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Altlang Ideas Discussion

Posted: 22 Mar 2018 03:48
by Cavaliers327
Hey, everyone I started this thread to just to have a discussion about about cool new ideas for (realistic) romlangs( not bogolangs or graftlangs) and altlangs in general.


I was just thinking about what if the Roman Empire succesfully conquered Hibernia(Ireland) and completely colonized it. Irish as a language would become extinct ( it would survive on in Scotland), but its legacy on the local dialect of Vulgar Latin would be enormous. The Roman Empire would fall just like OTL(Our Time Line) and Hibernia would be independent for centuries. Then, they would be raided by Danes and other Scandinavian groups who would conquer the land and would be assimilated by the Hiberno-Roman culture. These conquerors would have huge impact on the language because of L2 language learning and then these changes would spread to the rest of the populace. What do you guys think of this idea? For now, I will tentatively call it Lingua Hibernisca .



Do you have any ideas about altlangs or romlangs in general. Soon, I will have more time to post on threads and I will post the Proto-LH sketch as well as continue to collablang thread. Does anyone have any suggestions with how I should go with my language? What grammars to reference etcera? Do I begin with Old Irish or Primitive Irish? Also are there any good resources for Primitive & or Old Irish?

Re: Altlang Ideas Discussion

Posted: 22 Mar 2018 04:34
by spanick
Well since the Roman conquest was basically finished by the first century and the earliest records of Primitive Irish are from the fourth century, you might have to use a lot of creativity here. I’m not sure what the pre-Primitive Irish language would’ve been but I’m pretty sure it’s unattested.

You could have a lot of fun studying Proto-Celtic, Primitive Irish and Old Irish to influence your Romance language.

Re: Altlang Ideas Discussion

Posted: 22 Mar 2018 07:24
by Ælfwine
A lot of alt history ideas for romlangs is on the teach and share guides thread. Last couple of pages, I think.

Starting at the fourth century should be fine, most Latin was uniform up until that point anyway. Just introduce Vulgar Latin changes before primitive irish ones.

If you want something more realistic, instead of grafting a set of sound changes from one language to another, try introducing unique sound changes that modify the phonology of your language to the substrate. For example, in my Irish Norse conlang, I introduced a fortis lenis contrast through a series of palatalizations and other vowel changes that made it phonemic.

Outside of the usual locations, I'm quite interested in the potential Eastern Europe has for romance languages. A romlang in Upper Moesia could be fairly Greek influenced. Acording to my book, the populace mostly spoke Greek, but Latin was the language of administration and also well understood.

Re: Altlang Ideas Discussion

Posted: 22 Mar 2018 15:23
by Salmoneus
spanick wrote: 22 Mar 2018 04:34 Well since the Roman conquest was basically finished by the first century and the earliest records of Primitive Irish are from the fourth century, you might have to use a lot of creativity here. I’m not sure what the pre-Primitive Irish language would’ve been but I’m pretty sure it’s unattested.

You could have a lot of fun studying Proto-Celtic, Primitive Irish and Old Irish to influence your Romance language.
You would indeed be dealing with something between Proto-Celtic and Primitive Irish. And actually, Primitive Irish is extremely close to Proto-Celtic anyway (although *p had already been lost). One thing to note, however, is that there's a lot of suspicion surrounding Primitive Irish: the development of Old Irish is awfully dramatic, and awfully fast. So there's a theory that actually at the time of "Primitive Irish", people were already speaking something quite a long way toward Old Irish, but the druids (or whoever) writing their ogham inscriptions were doing so in an intentionally archaic way, and that the development of Old Irish is at least in part a sociological shift that replaced the old scribal class and introduced more vernacular writing. But I'm not an expert, so I don't know to what extent that's true. If it were very true, you could have something Old Irish-y influence your language, so long as the Roman invasion is VERY late. Otherwise, it might mean that a moderately late invasion (say, Antonine) might encounter Primitive Irish, even if it wasn't being written down yet. Before that, though, you're dealing with pre-Primitive Irish.

Re: Altlang Ideas Discussion

Posted: 22 Mar 2018 17:39
by Shemtov
Inspired by "Chinese Altaic", I am thinking of a group of Dardic-speakers (Most like old Kashmiri) moving north to Turkmenistan and the Wakkhan Corridor and became Turkicified.

Re: Altlang Ideas Discussion

Posted: 22 Mar 2018 21:30
by Creyeditor
I was thinking of an Indo-European altlang that developed into a triconsonantal root lang. Maybe if it moved into the right direction? It looks to likely to not make a conlang of it. So much ablaut.

Re: Altlang Ideas Discussion

Posted: 22 Mar 2018 21:31
by Ælfwine
Creyeditor wrote: 22 Mar 2018 21:30 I was thinking of an Indo-European altlang that developed into a triconsonantal root lang. Maybe if it moved into the right direction? It looks to likely to not make a conlang of it. So much ablaut.
Ask Isfendil. That sounds like it could easily exist in North Africa.

Re: Altlang Ideas Discussion

Posted: 23 Mar 2018 16:34
by Cavaliers327
Salmoneus wrote: 22 Mar 2018 15:23
spanick wrote: 22 Mar 2018 04:34 Well since the Roman conquest was basically finished by the first century and the earliest records of Primitive Irish are from the fourth century, you might have to use a lot of creativity here. I’m not sure what the pre-Primitive Irish language would’ve been but I’m pretty sure it’s unattested.

You could have a lot of fun studying Proto-Celtic, Primitive Irish and Old Irish to influence your Romance language.
You would indeed be dealing with something between Proto-Celtic and Primitive Irish. And actually, Primitive Irish is extremely close to Proto-Celtic anyway (although *p had already been lost). One thing to note, however, is that there's a lot of suspicion surrounding Primitive Irish: the development of Old Irish is awfully dramatic, and awfully fast. So there's a theory that actually at the time of "Primitive Irish", people were already speaking something quite a long way toward Old Irish, but the druids (or whoever) writing their ogham inscriptions were doing so in an intentionally archaic way, and that the development of Old Irish is at least in part a sociological shift that replaced the old scribal class and introduced more vernacular writing. But I'm not an expert, so I don't know to what extent that's true. If it were very true, you could have something Old Irish-y influence your language, so long as the Roman invasion is VERY late. Otherwise, it might mean that a moderately late invasion (say, Antonine) might encounter Primitive Irish, even if it wasn't being written down yet. Before that, though, you're dealing with pre-Primitive Irish.



Thanks for the info & advice! I really appreciate. I am going to with something between Proto-Celtic and Primitive Irish as the substrate. I am not going to make a graftlang, but I can use the substrate to add phonemic inter-dental fricatives and f replacing p in most places through a gradual process.

Re: Altlang Ideas Discussion

Posted: 23 Mar 2018 23:25
by Creyeditor
Ælfwine wrote: 22 Mar 2018 21:31
Creyeditor wrote: 22 Mar 2018 21:30 I was thinking of an Indo-European altlang that developed into a triconsonantal root lang. Maybe if it moved into the right direction? It looks to likely to not make a conlang of it. So much ablaut.
Ask Isfendil. That sounds like it could easily exist in North Africa.
Did s/he already work on something similar?

Re: Altlang Ideas Discussion

Posted: 23 Mar 2018 23:39
by Isfendil
Creyeditor wrote: 23 Mar 2018 23:25
Ælfwine wrote: 22 Mar 2018 21:31
Creyeditor wrote: 22 Mar 2018 21:30 I was thinking of an Indo-European altlang that developed into a triconsonantal root lang. Maybe if it moved into the right direction? It looks to likely to not make a conlang of it. So much ablaut.
Ask Isfendil. That sounds like it could easily exist in North Africa.
Did s/he already work on something similar?
{he/him}
I attempted such a language, yes. The thing is, beyond alternation between one or two vowels, PIE's nonconcatenative elements are kinda.... Not grammatically important. They're an extra redundancy. I'd imagine they'd regularize and become productive phonological processes but they don't actually carry inherent morphological value like semitic patterns do, they're just secondary markers.

Also PIE itself kinda was phasing ablaut out, replacing it with thematic inflection because it was much easier to deal with.

Oh also it'd almost certainly be biconsonantal not triconsonantal.

Re: Altlang Ideas Discussion

Posted: 23 Mar 2018 23:45
by loglorn
Maybe if you couple that with intense derivation based on prefixes and weaken word final elements you could make ablaut both primary and triconsonantal.

Re: Altlang Ideas Discussion

Posted: 25 Mar 2018 16:33
by Cavaliers327
Does anyone know of a good list of sound changes from Proto-Celtic to Primitive Irish to Old Irish? That would be much appreciated.

Re: Altlang Ideas Discussion

Posted: 10 Apr 2018 20:30
by k1234567890y
Some ideas:

- a descendant of Old Japanese spoken in Borneo or Sulawesi, with most of the speakers being Christian and the rest of them being Muslim, and the speakers don't identify themselves with Japanese people.
- a descendant of Old Korean or Middle Korean with substantial Persian and Arabic influence and is written in Arabic script.
- a Romance language in North Africa with substantial Arabic and Berber influence and is written in Arabic script.
- a dialect of Modern English spoken on the Chukchi peninsula and the Kamchatka peninsula and is written in a phonemic Cyrillic script and has influences from Siberian languages and uses Russian for technical terms.
- a Polynesian language spoken as the international lingua franca after a post-apocalyptic setting in which the 1962 Cuban Crisis ended up as World War III, and all Chinese languages and Germanic languages have became extinct.

Re: Altlang Ideas Discussion

Posted: 10 Apr 2018 20:33
by Creyeditor
I did a tonal romlang. It's a bit bogo-y, but I really like it.

Re: Altlang Ideas Discussion

Posted: 10 Apr 2018 20:35
by k1234567890y
Creyeditor wrote: 10 Apr 2018 20:33 I did a tonal romlang. It's a bit bogo-y, but I really like it.
nice (:

I have ever had an idea of a tonal High German dialect...but it is not a part of althistory

Re: Altlang Ideas Discussion

Posted: 10 Apr 2018 22:56
by Shemtov
What about a successful Mongol invasion of Tsushima, which became Mongolic-speaking, with a Japanese substrate, that became heavier as it became a tribute kingdom during the 16th century Japanese Invasion of Korea (Possibly even Japan gaining control for a few years, before forcing it into a tribute status?) and then annexation during the Meiji Restoration?

Re: Altlang Ideas Discussion

Posted: 10 Apr 2018 23:13
by k1234567890y
Shemtov wrote: 10 Apr 2018 22:56 What about a successful Mongol invasion of Tsushima, which became Mongolic-speaking, with a Japanese substrate, that became heavier as it became a tribute kingdom during the 16th century Japanese Invasion of Korea (Possibly even Japan gaining control for a few years, before forcing it into a tribute status?) and then annexation during the Meiji Restoration?
that sounds like a good idea (: but I guess in this scenario, a large amount of Mongolian people also immigrated onto the island following the conquest, and they would marry with the females of the original population.

Re: Altlang Ideas Discussion

Posted: 10 Apr 2018 23:47
by Shemtov
k1234567890y wrote: 10 Apr 2018 23:13
Shemtov wrote: 10 Apr 2018 22:56 What about a successful Mongol invasion of Tsushima, which became Mongolic-speaking, with a Japanese substrate, that became heavier as it became a tribute kingdom during the 16th century Japanese Invasion of Korea (Possibly even Japan gaining control for a few years, before forcing it into a tribute status?) and then annexation during the Meiji Restoration?
that sounds like a good idea (: but I guess in this scenario, a large amount of Mongolian people also immigrated onto the island following the conquest, and they would marry with the females of the original population.
My College library has a book on Mongolic as an E-Book. I downloaded it on my phone; It has a chapter of Classical Mongol- so I can start from there.

Re: Altlang Ideas Discussion

Posted: 11 Apr 2018 00:06
by k1234567890y
that's nice (:

an even crazier idea: European Yucatec Mayan and European Nahuatl. which was spoken in West Europe by Mesoamerican colonizers of Spain, French, England and Ireland following a asteroid wiping out much of the West Europe in 1491.

Re: Altlang Ideas Discussion

Posted: 11 Apr 2018 06:52
by Ælfwine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzQ_HwO792o

So I learned two things from watching this cool video.

1.) The Chinese and Romans were aware of each other.
2.) The Chinese actually sent an envoy to seek out Rome

So my idea of an altlang would be, what if the Romans not only defeated their Asiatic rivals to the east, but managed to expand to the borders of the Han Empire, within 300 years? And a language grew out of that? It's probably a bit too ambitious of a project, and I certainly have enough on my plate in terms of rom-langs, but still— what if?