There are 15 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: On Creating Altlangs
From: Cosman246
1b. Re: On Creating Altlangs
From: James Kane
1c. Re: On Creating Altlangs
From: R A Brown
1d. Re: On Creating Altlangs
From: Jörg Rhiemeier
1e. Re: On Creating Altlangs
From: And Rosta
2a. Re: Glossotechnia
From: Logan Kearsley
2b. Re: Glossotechnia
From: Daniel Demski
2c. Re: Glossotechnia
From: Logan Kearsley
2d. Re: Glossotechnia
From: Daniel Demski
2e. Re: Glossotechnia
From: Logan Kearsley
3. Jarda audio examples updated
From: Herman Miller
4a. Re: The evolution of Angosey: 5 Translations of the same poem across
From: Alex Fink
4b. Re: The evolution of Angosey: 5 Translations of the same poem across
From: BPJ
4c. Re: The evolution of Angosey: 5 Translations of the same poem across
From: Herman Miller
5a. Re: single words for concepts for which other languages paraphrase
From: Leonardo Castro
Messages
________________________________________________________________________
1a. Re: On Creating Altlangs
Posted by: "Cosman246" [email protected]
Date: Sun Feb 17, 2013 4:59 pm ((PST))
>What do you mean exactly by altlang? What are the details of your project?
By altlang, I mean something like Brithenig or Wenedyk. My project is
something similar, but instead of Latin disguised as {Welsh, Polish}, it
will be a Germanic language disguised as an East Slavic language. In this
respect, it is similar to Syldavian, but done with, hopefully, more care.
-Yash Tulsyan
On Sun, Feb 17, 2013 at 1:32 PM, James Kane <[email protected]> wrote:
> What do you mean exactly by altlang? What are the details of your project?
>
> James
>
> On 18/02/2013, at 9:50 AM, Cosman246 <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > Hello. I'm thinking of creating an altlang; does anyone here have advice
> or
> > experience to guide someone new to altlangs?
> >
> > (To clarify: I am a student of linguistics in pursuit of a bachelor's
> > degree, and I am already working on one artlang as well. I had a previous
> > auxlang project, but I found it too linguistically naïve when I looked
> over
> > it again after several years of forgetting about it.)
> >
> > -Yash Tulsyan
>
Messages in this topic (7)
________________________________________________________________________
1b. Re: On Creating Altlangs
Posted by: "James Kane" [email protected]
Date: Sun Feb 17, 2013 8:48 pm ((PST))
I know those languages as bogolangs. I think it depends on how closely you want
your language to resemble your target language. The important thing is to get
the phonology the same, but your morphology can vary from recognisably Germanic
to very Slavic.
Personally I would perform sound changes to get between two languages with
similar morphology i.e. proto-Germanic and proto-Slavic and then perform the
relevant East Slavic sound changes.
To make things interesting you can mimic meaning changes as well. I don't know
any Slavic examples but as an example casa vs. domo in Romance languages
On 18/02/2013, at 1:59 PM, Cosman246 <[email protected]> wrote:
>> What do you mean exactly by altlang? What are the details of your project?
> By altlang, I mean something like Brithenig or Wenedyk. My project is
> something similar, but instead of Latin disguised as {Welsh, Polish}, it
> will be a Germanic language disguised as an East Slavic language. In this
> respect, it is similar to Syldavian, but done with, hopefully, more care.
> -Yash Tulsyan
>
>
> On Sun, Feb 17, 2013 at 1:32 PM, James Kane <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> What do you mean exactly by altlang? What are the details of your project?
>>
>> James
>>
>> On 18/02/2013, at 9:50 AM, Cosman246 <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>> Hello. I'm thinking of creating an altlang; does anyone here have advice
>> or
>>> experience to guide someone new to altlangs?
>>>
>>> (To clarify: I am a student of linguistics in pursuit of a bachelor's
>>> degree, and I am already working on one artlang as well. I had a previous
>>> auxlang project, but I found it too linguistically naïve when I looked
>> over
>>> it again after several years of forgetting about it.)
>>>
>>> -Yash Tulsyan
>>
Messages in this topic (7)
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1c. Re: On Creating Altlangs
Posted by: "R A Brown" [email protected]
Date: Mon Feb 18, 2013 5:59 am ((PST))
On 18/02/2013 00:59, Cosman246 wrote:
[snip]
> By altlang, I mean something like Brithenig or Wenedyk.
> My project is something similar, but instead of Latin
> disguised as {Welsh, Polish},
So you think Brithenig is Latin disguised as Welsh? There
are, of course, important differences between Brithenig and
Welsh. Brithenig spelling uses both 'hard' and 'soft' _c-
and _g_ very much in the Italian manner, and not at all with
uniformly hard sounds as in Welsh; and the use of _u_ and,
to a large extent, _y- is quite different also.
But the overall effect is does have a Welsh feel - not
helped, IMO, by Brithenig using _f_ = [v], and _ff_ = [f].
> it will be a Germanic language disguised as an East
> Slavic language. In this respect, it is similar to
> Syldavian, but done with, hopefully, more care.
====================================================
On 18/02/2013 04:47, James Kane wrote:
> I know those languages as bogolangs.
So do I.
I think, however, there is a useful difference between
altlang & bogolang. I would use altlang to denote a
language that might _plausibly_ have developed in an
alternative history.
I would classify Jörg's "Old Albanic" as an altlang.
Two or three years ago I wrote a short story for a creative
writing group I belong which was set in a modern Britain
where Harold Godwinson had defeated William of Normandy in
1066, thus preserving English from the flood of Norman
French borrowings etc. I did include one or two examples of
the alternate modern English, but never worked the language
out in detail. But if I had worked out the language more
fully, that would have been an altlang. It certainly would
not have been a bogolang.
My understanding is that Brithenig did start out as an
altlang: What would modern British Romance be like if spoken
Latin had survived the withdrawal of the legions? But IMO
it did lean too far in the bogolang direction. It certainly
gives that appearance.
But things like Breathanach, Þrjótrunn and Wenedyk do seem
to me genuine bogolangs.
> I think it depends on how closely you want your language
> to resemble your target language. T
Indeed - and also whether it is a genuine altlang, i.e. the
way a language might plausibly have developed if history had
been different, or whether it is a bogolang, i.e. early
Germanic with the sound changes of a Slavonic group.
The usual way of developing a bogolang AIUI is to take an
early form of a language, e.g. Vulgar Latin, Norse, Old
English, Old High German etc and apply the sound changes of
a different language group over a similar period of time.
[snip]
> Personally I would perform sound changes to get between
> two languages with similar morphology i.e.
> proto-Germanic and proto-Slavic and then perform the
> relevant East Slavic sound changes.
It would certainly produce a bogolang. Personally, I don't
find these very interesting, except as an odd curiosity.
More interesting IMO is to try to imagine what might have
developed if, through some chance of history, the language
situation in some particular area had been different from
what it is.
Every so often I think if I ever the time, I might try to
produce what I think a modern British Romancelang would be
like; or I might revive the alternate TAKE world again - tho
the fear of it going the way of Ill Bethisad really puts me
off - and envisaging, say, the modern Hellenic of Gaul.
--
Ray
==================================
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
"language … began with half-musical unanalysed expressions
for individual beings and events."
[Otto Jespersen, Progress in Language, 1895]
Messages in this topic (7)
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1d. Re: On Creating Altlangs
Posted by: "Jörg Rhiemeier" [email protected]
Date: Mon Feb 18, 2013 12:43 pm ((PST))
Hallo conlangers!
On Monday 18 February 2013 14:58:54 R A Brown wrote:
> [...]
> On 18/02/2013 04:47, James Kane wrote:
> > I know those languages as bogolangs.
>
> So do I.
>
> I think, however, there is a useful difference between
> altlang & bogolang. I would use altlang to denote a
> language that might _plausibly_ have developed in an
> alternative history.
Correct.
> I would classify Jörg's "Old Albanic" as an altlang.
Yes. The "what-if" assumption in Old Albic (not "Albanic") is
"What if we knew what language was spoken in the British Isles
before those lands became Celtic-speaking?". Otherwise, the
world in which Old Albic is spoken is like ours. Of course,
we cannot know whether the languages spoken in pre-Celtic
Britain were anything like Old Albic or not. Probably, those
languages have very little to do with Old Albic, even though
I have worked some faint clues we *do* have on them into my
conlang.
And of course, Old Albic is not at all a bogolang.
> Two or three years ago I wrote a short story for a creative
> writing group I belong which was set in a modern Britain
> where Harold Godwinson had defeated William of Normandy in
> 1066, thus preserving English from the flood of Norman
> French borrowings etc. I did include one or two examples of
> the alternate modern English, but never worked the language
> out in detail. But if I had worked out the language more
> fully, that would have been an altlang. It certainly would
> not have been a bogolang.
Certainly not!
> My understanding is that Brithenig did start out as an
> altlang: What would modern British Romance be like if spoken
> Latin had survived the withdrawal of the legions? But IMO
> it did lean too far in the bogolang direction. It certainly
> gives that appearance.
Yes. Brithenig is not really a bogolang, but it gets close, and
is guilty of treading loose a wave of bogolangs.
> But things like Breathanach, Þrjótrunn and Wenedyk do seem
> to me genuine bogolangs.
Right. They are not only made by grafting some other language's
sound changes on Latin, but are also meant to be spoken in areas
outside the Roman Empire at its largest extent.
My own Roman Germanech is a near-bogolang, being based on slightly
modified sound changes of German applied to Vulgar Latin. I must
confess that it is not really a good conlang. Indeed, I have no
plans with it other than writing up a grammar sketch with a few
text samples and a small vocabulary, putting it on my web site
- and leaving it at that. Good riddance! It is not particularly
plausible, neither as a language from an alternative history
where Varus defeated Arminius (the original scenario), nor as a
lostlang set in the Odenwald (the current scenario).
> > I think it depends on how closely you want your language
> >
> > to resemble your target language. T
>
> Indeed - and also whether it is a genuine altlang, i.e. the
> way a language might plausibly have developed if history had
> been different, or whether it is a bogolang, i.e. early
> Germanic with the sound changes of a Slavonic group.
Yes. That is a difference. Of course, we cannot say that a
bogolang was *impossible* - it is just very unlikely, and also
not a particularly interesting thing to do.
> The usual way of developing a bogolang AIUI is to take an
> early form of a language, e.g. Vulgar Latin, Norse, Old
> English, Old High German etc and apply the sound changes of
> a different language group over a similar period of time.
Yes, that is the definition of "bogolang".
> [snip]
>
> > Personally I would perform sound changes to get between
> > two languages with similar morphology i.e.
> > proto-Germanic and proto-Slavic and then perform the
> > relevant East Slavic sound changes.
>
> It would certainly produce a bogolang. Personally, I don't
> find these very interesting, except as an odd curiosity.
Amen! This usually does not yield particularly interesting
results, and applying sound changes of language A to language B
does not work well. I have tried with Roman Germanech, I do not
wish to try again!
> More interesting IMO is to try to imagine what might have
> developed if, through some chance of history, the language
> situation in some particular area had been different from
> what it is.
Yes, and the best way of exploring this is not assuming that the
same sound changes that happened *here* happened *there* as well,
only to a different language! Sound changes are always responses
on the developmental possibilities the phonology of a particular
language offers, and once you replace that language by another
language with a different phonology (and no two languages have
the same phonology), those possibilities are changed, and thus
also the responses.
> Every so often I think if I ever the time, I might try to
> produce what I think a modern British Romancelang would be
> like; or I might revive the alternate TAKE world again - tho
> the fear of it going the way of Ill Bethisad really puts me
> off - and envisaging, say, the modern Hellenic of Gaul.
But not by applying the sound changes of French to Koine Greek ;)
--
... brought to you by the Weeping Elf
http://www.joerg-rhiemeier.de/Conlang/index.html
"Bêsel asa Éam, a Éam atha cvanthal a cvanth atha Éamal." - SiM 1:1
Messages in this topic (7)
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1e. Re: On Creating Altlangs
Posted by: "And Rosta" [email protected]
Date: Mon Feb 18, 2013 12:58 pm ((PST))
R A Brown, On 18/02/2013 13:58:
> Every so often I think if I ever the time, I might try to
> produce what I think a modern British Romancelang would be
> like;
If you ever do find the time, I'll read the results with great interest.
My first guess, made from a position of near-ignorance on my part, is that it
would be rather like northern French. If that guess is along the right lines,
then a further question would be in what ways it might be expected to differ
from northern French.
--And.
Messages in this topic (7)
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________________________________________________________________________
2a. Re: Glossotechnia
Posted by: "Logan Kearsley" [email protected]
Date: Sun Feb 17, 2013 5:03 pm ((PST))
On 17 February 2013 13:06, Daniel Demski <[email protected]> wrote:
> I've gotten a little group together to play Glossotechnia semi-regularly.
> Given the long silence on the Glossotechnia list I thought I'd post my
> experience here as well. Feel free to reply without reading my rambling
> account if you've played Glossotechnia within the past couple years and/or
> have any useful updates to the deck or rules.
I have a group (not very stable- mainly one other friend and whoever
we happen to be able to recruit at a given time) that has occasionally
played Glossotechnia, but not even semi-regularly. I would like to try
to do it more regularly, though.
We've tried several minor variations on challenge generation and
scoring, but nothing particularly interesting has come of it.
Even with 5 people playing, though, there always seem to be issues
with the charades; about a third of the time, the other players end up
just making up their own meaning for a new coinage because the coiner
could not properly convey their intended meaning. The game languages
always seem to have a similar flavor because of the excessive
difficulty of miming abstract grammatical features, so I've been
considering adding a bunch of some sort of "change grammar" cards that
would allow you to introduce inflections, adpositions, particles,
etc., outside of the charade mechanism for defining content words.
-l.
Messages in this topic (6)
________________________________________________________________________
2b. Re: Glossotechnia
Posted by: "Daniel Demski" [email protected]
Date: Sun Feb 17, 2013 7:45 pm ((PST))
On Sun, Feb 17, 2013 at 8:03 PM, Logan Kearsley <[email protected]>wrote:
> I have a group (not very stable- mainly one other friend and whoever
> we happen to be able to recruit at a given time) that has occasionally
> played Glossotechnia, but not even semi-regularly. I would like to try
> to do it more regularly, though.
>
Btw, by semi-regularly I mean most Wednesdays, which is pretty good if it
actually ends up happening that way.
>
> We've tried several minor variations on challenge generation and
> scoring, but nothing particularly interesting has come of it.
> Even with 5 people playing, though, there always seem to be issues
> with the charades; about a third of the time, the other players end up
> just making up their own meaning for a new coinage because the coiner
> could not properly convey their intended meaning. The game languages
> always seem to have a similar flavor because of the excessive
> difficulty of miming abstract grammatical features, so I've been
> considering adding a bunch of some sort of "change grammar" cards that
> would allow you to introduce inflections, adpositions, particles,
> etc., outside of the charade mechanism for defining content words.
>
> -l.
>
I think part of the reason our charades went so well was there was some
willingness to say "yes! that's what I mean!" to the closest guess and then
go ahead and change the part of speech or wriggle around the meaning when
elaborating on the word. I also think we could get further with grammatical
stuff by relying more on examples in the game language to try and define a
new word.
When players make up their own meaning, are they self-serving about it,
coining the fiddly grammatical words they need?
I really want to add these sorts of grammar cards too. They'd allow much
more complex challenge sentences. Of course the ever-present issue is
whether grammar/linguistics-naïve players would be comfortable using them.
Let's try and list some cards along these lines. I'll try them out next
week. I'm thinking don't want something like a "make a particle" card
because it doesn't guide the player anywhere; rather, there should be cards
for some of the purposes of particles. The card should do the tough
explaining of linguistics concepts rather than the player.
- Mark Definite/Indefinite: Specify a way of indicating whether something
is specific and familiar versus generic or unknown. Is this contrast
obligatory? Possibilities include affixes, mutations, words, and word
order. Examples: English "a bus" versus "the bus".
- Mark Topic/Comment: Specify a way of indicating whether something is the
theme on which a sentence is commenting versus what is being said about
that theme. Is this contrast obligatory? Possibilities include affixes,
mutations, words, and word order. Examples: Japanese -wa, English word
order (that book - I bought it already.)
Hmm, what cards would help with "still" (as in, still makes me happy) and
"just" (as in, just started)?
There could also be cards for unusual ways of making contrasts:
-That's a Different Word: Introduce some contrast which is systematically
made via vocabulary for a specified class of words. This can require there
be multiple versions of each word, or simply assign a connotation to each
word. Examples: Gender in Spanish nouns, age in English animals (puppy/dog,
foal/horse, kitten/cat).
Messages in this topic (6)
________________________________________________________________________
2c. Re: Glossotechnia
Posted by: "Logan Kearsley" [email protected]
Date: Sun Feb 17, 2013 8:36 pm ((PST))
On 17 February 2013 20:45, Daniel Demski <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 17, 2013 at 8:03 PM, Logan Kearsley <[email protected]>wrote:
>
>> I have a group (not very stable- mainly one other friend and whoever
>> we happen to be able to recruit at a given time) that has occasionally
>> played Glossotechnia, but not even semi-regularly. I would like to try
>> to do it more regularly, though.
>
> Btw, by semi-regularly I mean most Wednesdays, which is pretty good if it
> actually ends up happening that way.
>
>> We've tried several minor variations on challenge generation and
>> scoring, but nothing particularly interesting has come of it.
>> Even with 5 people playing, though, there always seem to be issues
>> with the charades; about a third of the time, the other players end up
>> just making up their own meaning for a new coinage because the coiner
>> could not properly convey their intended meaning. The game languages
>> always seem to have a similar flavor because of the excessive
>> difficulty of miming abstract grammatical features, so I've been
>> considering adding a bunch of some sort of "change grammar" cards that
>> would allow you to introduce inflections, adpositions, particles,
>> etc., outside of the charade mechanism for defining content words.
>>
>> -l.
>>
>
>
> I think part of the reason our charades went so well was there was some
> willingness to say "yes! that's what I mean!" to the closest guess and then
> go ahead and change the part of speech or wriggle around the meaning when
> elaborating on the word. I also think we could get further with grammatical
> stuff by relying more on examples in the game language to try and define a
> new word.
Aha. We've always been very strict about not using any existing
language to assist in definition- you get it purely from charade and
game-language use, or not at all, no explaining or elaborating
allowed.
> When players make up their own meaning, are they self-serving about it,
> coining the fiddly grammatical words they need?
Not generally, because it comes out of consensus on what the charade
was probably supposed to be, even though we got it wrong; it's just
that when the charade fails to communicate entirely, there's not a
whole lot to go on to keep the decided upon meaning anything like the
original intended meaning.
> I really want to add these sorts of grammar cards too. They'd allow much
> more complex challenge sentences. Of course the ever-present issue is
> whether grammar/linguistics-naïve players would be comfortable using them.
I think a game like Glossotechnia requires some minimal level of
linguistic awareness, or at least willingness to develop such. I've so
far always found that its possible to explain what a certain card is
for, how to use it, and why a player might want to without
compromising the competitive aspect of the game whenever failure to
grasp a certain point of linguistics might otherwise inhibit a
more-naive player.
> Let's try and list some cards along these lines. I'll try them out next
> week. I'm thinking don't want something like a "make a particle" card
> because it doesn't guide the player anywhere; rather, there should be cards
> for some of the purposes of particles. The card should do the tough
> explaining of linguistics concepts rather than the player.
Personally, I think the explanatory function would be best served by
the various grammar cards that already exist. What I had in mind was
not a specific "create a particle" card- that would only be playable
if isolating morphology was in play- but rather some kind of "express
a category" cards, whose effects would be restricted by the grammar
already in play. So, if the game language has isolating morphology and
case and definiteness, you'd create a new particle or preposition or
coverb or something like that and define it to express a distinction
in either case or definiteness.
> - Mark Definite/Indefinite: Specify a way of indicating whether something
> is specific and familiar versus generic or unknown. Is this contrast
> obligatory? Possibilities include affixes, mutations, words, and word
> order. Examples: English "a bus" versus "the bus".
I would want this to be a generic grammar card, much like the typology
and word-order cards, rather than a morpheme-coining card. There could
also be a specificity category card separate from (and playable at the
same time as) a definiteness card.
> - Mark Topic/Comment: Specify a way of indicating whether something is the
> theme on which a sentence is commenting versus what is being said about
> that theme. Is this contrast obligatory? Possibilities include affixes,
> mutations, words, and word order. Examples: Japanese -wa, English word
> order (that book - I bought it already.)
Topic-comment grammar cards already exist, specifying word-orders to
mark those categories; those could be replaced with or supplemented by
more generic "coin grammar" cards that would allow you more freedom to
specify how the distinction is marked and whether or not it is
obligatory. Perhaps, to have a place to put that explanation about
what topicality is with cross-linguistic examples, there could be a
"topicality" category card which when in play makes the category
obligatory with a certain default marking (like the existing
Topic-comment syntax cards) and opens up the expression of that
category to be modified by "coin grammar" cards.
> Hmm, what cards would help with "still" (as in, still makes me happy) and
> "just" (as in, just started)?
I would say aspect. You could get those words, e.g., by introducing a
grammatical category card for Aspect (or just having aspect be a
default starting category for the game language, since it's so
freaking common), playing an isolating typology card, and then using
"coin grammar" cards to specify how aspectual distinctions are made
with separate words.
> There could also be cards for unusual ways of making contrasts:
>
> -That's a Different Word: Introduce some contrast which is systematically
> made via vocabulary for a specified class of words. This can require there
> be multiple versions of each word, or simply assign a connotation to each
> word. Examples: Gender in Spanish nouns, age in English animals (puppy/dog,
> foal/horse, kitten/cat).
I rather like that. Gender is a bad example, though- there isn't a
feminine version and a masculine version for every Spanish noun
indicating a real semantic difference, every noun is just put into one
or the other strictly grammatical category. This is the sort of thing
that would give one player a lot of power to change the lexicon in one
go, though, as it'd probably be necessary to define what the newly
restricted meaning of every effected word already in the lexicon is.
-l.
Messages in this topic (6)
________________________________________________________________________
2d. Re: Glossotechnia
Posted by: "Daniel Demski" [email protected]
Date: Sun Feb 17, 2013 10:31 pm ((PST))
On Sun, Feb 17, 2013 at 11:36 PM, Logan Kearsley <[email protected]>wrote:
> Aha. We've always been very strict about not using any existing
> language to assist in definition- you get it purely from charade and
> game-language use, or not at all, no explaining or elaborating
> allowed.
>
Elaboration after coining was really fun. It probably slowed down play, and
the resulting complexity didn't get used much, but it gave our language a
culture, in a way I thought was better than the cultural rules.
>
> > When players make up their own meaning, are they self-serving about it,
> > coining the fiddly grammatical words they need?
>
> Not generally, because it comes out of consensus on what the charade
> was probably supposed to be, even though we got it wrong; it's just
> that when the charade fails to communicate entirely, there's not a
> whole lot to go on to keep the decided upon meaning anything like the
> original intended meaning.
>
When this has happened to me players have coined fun but useless words.
> I think a game like Glossotechnia requires some minimal level of
> linguistic awareness, or at least willingness to develop such. I've so
> far always found that its possible to explain what a certain card is
> for, how to use it, and why a player might want to without
> compromising the competitive aspect of the game whenever failure to
> grasp a certain point of linguistics might otherwise inhibit a
> more-naive player.
>
True.
>
> Personally, I think the explanatory function would be best served by
> the various grammar cards that already exist. What I had in mind was
> not a specific "create a particle" card- that would only be playable
> if isolating morphology was in play- but rather some kind of "express
> a category" cards, whose effects would be restricted by the grammar
> already in play. So, if the game language has isolating morphology and
> case and definiteness, you'd create a new particle or preposition or
> coverb or something like that and define it to express a distinction
> in either case or definiteness.
>
Trying to understand exactly what you're suggesting here. So there would be
a pair of cards like,
Topicality (Grammar): Each sentence has a topic and comment, distinguished
by word order, affix, particle, or another mechanism.
Topicality (Express a Category): Coin a method for expressing topicality.
Or, just the second card? Or, just a generic Express a Category card,
matchable with any Category in play? And would these cards need to be
played for topicality to be expressed, or would someone be allowed to try
and coin the distinctions without them?
The reason I don't like having something like the first card is because
then all these category markings would be obligatory. I want someone to be
able to get one of these cards and then coin an optional way of making the
topic, definiteness, etc. specific.
I would want this to be a generic grammar card, much like the typology
> and word-order cards, rather than a morpheme-coining card. There could
> also be a specificity category card separate from (and playable at the
> same time as) a definiteness card.
>
Ah, yes, I did think about specificity versus definiteness, not sure I'm
good enough at the descriptions to put them on separate cards though.
> > Hmm, what cards would help with "still" (as in, still makes me happy) and
> > "just" (as in, just started)?
>
> I would say aspect. You could get those words, e.g., by introducing a
> grammatical category card for Aspect (or just having aspect be a
> default starting category for the game language, since it's so
> freaking common), playing an isolating typology card, and then using
> "coin grammar" cards to specify how aspectual distinctions are made
> with separate words.
>
So the overall picture I'm getting here is that for any given grammatical
word that we think is too hard to charade or usually gets ignored, we
introduce a grammatical category card and then generic coin grammar cards
become capable of filling the gap. This certainly could work, despite my
objection above. But I think as a grammatical category card "Aspect" would
just encourage players to make the language require a perfect/imperfect
distinction on verbs. I guess good examples on the card could help keep
people creative.
>
> > There could also be cards for unusual ways of making contrasts:
> >
> > -That's a Different Word: Introduce some contrast which is systematically
> > made via vocabulary for a specified class of words. This can require
> there
> > be multiple versions of each word, or simply assign a connotation to each
> > word. Examples: Gender in Spanish nouns, age in English animals
> (puppy/dog,
> > foal/horse, kitten/cat).
>
> I rather like that. Gender is a bad example, though- there isn't a
> feminine version and a masculine version for every Spanish noun
> indicating a real semantic difference, every noun is just put into one
> or the other strictly grammatical category. This is the sort of thing
> that would give one player a lot of power to change the lexicon in one
> go, though, as it'd probably be necessary to define what the newly
> restricted meaning of every effected word already in the lexicon is.
>
> -l.
>
Ah, the reason I mentioned gender here is because I had the following use
in mind: play the card to do something like make each verb in the language
either strictly deliberate or strictly not. This would have worked well in
last Wednesday's game, where some of the verbs already had this contrast.
Also, yes, changing the whole wordlist is a problem. I meant to add at the
end: "If this affects previous vocabulary and grammar, the changes are made
by consensus of the other players." Some such decisions could be left until
later.
Maybe such a powerful card should start out "instead of coining a word".
OK so. Let's suppose there are these "grammatical category" and "coin
grammar" cards. The person who plays the grammatical category could decide
whether it's obligatory and when, but then playing "coin grammar" would be
less interesting. Perhaps "coin grammar" cards can change the "grammatical
category" decisions somewhat.
Assuming I find a way I like to balance that out, what grammatical category
cards should there be? Certainly evidentiality, aspect, topicality, agency,
modality, definiteness; though with aspect and modality I feel like they're
big topics to put on one card. Specificity is also an option. Tense,
person, and number shouldn't need a card I think (or out by default like
aspect), but maybe that's my native language speaking... what if these
cards had to come up in order to be distinctions?
There are also some fun distinctions which probably don't deserve this sort
of explicit, card-based treatment, like animacy, size (I mean, like
diminutive), familiarity, good versus bad, "us" versus "them".
So, what other grammatical category cards might we include?
Messages in this topic (6)
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2e. Re: Glossotechnia
Posted by: "Logan Kearsley" [email protected]
Date: Sun Feb 17, 2013 11:01 pm ((PST))
On 17 February 2013 23:31, Daniel Demski <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 17, 2013 at 11:36 PM, Logan Kearsley
> <[email protected]>wrote:
>
>> Aha. We've always been very strict about not using any existing
>> language to assist in definition- you get it purely from charade and
>> game-language use, or not at all, no explaining or elaborating
>> allowed.
>>
>
> Elaboration after coining was really fun. It probably slowed down play, and
> the resulting complexity didn't get used much, but it gave our language a
> culture, in a way I thought was better than the cultural rules.
It might be worth me trying to play with those slightly relaxed rules, then.
> Trying to understand exactly what you're suggesting here. So there would be
> a pair of cards like,
>
> Topicality (Grammar): Each sentence has a topic and comment, distinguished
> by word order, affix, particle, or another mechanism.
> Topicality (Express a Category): Coin a method for expressing topicality.
>
> Or, just the second card? Or, just a generic Express a Category card,
> matchable with any Category in play? And would these cards need to be
> played for topicality to be expressed, or would someone be allowed to try
> and coin the distinctions without them?
There would be the first kind of card. And then either option for
"Topicality (Express a Category)" or just generic "Express a
Category"; I do not have good intuitions for which would turn out to
be more useful / result in better play.
I would say these cards do not need to be in play *if someone can
charade really well and coin the distinctions in the basic fashion*.
Their purpose is to introduce an extra avenue to get complex grammar
into the language more easily, on top of the charade mechanism.
> The reason I don't like having something like the first card is because
> then all these category markings would be obligatory. I want someone to be
> able to get one of these cards and then coin an optional way of making the
> topic, definiteness, etc. specific.
I would think you could get "optional" marking by introducing
"non-specified" as one of the distinctions to be made in any given
category. But there's certainly room for experimentation to be done
here to see if that's really the best way to go about it.
> Also, yes, changing the whole wordlist is a problem. I meant to add at the
> end: "If this affects previous vocabulary and grammar, the changes are made
> by consensus of the other players." Some such decisions could be left until
> later.
>
> Maybe such a powerful card should start out "instead of coining a word".
Those two restrictions combined would work well to make the card
reasonably balanced, I think.
> Tense, person, and number shouldn't need a card I think
Oh, I think tense, person, and number *should*. Just to be able to
force the distinctions to come into effect when other players aren't
cooperating with you.
> what if these cards had to come up in order to be distinctions?
Then you might end up with an artificially inflated count of game
languages that are forced not to make those distinctions. As I said
above, I think you should be able to introduce whatever distinctions
you want if you can successfully do so via charades or in-language
description.
> There are also some fun distinctions which probably don't deserve this sort
> of explicit, card-based treatment, like animacy, size (I mean, like
> diminutive), familiarity, good versus bad, "us" versus "them".
Animacy could be profitably added in the form of a syntax card, or a
morpho-syntax card; we don't get many (any) animacy hierarchies in the
games I play so far. (Are there morpho-syntax cards? I don't recall...
I suppose you could get the effects of morpho-syntax cards just by
combining various other category distinctions and syntax cards.)
Case would be a good Category card to add.
The rest of the ones you list are things I would expect to see as
examples of semantic categories listed on the "There's Another Word
For That" card.
-l.
Messages in this topic (6)
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3. Jarda audio examples updated
Posted by: "Herman Miller" [email protected]
Date: Sun Feb 17, 2013 6:15 pm ((PST))
I've replaced the old RealAudio samples of Jarda words with new MP3
files, and added more examples for each sound.
http://www.prismnet.com/~hmiller/lang/Jarda/spelling.html
I'm sure by native Jarda standards I must have a terrible accent. Some
of these sounds are a bit difficult, especially in these combinations.
But I haven't figured out how to get recordings from the actual Jarda
speakers, so this is as good as you're likely to get in this world.
Messages in this topic (1)
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________________________________________________________________________
4a. Re: The evolution of Angosey: 5 Translations of the same poem across
Posted by: "Alex Fink" [email protected]
Date: Sun Feb 17, 2013 9:56 pm ((PST))
On Sat, 16 Feb 2013 23:12:06 -0500, Daniel Bowman <[email protected]>
wrote:
>Hello All,
>
>Last weekend Alex Fink, Herman Miller and I met over brunch and had a great
>discussion about conlangs. I look forward to bringing up several things we
>touched on during the conversation. The first is the evolution of my conlang
>Angosey over the last eleven years. I mentioned that I retranslate the same
>poem every so often, and I can trace the changes that have occurred (both
>phonological, orthographical, and grammatical) in Angosey via my past
>translations. Alex mentioned that he'd be interested in hearing more about
>it, so I've written a blog post that shows examples from this poem that
>highlight the evolution of my language. Here's the link in case other list
>members are curious:
>
>https://glossarch.wordpress.com/2013/02/17/the-linguistic-and-creative-evolution-of-angosey/
Beautiful, thanks for putting this up!
It's interesting to see (or at least be told of) the accumulation of categories
as time goes on: I remember we discussed this, in the context of typical
sentences getting longer. I'd be curious to know if there's anything in
Angosey which has gotten morphologically or syntactically more compact.
It's also interesting that the content words seem to have essentially persisted
all the way through. If I'd done this I suspect there also woulda been much
less vocabulary preservation. In Pjaukra, my longest-running lang, I've
ditched and replaced a goodly number of words, mostly because of revisions to
the phonology (but I've deleted some phonemes, which I guess you haven't) or at
least to the distribution of phones (e.g. to get rid of some examples of
overrepresented phonemes), but occasionally 'cause I decided the sense was
unsuitable.
Alex
Messages in this topic (4)
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4b. Re: The evolution of Angosey: 5 Translations of the same poem across
Posted by: "BPJ" [email protected]
Date: Mon Feb 18, 2013 1:14 pm ((PST))
On 2013-02-17 05:12, Daniel Bowman wrote:
> Hello All,
>
> Last weekend Alex Fink, Herman Miller and I met over brunch and had a great
> discussion about conlangs. I look forward to bringing up several things we
> touched on during the conversation. The first is the evolution of my
> conlang Angosey over the last eleven years. I mentioned that I retranslate
> the same poem every so often, and I can trace the changes that have occurred
> (both phonological, orthographical, and grammatical) in Angosey via my past
> translations. Alex mentioned that he'd be interested in hearing more about
> it, so I've written a blog post that shows examples from this poem that
> highlight the evolution of my language. Here's the link in case other list
> members are curious:
>
> https://glossarch.wordpress.com/2013/02/17/the-linguistic-and-creative-evolution-of-angosey/
>
> Best,
>
> Danny
>
You write:
> About glossarch The word "glossarch" doesn't exist.
> At least, not yet. But let's pretend it does for a
> second. The first part is "gloss," a word that comes
> to us from Ancient Greek via Latin and English. It
> means "language." The second part also comes from
> Ancient Greek and can mean "having power over." So
> "glossarch" means simply "language controller." So
> what am I doing making up words? Well, I made up an
> entire language once. It's called Angosey. So I'm the
> Glossarch of Angosey. I'm currently a doctorate
> student in volcano seismology (a branch of
> geophysics). I enjoy writing fiction and poetry,
> launching balloons, programming, and hanging out with
> my lovely wife!
That's three occurrences in one paragraph, of which
at least one is not a meta-quotation, so I'd say that
the word exists! What 'exists' in a natlang is not
dictated by dictionary and grammar writers, but by the
usage of speakers. It may not be general or even
'good' (whoever has the right to decide that) usage
but obviously there is a subset, albeit very small,
of English speakers who use the word. All neologisms
in any language -- nat or con -- which have a connotation
and not just are random phones or syllables exist by
the force of the very fact that they have been
uttered or written.
/bpj
Messages in this topic (4)
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4c. Re: The evolution of Angosey: 5 Translations of the same poem across
Posted by: "Herman Miller" [email protected]
Date: Mon Feb 18, 2013 4:34 pm ((PST))
On 2/16/2013 11:12 PM, Daniel Bowman wrote:
> Hello All,
>
> Last weekend Alex Fink, Herman Miller and I met over brunch and had a
> great discussion about conlangs. I look forward to bringing up
> several things we touched on during the conversation. The first is
> the evolution of my conlang Angosey over the last eleven years. I
> mentioned that I retranslate the same poem every so often, and I can
> trace the changes that have occurred (both phonological,
> orthographical, and grammatical) in Angosey via my past translations.
> Alex mentioned that he'd be interested in hearing more about it, so
> I've written a blog post that shows examples from this poem that
> highlight the evolution of my language. Here's the link in case
> other list members are curious:
>
> https://glossarch.wordpress.com/2013/02/17/the-linguistic-and-creative-evolution-of-angosey/
That's one nice thing about having the same language for 11 years. Since
I haven't been developing Jarda continuously, I study the old texts for
examples of "correct" grammar and vocabulary usage. So Jarda hasn't
evolved in the same way. I can compare different translations from
different time periods (Relay 3 and Relay 18), but I haven't got
examples of retranslating the same text. I do have examples in Tirelat
of texts that I edited to keep up to date with the language as it
changed, but a retranslation would be more interesting.
(Relay 3 has an interesting example of a postposition "śa" in Jarda, but
this could be a result of poetic word order.)
From the glossarch page:
> The Angosey of Oct0ber 2002 (the first time I translated this poem)
> had no sounds that English lacked. The word order was different, but
> I was still stuck in the English/Romance language paradigm. There
> was nothing truly new about it.
That pretty much describes Olaetian in the early stages; it had definite
Romance influences. The only non-English languages I knew much about at
the time were French and Spanish, so that to me was just how "foreign"
languages worked. Over time Olaetian acquired all sorts of foreign
sounds and a few non-Romance features like noun cases, but it
fundamentally still looks something like a Romance language.
I was creating all sorts of sketchy languages back then, only a few as
well developed as Olaetian, but it was nice to have a lot of languages
to pick from when I discovered a new sound or a new grammatical feature.
When I found out about ergativity, for example, I created a new ergative
language, Kazvarad.
> The Angosey of February 2013 does not sound like any version of
> English I know of. Its phonetic repertoire spans Europe, Africa, and
> Asia. The grammar is richer and reflects specific ontological
> choices that suite my way of thinking, from the distinction between
> emotive and non emotive speaking, to its noun categorization, to its
> ergative/absolutive verb system.
We were talking about how ergativity was a conlanging fad for a time,
but in a number of ways it seems more convenient than the usual
nominative-accusative system. I mentioned that Jarda had the same word
for "fall" and "drop" but I must have been thinking of another language,
since it appears to be a gap in the Jarda vocabulary! I'll need to fix
that. But what it does have is a single word for "die" and "kill" (rav).
> Angosey has also acquired six noun classes: “au ziramei” means “the
> (physical object) ‘pearl.’”
I tried that with Tirelat, but it didn't work out. Maybe it would be a
good idea for a new Sangari language. Jarda has a set of various
classifiers (like in Chinese or Japanese), so maybe some other member of
the Jardic family has reduced these to a fixed set of noun classes.
Messages in this topic (4)
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________________________________________________________________________
5a. Re: single words for concepts for which other languages paraphrase
Posted by: "Leonardo Castro" [email protected]
Date: Mon Feb 18, 2013 3:19 am ((PST))
I just remembered an English word that, at least in the context I
expose here, was not properly translated as a single Portuguese word:
"asset". In Robert Kiyosaki's "Rich Dad Poor Dad", it's said that the
problem of many people is that they wrongly treat liabilities as if
they were assets. An asset is an item that provides positive cash flow
(gives you money) and a liabilitity is an item that provides negative
cash flow (takes money from you).
In a Brazilian translation of this book, "assets" and "liabilities"
were translated as "ativos" and "passivos", but these are accounting
terms that are too technical, so it's a little ridiculous to say that
people think that their "ativos" are "passivos", because they usually
don't know what these words mean.
In other texts, they are translated as "direitos" (rights) and
"obriga��es" (obligations). But it's also a little strange to say that
someone consider his car as a right while he should consider it as an
obligation, because he really has rights over his car.
Well... Nonetheless, while writing this, I just found an article of
someone who disagrees with Kiyosaki's definitions of these words:
http://www.sharesinv.com/articles/2012/06/08/robert-kiyosaki%E2%80%99s-definitions-of-assets-and-liabilities-are-wrong/
At� mais!
Leonardo
2013/1/24 Douglas Koller <[email protected]>:
>>Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2013 20:55:38 +0100
>> From: [email protected]
>> Subject: Re: single words for concepts for which other languages paraphrase
>> To: [email protected]
>
>> On Monday 21 January 2013 22:35:52 Leonardo Castro wrote:
>
>> > 2013/1/21 A. da Mek:
>> > >> the Czech author Milan Kundera doesn't understand how non-Czech
>> > >> languages could possibly do without an equivalent to the Czech word
>> > >> "litost," to which an English speaker sort of just shrugs when he/she
>> > >> hears the word translated as "a state of torment created by the sudden
>> > >> sight of one's own misery."
>
>> > > Do not take him too seriously. This is only one of possible meanings, and
>> > > the
>> > > more precise word for it would be rather "sebel�tost", self-pity.
>> > > "L�tost" simply means regret, pity or sorrow (there is a German cognate
>> > > "Leid"); it is not a specialised word for cry in one's beer.
>
>> > As you said this, I'm encouraged to say that I feel that the
>> > Portuguese word "saudade" is much more generic than �a feeling of
>> > wistful longing for something one once knew and which might never
>> > return� (as also cited in the original message).
>> How many of us have such words in our conlangs?
>
> Following the model of my German-English dictionary, which says if a concept
> doesn't translate well (it seemed there was some type of German cake? (also
> various terms in the German educational and governmental systems)), it's just
> going to *explain* it and to hell with a simple gloss, if I feel the need to
> coin an indispensible word to the G�arth�ins psyche that requires a
> definition like:
>
> "a state of torment created by the sudden sight of one's own misery" (and let
> us not forget the plaintive wailing of a dog that goes with that) or
>
> "a feeling of wistful longing for something one once knew and which might
> never return"
>
> I just explain those words in italics on the G�arthnuns-English side with no
> corresponding entry on the English-G�arthnuns side. However, since there's no
> English cross reference, I've made a cheat sheet so if I'm thinking of one of
> *those* words, I can access it quickly. There are about fifteen thus far, and
> you could probably pare that down by half to the words of the totally twee
> and obnoxiously 'untranslatable' "hygge", "l�tost", "saudade",
> "Gem�tlichkeit", "wabi-sabi" variety.
>
> Kou
Messages in this topic (13)
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