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noviceconlangers2011-11-30 01:07 pm
clare_dragonfly) wrote in noviceconlangers2011-11-30 01:07 pm
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Finally introducing myself
Hi! I'm Clare and I am a language nerd.
I'm pretty sure I started becoming interested in conlanging when I was about 12, because that's when I first read Tolkien, and I can't think of any other way I would have heard of conlangs. I know that I started work on my very first conlang, Rebic, when I was in middle school or maybe high school at the latest. It was mostly based on my knowledge of English (my native language, but I probably knew more than the average middle schooler) and the Spanish I took in school.
Now let me tell you about the languages I'm working on developing!
Talani is sort of the child of Rebic. Once I started learning more about linguistics and conlangs, I gave it an overhaul that included changing some of the phonemes, most of the words (a lot of the words in Rebic were weird ones based on English concepts), and some of the verb conjugation. Actually, probably all of the verb conjugation, considering I came up with an entirely new system of verbs...
Some facts about Talani: Word order is VSO. There are three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter. Adjectives inflect to match the noun and verbs can, but don't have to be, conjugated to match the noun. Neuter nouns can also be made masculine or feminine--for example, words for animals are all neuter, but you might want to refer to a female dog, so you would add the feminine ending (-i) to the word for "dog."
Verbs end in -e† or -e∂ (I hope those characters are readable on other computers) and are conjugated differently based on the ending, rather like Spanish verbs with their ar, er, and ir endings. I think the word order and the verb endings are all I have of the grammar so far.
Talani belongs to my Wasteland setting. It's basically a post-apocalyptic Earth, with all the stories so far set in the US-equivalent, except everybody speaks Talani instead of English. There's no good reason for that, I just wanted a place to put a conlang and excuses to mess with American culture a bit. So far I have pretty much only used Talani for naming, as the Talani people use noun-names almost exclusively. Masculine nouns are used for men, feminine nouns are used for women, and neuter nouns are used for either.
The Artash language is probably the biggest evidence in existence of my conlang nerdery. I basically came up with it because I wanted a language with a simple, strict syllabic/word structure so I could stick stuff in the middle. Then I was like "what do I do with this?" and then I remembered a culture with a sibling-based ruling structure that I'd been working on, so I stuck them together. This culture is in the country of Atash.
Eventually I hope to develop other version of Artash, both backwards and forwards in time. I also want to create languages for neighboring countries, both related and unrelated.
The structure for Artash nouns and verbs is as follows:
V: a, i, o, u
S: p, t, k, q, b, d, g
G: l, w, s, r
F: s, z, m, n, f, v
NOUNS: (V)(S)VGa[S/F]
VERBS: (V)(F/G)VpV(S)
Because of the strict structure, sounds can be added to the beginning, end, or middle, and the a in nouns or the p in verbs can be changed for different meanings.
A few examples: The word for "blood" is "tosan." You see the structure SVGaF. To mark this word as accusative, meaning it's the direct object of a verb in the sentence, you add a k: "toksan." To mark it as possessive, you add an s to the beginning: "stosan." If you were talking to the blood, you would remove the final consonant: "tosa."
The word for "love" is "onapi." "I love" would be "onapisi." "I don't love" would be "onapiasi." "I used to love" would be "onrapisi." "I am loving" would be "onaqisi" (note that the p can change without changing the base meaning of the verb, because there cannot be a verb "onaqi").
Word order is quite loose since subject, direct object, and indirect object are all marked within the noun. There are object pronouns but no subject pronoun, since subject is encoded in the verb. (This may not entirely make sense. Everything is subject to change.)
Now I will make this long post even longer by including some links!
Limyaael's conlang rants
The Language Creation Society which has a lot of links itself
Ogden's Basic English is a list of words in English that some guy decided were the basic words for any language. I'm using them to get started on a vocabulary for my languages.
Awkwords creates random words for you based on your rules, which is really awesome, especially for Artash. Plus you can save the rules and upload them again later, so you can switch between sets of rules. (I have a document for Artash verbs and one for Artash nouns.) The box at the top of the page says it's not being maintained anymore, but the other site doesn't work.
I think everyone here is familiar with Zompist; I recently purchased the book, The Language Construction Kit, and if I have anything to say about it when I get around to working with it, I'll post about it here.
I'm pretty sure I started becoming interested in conlanging when I was about 12, because that's when I first read Tolkien, and I can't think of any other way I would have heard of conlangs. I know that I started work on my very first conlang, Rebic, when I was in middle school or maybe high school at the latest. It was mostly based on my knowledge of English (my native language, but I probably knew more than the average middle schooler) and the Spanish I took in school.
Now let me tell you about the languages I'm working on developing!
Talani is sort of the child of Rebic. Once I started learning more about linguistics and conlangs, I gave it an overhaul that included changing some of the phonemes, most of the words (a lot of the words in Rebic were weird ones based on English concepts), and some of the verb conjugation. Actually, probably all of the verb conjugation, considering I came up with an entirely new system of verbs...
Some facts about Talani: Word order is VSO. There are three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter. Adjectives inflect to match the noun and verbs can, but don't have to be, conjugated to match the noun. Neuter nouns can also be made masculine or feminine--for example, words for animals are all neuter, but you might want to refer to a female dog, so you would add the feminine ending (-i) to the word for "dog."
Verbs end in -e† or -e∂ (I hope those characters are readable on other computers) and are conjugated differently based on the ending, rather like Spanish verbs with their ar, er, and ir endings. I think the word order and the verb endings are all I have of the grammar so far.
Talani belongs to my Wasteland setting. It's basically a post-apocalyptic Earth, with all the stories so far set in the US-equivalent, except everybody speaks Talani instead of English. There's no good reason for that, I just wanted a place to put a conlang and excuses to mess with American culture a bit. So far I have pretty much only used Talani for naming, as the Talani people use noun-names almost exclusively. Masculine nouns are used for men, feminine nouns are used for women, and neuter nouns are used for either.
The Artash language is probably the biggest evidence in existence of my conlang nerdery. I basically came up with it because I wanted a language with a simple, strict syllabic/word structure so I could stick stuff in the middle. Then I was like "what do I do with this?" and then I remembered a culture with a sibling-based ruling structure that I'd been working on, so I stuck them together. This culture is in the country of Atash.
Eventually I hope to develop other version of Artash, both backwards and forwards in time. I also want to create languages for neighboring countries, both related and unrelated.
The structure for Artash nouns and verbs is as follows:
V: a, i, o, u
S: p, t, k, q, b, d, g
G: l, w, s, r
F: s, z, m, n, f, v
NOUNS: (V)(S)VGa[S/F]
VERBS: (V)(F/G)VpV(S)
Because of the strict structure, sounds can be added to the beginning, end, or middle, and the a in nouns or the p in verbs can be changed for different meanings.
A few examples: The word for "blood" is "tosan." You see the structure SVGaF. To mark this word as accusative, meaning it's the direct object of a verb in the sentence, you add a k: "toksan." To mark it as possessive, you add an s to the beginning: "stosan." If you were talking to the blood, you would remove the final consonant: "tosa."
The word for "love" is "onapi." "I love" would be "onapisi." "I don't love" would be "onapiasi." "I used to love" would be "onrapisi." "I am loving" would be "onaqisi" (note that the p can change without changing the base meaning of the verb, because there cannot be a verb "onaqi").
Word order is quite loose since subject, direct object, and indirect object are all marked within the noun. There are object pronouns but no subject pronoun, since subject is encoded in the verb. (This may not entirely make sense. Everything is subject to change.)
Now I will make this long post even longer by including some links!
Limyaael's conlang rants
The Language Creation Society which has a lot of links itself
Ogden's Basic English is a list of words in English that some guy decided were the basic words for any language. I'm using them to get started on a vocabulary for my languages.
Awkwords creates random words for you based on your rules, which is really awesome, especially for Artash. Plus you can save the rules and upload them again later, so you can switch between sets of rules. (I have a document for Artash verbs and one for Artash nouns.) The box at the top of the page says it's not being maintained anymore, but the other site doesn't work.
I think everyone here is familiar with Zompist; I recently purchased the book, The Language Construction Kit, and if I have anything to say about it when I get around to working with it, I'll post about it here.