The CBB

Also note that when one language (LT, "target language") borrows personal pronouns from another (usually neighboring) language (LS, "source language"), often the LS 2nd-person pronoun will be borrowed into the LT as a 1st-person pronoun, and the LS 1st-person pronoun will be bor...

Are there any languages with hodiernal/non-hodiernal tense distinction? There sure as hell are! :-D (I didn't understand your question the way Avo did; if you meant it the way he took it, then my answer should be "I don't know".) Read Comrie's "Tense". You can have a hodiernal p...

Honestly, I normally copy and paste things, so I rarley know the actual code. :P I've simply started using X-SAMPA transcriptions in addition to IPA; seemed easiest. Thanks. BTW I've figured out that in my idiolect of Engish the /w/ phoneme is pronounced as the [β ˕ ] phone (Z-SAMPA, [P\] or [B_o])...

Maybe he was confused with Inyauk? :mrgreen: ínyak - person ínyauk - people Can't forget the dual! tsál - [ 'ʦʰal ] - sun tsánil - [ 'ʦʰanɪl ] - 2 suns tsául - [ ʦʰaʔʊl ] - suns So, is ínyanik two people? Also, some languages have non-pluralizable or mandatorily-singular "count" nouns; &q...

Well, I've just read another post where you mention you can't see certain characters anyway, so from now on I'll be using multiple transcription methods. Thanks for the consideration and the effort! I can't see one or two symbols either actually, so, where possible, I normally apply diacritics to m...

Well that sounds neat...is there info out there on it? If you mean Arpien, yes; the grammar (or, that is, the list of production rules for its generative syntax) has been published. You can find it on the web just as easily as I can, I think. Not a word of vocabulary, though; not even a phoneme inv...

I learned how to use Alt+X to compose 4-hex-digit UCS or Unicode characters.

And:

I found in the IPA handbook where several diacritics have two such codes, depending on whether they're to be placed under/over the main character, or after it.

The main hypothesis for why areal features occur is language-contact. Pidgins are contact-languages; once they become native languages (two or more speakers have the erstwhile pidgin as their mother tongue) they become creoles. Odds are that the languages in a "nat-sprachbund" include one ...

roninbodhisattva wrote:Just wanted to see: Who's got an isolating conlang around here? Anybody working on one?

(I don't remember why I didn't already answer this.)

Arpien (my second (third?) conlang) is completely isolating.

It has no morphology, only syntax.

(It doesn't sidle around that by suppletion, either.)

You've done great work so far. You've accomplished a lot. People are only trying to help you make it better; people aren't saying you've done anything you ought to scrap.

What a cool idea! 8-) To be interesting, languages in a sprachbund need to share features with each other that they don't share with their relatives. That means a sprachbund should have languages from more than one different family, so there can be unrelated languages in the sprachbund each of which...

I see. So my previous comments are not relevant, because I can't (and couldn't) see that "lowered" diacritic. Would it be possible to actually write it underneath the /β/? As it is, it's very small, and, with the solidus / written over it, I can't tell it's not just a comma. Perhaps if yo...

Thanks! It looks quite usable. (At least to someone trained to do arithmetic in it through seven grades of school.) I see it as a base-sixty system. I can easily see it as having subbase three, and perhaps less easily as having subbase twelve. I can't see subbase four nor subbase thirteen. Your earl...

If you use too many of certain IPA diacritcs, I won't be able to read it. Go learn yourself some IPA! :mrgreen: Also, if he uses any XSAMPA I'll have to do something awful. I know the IPA; just certain diacritics don't show up on my computer, some not at all and some not when combined with certain ...

Ossicone wrote:... you can download ....

No, I can't. I don't own any of the computers I use.

But I'll try the other way.

EDIT: Yes! That other way works! Thank you!

Mandarin has: 不 bu - general negation of verbs (我不去。 I do not go ) 沒 mei2 - to not have smth, to have not done smth (我沒去。 I did not go. ) 別 bie2 - do not do smth (command) (別去。 Do not go. ) 無 wu2 - without smth (無糖的咖啡。 Sugar-free coffee ) I'm familiar with both of the first two, but not familiar wi...

After listening to the latest Conlangery podcast I felt that I need to work on my grammar for Watteetexu/Ne ennu. I've come to the prepositions. There are simple and complex prepositions, and I'm working on various examples of how they may be used. The grammar will be completely X-SAMPA free. Pronu...

If I don't have an iPod, can I still listen to the podcasts?
If so, how?

I seriously doubt that I'd be able to pronounce or hear any difference between a straight bilabial approximant and a co-articulated bilabial-and-velar approximant. Here 's a sound file of the bilabial approximant. And here 's the labio-velar approximant. I'm not sure I can/could hear the difference...

Sorry, left column are the agents, the top row are the patients. Thanks! Also, is it w ei rd to distinguish human/nonhuman in the agent, and animate/inanimate in the patient? Not in my opinion. Will your language allow ditransitive verbs? Or morphological causativization of transitive verbs? Or app...