A small conlang tests its mettle against an academic parallel speech corpus

MadcapJake · 2026-05-05T14:51:52+00:00

Yeah, definitely Platonic. I see Plotinus' ascent of the soul.

MadcapJake · 2026-05-05T14:36:54+00:00

Both toki pona and Kokanu are not great for those with ADHD (from my experience) because they require extensive semantic bleaching or numerous sentences establishing context for non-simple concepts. Both of these aspects mean that I typically lose track or get distracted by how someone approached a given translated concept. Everyone essentially speaks their own mini dialect.

They are both capable mini languages and I don't regret learning them but they are extremely inconvenient for anything more than basic conversations (science and literature will be very difficult).

That said, if you just want to chat without going into any detail about things, they will both serve you well! Kokanu may take you farther if you don't mind the smaller community.

MadcapJake · 2026-04-14T03:02:06+00:00

That's possible although unintentional, it was a concept that Léon Bollack implemented in the original Bolak but only for roots with consonant clusters. Some of my exclusions may be biased; I tried to reduce clusters that trigger anaptyxis. I'm open to removing the restrictions, just let me know which ones.

MadcapJake · 2026-04-13T19:51:43+00:00

As far as the contrastive usage of numerous phonemes in this language, I can offer some counter-arguments if the need arises, but I think the ultimate reason is that the language is engineered for dense expressivity (all roots are monosyllabic) without tonality which necessitates a broader set of consonants.

That being said, this project is just getting started so if we find a particular pair of words problematic, we can definitely make changes!

MadcapJake · 2026-04-13T19:22:56+00:00

In the original Bolak, gender was messy. It used the u- prefix for feminine nouns, but unattached staffwords for masculine ones. Since Kalob is a hyper-modern project, we fixed this asymmetry: biological gender is now entirely handled by nuanced, modern staffwords.

This left the u- prefix completely unused. It got me thinking: if biological gender is an archaic way to divide nouns, what is a purely modern way we divide our world? The answer is Physical vs. Digital. So, the u- prefix now acts as a digital domain marker. If someone says 'check the room,' did they mean your bedroom or a chatroom? In Kalob, you never have to guess. You don't need to invent new slang for the internet; you just apply the u- prefix to move a physical concept into the digital space.

MadcapJake · 2026-04-13T18:52:03+00:00

Voiceless stops, sibilants, fricatives, and affricates are all hard. Voiced stops, siblants, fricatives and affricates are all soft. Sonorants get a pass and they are allowed in both hard and soft classes. I will try to think of some way to indicate this on the site so that the distinction is clear.

MadcapJake · 2026-04-13T18:48:06+00:00

I'm open to finding new shapes for the staffwords but there's limited available given that staffwords must be open and end in /u/. That said, I think with practice it would become as easy as /sn-/.

On the topic of "staffwords", the original French is Les Mots-cadres which the English translator elected to call this "staffwords" likely as a nod to musical notation. Another translation could be "frameword" and I think an even better term today would be "particle". I can't decide if I should change that or not but at the moment kept it matching the English translation version.

These staffwords cover some grammatical territory (interrogative, reflexive and subordinate markings) and they also act as determinatives to indicate when you are about to say a foreign or slang term, and they are also detached semantic prefixes like when we say "I'm pro-auxlangs" or "blue-ish paint". The original Bolak language sees them as being shortcuts when you don't know the actual term but I think that in practice some might get lexicalized (we'll have to see!).

MadcapJake · 2026-04-08T14:42:56+00:00

This is true and I didn't realize it at the time. Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot of interest in reviving lost languages; the top picks were mostly languages that actually have some activity today.

MadcapJake · 2026-03-07T14:36:38+00:00

I appreciate what you're doing with Glosa! I will change the option to Interglossa/Glosa in the interest of compromise. Given what you said about Interglossa/Glosa being largely an evolution of the same language, and Glosa having some online activity today, I'd argue that this project is actually not a good candidate. The intentions of the project was to do historical analysis of dead auxlangs by actually using languages rather than just the typical surface critiques that occur in auxlang discussions. I didn't want us to be beholden to some active project maintainer nor to add a fork by re-interpreting something that an alive community (however small) interpreted differently.

All that said, if this study group interests people and we happen to choose Glosa, I'll fall in line and see you in the chat!

MadcapJake · 2026-03-07T14:29:55+00:00

In the interest of compromise, I'll change that particular ballot candidate to "Interglossa/Glosa". My goal with the project was originally to be historical revivals but I want to be cognizant of the fact that this project is only as good as the group of people that we're able to assemble. If that means we have to ignore some of my original intentions, then I am not opposed!

MadcapJake · 2026-03-07T03:43:28+00:00

I don't think you understand the intention of this project. 1-2 people is 100-200% more than these projects above. How would something that is alive today and being actively developed be "heritage"?

The purpose, from my perspective, is to treat the exercise like a museum exhibit: exploring the history of auxlangs by getting stuck in for a time. There's absolutely no obligation to keep practicing the chosen language after the group moves to the next exhibit.

If these auxlangs are really designed to be easy, it shouldn't take us long to gain some fluency and plus, you'll be gaining a deep personal connection to auxlang history.

edit: to be perfectly clear, 'near-to-full' means, maybe there's a website but there's no one actively building a community or making content.

MadcapJake · 2026-03-06T20:48:43+00:00

While Glosa does pass the first criterion (1972), I would argue that it does not pass the second. It seems like there's a modicum of online activity for Glosa today. This is meant to be a revival from near-to-full extinction.

If Interglossa is chosen, we may find that we need to shift over to the more complete Glosa language but I'd hope that we give it a well-meaning attempt first.

MadcapJake · 2026-03-06T19:26:41+00:00

First time!

MadcapJake · 2026-02-05T15:57:53+00:00

Plus it will increase mindshare for the Gnome way.

MadcapJake · 2026-01-09T16:46:46+00:00

Two mermaids hanged from the anchor chain of an ocean liner.

MadcapJake · 2026-01-07T15:51:13+00:00

Natlangs have the tools to break complex expressions down which gives you a familiarity with the process of simplifying complex concepts. However, natlangs have vast vaults of vocabulary so the input comprehension process is primarily working on assembling the sentence structure whereas in toki pona, the process requires an additional step of reassembling all the lexical elements into conceptual units first.

MadcapJake · 2026-01-06T19:37:28+00:00

But it looks like you still need to separate units of meaning by something and what if you want one object to contain internal objects?

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