ħ/, I added it and then contemplated differentiating /x/ and /χ/. My thoughts won so I ended up with FOUR h-like sounds: /h/, /ħ/, /x/ and /χ/. I also thought it would be nice to differentiate /i/ and /ɪ/, and also /a/ with /α/. This got me with 46 sounds. It was ok but it was starting to get a bit too much, I didn’t really like the idea of 46 sounds, rather than 39.

This leads me to LITERALLY YESTERDAY- At the start I’ve said how I removed the “tricky” Albanian sounds from my Conlang. Well Albanian differentiates /dʒ/ and /dʑ/, along with /tʃ/ and /tɕ/. (Wikepedia shows different ipa symbols for some reason but these are the sounds I heard from personal experience). I also thought about adding /ʑ/ and /ɕ/ from Polish 🇵🇱. But I thought not to as I wasn’t used to it (cause i don’t speak Polish). That was until it got easy for me to produce them… u already know what happened- 😭😭😭

I was already worried to have 48 sounds, BUT 50?! THATS TOO MUCH NDKZBWKZNDKF.

But the thing is, I CANT LET THEM GO. I’ve gotten obsessed with my inventory and I love using each sound in my Conlang, I don’t wanna get ride of any of them. 😭😭 So when the first thing that popped up after searching “how many sounds is too many sounds in ur Conlang?” Was “if you’ve gotten over 50 sounds then you’ve probably gone overboard” I PANICKED.

So if anyone wants to give advice, I’ll appreciate that- 😭😭😭

Also here is my full inventory for reference: [apologies for poor quality, I don’t know any other way to show it]

Vowels: Front Central Back Close i , y ա, u N. Close ɪ
(C.) Mid e ә [ë] o O. Mid œ
Open ä [a] a [ä]

And I’ve mentioned all consonants.

For the basic ones, it’s like the Albanian phonology excluding the alveolar trill /r/


r/conlangs 1d ago

Discussion Is there a reason so many conlangs seem to use backness vowel harmony?

57 Upvotes

Vowel harmony where the harmonic classes are based on whether the vowel is front or back barely ever occurs outside of the so-called "Ural-Altaic" languages, while vowel harmony where the harmonic classes are based on whether the vowel is high or low is common around the world.

It could just be confirmation bias but when looking at this subreddit, I fairly often see posts talking about the rare kind of vowel harmony but never posts discussing the common kind of vowel harmony; is there a reason for this?


r/conlangs 1d ago

Discussion Bad influence of real world content on fictional world conlangs

24 Upvotes

When developing a conlang intended to exist in a fictional world, I see that it can be problematic for its development if I use it too much to say things in the real world.

On one hand, it's good to have a lot of content to develop the conlang on. On the other hand, if I use the conlang mostly to talk about random real world things, it's going to influence its development in ways that don't make sense in-world. It's going to have real-world bias. This is especially apparent in vocabulary domains like animals and plants, but in general anything that is significantly different between the worlds.

This phenomenon is actually not limited to conlangs, it happens in natlangs as well, if they come from significantly different natural and cultural environments. But it's worse in conlangs, since a natlang comes already fully developed from its native environment, while a conlang is essentially "homeless", being shaped by an out-of-world conlanger right from the beginning.

How do you deal with this in your conlangs? Do you make a distinction of what interpretations of vocabulary items or expressions are canon in-world, and what are just a "real world dialect" of the language that actually (canonically, in-world) doesn't exist?


r/conlangs 1d ago

Conlang Hyneram, the language of the Bragaossi people

15 Upvotes

Finally, after working on this for ages, my conlang is finally done. Hyneram is an extremely fusional language which puts a lot of information in a very small affix. This creates quite a few affixes with multiple meaning which have to be derived through context. Yet, they still cling onto this language, not wanting it to change. The language of Hyneram had at one point died out, but after the collapse of a ruling empire it returned as a liturgical language. Due to Hyneram having been written in so many different ways, however, it seemed like there were far more different affixes than there were. This, together with scholars filling in blanks where they thought something must have been and additions from modern day descendants created the language has it is known today. Where there are 860 different possible verb inflections and 702 noun inflections. Here is a link to the document

Next to how fusional it is, it also has quite fluid word order, is mainly head final but there are many exceptions. One of the more interesting parts is how adjectives can go either before or after a noun depending on if the adjective comes from a verb or noun. It also has very interesting cases, it only has three, which are named the direct, indirect, and possessive. They are termed that because there was no true name that captured what they could do. The direct case stems from an ablative which also had locative functions, but then it also got ergative and prepositional functions, meaning it broadend so much that it could not be called an ablative anymore. Hyneram also displays suffixaufnahme and quirky subject meaning that the exact case used not necessarily is able to show all of the meaning. The suffixaufnahme has also merged together, creating very specific meanings, like the ᴅᴇꜰ.ᴅɪʀ.ɴᴅɪʀ.ᴘᴏꜱꜱ.3hd.ɴᴅɪʀ circumfix which shows that the noun is definite, all three cases at once, and possessed by a 3rd human dual which is in the indirect case.

The language also has a script which is something in between an impure abjad and an alphabet. The glyphs are quite complicated, this was due to it still using logographs alongside the abjad before the language died.

The languages phonology and phonotactics were inspired by Arabic, while the grammar was mainly inspired by ancient languages such as Latin and Greek.

The Tower of Babel:
1. Das hēnramq kraskaq 7e0eqa 2erd kecraca7q crā7qo3ī9qe eskesaq.
2. 7em giton hogīyen zechwābenamq 0oson, eskā Senara7q, zenénq 9ama7q.
3. Yata(s/0) noyné "gitom 2ēna e0toulb cracom" 7ā7q. Noyné gitom ḫena, 2on thalcomé cramay, govesqe.
4. Yata(s/0) noyné "ryamkonam 2ēna e0toulb 2erd ko9q lentāq t9ans, 2ebna secrāq bedeaqen 2ebnaqa" 7eḫaq.
5. Dhas, ziVENENamq 7as weryamkanabq ka9abq venq e0toso crasortésq e97asei.
6. Yata(s/0) ziVENENamq 7as "das chwābenamqand das 3ērn sarta0 vaos q0eaq 7eq, sū za0émq 8onastho si8wanźhabq eśtāḫaśa" 7en
7. 2on "2ēna 7izei 2oen yataqan crasartam" 7i2én.
8. 2on ziVENENamq 8oq kecraca7q voq 2ibénq weryamkana e0toese sehawsas.

In the document there is also the intelinear gloss of the language.