Constructed Languages

Discussion in 'Make It So' started by Elaienar, Jun 2, 2015.

  1. kmoss

    kmoss whoops

    When I was a kid, I made this one language, but my brother pointed out in his obnoxiously superior pedantic 16 yr old way that it was actually a code since it didn't have grammatical structure. So I, mad because he was pretty much right, dropped it.

    At any rate, this is an excerpt from this story that I wrote in my head 2 or 3 years ago while standing in one place at a cheese factory for 8 hours a day, 70 hours a week.

     
    • Like x 5
  2. Exohedron

    Exohedron Doesn't like words

    From the sci-fi novel:
    "Oh, I'm sorry, let me try again: miena satae akuherrhe. Does that sound better, your majesty?"
    Daela glared at her. "That's not the point."
    "Well, either way I'm going to go back to saying minskera. Your historical reconstruction of nerui has just as many holes as ours does and we waste less time enunciating."
    "Nerurai." Daela corrected her.
    She grinned back. "That's not the point."

    @boyacrossthestreet A code can easily become a language if you just pick a word ordering. Grammatical structures are as complicated or simple as you want to make them (although your speakers may or may not hate you afterwards).
    Also how does 8 hours a day translate to 70 hours a week? 8 * 7 = 56?
     
    • Like x 2
  3. kmoss

    kmoss whoops

    Ten hours a day
    :/
    Factory jobs are fun
    That was the summer I quit working there. Usually they were pretty good about scheduling normal human workweeks.

    Yeah, I also abandoned my old language because I was...11? 12? And didn't have a handle entirely on inventing grammatical rules. I mean, I'd already come up with a phonetic alphabet for it before I knew phonetics were a thing. (Shakes fist at the letter "c")

    This new one promises to be much more fun if I bother to keep working on the story, so hopefully I will.
     
  4. emythos

    emythos Lipstick Hoarding Dragon

    Okay, I'm not languagey at all. But maybe it's a matter of "GIANT PIGS ARE NOT ALLOWED TO BE KINGS (because pigs in general are not king material)"?
     
    • Like x 1
  5. Aondeug

    Aondeug Cringe Annoying Ass Female Lobster

    Possibly. I will have to think on it more. I got distracted by other things and haven't worked on it for a while...One of those things was another conlang...This one a VSO with phonetics inspired by Thai. For an RP character.

    Also this is the conlang thread so I feel it is appropriate to say that Mando'a from Star Wars has like the most wonderful insults ever. Something just sounds fucking nice about chakaar. Like that is some hardcore perfect fuck you shit there. Hut'tuun is great too. Also funny because it is based off the Hutts.
     
    • Like x 1
  6. swirlingflight

    swirlingflight inane analysis and story spinning is my passion

    I still very much like the simplicity of 4 directional lines, so I've been thinking how else I could make use of them. A couple of days ago, I had an idea. I could borrow the sorts of shapes from my letter-to-letter replacement code, but instead of having the letters separated like in non-cursive English... and instead connect the strokes together to make obvious words, and make the primary stroke of each character be based on the kind of sound it is.

    My main idea is having one direction of stroke for vowels, another for stop consonants, a third for other kinds of consonants... and the fourth to indicate the start and stop of words. I'll need to look more into the kinds of sounds to figure out what kind of sorting system would be best.

    But here's two possibilities that come to mind:

    [​IMG] [​IMG]

    I would have smaller markings for indicating precisely which one it is. Possibly above/below, like accents or like the vowel markers in Quenya, but for marking all of the sounds.

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Sep 28, 2015
    • Like x 5
  7. chaoticArbiter

    chaoticArbiter an actual shiny eevee (destroyer of worlds)

    hello friends
    I am attempting to go about creating a language for a book I am writing
    so far all I have is a runic alphabet
     
    • Like x 4
  8. Re Allyssa

    Re Allyssa Sylph of Heart

    • Like x 4
  9. swirlingflight

    swirlingflight inane analysis and story spinning is my passion

    • Like x 1
  10. BlackholeKG

    BlackholeKG I saw you making fire

    When I was a lil' younger I invented a constructed language called "Fen Vibrile", and used it in a bunch of roleplays for a while. I even ran a translation competition for it at one point. Fun times. A few words from it even entered my vocabulary for a little bit due to how often I'd use them when roleplaying, which got confusing for some people, and when I get drunk I start reciting bits of it, because drunk!me thinks it's fun I guess. I don't know.

    I'm not going to go into detail about all the grammar and such because it's been a while, but here's a bit of sample text if you're the type of person who gets a kick out of that sort of thing.

     
    Last edited: Jan 19, 2016
    • Like x 3
  11. strictly quadrilateral

    strictly quadrilateral alive, alive, alive!

    please translate, I want to see how it works
     
  12. BlackholeKG

    BlackholeKG I saw you making fire

    It's the passage from Paradise Lost that appears at the start of "His Dark Materials".

     
    • Like x 2
  13. budgie

    budgie not actually a bird

    this is a straight linguistics thing rather than a conlang thing, but people who conlang might find it a fun thing to play with:

    kabardian is argued to only have two vowels. any time anything that's not /a/ or /ə/ is used, it's due to assimilation. so, [ u] and [o] only happen if the vowel is preceded by a labialized velar or uvular consonant (the beginning of english queen would be a labialized velar), [ i] comes after laterals or /j/...

    it also has 47 consonants, including some super weird things like ejective fricatives.
     
    • Like x 3
  14. strictly quadrilateral

    strictly quadrilateral alive, alive, alive!

  15. budgie

    budgie not actually a bird

    :mystery:
     
  16. Re Allyssa

    Re Allyssa Sylph of Heart

    Oh lord how. why. what.
     
  17. budgie

    budgie not actually a bird

    @Re Allyssa the best part of the class is that the prof actually speaks kabardian and he demonstrates these sounds for us. they are really some of the weirdest sounds i have ever heard a person make, intentionally or not. (and just to be clear i am super impressed with the people who can do any sort of ejective, much less ejective fricatives, because i try and replicate these sounds and wind up half-choking myself)
     
    • Like x 1
  18. Re Allyssa

    Re Allyssa Sylph of Heart

    That's amazing.
    I can't even roll my r's :(
     
    • Like x 1
  19. Aondeug

    Aondeug Cringe Annoying Ass Female Lobster

    I have always wanted to hear Kabardian. I envy you.
     
    • Like x 1
  20. Ouija

    Ouija Nani the fuck?

    I didn't make a dictionary, but I made up some language rules for my OC's world as part of a worldbuilding experience (fueled by lack of sleep and some caffeine, so I have no idea if it's accurate or even plausible to how a language actually functions)

    I. Phonology
    A. Consonants & Digraphs
    1. R
    2. CH
    3. T
    4. K
    5. S
    6. SH
    7. H
    8. ZH
    9. L
    10. M
    11. N
    12. V
    13. W
    14. X
    15. Z

    *Any sound left out (such as B, P, or D) is silent and not pronounced, or ommited from the language entirely. Consonants that make multiple sounds are replaced with the letters they mimick (ex. C is either replaced with an S or a K). Language is heavily made up of animal-like calls, with rolling Rs, trilling ZH noises, or clicking Ks.

    B. Vowels & Dipthongs
    1. A (AH)
    2. A (AY)
    3. E (EE)
    4. E (UH)
    5. I (IH)
    6. I (AI)
    7. O (AH)(replaces 1)
    8. O (OH)
    9. U (OO)

    *In most cases Dipthongs such as the OU or AE sounds are represented with a repeat of the first vowel in the word with an apostrophe between the vowels (ex. Batu'ul). Occasionally the apostrophe is ommitted.

    Diacritics (such as á, à, â, ã, or ä) do not exist and serve no purpose in the language.

    II. Stress

    The nature of a thought is dependant on the stress put on it. Rising-tones (that is, thoughts that start out low and end high) indicate some kind of excitement. Falling-tones (thoughts starting high and end low) indicate disappointment. Neutral tones are default. The thought's urgency is dependant on pitch. The louder a thought, the more urgent it is. The stress doesn't depend on the word, but rather the whole of the thought. There's a world of difference between something whispered and spoken in a falling tone and something yelled with a rising tone.

    III. Phonological Constraints

    (C)V(')(V)(C)(V)(')(V)(C)(C)(C)

    C represents Consonants and Digraphs
    V represents Vowels and Dipthongs
    Parenthesis for optional letters

    The language is complex in spelling but very simplistic in execution. The constraints on the language are simple ones (there are no extra rules to follow). Dipthongs and Digraphs like SH and AE are considered a single consonant or vowel, except in the case where an apostrophe is present, in which case a dipthong is dissected into two parts.

    IV. Orthography & Script

    Oh god I don't know I'll figure it out later.

    V. Grammar

    SUBJECT-VERB-OBJECT is the most common. When posing a question, replace the subject with the question word. An example would be instead of writing "How many flowers should I buy?" the question is written "I will buy how many flowers?" where the subject (the number of flowers bought) is replaced with the question (how many?).

    The Language is an Isolating Language. There are no affixes, and things such as tense and plurals are implied by adding words to the sentence.

    Gender is not normally referred to in the language, and must be inferred by the types of words used to describe a person (unless they directly reference their gender). There are four genders: Male, Female, neutral, and Deity. Deity does not necessarily refer to the gods, and can be applied to intangible objects like thought or spirit. To refer to someone in Deity terms is a sign of great respect. To refer to oneself in Deity terms is incredibly rude and an offense in some situations.

    Numbers are written out in groups of ten when spelled out (43 would become three and four tens; 100 is ten tens; etc.) Numerical representations are formed with lines and dots. Dots are arranged in groups of nine to represent individual numbers, and lines are a single group of ten. Zero is represented with a line through a dot.
     
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