Kintsugi Conlang Creation

so @BlackholeKG and some others were interested in making a Kintsugi conlang, so I made a thread for us all to participate in it! yayyyyyyyyyy

 

Awesome!

If people are serious about this, I guess we should get started, then. Do people mind if I sort of oversee things? I find I tend to be good at maintaining files and info for projects like this. I also think that all participants should agree about things before we start editing them into any files and such.

First thing's first, what sort of language do we want this to be? Earlier, heiroglyphs were briefly mentioned - is that something we want to seriously pursue? It'd be a fairly difficult goal to devise an entire symbol system, but we could potentially try it. A phonetic English alphabet version could also be created in tandem, but I am curious about how we're going to represent this because the form of the language when written might influence how it is structured when spoken and vice versa.

Also, we'll need to decide how we want this to work grammatically. My favourite types of conlangs take nothing for granted and don't borrow too much from, say, English in terms of grammar structure, so it might be fun to do something pretty wild. That said, we should also come up with an internal logic when planning this stuff out. Are we going to create this and pretend as if it were a natural language, and mimic a naturally evolved structure, or are we going to be overtly artificial in putting this together (such as, no irregulars (although they are fun)). Who is this language for? Who is speaking it? These are the questions that will underpin the form that it will take.

Feel free to make suggestions I guess!

Edit: I should qualify that aside from having some interest in conlangs I'm not actually much of an expert on languages in general, and so don't start throwing complex technical grammar vocabulary at me. I was actually... really bad at learning languages in school. Aha.

 

so I would like to be a part of this.
personally, I think a hieroglyphic language would be hella cool--I'm pretty good at creating symbols and rather enjoy it, so if we want to go that route, I could definitely help making symbols! and I think creating a phonetic English alphabet version in tandem, or some kind of version for speaking the language in tandem, would be really cool. at the same time, I think making a language that we could just use our average keyboards to type with would also be really cool.
I've got nothing for grammatical--I've never made a conlang before, never participated in making a conlang, and have no idea how this really works.

 

What I know about the Korean alphabet is this Tumblr post but it's enough that I fell in love pretty much instantly. I really like systems where they have symbols for the consonants with modifiers for the different vowels, and separate symbols for when it's just the vowel with no adjacent consonant.

 

I've never made a conlang, I don't know many other languages and have no level of expertise at all, buuuut I'm gonna tag along for the ride, if that's okay?? Might end up just observing and/or cheering you guys on from the sidelines. Languages are so cool. ((I'm about two months into my linguistics class and it is awesome.))

 

That's a little different from how a lot of hieroglyphs work in that, although Egyptian hieroglyphs did I believe also have their own phonographic system, like you're talking about, they also extensively used logograms, where the glyphs are literal pictorial depictions of things rather than simply representing different sounds. We could go for that, or the former system, or do some hybrid thing. Having logograms could be cool through because it'd involve a more extensive symbol library, albeit being a lot harder.

 

I think a heiroglyphic system would be cool, but might be a bit untenable. Maybe a mixed version, with symbols for some words, and then an alphabet system for the rest?

 

Maybe we could do a thing where we have a limited symbol set with each having a large number of individual meanings (like we're reading an alethiometer), and then have other modifying symbols which would, as well as context, denote what meaning is meant?

 

And then, in terms of the phonetic spoken/English alphabet version, words could incorporate a common element or phoneme if they share a common glyph. Fen Vibrile did something similar in that all noun's regular suffix (Fen Vibrile had a lot of grammar based around a system of interchangable suffixes) would be from one of a set of domains that denoted something about the type of object being referred to.

Edit: Then again maybe that would constrain word diversity too much.

 

I was thinking for rp use a straight up code of a=symbol, and then a more complex real version. That way if we use it in an rp we can do it quick, or if we understand the language a bit better we can do the more complicated, but cooler, and more descriptive, real version. It has been a few years since I made a conlang though, so i'm not sure how tenable that is.

 

oh, also we should make the document available via google docs, so anyone can see it. If we're worried about people messing with it we can lock it so only certain people can edit, but anyone can view.

 

Well, if you wanted to denote glyphs in RP you could just list the name of the glyph. [Sun] [Tree] [Stone] [<Grammatical Glyph>], and henceforce. Or you could use the transliteration of the spoken version.

 

Doc is here.

Tell me if you want access! Later on we could potentially make a spreadsheet for recording lists of words, their translations, and corresponding glyph(s).

 

thats true, and seems quite a bit simpler.

 

I'd like access please! guineapigworshipper@gmail.com to add me.

 

Also, we should make a to do list for what to do. Decide grammer rules first, and then proceed with symbols/alphabet/whatever we decide?
[edit:] put it at the top of the conlang sheet so everyone can find it easily?

 

what sounds are actually used...
writing system in terms of alphabet/hieroglyphs/etc...
grammatical rules....
coming up with words...

 

i know literally nothing about conlang but im def gonna tag along and observe....! also, depending on which route you guys go, i can font-ify it for you in a way that you can download and use! this is only something i can do with alphabet-type ones tho, just fyi

 

What would stop us from assigning different symbols to different spaces in a fontset, Wingdings style, and thus having a typable symbol set?

 

wingdings is alphabet-type :"D symbols arent the problem, it's that hieroglyphic languages wont be easy for me to do LOL

when i say hieroglyphic im thinking like. ancient egyptian type, or modern chinese (tho chinese is pictographical i think) because translating them over to fonts would be Hard