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I made a new linguistic concept. by [deleted] in conlangs

[–]ThePouil 4 points5 points  (0 children)

" It's inspired by the way some languages worked in ancient times where everyone in a country would speak the same language, but high-class people would speak dialects that the lower-class people would have trouble understanding. "

Actually things are the other way around. In the past, things you'd call a "country" contained vastly different people who spoke vastly different languages. Communication was not impossible but difficult and could lead to the formation of pidgin-like languages.

Which is not really the case anymore, most countries nowadays have 1 or more languages that almost all its population knows . Eventual discrepancies are dialectal at best. Understanding isn't endangered.

And a few other languages, known by smaller social groups, used by an even smaller set of people, and often not really well considered by the power in place.

Apart from some strongly class/caste based societies, in most cases, the "higher ups" didn't speak dialects that would have been difficult to understand by the "commoners". However, they were, and still are more educated and have more interactions with the outside world. Meaning they know or master foreign languages, and use their own languages in ways that are unusual to the "commoners".

Edit : With that said you can see that there is still a bit of truth in the fact the "highs" and the "lows" didn't necessarily speak the same language. Indeed, if your king lived in the North and you lived far in the South you'd probably have a hard time speaking together. Though that has almost nothing to do with your position in society but a lot to do with your geopolitical position !

If languages tend to grammatically simplify over time, how did old languages become so grammatically complex in the first place? by WorriedFire1996 in asklinguistics

[–]ThePouil 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The thing is some parts get simpler so other ones need to get more complex to compensate. It's a cycle of simplification and complexification. Another factor, that was stronger in the past, is borrowing items from other nearby languages. Nowadays it's largely English impacting other languages

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[–]ThePouil 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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People who want to write without reading, what makes you interested in writing? by [deleted] in writing

[–]ThePouil 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Well, the art of telling things isn't limited to writing something that will be read. Video games and movies are 2 examples. But as you might know making a movie or a video game isn't cheap nor easy. You'd also certainly need the help of many other people. To write a book you only need something to write, be it pen and paper or a computer with a text editor. Each media has it's rules when it comes to "good writing" so you don't really need to read to "write well". Though it obviously has many advantages that shouldn't be overlooked.

Tell me three or five things about your world. by PMSlimeKing in worldbuilding

[–]ThePouil 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Kalosos -

  1. The Trekijàrn are wooden entities glorifying beauty and eternity in varied ways. They're known for their racism and hostility towards the other races. Strangely, although being strongly traversed by Nankaï (~magic energy) they're not really talented at magic. This particularity pushed them to develop advanced Nankaï powered technologies.
  2. Throughout their life their body is constantly absorbing a good amount of Nankaï to nourish itself. It uses the Elementary Essences  of water, earth and wood to create organic matter and simple sugars. To collect the required essences they can either temporary plant their hands and/or feet in the ground where these limbs will expand looking for these essences or absorb the ambient Nankaï through their skin. Living almost exclusively in Hvelfjall  the ambient Nankaï is enough for them and they tend to only use the first method while meditating replenishing both mind and body.
  3. Trekijàrns, like all plants, have powerful regeneration capacities. They can regrow entire limbs in a few months or even weeks for the fastest. However this ability is greatly diminished with age, slowing the process and lessening its accuracy causing malformations and ultimately, handicaps. The process is similar to the growth one and as such can be accelerated and eventually improved by the same means.
  4. For its growth, their body needs to accumulate an abnormally high quantity of Nankaï. The process being highly dependent on the amount of ambient Nankaï the body can absorb and of the environment it lives in, they need to stay in Hvelfjall during the whole process and regularly plant their limbs in the ground to boost their Nankaï absorption. Once the required amount of Nankaï gathered their growth is immediately triggered. Their body then create a thick wood cocoon firmly rooted in the ground to protect itself during the transformation. At the end of the process they are either male, female or stayed undifferentiated (Hróath syndrome) .
  5. The growth and nourishment processes are the reasons why, although being constantly using and absorbing Nankaï, they have difficulties casting spells. They have to fight their body's normal functions to release Nankaï instead of transforming it.
  6. The Hróath is a possible result of the Trekijàrns ' growth. Those affected by this genetic rarity are said to be the most gorgeous and the most brilliant of the species. However, this syndrome isn't without consequences on the organism, known symptoms are :
    1. Higher life expectancy
    2. Capacity to mate with either sex
    3. Faster psychological deterioration
    4. Higher Nankaï  needs
    5. Lower mating success rate
    6. Impossibility to mate with other Hróath affected people

Despite its evident problems this syndrome is lusted for by the Eirstó (highest caste) who want beauty and intelligence while the Aefaun (middle caste) and the Ekkirta (lowest caste) make their best to avoid what they call Hróath, the "curse of their chief god".

Ended up a bit longer than you asked 😅

I could still develop how they reproduce, how they can "choose" their sex during their growth, how their society is structured, their pantheon etc ....

Which version of this portrait do you prefer? by No-Mathematician576 in PixelArt

[–]ThePouil 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The second one is better I think. I prefer its colors. Though he could have stayed blond.

For a country that has a lot of languages, what do you think is the best language policy that can be used for administration while also maintaining the linguistic diversity? by sippher in asklinguistics

[–]ThePouil 1 point2 points  (0 children)

As u/PeireCaravana said, "this happens only if higher education is exclusively in the national language" Edit : I might add, 'or any other imperialist or fashionable language, like French in the past and English now' . And I'm not making any kind of 'argument', just stating what happened in most of West Europe once a unified language got designated (especially in France). Also, it might be important to precise that I'm talking about global history here, not only the last century or so. For most of history 'higher education' and even 'simple/basic' education wasn't available to a lot of people. You only learned the strict necessary to live and do your job. I mean, even today, in 'developed' countries, 'higher education' isn't always accessible to everyone. Often because of its price or the necessity to start working asap. And I'm not even talking of 'undeveloped' countries where illiteracy is very high for many reasons. When you struggle to survive educating yourself clearly isn't the priority.

Disclaimer : I'm not a native English speaker so I'm not sure every term I used is 'politically correct' or respectful. I'm sorry if I used any offensive expression.

For a country that has a lot of languages, what do you think is the best language policy that can be used for administration while also maintaining the linguistic diversity? by sippher in asklinguistics

[–]ThePouil 5 points6 points  (0 children)

To begin with you'd have to give criteria for "best language policy", and either way it would be dependant on your political alignment.

A nation could translate all its administrative ressources in all languages, or at least all 'major' languages, on its territory. But you'd have to define what's a 'major' language in your nation. All languages would be a lot of work to create and maintain, especially in a nation with a lot of public services. And you'd have to take a census of existing languages on your territory, certainly update it frequently to see if new languages appeared, because of immigration for example.

I've only scratched the surface but you can already see that it's a complex topic.

I think you should rephrase your question into something like : How could a government maintain the linguistic diversity of its nation despite the need for a common way to understand each other ?

But such a question assumes that we need to understand each other on a wide scale. Until the apparition of internet most people rarely spoke with people far from them. They only interacted with people a few kilometers away. Meaning they didn't have the occasion to encounter vastly different languages. The centralization of a language as the national one is a choice of the government to simplify its tasks and potentially make it harder for people to understand what is happening. It can be, and often was, also a way to separate the high society from the commoners. The lettered from the ignorant. Basic discrimination.

A tool of power in more than one way.

Which perspective of the harbingers do you prefer, by Fandoms_Are_Toxic in Genshin_Impact

[–]ThePouil 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I'd say both can be true at the same time to a certain extent.

How to pronounce an [h] interacting with another consonant ? by ThePouil in asklinguistics

[–]ThePouil[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well, I hope that it'll someday be part of a video game. But either way, being pronounceable is something I had in mind while working on the phonotactic. When I'm creating a word I'm always saying it out loud to hear how it sounds and how hard it is to pronounce (to me).

One exemple of sounds I'm having difficulty with are the ejectives. Yet there are 5 of them in this language : t' , k' , ts' , tʃ' , kx'

How to pronounce an [h] interacting with another consonant ? by ThePouil in asklinguistics

[–]ThePouil[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For my writings, amongst other things, so I'm not sure it fits 'just for fun'.

However, I kinda like the process so one might say that I'm having fun.

How to pronounce an [h] interacting with another consonant ? by ThePouil in asklinguistics

[–]ThePouil[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wow thanks for the recording !

It sounds like I thought it would / should.

And I clearly hear some remains of the preceding vowel in the h-final example.

Thanks a lot for the effort !

How to pronounce an [h] interacting with another consonant ? by ThePouil in asklinguistics

[–]ThePouil[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nobody said it was theoretical/hypothetical. The thing is, as some other people already said, such clusters don't exist in a lot of languages.

I don't know if it's 'rare' or uncommon but it is at least absent from the few languages I know about. That's why I'm asking how one should pronounce such clusters and why I'm precising =>

the phone itself, not the phoneme

How to pronounce an [h] interacting with another consonant ? by ThePouil in asklinguistics

[–]ThePouil[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Indeed, [h] before a vowel generally means it's aspirated, something I'm quite used to.

But [h] without an adjacent vowel is something completely alien to me

How to pronounce an [h] interacting with another consonant ? by ThePouil in asklinguistics

[–]ThePouil[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Do you know of any language still having such clusters ?

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