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Community => Creative Outlets => Topic started by: JohnE on January 04, 2012, 10:11:47 pm

Title: New Conlang Thread
Post by: JohnE on January 04, 2012, 10:11:47 pm
To kick off the new conlang thread, I give you Forest Gump speaking FairyLang (http://fairylang.livejournal.com/):

(http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y229/johnraptor/VarystuGampu.jpg)

I've defined "varystu" as "good-hearted dullard."
Title: Re: New Conlang Thread
Post by: Osama bin Bambi on January 04, 2012, 10:21:57 pm
It looks like a cross between Swahili and Welsh, which is pretty awesome. Nice work, can't wait to read moar....
Title: Re: New Conlang Thread
Post by: shykid on January 06, 2012, 11:51:13 am
Looks like a cross between Welsh, Japanese, and Proto-Germanic to me. I love it!
Title: Re: New Conlang Thread
Post by: Yla on January 09, 2012, 05:03:16 pm
I had a thought today. What conlangs have contractions? I know at least German, English, French, and Greek to have contractions, and am quite sure that almost every does, but conlangs are always spoken/written with flawless grammar. For that matter, dialects.
Title: Re: New Conlang Thread
Post by: Osama bin Bambi on January 09, 2012, 07:23:40 pm
Quote from: Yla on January 09, 2012, 05:03:16 pm
I had a thought today. What conlangs have contractions? I know at least German, English, French, and Greek to have contractions, and am quite sure that almost every does, but conlangs are always spoken/written with flawless grammar. For that matter, dialects.

Dialects and flaws require a lot more time. A lot of conlangs which are not intended as naturalistic languages attempt to remove all flaws. This a common mistake. Flaws and dialects make languages seem more real, especially if it's a part of a world-building project.
Title: Re: New Conlang Thread
Post by: JohnE on January 10, 2012, 01:12:22 am
It depends what you want to do with the language. For some applications, like auxiliary languages, irregularities, redundancies, etc. are best avoided. Languages for fiction should usually mimic natural languages though, so a certain amount of imperfection is desirable. My fault as a conlanger is my perfectionism. I have a hard time letting flaws into my languages.

On the subject of contractions, I include instructions in my languages for words that can be dropped in casual conversation. For example, in FairyLang, the verb "ni" (to be) is often redundant and can be dropped, unless you're being formal.

Re: dialects: A lot of conlangers create dialects of their fiction languages, although to what extent those dialects are described, I don't know. My most complete lang, Oltengo has a high and low dialect, but I don't have the rules for the low dialect written down anywhere. I just have a general idea in my head of how it differs from the high.
Title: Re: New Conlang Thread
Post by: Yla on January 13, 2012, 10:01:21 am
I use as dialects the points where I'm unsure or make mistakes myself. For example, Rophebyrean has the vowel Ã…tÃ¥. It's supposed to be /ɔ/, as it is in Norse etc., but when I try to pronounce it, I often end up with /ã/. So now the Archipelago clans pronounce it that way, while the people of the Moon Sickle Country speak /ɔ/.
Title: Re: New Conlang Thread
Post by: Osama bin Bambi on January 13, 2012, 05:48:14 pm
Right now I'm making a writing system for a conlang of mine. It's not quite a syllabry because letters don't represent syllables - just strings of two or three consonants. (Some letters, mostly vowels, stand alone.) But each of those letters can be modified to "delete" one of those consonants, so that you just get one phoneme. Furthermore, there are different forms of each letter depending on whether it's in the front, middle, or end of a word, and the front, middle or end word of a sentence. It is a language used mostly for religious purposes.
Title: Re: New Conlang Thread
Post by: Radiation on January 15, 2012, 04:09:48 am
I wish I had time to be able to make a conlanguage, the farthest I have come is making an alphabet and basic written language. As far as grammar I suck at it so I model most of my languages on the English language.
Title: Re: New Conlang Thread
Post by: JohnE on January 15, 2012, 01:54:07 pm
Quote from: Wykked Wytch on January 13, 2012, 05:48:14 pm
Right now I'm making a writing system for a conlang of mine. It's not quite a syllabry because letters don't represent syllables - just strings of two or three consonants. (Some letters, mostly vowels, stand alone.) But each of those letters can be modified to "delete" one of those consonants, so that you just get one phoneme. Furthermore, there are different forms of each letter depending on whether it's in the front, middle, or end of a word, and the front, middle or end word of a sentence. It is a language used mostly for religious purposes.
That's an interesting idea, marking a script for what's NOT there.
Title: Re: New Conlang Thread
Post by: Osama bin Bambi on January 15, 2012, 06:38:21 pm
Quote from: JohnE on January 15, 2012, 01:54:07 pm
Quote from: Wykked Wytch on January 13, 2012, 05:48:14 pm
Right now I'm making a writing system for a conlang of mine. It's not quite a syllabry because letters don't represent syllables - just strings of two or three consonants. (Some letters, mostly vowels, stand alone.) But each of those letters can be modified to "delete" one of those consonants, so that you just get one phoneme. Furthermore, there are different forms of each letter depending on whether it's in the front, middle, or end of a word, and the front, middle or end word of a sentence. It is a language used mostly for religious purposes.
That's an interesting idea, marking a script for what's NOT there.

Basically it means there's multiple ways to write the same phoneme, so it's easy to tell written words apart even if they sound similar.
Title: Re: New Conlang Thread
Post by: JohnE on January 15, 2012, 07:18:10 pm
As of yesterday, FairyLang has exactly 200 words. I'm aiming for 1,000 by the end of the year.

ETA: In my other conlang, Oltengo, which is the language of my cat people the Leorin (http://JohnRaptor.deviantart.com/art/Leoren-Caste-Chart-164081559), I just coined a word for bath that literally means "big lick." It amuses me.
Title: Re: New Conlang Thread
Post by: Osama bin Bambi on January 17, 2012, 08:49:45 pm
Quote from: JohnE on January 15, 2012, 07:18:10 pm
As of yesterday, FairyLang has exactly 200 words. I'm aiming for 1,000 by the end of the year.

ETA: In my other conlang, Oltengo, which is the language of my cat people the Leorin (http://JohnRaptor.deviantart.com/art/Leoren-Caste-Chart-164081559), I just coined a word for bath that literally means "big lick." It amuses me.

xD Do they actually give baths (or used to give baths) like that?
Title: Re: New Conlang Thread
Post by: JohnE on January 17, 2012, 09:36:40 pm
They usually wash their fur with a wet washcloth. Similar to licking but more... dignified.

That gives me an idea. The word for washcloth should also derive from tongue! ;D
Title: Re: New Conlang Thread
Post by: The Right Honourable Mlle Antéchrist on January 17, 2012, 10:09:04 pm
Quote from: JohnE on January 17, 2012, 09:36:40 pm
They usually wash their fur with a wet washcloth. Similar to licking but more... dignified.

That gives me an idea. The word for washcloth should also derive from tongue! ;D

Seeing this post out of context on the "recent posts" page was the weirdest thing ever.
Title: Re: New Conlang Thread
Post by: Osama bin Bambi on January 20, 2012, 09:44:06 pm
In my conlang, my username would be written as Wykkerdy Wytbch. Of course there is additional infection that is impossible to represent with the puny mortal Latin alphabet, and there are multiple ways to write each letter.
Title: Re: New Conlang Thread
Post by: JohnE on January 20, 2012, 10:47:44 pm
In FairyLang, my name would be rendered as "Janu," which I have defined as "sword," specifically, a large war sword. Mwa-ha-ha!
Title: Re: New Conlang Thread
Post by: Osama bin Bambi on January 20, 2012, 10:50:56 pm
When my parents named me, they wanted to make sure it had a meaning in as many languages as possible.
Title: Re: New Conlang Thread
Post by: JohnE on January 20, 2012, 10:56:37 pm
Mine gave me the most generic name there is, lol. I like it though.
Title: Re: New Conlang Thread
Post by: JohnE on February 05, 2012, 04:45:46 pm
I just hit 1,000 words in a conlang for the very first time! Yay!
Title: Re: New Conlang Thread
Post by: Meshakhad on February 08, 2012, 03:33:15 am
My username would be rendered as Mecakad.
Title: Re: New Conlang Thread
Post by: Shane for Wax on February 08, 2012, 03:55:36 am
If I knew what the fuck I was doing I'd love to converse with you guys about conlagging.

I've been trying to figure out a language for a species of sentient people similar to humans but not quite. I've been using what has been made for the Mandalorian language so far because they're similar in type of humanoid.
Title: Re: New Conlang Thread
Post by: JohnE on February 08, 2012, 11:42:40 am
I didn't have the foggiest clue what I was doing when I started. I'm learning as a go along, so don't be shy.
Title: Re: New Conlang Thread
Post by: Sandafluffoid on February 09, 2012, 08:56:11 am
Yeah, I started without even knowing what a phoneme was. That said, learning a little bit of linguistics on the side helps make really satisfying languages, and is very interesting.

If you haven't seen it before I highly recommend Mark Rosenfelder's Language Construction Kit (http://www.zompist.com/kit.html) as a guide to conlanging.
Title: Re: New Conlang Thread
Post by: Osama bin Bambi on February 09, 2012, 05:31:43 pm
Quote from: Sandafluffoid on February 09, 2012, 08:56:11 am
Yeah, I started without even knowing what a phoneme was. That said, learning a little bit of linguistics on the side helps make really satisfying languages, and is very interesting.

If you haven't seen it before I highly recommend Mark Rosenfelder's Language Construction Kit (http://www.zompist.com/kit.html) as a guide to conlanging.

Mark Rosenfelder is Jesus and the Zompist Language Construction Kit is His Holy Word.
Title: Re: New Conlang Thread
Post by: Sandafluffoid on February 15, 2012, 09:05:27 am
I recently discovered an excellent tool for creating new words , it helps with the tricky problem of lexifying:
http://bprhad.wz.cz/awkwords/index.php (http://bprhad.wz.cz/awkwords/index.php)

It can take a bit of fiddling to get the phonotactics just right, but it saves a lot of time in the long run.
Title: Re: New Conlang Thread
Post by: Sandafluffoid on February 24, 2012, 10:09:19 am
I just spent an afternoon looking through your fairylang John and I have to say I am loving how it is looking. I'm rather fond of all the interplay with consonant mutations and genders. It even inspired me to actually sit down and throw together some basics of a language I have been mulling over in my head for a few weeks. I threw together this little bit of fluff (I picture it as a semi-religious oath):

(click to show/hide)
(spoilered because weird formatting)
It has a writing system written in vertical lines, I may try and whip something up on paint or something. By the way John, are there any plans for a fairy writing system? I always find writing systems particularly fascinating.

Edited to add: The parts in brackets are grammatical aspects that sort of make it sound kind of pretentious and old-timey like all the best religions, I used them in the written text below:
linked for size (http://imgur.com/wKyQE)