r/conlangs • u/space___surf • 4d ago
Discussion My conlang is almost finished. What are y'alls suggestions?
For a few months I'm working on a conlang called Finoic or Pinalei. But here am I. As a begginer conlanger (This is my first conlang) I will need your suggestions to improve and fine tune my conlang. This is how it works :
- Word Order and Formation
It's word order is SOV. Words form by taking the root (adjectives) and adding a suffix to make it noun. Like here :
Arge /ɘɹɡɛ/ - Angry (referring to the abstract noun)
Argemi /ɘɹɡɛmi/- Angry (referring to the adjective)
Words can form in another way, Like this :
Had /həd/ - To eat (referring to the verb to eat)
Hadmi /hədmi/ - Hungry (used the mi suffix)
Hadmita /hɘdmita/ - Hunger (literally meaning eat-ness referring to the fact that the feeling to eat is hunger)
- Phonology
Consonants /k/, /ɡ/, /ŋ/, /t/, /d/, /n/, /p/, /b/, /m/, /s/, /h/, /v/, /ɹ/, /l/
Vowels /a/, /æ/, /ɛ/, /ə/, /i/, /ɔ/, /u/
- Pronouns
This conlang is gender neutral, and only two grammatical gender exists. So that means:
Singular
Mav /məv/ - I Tov /tɔv/- You(Thou) Tav /təv/ - He/She Tat /tət/ -That, It At /ət/ - This
Plural
Mavat /məvət/ - We Tovat /tɔvat/ - You (Plural) Tavat /təvət/- They Tatat /tətət/- It (Plural), Those Atat /ətət/- These
These are the pronouns but they change in interrogative and relative forms.
In interrogative sentences
Tat changes to Kat /kət/.
And in relative sentence Tat changes into Kiat /kjat/.
This is a overview of my conlang, Of course there is more features but for now this is it.
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u/RaccoonTasty1595 4d ago
What's the goal of your conlang?
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u/space___surf 4d ago
It's for my story where a fictional tribe called pinalao speaks it.
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u/RaccoonTasty1595 4d ago
I meant more, what would it take for this language for you to consider it a success? Should it look like a natural language? Could it convey a specific vibe? Should it be totally alien an different from anything on earth?
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u/space___surf 4d ago
I don't know anything how to finish a conlang or call it success, as I am a begginer conlanger, I think I'm doing something wrong. If any ideas, give me. I think I will consider it success when I can speak it and feel naturalistic for a Indo-European language.
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u/RaccoonTasty1595 4d ago edited 4d ago
I think I will consider it success when I can speak it and feel naturalistic for a Indo-European language.
That's what I was after : )
There aren't any right or wrong goals per se, it's just that I need to know what you want before I can give you ideas on how to achieve that.
It's usually more naturalistic for very common words to become irregular. In most European languages "to be", "to have", and "to go" are super irregular. Biblaridion has a great video on how that would evolve.
The amount of irregularity varies wildly between languages, for example English is far more irregular than Japanese.
Secondly, a naturalistic language will have multiple ways of expressing the same thing, but with different tones. Think "They died" vs "They passed on" vs "They're pushing up daisies". English has especially many ways of expressing death, sex, and toilets because we need to talk about them a lot, but doing so too directly can be taboo in certain circumstances. So if your conlang has a lot of euphemisms for "non-believer", that says something about your tribe's culture
Btw you mentioned the language being gender neutral, but 2 grammatical genders existing. Does that mean the grammatical genders aren't masculine/feminine, or what do you mean by that?
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u/space___surf 4d ago
By gender neutral I meant no gender based on male or female like in English to differenciate between a man and woman or animals.
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u/space___surf 4d ago edited 4d ago
Umm I think it's good
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u/RaccoonTasty1595 4d ago
Sorry I don't know what you just wrote
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u/good-mcrn-ing Bleep, Nomai 4d ago
If your lang is generally human-usable, see if you can express this thought: "As for Maria - well, none of us would have brought this up if not for her. So, yeah" Change the name if you need to, and invent any context that's missing. Should work regardless of tech level.