Discussion on Con-langs

3:18 PM

@Gwideon Good plan. I really think Retroflex Fricatives sound very devil-ey, but that might just be me.

@DavidCoffron Yeah I felt they fit well with my general idea of how I wanted the language to sound.

@DavidCoffron Um i'm going for a simple Subject-Verb-Object word order. I think I'm also gonna include a gendering system that indicates whether something is chaotic or lawful

anyways I should probably not talk to much about this as it's not something alot of people know

David Coffron

@Gwideon That's cool

Gwideon

@DavidCoffron oh crap sorry. I didn't use the reflexive fricatives as I was trying to keep a somewhat natural distribution of sounds. Also I felt I had a similar sound with the postalveolar fricatives

also a chat room might be a good idea

alright here we go

anyways while I was trying to use more sounds than vetana I feel I may have gone a bit overboard

David Coffron

That makes sense. The sound palate you've chosen is different enough from what most people are used to, that I think it can make some fun words without being too alien

NautArch

← 7 messages moved from Not a bar, but plays one on TV

Gwideon

3:32 PM

I particularly like the uvular fricatives they kinda have a bit of a harsh sound to them that I like.

David Coffron

@Gwideon You haven't used much more than languages like German or Welsh, and certainly not as much as Lithuanian or Bulgarian

Gwideon

@DavidCoffron true but this is the first time I've made a language with so many sounds

vicky_molokh

@Gwideon Interesting. To me they sound softer/milder/nicer than the explosive G and K that languages like Russian and English use.

David Coffron

@Gwideon Ah. You meant the challenge of innovating with the sounds. Certainly it can be more difficult. Best thing to do in my experience is to assign commonalities to them. How common is each sound? That way, you don't find yourself making too many words with the more obscure (and exciting) sounds (unless you want to).

Gwideon

um i'm also trying to figure out some of the finer points of word order like whether use prepositions or postpositions. also that's a really good idea

David Coffron

3:38 PM

@Gwideon I feel like the devils will have a very well structured language. Not sure how that translates exactly, but that's the vibe I get. You also might want to work in a couple of drastic grammatical difference (as the power hierarchy changes, perhaps the language does too)

Gwideon

@DavidCoffron Japanese might be a good language to draw from when it comes to that kind of structure.

David Coffron

@Gwideon I was thinking the same kind of thing

Gwideon

@vicky_molokh yeah they are softer than plosives. I don't know quite how to say it but they have a back of the throat kind of sound that I like.

@DavidCoffron I might use honorifics. I might also add in slight differences when it comes to intent.

also um this maybe dumb but I don't get valency changing and how it's used.

I don't get why um it's needed. Sorry.

I get that it indicates passive and causative but can't that be inferred from word choice.

David Coffron

@Gwideon Is English your first language?

Gwideon

@DavidCoffron yes

David Coffron

3:47 PM

That might be why you don't see the importance. In English word choice is enough, but in other language where other arguments are more prevalent or important to cultural communication, having a specific tense or verbiage shows up

vicky_molokh

@Gwideon Does your constructed language have restrictions on word order?

Because most likely you will need either strict limits on allowed word order in a sentence or some way of indicating relationships between words, such as those associated with various valencies.

Gwideon

@vicky_molokh I'm trying to use Subject-verb-object as my basic word order.

vicky_molokh

@Gwideon Well yes, the basic order. But do people adhere to the basic word order for their whole lives after they leave school (or equivalent), or are they largely free to adjust the word order in part or in full?

David Coffron

Like in a culture where direct confrontation is frowned upon, impersonal verbs might be more common. This could lead to the development of a tense for these verbs as people shorten, add, or contract phrases to show their impersonal-ness

Gwideon

That makes sense. I'll have to think that over

Gwideon

4:01 PM

Hmm I'm not quite sure how i'm gonna implement some of the features I want to use

vicky_molokh

@Gwideon Which features?

Gwideon

@vicky_molokh the gendering system and the changes in language based on rank

vicky_molokh

@Gwideon If you want easy mode, go for purely agglutinative methods.

This is why I really liked Tatar morphology. It has very clear rules on how to modify a word's case, how to make it plural etc.

Gwideon

@vicky_molokh that maybe the best way to do this.

anyways i'm open for ideas

I'm gonna start making a few basic words.

vicky_molokh

4:19 PM

Random exotic idea #N: have genders depend on rank, but not in a predictable-for-foreigners way. E.g. military ranks change gender, in ascending order, by this list:
- animate masculine,
- animate feminine,
- inanimate feminine,
- animate neuter,
- inanimate masculine,
- inanimate neuter.

Because rocks are considered a symbol of power, and high ranks are considered *metaphorically* static like rocks and mountains.

Gwideon

oooo that's a good idea

instead of honorifics it's with gender

vicky_molokh

And yes, there is asymmetry in the list and it's deliberate.

And of course the words for ranks in the political ladder have those six genders go in a totally different order.

Gwideon

well devils are very militaristic so often times military rank corresponds with political rank

vicky_molokh

@Gwideon Well, then another ladder will do. The point is that a devil will just know which rank names are classed how, while an outsider is likely to trip up much like an Englishman trying to learn French.

Gwideon

makes sense

I don't think there are that many ranks for devils. I think there are about 4. Lesser devils, greater devils, Barons, and archdevils

vicky_molokh

4:34 PM

@Gwideon Those seem to be major ranks. It's not a given that those aren't subdivided into finer-grained ones on the ladder. In fact, a petty culture would likely be prone to doing such subdivisions all the time, sometimes without even having an explicit term while still signalling being above/below one another.

Gwideon

@vicky_molokh makes sense. Honorifics could be used then to indicate where a devil lies among those subdivisions

Alright I'm gonna work on this for a bit. gonna present the results later

I um added a glottal stop

also are there any languages in which there are no tenses to indicate past, present, and future

vicky_molokh

4:57 PM

Mandarin. And of course English words lack future tenses and rely on adding more words to indicate futureness.

Gwideon

okay but are any languages that just lack any tense to indicate time

sorry I'm just curious as if I'm gonna change tenses based on rank then I may not want to deal with tenses indicating time

though I may not use that

i may just stick to using the rank ladder system and honorifics

anyways I'll stop rambling

vicky_molokh

5:19 PM

@Gwideon AFAIK Mandarin, but this is a second-hand account. I don't speak it at all.

Gwideon

okay

Gwideon

5:36 PM

@vicky_molokh @DavidCoffron okay I have some of my master doc completed can I show it

docs.google.com/document/d/… um here it is just incase people want to see it

vicky_molokh

@Gwideon Yay, alignment-basic genders.

Gwideon

um did i do a good job implementing that

vicky_molokh

I was thinking of more blatantly suggesting a definitely non-PIE-like approach to them, and you've made them on your own.

@Gwideon I'm a bit confused about the implementation, since you go from the X-axis of alignment back to m/f/n+in/animate that I suggested earlier.

You can probably combine them into a 3×3 matrix, going c/n/l on one axis and m/f/n on the other.

In whatever order.

Gwideon

hmm that might be interesting

vicky_molokh

And yeah, ranks going through the order/chaos cycle in a counterintuitive way would totally throw off impostors who haven't been properly taught.

And those who have been taught but haven't internalised the patterns enough to speak them without delays and doubts during a heated moment.

Gwideon

5:44 PM

give me a sec. it's gonna make pronouns long but let's see what we cab do. I can add the prefixes onto the pronouns

vicky_molokh

Pronouns don't need to line up with all the genders. You can e.g. have them split over the chaotic/neutral/lawful axis in second person and feminine/neuter/masculine in third person.

Also decide if you want to have the All-Concealing I like English does, or let people do something interesting with first-person pronouns.

(Though note that verb and to a lesser degree adjective/adverb/etc. endings can easily break up the all-concealing I in practice even if the first-person pronoun is otherwise 'hairless'.)

Gwideon

hmm I'm not quite sure. maybe person can choose whether they wish to have a lawful, neutral, or chaotic prefix added to their pronoun. sorry i'm trying to wrap my head around how to fully implement this

vicky_molokh

@Gwideon Yeah, that could work.

It could also be optional.

And/or situational.

Such as using the affix corresponding to one's rank when talking as a commanding officer (or otherwise trying to emphasise one's rank), but not when off-duty.

Gwideon

makes sense

@vicky_molokh I know. In japanese two people who are close to each other don't have to use honorifics so this could be somewhat similar to that. when to close friends re speaking to each other they can use a choosen feminine, Masculine, or neutral pronoun instead of having to use the rank pronoun

sorry just thinking

Gwideon

6:23 PM

anyways I'll shut up

vicky_molokh

@Gwideon There seems to be some sort of degree of appropriateness for using boku and ore in Japanese first person for a more similar example.

Gwideon

true

I think I like what I have so I think I'm gonna move on to different grammar stuff

Transcript for

Discussion on Con-langs