#conlanging — Public Fediverse posts

Cuestionable idea of the day: Learn a language that's isn't spoken in your country to confuse the hell of telemarketers and scammers.

For example, if you are in a country where they speak Greek, reply in Spanish, or viceversa. This works because Greek and Spanish have similar sounds but are very distantly related, so it will come through as gibberish; same for Portuguese and Russian.

It doesn't even need to be a real language! If you are in a country where they speak English, try to pull a "Prisencolinensinainciusol" on them!

If you are into conlanging and linguistics you can do some extra funny stuff here. Talk to them in Klingon, Toki Pona, Classical Latin, Akkadian, or your very own constructed language!

You can open with something like "allo?" when picking up the phone as it is common in many real languages. Use words that sound like something they said to you when following up so they think you are engaged!

Make them feel like their brain is melting while wasting as much of their time as possible!

And yes: I do do this with Bemmet, my conlang, and I think telemarketers and scammers have begun blacklisting my number because I stopped getting calls from them :nano:

#linguistics #colang #conlanging

they made lojban sound beautiful🤯
("THE vocaloid #yuri #song" as they describe it)
of their #songs most i like #sambahsa ones but this one is actually pretty cool
this #vocaloids master has come a long way, if you compare their first pieces to recent ones you'll be shocked by the progress! and theyve got so few (>510) subscriptions, too few😥 yes i understand the audience for #vocaloid #covers (mostly on #anime songs and other vocaloid songs) in #conlangs is very limited but still im sure there are more #conlanging fans like me out there who might appreciate their work

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lozdHCMR9so
(original https://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm6909505)

#tokipona #kotava #interlingue #occidental #esperanto #volapuk #volapük #lidepla #lingwadeplaneta
#conlang #music #cover

toki ni li tan tenpo pini. taso kulupu pi toki pona li awen kama suli li awen sin.
lipu sin pi pona mute li kama lon: https://pona.la. mi pilin e ni: sina wile kama sona e toki pona la, ni o lipu nanpa wan.

this is an old post, but the toki pona community keeps growing and making new things. since writing this post, a great new resource was created: https://pona.la. IMO this is the first page a toki pona learner should visit.

#TokiPona #toki_pona #conlang #conlangs #conlanging

Second close up with the map inside included :3

:flag_hyyh: :flag_hyyh: :flag_hyyh:

#b3d #Blender3D #3dart #Blender #digitalart #worldbuilding #conlanging #conlang #fiction #map

Stayed up late working on my conlang's script again. It's a mixed writing system: some of the glyphs are unique and represent whole affixes and common words, while others are composed of consonants with diacritics that mark vowels.

The text in purple reads "wow! wao! now my text is shorter! amazing!"

#conlang #conlanging

A little while ago I read an interesting blog post about #TokiPona idiolects. The author's thesis was that because of the limited vocabulary, individual toki pona-speaking communities - like the author's own household - will inevitably build up their own habitual ways of representing concepts that aren't shared with other speakers worldwide, and might not even be mutually intelligible. This is, as I understand it, a controversial take.

Does anyone else remember the article I'm thinking of? I don't think I saved it anywhere and would like to revisit it.

#conlang #conlanging #AskFedi

:flag_hyyh: :flag_hyyh: :flag_hyyh:

#b3d #Blender3D #3dart #Blender #digitalart #worldbuilding #conlanging #conlang

I do not want to check how long I've been working on this scene. Waaayyy tooo long. xD But it's DONE now!

Honestly, the actual 3D work was done fairly fast. It was all the conlanging I needed to do for the various screens that took like half a year. Upside is that the vocabulary is now huge.

I rendered a bunch of different angles in both daylight and at night time with some fog for atmosphere. I'll post all of them in the coming days. Viewport will also be included because... why not. Some may like it.

:flag_hyyh: :flag_hyyh: :flag_hyyh:

#b3d #Blender3D #3dart #Blender #digitalart #worldbuilding #conlanging #conlang

Weird autism/ADHD special-interest related question.

I have diagnosed ADHD and am currently waiting for an autism assessment.

I get these regular temporary special interests that occupy my life for, like, a month or two, and than fade into the background as another emerges soon after. This is a repeating cycle; as my life goes on, new or old special interests (re)surface and shape my hobbies and thoughts for a while, like ocean waves.

Often, they're related to some super niche interest, topic or hobby activity.

These past couple of years, I've had quite a lot of special interests that I can only describe as related to protocols, standards or rules in some way.

Examples from the last years (just to illustrate):

• the web revival and HTML/CSS; hypertext itself; indieweb; microformats; markup languages in general; and so on.
• German road network design; road hierarchies; network standards; intersection design and its principles; and so on.
• Traffic laws; specific legal details, history of traffic signs, obscure traffic rules, and so on.

Now let's get to my question, or rather, my problem.

I regularly get these urges to do something creative, and I get anxious when I'm not fulfilling that urge.

Unfortunately, most of my interests aren't really related to a specific hobby activity. They're inactionable.

Reading about them doesn't cut it, and I've exhauted activities like 'playing citybuilding games' or 'building a cool website'.

I need a medium-scope project, you know?

At the same time, my ADHD prevents me from getting really deeply into complex and monotonous "typically autistic" hobby projects like, for example, a model railroad, or spending years categorising all trains in the neighbourhood. Even overly complex simulation games like Prosperous Universe can't entertain me.
My interests are too fleeting for that and my focus too flimsy.

#Worldbuilding would be my go-to answer, but something about its stigma made me lose my enthusiasm for the hobby.
#Writing would be my next best answer, but how would you write a story about, say, urban planning? Road network design? Markup languages? That's nonsensical. There's no plot or characters there, other than ones that merely touch on it as a gimmicky backdrop.
#Conlanging is an evergreen, but that's hardly compatible with the given interests.

How do you all handle your special interests? Any tips?

#autism #autistic #actuallyAutistic #ADHD

Here's the opening sentence of #WhiteNights by #Dostoevsky, translated to Ru̇u̇ťalis as I promised!

...

Ze ne Nahť ďeehlis, ne Nahť szvaalik vo, vėn vir hunlis, maaglis eenťlis, o Loker lu̇u̇flis.

DUMP ART.M.INDEF night-ABS delightful-ABS , ART.M.INDEF night-ABS such REL , when 1P young-ABS , possible only , VOC reader lovely .

It was a wonderful night, such a night as is only possible when we are young, dear reader.

#conlang #conlangs #conlanging #lang_ruut #ruutalis

I wanted to begin working on a new translation project for the Ru̇u̇ťalis language, so after much deliberation, I chose to translate one of my favourite stories: White Nights by Fyodor #Dostoevsky.

I'll post excerpts regularly (check #lang_ruut and #ruutalis), and the whole thing when I'm done!

#ruutalis #WhiteNights #Literature #conlang #conlanging #conlangs

Does anyone know any other active or budding #conlang communities out there, except on Discord?

I don't want to deepen my dependency on Discord even more.

#conlanging #conlangs

Perfect tense is the default tense to recall past events in Ru̇u̇ťalis, unlike English, where simple past is typically used for this purpose.

To put a phrase into perfect tense, the verb is replaced by hefa (to have) + the perfect participle infinitive form of the original verb.

Compare this present-tense sentence...

Di Maavie na Zup bru̇u̇fet.
ART.F.DEF maid-ERG ART.F.INDEF soup-ABS brew-3S
The maid cooks a soup.

... to this perfect-tense sentence:

Di Maavie na Zup heft gebru̇u̇fa.
ART.F.DEF maid-ERG ART.F.INDEF have-3S PPART-brew-PPART
The maid cooked a soup.

#lang_ruut #ruutalis #linguistics #conlang #conlanging #conlangs

For those of you without much #worldbuilding attached to your #conlangs:

What time period is your dictionary tuned to, approximately?

Like, do you have words for 'computer' or 'internet'? Do you have chatting abbreviations like "BRB" or unique ways to text and write smileys? Do you have a complex feudal caste system reflected in your grammar? Magic? Creatures? Cars?

#conlang #conlanging #AskFedi

i have decided to focus on this idea and develop it further. i have refined my phonetical inventory and discovered some concepts i should
learn more about.
so, now we only have [cv]*[vc]* words, cv part for meaning, vc - for grammar. this will be an agglutinative language with as long words as you want, but usually around 3 cv + 2-4 vc
now, about phonetics. now its more structured:

sounds using english alphabet:
stop - nasal - fricative - approximant
back: k - ng - kh - y
palatal: ch - ny - sh - l
front: t - n - s - r
labial: p - m - f - w

one-letter representation with an accessible latin-based alphabet:
stop - nasal - fricative - approximant
back: k - q - h - j
palatal: c - y - x - l
front: t - n - s - r
labial: p - m - f - w

my custom abugida:
stop - nasal - fricative - approximant
back: < - c - b - ɛ
palatal: ʌ - n - d - m
front: v - u - p - w
labial: > - ɔ - q - ɜ

vowels - opennes and roundness (a open unrounded, i close unrounded, o open rounded, u close rounded, e middle). in the conscript with diacritics - open on top, close on bottom, unrounded - line, rounded - v-shape, e not written

then ive descovered a concept of semantic primes and natural semantic metalanguage by anna wierzbicka and cliff goddart, and longman dictionary of contemporary english. these studies will help me to map necesary semantics to my cv and vc syllables, and will help me to build my dictionary, first defining short words that are close to semantic primes, then developing vocabulary explaining it with these short words, as that is done in the longman dictionary

semantic primes are universal for every language, so my conlang will be equally accessible to everyone. phonetic is not that hard, but rich enough for the language. it has four nasals tho (english ng as in playiNG, spanish n~ as in aN~o, english n as in Nasal, and english m as in Mouse). first three might be hard to distinguish for someone, but they can be said as consonant clusters (ng, n~k', nd, and mb) for easier distinction. other phonemes are pretty much easy for everyone (r can be any r that is not l, h or y, both english and spanish can suffice)

all semantic primes will be 1-2 cv long, and molecules - 2-3 cv long. some can be vc, additionally or exceptionally. more complex words - 3-4 (potentially longer) cv, but words longer than 3 cv are rarely used in daily conversations

next step for me is to read books of anna w and cliff g and learn more about their concept, and research the longman dictionary

discovery of these authors and concepts made my belief in the possibility of the language, and the determination to actually create it, stronger

ps btw there are conlangs based on this natural semantic metalanguage, like minimal english, minimal french, and others like 65 finnish

#apriory #conlanging #conlang #linguistics #languages #language #tokipona #esperanto

i wanna learn #lojban, what resources would you recommend to me?

#conlang #conlanging #conlangs

Does anyone else feel like the more you know about languages and linguistics, the less fun conlanging is?

I miss being 15 and creating some Slavic-inspired language with a dictionary full of Sino-derived roots with ten crazy cases and some poetic OSV-S-repeat word order. I translated the whole book of Genesis!

I had no idea about predicative expressions, non-finite or infinite phrases, participals, anything. Everything was a main clause or at most a secondary sentence with a simple conjunction.

Nowadays I can't do any of that anymore because I just know too much about linguistics, degree and all. Every little conlang aspect I create ends up stressing me because I know I'm misrepresenting a syntactic concept, I'm introducing some eurocentric nonsense or I just don't know how a certain concept would work in an edge case.

Even creating a copula for the most basic sentences in a new language is an exhausting task.

I used to do things like "He is a horse", where "is" was simply a verb that happened to have both its arguments in, say, nominative case. Nowadays I have to take into account that "a horse" isn't the argument to a transitive verb at all, but that it's a subject complenent and that "is" is in fact intransitive.

And then I need to research dry syntax for hours until I'm demotivated and scrap the whole language.

It's so tiring.

#conlang #conlangs #conlanging

Am I the only one feeling somewhat conflicted about #ConWorkshop?

(For those not in the know, I'm talking about the online conlang creation toolkit you can find on https://conworkshop.info/ 😊)

I've been using it extensively in the past for my projects, but eventually jumped ship to just my own local text files on my computer. Were I to start a new conlang project today, I would not use Conworkshop anymore.

I think the reason is that while it's an amazing toolkit to manage every aspect of a language in excruciating detail, it also doesn't make any of that detail optional. It's in part more of an engineering software than something supporting me in a creative journey. On the other hand, I love some of the features, like a plethora of word lists and a detailed and functional dictionary.

I find myself enthusiastic about only some parts of the conlanging creation process, not others. I also lack knowledge about some linguistic subdomains. When working on my own languages locally, I therefore handwave some aspects away.

Conworkshop doesn't let me though. It gives me warnings and to-do lists.

I don't want to work on phonotactics, historical linguistics, obscure syntactic constructions or in-depth morphology.

But really, is that an issue?

It feels somewhat like modern audiences of #fantasy fiction focusing overly on the logics, realism and logistics of "magic systems" rather than the characters, narrative and overly pleasantness. And yet, inconsistent and incompletely defined "magic systems" like Harry Potter's or LoTR are incredibly popular.

If conlanging is an art form, I am allowed to make illogical languages. Ones that work on vibes. Or ones that are inconsistent, unrealistic or unnatural. Or ones that I just haven't defined some linguistic aspects for.

And Conworkshop tries to shoehorn me into one single conlang creation style: the ultra-scientific, overexplained, academic one. When really, I maybe want to make the equivalent of Klingon, toki pona, Newspeak or Parsel.

#conlanging #conlangs #conlang #linguistics

So what if you pushed that concept to its extremes? That's what my current project is. :)

My latest language does not have canonical codes.

Instead, it's engineered specifically to be compatible with as many custom, "user-created" symbol systems as possible.

Ideally, one could "write" or "speak" this language via any medium - visual, acoustic, tactile, or more esoteric - as long as all communicating parties know the code in use of course.

The same phrase could be represented by seemingly erratically flashing lights on the side of a factory, the colour patterns on a tapestry graphic on a website's background, or even the sequence of flight height and colour of birds passing a window in a video game.

You could call it the ideal secret language (for hobby purposes, I know it's silly and flawed).

And yeah.
Of course you could do this with any other language. You could decide to write English with flowers instead of letters or representing each English letter with a different kind of animal in a zoo.

The difference is that my language is engineered specifically to enable as many such encoding systems as possible as easily as possible.

For instance, it has only six base "units" that can map to your symbols, which is just enough to not make words overly long but also not too many to exclude simpler pattern systems - you try mapping a unique colour to each of English's dozens of letters or phonemes!

These base units are split into subgroups, so "code creators" could use a kind of phonotactical ruleset to enable sequence-sensitive codes such as vocal speech (avoiding consonant clusters, for example).

My ideal vision of this project is a 'secret language' that people can use hidden in plain sight by utilising all kinds of bonkers, super-obscure codes, such as representing each of the six units with differently-coloured leaves falling from a random tree in an animated artwork.

(2/2)

#conlang #conlangs #conlanging #linguistics

My current conlanging project is somewhat esoteric.

Communicating using any language requires transmitting information via some kind of code via some kind of medium.

The codes and media we use vary: usually we use either a graphical representation (e. g. writing) or an acoustic representation (e. g. vocalisation, morse).

At its core, the sound /i/, the shape <i>, and the morse code ·· are all abstract symbols. They represent the same unit, the same idea; they're just in a different medium.

(1/2)

#conlangs #conlanging #linguistics #conlang

Hallo!
Hello!
Привет!
toki a!

I'm new here on Conlang Network. :)
I've been part of the conlanging hobby since I was a young teenager, but I've not worked on anything conlang-related in quite a while.

I've pursued #linguistics in university because of my #conlanging hobby; and I'm a professional in the translation/localisation industry, specialising in video games and other media.

I speak #German and #English natively (#bilingual) and have been learning a bit of #Russian on the side. I am fluent in #tokipona, which I've been learning for over seven years now.

#conlang #linguistics #introduction #newHere #intro

(for my russian readers, перевод через гугл сразу под постом)

so today im explaining you the first idea, the older one. this #apriory #conlang is based on matrices (spoiler, the seconed idea is based on trees). first, you have 4 places in your mouth (back, like "k"; middle, like "l"; front, or teeth, like "s" and "n"; and lips, like "p"). next, you have 4 ways of interacting with them (nasal, like "n"; tap, like "t"; approximation, like "s" (or "j" i meah "y", й, in the back's case), friction, like "th")
so, the matrix of consonants is:
g k j h
l r c x
n t s z
m p v f

which sounds:
ng k y gh
l r ch sh
n t (t)s th
m p w f

ts - th is my weakest place but i cant come up with anything better :(

then we have standard five vowels (a e i o u), which results in 80 syllables total

ideally, each place, way of interaction and vowel all contribute to the final meaning of a syllable. four categories for the place, four categories for the way, five - for the vowel, and they sum into meaning. like if the back would mean "human", tap - "action" and o - "group" (theoretically), then "ko" would be something like "contact" (idk). then, with the similar syllable, like "to", when teeth-place mean "feeling", that would be smth like "rough". (i dont actually know how it would be better to assign categories, probably need more research in philosophy, psychology and linguistics. for the places, i propose: back-human - middle-nature - teeth-feelinss - lips-abstract)

so now we have a syllable! do we communicate with syllables? no! we communicate with three categories: meanings; role in the text; our attitude or filling words, like "like", "idk", "ну", "типа"
for meanings, we combine three forward (consonant-vowel, or CV) syllables, like koselu. first, "ko" is the most important, it gives you an idea of about what are we talking. second narrows it to a smaller group of things. and the third identifies the very thing we're talking about. and no, we do not construct them as we speak, thats not #ithkuil - the creators create words once, write them into the dictionary, and learner only has to see it there, learn what it means, and it's structure should help in memorising very much. similar (in meaning) things sound similar. different things sound different. there is (should be) logic in how the word is built. ordering words alphabetically (the alphabet order is [g k j h l r c x n t s z m p v f a e i o u]) also categorizes them in meaning, spheres, so searching the word by meaning is almost as easy as searching it by sound!
there are 80 syllables, and 80**3=512000 possible meanings, which should be enough to create words for any possible topic in humanity, and there will be free ones for future

now, lets talk about grammar. for it, we use backward (VC - vowel consonant, like "on") syllables. we can have as many as we want, and we can even build sentences in different paradigms. for example, Theme and Information (T-cat I-black = the cat is black), Subject Verb Object (S-cat V-eating O-fish - the cat eats a fish), Object and Descriptor (O-cat D-black - the cat is black), combine them (subject-object-theme cat descriptor-info black object-object-theme fish descriptor-theme wet object-verb-info eating descriptor-info fast = the cat is black and quickly eats that one fish which is wet, you know)
there are 80 grammar syllables, and they are also 4-4-5 cross, but place interaction and vowel mean different things, not [human - nature - feeling - abstract], but grammar related stuff. should study different (all possible, in fact) languages to figure out how to distribute these grammar syllables

and, the concept from #lojban (but used in all sorts of languages in fact, in all sorts of waysp, attitudinals - VCV structure, 400 possibilities. ideally they combine meanings of a grammar and content syllables, but here we have only one consonant, and im not really sure should it be unique, or have a meaning like in content word, then we have two vowels - first means same as in grammar words, second means same as in content words. one attitudinal may replace a whole sentence, like "i agree with that" we replace with "ok"
there should be a list of predefined attitudinals to use, like with content words, but the list is much shorter and constant (5*16*5 = 400 entries)

aalsoo.. a very cool way to write the language may be created. like content words - pictures, combined from three parts (first syllable in the middle, the object of picture. second - some details, and third - some tint to it, or outline but part of picture), grammar - arrors and/or/combined borders (outlines) between and/or/combined around these picture, and attitudinal - an outline around the whole sentence (or empty space if alone)

so thats it - my first little conlang idea, tell my where im wrong, or what you like about it or if you want to see that conlang actually created or if you even can help that happen

#conlanging #esperanto #tokipona #language #languages #linguistics