Conlangery Podcast

Today we bring on Cecil Garvin to talk about Hoocąk a Siouan language still spoken in Wisconsin and on the Winnebago Reservation in Nebraska. Top of Show Greeting: Ulazradũn Links and Resources Hocąk Waziija Haci Language Division (some recordings there) Hoocąk hįįt’ekjawi (still waiting to hear if we can share this) Hocąk Teaching Materials (Volume 1, 2 — cheaper on Google Play: 1, 2)

This month we talk about grammatical number. What number distinctions can you make for a language (beyond singular and plural)? What do you mark for number? And how does number interact with agreement and other grammatical systems? We’ll help you with all of that. Top of Show Greeting: Classical Latin (translated and read by Nicholas Duharte) Links and Resources Baerman, Matthew and Dunstan Brown (2013) Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking. In: Dryer, Matthew S. & Haspelmath, Martin (eds.) The World Atlas of Language Structures Online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology Corbett, Greville (2000) Number. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Daniel, Michael (2013) Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns. In: Dryer, Matthew S. & Haspelmath, Martin (eds.) Daniel, Michael and Edith Moravcsik (2013) The Associative Plural. In: Dryer, Matthew S. & Haspelmath, Martin (eds.) Dixon, Robert (2012) Basic Linguistic Theory Volume 3: Further Grammatical Topics. Oxford University Press Yazzie, Helen Yellowman et al. (2000) Da: The Navajo distributive plural preverb. Diné Bizaad Naalkaah: Navajo Language Investigations, Working papers on endangered and less familiar languages, 3, 141-160

We welcome Matt Boutilier on to talk about Old Irish, from the destruction of verb roots due to initial stress, to how you can incorporate initial mutations into a language. Special mention: George recommends the show Cleverman. Nothing to do with this episode, it’s just good. Top of show greeting: Dubarne /du’barnə/ Links and Resources Ogham writing system Old Irish on Wikipedia O’Connell, F. W. (1912) A Grammar of Old Irish. Belfast: Mayne, Boyd & son, ltd Lehmann, R. M., & Lehmann, W. P. (1975). Old Irish: An Introduction. New Yord: Modern Language Stifter, D. (2006). Sengoidelc: Old Irish for beginners. Syracuse University Press. [William’s recommendation]

Today we talk all about word-level stress systems, a part of your conlang that can be done in a few minutes or have you stressing for many days, weeks, or maybe months. It all comes down to what kind of stress system you go with. Top of Show Greeting: Modern Standard Arabic (translated and read by Aysar Aburrub) Links and Resources Dirk Elzinga’s post about feet Rob Goedemans, Harry van der Hulst (2013) Weight-Sensitive Stress. In Dryer, Matthew S. & Haspelmath, Martin (eds.) The World Atlas of Language Structures Online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Rob Goedemans, Harry van der Hulst (2013) Rhythm Types. In Dryer, Matthew S. & Haspelmath, Martin (eds.) The World Atlas of Language Structures Online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Revithiadou, Anthoula (1999) A Typology of Stress Systems. In Headmost Accent Wins: Head Dominance and Ideal Prosodic Form in Lexical Accent Systems, 11–39. Schiering, René, and Harry van der Hulst (2011) Word accent systems in the languages of Asia. In van der Hulst, H., Goedemans, R., & van Zanten, E. (Eds.)  A survey of word accentual patterns in the languages of the world. Walter de Gruyter. van der Hulst, Harry (2011) Word accent systems in the languages of Europe. In van der Hulst, H., Goedemans, R., & van Zanten, E. (Eds.)  A survey of word accentual patterns in the languages of the world. Walter de Gruyter. George’s Theory-Heavy Links Halle, Morris and William Idsardi (1994). General properties of stress and metrical structure. Language computations, ed. by Eric Sven Ristad, 37-69. Halle, Morris (1998) The Stress of English Words 1968–1998.” Linguistic Inquiry 29 (4)

William invites Ada Palmer on to talk about her new book Too Like the Lightning, which, while not so conlangy, uses language in interesting ways for world-building, including neologisms, unusual punctuation, and gratuitous Latin revivals. Links and Resources: Ada’s book on Amazon Or Barnes and Noble Ada’s Blog Ex Urbe

Today, we bring on Scott Hamilton and BenJamin P. Johnson to talk about Brooding, a language that both of them have worked on for the Riddlesbrood Touring Theater Company. Special Announcement: Britton’s film Conlanging is now crowdfunding on Indiegogo! Top of Show Greeting: Finnish (translate and recorded by Eric-Mickya Liwata) Links and Resources The Riddlesbrood Touring Theater Company Riddlesbrood Mysteries blog Riddlesbrood novel Riddlesbrood videos Brooding on Linguifex Brooding on ConWorkShop (script info)

We bring on our long time “frenemy” David Peterson to talk about Trigedasleng, the future English conlang he created for the CW show The 100. Top of Show Greeting: Noserliq (< q > = [ŋ]) Links and Resources: Trigedasleng.info David’s Tumblr answers Skaigedasleng Tumblr Memrise courses

This episode we talk all about adjectives, what you can do with them and how they fit into a language. Special Mention: Glow (2 days left on Kickstarter) Links and Resources Grune, D. (1995) Hopi Survey of an Uto-Aztecan Language.  Halling, P. H. (2012). Semantic Types and Prototypical Adjectives and Adverbs (“Dixon Specials” on page 6) Cuzzolin, P., & Lehmann, C. (2004) Comparison and gradation. Booij, G., Mugdan, J., SS, Lehmann, C.(eds.) Morphologie. Ein internationales Handbuch zur Flexion und Wortbiltung, 2, 1212-1220. Stassen, Leon. (2013) Comparative Constructions. In: Dryer, Matthew S. & Haspelmath, Martin (eds.) The World Atlas of Language Structures Online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology Salt, Mackenzie. (?) Morphological Sketch of Tagalog Hallonsten Halling, P. (2009) On the Universality and Variation of the Adjective Category. Teodorescu, A. (2006) Adjective ordering restrictions revisited. In Proceedings of the 25th west coast conference on formal linguistics (pp. 399-407). Stassen, Leon. (2013) Predicative Adjectives. In: Dryer, Matthew S. & Haspelmath, Martin (eds.) The World Atlas of Language Structures Online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Gil, David. (2013) Adjectives without Nouns. In: Dryer, Matthew S. & Haspelmath, Martin (eds.) The World Atlas of Language Structures Online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Adjectives, who needs ’em? Wikipedia on Spanish adjective placement

George brings on Sai, Christophe, and attorney Mark Randazza to talk about the LCS’s decision to file an amicus brief in Paramount v Axanar. Links and Resources: LCS press release (with links to press articles) Amicus brief (and exhibits) The Dentons legal memo The Visual Artists Rights Act (- Wiki — closest thing the US has to moral rights, not applicable to conlangs) Klingon Style Techno Llama (contains a discussion of the proper Klingon term for “intellectual property rights”)

This month we present you with a bunch of online linguistics databases to help get an idea of what possibilities there are for languages. Top of Show Greeting: Maruħani Links and Resources: WALS (general typology) APiCS (pidgin and creole typology) eWAVE (English dialects and English-based creoles) SSWL (syntactic typology) PBase (common phonological rules) PHOIBLE (phonological inventories) SAPhon (phonological inventories of South American languages) World Phonotactics Database A Survey of Some Vowel Systems A guide to small consonant inventories Index Diachronica (historical sound changes) ValPal (valency patterns) CLICS (polysemy) STEDT (polysemy in Sino-Tibetan languages) DatSemShifts (polysemy and semantic shifts)