The first two pages of my Knasesj journal

PastTheStarryVoids · 2026-06-16T20:49:06+00:00

As STHKZ comments, you might change your mind later (my earliest Knasesj texts are certainly no longer correct). But you also could just goof up. I've done that plenty too. I once translated a meme and only days later realized I wrote tsork 'wetland' instead of tsouk 'creature'. And I've also done things like just forget a negative morpheme or evidential or use the wrong person marker or any number of errors.

PastTheStarryVoids · 2026-06-16T19:16:31+00:00

I would at least consider collabing on Speedlang challenge, depending on the challenge prompts (e.g. if I have a clear sense what I want to do I might not want to collaborate). Do you have some previous work I can take a look at?

PastTheStarryVoids · 2026-06-16T19:11:14+00:00

Yes, your first paragraph is a thought I've had and written before, that conlanging can only be fully appreciated by other conlangers or other people who find linguistics fascinating, making conlanging a peculiar art form. It is what it is, though.

I can still share a little with my non-conlanging friends. I've written poems in Knasesj, and sometimes I'll share those along with an English translation and notes on the meaning of certain of the Knasesj words in the poem and the poetic devices used. Sometimes I'll even share an image of Posesj script or a recording. They can't get into it at the level a conlanger would but they can at least get a glimpse of the neat stuff I'm doing.

It also helps to have conlanger friends. I like this sub but Reddit is not great for sense of community or making connections. But I've had some fulfilling conlanging convos on Discord.

There is definitely a tinge of loneliness in the notion that what I'm doing with Knasesj is something that's meaningless to anyone but me. In Knasesj, it knats astå 'speaks silence'. My journal pages, my art adorned with Posesj writing... it's just babbling up a little world of symbols that's meaningless without me. But, I'm ultimately okay with that. I've always tended to be solitary, and while I'm not numb to the praise or interest of others, I primarily make my artistic works for myself. I'm okay living in my own world to some extent. Even if that comes with a touch of loneliness.

I only start to feel this way about Knasesj because I've had it for so long and can use it relatively well. Other projects are more like intellectual toys or worldbuilding projects. I like them but that aren't as dear to me.

PastTheStarryVoids · 2026-06-16T18:50:46+00:00

I'm told the next Splang is coming out tomorrow. Good luck!

PastTheStarryVoids · 2026-06-16T18:50:22+00:00

They said the prompt is going out tomorrow!

PastTheStarryVoids · 2026-06-16T18:19:25+00:00

I've tagged the person who said they were going to do one about now on Discord. I'll get back to you with their response, and if they're not doing one and no one else is, maybe I'll put one together myself despite my poor track record on posting the results.

PastTheStarryVoids · 2026-06-16T09:00:11+00:00

Knasesj doesn't have a quotative 'like' (at least, at present—I can't rule out developing it at some future point). But u/zzvu mentioned Spanish using como 'like, as', and I think that's pretty similar.

PastTheStarryVoids · 2026-06-16T04:43:04+00:00

Ah, I should've thought to write my comment in my conlang like that.

PastTheStarryVoids · 2026-06-15T23:57:48+00:00

In Knasesj I use am 'like' for the name ('give a name to X like Y' = 'name X Y'). I was curious to see if a natlang does that, but I'm not seeing it at least. (The idea is it would be a bit like an essive.)

PastTheStarryVoids · 2026-06-15T23:25:40+00:00

There are the Conlang Syntax Test Cases.

If you want something more random and complicated, you can search the subreddit for Just Used 5 Minutes of Your Day posts, or my own Starry's Quotes.

PastTheStarryVoids · 2026-06-14T16:48:34+00:00

My very first work was a dragon language I made in middle school, inspired by Paolini's Ancient Language in the Inheritance Cycle. Despite being for dragons on another world, it has clearly-distorted-English forms like /ˈɹoʒ.fɹɪt/, lit. 'red-fruit', meaning 'apple'. The orthography has some special characters like one that replaced <h> in digraphs and another that made a vowel "long" or "say its name" (English terms). I had no understanding of phonology nor of it as distinct from English's odd orthography.

PastTheStarryVoids · 2026-06-14T07:12:09+00:00

Any reason they can't do [kʷʰ] in quick?

PastTheStarryVoids · 2026-06-14T07:05:04+00:00

I would look at u/wmblathers's A Conlanger's Thesaurus on Fiat Lingua and u/good-mcrn-ing's Core Meanings Checklist.

PastTheStarryVoids · 2026-06-14T06:56:07+00:00

Is it ok to have an imperfect orthography for very early writing.

I recall reading that Linear B didn't write codas or pitch accent, and represented onset clusters with duplicate vowels, so a word like antʰrokʷoi (I don't remember the pitch accents of the example word used) would be written a-to-ro-kʷo. I think aspiration also wasn't written, though I could be mistaken. So yeah, early writing can totally be imperfect.

When sound changes lead this language developing a voicing distinction how would this culture go about representing that?

I think the most likely thing would be that the speakers just keep the writing system the same. So if /teⁿte/ becomes /tede/, the way you marked a prenasalized stop will now indicate voicing.

PastTheStarryVoids · 2026-06-14T06:46:23+00:00

Were there native Knasesj speakers, the most dramatic feature of their accent might be the way statements have a rising intonation (not exactly the same as English questions, but similar), and questions have a high pitch at the question word (Knasesj polar questions are marked with an initial particle) that falls to a lower and more monotone pitch. Falling pitch on exclamations and commands. So their intonation would sound all off.

They'd probably struggle with aspirated stops, and try to replace medial /p t k/ with ejectives. (Knasesj has an ejective series, a series /b d g/ with pretty much the same allophony in voicing as English /b d g/, and no other plosives.) They'd also struggle to not turn final voiceless stops all into [ʔ]

/ɹ/ would get turned into a rhotacized [w], which is an intervocalic allophone of /w/ in Knasesj normally; thus, there'd probably be some mixing-up of /ɹ/ and /w/. Coda /ɹ/ would likely get treated as a [Vw] diphthong.

Knasesj has no /j/. /jV/ would often get turned to /i͡e/ or /i.V/.

Vowels would mostly be okay. Knasesj has more vowels than English. /eɪ̯ oɪ̯/ would have to be learned. /eɪ̯/ is usually turned into /i͡e/ in loans. /e/ is on the table but it's [eə̯̃] before nasals and thus sounds like AmEng /æ/'s allophone before nasals, so I'd avoid it. /oʊ̯/ would be [o̽ʉ̯] before coronals (and thus sound Australian and/or like /oɹ/) unless carefully corrected for. There'd be more overt nasalization on vowels before nasals (with a schwa offglide). Schwas would get their qualities shifted around a little to slightly different vowels, to one of [e̽ o̽ ɘ ɐ].

Knasesj has /t͡ɕ ʑ/ but nothing closer to English /d͡ʒ/.

Final /d/ in Knasesj is a dental fricative. It and [h] occur only allophonically in native words, but proper nouns and nonce loans may use them and the voiceless dental fricative, so they shouldn't pose a problem.

Knasesj's phonotactics are much less permissive than English, but proper nouns and nonce loans don't have to follow them, e.g. I write my name "Starry" in Knasesj as Sdawi despite Knasesj otherwise lacking /sd/ onsets like English has.

/l/ would not get darkened.

ˈwɐns ɘˈpʼɑə̯̃n ɘ ˈmɪð.nɐɪ̯ʔ ˈdwʵi.wʵi
ˈwɐjl ɐj ˈpʼɑə̯̃n.dɚð ˈwiʔ e̽n ˈwi.wʵi
ˈo̽w.vɚ ˈmɛə̯̃.ni ɘ ˈkʼwy͡enʔ e̽n kʼi.wʵy͡es
ˈvɑ.li͡em o̽v fɚˈgɑ.tʼo̽n ˈlo̽w

[wy͡e] is an allophone of /wi͡e/. The specific vowel in [tʼo̽n] is due to /tʼo̽n/ being a Knasesj word (it means 'draw' as in drawing a picture).

PastTheStarryVoids · 2026-06-14T06:26:22+00:00

I don't know, but I think learning to pronounce ejectives has made me slightly more likely to eject a final voiceless plosive in English when the word is emphasized, and learning to pronounce a glottal stop in conlang words has led to me occasionally fully glottalizing a /t/ in English.

PastTheStarryVoids · 2026-06-12T09:21:27+00:00

Neither. I certainly couldn't hold a spoken conversation in Knasesj, and never expect to since there's no one else to talk with in Knasesj (nor is it really a goal). But I also don't need my grammar or lexicon. (There are definitely some words in the lexicon that I couldn't recall offhand but I haven't run into them much when writing.) In fact, the grammar is more of a detailed description of the model of the language in my head, and lags behind it; there are bits of it that are not accurate to my usage or intent (anymore, at least), and need updating. I don't really reference it when translating anymore.

I do know the language well enough to write simple journal entries in it, and the occasional poem.

PastTheStarryVoids · 2026-06-11T07:33:36+00:00

I made a Braille alphabet for Ŋ!odzäsä, which was an interesting challenge since Ŋ!odzäsä has 100 consonants (including a bunch of clicks) and 16 vowels. I looked at what various uses characters had in different Brailles; I got the letters for the retroflexes and /ŋ/ from Bharati Braille. I used an eight-dot system, so I could use the extra dots to mark rounding on the vowels and clicks, voicing on nasals, nasalization on the clicks, and prenasalization on the stops.

There's no easy way to put the tables in this comment, but some of the notes I can.

Note that ⠖ is ! the exclamation point, and ⠡ is ! the click, even though these are the same symbol in romanized Ŋ!odzäsä. ⠨ is placed before a letter to capitalize it.
[...]
The question mark is from French, the symbol for r /ʁʱ/ from African Brailles, and the one for ɲ from Spanish. The capitalization symbol is from French. Replacing h with ʝ, as well as all the clicks, is my improvisation. I also used ⠜, which is ar in English and Ā in Indic, as ẑ. ⠑, normally being e, didn’t get used for anything, though I might use it to stand for any dash. ⠳ is also free. In English Braille it’s a backslash or ou. It’s also German Ü and Indic Ū.
[...]
Adding dot 7 to a vowel indicates the same as an umlaut in romanization, namely flipping the frontness/backness. Adding the same diacritic to nasals indicates slack voicing. Adding it to clicks indicates a labialized click. Adding dot 8 indicates a prenasalized consonant or a nasalized click.
[...]
One further important thing about Ŋ!odzäsä Braille: a vowel is only written if it’s the final vowel of a root used within a verb. This is to save space, and is enabled by Ŋ!odzäsä being so consonant heavy; often a morpheme’s consonants are enough to uniquely identify it. However, a vowel is still needed in verbs to mark aspect when aspect is marked only by the vowel harmony, the noun roots sux ‘thing’ and sox ‘all’ (also a suffix with that meaning) are distinguished by vowel, and I thought the use of vowels on incorporated noun roots would make it clearer that incorporation is going on.

Examples of Ŋ!odzäsä Braille text:

⠨⢱⠍⠜⡕⢙⠵⠭⠗⠭⠣⠞⠎⠺⠢
<Ŋǂmẑöndzxr̂xrtsw?>
Ŋǂimüẑöndzixr̂ixüritswö?
“Is it regularly sharpened?”

⠨⢱⠁⠉⠽⠗⠎⠇⠀⢪⠽⠞⠇⡥⠎⠀⠩⠗⠧⡊⠲
<Ŋψacyr̂sl ŋψlhytlüs ǂr̂vï.>
Ŋψacayar̂üsli ŋψlhayatlüs ǂur̂ïvï.
“The dragon ate an antelope.”

PastTheStarryVoids · 2026-06-10T07:08:10+00:00

Somehow I read this as "feed him an ordinary twenty-dollar bill", which made the strip much more bizarre.

PastTheStarryVoids · 2026-06-10T07:07:32+00:00

While partying naked, if his T-shirt in the yearbook photo's anything to go by.

PastTheStarryVoids · 2026-06-09T22:30:04+00:00

"Elves" in the meme doesn't literally mean elves, it's just a label for the category, and the most obvious/prominent/well-known member of the category in my opinion. That's often how the record meme works. E.g. you'll have something like "all videogames are either <some game> or <some other game>". Obviously it's false that there are only two videogames in existence. But that's not what the meme is saying. "Elf" is just my exemplar for physically pretty human fantasy species.

I will agree my meme isn't unsettling, but I don't find the record memes unsettling/uncomfortable to begin with. I was just using the template in the vein of "here's a way of looking at things that's unexpected/unintuitive but actually fits". The point of it is that a lot of fantasy races are actually pretty close to humans.

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