Recent posts

One aspect of Shabkiuza that bothered me was its regularity. In particular, the verbal system was far too regular, with only one verb with any irregularity, and that only in one form. Clearly that's not realistic, even with a language academy to maintain order.

Originally, all words had stress of the first syllable, no matter what the morphology. So gamma- became gammat, gammanat, gammanatet, etc. For the most part, this is still the case, although the last example has secondary stress on the penult. I started running into problems with my gerand form, which uses -kko as the ending.

Since consonant length is phonemic, I got forms like gammakko, which two double consonants in a row. It dragged down the pronunciation, and it just didn't sound r…

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As I've mentioned before, Shabkiuza has a high degree of regularity, but I don't want it to be completely regular. This dichotomy is emerging, at the moment, in my attempts to build a vocabulary.

I downloaded a list of the word base of Simple English, and I have been assigning words to it. I have also found a list of all English language words, which includes not just root words but every plural form, every -ing and -ed on the end of the verb, as a separate entry.

When I enter a gloss in the simple list, it appears automatically in the full list. I can then visit it, fill in the glosses for the morphological forms. But that doesn't address the other associated words. For example, -ness and -ive and -tion and -ful and -ly endings. These…

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One of the most challenging, and almost most fun parts of Shabkiuza for me has been the development of complex grammatical structures: relative clauses, other subordinate clauses, if/then constructions, why and because, etc. In the initial stages of a language, attention so often falls on simple declaratives, and perhaps interrogatives. Grammar books may direct us towards paying attention to command forms or vocatives or many of the other uses that language has.

However, I feel that subordinate clauses often get neglected. In my language, which uses particles to indicate relationship between noun and verb, the system emerged quite naturally. Normally, these markers behave like prepositions, introducing a relationship between the verb a…

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Like many conlangers, when confronted with the task of building vocabulary, I turned to the idea of a generator. However, I did not like any of the extant choices, and so I built my own.

It was not such a difficult task--I built the whole thing in Excel. I have a fairly simple syllable structure in Shabkiuza, with a limited number of syllables per word. I made a list of which sounds could fit into each place, then assigned each a percent chance of occurring. Some of the results were not sounds at all, but rather zero values, duplication of a following consonant or preceding vowel, or assimilation of N to the following consonant.

Each letter gets its own random seed, and the results are concatenated in one of several combinations. For ea…

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Another topic that fascinates me in language is that of evidentiality. Since the Wikipedia link puts it better than I could myself, I won't go into detail, but to summarize, evidentials are a category of grammar that marks the source of information.

Once again, I used existing world languages as a jumping off point. I decided to make this category in the form of an optional pre-verbal modal. Aside from information sources, such as direct observation or secondhand knowledge, I also included elements of the speaker's opinion about what he or she has seen. For example:

(1) He opened the door.

(2) I saw him open the door.

(3) I heard he opened the door.

(4) Obviously he opened the door.

(5) I felt him open the door.

(6) I hope he opened the…

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Noting exists in isolation; a language least of all. Here are some of the real-world languages that inspired parts of Shabkiuza.

• Phrasal verbs: These were my starting place. I became interested in the idea that English has hundreds of verbs consisting of a verb and a particle (preposition or adverb) that formed a unit; for example, "to look up (something)" or "switch on (something)." In Latin, however, the same thing was accomplished through the use of a prefix. For example, the Latin postpōnere, to postpone, meant literally "to put after." Thus, I conceived of a language in which both positions were possible, as a verbal prefix and as an adposition.
• Cases: Since nouns are invariant, there is not a true case system in Shabkiuza. As far as a…

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Shabkiuza is a great example of connecting the dots. I had an idea for a language, but didn't have a culture for it to be spoken by. I had written a story which featured a constructed language, but I had not developed it beyond a handful of phrases. The conclusion should have been obvious, but in fact it took a lot longer than it should have... they were tailor made for each other.

In creating this language, I'm more interested in features that are interesting rather that features that are natural. I haven't set out to specifically violate any language universals, but nor am I insistent that there exist any real-world language which instantiates the features I'm using. My in-world explanation is that the language is highly regulated by…

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I have been reading " The Language Construction Kit". I sort of understand the basics.. I am just stuck on vowels and consonants.

If anybody could please tell me the steps you yourself took to creating your language-- I could probably figure it out..

I am very excited to create the lexicon. I am good at making things up. I just want my language to be realistic and

usable. Its for a book I am writing. How do you pick vowels? I understand that its based off of how you want your

language to sound-- but how do you know which vowels to pick? I need some help on this.. Maybe even how-to

steps.. I wish there was " creating a language for dummies" book.

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-

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Consider the posting title a deeper joke!

I have been thinking since a while, somewhat loudly, should this cold-hearted wiki need some more interaction? Currently, the commitment and dedication to the wiki is at it's lowest point since before GoldeEagle. This is by no means a desperate wailing, but rather a plea, to encourage the spirit of the wikia.

Imagine how some cooperative work would help the wiki? A long time ago, before my time there were vivid discussions regarding the main page and wiki logo, soon fading into archived posts...

If we tidied up a bit amongst the conlangs, the featured ones - all languages would get the attention and consideration they deserve! A welcoming main page would encourage further influx of conlangers, and str…

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So... hi...

I've been working on Nanyse off and on (and under different names) for about... 13 years now? My father gave me two blank word templates (one for regular phrases, the other for slang phrases) called Conlang and I thought that it would be so incredibly cool to have my very own secret language. I had already been collecting words that I thought were cool (don't remember when I started doing that) and the templates gave me ways to order them and ideas of what other words I should look for.

About a year or two ago, I decided to merge my Nanyse project with an idea for a sci-fi story I'd had bouncing around my head since I was 13 years old. I knew that if I was going to be using it as an actual language (and if I wanted it taken serio…

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Hey, I decided to look back here after awhile. So how's everything going? Seems like not much has changed, including the main page ;) I would participate more, but it seems that Conlang Wiki redirects to Wikipedia on mobile devices so it's impossible to contribute. Anyone else have the same problem?

I might return to conlanging, I'm just without the muse right now. I've been conlanging every so often when I get the chance. Overall here are my ideas:

World language combining five main lingua francas in history: 1) Latin, English, French 2) Old Chinese, Mandarin, Japanese 3) Classical Arabic, Arabic, Hebrew 4) Bantu, Swahili, Shona 5) Sanskrit, Hindi, Urdu

The first language is a proto-language that would be used as a base for some root w…

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While I have already said it once This one will be a little more detailed.

A languages vocabulary is coloured by and reflects the history of its speakers, their beliefs of the world, thier needs of what was in the world, what they considered to be important and our inherent ability and desire to use imagery to describe things (Which I'll assume (like all really does) includes all sorts of sapient life)

Let me describe first what I mean with them and provide some examples and after I shall provide ways to do this.

History of speakers includes all of the previously mentioned factors but this one can still show itself, I am currently unable think of a single word example but I can from my experience here in sweden, a former norse mythology count…

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I've been working on my conlang Minhast for some time now. When I posted my first contribution, the major portion of the grammar had already been written (easy to do, I cut and pasted from my old conlang site to this wiki). Had some interesting stuff in it, like polysyntheticism, applicative formation, and antipassivation. Until that point in time, nobody had these features in their conlangs.

Something interesting happened just a couple of months ago, Dec. 12 2010 to be exact. One of the conlangers on this wiki, a long-time member whose language had been one of the first languages on this wiki, made a major revision of his language. Applicatives suddenly appeared in his verbs, along with antipassives. His language had been a nominative-accu…

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I just recently found a page ([1]) that generates random phonologies out of seed numbers. This is one of my results:

Consonants

Bilabial
Bilabial
Dental
Palatal
Velar
Rounded

velar

Glottal
Palatalised

glottal

Nasal

m͡ɲ

m

n̪

ɲ

ŋ

ŋʷ




Stop
p͡c p͡cʼ b͡ɟ
p pʼ b
t̪ t̪ʼ d̪
c cʼ ɟ
k kʼ g






Fricative




s̪







h

hʲ

Approximant





l̪

j


w̥
w

Vowels

Front
Back
High
i
u
Mid-low
ɛ
ɔ
Low

ɑ

/l̪ɑpɑn̪/ [l̪ɑpɑ̃n̪]
/t̪ʼɔŋʷw̥jɛŋʷ/ [t̪ʼɔ̃ŋʷw̥j̃ɛ̃ŋʷ]
/d̪ɔn̪pʼɔ/ [d̪ɔ̃mpʼɔ]
/pʼun̪ɑ/ [pʼũn̪ɑ]
/wupʼɑn̪/ [wupʼɑ̃n̪]
/hɑn̪l̪ɔŋʷ/ [hɑ̃n̪l̪ɔ̃ŋʷ]
/d̪jun̪w̥un̪/ [d̪ũn̪w̥ũn̪]
/t̪ʼɑw̥ɑn̪/ [t̪ʼɑ̃w̥ɑ̃n̪]
/wɔwɔ/ [wɔwɔ]
/wɑn̪hjɑn̪/ [w̃ɑ̃n̪hj̥ãn̪]
/wiŋʷl̪ɑ/ [w̃ĩŋʷl̪ɑ]
/in̪t̪ɛ/ [ĩn̪t̪ɛ]
/t̪ʼɔŋʷŋʷi/ [t̪ʼɔ̃ŋʷŋʷi]
/hjɔn̪t̪ɔn̪/ [hj̥ɞ̃n̪t̪ɔ̃n̪]
/…





























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When I was working on my conlang... because I am a beginner, I was very systematic about it. I was following the steps and completing them as I went. I finished the very basics of the syntax and grammar, got my phones all listed and organised. But when I finally started to form sentences... it was really hard. It didn't sound natural to me at all. It was very very difficult to say the sentences naturally because they sounded ugly and disorientating. I could've taken those mistakes and used them to improve it, but I didn't find that quite appropriate.

Instead, I'm going to change the phones completely. I shall record myself speaking gibberish, whilst expressing what I intend to say. When I looked on youtube for research, I found a few conlan…

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Some conlangers I know develop languages to be used in sci-fi/fantasy novels, others just for knowledge's sake.

I'm studying (rather, want to study) linguistics so I know how people communicate and hopefully bridge the gaps between different languages (hence all my IAL work).

So, for what reason did you decide to start studying linguistics? Is there a particular goal or product you wish fulfilled by it?

Just curious :)

Razlem 20:55, December 7, 2010 (UTC)

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Personally, it looks to me like fresh poop :P I liked the old style better

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I’m really glad I’ve got a blog on this site.

It just rocks.

Anyway....

I’m Chris Boyd.

My first (posted) language, Hëtṿa (pronounced /‘hətwa/) is now available for viewing.

Please leave some comments on how to improve the language, or if there are any features (not already included) that you’d like to see, such as numbers 1-10 or whatever.

I will accept comments on either my blog or on my talk page (NOT ON THE LANGUAGE PAGE).

Thanks a bunch,

Crjboyd 04:13, September 26, 2010 (UTC)

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Quick Discussion about words in a language

Most common words

1: the

2: of

3: and

5: a

5: to

6: in

8: is

9: be

9: that

9: was

10: he

11: for

11: it

14: with

15: as

15: his

17: I

17: on

18: have

19: at

20: by

20: not

21: they

21: this

22: had

24: are

25: but

26: from

27: or

28: she

29: an

30: which

30: you

31: one

32: we

34: all

34: were

35: her

35: would

36: there

40: their

40: will

41: when

41: who

42: him

43: been

44: has

44: more

45: if

45: no

47: out

48: do

49: so

50: can

50: what

52: up

53: said

54: about

54: other

55: into

55: than

56: its

57: time

59: only

60: could

60: new

60: them

62: man

62: some

65: these

69: then

69: two

71: first

71: May

72: any

72: like

74: now

75: my

75: such

76: make

78: over

79: our

81: even

81: most

82: me

83: state

84: after

84: also

85: made

87: many

88: did

88: must

89: before

91: back

91: see

91: …

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Logic is such a common word used these days to properly deduce things from one or more premises. There are certain rules to it and more but I will go through a few and how they can be applied for language and distinctions in it, or lack of them. For easyness I will be using a table like

X A
1 0
B 1

0

where A and B represent the two options possed and X will be replaced by the function. If it shows 1 in the box it means that option is applied in that situation and 0 means it isnt.

This is a common word and logical function, It usually represent where A can be the option or B can be, but also both can be valid at once.

Or A
1 0
B 1

0

This is the commonly spoken "Or" but may be emphezised by saying "A or B or both" in everyday speech to make it cle…

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Currently working on my own I have decieded to talk some about orthography and various ways a language can be written, the options and general guidelines.

This is where graphs represents ideas, concept, items and other concrete things. They do not show any pronounciation or anything but merely give of an idea. Their major problem is the "failure" of being able to draw abstract items or grammatical things. How would one draw "love" for example? Most people think a heart but is that really how that culture percieve it? Is it really a good way? Words such as "And" "up" "down" "above" etc, words giving grammatical information, are also a huge problem because they are not easy drawing even as a detailed picture. This is usually solved by using a…

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Ever since I discovered the Voynich manuscript some months ago, I've been reading text about it, but it bugs me that I cannot read the thing. I am going to make a decyphering attempt some time soon, hopefully together with some linguistics-crazy friends. I know that I am attempting something damn near impossible, but if I do succseed, that will give me some in-depth attachment to languages, and some fame (A kid and his pals decyphered a secred language with no known relatives when all attepts before failed) :) Rostov-na-don 02:40, July 24, 2010 (UTC) Assumptions and Facts:

• The symbol that is simmilar to 'α\\\Ɔ' is most likely one glyph.
• It is most likely not isolating.
• It is most likely not polysynthetic.
• Due to the amount of words and the div…

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Considering their richness what would everyone say about having a page with a list of cases aspects and other thigns to assist in the creation process so one can pick from the list rather than looking? (And make up our own ones with names and everything)

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Many elements that constitute a language are actually special features rather than linguistic requirements, so I've decided to go through the features I've come across so far. If someone knows any other special features, tell me and I'll add them.

Among the most "Natural" features for many western IE speakers are the definite of a noun. It is a feature that indicate the item in question is either already mentioned or you both have a pre-existing knowledge of what specific one you are refering to. But most languages dont have it and just refers to "the car" and "a car" simply as "a car" in all instances. It isnt needed nor common outside of western european languages (even non-IE)

Plural is also a common feature for many languages but not all…

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I've been looking around the net looking for conlangs when I saw a major error: the language had seven cases: Nominative, Accusative, Ergative, Absolutive, Transitive, Oblique and Partitive :P

Have you noticed any major errors? Rostov-na-don 03:03, July 10, 2010 (UTC)

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I find it strange that a wiki on conlangs doesn't have an article on Quenya, Klingon or any other famous and successful languages. Is there a good reason for this? Is this wiki too new to assume that content should already be here? Or is it rude to create articles about languages one hasn't authored?

At the very least, there should be some acknowledgement of the conlang greats. It would be cool to be able to quickly compare the inner workings of D'ni to Na'vi. I see no need to completely reproduce the language definitions here; but an external links to the best tutorials would be handy. Short histories about authors and creation of Esperanto and Loglan can provide excellent inspiration to aspiring conlangers such as myself.

There should prob…

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For example, do you prefer a natural approach like Rosetta Stone or LiveMocha, or do you like to learn the structure of the language first? Is a teacher always preferable?

I'm a visual learner with an audiographic (is that a word?) memory, so pictures with audio work best for me. But I always feel restricted when I don't have access to the nitty-gritty grammar. I hear that immersion classes are effective, but I've never had access to one.

Razlem 04:51, July 9, 2010 (UTC)

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I've been looking around quite a bit lately, and I can't help but notice, an orthography is distinct just like a language, don't you all agree? I mean... one sees rings over a's and knows it's probably a Nordic language. One sees háčeks and knows it's probably a Slavic language, and one sees funky combinations in languages you don't know much about, and they manage to look erotic. I was wondering, really, and over the past few days, I've done quite the renovating with Adwan. I'm literally thinking of getting rid of háčeks, which brings me to this question: what are your opinions on orthographies? Do you like them phonemic and shallow (quoting Wiki here!)? Or do you like having those little perks in orthographies that make them deep and, we…

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Welcome to the Old Elvish homepage, where we can challenge each other to translate passages of Old Elvish so the language can expand indefinitely. First I would like to start off by entering in a few small English sentences, and will give the bare necessities needed to translate them into this ancient language. If you are interested, please try your best translation and send the answer back to my email oldelvish@gmail.com. If you have the correct answer (which I assure you, you will, because the sentences are quite easy), you can make a sentence in English and post it on this page for another person to translate and send back to me, and so on.

Please feel free to add your own words to Old Elvish. If you want to do so, please email me the wor…

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ciao

non so cosa dire e non so cos'è wikia.

mi sono iscritto (o forse no)per sbaglio arrivederci e torte alla panna

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Thought I would make another blog as this is something easily forgotten for people and it is about relativization, adjective clauses.

Adjective/Relative clause is a clause that act as an adjective to describe a noun, for example in the sentence "the woman which i like" the "which" initiates the clause and "i like" marks that its a woman i like. But the position of relativization can change dramaticly and in english it is always fronted. I´ll give example in english of the 4 general types that do exist, the "__" marks where the noun originally was before being relativized

1. Subject: The woman which __ walks
2. Object: The woman which I like __
3. Indirect object: The woman which I gave __ the flower
4. Oblique: The woman which i gave the flow to __ / The wo…

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Language Change

I was studying language change and variation today in Linguistics and thought it would be a great idea to put some of my lecture notes on here so those who were interested could leanr, but I don't know how to upload files that are not images, and typing it all takes a long time, so that was an epic fail. I will leave this here in case i scan the docs and upload them, or unless someone has any ideas.

Cheers.

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Yet another one :P I decied to bust yet another myth people think is true but really isnt

It is about how languages developes, the myth goes that languages over time always simplify getting rid of unneccisery stuff. This could not possibly be further from the truth, languages CAN simplify over time but this is not its natural tendency at all. The natural tendency for languages is to accumilate more dirt, more features, more everything to get ever more complicated reaching complexity levels people in the west cant think is possible. Why is this the case and not the original idea? why does it exist and why have languages acctually been simplified? I will first explain why it gets more complicated with time and explain why it also simplifies i…

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Pressing the random language button i found a conlang that was a copy of my own in its early stages XD

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In general, how does one promote a constructed language?

The internet is one way, obviously, but languages like Esperanto and Ido didn't have that luxury. How did those languages spread all over the world?

I assume snail mail as far as the transportation of information, but were there pamphlets advertising the language?

Just curious.

Razlem 03:33, May 1, 2010 (UTC)

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From my previous blog where I gave some simple minor tips on general stuff i thought i would give more indepth of semantics to avoid replicating english dictionary again.

the first and probably most important thing to think on is to never EVER say "with in X is Y" because "with" or other structural words (prepositions, adpositions etc) often contain more than 1 meaning so you are dragging with you a ton of meanings in such a case. Instead you shall with such structural words rather mix and match the meanings around that is different. Hebrew got a word i cannot remember now that contain "with" "in" and such as a meaning that we would find odd. Sure it is to us but not for them. your langauge should be the same and mix it in ways that is diff…

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One of the main problems faced by conlangers everywhere is an inability to fill out a lexicon. They are difficult things to do, but done in a systematic way, they become a snap. Here are some pointers on how to achieve said approach:

• Firstly assess your conlangs setting and theme. Was it originally, or is it still spoken by a religious culture? Is it a modern Auxillery language? Is it a language of magic? Once you have this sorted it will all be a lot easier.
• With the concept in hand, flesh out the basis for it first. In the first example, you should figure out some of the religion it came from, including a few myths from said religion (if you are using a real world religion, read up on it, specifically the religion's holy text). In the seco…

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Having had some experience in conlanging for a while, I thought i could give another 2 cents of my ideas, thoughts and general tips for conlangers. It will be updated as i think of new things

• Order of work
  • This one is something I would stress very much in the begining, for your own sake and to save yourself problems in the future you should start in this order.
    • Phonology: decied what sounds you wants and dont want, what is equal to what and what isnt? What nyances does your conlang make between sounds and which doesnt? Korean dont differ between B and P but P and P^h and other languages makes further distinctions others make less. Dont be too scared about the sound amount as long as you dont throw things in randomly, keep an order of things whe…

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As this is a thing most conlangers fear i thought I could make a blog post about my thoughts on it with additional input.

Some think a kitchen sink language (KSL) is a conlang with just alot of features in it and have loads of various sounds.

That cannot possibly be it because there are loads of languages with lots of wierd things stuck togather into what could be considered a mess but have an inherent structure in the language. Same goes with sounds, there are natural languages with tons of consonants and tons of vowels again seemingly randomly put togather. And most certainly none of us conlangers would in their sane mind call a perfectly natural language a KSL now would we? Of course not, thats absurd. Going to a native speaker and say "…

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After a slight mishatch with the skin it is back to normal.

Though I do think we should be opening the idea of changing the skin and icon of the site, or not.

I open the floor to anyone to suggest a skin or icon at will

The Emperor Zelos 22:36, April 19, 2010 (UTC)

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What happened to the yellow skin we have head since a few hours ago and a long a time before that? I don't like the grey skin, it looks too dark. But in Preferences there are new skins and some of the old skins are gone. —Preceding signed comment added by TimeMaster (talk • contribs) 20:34, April 19, 2010 (UTC)

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Hey everyone, I know some of you, me especially, may be very strict about giving out personal details, however I was just wondering where everyone came from, country wise? I am from downunder in Australia. Also I just wanted to know because no one seems to be online when I am, which can sometimes be annoying.

Does anyone here, except myself and Zelos, speak more than one language? I asume there would be a few of us.

It would be good to find out when the majority of us are online as then we can get some real discussion between everyone going about conlangs (as nothing is better than other people's view, even though it might not be what we want criticism helps) instead of having discussions where I, and maybe some others, have to wait a day t…

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Added heaps of stuff from my own files to that Ferzhic page, a lot of the organisation and tabbibg of it got messed up, spose illl have to fix it sometime, cant be bothered now, anyway, ill keep chipping away.

)

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to try something w/skmsyg

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Hi! I am Atizablaze and I will use this blog page to tell you about my first conlang experiences. I hope you forgive me if my english has grammar or spelling mistakes because my mother tounge is not english, it is spanish. But I will do my best effort here:

First of all, I want to say that being a rookie conlanger is some of the best things that have happened to me in my whole life, it has been very funny, very useful and it has helped me to learn other languages like polish and esperanto. Because of this, I have been able to learn them more easily and I have got some fame because of this experience. Why do I say that?

• the first language I began doing is Katian language and you have no idea of how much has the Katian language changed since I…

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