What did you accomplish today? [2011–2019]

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Thrice Xandvii
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Re: What did you accomplish today?

Post by Thrice Xandvii »

Well... I managed to force Latin into a Cherokee-esque phonology and a CV syllable structure via mostly normal sound changes. I mean, with enough time, anything's possible. (Plus, I think Romagnol looks really cool.)
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DesEsseintes
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Re: What did you accomplish today?

Post by DesEsseintes »

Thrice Xandvii wrote: 11 Dec 2017 02:13 My favorite glyph so far is for "pfrg" /p͜ɸɹ̩g//.

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It is nice!
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Thrice Xandvii
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Re: What did you accomplish today?

Post by Thrice Xandvii »

The sound, the form, or both?
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Dormouse559
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Re: What did you accomplish today?

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Ælfwine wrote: 11 Dec 2017 04:35
Pabappa wrote: 11 Dec 2017 01:51You might like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romagnol_dialect , where massive syncope caused consonant clusters and ablaut. Not much info online in English, though.
I keep thinking to myself, "this is a Romance language?" It looks ugly as sin and has so many vowels it makes Danish blush. However, it does give me a good idea on the extent that a Romance language can go.
Forum member Alessio speaks an Emilian dialect, so not the same thing, but closely related to Romagnol. You might want to talk to him.
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Thrice Xandvii
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Re: What did you accomplish today?

Post by Thrice Xandvii »

I immediately thought of them when I saw the post about that dialect earlier! I couldn't remember the name though.
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DesEsseintes
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Re: What did you accomplish today?

Post by DesEsseintes »

Thrice Xandvii wrote: 11 Dec 2017 06:19 The sound, the form, or both?
The form.
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Thrice Xandvii
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Re: What did you accomplish today?

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DesEsseintes wrote: 11 Dec 2017 08:12
Thrice Xandvii wrote: 11 Dec 2017 06:19 The sound, the form, or both?
The form.
IIRC, you helped to push me toward a certain labial sound... which, though I transcribed it somewhat lazily, that is an affricate containing that sound. LOL

Oh well, glad you think it looks cool.
Last edited by Thrice Xandvii on 13 Dec 2017 20:36, edited 2 times in total.
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Fluffy8x
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Re: What did you accomplish today?

Post by Fluffy8x »

Covered relative clauses in levian8 and boy was I tired after 3 translated sentences.
The creator of ŋarâþ crîþ v9.
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DesEsseintes
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Re: What did you accomplish today?

Post by DesEsseintes »

Words in Núta can look quite weird, especially when there is a surfeit of dots above, interpuncts, <‘>s, and accents in one short word. Take a look at this little monster:

ėh‘é·ru

I kinda like it though. [:D]
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Re: What did you accomplish today?

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DesEsseintes wrote: 12 Dec 2017 06:25 Words in Núta can look quite weird, especially when there is a surfeit of dots above, interpuncts, <‘>s, and accents in one short word. Take a look at this little monster:

ėh‘é·ru

I kinda like it though. [:D]
I like it, too.

I want to complain a bit. After working on Nakarian some more, I am dissatisfied with my phonology. The results I get from my sound changes aren't quite what I am expecting. I am not sure how to fix it. I notice you don't work entirely with diachronics - I don't know how to do it. Unless I run the full route from a protolang, I end up with things being way too regular.

Anyways, now I'm considering dropping out from Lexember since I don't know if these words are going to end up being valid, anyway.

So what I accomplished today is ruin my satisfaction. :P
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Thrice Xandvii
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Re: What did you accomplish today?

Post by Thrice Xandvii »

Sorry to hear it!

I know I am often dickering with my phonology for most of a language's lifespan. For a while I resorted to Project Name in order to avoid the word I was using as the name from being invalidated! In other words, I feel your pain to a certain extent.

However, I wouldn't drop out just cuz the words might not stick. I would look at the month as a way to see how you really feel and evaluate at the end of you need to adjust things. For instance, I used to avoid doing translations cuz I didn't want the whole grammar to shift and make wrong things be floating around out there. Now, I look at it as "it was right when I posted it." Maybe a simialr attitude would do you well here? Just some thoughts.

Code: Select all

-śo       -og       -mŭ
-ńŭk      -tsă      -mek
-dull     -zŗ       -a
-uuh      -niiŋ     -nạh
-akŏ      -pϕaah    -iig
The above mess are the separable suffixes that will exist on (probably) all of the nouns in the Shitullian language as relics from some long forgotten noun class system that is all but gone in the current language. Mayhap I will have it be that there still is some bits left that now appear as three (or maybe four?) noun classes which if you recall the original version of Shitullian, should look familiar: solid, liquid and aether. If there is a fourth, it would refer to a soul, or some variety of spirit class... but, I might just roll that into aether and have it be about anything that is concerned with "the heavens." Forgive the pun, but it's still up in the air.

As for the endings... are they too random? Is there a pattern that I don't see? Comments?

(Oh, and I re-redid the flag and the globe icon as well. The newest one is in my sig, and the flag is in the below spoiler.)
Spoiler:
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And the flag for Vingdagese too, just as a bonus though I certainly didn't make that recently:
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Thrice Xandvii
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Re: What did you accomplish today?

Post by Thrice Xandvii »

(Sorry for the double post.)

Oh yeah, and I made one of my first words in Shitullian... at least, one that follows the suffixes that I just created, anyway. The more I write in Shitullian, the more I love it.

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Re: What did you accomplish today?

Post by DesEsseintes »

gestaltist wrote: 12 Dec 2017 09:52
DesEsseintes wrote: 12 Dec 2017 06:25 Núta stuff
I like it, too.

I want to complain a bit. After working on Nakarian some more, I am dissatisfied with my phonology. The results I get from my sound changes aren't quite what I am expecting. I am not sure how to fix it. I notice you don't work entirely with diachronics - I don't know how to do it. Unless I run the full route from a protolang, I end up with things being way too regular.
Is this a question? You are right that I tend not to use diachronics to come up with a language and its phonology. I first come up with the aesthetic I want, then I come up with the synchronic morfofo needed to achieve that aesthetic which always results in all kinds of complications that inspire more ideas. Then I do a little bit of diachronics at a time (like the development of the vowel system in Núta) and keep tweaking (I’m currently tweaking and expanding Núta glide elision). That’s what works for me. I find running stuff through sound changes doesn’t allow me enough control.

If it wasn’t a question, just ignore this post. [:)]
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Re: What did you accomplish today?

Post by gestaltist »

DesEsseintes wrote: 13 Dec 2017 09:39
gestaltist wrote: 12 Dec 2017 09:52
DesEsseintes wrote: 12 Dec 2017 06:25 Núta stuff
I like it, too.

I want to complain a bit. After working on Nakarian some more, I am dissatisfied with my phonology. The results I get from my sound changes aren't quite what I am expecting. I am not sure how to fix it. I notice you don't work entirely with diachronics - I don't know how to do it. Unless I run the full route from a protolang, I end up with things being way too regular.
Is this a question? You are right that I tend not to use diachronics to come up with a language and its phonology. I first come up with the aesthetic I want, then I come up with the synchronic morfofo needed to achieve that aesthetic which always results in all kinds of complications that inspire more ideas. Then I do a little bit of diachronics at a time (like the development of the vowel system in Núta) and keep tweaking (I’m currently tweaking and expanding Núta glide elision). That’s what works for me. I find running stuff through sound changes doesn’t allow me enough control.

If it wasn’t a question, just ignore this post. [:)]
Yes, it was a thinly veiled question, thanks. Could you talk a bit about how you come up with the morfofo needed for your aesthetic goals? I guess that's the thing I have the most trouble with - as I said - without full diachronics, I tend to get results that are way too regular.
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Re: What did you accomplish today?

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DesEsseintes wrote: 13 Dec 2017 09:39
gestaltist wrote: 12 Dec 2017 09:52
DesEsseintes wrote: 12 Dec 2017 06:25 Núta stuff
I like it, too.

I want to complain a bit. After working on Nakarian some more, I am dissatisfied with my phonology. The results I get from my sound changes aren't quite what I am expecting. I am not sure how to fix it. I notice you don't work entirely with diachronics - I don't know how to do it. Unless I run the full route from a protolang, I end up with things being way too regular.
Is this a question? You are right that I tend not to use diachronics to come up with a language and its phonology. I first come up with the aesthetic I want, then I come up with the synchronic morfofo needed to achieve that aesthetic which always results in all kinds of complications that inspire more ideas. Then I do a little bit of diachronics at a time (like the development of the vowel system in Núta) and keep tweaking (I’m currently tweaking and expanding Núta glide elision). That’s what works for me. I find running stuff through sound changes doesn’t allow me enough control.

If it wasn’t a question, just ignore this post. [:)]
Damnit we have so much in common Des, I'm just the same! I have a really hard time working "forwards", I just always find myself going away from an aesthetic I like because I've generally started with something I've drawn up that I like and then I can't think of changes to put it through that can create a different but still nice aesthetis. If I do put thought into the parent phonology it's always in parallel to the language being created, I can't even work on so much of a sketch beforehand because then the proto-language will be too fully formed and conformed to my aesthetics and I'll have a difficult time "settling" with the daughter.
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Thrice Xandvii
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Re: What did you accomplish today?

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I guess I don't worry so much about that kinda stuff. I work on the phonology based on some idea or whatnot until I have something passable and then make a sketch of phonotactics and create some syllables. Then I go back and home the phonology until I am okay with what comes out. Usually, it's at this point that I put allophony together based on how I feel the syllables that popped out of the phonotactics feel or things that I find improbable or unpronounceable. As far as the rest goes? I kinda smash that together as I translate things. Of course, it's me, so there has been a semblance of a script this whole time. In fact, the aesthetic of the script is far more important than of the language's sounds themselves. A lot of my refining is so that shapes I like in the script pop up enough.

Usually, my only issue is when I run into a wall making glyphs and need to alter the phonotactics or phonology to kludge a fix. But, I don't think many folks conlang like I do.
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Re: What did you accomplish today?

Post by DesEsseintes »

gestaltist wrote: 13 Dec 2017 10:57 Could you talk a bit about how you come up with the morfofo needed for your aesthetic goals?
Hmm, that’s a difficult thing to describe, but perhaps I can try.

First of all, I have to say that I’ve familiarised myself with the aesthetic and morfofo of quite a lot of languages and it is the thing that delights me the most when learning a new language. Two examples:
- The impact of the stress patterns of Russian on the pronunciation of the vowels. Compare завоевáть with its imperfective counterpart завоёвывать
- The plurals of quadriliteral nouns in Arabic, miSbaaH → maSaabiiH

So I think I keep a mental inventory of features I like and find beautiful. I have a lot of shapeless ideas, such as:
- all the /i/s in a word could shift to /a/ in some forms
- I like stem-final consonants eliding before certain suffixes
- the infix -yy- needs to happen at some point

And hopefully I will find a place for all of them in one lang or another one day.

But.

The best ideas only happen after I force one of these features into a language and then look at the consequences. If there’s an infix -yy-, that can’t be the only infix. What vowels go before and after the -yy-? Are they affected by the -yy-? Is -yy- actually a grade of /i/ or /ai/ or sth? Then -ww- must be a grade of /u/ and -nn- a grade of /ã/ and -mm- a grade of /ũ/ and so on. What other morfofo interacts with gradation? The ww yy grades must occur before vowels surely or wait! Do they become fricatives before stops?

This is getting a bit long and self-indulgent. However I do have one last piece of advice. Three things are an endless source of morfofo inspiration for me:
- glides and their interaction with vowels
- /h ʔ/
- gemination

I don’t know if any of that made sense or is in the least helpful but it is roughly how I conceive of morfofo.
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Re: What did you accomplish today?

Post by gestaltist »

DesEsseintes wrote: 13 Dec 2017 16:05
gestaltist wrote: 13 Dec 2017 10:57 Could you talk a bit about how you come up with the morfofo needed for your aesthetic goals?
Hmm, that’s a difficult thing to describe, but perhaps I can try.

First of all, I have to say that I’ve familiarised myself with the aesthetic and morfofo of quite a lot of languages and it is the thing that delights me the most when learning a new language. Two examples:
- The impact of the stress patterns of Russian on the pronunciation of the vowels. Compare завоевáть with its imperfective counterpart завоёвывать
- The plurals of quadriliteral nouns in Arabic, miSbaaH → maSaabiiH

So I think I keep a mental inventory of features I like and find beautiful. I have a lot of shapeless ideas, such as:
- all the /i/s in a word could shift to /a/ in some forms
- I like stem-final consonants eliding before certain suffixes
- the infix -yy- needs to happen at some point

And hopefully I will find a place for all of them in one lang or another one day.

But.

The best ideas only happen after I force one of these features into a language and then look at the consequences. If there’s an infix -yy-, that can’t be the only infix. What vowels go before and after the -yy-? Are they affected by the -yy-? Is -yy- actually a grade of /i/ or /ai/ or sth? Then -ww- must be a grade of /u/ and -nn- a grade of /ã/ and -mm- a grade of /ũ/ and so on. What other morfofo interacts with gradation? The ww yy grades must occur before vowels surely or wait! Do they become fricatives before stops?

This is getting a bit long and self-indulgent. However I do have one last piece of advice. Three things are an endless source of morfofo inspiration for me:
- glides and their interaction with vowels
- /h ʔ/
- gemination

I don’t know if any of that made sense or is in the least helpful but it is roughly how I conceive of morfofo.
Given that after reading this I wrote two pages' worth of ideas, I'd say it was immensely helpful. Thanks Des.
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Re: What did you accomplish today?

Post by DesEsseintes »

gestaltist wrote: 13 Dec 2017 17:55
DesEsseintes wrote: 13 Dec 2017 16:05 diatribe about own thought processes
Given that after reading this I wrote two pages' worth of ideas, I'd say it was immensely helpful. Thanks Des.
[:D]

I’m glad if it was helpful! Do share the morfofo you come up with.
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Re: What did you accomplish today?

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I wrote a couplet in Silvish. I decided to go with meter based on syllable weight rather than stress for Silvish verse, but it's really quite alien to me. Heavy and light syllables are distributed differently in Silvish than stress in English, so I can't just pick iambic pentameter and be done with it. Right now, I'm trying out a twelve-syllable line composed of two dactyls then three trochees. Here's that couplet; but fair warning, I prioritized rhyming over meaning, so it gets silly at the end:

L’ettè o fouæs la nuè, can-t-lou mondou l’e-cquiè,
c’attegnì Erculou son bù — venc’lou son piè.


Spoiler:

L’ettè o | fouæs la nuè, | can-t-lou | mondou | l’e-cquiè,
c’attegnì | Erculou | son bù — | venc’lou | son piè.


[lɛˈte əˈfwɛːs ləˈnɥe kɑ̃.tluˈmɔ̃.du lɛˈkje]
[kat.təˈɲi ɛˈky.lu sɔ̃ˈby ˈvɛ̃.klu sɔ̃ˈpje]

It was in the forest at night, when the world is quiet,
that Hercules achieved his goal — vanquishing his foot.
Ah, and the weight assignments are based on historical rather than current pronunciation, so only two of the 10 "heavy" syllables are actually heavy. [xP]
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