What did you accomplish today? [2011–2019]

[zyma]

After purging my CWS dictionary containing 460 words, I have put back all the words I intended to preserve and that still amounts to 176 words.

Also, a timeline:
Proto-Hasjakam (3145BYU-2380BYU; 765 years)
Himoshian (2380BYU-1560BYU; 820 years)
Taksheyut (1560BYU-690BYU; 870 years)
Proto-Vrkhazhian (690BYU-170BYU; 640 years)
Classical Vrkhazhian (170BYU-430YU; 600 years)
Modern Vrkhazhian (330YU-880YU; 550 years)
From Proto-Hasjakam to Modern Vrkhazhian: 4245 years
From Proto-Vrkhazhian to Modern Vrkhazhian: 1790 years

Supposedly, Proto-Hasjakam is like Proto-Afro-Asiatic and Proto-Vrkhazhian is like Proto-Semitic.

I'm glad you didn't feel like getting rid of all your words. I quite like your timeline; what came before Proto-Hasjakam and what will come after Modern Vrkhazhian, if those are periods of time you plan on developing?

[Ahzoh]

After purging my CWS dictionary containing 460 words, I have put back all the words I intended to preserve and that still amounts to 176 words.

Also, a timeline:
Proto-Hasjakam (3145BYU-2380BYU; 765 years)
Himoshian (2380BYU-1560BYU; 820 years)
Taksheyut (1560BYU-690BYU; 870 years)
Proto-Vrkhazhian (690BYU-170BYU; 640 years)
Classical Vrkhazhian (170BYU-430YU; 600 years)
Modern Vrkhazhian (330YU-880YU; 550 years)
From Proto-Hasjakam to Modern Vrkhazhian: 4245 years
From Proto-Vrkhazhian to Modern Vrkhazhian: 1790 years

Supposedly, Proto-Hasjakam is like Proto-Afro-Asiatic and Proto-Vrkhazhian is like Proto-Semitic.

I'm glad you didn't feel like getting rid of all your words. I quite like your timeline; what came before Proto-Hasjakam and what will come after Modern Vrkhazhian, if those are periods of time you plan on developing?

What comes before is Proto-Himaq-Ashiran which would be a linguistic connection between the conplanet's two supercontinents Himaq and Ashiran.

And Uzerian Vrkhazhian and Mukhebic Vrkhazhian would split some 390-410 years from the present (880YU), just as the two ethnic groups diverge.

[Isoraqathedh]

This looks to be almost a Perfective/Imperfective morpheme, rather than tense.
This makes me think of distinctions in Ukrainian verbs, for some reason.

---

Spoiler:

Inϑerse...eϑen...ϑerbs...

Well. You certainly have some θeta-y looking /v/s.

Reminds me of the effish-looking long /ʃ / in old words like in Congreſs aſſembled, That upon the petition of any perſon or perſons...

Interesting.

Hm. I don't know what I have to say about this. This thing was inspired by my own tense trouble – I noted that with some words you hardly use it in the present tense, so I would think in some of my languages it would be cool if just using the unmarked form would simplify details a little. Also because some languages do something similar with number (some words have inherent plurals, others singular, still others dual, and you'd mark to indicate switching the number.)

From there on out it's simply fusing the ideas together.

Spoiler:

Yes, that has been part of my handwriting for a while now. Also, an s followed by a long s is short.

[Ahzoh]

I have a diagram of Vrkhazhian words for body parts.

I derived the words for toes and fingers from diminutive forms of the words for foot and hand.

Seẇt ṛ-t-ʾiḥmeki žaẏ tusakśaru šujak nuzrab!
TOP DEF-ACC-lion-MASC.SG 1s-NOM ACC-belly-NEUT.SG 3ms-GEN ACT.PST-tear_apart\ACT.SG
As for the lion, I ripped his belly open!

It is possible to use the word seẇt (about) as a topic marker.

[Egerius]

Yesterday I reverse-engineered all my Proto-Avesto-Umbric phonotactics material (I lost the notes on 'em) and transferred these into my MacBook.
Taking the chance, I also wrote things I mentioned earlier into the file, like overusing */a ~ aː/ instead of */e ~ eː/ and using palatalization, labialization and aspiration for PIE's laryngeals (note: ʰ > ᵊ / C_C). I think I might deviate from my Latin route for Classical Umbric, so that these "laryngeals" will get a triple reflex, like in Greek.
I also introduced the Ablaut-pattern ∅~e > a > o (Is there no English term for Ablaut?).

Also, discovered the Ayenbite of Inwit and decided to have (Early) Middle Wílandish keep the distinction between nominative/accusative, genitive and dative and an utrum/neuter gender distinction, for the amusement of its speakers.

---

What about a visitor's guide to Buonavalle, written for three eras (Late Antiquity, High Middle Ages, Modern Times [compressed into Earth history, each era is about 530 years apart])?
Writing commenced.

[atman]

Just found the time to make a new translation into Atlántika: here are some lines from Antonio Carlos Jobim's Aguas de março, a very famous Brazilian song. I had to change a couple of words to make the Atlántika lyrics fit the music; anyway I'm happy with the end result.


Rabos, litos, ixti tielos to drumo
lejninhos to xulo, ixti jmecru irèmos
ixti xiza to calo, ixti jdòwa ixti pòs
ixtin yerbos que tantos, ixti çibra que nux...

...Èsen custes to marso, antèsin aglòse
ixti libis tas jdòwas lun cròzayen sèhu...

['rabos 'litos ˈiʃti ˈtjelos to ˈdrumo
leˈʒniɲos to ˈʃuɫo ˈiʃti 'ʒmekru i'rɛmos
'iʃti 'ʃizɐ to ˈkalo ˈiʃti ˈʒdɔwɐ ˈiʃti ˈpɔs
ˈiʃtin ˈjerbos ke ˈtantos ˈiʃti ˈçibrɐ ke ˈnuʃ

ˈɛsen ˈkustes to ˈmarso ənˈtɛsin əˈglɔse
ˈiʃti ˈlibis tas ˈʒdɔwɐs luŋ ˈkrɔzɐjen ˈsɛɦu]


literal English translation of the Atlántika version:

A stick, a stone, it's the end of this road
Small remains of (fire)wood, it's a little lonely
It's a sliver of glass, it's life, it's light
It's darkness it's death, it's day and night...

...It's the waters of March announcing springtime*
it's the hope of this life now in your heart...


And finally the Brazilian Portuguese original (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srfP2JlH6ls)

É pau, é pedra, é o fim do caminho
É um resto de toco, é um pouco sozinho
É um caco de vidro, é a vida, é o sol
É a noite, é a morte, é o laço, é o anzol...

...São as águas de março fechando o verão
É a promessa de vida no teu coração...

*little geographical note: Atlántika is spoken in the northern hemisphere, so the rain of March can't "cut the summer short" like in the original Brazilian version, at most it can "announce springtime". Atlántika speakers who emigrated to Brazil or to somewhere else in the Southern hemisphere (I'm sure there would be many) can replace the antèsin aglòse with something like tun tieron tinhòse = fechando o verao = cutting the summer short. Even the allitteration would be preserved!

[zyma]

I have a diagram of Vrkhazhian words for body parts.

Spoiler:

I derived the words for toes and fingers from diminutive forms of the words for foot and hand.

Seẇt ṛ-t-ʾiḥmeki žaẏ tusakśaru šujak nuzrab!
TOP DEF-ACC-lion-MASC.SG 1s-NOM ACC-belly-NEUT.SG 3ms-GEN ACT.PST-tear_apart\ACT.SG
As for the lion, I ripped his belly open!

It is possible to use the word seẇt (about) as a topic marker.

Cool! I like the idea you've had for deriving the words for toes and fingers, and for using "about" to mark topic. Are any of the elements of a sentence inherently topicalized, so to speak? If so, would those still need to be marked with seẇt, or would it only be used to topicalize non-inherently topicalized words or phrases?

Yesterday I reverse-engineered all my Proto-Avesto-Umbric phonotactics material (I lost the notes on 'em) and transferred these into my MacBook.
Taking the chance, I also wrote things I mentioned earlier into the file, like overusing */a ~ aː/ instead of */e ~ eː/ and using palatalization, labialization and aspiration for PIE's laryngeals (note: ʰ > ᵊ / C_C). I think I might deviate from my Latin route for Classical Umbric, so that these "laryngeals" will get a triple reflex, like in Greek.
I also introduced the Ablaut-pattern ∅~e > a > o (Is there no English term for Ablaut?).

Also, discovered the Ayenbite of Inwit and decided to have (Early) Middle Wílandish keep the distinction between nominative/accusative, genitive and dative and an utrum/neuter gender distinction, for the amusement of its speakers.

---

What about a visitor's guide to Buonavalle, written for three eras (Late Antiquity, High Middle Ages, Modern Times [compressed into Earth history, each era is about 530 years apart])?
Writing commenced.

I'm sorry to hear you lost your notes, but I like the ideas you've described here. As for an English term for Ablaut, I've heard vowel gradation, vowel mutation, vowel alternation, and apophony, although I'm sure there are other terms as well. If I remember correctly, some people like to reserve the term ablaut (which isn't usually capitalized as a loanword in English like it is in the source language of the word, German) for the phenomenon occurring in PIE and the descendants/remnants of that phenomenon.

Your (Early) Middle Wílandish ideas sound cool as well, and I wish you luck in writing your visitor's guide.

Just found the time to make a new translation into Atlántika: here are some lines from Antonio Carlos Jobim's Aguas de março, a very famous Brazilian song. I had to change a couple of words to make the Atlántika lyrics fit the music; anyway I'm happy with the end result.

Spoiler:

Rabos, litos, ixti tielos to drumo
lejninhos to xulo, ixti jmecru irèmos
ixti xiza to calo, ixti jdòwa ixti pòs
ixtin yerbos que tantos, ixti çibra que nux...

...Èsen custes to marso, antèsin aglòse
ixti libis tas jdòwas lun cròzayen sèhu...

['rabos 'litos ˈiʃti ˈtjelos to ˈdrumo
leˈʒniɲos to ˈʃuɫo ˈiʃti 'ʒmekru i'rɛmos
'iʃti 'ʃizɐ to ˈkalo ˈiʃti ˈʒdɔwɐ ˈiʃti ˈpɔs
ˈiʃtin ˈjerbos ke ˈtantos ˈiʃti ˈçibrɐ ke ˈnuʃ

ˈɛsen ˈkustes to ˈmarso ənˈtɛsin əˈglɔse
ˈiʃti ˈlibis tas ˈʒdɔwɐs luŋ ˈkrɔzɐjen ˈsɛɦu]

literal English translation of the Atlántika version:

Spoiler:

A stick, a stone, it's the end of this road
Small remains of (fire)wood, it's a little lonely
It's a sliver of glass, it's life, it's light
It's darkness it's death, it's day and night...

...It's the waters of March announcing springtime*
it's the hope of this life now in your heart...

And finally the Brazilian Portuguese original (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srfP2JlH6ls)

Spoiler:

É pau, é pedra, é o fim do caminho
É um resto de toco, é um pouco sozinho
É um caco de vidro, é a vida, é o sol
É a noite, é a morte, é o laço, é o anzol...

...São as águas de março fechando o verão
É a promessa de vida no teu coração...

*little geographical note: Atlántika is spoken in the northern hemisphere, so the rain of March can't "cut the summer short" like in the original Brazilian version, at most it can "announce springtime". Atlántika speakers who emigrated to Brazil or to somewhere else in the Southern hemisphere (I'm sure there would be many) can replace the antèsin aglòse with something like tun tieron tinhòse = fechando o verao = cutting the summer short. Even the allitteration would be preserved!

Very nice! It's clear you put a lot of work into this, taking the time to change the words to fit the main geographic setting of the language and making the translation fit the music! Atlántika sounds and looks beautiful, as usual.

[elemtilas]

I have a diagram of Vrkhazhian words for body parts.

I derived the words for toes and fingers from diminutive forms of the words for foot and hand.

I like. Questions: do menq / ktam refer to the whole arm / leg or just the forearm / thigh? 'uzer -- "chest", "breast", "thorax", "breasts"? Is the wrist distinguished from the hand and arm / ankle from foot and leg? I like how knee and elbow are seen as analogous and thus have the same name. Never mind -- I see you have satuk for calf -- what about upper arm? 'ebil -- neck as opposed to throat? What about parts of the face? I notice a rather gaping empty spot in the regions between saksar and zag -- is there a tabu against naming That Region of the body (while nizu seems to be safe to talk about)? Oh, and is pak the vault only, or the whole head?

[elemtilas]

What about a visitor's guide to Buonavalle, written for three eras (Late Antiquity, High Middle Ages, Modern Times [compressed into Earth history, each era is about 530 years apart])?
Writing commenced.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmPhaG1ud38

Thát I look forward to seeing!

By the way, and if you haven't already read these voraciously, take a look at Alberto Angela's A Day in the Life of Ancient Rome and Ian Mortimer's The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England. Not only to get ideas for what Buonavalle might have been like earlier in its history, but also because these are written as visitors' guides.

[Ahzoh]

I have a diagram of Vrkhazhian words for body parts.

I derived the words for toes and fingers from diminutive forms of the words for foot and hand.

I like. Questions: do menq / ktam refer to the whole arm / leg or just the forearm / thigh? 'uzer -- "chest", "breast", "thorax", "breasts"? Is the wrist distinguished from the hand and arm / ankle from foot and leg? I like how knee and elbow are seen as analogous and thus have the same name. Never mind -- I see you have satuk for calf -- what about upper arm? 'ebil -- neck as opposed to throat? What about parts of the face? I notice a rather gaping empty spot in the regions between saksar and zag -- is there a tabu against naming That Region of the body (while nizu seems to be safe to talk about)? Oh, and is pak the vault only, or the whole head?

It's just the way the diagram is done in the LexiBuild set. I think it is a genderless diagram.

Menq is the whole arm and Tsag is the whole leg, while Khtam is the thigh. 'Uzer is indeed the whole chest region. Lhatuk would be the calf muscle but also whatever is the muscle equivalent for the forearm/lower arm (the biceps?).
Pak is clearly the whole head.

[elemtilas]

It's just the way the diagram is done in the LexiBuild set. I think it is a genderless diagram.

I figured the diagram itself is intended to be rather gender neutral -- I was just commenting on the lack of any terminology in That Region!

Menq is the whole arm and Tsag is the whole leg, while Khtam is the thigh. 'Uzer is indeed the whole chest region. Lhatuk would be the calf muscle but also whatever is the muscle equivalent for the forearm/lower arm (the biceps?).

Biceps is in the anterior aspect of the upper arm. Down in the lower arm / leg you have a mess of flexor and extensor muscles -- these are the ones that let you lift your hand / foot or push them down. And of course, there are individual muscles for lifting and pushing each individual digit (especially in the hand -- some people can move toes independently better than others -- but this is more a matter of practice than physiology!)

Pak is clearly the whole head.

Or not -- since you've got it way up on top!

My questions aren't just oriented towards you giving me the name of something -- I'm much more interested in how the semantic space is divided. For example, if I do one of these charts for a Daine language, you will see that Daine also have the same word for finger / toe -- but that there are different words for "left finger / toe" and "right finger / toe". Likewise different words for "left forewing" and "right forewing". Also different terms for anterior and posterior aspects of parts like arms and legs, feet and hands and wings. As for the head, they roughly divide it, again, between the posterior and anterior halves with the border roughly at the frontal-parietal/temporal junction; but have a yet different word for "face" as opposed to all the rest of the fore-head.

Have you done internal anatomy at all?

[Ahzoh]

My questions aren't just oriented towards you giving me the name of something -- I'm much more interested in how the semantic space is divided. For example, if I do one of these charts for a Daine language, you will see that Daine also have the same word for finger / toe -- but that there are different words for "left finger / toe" and "right finger / toe". Likewise different words for "left forewing" and "right forewing". Also different terms for anterior and posterior aspects of parts like arms and legs, feet and hands and wings. As for the head, they roughly divide it, again, between the posterior and anterior halves with the border roughly at the frontal-parietal/temporal junction; but have a yet different word for "face" as opposed to all the rest of the fore-head.

Have you done internal anatomy at all?

I have so far only the stomach, which is "qemrod" or "digesting tool".
The Vrkhazhi divide the body rather symmetrically: the torso itself is neatly divided into four being the upper front (uzer), lower front (saklhar), upper back (sirtq), and the lower back (nizu). Then there is the lower arm/leg (pqokal) and upper arm/leg (mant). Foot is the whole thing, no heel distinction, as is the hand the same thing, but with wrist as part of pqokal. There is a head, face, and hair.

[Ear of the Sphinx]

Today I published these two:

http://akana.conlang.org/wiki/Ar%C3%B3s ... an/Lexicon
http://akana.conlang.org/wiki/Endayin/Lexicon

[kanejam]

Just discovered the tantalising possibility of Oscan speakers in Spain in the town of Huesca < Osca. Imagine an Aragonese influenced Oscan descendent (although it probably wouldn't survive till the modern era). Haven't been able to find much at all on it other than a couple of passing references so it might just be a wild goose chase.

[zyma]

Today I published these two:

http://akana.conlang.org/wiki/Ar%C3%B3s ... an/Lexicon
http://akana.conlang.org/wiki/Endayin/Lexicon

Impressive!

Just discovered the tantalising possibility of Oscan speakers in Spain in the town of Huesca < Osca. Imagine an Aragonese influenced Oscan descendent (although it probably wouldn't survive till the modern era). Haven't been able to find much at all on it other than a couple of passing references so it might just be a wild goose chase.

Oh, that sounds really cool! Hopefully you'll find more about it.

[conlangingftw]

Well, today was a big day with a lot of changes to Lancúhea. I guess you could say that it is evolving once again grammatically.

Firstly, I removed my entire noun plural paradigm because it's just way too confusing (especially since there is no real regularity in the plurals before, and everything had to be through rote memorization.) And, similarly to the plural paradigm, I removed the IMPF/PERF from a majority of verbs for the exact same reason as the noun plural paradigm. Verb changes were through root changes, and it was almost entirely arbitrary. EXCEPTION: the most common verbs still maintain the IMPF/PERF distinction.

Secondly, since Lancúhea is a grammatical gendered language and with the removal of noun plurals, I added in a third person feminine plural conjugation, so that there are tiny hints to show if a noun is singular or plural.
- A d'uł é d'emmí teima. "The girl loves the boy."
- A d'uł é d'emmí teimía. "The girls love the boy."
(It can be seen that the grammatical number of the object is unclear.)

Lastly, I substituted the IMPF/PERF with a simple Past and Future tense.

[zyma]

Well, today was a big day with a lot of changes to Lancúhea. I guess you could say that it is evolving once again grammatically.

Firstly, I removed my entire noun plural paradigm because it's just way too confusing (especially since there is no real regularity in the plurals before, and everything had to be through rote memorization.) And, similarly to the plural paradigm, I removed the IMPF/PERF from a majority of verbs for the exact same reason as the noun plural paradigm. Verb changes were through root changes, and it was almost entirely arbitrary. EXCEPTION: the most common verbs still maintain the IMPF/PERF distinction.

Secondly, since Lancúhea is a grammatical gendered language and with the removal of noun plurals, I added in a third person feminine plural conjugation, so that there are tiny hints to show if a noun is singular or plural.
- A d'uł é d'emmí teima. "The girl loves the boy."
- A d'uł é d'emmí teimía. "The girls love the boy."
(It can be seen that the grammatical number of the object is unclear.)

Lastly, I substituted the IMPF/PERF with a simple Past and Future tense.

Looks interesting! Hopefully we get to see more of this language in the future.

[Sights]

I've made substantial progress in the native script of Ba!

After probably a year (feels like several, actually!) of randomly scribbling different shapes on my notebooks and getting weird looks and questions from the few students who managed to take a peek or who were curious enough to ask me what the hell I was doing, I think I've finally struck a balance between my aesthetic goals and... I dunno, practicality or naturalism or whatever that thing is that gives you the feeling of "hmm... I think I can actually picture someone writing this ". What might have helped was just taking the time to put it all in a nice chart

There are some pretty important things I still have to work out, like the shapes of some consonants when in coda position and the matter of rising dipthongs, but no major overhaul is in order. Hopefully, I'll be able to share the results here soon enough. Not sure whether I should do it in the Conscript Development thread or start a new one, but we'll see.

[Isoraqathedh]

(16 | 31) (GE) Only "be" and "have" inflect, the rest stay invariant. This is very clearly aping off Afrikaans but I think it makes sense for this to happen at least.



(16 | 32) (GE) Fun stuff with pronouns, as well as direct translations for foo, bar, baz, quux.



Since my scanner is based on a mouse, inevitably there's some time when it can't make sense where it is and displays weird derps. In this page, all MEDial metasyntactic variables add -xq and all DISTal ones add -x. -xq and -x are chiremes.

[elemtilas]

I've made substantial progress in the native script of Ba!

After probably a year (feels like several, actually!) of randomly scribbling different shapes on my notebooks and getting weird looks and questions from the few students who managed to take a peek or who were curious enough to ask me what the hell I was doing, I think I've finally struck a balance between my aesthetic goals and... I dunno, practicality or naturalism or whatever that thing is that gives you the feeling of "hmm... I think I can actually picture someone writing this ".

Lámatyáve. Or something very close to it.

There are some pretty important things I still have to work out, like the shapes of some consonants when in coda position and the matter of rising dipthongs, but no major overhaul is in order. Hopefully, I'll be able to share the results here soon enough. Not sure whether I should do it in the Conscript Development thread or start a new one, but we'll see.

Start a thread for your language and show us there!