The Human Languages of Yantas

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Re: The Languages of Yantas

Post by shimobaatar »

sangi39 wrote:Going through another busy period at work again, so I've not been able to do as much conlanging as I wanted (basically nothing since the end of July), but I thought I'd throw together some very basic stuff to do with the "minor" conlangs of Yantas mostly to do with morphology, syntax, morphosyntactic alignment, etc.
I'm sorry to hear that, but I'm glad you've had the time to present this.
Spoiler:
sangi39 wrote:Proto-Tl'arga

Proto-Tl'arga will, I think, have an SVO word-order, be split-ergative, both morphologically and syntactically, and be somewhat fusional or agglutinative, relying more on auxiliaries and particles than conjugating verbs directly and declining nouns.
Any ideas as of now regarding what the split in the alignment will be triggered by?
sangi39 wrote:Proto-Sjikan

Proto-Sjikan will have an SOV word-order and be somewhat split-ergative (morphologically), but only to a fairly limited extent. It would be agglutinative, I think, especially on verbs, in a similar way to Proto-Skawlas, where nouns have fairly minimal morphology but verbs take a large number of morphemes appearing in set slots.

Proto-Sjikan might have a number of different noun classes, perhaps three or four, possibly based on animacy, but how they'll show up, I don't know yet.
I guess the same question about how the split is triggered goes for this language as well; also, would it be safe to assume that both of these languages are split between ergative-absolutive and nominative-accusative, and that this language is syntactically nominative-accusative?

Also, good luck deciding how you want to mark noun class. That's always a problem for me, since I don't want to copy the Bantu way of doing things, but that's really my main point of reference for noun classes…
sangi39 wrote:Proto-Vuluka

Proto-Vuluka would be SVO I think, plainly nom-acc, so moving north to south, this would be the first conlang that doesn't do something weird with its alignment. It will be somewhat inflectional on verbs, but would rely more heavily on syntax and particles to convey grammatical information.

Like Proto-Sjikan, though, it would still have a number of noun classes, which will likely affect verbal conjugation, in a similar manner to Proto-Sirdic, but the number of noun classes might be somewhat higher, possibly around about 8.
Any ideas as of now for what the different noun classes might be?
sangi39 wrote:Proto-Gdrenk

I wanted Proto-Gdrenk to go in the opposite direction with morphology, being quite inflectional, possibly agglutinative, in relation to nouns (encoding for number, case and whether the noun is possessed or not), but with minimal marking on verbs (possibly just direction or manner and possibly person). Like Proto-Vuluka, it would be nom-acc and SVO. There wouldn't be much in the way of noun classes, though, possibly none. This, as well, is where I also want to try out noun-incorporation.
Sounds very interesting! I'm curious to see what your plans are for noun incorporation in a language with rather heavily marked nouns and minimally marked verbs.
sangi39 wrote:Proto-Kalabi

Proto-Kalabi would be predominantly isolating, relying a lot on word order (SVO), and would be split-ergative in some respects. Like Lesi Kirra, there would be some kind of noun class system, but this might behave more like the classifiers of Japanese and the Chinese languages.
I guess my split-ergative questions from above apply to this language as well… should I have just moved things around and grouped these together? Anyway, do you have any ideas currently as to the number of classifiers you want the language to have?
sangi39 wrote:Proto-Feluo

Proto-Feluo will be SOV and heavily agglutinative, although there may be some affixes which indicate more than one piece of grammatical information, e.g. definiteness and number. Like the other languages of Sirden so far mentioned, it will be predominantly nom-acc and might have a few noun classes.
Do you think you might mark specificity in addition to definiteness, or would you prefer to keep things relatively "simple", for lack of a better word, in that area?
sangi39 wrote:Proto-Mesit

Proto-Mesit, as mentioned in previous posts, will likely be agglutinative and subject to vowel harmony. It will be SVO and nom-acc. Verbs will be more heavily inflected than nouns, but nouns will take a fair degree of marking too.
Do you have any ideas as of now for what you want to mark on verbs and/or nouns?
sangi39 wrote:What I want to do, really, is working on these kind of sporadically, mostly between the "major" language families of Yantas, and on an even lower level, I may try to throw in a few more minor language families, just to fill out the map a bit more. I'm aiming for around 50-60 language families spoken at around 1AD, some over huge areas, some language isolates spoken in a small area.
Ah, it seems we have similar goals. Achieving that level of detail is no easy task, but I wish you the best of luck, and I look forward to seeing what you come up with as you go along! [:D]
sangi39 wrote:So something a bit like this:
Spoiler:
Image
[+1] [<3]
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Re: The Languages of Yantas

Post by sangi39 »

shimobaatar wrote:
sangi39 wrote:Going through another busy period at work again, so I've not been able to do as much conlanging as I wanted (basically nothing since the end of July), but I thought I'd throw together some very basic stuff to do with the "minor" conlangs of Yantas mostly to do with morphology, syntax, morphosyntactic alignment, etc.
I'm sorry to hear that, but I'm glad you've had the time to present this.
Meh, it happens. I had 2 weeks off, and didn't get as much conlanging as I wanted to, and now I'm suffering for it while I cover for someone else who's now on holiday [:P]


shimobaatar wrote:
sangi39 wrote: Proto-Tl'arga

Proto-Tl'arga will, I think, have an SVO word-order, be split-ergative, both morphologically and syntactically, and be somewhat fusional or agglutinative, relying more on auxiliaries and particles than conjugating verbs directly and declining nouns.
Any ideas as of now regarding what the split in the alignment will be triggered by?
The split would be quite, odd, I guess? On one level, the syntactic level, first and second person pronouns which are the subjects of intransitive verbs would appear before the verb but everything else would appear after. When it comes to morphology, all pronouns (1st, 2nd and 3rd person) are marked as if they were in the nominative, as are "animate" nouns. Inanimate nouns, on the other hand, are marked as if they were accusative.

What I need to do is come up with some gloss examples and I really need to check whether this sort of thing is natural [:P]


shimobaatar wrote:
sangi39 wrote: Proto-Sjikan

Proto-Sjikan will have an SOV word-order and be somewhat split-ergative (morphologically), but only to a fairly limited extent. It would be agglutinative, I think, especially on verbs, in a similar way to Proto-Skawlas, where nouns have fairly minimal morphology but verbs take a large number of morphemes appearing in set slots.

Proto-Sjikan might have a number of different noun classes, perhaps three or four, possibly based on animacy, but how they'll show up, I don't know yet.
I guess the same question about how the split is triggered goes for this language as well; also, would it be safe to assume that both of these languages are split between ergative-absolutive and nominative-accusative, and that this language is syntactically nominative-accusative?

Also, good luck deciding how you want to mark noun class. That's always a problem for me, since I don't want to copy the Bantu way of doing things, but that's really my main point of reference for noun classes…
Like Proto-Tl'arga, there might be multiple points of division. On the one hand, human nouns will align as if nom-acc while inanimate nouns will align as if erg-abs. What I want, is a kind of middle ground, where a group of nouns can either align as if nom-acc or erg-abs depending on the verb.


shimobaatar wrote:
sangi39 wrote: Proto-Vuluka

Proto-Vuluka would be SVO I think, plainly nom-acc, so moving north to south, this would be the first conlang that doesn't do something weird with its alignment. It will be somewhat inflectional on verbs, but would rely more heavily on syntax and particles to convey grammatical information.

Like Proto-Sjikan, though, it would still have a number of noun classes, which will likely affect verbal conjugation, in a similar manner to Proto-Sirdic, but the number of noun classes might be somewhat higher, possibly around about 8.
Any ideas as of now for what the different noun classes might be?
No idea right now [:P] I use animacy a lot, or divisions between biological sex, collectives, etc. so with this one, I may throw in classes defined by size or shape. I've got some room to work around though, so we'll see what happens [:)]


shimobaatar wrote:
sangi39 wrote: Proto-Gdrenk

I wanted Proto-Gdrenk to go in the opposite direction with morphology, being quite inflectional, possibly agglutinative, in relation to nouns (encoding for number, case and whether the noun is possessed or not), but with minimal marking on verbs (possibly just direction or manner and possibly person). Like Proto-Vuluka, it would be nom-acc and SVO. There wouldn't be much in the way of noun classes, though, possibly none. This, as well, is where I also want to try out noun-incorporation.
Sounds very interesting! I'm curious to see what your plans are for noun incorporation in a language with rather heavily marked nouns and minimally marked verbs.
I'll definitely be looking into it, but it seems like it could be done, if at least in a limited way. Oneida seems to have a kind of noun incorporation that could work in Proto-Gdrenk.


shimobaatar wrote:
sangi39 wrote: Proto-Kalabi

Proto-Kalabi would be predominantly isolating, relying a lot on word order (SVO), and would be split-ergative in some respects. Like Lesi Kirra, there would be some kind of noun class system, but this might behave more like the classifiers of Japanese and the Chinese languages.
I guess my split-ergative questions from above apply to this language as well… should I have just moved things around and grouped these together? Anyway, do you have any ideas currently as to the number of classifiers you want the language to have?
With Proto-Kalabi, I might go with more of a split-S situation, where the split is dependent on the verb itself. This might, though, only apply to "animate" nouns or human nouns, so that, for example, "swim" conditions nom-acc alignment while "sleep" conditions erg-abs alignment. However, the erg-abs trigger would only apply to human/animate nouns, and non-human/inanimate would instead take erg-abs alignment with all verbs. So, for example:

"I swim" > "I-NOM swim"
"The dog swims" > "swim dog-ACC"
"I sleep" > "sleep I-ACC"
"The dog sleeps" > "sleep dog-ACC"

Again, I'll need to see of this sort of thing happens in any natlangs, but I quite like it and it kind of makes sense.


shimobaatar wrote:
sangi39 wrote: Proto-Feluo

Proto-Feluo will be SOV and heavily agglutinative, although there may be some affixes which indicate more than one piece of grammatical information, e.g. definiteness and number. Like the other languages of Sirden so far mentioned, it will be predominantly nom-acc and might have a few noun classes.
Do you think you might mark specificity in addition to definiteness, or would you prefer to keep things relatively "simple", for lack of a better word, in that area?
I'm not entirely sure yet what exactly will be marked on nouns. Proto-Feluo, at least in my head right now, is affected by change a lot [:P]


shimobaatar wrote:
sangi39 wrote: Proto-Mesit

Proto-Mesit, as mentioned in previous posts, will likely be agglutinative and subject to vowel harmony. It will be SVO and nom-acc. Verbs will be more heavily inflected than nouns, but nouns will take a fair degree of marking too.
Do you have any ideas as of now for what you want to mark on verbs and/or nouns?
On verbs, I was thinking of marked tense, transitivity, person, number, mood, aspect, voice and possibly direction for verbs of motion.


shimobaatar wrote:
sangi39 wrote:What I want to do, really, is working on these kind of sporadically, mostly between the "major" language families of Yantas, and on an even lower level, I may try to throw in a few more minor language families, just to fill out the map a bit more. I'm aiming for around 50-60 language families spoken at around 1AD, some over huge areas, some language isolates spoken in a small area.
Ah, it seems we have similar goals. Achieving that level of detail is no easy task, but I wish you the best of luck, and I look forward to seeing what you come up with as you go along! [:D]
Oh, it'll definitely be difficult, but what I'm really trying to do is set up the basis for a complete world that I can work on, moving from one area and one language to another, without switching wholly to another project, which is what I used to do. I think the more I can fit together, even tentatively, the more options I have to continue working on Yantas while still giving myself a break.


shimobaatar wrote:
sangi39 wrote: So something a bit like this:
Spoiler:
Image
[+1] [<3]
Thanks very much [:)] I'm actually just hoping it makes sense lol.

What I want to do is throw in some smaller language families within the areas of the the Skawlan, Sirdic and Lesic languages and a handful of isolates (mostly to show that their expansion is relatively recent), but everything else would be more or less set where they are.

The Velkastan languages could become quite interesting. The continent was populated just once, around 12-10,000 BC so getting to the 1AD stage could take a while [:P] I might work on those very, very randomly. I mean, given their location, and the main focus of my work on Yantas being Western Sirden and the Sirdic languages, they won't turn up as something that Sirdic speakers will come into contact with for another 1,600 years, so I've got some time to work on them lol.
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Re: The Languages of Yantas

Post by shimobaatar »

sangi39 wrote:Like Proto-Tl'arga, there might be multiple points of division. On the one hand, human nouns will align as if nom-acc while inanimate nouns will align as if erg-abs. What I want, is a kind of middle ground, where a group of nouns can either align as if nom-acc or erg-abs depending on the verb.
Non-human animate nouns, perhaps?
sangi39 wrote:Oh, it'll definitely be difficult, but what I'm really trying to do is set up the basis for a complete world that I can work on, moving from one area and one language to another, without switching wholly to another project, which is what I used to do. I think the more I can fit together, even tentatively, the more options I have to continue working on Yantas while still giving myself a break.
Sounds like a good plan to me. [:)]
sangi39 wrote:What I want to do is throw in some smaller language families within the areas of the the Skawlan, Sirdic and Lesic languages and a handful of isolates (mostly to show that their expansion is relatively recent), but everything else would be more or less set where they are.

The Velkastan languages could become quite interesting. The continent was populated just once, around 12-10,000 BC so getting to the 1AD stage could take a while [:P] I might work on those very, very randomly. I mean, given their location, and the main focus of my work on Yantas being Western Sirden and the Sirdic languages, they won't turn up as something that Sirdic speakers will come into contact with for another 1,600 years, so I've got some time to work on them lol.
[+1] I like that idea, particularly to show that the expansion of certain families didn't occur too long ago, as you said.

Heh, I can definitely relate to choosing which smaller ideas to work with based on how "relevant" they'll be to larger projects in the near in-world future.
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Re: The Languages of Yantas

Post by sangi39 »

shimobaatar wrote:
sangi39 wrote: Like Proto-Tl'arga, there might be multiple points of division. On the one hand, human nouns will align as if nom-acc while inanimate nouns will align as if erg-abs. What I want, is a kind of middle ground, where a group of nouns can either align as if nom-acc or erg-abs depending on the verb.
Non-human animate nouns, perhaps?
That was my general thinking. However, I might switch it to inanimate = erg-abs, non-human animate = nom-acc, human animate = fluid-S. The thinking there is that there was originally a split between erg-abs for inanimate nouns and nom-acc for animate nouns, with volition then coming into play at a more recent stage.

What I really want to do as well is, in some of these languages with split ergativity, is to have the split change according to some other criteria, like tense, aspect, mood, etc. but I might save that for one of the other minor languages of Arenda, where split ergativity so far has been quite common.


shimobaatar wrote:
sangi39 wrote: Oh, it'll definitely be difficult, but what I'm really trying to do is set up the basis for a complete world that I can work on, moving from one area and one language to another, without switching wholly to another project, which is what I used to do. I think the more I can fit together, even tentatively, the more options I have to continue working on Yantas while still giving myself a break.
Sounds like a good plan to me. [:)]
I'm hoping it works lol.


shimobaatar wrote:
sangi39 wrote: What I want to do is throw in some smaller language families within the areas of the the Skawlan, Sirdic and Lesic languages and a handful of isolates (mostly to show that their expansion is relatively recent), but everything else would be more or less set where they are.

The Velkastan languages could become quite interesting. The continent was populated just once, around 12-10,000 BC so getting to the 1AD stage could take a while [:P] I might work on those very, very randomly. I mean, given their location, and the main focus of my work on Yantas being Western Sirden and the Sirdic languages, they won't turn up as something that Sirdic speakers will come into contact with for another 1,600 years, so I've got some time to work on them lol.
[+1] I like that idea, particularly to show that the expansion of certain families didn't occur too long ago, as you said.

Heh, I can definitely relate to choosing which smaller ideas to work with based on how "relevant" they'll be to larger projects in the near in-world future.
Yeah, my general thinking is that the Lesic, Skawlan and Sirdic languages are associated with the main centres of technological innovation, cultural influence and later expansion both within their "home" regions and by means of colonisation in later centuries.

The minor language areas described in vague detail would then be kind of secondary areas of technological innovation and use or taking part in a fair amount of interaction with speakers of the major languages or the main influential group within their region.

The really minor languages, that I haven't named yet, would be mostly isolated from the major language families or would have minimal contact with them. The languages of Konyur and western Hungas, for example, would be highly isolated from the Skawlan languages until the rise of a large-scale trading network spreads from northern Arenda by means of sea and river travel (similar to the Vikings).

Either way, it gives me room to work around, which could be quite nice, and I've go the Kovur there as well, which gives me something else to work on. I probably won't work on their languages so much, since the biology is different, but I'll likely work on their cultures a bit [:)]
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Re: The Languages of Yantas

Post by Darvince »

I always look forward to new posts in this thread, all the stuff you do here is so cool and I can never do as much conlanging in as short amount of time as you can. Are you planning on having any V-initial languages in Yantas?
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Re: The Languages of Yantas

Post by sangi39 »

Darvince wrote:I always look forward to new posts in this thread, all the stuff you do here is so cool and I can never do as much conlanging in as short amount of time as you can. Are you planning on having any V-initial languages in Yantas?
Thanks for the support. I'm not sure I'd call this a lot of conlanging though. A lot of this is a series of sketches more than anything else.

As for V-initial languages in Yantas, Lesi Kirra is VSO [:)]
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Re: The Languages of Yantas

Post by shimobaatar »

Darvince wrote:I always look forward to new posts in this thread, all the stuff you do here is so cool and I can never do as much conlanging in as short amount of time as you can.
[+1]
sangi39 wrote:As for V-initial languages in Yantas, Lesi Kirra is VSO [:)]
(Not really relevant, but I thought they were asking about languages with words potentially beginning in vowels. [xD] Jeez, silly me.)
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Re: The Languages of Yantas

Post by Lao Kou »

shimobaatar wrote:(I thought they were asking about languages with words potentially beginning in vowels. [xD] Jeez, silly me.)
You were not alone in this. Silly us. [xD]
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Re: The Languages of Yantas

Post by sangi39 »

shimobaatar wrote:
sangi39 wrote:As for V-initial languages in Yantas, Lesi Kirra is VSO [:)]
(Not really relevant, but I thought they were asking about languages with words potentially beginning in vowels. [xD] Jeez, silly me.)
Lao Kou wrote:You were not alone in this. Silly us. [xD]
Oh god, I hadn't even thought of that. I mean, the answer to that appears earlier in the thread, in the post on phonology sketches, so I kind of assumed word-order was on Darvince's mind since a verb-initial language hadn't been mentioned (or at least pointed out explicitly) in the thread yet. Now I don't know what to answer [:P]


shimobaatar wrote:
Darvince wrote:I always look forward to new posts in this thread, all the stuff you do here is so cool and I can never do as much conlanging in as short amount of time as you can.
[+1]
And yet I always feel like I'm not doing much [:P]
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Re: The Languages of Yantas

Post by shimobaatar »

sangi39 wrote: Oh god, I hadn't even thought of that. I mean, the answer to that appears earlier in the thread, in the post on phonology sketches, so I kind of assumed word-order was on Darvince's mind since a verb-initial language hadn't been mentioned (or at least pointed out explicitly) in the thread yet. Now I don't know what to answer [:P]
Yeah, your assumption is definitely more logical than that made by Lao Kou and I. [xD]
sangi39 wrote:And yet I always feel like I'm not doing much [:P]
I'm sorry to hear that; it feels like the opposite from my point of view.
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Re: The Languages of Yantas

Post by sangi39 »

shimobaatar wrote:
sangi39 wrote: And yet I always feel like I'm not doing much [:P]
I'm sorry to hear that; it feels like the opposite from my point of view.
Well thank you muchly [:)] I guess it's the periods of complete non-productivity that make me feel like I'm not doing much. I mean, this thread, and my other ones, can end up on the third page or further back before I come along with even a vague update. Looking at it though, I have come at least some way with them.
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Re: The Languages of Yantas

Post by sangi39 »

I thought I'd go ahead and name all of the language families I've marked out so far (excluding the Velkastan languages). All in all, 44 language families are named (not including the Velkastan languages). I'm thinking of throwing in some smaller language families as well.

The languages marked in italics have been mentioned above in this thread. Those also marked in bold have their own dedicated threads.





Language Families of Sirden

Image

S1 (dark blue): Sirdic languages
S2 (light blue): Gdrenk languages
S3 (green): Sorku languages
S4 (sandy): Limba languages
S5 (pink): Gadar languages
S6 (orange): Kalabi languages
S7 (purple): Lesic languages
S8 (dark grey): Feluo languages
S9 (yellow): Mesit languages
S10 (red): Pisyal languages



Language Families of the Bridge

Image

B1 (dark yellow): Cyoba languages
B2 (brown): Hirbol languages
B3 (pink): Vulukan languages
B4 (light blue): Ovija languages
B5 (red): Kimos languages
B6 (green): Upira languages
B7 (orange): Siloa languages
B8 (purple): Qerida languages
B9 (dark blue): Siltom languages



Language Families of Arenda

Image

A1 (red): Skawlas languages
A2 (dark green): Tl'arga languages
A3 (dark blue): Bungor languages
A4 (yellow): Hnemut languages
A5 (grey): Sjikan languages
A6 (purple): Adnija languages
A7 (pink): Murtip languages
A8 (light green): Zaraw languages
A9 (orange): Menyak languages
A10 (light brown): Pirmal languages
A11 (light blue): Iniba languages
A12 (dark brown): Baita languages
A13 (dark yellow): Thujen languages



Language Families of Konyur and Hungas

Image

K1 (yellow): Siwida languages
K2 (dark brown): Krai languages
K3 (orange): Syik languages
K4 (purple): Mitija languages
K5 (pink): Stulit languages
K6 (light blue): Lorgyak languages
K7 (light brown): Ambar languages
K8 (grey): Igngast languages
K9 (dark yellow): Jimlok languages
K10 (dark blue): Iluwe languages
K11 (green): Gintum languages
K12 (red): Pilkun languages





What I want to do next, I think, is to start working on where certain shared features appear where, e.g. tone (southern Konyur), clicks (Thujen and Hirbol languages I think), certain word orders, noun classes, case, ergativity (already a feature of western Arendan languages).

I also need to work out how old each language family is as well. The Velkastan languages, as mentioned above, are really old, due to the isolation of the Frozen Twins since their settlement by human beings around 12,000 BC. I'm thinking of a somewhat similar date for the Gintum languages (maybe 9,000 BC at the very latest) with the neighbouring Pilkun languages dating back to around 4,000 BC, making them much younger. Other language families, I think, might be relatively younger than that, removing nearby traces of earlier related languages as they expand outwards (in a similar manner to what may have happened in Europe, with possible relatives to PIE being wiped out as the IE languages moved into the area). Eventually, lack of evidence and time depth between remaining related languages makes the connection incredibly difficult to actually work out to the point where you may as well not bother [:P].

For example, Proto-Feluo and Proto-Mesit might be related (more closely than to other languages), with a common ancestor spoken at around 10,000 BC (so, 6-7,000 years before each proto-language is spoken), but the connection would have been lost over time.

This process wouldn't have occurred in north-eastern Konyur and south-western Hungas and Velkasta, where populations have remained largely isolated, with a fair amount of room to expand into over time without bumping into other groups of people. Sure, it'll happen at some point, but the amount of languages that survive would make deeper relationships more obvious... I think.



Anyway, there are some names, just to fill out the map in more than just colour. I think at about this stage, there might be something along the lines of 8,000 languages spoken on Yantas.
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Re: The Languages of Yantas

Post by shimobaatar »

[+1] Oh, wow! I'm sorry I don't have anything more specific to comment on, but this is all just so impressive and inspirational. [<3] The amount of detail, thought, effort, time, etc. you clearly put into this is truly amazing, in my opinion.
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Re: The Languages of Yantas

Post by sangi39 »

shimobaatar wrote:[+1] Oh, wow! I'm sorry I don't have anything more specific to comment on, but this is all just so impressive and inspirational. [<3] The amount of detail, thought, effort, time, etc. you clearly put into this is truly amazing, in my opinion.
And now me being me, I'll just go ahead and say that it wasn't really all that much time or effort. I mean, looking at the times on the original image documents on my laptop, and the time I posted the images and names, you're looking at around 2 hours of work, so a fair portion of my free evening for the week, but overall I probably could have done more.

And now being less rude, I shall say thank you as well [:)] I'm not likely to think I'm doing all that much work, but it is nice to see that someone (yourself, Lao Kou and Darvince so far) have taken enough interest in this to comment at all.

Just to make another small update/announcement, I've been thinking about where to place some of the smaller language families (and, wow, I really should get round to naming more places), and I think I more or less know where I want them.

Within the Sirdic speaking region, I'm probably going to throw in three or four smaller language families, spread out over four to six areas, e.g. one family on some of the islands on the chain forming the Sword Islands, one family on the Hwarza islands (the two islands located to the west of Sirden in the Sunset Ocean, a third language family in the southern areas, almost bordering with the Mesit languages, and then a fourth language family broken into three somewhat-isolated speech communities along the western Sirdic coastline and possibly within the interior of the Sirdic speaking region.

I might throw in a couple of small language families around the coastal areas of the Gdrenk speaking region and possibly along the coast of the Limba area as well, but I think that would mostly do for Sirden, although I may throw in a small language family in the Mesit area as well.



The Bridge might be home to a number of very small, isolated language families, given the mountainous interior and rainforest covered (near-)coastal regions. The Dagger Islands (the small chain in the Sunset Ocean), for example, might be home to more than one language family, and the Vulukan and Ovija areas might be dotted with small language families, with related speech communities cut off from each other.


Arenda might stay as it is, barring a similar situation regarding smaller language families in the Skawlas areas to that found in the Sirdic speaking areas of Sirden (especially in the islands in the north and south of the western Arendan coast). The interior is predominantly desert (both hot and cold) between 10 and 40 degrees north of the equator, so the Bungor and Hnemut language families might be the only ones there. The Sjikan area to the south, though, might have smaller language families dotted around the place, surviving the expansion cycles of the Sjikan languages within the rainforest, mountainous and coastal regions. I think I'll keep the mountain regions as they are, although I may throw in a small language family, broken up along the Thujen coast as well.



Konyur might remain similar to the way it is now. The Lorgyak area might contain a small number of other language families, possibly just one or two, and the tundra and taiga of northern and north-eastern Konyur might be home to some isolated speech communities speaking languages from a handful of language families, but that'd be about it.



I think from there, I'll look at updating the maps, possibly later today, and update them as soon as I can [:)]
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Re: The Languages of Yantas

Post by sangi39 »

Right, so now for those updated maps:



Minor Language Families of Sirden

Image

S11 (dark brown in dark blue): Ilija languages
S12 (light grey in dark blue): Varsya languages
S13 (red in dark blue): Nemita languages
S14 (dark green in dark blue): Pridon languages

S15 (pink in light blue): Angru languages
S16 (red in light blue): Kselti languages
S17 (yellow in light blue): Byugal languages

S18 (dark green in light blue and sandy): Kvenda languages

S19 (purple in sandy): Utrisa languages
S20 (brown in sandy): Hawala languages
(the orange area here represents a group of Kalabi languages)

S21 (blue in yellow): Pelan languages
(the red area here represents a group of Pisyal languages)



Minor Language Families of The Bridge

Image

B10 (light green in dark blue): Mintoru languages
(the Siltom languages now extend to the mainland of the Bridge)

B11 (red in pink): Edara languages
B12 (green in pink): Uibota languages
B13 (purple in pink): Dadabu languages
B14 (blue in pink): Lito languages

B15 (green in brown): Yekto languages

B16 (purple in blue): Filmas languages
B17 (red in blue): Ntola languages
B18 (green in blue): Tambutu languages



Minor Language Families of Arenda

Image

A14 (blue in red): Privot languages
A15 (pink in red): Embyan languages
A16 (grey in red): Hinrow languages
A17 (green in red): Idiska languages

A18 (brown in grey): Voloda languages
A19 (light blue in grey): Draspu languages
A20 (purple in grey): Uligo languages
A21 (dark blue in grey): Maktedo languages
A22 (sandy in grey): Misili languages
A23 (yellow in grey): Krovo languages
A24 (orange in grey): Hopmri languages
A25 (red in grey): Qezua languages



Minor Language Families of Konyur and Hungas

Image

K13 (orange in yellow): Cisai language

K14 (red in purple): Pre-Mitija languages

K15 (red in light blue): Tyir languages
K16 (orange in light blue): Mandau languages
K17 (green in light blue): Lima languages
K18 (purple in light blue): Fisu languages



This takes the total number of language families up from 44 (again, not including the Velkastan languages), up to 81
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Re: The Languages of Yantas

Post by shimobaatar »

I like the irregular and often discontinuous shapes the outlines of the territories in which many of these minor language families are spoken. I also like how you took this opportunity, so to speak, to also change preexisting "boundaries" and add discontinuous areas inhabited by speakers of previously mentioned larger families.

Congratulations on bringing the number up to 81! If you don't mind my asking, why does the Pre-Mitija language family seem to be the only family to not have its own name (although I may be missing something), but to instead be named after its relationship to another family?
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Re: The Languages of Yantas

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shimobaatar wrote:I like the irregular and often discontinuous shapes the outlines of the territories in which many of these minor language families are spoken. I also like how you took this opportunity, so to speak, to also change preexisting "boundaries" and add discontinuous areas inhabited by speakers of previously mentioned larger families.

Congratulations on bringing the number up to 81! If you don't mind my asking, why does the Pre-Mitija language family seem to be the only family to not have its own name (although I may be missing something), but to instead be named after its relationship to another family?
I gave the Pre-Mitija languages that name because they represent a fairly old language family spread across a somewhat large, discontinuous area, surrounded by a younger language family. As a result, the languages in the family aren't all that closely related. This doesn't really happen elsewhere on Yantas, where smaller language families are usually quite small or of a similar age to surrounding ones.

In effect, the spread of the Mitija languages into northern Konyur has left the exact relationship between the various Pre-Mitija languages hard to work out. In other words, on Yantas, scholars believe that a link exists between the various languages in that area, but can't say much more about them other than that they were there before the surrounding Mitija languages.

Hoping that makes sense...
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Re: The Languages of Yantas

Post by shimobaatar »

[+1] Oh, yes, that makes perfect sense! I really like this idea, especially since it feels realistic to me and reminds me of some of the situations surrounding the classifications of some languages on Earth.
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Re: The Languages of Yantas

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shimobaatar wrote:[+1] Oh, yes, that makes perfect sense! I really like this idea, especially since it feels realistic to me and reminds me of some of the situations surrounding the classifications of some languages on Earth.
Thanks [:)] What I'm starting to think about now, though, is how many of these language families will survive coming centuries, which ones might shrink, which ones might expand, but I think those are questions for a much, much later date.
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Re: The Languages of Yantas

Post by sangi39 »

I kind of fell behind on my work on Yantas for the week again. It's always work [:P] I remember that I had an idea about them, but annoyingly didn't write it down so I've completely forgotten what it was.

What I might do, though, is get back to naming the various areas of Yantas, something I started doing back in April, but never really progressed with. So at the moment I'm mostly filling in some gaps in the world with names which I can refer back to. At this stage, I won't be referring to any states/countries/nations though, just geographic features. I'll get to things like countries eventually, when I start working on history, but right now I'm really just setting things up as best I can before moving forward.

This means that the Proto-Sirdic, Proto-Skawlas and Lesi Kirra threads might be fairly quiet for a while, although I may attempt some translations with the vocabulary I have so far, just to show the languages actually working.

There's a slight chance I might also start working a bit more on Proto-Mesit, but we'll see how that goes [:)]
You can tell the same lie a thousand times,
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So close your eyes once more and once more believe
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Just one time.
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