Conlangery Podcast

Today we tackle a big grammar and discourse topic: anaphora and co-referentiality.  We go through a list of options you have for cleaning up ambiguities and keeping your discourse coherent.  Just don’t throw them all into the same conlang. Top of Show Greeting: Minhast Links and Resources: Indexicality, Logophorality, and Plural Pronouns Logophor in Ogonoid languages Switch reference in Pomo Wiki on switch reference Special Mention: Talossa has been reunited Feedback: Emails: From Robert: Dear Dudes, I like the new format.  I think it will help you keep the show going strong for longer.  I look forward to the more manageable episodes!  Keep up the great work Sincerely, Robert Murphy From Joe: Hi guys… I’ve been listening to your podcast for a few months now- it’s the majority of what I listen to back and forth to work. (I usually listen to the new episode on monday, then again on friday, with random ones inbetween to make up tuesday-thursday ) Anyway, I’ve had ideas I wanted to share with you percolating in my brain for a while, and I finally now am getting to write them down. I’ve been conlanging on and off, for almost as long as William. I started from french in HS, then Klingon/ASL at college, then all of a sudden I had a ‘Holy crud, I can do this!’ revelation and off I went. I realize from listening to you guys that I was missing a bunch of interesting things that I could do, and was probably making nooblangs all that time (but now I’m getting better). So I just wanted to say I really like the show. It’s got interesting discussion, and sometimes wild ideas that make me ponder and want to try things out. Just wanted to say you guys rock! The one thing that frustrates me, is every time you mention tlhIngan Hol, you play the crap from the show. Not real tlhIngan Hol! Need a good song in Klingon? Here’s a link http://youtu.be/MnvAGY1t9es Ok, enough ranting, I had a idea for you guys. I was thinking, instead of reviewing a complete (or nearly complete) conlang, how about getting a newbie on, or having them send you a nascent conlang that they are having issues with, so you guys can suggest things, encourage people for things you like that they came up with, make suggestions on how to fix potential problems that newbies don’t see yet. This would take some of the pressure off of finding a new awesome conlang every week, and it would be helpful to people as well. That’s all for now, keep up the awesome, and let me know of what you think of my idea Joe Schelin /ʃəlin/ (unless I’m mangling the ipa

This week we cover the monumental and yet incomplete amman îar, a heavily Tolkien-inspired language that nevertheless manages to have its own flavor. Top of Show Greeting: Uskra Featured Conlang: amman îar Feedback: Email from FE: Howdy, I don’t know if someone has already addressed this, however, in episode 40 you discussed the ubiquity of British-esque varieties in fantasy media and introduced the implications thereof but weren’t able to come up with examples besides the Game of Thrones series and which William (or Bianca?) noted largely features British actors. There is also the issue, unaddressed, that fantasy media like Game of Thrones and the Lord of the Rings films portray fantasy worlds explicitly based at least partially on an indeterminately ancient Britain. Some examples that came to my mind during this discussion that can’t be explained away by the native variety of the performers were the films “Gladiator” and “Troy”. While the former is not strictly fantasy its pseudohistorical adventure genre utilizes the same linguistic trope. In the case of “Gladiator”, I vaguely recall that a cast member on the DVD commentary addressing the fact that nearly all the non-British cast members (among them Americans, Danes and Kiwis) who were portraying Romans adopted their own approximation of the English accent that actors like Derek Jacobi had naturally. If I recall correctly, the commenter mentioned that someone (either one of the producers, the director, or actor Richard Harris) found their mangled fake accents appalling, but it was par for the course on a film like this. The dialogue in Troy features the constant use of the term “Milord” by characters when addressing their social superiors. This word shows up in a lot of fantasy and historical films as a generic marker of social stratification despite the fact that, as I understand it, until very recently in English it was never used as a form of general address and only used in a specific context (that is, addressing a person to who bore the specific title of “Lord”). See also “Game of Thrones” and the 2004 film “King Arthur” (English people before they were English!). Thanks for making the podcast. William’s brain is a sexy beast.

So, for various reasons we have now changed the format of the show.  Now we will be doing only one topic per show, alternating weeks between discussion topics and featured conlangs.  We hope that this addresses the issues some people have had with show length while still allowing us to have thick, meaty discussions.  As such, this week’s show is all about phonotactics and how the way you allow sounds to combine into words is often more important to the overall sound of your conlang than your phoneme inventory is. Top of Show Greeting: Khangaþyagon Links and Resources: WALS on Syllable Structure Lakhota syllable structure Proto-Algonquian Georgian and its plainly ridiculous consonant clusters No feedback today, sorry.

Today we take some time to talk to you about a conworldy topic: loan words in your conlang.  What words are likely to be borrowed?  What kinds of situations cause borrowing?  And how does grammar work for loan words?  Also, we talk about Kebreni, our second feature of an Almean language. Top of Show Greeting: Lojban Links and Resources: Presentation on “Borrowability” World Loanword Database Loanword Typology (paper) Loanword Typology (PPT) Featured Conlang: Kebreni Feedback: Email: Saluton! A friend just posted this on my Facebook wall: a list of measure words in English! Everything from a murder of crows to a stand of flamingos to a blessing of unicorns (because it’s Unicorn Appreciation Day, of course!), and even some obviously contrived creations like “a brace of dentists”. http://users.tinyonline.co.uk/gswithenbank/collnoun.htm Now I wonder what the measure word for conlangers would be…. Cheers, Michael from California

This week, we talk all about the middle voice and the many things that that covers, as well as give you all sorts of options to make your own creative use of this feature.  We also have a featured natlang today that has very interesting features as well as some hilarious crackpot historical theories around it. Top of Show Greeting: Fäesek Links and Resources: Paper about middle voice Wikipedia Lingforum thread SIL FAQ A short description Featured NATLANG: Burushaski (Wikipedia page) Feedback: Email from Thomas: Hi! I just listened to your 52:nd episode, and heard you mention Kahless. I think it’s qeHleS in Klingon. I just thought it would be fun to mention that when I first read about Klingon lacking the k-sound, I wondered if Kahless was a pun. Klingon is actually k-less. There are many other puns in Klingon, like chang’eng “pair” from the siamese twins, but perhaps k-less is too far-fetched. Thomas Lindroth, Sweden Email from John: Hi, I discovered your podcast recently and I’ve been listening to some of your archived episodes. In those early episodes, you reference “nooblangs,” and I was wondering, what are the hallmarks of a nooblang, and how can I tell if I’ve made one? Thanks, John

After a short update on George’s grad school situation and some musing over our tagline, we get to talking about the very complex interactions that animacy and agency can have with the rest of your grammar.  Then we talk about Interlingua, a very boring auxlang that appears to be comfortably readable by anyone who speaks a Romance language. Top of Show Greeting: Kiswona Links and Resources: Animacy and Pluralization Intensives Great paper on the subject Wikipedia on Animacy Featured Conlang: Interlingua (another link) Feedback: Dear George, William and Mike, First of all, let me say, what a great show!  I just posted a 5 star review on iTunes.  I started three weeks ago and listened to every episode.  I wanted to bring to your attention the unwritten rule in podcasting not to go beyond 82 minutes.  No one can burn your episode onto CD and give it to a friend if it’s longer than that!  Let me be sure to emphasize to coolness of what yo do. Thanks again, Robert Murphy

David Peterson joins us for a wonderful Supersize episode where we talk all about growing your lexicon, from generating roots to creating realistic polysemy and semantic fields.  Also, we finally feature an obscure little language we’ve wanted to talk about for a while Top of Show Greeting: Oltengo Links and Resources: Analysis of English phrasal verbs with out John Quijada on cognitive linguistics: LCC1 Some lojban dictonary resources Okuna dictonary ámman îar dictionary Asha’ille dictionary (same person has some software to convert Shoebox to HTML) Wikipedia list of Dictionary Writing Systems SIL’s Shoebox Lexical typology notes Bonus link: A cool linguistics book on TAM Featured Conlang: Dothraki (fan site, David’s blog) Feedback: Email from Zelos: I thought I would tell about a recent conlang wiki that is growing, http://conlang.wikkii.com/wiki/Main_Page it moved from the oldhttp://conlang.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page . We are somewhat small now but are working on becoming a great source for conlang information. Best Regards, Zelos From james: http://www.excelville.com/file/285/Conlang+Lexicon+Generator

We give you a podcast today about how you can do without tense, and what other things in the language can be used to fill in the gaps.  Also, we have special guest Jeffrey Jones on to talk about his conlang. Top of Show: Sheewan Links and Resources: Vietnamese tense/aspect marking Telicity (Wikipedia) Featured Conlang: K’tlê Feedback: Email from JS: Conlangery hosts: I’m writing to say how much I enjoy your podcast. I only became aware of its existence a few weeks ago, and since then I’ve been doing what I always do when I discover a new podcast that I like: listening to the archives from the beginning. Just today I happened to listen to episode 23, in which I discovered, to my shock and delight, that my OWN conlang Yivrian had been featured. I thought you guys said a lot of complimentary things about it, and your criticisms were completely valid. In particular, I agree with Bianca that the verbal system is a little bit overstuffed, and with William that the modal prefixes are annoyingly regular. Both of these things are the result of a disease that afflicts people who work on the same language for a very long time: different parts of the language are designed at different times, often with different philosophies and different goals. In this case, the modal prefixes date from a period when total regularity was a design goal, while the verbal complex dates from the ALL OF THE MORPHEMES stage that followed shortly thereafter. It’s a good thing I had never heard of evidentiality or animacy hierarchies at the time I initially designed the verbs, or I would doubtlessly have found a way to include those as well. Your podcast has also inspired me to consider other neglected aspects of my languages. In particular, I’ve been mulling over the ways that Yivrian expresses formality, and reconsidering the entire concept of adjectives. You discussed my ancient essay “An Artlanger’s Rant” when you covered my conlang, and it’s very interesting to see how that post has aged ten years on. If you ever were interested as having me on as a guest, I’d be happy to discuss it (or anything else conlang-related) with you. — JS Bangs jaspax@gmail.com http://jsbangs.wordpress.com “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle” -Philo of Alexandria

Today is a big show where we tackle the topic of reduplication, something we think more conlangers should employ.  Then we talk about a wonderfully crazy click langauge called Sandawe — and it’s natural! Top of Show Greeting: Chudihr Links and Resources Iyo Grammar (see p. 21) Spokan (reduplication talk begins on p. 111) Reduplication in Kikerewe Turkish reduplication for intensives Mon and Khmer Wikipedia on Reduplication Featured NATLANG:  Sandawe (Wikipedia) Feedback: Email from Liam: Hi there, I recently just discovered the podcast, and I’m in love! I’ve been toying with creating languages for my own RPG and fiction writing, but never knew how deeply and completely the subject went. Anyway, I started listening, and one thing I quickly discovered, is that my grasp on grammar terms is significantly lacking. I know the basics every 7th-grader should know (I’m, er, a bit older than that…) but so much of what I hear you discuss go way beyond what I ever encountered, even, if I recall, my undergrad English classes! So, my question: is there or are there any books that you would recommend for someone who is needing both a refreshing on general English grammar and, especially, advanced grammar? Especially something that would be helpful for the self-taught, and would help as a basis for then exploring constructed languages? I appreciate any suggestions! Thanks, and thanks for the fascinating podcasts! (The animus-based sentence structure portion of one ‘cast blew me away!) Liam W (reply) Some links to help you along Wikipedia index of linguistic articles The Language Construction Kit Language Log

After a short update on rain in Wisconsin and ankle injuries, we try to make sense of the topic of topicalization and topic prominent languages.  Then we talk about Talmit, a language created by active Conlangery listener and commenter Roman Rausch Top of Show Greeting: Grewa Resources: Nice paper on topicalization Featured Conlang: Talmit (LCC talk, pdf grammar, more stuff) Feedback: Email from Alex: Hey everyone, my name’s Alex and I’m a conlanger and regular watcher of your podcast (which, I adore, by the way) and I had a question. I’m making a conlang, which isn’t ready to be seen by other humans eyes, but I’ve hit a bump. The language will be either OSV or OVS but the subject is often excluded due to the community of fictional speakers focus[ing] on what is done and who’s affected more than who preformed the action. My question is, is this a logical sentence structure? I don’t enough about exotic syntax and I want to make sure it’s not illogical. The language marks verbs for clusivity, number, and evidentiality. What do you think? Do you have any tips? Fare fairly. Alex