Conlangery Podcast

William tells us how lexemes need not be one continuous word or morpheme, using his characteristically exotic examples (and some not so exotic. Top of Show Greeting: fangait Links and Resources: Navajo Verb Template Asheninca Campa

In our last full episode of 2012, we talk all about Cherokee. Top of Show Greeting: Emberyad Announcements:   Profile of John Quijada in The New Yorker   Jim Henry Medical Trust Featured NATLANG: Cherokee Reference Grammar Lexicon Valley on Sequoyah’s syllabary Short lesson on classifiers Feedback: Email: Good Afternoon, I just finished listening to you podcast on Khangabyagon and it struck me that you all said that this was a conlang for a ‘magical language’. And I know from Arika Okrent’s book that Laadan is for expressing the views of women better. So I would like to recommend an episode where you all just have some fun going over the different conlangs that have a stated purpose or philosophy  nothing all that in-depth but a broad set touching on what appears to be how that purpose is being addressed, detailed vocabulary or certain features of the language. Enjoy, Timothy Wofford

Special mention: DJP had another podcast interview (Yeah, I know, we’re late on everything) Thanks to a wonderful email suggestion, we talk about how conlangers should read linguistics research papers, including what to look at (and what you don’t need to) and how to find papers to look at. Top of Show Greeting: Kobardon Email: Conlangery, I just made this suggestion on the web page, and it occurred to me that I did not sign my name. There’s a field for commenting, but it’s separate from the the one for submitting suggestions. “On the forums, I often see links to linguistics papers or books. Usually, I have trouble getting much use out of them, as opposed to looking up grammar topics on wikipedia. How should one go about separating the wheat from the chaff? This might be a good no-research-needed topic for William once he gets back.” Regards, Alex Joneth PS, my dad’s from Wisconsin and my mom’s from West Virginia. I was born in Madison. Pepperoni rolls are good.

This week John Ericson joins us to talk about his wacky and wonderful FairyLang. Top of Show Greeting: Russian (translation by Boris Listunov) Featured Conlang: FairyLang Feedback Email: Is it possible (or does there exist) languages in which the lexicon can be automatically generated (or at least guided) by a heuristic employing a pre-existing ontological framework? I am new to this hobby (it was your podcast that really got me interested), and am trying to design a language where the semantics and lexicon are somewhat coupled. That a person might automatically generate a word from the very meaning he wishes to convey. For instance, I have been toying around with a language whose lexicology is based upon an infix system combined with single prefix and suffix slots. Each word can possesses two to four consonants separated by vowels. An optional vowel can come before the first consonant and also trailing the final consonant. Each vowel slot represents some feature in the language. The pre and postfixes add to it more subtle meanings. I have worked a simple naming language like this where the consonants are chosen arbitrarily. I like where I was going with it. But it occurred to me that, if I could assign to each consonant position a meaning in a similar fashion to the vowels, then I could build a framework where at least the meaning of a word is somewhat self-evident. I am unsure if you could reasonably do this where you necessarily get a one-to-one correspondence between specific meanings and a single word. In any case, I am curious if any conlang has attempted to build a lexicology that fuses with semantics in this way.  If so, it would greatly help me figure out the most complete and least ambiguous ontological for such an endeavor. Thanks, -Daniel (some resources we found for this question listed below:) Wiki on Oligosynthetic languages Lexical Semantics An Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language Ygyde “Language of Space”

William is back!  He talks with us all about definiteness. Top of Show Greeting: Vreksi Links and Resources: Typology of definiteness Irish initial mutations (note the difference in masculine and feminine definites) Javanese and definiteness in subjects Another paper on definiteness Hungarian definiteness marking on verbs Feedback: Email from Patrick: I do in fact listen to the entirety of every episode, although I do admit I listen at 1 1/2 speed because I actually have no time to listen in the first place. And, I’d like to thank y’all so much for your podcast. Without it, I’d’ve been bald because I attempted to learn my sinklang. Your podcast has helped me figure out how to reel in my craziness while still keeping features I love. And, you do it with humor and intelligence; y’all are EPICally amazing, awesome, helpful, [insert other applicable adjectives here] people. -Patrick Garza, from Southwestern University.

George shares his favorite chengyu (成语): 班门弄斧 Top of Show Greeting: Omlűt

This week, we invite Martin Posthumous on to talk about his new conlang Alashian. Top of Show Greeting: South Eresian (reuse) Featured Conlang: Alashian Feedback: Email from Kerri: Hello. Thanks for doing the podcast. For some reason, I just comprehend things better aurally than read, so it’s been very useful to me! I’m not a linguist, I’m a writer who’s just trying to make something that doesn’t make linguists grind their teeth. I created a language to go with a culture I created for a story, way back when I was 12-13, long before I’d ever heard of conlanging. It was awful and the story was pure cheese with horrible gobs of angst and a cast of mary sues, but hey, I was 12. I threw most of it out a long time ago, but your podcast encouraged me to give it (well, not that exactly) another try. Minus the angst, “characters”, and almost everything else. Doing it right, and with some actual knowledge. Thanks for that. How about a podcast on pidgins? I’ve been studying Latin and have a yen to settle the Ninth Legion somewhere unlikely.  

Today we talk to you all about vowel harmony, taking Turkish, Finnish, Moro, and Mongolian as case studies to help you figure out the intricacies of what choices you need to make in vowel harmony systems and how you can introduce interesting Top of Show Greeting: Maksinaunminverbe Links and Resources: Distinctive Feature Chart Vowel Systems Info on Turkish Wikipedia: Languages with Vowel Harmony Kinyarwanda (natlang; not mentioned on the pod) Special mention (from the outtakes): A giant freaking basket Feedback: χαιρετε, ὠ φιλε (“Greetings, friends”), Over at the Conlangers group on deviantART, we’re hosting this little thing called NaCoWriMo. Basically, participants have until [Nov. 31] to write a 200-word passage in one of their conlangs. It’s not a translation challenge, but rather a bona fide composition challenge. I thought some of the Conlangery listeners would be interested in participating. It’s never too late to sign up, and anybody who wants to can do so at http://conlangers.deviantart.com. Cheers, MBR

We didn’t get a full episode out this week, but George didn’t want to have a week with nothing at all, so he “reads”* the date in Tagalog, then goes on a ramble about loanwords a bit. Top of Show Greeting: Lingwa de Planeta Text of that date and time expression, for the curious: Ika-4 ng Nobiembre, 2012, alas 4:30 ng hapon. (all words): Ika-apat ng Nobiembre, twenty-twelve, alas kuwatro y medya ng hapon. *(It was actually produced on the fly, hence the disfluency.)

Today we eventually get to talking about Khangaþyagon, and get a lot of interesting stuff out of it.  Also, George forgets a notable conlanger who has been featured before on the show.  *headdesk* Top of Show Greeting: Shokitin Featured Conlang: Khangaþyagon Email: Conglangerists: A while ago I finished my trawl through the Conlangery backlog, and I’m quite happy to say that I’ve now listened to ALL of the Conlangery. I’m sorry to see Bianca and William go even temporarily, but they’ll be back. And though I do like me some morphemes, I actually really appreciated what David had to say in the most recent episode. Anyway, back when you read my last feedback, you said you were open to having me on a guest, since you had mentioned some things I wrote in the past. I’m just letting you know that I’m free if you ever find yourselves short a host for a week. Let me know if/when you ever want to have me on. — JS Bangs