Noob want's help

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Taurenzine
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Noob want's help

Post by Taurenzine »

So I am a total noob to con-worlds and con-cultures. The reason I actually joined this forum was for the conlanging portion, but then I got to the point where I realized: If I want my naturalistic Language to be as realistically Naturalistic as possible, I want a world and a culture to revolve around it. So here I am, Completely new to this concept, keeping my language on hold for the day when I have a world to properly put it in.

What I ask of you is simple: give me the best tips for noobs. Set me on the right path, tell me how to get things done, etc etc etc. Simple right?

Thank you, I love this forum, tbh its the only forum that I actually check regularly. the only one that I remember having an account on. other than reddit of course. but I mean I rarely use that even. so Yeah.
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Re: Noob want's help

Post by k1234567890y »

I am not really good at these things either, but you can think of these questions:

What do they look like? What are the most common skin color, hair color, eye color, facial structure, etc. for them? Are they generally tall or short?

What do they generally eat?

What do they generally wear? Are they naked? Do they cover their genitals with clothes?

What kind of abodes do they generally live and build?

How do they travel? What kinds of vehicles do they have?

What are the traditional knowledges? What philosophical views do they hold towards everything and every phenomenon in the world?

What is their belief system? What is their belief of ghost and afterlife(virtually every human culture believes in some form of souls and afterlife)? Are religions important to them? What is their belief of the supernatural world(deities, etc.)? How do they "communicate" with the supernatural world?

How do they entertain themselves?

Do they drink alcohol or even use substances? If so, what kinds of substances do they use?

What kinds of arts, musics, dances, literature(even orally told ones), etc. do they traditionally have?

What is their general attitudes towards sex and marriage? Are they monogamous or do they allow polygamy? Are the marriages arranged by a third party or made out of love?(suppose that they are human beings)

How do they produce things?

what tools do they use to do work?

How do they treat people who are sick?

How do they handle people who did something wrong?

How do they handle heritages when a person dies?

What do they do when facing disasters?

What are the political institutions of their political entities if they have larger societies? Political institutions can be critical to whether the people have the freedom to seek for their own fortune without worrying that their personal properties might be taken away by the government arbitrary.

What is the power structure of their society?

What do their neighbours look like?

Do they have a good relationship with their neighbours? Do they even have one at all?

What is the climate of the place where the people live? Climates define what they eat, what they traditionally wear to a large degree. People living in tropical areas don't know snow, people that don't live close to a large amount of water don't commonly eat seafood, and so on.

What technological level are they in? Peoples with different technological levels live in different ways, people with different technological levels produce, travel and even entertain with different means and in different ways, and this may even decide if they have agriculture, large institutions and writing systems. People living in medieval ages didn't write with computers.

Maybe there are more things that I need to ask, and these things are what I can think of.
Last edited by k1234567890y on 10 Feb 2017 18:29, edited 1 time in total.
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Taurenzine
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Re: Noob want's help

Post by Taurenzine »

k1234567890y wrote:I am not really good at these things either, but you can think of these questions:

What do they look like? What are the most common skin color, hair color, eye color, facial structure, etc. for them? Are they generally tall or short?

What do they generally eat?

What do they generally wear? Are they naked? Do they cover their genitals with clothes?

What kind of abodes do they generally live and build?

How do they travel? What kinds of vehicles do they have?

What are the traditional knowledges? What philosophical views do they hold towards everything and every phenomenon in the world?

What is their belief system? What is their belief of ghost and afterlife(virtually every human culture believes in some form of souls and afterlife)? Are religions important to them? What is their belief of the supernatural world? How do they "communicate" with the supernatural world?

How do they entertain themselves?

Do they drink alcohol or even use substances? If so, what kinds of substances do they use?

What kinds of arts, musics, dances, etc. do they traditionally have?

What is their general attitudes towards sex and marriage? Are they monogamous or do they allow polygamy? Are the marriages arranged by a third party or made out of love?(suppose that they are human beings)

How do they produce things?

what tools do they use to do work?

How do they treat people who are sick?

How do they handle people who did something wrong?

How do they handle heritages when a person dies?

What do they do when facing disasters?

What are the political institutions of their political entities if they have larger societies? Political institutions can be critical to whether the people have the freedom to seek their own fortune without worrying that their personal properties might be taken away by the government arbitrary.

What is the power structure of their society?

What do their neighbours look like?

Do they have a good relationship with their neighbours? Do they even have one at all?

What is the climate of the place where the people live? Climates define what they eat, what they traditionally wear to a large degree. People living in tropical areas don't know snow, people that don't live close to a large amount of water don't commonly eat seafood, and so on.

What technological level are they in? Peoples with different technological levels live in different ways, people with different technological levels produce, travel and even entertain with different means and in different ways, and this may even decide if they have agriculture, large institutions and writing systems. People living in medieval ages didn't write with computers.

Maybe there are more things that I need to ask, and these things are what I can think of.

Great! Thank you, I'll try to get this done as soon as possible!
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k1234567890y
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Re: Noob want's help

Post by k1234567890y »

Taurenzine wrote: Great! Thank you, I'll try to get this done as soon as possible!
no problem, I assume that your conpeople are human beings, if they are not human beings, some of the questions might be more elaborative, and you might need to know some biology to make non-human conpeoples.

An add-on of questions(again, based on the assumptions that they are humans):

What kinds of disasters do they meet?(this has a lot to do with the climates)

What are their views towards LGBTQ(lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgenders and genderqueers)? What are their attitudes towards fetishism? This is actually a part of sex and marriage but I asked here specifically.

How do they take care of those who are less capable?

How do they rear their offsprings? Do they use corporal punishments? Do they even care for what their children do or do they just let their children do whatever they want without even trying to stop them from doing something harmful?

How does the hierarchical structure of the society look like? are social statuses rigid(like the caste system of India) or do people have a good chance to raise their own status? This is actually a part of power structure but I asked here specifically.

If they have neighbours or at least know other groups of people, how do they think of their neighbours and other groups of people they know? Do they discriminate against them? Are they afraid of them?

How aggressive they are towards other groups?

How do they fight against other groups and defend themselves?

How do they maintain the internal order of the society if they have a larger society? Do they have police?

What are the rituals and ceremonies? For example, how do they celebrate when a child become an adult?

What are the mannerisms and customs? How do they express politeness and respect?

What behaviors are seen as virtues? what behaviors are seen as deadly sins?

How do they treat guests?

What is their history? what famous people do they have in the history?

I might post more in the future. And cultures do have a lot to do with languages, languages and cultures are mostly indivisible from each other.

All topics involving Food, Clothing, Living, Travelling, Work(means to make a living), Things used, Social Life(friendship, family relation, etc.), Education, Knowledge, Belief, Art, Entertainment, Reproduction, Birth, Growing and Aging, Disease, Death can be thought.

You can also look at the culture tests provided at Zompist to draw inspirations: http://www.zompist.com/amercult.html
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elemtilas
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Re: Noob want's help

Post by elemtilas »

Taurenzine wrote:So I am a total noob to con-worlds and con-cultures. The reason I actually joined this forum was for the conlanging portion, but then I got to the point where I realized: If I want my naturalistic Language to be as realistically Naturalistic as possible, I want a world and a culture to revolve around it. So here I am, Completely new to this concept, keeping my language on hold for the day when I have a world to properly put it in.

What I ask of you is simple: give me the best tips for noobs. Set me on the right path, tell me how to get things done, etc etc etc. Simple right?

Thank you, I love this forum, tbh its the only forum that I actually check regularly. the only one that I remember having an account on. other than reddit of course. but I mean I rarely use that even. so Yeah.
One place to get started is here.

There's a link there to the Conculture Questionnaire myself and a couple others devised a number of years ago. That's really been very helpful for many people trying to come up with an invented culture.

The reading list is not mandatory for success, but it really is helpful to gain a broad acquaintance with literally as much as you can about cultures in the primary world. If for no other reason than to keep yourself humbly on your toes!

If you really, really, really, really, really get stuck and just can't come up with any ideas at all, and find yourself ripping out your hair and feathers in desperate frustration, then I'd point you in the direction of those culture construction kit setups.

Hope that's helpful!
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k1234567890y
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Re: Noob want's help

Post by k1234567890y »

elemtilas wrote:
Taurenzine wrote:So I am a total noob to con-worlds and con-cultures. The reason I actually joined this forum was for the conlanging portion, but then I got to the point where I realized: If I want my naturalistic Language to be as realistically Naturalistic as possible, I want a world and a culture to revolve around it. So here I am, Completely new to this concept, keeping my language on hold for the day when I have a world to properly put it in.

What I ask of you is simple: give me the best tips for noobs. Set me on the right path, tell me how to get things done, etc etc etc. Simple right?

Thank you, I love this forum, tbh its the only forum that I actually check regularly. the only one that I remember having an account on. other than reddit of course. but I mean I rarely use that even. so Yeah.
One place to get started is here.

There's a link there to the Conculture Questionnaire myself and a couple others devised a number of years ago. That's really been very helpful for many people trying to come up with an invented culture.

The reading list is not mandatory for success, but it really is helpful to gain a broad acquaintance with literally as much as you can about cultures in the primary world. If for no other reason than to keep yourself humbly on your toes!

If you really, really, really, really, really get stuck and just can't come up with any ideas at all, and find yourself ripping out your hair and feathers in desperate frustration, then I'd point you in the direction of those culture construction kit setups.

Hope that's helpful!
Thank you elemtilas! (: maybe you should be one of the MVPs of this site?
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Re: Noob want's help

Post by Egerius »

elemtilas wrote:There's a link there to the Conculture Questionnaire myself and a couple others devised a number of years ago.
I was almost going to suggest the questionnaire, but there is one thing I'd like to address:
Taurenzine wrote:Completely new to this concept, keeping my language on hold for the day when I have a world to properly put it in.
I still work on Buonavallese while Rodentèrra is being created – I even began working on Wínlandisch because Roodentèrra is being created — loanwords, exonyms, even everyday words are part of both, conworlding and conlanging.
Putting on hold one thing because of the other does not quite work – at least for me.
See here – Buonavallese schooling and politics with the native terms!
Languages of Rodentèrra: Buonavallese, Saselvan Argemontese; Wīlandisċ Taulkeisch; More on the road.
Conlang embryo of TELES: Proto-Avesto-Umbric ~> Proto-Umbric
New blog: http://argentiusbonavalensis.tumblr.com
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Re: Noob want's help

Post by elemtilas »

k1234567890y wrote:Thank you elemtilas!
You're welcome! (: maybe you should be one of the MVPs of this site?

Stay tuned, though. I am working on a revised & overhauled Questionnaire as we speak! (No set completion date, but it is coming along pretty well!)
Egerius wrote:There is one thing I'd like to address:
Taurenzine wrote:Completely new to this concept, keeping my language on hold for the day when I have a world to properly put it in.
I still work on Buonavallese while Rodentèrra is being created – I even began working on Wínlandisch because Rodentèrra is being created — loanwords, exonyms, even everyday words are part of both, conworlding and conlanging.
Putting on hold one thing because of the other does not quite work – at least for me.
See here – Buonavallese schooling and politics with the native terms!
Yes, you are quite right! I understand putting one on hold to do the other --- sometimes people like to focus on one thing at a time. Me, I think this is something of a nooby mistake. Linear thinking. That I háve to do step A before B before C and if I skip to D in stead I'll earn an F in Geopoesy.

If it's a matter of focus for you, Taurenzine, then I understand. But Egerius makes a valid point: culture and language influence each other. Language doesn't exist in a vacuum and culture is transmitted & expressed via language. If you focus too much on one without developping the other, then you do risk getting a little lopsided.

Best thing, I think, is to focus more on the one you like doing better, but keep the other on simmer so that you can draw from its resources and also add to it as you work on your main part of the project.

For me, it's the culture and story that are of much more interest. But I still keep open and available materials on the languages so that they can be kept up to date and also so that culture & language can interact more easily.
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Re: Noob want's help

Post by Salmoneus »

I would suggest not getting bogged down too deeply in answering specific questions to begin with, as this can compromise the coherence of the result. Having said that, having a vague idea of the answers to some questions can give you a sense of what you're aiming for.


The foundation of culture is geography (although this is much less true of modern (or future) culture, where we have technology instead). What is the local geography - what is the local climate, and the local vegetation?

Then, founded upon geography, what is the economic basis of the culture? That sounds more complicated than maybe it is. Ultimately, the fundamental questions are things like:
- how is food generated? Is there a surplus?
- how are goods generated?
- producing goods (including food) involves both labour (work) and capital (land and tools - the means of production). So how is labour controlled and organised - by families, by trade guilds, or by governments? It may be different for different forms of production - you may have family (clan) control of farming, but specialised trades controlled by guilds. How do these organisations maintain their power?
- who controls the means of production?

One of the big determining factors in social structure is the relative price of capital and labour. If capital is cheap, in a pre-modern society that means there's a lot of land. What limits your wealth is then the lack of sufficient labour. Such a society will be set up to have high population growth, and big extended powerful families, probably with polygyny. Expansion gives opportunities, so there may be relatively high mobility. Or if capital is expensive and labour is cheap, that probably means you're in an overpopulated society. It'll be set up to have low population growth, with small families, and strict laws controlling the ownership of land and other capital. It'll probably have an entrenched aristocratic system.

Facets of a culture have functions. For each thing, ask "what is the function of this? How does this benefit society?" - and of course what problems it creates for society. And is there a more interesting way to fulfill the same function?

Cultures evolve through time, and how they are now reflects how they were then. So I suggest having at least a general sense of the history of your people.

Throughout, it can help I think to have a "sense" of what you want the result to "look like". That can be something concrete - "I want my people to be a proud warrior people!" - or it can be more nebulous or tangential - "my people live somewhere that looks like the Hebrides" or "my people are highly ritualised". A good foundation can be to have one or more real-life cultures in mind - not to copy the features, but to give yourself a marker not to stray too far from.

My Là people, for instance, speakers of Rawàng Ata, have a climate and language that looks vaguely Austronesian. So they are aimed at being somewhere in the aesthetic region of the Austronesian sphere, or in southeast asia more generally, but with a more modernised, semi-European tang. And a hint of Japan here and there. When I was thinking about their performance arts, for example, I didn't copy many specific features, but I kept in mind various general concepts: an austronesian connexion (their main stringed instrument is based on an unusual austronesian design), the idea of them being in the past a more 'primitive' island off the coast of a large more 'advanced' culture as Japan was to China, and the tension between imitation and local pride that that produces, the idea of a transition from, in relatively recent times, a fairly rustic backwater society to something modern and sophisticated (so rural dances have been gentrified and brought inside), a society that used to have shamans and bards (so a tradition of oral classics that have since been codified by modernising rulers), a highly aristocratic and feudal culture, a passion for aesthetic theory founded on ideas of function and utility, and so on. Then you find things that fit together within that general 'feel'.


The big thing, though, is just to read. Not so much to copy specific features, as to get a sense for what is possible, what things might go with what, and so forth.
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Re: Noob want's help

Post by elemtilas »

Salmoneus wrote:(Loads of good advice here!)

My Là people ... an austronesian connexion (their main stringed instrument is based on an unusual austronesian design)
Curious...

Sasando?

Kudyapi?

Valiha?

Something else?
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Re: Noob want's help

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Taurenzine wrote:So I am a total noob to con-worlds and con-cultures. The reason I actually joined this forum was for the conlanging portion, but then I got to the point where I realized: If I want my naturalistic Language to be as realistically Naturalistic as possible, I want a world and a culture to revolve around it. So here I am, Completely new to this concept, keeping my language on hold for the day when I have a world to properly put it in.

What I ask of you is simple: give me the best tips for noobs. Set me on the right path, tell me how to get things done, etc etc etc. Simple right?

Thank you, I love this forum, tbh its the only forum that I actually check regularly. the only one that I remember having an account on. other than reddit of course. but I mean I rarely use that even. so Yeah.
I will personally tell you anything you want to know about Semitic, about anthropology, about real world history or natural linguistics and explain as slowly as you need if that ever strikes your need. Heaven knows that's what I would've wanted. I don't proclaim to be an expert but I am training to be one so there's that.
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Re: Noob want's help

Post by Salmoneus »

elemtilas wrote:
Salmoneus wrote:(Loads of good advice here!)

My Là people ... an austronesian connexion (their main stringed instrument is based on an unusual austronesian design)
Curious...

Sasando?

Kudyapi?

Valiha?

Something else?
Valiha. Well, valihoid. Valiha-like instruments occur across the Austronesian sphere with various difference. I don't have the details to hand for my conculture. But it would sound very different from a modern valiha - the modern valiha, as in that example, largely uses steel strings, whereas my conculture's instrument is closer to the original form, where the "strings" are only raised sections of bamboo. [well, pseudo-bamboo]. So the timbre would be more like the "bamboo harp" in this (larger and hit) or the "kolietong" here (smaller and plucked).

To be honest, my motivation for this is partly the austronesian connection and partly just that the idea of this instruments is so extremely cool.
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Re: Noob want's help

Post by elemtilas »

Salmoneus wrote:Valiha. Well, valihoid. Valiha-like instruments occur across the Austronesian sphere... To be honest, my motivation for this is partly the austronesian connection and partly just that the idea of this instruments is so extremely cool.
Indeed! Bamboo zithers have a wonderful, mesmerising sound! Good choice!
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Re: Noob want's help

Post by Lambuzhao »

[+1]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzOyAPpaszU
[<3]

Quite beautiful and haunting.


Makes me think of Appalachian dulcimer,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oskYL3VlIq4


and Ukrainian bandura (and tsymbaly, for that matter)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KAHyuVjjmg

VG+ [:D]
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Re: Noob want's help

Post by Isfendil »

If your people traffic in or domesticate any creature with horns, you could consider woodwind instruments.

I, for one, think that no one can go wrong with the Duduk: https://youtu.be/y5tcbD5in7k

It is a mainland instrument used by a landlocked people so maybe not what you're going for but again, if animals have horns, or if there are reeds, consider these.
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Re: Noob want's help

Post by elemtilas »

Isfendil wrote:If your people traffic in or domesticate any creature with horns, you could consider woodwind instruments.

I, for one, think that no one can go wrong with the Duduk: https://youtu.be/y5tcbD5in7k

It is a mainland instrument used by a landlocked people so maybe not what you're going for but again, if animals have horns, or if there are reeds, consider these.
Love the sound of the duduk too!

Horn lends itself to many musical applications. Resonators on hornpipes:

Image

The gemshorn:

Image

The oliphant:

Image

The shofar:

Image

Trumpet:

Image

Müüs, a rattle made from horn:

Image

Guiro:

Image
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Re: Noob want's help

Post by Salmoneus »

...I'm not entirely sure that the OP's request was "please help me with lists of things that are made out of horn"

*flashes back to NTNON's "Made from whales" song*
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Re: Noob want's help

Post by elemtilas »

Salmoneus wrote:...I'm not entirely sure that the OP's request was "please help me with lists of things that are made out of horn"
No, that wasn't his request at all. Here I was responding to Isfendil, actually. Little bit of thread drift there.

I had already responded to Taurenzine's initial request earlier!
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