What's the least important aspect of a conlang to you?

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Sights
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Re: What's the least important aspect of a conlang to you?

Post by Sights »

Further derailment
Spoiler:
Khemehekis wrote:Do I like the sound of Kankonian? Yes. But more importantly, it sounds like the kind of language one would expect Kankonians to speak. Similarly, Hapoish sounds like the kind of language Hapoishans would speak, Tentan like the kind of language Tentans would speak, Bodusian like the kind of language Bodusians would speak, Javarti like the kind of language Javartis would speak, Shaleyan like the kind of language Shaleyans would speak, and so on. People have praised Tolkien's Quenya and Sindarin for their euphony, but they often forget that Quenya and Sindarin "fit" Tolkien's elves just as much as Khuzdul "fits" his dwarves.
But isn't this a weird idea? Sound-wise, the "personality" of a language emerges only after the observer has some notion (or so he thinks) of the "personality" of its speakers. If the phonologies of Quenya or Sindarin or Khuzdul or even Kankonian were completely different, my guess is the assertion of them "fitting" their speakers would still hold. Which is another way of saying there's no language that doesn't fit its speakers, nor could there ever be.*

Unless of course we go back to the idea some people find tedious and some interesting: that certain sounds or sound combinations or syllables or sequences or whatever tend to evoke a certain range of semantic or aesthetic qualities. A phonoaesthetic universal or, to be more cautious, a phonoaesthetic feature that is typologically common. I personally think no such thing exists and that even if it did there would be little hope of discovering it. But I admit the idea is entertaining.

*Alien vocal apparatuses and articulations excluded.
Dialects and language contact. I've given these areas little to no thought at all. It's funny because whenever I read up on those subjects, I get the impression they'd be really good ways to flesh out conlangs. I just can't be bothered to do it... [:|]
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Re: What's the least important aspect of a conlang to you?

Post by Lambuzhao »

I think, in my heart of hearts, I'd rather like to state my two most important aspects of conlanging to me:

1) Trying out your own conlang that you made...proudly, or otherwise. Show us your :con: {best Crocodile Hunter or Marlon Perkins or Marty Stouffer voice} in its natural habitat !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Don't just tell us how Proto-Slobovian became Upper and Nether and Southwestron Slobovian, show us!!!!!!! Don't just explain away the sound changes involved in the journey from Old High Catawumptian to New Low Colloquial Catawumptian; give us examples!!!!!!!!!

One of the biggest intellectual tickles I get on this forum is when I communicate using someone else's :con:, and they write back and tell me that their confolks would never say that now: here's how you'd say XYZ now. It makes me feel sort of like Doctor Who, and I've somehow time-travelled into the future of your conlang/culture/world, but, by using what utterances you've left behind on CBB, it kind of glaringly shows the last time I would have visited your nook of the space-time continuum. It's a funny, tiny, squeaky con-culture shock, but thoroughly & utterly enjoyable. [:D]


2) Avoiding the big red shiny candy-like :con: scrap/erase button. At all costs. Always and forever. Really. Not kidding here. Ne touchez pas!


I don't know how exactly these would translate into least important aspects, but, well, there it is. [:|]
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Re: What's the least important aspect of a conlang to you?

Post by All4Ɇn »

KaiTheHomoSapien wrote:/x/ is a great sound; my conlang has it in many places. It's /χ/ I don't like :p
See this is why like conlanging because I'm the exact opposite

As far as least important aspect goes I'd say logistics. As long as you like your language that's all that matters. Now if you're trying to make a descendant of another language or something than yeah logistics might play apart, especially if you're trying to make it as realistic as possible but it's far from 100% necessary in my opinion
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Re: What's the least important aspect of a conlang to you?

Post by cromulant »

Attestation of features in a natlang; compliance with universals.
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Re: What's the least important aspect of a conlang to you?

Post by HoskhMatriarch »

Lao Kou wrote:Derailment
Spoiler:
HoskhMatriarch wrote:my idea of what sounds good involves a lot of things most people wouldn't think sound good like [x]
I am left yet again to wonder who these "most" people are. [x] is a fricative, for goodness' sake, and when "most" conlangers want their lang to sound "purdy" (in a field of violets with unicorns and rainbows kind of way), they often reach for the croony, sustainable, non-stoppy fricatives (I can paint vague generalities, too). Whether that's the goal or not, a quick noodle around recent entries here shows plenty of [x]: Vestmarkic has it; stages of O and Ngade n Tim Ar seem to have it; Goerim has it; Proto-Ṭelö has it; recent Shemtovian languages have it: Basilese, Islagallese, Angelnisc, and Proto-Atlantic. Certainly, Géarthnuns has it. Quenya and Sindarin have it (are these normally considered non-mellifluous and harsh?). It's hardly unique.

Have I stacked the deck by including conlangers into "most" people? Why would "most" people in the general (Americo-European) public balk at [x]? Is it really the sound an sich (Spanish has it. How often is Spanish labelled "gutteral" or "harsh"?), or is it an averse reaction to Nazism, goose-stepping, and the Third Reich? Would 18th-century non-German-speaking romantics have considered odes in German waxing rhapsodic about studying in Heidelberg in the springtime "gutteral" or "harsh"? (I genuinely don't know). Are we stuck in a post-war trope that a bellicose people would speak a "harsh" language (Hi, Klingon.)?

"[la:x]" said long and softly could evoke pleasant memories of sticking your foot in the water of a summer afternoon as you lazily punt down a river toward a riparian picnic and poetry reading. "[la:x]" shrieked by a bug-eyed megalomaniac with a jugular thrombosis is clearly going to subjectively be less pleasant. Does it inform us about the actual nature of [x]?

With this in mind, how does your phono-aesthetic sense differ significantly or uniquely from "most" people in the speech communities you happen to be familiar with?
This is my Conworkshop page for my language so far. My page has very little information so far, but it isn't the stereotypical pretty language. Look at all those closed syllables, for one thing. I find German pretty mellifluous but I'm probably one of the few (if more people heard Goethe poems instead of WWII movies, probably more people would be with me).
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Re: What's the least important aspect of a conlang to you?

Post by Ossicone »

Naturalism.
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Re: What's the least important aspect of a conlang to you?

Post by gestaltist »

cromulant wrote:Attestation of features in a natlang; compliance with universals.
[+1]

Although I think what I really don't care about at all is a conlang's completeness. I don't care whether its grammar is developed enough to express every possible thought. I don't care if the phonotactics is defined to the last detail, etc. I like "neat details" of conlangs and get excited by them. The bigger whole doesn't interest me all that much.
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Re: What's the least important aspect of a conlang to you?

Post by HoskhMatriarch »

gestaltist wrote:
cromulant wrote:Attestation of features in a natlang; compliance with universals.
[+1]

Although I think what I really don't care about at all is a conlang's completeness. I don't care whether its grammar is developed enough to express every possible thought. I don't care if the phonotactics is defined to the last detail, etc. I like "neat details" of conlangs and get excited by them. The bigger whole doesn't interest me all that much.
I guess I'm the opposite then. I like seeing how all the things in conlangs work together rather than just the little details. I'm also really big on pragmatics too so I like to see how thoughts are expressed.
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Re: What's the least important aspect of a conlang to you?

Post by Shemtov »

Lao Kou wrote:Derailment
Spoiler:
recent Shemtovian languages have it: Basilese, Islagallese, Angelnisc, and Proto-Atlantic.
Spoiler:
just a little correction: Islagallese was an early concept for Basilese. Aside from some morphosyntactic changes I made when I switched the location, they are the same language.
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Re: What's the least important aspect of a conlang to you?

Post by Khemehekis »

Sights wrote:But isn't this a weird idea? Sound-wise, the "personality" of a language emerges only after the observer has some notion (or so he thinks) of the "personality" of its speakers. If the phonologies of Quenya or Sindarin or Khuzdul or even Kankonian were completely different, my guess is the assertion of them "fitting" their speakers would still hold. Which is another way of saying there's no language that doesn't fit its speakers, nor could there ever be.*
Tolkien wanted his Dwarves to sound "rough" (from my understanding -- I could be mistaken), so he gave Khuzdul phonemes like /ʔ/, /ɣ/ and /ʀ/. On the other hand, his Elves were supposed to represent "beauty", and he considered the sounds of Finnish and Welsh beautiful so he based Quenya and Sindarin off of them in order to make them sound like a language for a "beautiful" people. So I would say Tolkien created the aesthetic before he created the phonology. Would you say you disagree?
Unless of course we go back to the idea some people find tedious and some interesting: that certain sounds or sound combinations or syllables or sequences or whatever tend to evoke a certain range of semantic or aesthetic qualities. A phonoaesthetic universal or, to be more cautious, a phonoaesthetic feature that is typologically common. I personally think no such thing exists and that even if it did there would be little hope of discovering it. But I admit the idea is entertaining.
/i/ for small and /a/ for large seems to be widespread.
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Re: What's the least important aspect of a conlang to you?

Post by Sights »

Doesn't that actually prove the previous point? [:)]
the "personality" of a language emerges after the "personality" of its speakers.
Had Tolkien regarded /ʔ/, /ɣ/ and /ʀ/ as beautiful sounds, surely it would have been just as sensible to include them in the language of the beautiful Elves. Had he regarded Finnish and Welsh as "harsh" languages, their phonologies would have been fitting inspirations for Khuzdul.

Bottomline, that some languages are soft and mellifluous while others are harsh has more to do with people constantly handing down the notions that they are so than with any actual properties of those languages.
Khemehekis wrote:/i/ for small and /a/ for large seems to be widespread.
True. This example in particular always brings me back to the topic of innateness.
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Re: What's the least important aspect of a conlang to you?

Post by Thrice Xandvii »

Khemehekis wrote:/i/ for small and /a/ for large seems to be widespread.
Is that so? I've never heard this before. Do you mean, globally? Or just European languages?
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Re: What's the least important aspect of a conlang to you?

Post by elemtilas »

Thrice Xandvii wrote:
Khemehekis wrote:/i/ for small and /a/ for large seems to be widespread.
Is that so? I've never heard this before. Do you mean, globally? Or just European languages?
Doesn't work out so well for English: small & big; nor Latin: parva & ingens. [:|]
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Re: What's the least important aspect of a conlang to you?

Post by KaiTheHomoSapien »

Thrice Xandvii wrote:
Khemehekis wrote:/i/ for small and /a/ for large seems to be widespread.
Is that so? I've never heard this before. Do you mean, globally? Or just European languages?
I've heard this as well, but mainly with /i/. /i/ apparently has a high frequency, and higher frequency sounds are associated with babies, so that might make sense.

Words like "teeny-weeny" sort of emphasize this point (and the Italian diminutive -ini, the Japanese words "chibi" and "chiisai", etc.)

I think of /o/ more when I think of big, though.
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Re: What's the least important aspect of a conlang to you?

Post by Lao Kou »

elemtilas wrote:
Thrice Xandvii wrote:
Khemehekis wrote:/i/ for small and /a/ for large seems to be widespread.
Is that so? I've never heard this before. Do you mean, globally? Or just European languages?
Doesn't work out so well for English: small & big
Little v. large? Teeny-weeny? Wee? Itsy-bitsy? Anyhoo, this sounds vaguely familiar, though reading it my mind went rather to Bouba-kiki.
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Re: What's the least important aspect of a conlang to you?

Post by GrandPiano »

Interestingly, Mandarin has /a/ in both: 大 dà "big" and 小 xiǎo "small". Xiǎo does have a non-syllabic /i/, though. Cantonese fits the pattern better, with 大 daai6 and 小 siu2.
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Re: What's the least important aspect of a conlang to you?

Post by clawgrip »

Japanese also breaks the pattern with its big/small prefixes 大 ō- "big" and 小 ko-/o- "small", e.g. 大型 ōgata "large-sized", 大雨 ōame "heavy rain" vs. 小型 kogata "small-sized", 子猫 koneko "kitten" etc.

I think ō- vs. o- is particularly weird, though o- mostly only appears in names, and is usually accompanied by onbin, so it's not a big deal, e.g. 大川 Ōkawa vs. 小川 Ogawa.
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Re: What's the least important aspect of a conlang to you?

Post by GrandPiano »

Actually, now that I think about it, Mandarin has quite a few size words with /a/:

大 dà "big"
小 xiǎo "small"
长 cháng "long"
短 duǎn "short (in length)"
高 gāo "tall, high"
矮 ǎi "short (in height)"
宽 kuān "wide"
窄 zhǎi "narrow"
狭隘 xiá'ài "narrow"

No idea why this is. All the ones that have a non-syllabic /i/ are of the "small" type, though.
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Re: What's the least important aspect of a conlang to you?

Post by Khemehekis »

Sights wrote:Doesn't that actually prove the previous point? [:)]
the "personality" of a language emerges after the "personality" of its speakers.
Had Tolkien regarded /ʔ/, /ɣ/ and /ʀ/ as beautiful sounds, surely it would have been just as sensible to include them in the language of the beautiful Elves. Had he regarded Finnish and Welsh as "harsh" languages, their phonologies would have been fitting inspirations for Khuzdul.
This is a good point! So in a way, yes it does prove your previous point.

To my ear and tongue, Kankonian doesn't sound either like a mellifluous meal of nectar or Swiss fondue, nor like a cacophony of castor beans. It tastes like almond roca and Thin Mints (as in, the Girl Scout cookie).
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Squirrels chase koi . . . chase squirrels

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31,416: The number of the conlanging beast!
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Re: What's the least important aspect of a conlang to you?

Post by Khemehekis »

I understand that /i/ for small is found all around the world.

In Kankonian, the word for "small" is pies, while the word for "big" is dom, so the i/o contrast is conformed to.
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Squirrels chase koi . . . chase squirrels

My Kankonian-English dictionary: 87,413 words and counting

31,416: The number of the conlanging beast!
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