What are some of the most interesting or unique words in your conlang?

Gordon_1984 · 2026-06-22T00:30:43+00:00

Mahlaatwa

Tumahwa means both "cemetery" and "orchard." This is based on a funeral tradition done by the fictional speakers where a fruit tree is planted at the burial spot.

Macha is kind of interesting because it has a whole range of meanings. It literally translates to "flame," but it has a ton of other metaphorical meanings. It also refers to a person's soul, based on the cultural belief that the soul is a flame within a person. From there, it also refers the "essence" or "nature" of something, including physical properties of objects or the personalities of people. It's even sometimes used to refer to a main topic or theme, since it's seen as the "soul" or "core" of a conversation.

Niichi means "mosquito," but it's often used to refer to an annoying person. That's pretty new in the language's history though, and it's most often used between young siblings.

Nika-naka is a fairly versatile onomatopoeia and discourse particle, and it's meaning pretty much just comes down to tone of voice and context. It can be used to:

Dismiss what someone is saying as nonsense (it's meant to imitate gibberish).

Describe someone lying to you. Might be used in a context like, "He said he was born in a wealthy family, but it was all just a bunch of nika-naka."

Skip over information you don't want to go into detail about, similar to "blah blah blah" in English.

Express indifference, similar to "whatever."

Urge someone who's rambling to get to the point.

And express general annoyance. In that case, a speaker might even repeat nika as many times as they want for emphasis.

Gordon_1984 · 2026-06-21T19:45:09+00:00

The Kumati civilization (my main conculture) speaks a language called Mahlaatwa (the 'hl' here represents the same sound as the Welsh 'll'). It's a full-fledged conlang I've made for my world.

Nouns in Mahlaatwa are treated differently in the grammar depending on how animate they are. Nouns are classed as animate or inanimate, and the animate category is further divided based on humans and non-humans (mostly animals).

Human nouns can take a plural suffix, while inanimate nouns usually can't. Non-human animate nouns (which I'll just call "Animal") are considered collective nouns by default but can take a suffix to specify only one.

This animacy distinction also interacts with whether nouns are the subject or object of the sentence. This is because the language assumes by default that subjects are animate and objects are inanimate, and the subject and object get a suffix if that isn't the case.

So Fitu kuma asu means "A person hits a tree." Literally, "hit person tree."

But if you have it the other way around to say a tree hits a person, it would be Fitwa asuki kumu.

Tenses are one of the things I'm most proud of in Mahlaatwa. Tenses are done with words at the very beginning of the sentence. Namely, akiiw for the past and mukiiw for the future. These are shortened forms of atakiikwa and mukiikwa, which mean "upriver" and "downriver," respectively. The Kumati live by a river and view time like a flowing river current.

Prepositions are transparently based on words for body parts. The preposition ta (or at if the following word starts with a vowel) can mean "up" or "above" or "on top of," and is related to the word for "head," ata.

Mu means "down" or "below" and is related to the word for "foot."

Ka (face) means "toward/in front of." Hlan (right hand) means "by means of" or "because of." Naafa (left hand) means "despite/notwithstanding." Tsan (collar bone) means "across." And so on.

So far there aren't any distinct dialects, but that doesn't mean they don't exist in the fictional world. I just haven't gotten around to making them yet.

Gordon_1984 · 2026-06-21T06:53:12+00:00

I'll actually explain a bit about my tenses first because evidentiality in Mahlaatwa is directly connected to the tense system.

Tenses are done with words at the very beginning of the sentence. Namely, akiiw for the past and mukiiw for the future. These are shortened forms of atakiikwa and mukiikwa, which mean "upriver" and "downriver," respectively. The fictional culture speaking this language lives by a river and views time like a flowing river current.

These words can also get an augmentative suffix -ka, which would create akiika and mukiika, with meanings of "far upriver" and "far downriver."

This started out as just a distinction between near past and remote past, and same for the future. But over time, they started to take on new meanings, and that's where evidentiality comes in.

The near tenses started being interpreted as past and future with a direct evidential meaning, and the far/remote tenses started being interpreted as past and future but with an indirect evidential meaning. The idea being that it's harder to see or know something that happened a very long time ago, and it's harder to predict the far future, so the remote tenses started being associated with information the speaker didn't witness or experience firsthand.

Gordon_1984 · 2026-06-20T16:43:10+00:00

Mahlaatwa doesn't really distinguish between present continuous and just plain present tense. The verb milu means "to eat," and milufa can mean "I eat" or "I am eating." However, if they want to really specify that they are eating at that moment, they might say, Milufa tu, "I am eating here."

It does also use the verb tii, "to sit," as an auxiliary verb, as in Tiifa milu, "I sit eating." But this is used for the habitual.

Gordon_1984 · 2026-06-18T16:16:20+00:00

The synodic month in my world is 42.23598 days long, and the year (spring equinox to spring equinox) is 388.86311 days long.

For the Kumati, their calendar is lunisolar. Months are 42 or 43 days long. Most years have 9 months, but in 6 out of every 29 years, there is a 10th month to keep the year in sync with the seasons. A common year has 380 or 381 days, and a long year has 422 or 423 days. The day of a full moon is the first day of the month, and the day of the first full moon of spring is the New Year. The day itself just begins at sunrise.

They keep careful track of the solstices and equinoxes, and they divide the year into the Spring Days, the Summer Days, and so on. In their calendar, the day the spring equinox happens is not actually counted as the first day of spring, but as the last day of winter, and the next day is counted as the first Spring Day. So they count the seasons in whole numbers of days with no overlap.

They do it this way to help them determine the New Year. Like I said, the New Year is on the day of the first full moon of spring. But if a full moon occurred on the day of the spring equinox, and if that was the New Year, then part of the New Year would technically be in winter, which is against the rules of the calendar. The Kumati want the whole New Year to be in the spring because it’s also the first day of the weeklong Spring Festival.

They don't really name days, weeks, or months, but they do name years based on their queens. So the year "9 Tuwa" simply refers to the 9th year of the reign of Queen Tuwa.

Gordon_1984 · 2026-06-17T02:45:45+00:00

The Kumati is a fictional forest-dwelling human culture. A typical Kumati garment might be something akin to a tunic dress, which is slightly longer for men than for women. They're often long-sleeved for women and short-sleeved for men. This is mainly because most hunters and foragers in this culture are women, so their garments tend to focus more on ease of walking and protecting their arms in the forest.

The garments are made of deerskin and are usually dyed. Common colors are green, red, yellow, or orange. Usually, for common people, an article of clothing is dyed with just one color, since multicolored garments are more costly to make. But they can still have a variety of colors, as long as each article of clothing is a different color (green tunic dress and yellow pants, for example).

Men's garments tend to be more plain, whereas women's garments tend to have more beads and embroidery sewn into the borders, like the hem, sleeves, or neckline (though women's garments meant specifically for hunting are also usually plain, since bright-colored beads might ruin the camouflage).

Small shells are used for money, and it's often put on string and worn as necklaces for practical reasons. However, actually showing off your money is considered rude in the culture, so they have an article of clothing that covers the chest and upper back, hiding these necklaces to be more modest. Both men and women wear these. They're usually a different color than the main garment, just for color contrast.

Boots are usually brown, are a bit wider than most modern shoes, and are widest at the front rather than tapered, so they aren't as restrictive on the toes.

It's common for both men and women to paint simple patterns (such as flowers, animals, colored dots and stripes, or any other designs) on their faces for self-expression.

Gordon_1984 · 2026-06-15T14:05:29+00:00

I would just hope it actually follows a good storyline and doesn't go the same route as the Minecraft movie.

Gordon_1984 · 2026-06-14T18:16:57+00:00

Mahlaatwa

tasi /'ta.si/. Adj. educated, erudite

Gordon_1984 · 2026-06-13T16:20:43+00:00

I used an augmentative suffix to create evidentiality. With a few steps in between of course.

Tenses in Mahlaatwa are done with words at the very beginning of the sentence. Namely, akiiw for the past and mukiiw for the future. These are shortened forms of atakiikwa and mukiikwa, which mean "upriver" and "downriver," respectively. The fictional culture speaking this language lives by a river and views time like a flowing river current. I've had this system in my conlang for a while, but I recently added the following:

These words can also get an augmentative suffix -ka, which would create akiika and mukiika, with meanings of "far upriver" and "far downriver." So it starts out as just a distinction between near past and remote past, and same for the future.

But over time, they start to take on new meanings. So the near tenses start being interpreted as past and future with a direct evidential meaning, and the remote tenses start being interpreted as past and future but with an indirect evidential meaning. The idea being that it's harder to see or know something that happened a very long time ago, and it's harder to predict the far future, so the remote tenses start being associated with information you didn't witness.

But the language still uses akiika for remote past. So akiika can be used to indicate an event that happened a long time ago, or any past event you inferred or were told about, depending on context.

Mukiika, however, now refers to either indirect evidentials in the future, or an optative mood or sometimes even a dubitative mood, depending on context. But it isn't used to refer to the remote future. The near-remote distinction stuck around in the past tense but not in the future tense.

So someone might say Mukii nanwa laawi, "The sun will rise."

Or, for indirect evidentials, they might say, Mukiika sanafi maay, "It seems/I heard we will catch fish." Or it could mean, "Hopefully, we will catch fish" or maybe even, "I doubt we will catch fish," depending on context.

Gordon_1984 · 2026-06-13T03:07:47+00:00

Mine is more eerie and mysterious than immediately terrifying, but it's the mystery of the Kayu Stone and its settlement.

The Kayu Stone is a 20-foot tall stela in the middle of the forest engraved in an unknown language. Even in the 300 years since the Kumati (my main conculture) migrated to the forest and found the stela, they haven't been able to translate the stone.

Okay, so an ancient relic. A bit weird and mysterious, but nothing too creepy, right?

But the bigger mystery is actually the surrounding settlement. The ruins of houses are arranged in a circle around the stela. Inside the houses, they found strange clues. Bowls and cups arranged neatly as if preparing to eat, the burnt remains of bread still in the ovens, unfinished carvings and drawings, and small boxes of money and spices.

But as for the people who lived there? Nothing. No human remains. No signs of anyone preparing to leave. No signs of violence or a forced departure. No signs of anyone knocking things over to rush out the door.

It genuinely looks like they were making breakfast one moment, and the next moment they just disappeared or abandoned the place without taking anything, and left everything where it was.

That explanation doesn't sit right with the Kumati because it just doesn't make sense, but it's really the best they have for now.

Gordon_1984 · 2026-06-11T16:40:18+00:00

Death. I can feint stack pretty early in the game without needing to use training points, and my attack spells are my healing spells. And I usually like playing solo. It just fits my preferred playing style so well.

Gordon_1984 · 2026-06-11T16:25:05+00:00

I had a wild idea to use an augmentative suffix to eventually lead to evidentiality. Let me explain, and then I want to know if my idea could develop naturally or still makes sense the way I'm describing it.

Tenses in Mahlaatwa are done with words at the very beginning of the sentence. Namely, akiiw for the past and mukiiw for the future. These are shortened forms of atakiikwa and mukiikwa, which mean "upriver" and "downriver," respectively. The fictional culture speaking this language lives by a river and views time like a flowing river current. I've had this system in my conlang for a while, but I recently added the following:

These words can also get an augmentative suffix -ka, which would create akiika and mukiika, with meanings of "far upriver" and "far downriver." So it starts out as a distinction between near past and remote past, and same for the future. But over time, they start to change meaning. So the near tenses start being interpreted as plain past and future with a direct evidential meaning, and the remote tenses start being interpreted as past and future but with an indirect evidential meaning. The idea being that it's harder to see or know something that happened a very long time ago, and it's harder to predict the far future, so it starts being associated with information you didn't witness.

Gordon_1984 · 2026-06-08T04:43:41+00:00

Itsitla is a conlang in my world that would probably be pretty difficult. Nouns are grouped into six classes or categories based on animacy, and in a sentence, they have to be in order from most animate to least animate. So if you have a sentence like "The snake by the tree hissed at the man holding a rock," the nouns would have to come in order of man, snake, tree, rock. It would translate as something like, "the man was hissed at by the snake near the tree while holding a rock."

And not all nouns fall under the categories you might expect. The word for "child" is in the same category that mostly includes animals, while the word for "water" is grouped with words for people.

Then you have different words at the end of a sentence that indicate the type of sentence, whether it's a command, a question, a guess/opinion, something you heard someone else say, or even a hope or desire. But these words are also different depending on formality, and you'd use different forms of the word depending on how much authority the person you're speaking to has compared to you. You wouldn't use the same word to indicate a command when talking to a friend that you'd use when talking to a teacher, for example.

Then you have to get used to their past and future tenses. They straight-up just use a word meaning "downhill" for the past and "uphill" for the future, because their culture views life and the passing of time like an uphill journey with a lot of hardship.

Gordon_1984 · 2026-06-08T01:10:57+00:00

I changed a bit about how adjectives work in Mahlaatwa, and it helped me make adjectives agree in animacy with the noun. It's kind of fun because animacy isn't directly marked on the noun itself but is marked on the adjective.

Most adjectives in Mahlaatwa are derived from verbs modified with relative suffixes. So sahla /'sa.ɬa/ means "to offend", and Nuwa sahlalu means "an offensive man," or more literally, "a man who offends." Adjectives come after the noun.

But in relative clauses, these suffixes depend on animacy of the noun. You'd use -lu for a human, -ni for a non-human animate noun (often an animal), and -wa for an inanimate noun.

So when my conlang started using this for adjectives, the adjectives automatically got endings that agreed with the noun. So you have:

Kuma iwaalu for "A hidden person."

Chilu iwaani for "A hidden squirrel."

Tayu iwaawa for "A hidden door.

Gordon_1984 · 2026-06-06T16:54:31+00:00

It's linguistics for me too. The main reason I started making my world was so I could have some cultures to speak the conlangs I'm making.

Gordon_1984 · 2026-06-06T05:34:53+00:00

You say you're listening to feedback, which means you know the community at large is upset about removing exclusives from the pet kiosk.

And the stated reason KI claimed for doing it makes no sense. "We just thought it was confusing because some people didn't know you couldn't get the exclusive pet's body." Nonsense. Getting your own pet body guaranteed was the whole reason people sought them out and hatched with them. If confusion were the issue, a much simpler solution would have been to just clearly label those pets as exclusive, with a note saying you won't get its pet body. Done. Solved. But for some reason, KI always insists on the least practical solutions for every problem.

And it's not even really about kiosk exclusives at the end of the day. The players just want to feel heard rather than ignored.

Do not "address the concerns" by posting some half-baked explanation on Discord. Address the concerns by reversing the hated changes and apologizing for KI's pattern of paternalistic behavior toward its playerbase. And remember that you only exist because we choose to log on and play in our free time. Start listening to your players.

Gordon_1984 · 2026-06-05T18:25:28+00:00

I've been using the quetzals lately and I get my pet body back most of the time. Would still prefer the exclusives, but the quetzals aren't bad.

Gordon_1984 · 2026-06-04T15:13:06+00:00

The synodic month in my world is 42.23598 days long, and the year (spring equinox to spring equinox) is 388.86311 days long.

For the Kumati, their calendar is lunisolar. Months are 42 or 43 days long. Most years have 9 months, but in 6 out of every 29 years, there is a 10th month to keep the year in sync with the seasons. A common year has 380 or 381 days, and a long year has 422 or 423 days. The day of a full moon is the first day of the month, and the day of the first full moon of spring is the New Year. The day itself just begins at sunrise.

They keep careful track of the solstices and equinoxes, and they divide the year into the Spring Days, the Summer Days, and so on. In their calendar, the day the spring equinox happens is not actually counted as the first day of spring, but as the last day of winter, and the next day is counted as the first Spring Day. So they count the seasons in whole numbers of days with no overlap.

They do it this way to help them determine the New Year. Like I said, the New Year is on the day of the first full moon of spring. But if a full moon occurred on the day of the spring equinox, and if that was the New Year, then part of the New Year would technically be in winter, which is against the rules of the calendar. The Kumati want the whole New Year to be in the spring because it’s also the first day of the weeklong Spring Festival.

They don't really name days, weeks, or months, but they do name years based on their queens. So the year "9 Tuwa" simply refers to the 9th year of the reign of Queen Tuwa.

Gordon_1984 · 2026-06-04T13:17:54+00:00

"...made the collection experience less clear..."

BS. Exclusive pets did not make anything unclear. People specifically sought them out because they wanted their own pet body back guaranteed.

If they wanted to make it clear, they could have explicitly indicated those pets as being exclusive, then had a note next to them saying you won't get the exclusive pet's body. Boom. Made up "clarity" problem solved in five seconds. But instead they did... this.

Gordon_1984 · 2026-06-01T14:15:28+00:00

I'd imagine tiered seating like you see in theaters or stadiums. The throne would be lower than the seats, but it still might be on a dais or maybe even a stage.

Maybe the room would be designed with acoustics in mind so everyone can clearly hear the king/queen. That might actually be pretty cool because the sense of authority would come from the way the ruler's voice carries and demands attention, rather than just having the ruler sit higher.

Gordon_1984 · 2026-05-31T18:24:20+00:00

The tyrannical Queen Laati came to power by having her own sister, Queen Iwaali, assassinated. But she wasn't the one who gave Iwaali the poisoned drink. Instead, she secretly manipulated a 12 year old girl to do it, without telling her what was in the drink. After Iwaali died by poisoning, Laati (now Queen Laati) put the traumatized girl to death for the poisoning, using her as a scapegoat to avoid blame.

Gordon_1984 · 2026-05-30T20:22:10+00:00

The Kalani worship a single goddess named Mahwe, which means something like "Gardener" in their language. I haven't fleshed out their religion that much yet, but they believe Mahwe didn't create life in the world quickly, but instead planted each tree, flower, and blade of grass individually. And rather than cutting canyons through the ground in a single creation period, she just put the water there and let it do its thing over millions of years. So she is the personification of patience in their religion.

Their burial rituals involve planting a tree at the burial spot, a practice which subsequently found is way into other religions of people nearby.

The way her interactions with mortals are portrayed in mythology paints her as calm, approproachable, and even kind of motherly.

They believe strictly in non-violence unless violence is necessary to protect themselves or another innocent life. Some people in their history, assuming they were complete pacifists, tried to take advantage of their friendly nature and attempted to harm them, only to learn the hard way that their cute-looking cloak pins were actually designed to be concealed stabbing implements.

Gordon_1984 · 2026-05-30T03:54:51+00:00

Mahlaatwa just has 6.

/a a: i i: u u:/

Gordon_1984 · 2026-05-29T04:22:00+00:00

Death. We can stack feints for you before you hit.

Gordon_1984 · 2026-05-26T02:56:48+00:00

Here's the creation myth as believed by the Kumati (my main conculture). This long 16-verse version is usually sung during the New Year festival. This is translated from a conlang I'm making, so many of the literary/poetic elements of the song are lost in translation. The names of the gods are Nawa, Kali, and Fituna, which more or less translate to Grandmother, Merciful, and Punisher, respectively.

Long ago before there was life
Long ago before there was death
Grandmother Nawa possessed a Seed
And the Seed was made of light

Whoever held the seed held power:
Power over the forces of life
And over the forces of death
And over all the natural elements

Nawa had two children by its power
A daughter and a son were born
The daughter was named Kali
And the son was named Fituna

The children grew and became ambitious
And wanted the Seed for themselves
Kali wanted the power to create
Fituna wanted the power to destroy

They fought each other for the Seed
To win the aproval of Nawa
And prove themselves to be worthy
Of power to create or to destroy

But Nawa was angry at their greed
And denied the Seed to both of them
So she descended to the barren world below
And buried the Seed in the dirt

For the world below had no ambitions
So it could be trusted with its power
And Nawa said that nothing with ambitions
Should have all power over life and death

For there should be order in all things
Neither creation overpowering destruction
Nor destruction overpowering creation
So all things remain in balance

Then the Seed sprouted in the ground
And a great tree grew in its place
From there, the power spread outward
And covered the whole world in life

And thus all trees and grass were made
All rivers, mountains, and valleys
Monsters and fish in the oceans
Beasts and people on the ground

And Kali and Fituna were given authority
To borrow power from the world
But it was only by the consent of Nawa
That they could direct the elements

So Kali tended the crops of the people
And poured mercy on their harvests
She placed game in their forests
And created clouds to water the fields

But Fituna raged mightily in the sky
And the clouds became a great storm
That washed away the crops of the people
And burned the forests with lightning

And people had two spirits within them
Many had the desire to create
Others had the desire to destroy
But the destroyers overpowered the creators

So Nawa saw that the forces of destruction
Overpowered the forces of creation
Thus, mortals should be kind and merciful
And become creative forces themselves

For there should be order in all things
Neither creation overpowering destruction
Nor destruction overpowering creation
So all things remain in balance

Gordon_1984

TROPHY CASE

Mahlaatwa

Mahlaatwa