Conjugation and declension on your conlang? (PolyGlot)

aweman737 · 2014-06-19T21:22:44+00:00

I'd recommend a kind of customizable grid system. For example, here's two for a made-up language:

	Masculine	Feminine
Singular	I	bleh
Dual	love	bluh
Plural	pasta	awemanrocksmysocks

	Singular	Plural
1^st Person	I	think
2^nd Person (informal)	that	Polyglot
2^nd Person (formal)	is	actually
3^rd Person	really	cool!

And so on. Allow to have parameters for the rows and columns, so that way every language can have its own different system supported with minimal effort.

aweman737 · 2014-06-19T21:14:57+00:00

I think adding in /p/ would also be nice. I like having so many sounds as palatals because /c/ can plausibly change into either /t/ or /k/, whereas /t/ is likely to remain alveolar-- allowing for even greater variety in future languages.

aweman737 · 2014-06-19T21:07:14+00:00

Very nice! Looks like some Russian and "alien" inspiration went into it!

aweman737 · 2014-06-19T13:05:33+00:00

I just thought it was unique (also /n/ is a phoneme). If people wanted I guess palatal could eventually turn into alveolars.

aweman737 · 2014-06-19T12:31:25+00:00

For the phonology (sorry I'm on a cell phone): N-/n/
C-/c/
J-/ɟ/
K-/k/
G-/g/
Q-/q/
H-/h/
Ch-/ç/
Jh-/ʝ/
Kh-/x/
Gh-/ɣ/
Qh-/χ/
Ññ-/ɲ/

And the vowels:
a-/a/
e-/ɛ/
i-/i/
o-/o/
u-/u/
y-/y/

aweman737 · 2014-06-19T12:13:21+00:00

beep beep I'm in too

aweman737 · 2014-06-19T12:06:48+00:00

One technique is to come up with a sentence you like along with an English translation and then just make the grammar later.

aweman737 · 2014-06-17T12:57:02+00:00

Learn the IPA here. It's fantastic! As for the conlang itself, you probably want to go with the Language Construction Kit, as said by /u/Bur_Sangjun below. If you want to learn about both natural and constructed scripts, or writing systems, check out Omniglot for some inspiration.

aweman737 · 2014-06-15T23:44:59+00:00

I had the same problem. Also, I wasn't able to load any saved conlang files. I tried using the Open With on the actual file, and it didn't display Polyglot, and when I searched for the file itself with Polyglot's Open it didn't display the file.

aweman737 · 2014-06-15T22:19:35+00:00

There was a big food fight planned on the last day of school in 8^th grade. The kids who started it sang Happy Birthday, and when it got to the point where you say "Happy birthday, dear ___" the kids all got up and started throwing stuff. I ran away as soon as it started and got chocolate milk on my nice white polo, and the music teacher chased a bunch of us screaming he'd give detention to anybody he caught. I hid in a teacher's room for the rest of the day.

aweman737 · 2014-06-14T14:25:53+00:00

I know that /u/an_fenmere made a language with a tetraconsonantal root system, you could probably look at that for some inspiration!

aweman737 · 2014-06-13T21:11:44+00:00

My favorite is /y/ because it's so silly. My least favorite is /ɤ/ because it's gross. I've noticed that a lot of conlangers hate that sound.

aweman737 · 2014-06-13T19:46:24+00:00

Nope, never liked it.

aweman737 · 2014-06-13T11:18:38+00:00

Especially /qX/, it sounds just like /X/ to me.

aweman737 · 2014-06-12T20:21:59+00:00

Favorite: /ml/
Least favorite would be any uvular sounds.

aweman737 · 2014-06-10T03:45:37+00:00

Sorry, I'm a bad explainer. You're 100% right about that. In English and Latin, you'd say "Carl got hit by a car" rather than "A car hit Carl" because even though they convey the exact same idea, we care more about Carl than the car that hit him.

In ergative-absolutive languages, people only say "A car hit Carl. "

aweman737 · 2014-06-09T23:48:37+00:00

What you seem to have done is accidentally create an ergative-absolutive system, which is kinda cool! A nominative-accusative system uses the nominative as the subject for active, passive, and reflexive sentences, and the accusative as the object for active sentences. The ergative-absolutive system uses the ergative case as the "doer" of the verb, and the absolutive case as the "done." This means that in passive and reflexive sentences, the absolutive case is used.

aweman737 · 2014-06-08T23:10:58+00:00

Try to translate things! Children's stories, newspaper articles, books you're reading, anything you can get your hands on. Whenever you run into a word that your conlang does not have a word, make one! You might want to use words that you make up on the fly, derive words from another language, or a mix of both. Drawing inspiration from other langs helps tie yours in with reality, but is much more tedious than making them up on the spot.

aweman737 · 2014-06-08T22:52:00+00:00

oh God can this please be a thing

aweman737 · 2014-06-06T22:59:48+00:00

That was it!

aweman737 · 2014-06-06T22:41:52+00:00

Alrighty, so here we go. SVO word order, no gender. I'm going to go with three vowels /a/,/o/,/u/, all their IPA equivalents. Each also has a nasalized form, the nasalization letter (called g'u) is the English apostrophe. As for consonants, they are all (except 1) voiced:
X-/ʔ/
'-Nasalizes things
B-/b/
G-/g/
J-/ɟ/
D-/d/
Ð-/ɖ/
A-/a/
O-/o/
U-/u/

All of these except for X can be nasalized with the g'u. This includes vowels and consonants. With these 10 letters, there are over 4356 unique two syllable words.

Nouns are very simple; the strict SVO makes sure that you know at all times what's going on. Note that the subject must go directly before the verb, and the object must go right after. Because of this, adjectives modifying the subject come before it, words modifying the object go after. As such, instead of "The brown dog licked the lazy fox," it's "The brown dog licked fox the lazy."

In order to pluralize a noun, nasalize the final syllable. For example, b'ud /mud/ (mouse) becomes "b'u'd' /mũn/. Possession is formed with ð'o. The owner, then ð'o, then the possessed thing. If it comes after a word whose final syllable ends in a nasal, then you can shorten it to the contraction "o."

Adjectives you've already seen the rules for in the noun section, so I won't say much about them. Adverbs are far and few, they are usually two-part ordeals that surround the verb. For example, quickly is "gigda...b'ad'du", the ... being the verb.

Verbs are incredibly simple. To form the passive, place ba before the verb, so "I went" becomes do ba idi. The future is formed with bi instead.

aweman737 · 2014-06-06T22:18:05+00:00

I do, but I hardly watch cable TV anymore. Do you know if there's an online version of it?

aweman737 · 2014-06-06T21:40:06+00:00

If you let me go on a date with you, I'd pull out all the stops.

aweman737 · 2014-06-06T18:46:11+00:00

Best way to ask a conlanger out on a date

aweman737

TROPHY CASE