#and after this the conlang starts

[nomaishuttle]

comparison (new on left old on right)

[dravidssideblog]

If my DomCycle world had a language they'd have different pronouns for weak-form and strong-form and that'd make it WAY easier to talk about Stuff.

[dedalvs]

My brother and I absolutely cackled after that Aemond and Aegon Valyrian exchange!

I wanted to ask (and I'm terrible at conlangs, so forgive me) what grammar/syntax Aegon is stumbling over here and how to properly say what he intended to? Any why is he making thise mistakes (simply lacking the vocabulary, or rules of the language he hasn’t grasped)?

Let's take a look at it. This is what he said:

Nyke koston... Bēvilus... Sētegon bīlīvāzmi?

The subtitles say this:

"I can... Have to... Make a war?"

Prior to this Aemond is, essentially, showing off. He knows that Aegon has simply not put any time into studying Valyrian (or studying anything). At this stage, Valyrian is no longer spoken by the family on a day-to-day basis—especially as Alicent probably never learned it at all (or if she did, only in a few scattered lessons here and there; not to actually use). In order for either of the boys to gain any kind of fluency in the language, they have to study constantly and find ways to use it. There's simply no daily need for the language—and plenty of reasons not to use it, as very, very few people they'll encounter on a daily basis speak the language.

Now, if we were talking about two random people in Westeros, this wouldn't mean anything. But these are the children of Viserys Targaryen, himself a descendant of Aegon the Conqueror. They brought their family line and their culture with them to Westeros—and, of course, their language. If someone like Alicent Hightower doesn't speak High Valyrian it means nothing. If a Targaryen doesn't speak High Valyrian, though… See, they're supposed to be able to speak Valyrian. Failing to do so carries with it a sense of shame that isn't present for a random person who doesn't speak Valyrian. Aemond knows this. Aegon is annoying him, so he goes poking at that wound.

Aemond could have fed him a short line with an obvious answer to help Aegon out, but instead he threw a whole mess of Valyrian at him. The longer it goes on, the more lost Aegon gets, desperately trying to catch up and figure out what was just said and thereby missing what is being said at that instant. From the whole speech, Aegon probably only figured out that he was being asked a question, and it was something having to do with planning.

So, back to what he says. The beginning student of a language is quite adept at doing a single verb in a present tense sentence. In a discussion like this, though, you're typically saying things like "I think that" or "We should" or "I suggest" or "Perhaps we might", etc. All that stuff that we need to offer opinions, make suggestions, hedge, etc. Much more than simple narration.

Aegon is attempting to do this without a sufficient command of the language. He knows some vocabulary, he knows some grammar, but he simply did not put in the work to actually speak this language. Thus, he has to overcome a lot of Common Tongue (i.e. English) interference.

There are many differences between Valyrian and English, but the biggest one by far is the major word order. In English, the verbs come before the rest of the junk; in Valyrian, they come at the end. And this is how things get all messed up.

In English, you start the sentence saying things like "I think" or "We should" or "It seems". In Valyrian, those things come at the end. If you start with the Valyrian equivalent of "I think", you will quickly realize (presuming you know enough of the grammar) that you're sunk, because once you've said it, the sentence should be done. Thus you get Aegon's false starts.

Starting at the beginning, Aegon says Nyke koston, which is kind of like saying, "I could". But there's nowhere to go. This is how a sentence ends. For example, if he wanted to say, "I could fly to Harrenhal", he would say Harenhalot sōvegon koston—literally "To Harrenhal fly I could". If you're thinking English-ly, you're essentially thinking backwards, and if you simply translate what you're thinking, you'll immediately have nowhere to go. You'll have to take a pause and think about how to get started again. And that's exactly what happens here.

Now, leaving aside that Valyrian is a pro-drop language and starting it off with nyke "I" is unnecessary and makes you look like a beginner, koston isn't bad (I mean, if used sentence-finally). Once he realizes he can't start there, though, he loses confidence. It's those old High Valyrian lessons all over again, and some maester suggesting he hasn't studied. That self-doubt makes his facility with Valyrian worse. This means his chances of recovery are severely hampered.

But onward he presses, and he decides to say "We have to" or "I have to". Now, the problem here is in Valyrian that requires the verb bēvilagon. This verb isn't used in the usual way. Literally it means "to lie on". If you wanted to say "We must mobilize our dragons", you'd say Īlvī zaldrīzī mazannagon īlo bēvilza. That's literally "Our dragons to mobilize us it lies upon". The one who must do something is placed in the genitive and put directly before the verb. If you start with the verb, well, you missed your chance to say who it is that must be doing something—let alone what they must do. Another false start.

It's also worth noting that he says bēvilus as opposed to bēvilza. Let's ignore that it's the aorist and focus on the fact that it's the subjunctive (just like koston). You use the subjunctive with your main verb when you're hedging—when you're suggesting. Not when you're commanding. Kind of an odd thing to say "We must do this" with the subjunctive. Kind of like saying "Maybe we might considering having to do this".

At this point, his confidence has completely evaporated. Everybody's staring at him like he has no idea what he's talking about; Aemond's eating it up. He knows he's cooked. He's got to say something, though, so he says sētegon which isn't even conjugated. It means "to make" or "to create", which might make sense in English (e.g. "to make war"), but doesn't make sense in Valyrian (a bit like saying "to construct a war" or even "to bake a war") and then tries to pronounce vīlībāzmi "war" (wrong case/number, wrong order) and fails, saying bīlīvāzmi, which means nothing (also he wanted vīlībāzme. Vīlībāzmi is "wars").

Long story short, he doesn't present himself very well—and we didn't even talk about his general pronunciation or intonation. It's kind of a great big mess in only five words. A true disaster.

But if there were no expectation that he should be able to speak Valyrian, none of this would matter! If there were no shame associated with him specifically not being able to speak Valyrian no one would expect it of him, and this challenge would mean as little as someone challenging him to speak the Old Tongue or Asshai'i. It'd be meaningless.

In short, this small portion of this scene is about being a heritage speaker of a language. It's the exact nightmare scenario all heritage speakers fear: To be put on stage and made to perform despite being unequal to the task while simultaneously feeling that they should be equal to it.

It'd be so cool if it was okay to be kind of good with a language—if that level of mastery was acceptable. In the real world, anyway.

[elodieunderglass]

When does Tolkien start entering the public domain?

(In reference to this poll https://www.tumblr.com/elodieunderglass/730451774219190272 where I tagged it supporting my own personal theory and added that when Tolkien enters the public domain WATCH OUT)

Tolkien’s works enter the public domain in the USA, uk and Canada 70 years after his death - so 2043 with open season starting 2044.

If we’re all still around in 20 years’ time, make a note of it! I’ll write you a story with unhinged hobbit family structures, the Shire being a place that dampens magic, and the unauthorised yet strangely canonical adventures of Belladonna Took and the Silmarils. It will be 200,000 words long and written in the correct tone, and I promise to do completely immersive research to colour in the background: every linguistic reference, Anglo-Saxon folkway, Icelandic influence, weirdly deep dives into topics like kinship moiety and subtle mischief that characterises Tolkien’s work. This would be so funny to me.

Everyone will be racing to publish basic porn and games; the d&d franchise which will be world-eating in 20 years will finally get to drop the pretense of “halflings,” Witcher and other franchises ditto; all the fantasy writers who have tugged at the tit for so many generations will finally be able to do it openly, and the films will be constant and abysmal. But we, we alone, we happy few alone and free; we will be giggling together, like playing dolls, over what the people REALLY want: constructing elaborate conlang puns with a 200k textual payoff.

It will be my honor to work on this for no reason at all, and I will ceremoniously give it to you in exchange for £7.99. And we will laugh and laugh and laugh

[writingwithcolor]

Conlanging Issues: A Compendium

NOTE: This question was submitted before the Nov 1, 2023 reopening and may not adhere to all rules and guidelines. The ask has been abridged for clarity. 

Most of my questions are about linguistics. […] One of the major locations in my story is a massive empire with cultural inspirations ranging from North Africa in the far south to Mongolia/Russia in the far north […] The middle region is where the capital is and is the main root of culture, from which Ive been taking inspiration from Southwest Asia […], but most notably southern regions of India. I've tried to stick to the way cities are named in Sanskrit-based languages but added the names of stars to the front (because the prevalent religion of this region worships the stars [...]). So Ive ended up with names like Pavoprayag, Alyanaga, Alkaiduru, Alcorpura, Cygnapete, etc. Is this a consistent naming system or should I alter it in some way? The empire itself is named the Arcana Empire since [...] each act of my story is named after a tarot card [...]. Another region in my story is based more on parts of South China and North Vietnam, so I've tried to stick to names with a Chinese origin for that. I understand the significance of family names in southwest [sic] Asia, so I wanted to double check [...]. They have only two short given names. Based on the birth order of the child, the first half of the name comes from the fathers family and the second half from the mothers family. It is seen as disrespectful not to use both names because using only one is seen as denouncing that side of your family. Thus I have names like Su Yin, Dai Jun, and Yi Wen for some of the characters from this region, and the city itself that they are from is named Bei Fen. On the other hand, Im having further trouble naming characters. […] Ive been trying to give my human characters names from real human cultures to distinguish them from the website-generated names of say, orcs, elves, dwarves, etc, but I think I should change many of the names Ive used to be more original and avoid fracturing real world cultures for the sake of my worldbuilding. […] Im still very weak in the linguistics area (even after four years of French, sigh) and am having trouble finding where to read about naming patterns so I can make new ones up. I read your naming guides but am still having trouble on where to start for specific languages. […] Im trying to look into Sanskrit, Turkish, and Persian specifically.

You're Going Too Broad

In my opinion, you’re casting too wide a net. You mentioned looking into Sanskrit, Turkish, and Persian to develop fantasy names. These languages are very different from one another, so unless you’re using them separately for very different parts of your world, it will be hard to draw inspiration from them in a way that makes sense. You’re taking on a huge amount of research in order to worldbuild cultures that span a massive geographical area (basically all of North Africa and Asia?) and have very little in common. Are you sure you want to take on that task?

I could see it being more manageable if most of your story is set in a small region of this world, which you will then research in depth to make sure you’re being as specific as possible.

Taking Persian as an example, you’ll have to decide whether you want to use Old Persian, Middle Persian, or Modern Persian. Each of these comes with a different alphabet and historical influences. They’re also associated with different periods of time and corresponding cultural and social markers. Once you’ve decided exactly when and where you want to start from, you can then expand the borders of your area of focus. For example, if you’ve decided to draw inspiration from Achaemenid Persia, you can then look at the languages that were spoken in the Achaemenid Empire. A quick Google search tells me that while Old Persian was the empire’s official language, they also used Aramaic, Akkadian, Median, Greek, and Elamite (among, I’m sure, many many others and many more regional variations). Further research into each of these will give you ethnic groups and bordering nations that you can draw more inspiration from to expand out your worldbuilding.

Don’t forget to make sure you’re staying within the same time period in order to keep things consistent. It’s a lot of work, and this is only for a small portion of the continent-spanning worldbuilding you’re trying to do.

You can get away with painting the rest of the continent in broad strokes without too much depth if the story doesn’t go there and you don’t have any main characters from those parts of the world. Otherwise, you’ll need to put this same level of detail into your worldbuilding for the area with Turkish-inspired names, and again for the area with Sanskrit-inspired names, and so on.

I know this isn’t what you were asking, but I honestly have a hard time helping you figure out where to start because your ask is so broad I don’t quite know where I would start myself. So, this is my advice: focus down on one region and time period and go from there. Feel free to write back once you’ve picked a narrower focus that we could help you with.

- Niki

So there’s logistical issues in regards to your naming system for southern China-coded regions. One issue is history: mainly on how there is not simply one language in China but multiple due to having a lot of ethnic groups and the size of China. South China in particular has different dialects and languages than the North as seen in this map of Chinese languages and dialects. There’s also how historically Mandarin was not the official language until 1913 in China and historical China saw vast changes in territory dependent on the dynasty. Before then, Mandarin was primarily a northern Chinese language based in Beijing while southern China had its own languages, dialects, and dynamics. Not to mention, historical China saw an evolution of language just like English has Old English, Middle English, Early Modern English, and Modern English. For instance, Vietnam was once part of China during the Tang Dynasty and at another point, it was not part of China.

-Mod Sci

If You’re Borrowing Whole Words or Elements, Research More

The other issue is inconsistency with the cultures you’re deriving this conlang from. In regards to “two given names,” the Chinese name I was given was one syllable and then I would have a last name that was also one syllable. There’s also how not every family is perfect. Not every marriage is sanctioned and some children may come from single parents. Some families may not cooperate with marriage and sometimes children may be abandoned with unknown parents. There does not seem to be contingencies for these names under this conlang system.

The main problem with conlangs is that one needs to truly understand the languages one is drawing from. Tolkein managed to create conlangs due to training in linguistics. Mandarin is already a difficult language with multiple tones, and trying to use it for conlangs without knowledge of how Mandarin works or a good foundation in linguistics is just a Sisyphean endeavor.

-Mod Sci

Four years of French wouldn’t have taught you about linguistics as a science or anything about the language families you’ve listed - Indo-Iranian, Sino-Tibetan, and Turkic, nor any Asian naming conventions. I agree with Niki that you need to narrow down your research.

Pur/pura means city in Sanskrit (ex: Gurdaspur, Hoshiarpur). Prayag is a place where pilgrimages are done. Naga isn’t a place name in Sanskrit (google says it means snake), nagar is and it means town. X Nagar is a very common name for places (Ex: Rajinder Nagar). Many cities in Karnataka have names ending in uru (Bengaluru, Mysuru, Mangaluru, Tumakuru, etc) but the language of Karnataka is Kannada - a Dravidian language and completely different family from Sanskrit (Indo-Aryan). I’m not sure where “pete” came from. “Bad” and “vaal” are common suffixes for places too (Ex: Faisalabad, Allahabad). A disclaimer that I do not speak Sanskrit, I speak Punjabi, which is a descendant of Sanskrit and in the same linguistic family (Indo-Aryan languages).

- SK

Also, This Is Not…Really Conlanging.

Hi OP. Linguistics refers to the science of studying how languages work, not the discipline of learning languages. And nothing shows that gap more than how you have thus far approached constructing fictional languages and toponyms. 

The reason why Sci and SK have a lot to say about your place names is because they don't resonate—you have borrowed whole words into your toponyms (place names) from a variety of languages—without an accurate understanding of what these words mean, how they’re pronounced, where they’re derived from—and expected them to work together. I suggest you read the links below on why conlanging is not as simple as choosing some languages and mashing their IRL words together: 

Why Using Random Languages Wholesale in your Fantasy is a Bad Idea 

Pitfalls of Mashing Countries and Languages in Coding

In your city names, for example, you’re using star names from multiple languages that use different sets of sounds represented by different sets of historical spelling rules. “Cygn-” and “Arcana” stick out like a sore thumb—the fact that one “c” is /s/ and one is /k/ is an obvious flag that they are Latin-derived English borrowings. This is because spelling rules were created in Middle English to make sense of the mix of “c” pronunciations across words of Indo-European origin due to a historical split called the Centum-Satem division. This is a phenomenon that is very specific to our world history, and to the history of English at that. Ironically, in your attempt to avoid stock fantasy names (which also often fall into the Latin-derived English pit), you are taking the exact same approach to naming.

Like Niki said, your selections are far too broad to code under a single umbrella. Do you expect that whatever language that city name came from runs the full gamut of sound inventory & spelling variety that spans multiple continents and hundreds of languages? Because that’s not how languages work. (And yes, I mean hundreds. Indigenous languages and linguistic diversity are a thing. See Niki’s note about just the languages in Persia. And nation-states bulldozing over those languages and pretending it’s just one language is a thing. See Sci’s note about China.) I haven't even talked about the variation in morphology (how words are formed) or syntax (sentence structure).

Please just read or re-read my guide on “naming conlangs” in this post and start from there.

~ Rina

PSA ON CONLANGING AND FANTASY NAMES:

For fantasy language asks submitted after Nov 1, 2023, the asker must indicate that they have read Mod Rina’s conlanging posts linked in FAQ 2 (Guides and Posts by Topic) of the Masterpost under the question “How do I make a fictional language for my story?” While this is an older ask, we are posting it as an example to our followers.

Per our new rules, any questions that can be directly answered in or extrapolated from the FAQs, or questions that indicate that the relevant resources haven’t been read, will be deleted with a note in the Deletion Log explaining why.

As always, if this post was helpful or educational to you, please consider tipping the relevant mods: SK, Niki, Sci, and Rina.

Edited for terminology errors

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for doing things that would trigger my partner.

🖖🏼to find it

my (19f) partner (18x) has been through a lot of trauma, so have a good few ptsd triggers. one of these is a specific conlang; lets say klingon for the purposes of this post. its a trigger because of an emotionally abusive ex-partner. the thing is, im lurking in a few virtual klingon groups because im interested in the linguistics of it. i also have another friend whos learning klingon and was the one who first convinced me to learn it a while ago. i was learning klingon before I met my partner and was hyperfixated on it for quite a while. i dont talk about it to them but they know that i paused learning klingon a while ago because of my adhd new hobby excitement wearing out. also, part of the reason i didnt return to learning klingon when i started to become interested in it again was because i didn't trust myself not to fall back into hyperfixation mode and talk about it to everyone i see, including them which I think they feels a bit of guilt about. now i feel the urge to learn it again, and a local klingon group has started doing in person meetups where i could talk about and in klingon. i trust myself now to not talk about it to them and keep any klingon materials away from them, but i also dont know if its an ah move to do something that i know would definitely trigger them if they saw me do it and how they might feel about me leaning it and either not telling them after saying that id stopped learning it or telling them and risk triggering them. its also not necessary for me to learn the language. i just enjoy learning and speaking it and it helps me connect with my friend and meet new people. my partner is in therapy but they have more pressing issues than not being able to deal with a conlang so they likely wont lose this trigger anytime soon.

I'm almost certainly overthinking this.

[ahamkara-apologist]

Bits about the opening mission of Revenant that I absolutely love:

-Crow opening it talking about how he wants this to be a diplomatic mission where he proves that hunters can build bridges, not just burn them, and then the mission fucking ends with the bridge of the Helm getting blown open and the whole damn thing crash-landing into the Tower

-Failsafe taking one metaphorical look at this whole crashing thing and calmly taking over bc this is not her first rodeo. Rip Failsafe's new chassis it was fun while it lasted

-Getting to actually walk amongst House Salvation and fight alongside them!! I've wanted a begrudging alliance with them since I first started playing during Beyond Light and I'm happy that we're getting it. Strained political ties my beloved

-More Eliksni words!! I love the way the language sounds, so I hope we can get more of it. The conlang folk deserve to eat good this episode

-Everything about showing up to fight alongside of Eramis, and her sorta just begrudgingly accepting it. Like you can practically feel her desire to be a proud bitch struggling with her desire and her responsibility to keep her people safe, and her pride is failing. I love her so fucking much

-Eramis not giving in bc of her pride and her disdain for humanity until Crow mentions that Eido would be sad if she didn't come with. She is SO soft on this kid, I just know that she used to be the type of parent who'd bitch about her children whining that they want something only to turn right around and give it to them later. Granted, with Eido its not hard to not want to dissapoint her, but the fact that she's such a deeply caring person at heart under her wall of thorns is just. It gets to me, man

-I also love Crow acting as a diplomat, bc again, he's doing what I've been itching to do since I figured out what Salvation's whole deal was. Put those uwu softboy powers to good use prettyboy

-Eramis implying that she trusts us (the guardian) to ensure that Crow sticks to his word had me like '!!!' bc it genuinely wasn't something that I expected, especially after Ana's stunt on the Seraph Station. I think the fact that she's fought us so many times and has seen us fighting to keep House Light safe has convinced her that the Young Wolf is a pretty straightforward fellow who follows the honour-rules of her people, while she hasn't had the proof that other humans are the same. I think that's something that she respects about us, at least, even if she still very much does not like us. I mean, she also could have been speaking sarcastically but given how she talks to us later on I don't think that's the case

-(Granted, I also think that Eramis is aware of her crimes and feels like she needs to be punished for them in some capacity, and we're an outlet for that, but humanity also isn't exactly her first choice. Shes a deeply proud individual on account of her suffering so many indignities over her long lifespan, so if she's gonna choose to work with us, she has to be clear about how unhappy she is with all of it)

-(also who's responsible for repeatedly scaling her up in bossfights and then shrinking her right afterwards. Bungie???)

-Crow fucking pointing his dinky little Hawkmoon at Eramis's head. I know that it has paracausal shots and that Crow is a guardian, but it's comically small next to her and got a good laugh out of me

-When Fikrul smashes into the helm and we're being blown about like pieces of debris (I'm ignoring the fact that Crow can apparently speak in the vaccum of space bc idk what the fuck is happening there), the fact that Eramis just nonchalantly braces for impact with all her arms cuffed up implies that she's done this many different times before, and I love that little bit of detail. Fuck yeah more alien space pirate action, I always am down for that sorta shit

[serpentface]

Do you conlang? I was wondering if you had naming languages (or possibly even more developed ones) for pulling the words you use. I tried to search your blog but didn't find anything, wouldn't be surprised if the feature is just busted tho. Your worldbuilding is wonderful and I particularly enjoy the anthropological and linguistic elements.

Ok the thing is I had kind of decided I was not going to do any conlanging because I don't feel like I'm equipped to do a good job of it, like was fully like "I'm just going to do JUST enough that it doesn't fail an immediate sniff test and is more thoughtful than just keysmashing and putting in vowels". And then have kinda been conlanging anyway (though not to a very deep and serious extent. I maybe have like....an above average comprehension of how language construction works via willingness to research, but that's not saying much, also I can never remember the meanings of most linguistic terms like 'frictives' or etc off the top of my head. I'm just kinda raw dogging it with a vague conceptualization of what these things mean)

I do at least have a naming language for Wardi (and more basic rules for other established languages) but the rudimentary forms of it were devised with methods much shakier and less linguistically viable than even the most basic naming language schemes, and I only went back over it LONG after I had already made a bunch of words so there's some inconsistencies with consonant presence and usage. (This can at least be justified because it IS a language that would have a lot of loanwords and would be heavily influenced by other language groups- Burri being by far the most significant, Highland-Finnic and Yuroma-Lowlands also being large contributors)

The 'method' I used was:

-Skip basic construction elements and fully move into devising necessary name words, with at least a Vibe of what consonants are going to be common and how pronunciation works -Identify some roots out of the established words and their meanings. Establish an ongoing glossary of known roots/words. -Construct new words based in root words, or as obvious extensions/variants of established words. -Get really involved in how the literal meanings of some words might not translate properly to english, mostly use this to produce a glossary of in-universe slang. -Realize that I probably should have at least some very basic internal consistency at this point. -Google search tutorials on writing a naming language. -Reverse engineer a naming language out of established words, and ascribe all remaining inconsistencies to being loanwords or just the mysteries of life or whatever.

I do at least have some strongly established pronunciation rules and a sense of broad regional dialect/accents.

-'ai' words are almost always pronounced with a long 'aye' sound.

-There is no 'Z' or 'X' sound, a Wardi speaker pronouncing 'zebra' would go for 'tsee-brah', and would attempt 'xylophone' as 'ssye-lohp-hon'

-'V' sounds are nearly absent and occur only in loanwords, and tend to be pronounced with a 'W' sound. 'Virsum' is a Highland word (pronounced 'veer-soom') denoting ancestry, a Wardi speaker would go 'weer-sum'.

-'Ch' spellings almost always imply a soft 'chuh' sound when appearing after an E, I, or O (pelatoche= pel-ah-toh-chey), but a hard 'kh' sound after an A or U (odomache= oh-doh-mah-khe). When at the start of a word, it's usually a soft 'ch' unless followed by an 'i' sound (chin (dog) is pronounced with a hard K 'khiin', cholem (salt) is pronounced with a soft Ch 'cho-lehm')

-Western Wardin has strong Burri cultural and linguistic influence, and a distinct accent- one of the most pronounced differences is use of the ñ sound in 'nn' words. The western city of Ephennos is pronounced 'ey-fey-nyos' by most residents, the southeastern city of Erubinnos is pronounced 'eh-roo-been-nos' by most residents. Palo's surname 'Apolynnon' is pronounced 'A-puh-lee-nyon' in the Burri and western Wardi dialects (which is the 'proper' pronunciation, given that it's a Kos name), but will generally be spoken as 'Ah-poh-leen-non' in the south and east.

-R's are rolled in Highland-Finnic words. Rolling R's is common in far northern rural Wardi dialects but no others. Most urban Wardi speakers consider rolling R's sort of a hick thing, and often think it sounds stupid or at least uneducated. (Brakul's name should be pronounced with a brief rolled 'r', short 'ah' and long 'uul', but is generally being pronounced by his south-southeastern compatriots with a long unrolled 'Brah' sound).

Anyway not really a sturdy construction that will hold up to the scrutiny of someone well equipped for linguistics but not pure bullshit either.

[mindutme]

New conlang!

This is a project I started last spring and then abandoned, but recently picked back up. It’s still in early stages, and lots of stuff has been changing so most of this post might be out of date by next week.

The still-unnamed language is a nonlinear, written-only conlang, inspired heavily by UNLWS. It’s meant to look very different from UNLWS, though, and functions in a different way as well. I won’t get too into the details here, but I’ll share a few short things I wrote today to test things out:

“Cats, opossums, mice, goats, and rabbits are mammals.” I decided after writing this that the glyph for “dog” looked more like a goat, so that’s what it means now (bottom row, third glyph). Pre-goatification, though, this was a reference to the five completed seasons of Langtime Studio, which have followed the creation of conlangs for various animals.

“Mammals have hair, but other animals don’t.” The top left glyph is “mammal,” which is a combination of the glyph for “hair” (bottom left) and the glyph for “animal” (center). The latter glyph also the basis for all the glyphs for specific animals in the first image. The resemblance of the glyphs at 6 o’clock and 9 o’clock to the animal ones is a complete coincidence, though.

“I saw a bunny, and it saw me. It came toward me, but then it ran away.” True story! Here are photos from the incident:

[carmenifold]

(replying to @mint-flavoured-coffee, @doggirlhen, @doesnotcomphoot)

i am sorry to say i did not make a full button combo conlang. i do not have that kind of time or energy ;w; but i DEFINITELY thought about it. i had to restrain myself from thinking too hard about it or that comic would never get done lol

not to say that it's completely random tho! i did put some thought into what inputs would convey what feelings.

mostly it's just what felt right, i kinda imagined what the button combo felt like in my hands and what sort of feeling i got from those buttons over years of playing video games.

there are a few conscious things though, like having the joystick down being like a little exhale from wii girl followed by the home buttons reflecting her saying she's home, having the z buttons reflect being sleepy followed by the start button being gc girl rising from her sleep... things like a little upward c stick maneuver being like a stretch after a yawn, the wavebird switch being a zap of attention, plus buttons being a little recharging stretch, ending an answer with minus and power buttons had the same feeling as a little affirmative nod...

Also.

i hadn't thought of this but @averysoftsheep ur a fuckin genius. when they talk it's gentle little button clacks ;w; probably with some subtle little electric whirrs and hums.

im glad people enjoy these girls and that people are catching all the little details i'm leaving in the pics :3 ill be drawing more of them! and maybe other girls they know......... >:3c

[katistrophe]

I heard you like conlangs so I put conlang in your conlang

Or, Kat has Heaven’s Vault on their brain after playing Chants of Sennaar.

(Translation notes after the cut)

To start this off, I am a ridiculous person who has religiously avoided language spoilers for Heaven’s Vault, so this is based off of the… sixty-odd pages of notes I took while playing.

The title was tricky, of course - couldn’t really find the etymology of „Sennaar“, so „Chants of Sennaar“ became „Songs of the Tower“. If there is an Ancient word for „tower“ I haven’t found it, so I constructed one. I first thought of „high wall“, but went for „heaven:wall“ as a semi-pun on the Tower of Babel thing instead. (Double pun, but only for English speakers: I’m pretty sure if you exchange the noun marker in „wall“ for a place marker you get „place where something is buried“. As in a vault.)

Also on the title card, „options“ is literally „say change“, paralleling „say your destination“/„say your question(?)“ from hoppers/robots awaiting input. „Change“ is also inferred from the verb.

„Warriors“ was pretty straightforward to translate as „soldiers“. I also „translated“ the exclamation mark in the UI since Ancient doesn’t really have punctuation as such - it now says „important“.

„Bards“ is my own guess since I haven’t found the equivalent yet, but I don’t think I’ve leaned too far out of the window with it - „person who sings“. To reflect how „ungrammatical“ sentences with uncertain words are, I added spaces between the words rather than the run-on style of fully translated ones. I‘m not sure if an approximation of OSV sentence structure like „bards, we are“ would work in Ancient, but the whole mentally switching from OSV to SVO and vice vice versa is enough in the connection segments, I wouldn’t want to inflict it on a hypothetical Ancient-speaking player during all of the Gardens. (Note also the player trying to describe the „plural“ part with „many“ since Ancient doesn’t really do plural forms of nouns.)

„Devotees“ was probably the easiest to translate - „pilgrims“ is as literal as it gets, seeing as they are people wanting to move towards their deity. The „unreadable“ in the inscription becomes „can-not read“. (Not sure whether using „want“ for „seek“ isn’t a Chants-ism, but I haven’t found a better word yet, so it’s the best I can do…)

[audiodramayearbook]

A compiled list of all the polls!

This will be updated as new categories go live.

Show that is begging the world to please stop making their fictional torment nexuses a reality. (AKA the Stop One-Upping Us Amazon Challenge award)

Listening to this show is cheaper than therapy.

Fuck I missed an important thing because I was listening to this show. (AKA the Do Not Listen While Driving award)

Best show a listener might not like at first, but really picks up to be something special after you give it more then three episodes and leaves you wanting more.

They warned us about this show but we didn't listen and now everything hurts.

I listened to the whole thing and still have no idea what’s going on. (AKA the It's Been A Wild Ride award)

Character most fully unaware of the genre they’re in.

Please just let us take them home and feed them soup (aka the Wet Cat Award)

The character that left us too soon.

The character that didn't leave us soon enough.

We hate them, but love every second they’re on air.

This character is entirely too pure for the show they're in (aka the Cinnamon Roll Award)

The most character of all time.

Actor most likely to jump-scare the listener (aka the Wait, they’re in this too??? award)

Look, all we want to know is when do they breathe. (aka the Pacing And Lung Capacity Award)

The actor whose voice wraps us up in a warm blanket.

If this actor was wearing pants, they acted them off. (aka the Scenery Chewing Award)

We heard their voice exactly once and immediately started daydreaming about who we wanted to hear them play (aka The Fan Casting Award)

Best blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo

What do you mean it’s not punny? (aka the Highest Form of Humor Award)

Most likely to have detailed notes for expansive worldbuilding & backstory that doesn't appear on screen (aka the There's More Lore Than Script Award)

Writing this show is cheaper than therapy

Writer most likely to be lovingly bullied by their actors & fans.

Best made up word(s) even the writer can’t pronounce correctly (aka the Yes, But is It A Conlang Award)

Enemies-to-Lovers arc but it's you and this show's writer.

Is this a stock sound or custom foley????? (aka the We Do Not Deserve the Priceless Treasure That Is A Good Editor Award)

Longest credit sequence (aka the Award for Most Times Looping The Outro Music)

Most likely to make you say “Wait, This Wasn’t Recorded Live, In Person???” (aka the It’s Like I’m There Award)

Creator of the most artfully-awful misaphonic nightmare. (aka the Oh God It Squishes Award)

This soundtrack is a banger. ( aka the That's What the Kids Say, Right? Award)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

And remember, any and all shows that released an episode in 2023 can be submitted to the Yearbook! Do that here!

[dedalvs]

Hey! Sorry if you’ve answered this before or if it’s a bit above your paygrade for a Tumblr ask, but how do you imagine the dialect of Low Valyrian spoken in Lys to differ from High Valyrian (primarily in terms of phonology)? I know GRRM described it as a “musical, flowing, liquid tongue,” but that’s a bit too vague for my purposes, haha.

This is a big ask, because Lyseni and High Valyrian are different languages. They're related, but they're different in the way that Latin and French are different. I haven't given it careful thought you because it's potential future work for some potential future ASoIaF series. I hope to one day be able to create it. If I don't, I hope it'll be a fun exercise for a future conlanger.

Incidentally, if these GRRM books have lasting interest (assuming society lasts that long), it may be the case that these things are rebooted or expanded upon again and again in the future. Consider what's happened with Star Trek since the very first series aired. If some day after I'm dead they really start exploring the rest of the physical territory on Terros (so help me if you come at with "Planetos" I will block you), I hope a future conlanger finds it fun to use High Valyrian as a proto-language. They can, of course, always decide to ditch everything I did and do something new, but if it were me, I would find that fun, given that there is significant material that has been faithfully documented, to the best of my ability. That is, I was trying my best to get everything down. I'm sure there's mistakes (I correct them as I come across them), but it's better than the lack of records that exist for other things. I'm not saying they won't curse my name a few times for some of the absurd choices I made, but I hope on the whole, the experience would be a positive and rewarding one.

Anyway, I think it'd be fun to do a good chunk of the daughter languages of Valyrian, but I'm not sure I'll ever get the chance. Here's hoping.

[tanadrin]

bonus objectives

The primary purpose of life is, depending on who you ask and what mood they're in, to live virtuously, to be of net benefit to the world, to enjoy yourself, to pass on your genes, to pass on your memes, or nothing at all--or some other bit of boring nonsense. The following are your bonus objectives. Point values are loosely based on a combination of difficulty, pointlessness, and entertainment value.

Get the IAU to name a planetary feature, solar system object, star, or exoplanet "Butthole." (5 points; +5 points if it's a crater) 2. Convince at least one U.S. state to officially allocate its electoral college votes to a nonhuman primate (5 points) or other animal (10 points).

Have a news story reporting your death be a major international headline (e.g., the number 1 post on Reddit for the day). (1 point; +9 points if you are not otherwise famous)

Become the first internationally recognized Emperor of Mars. (5 points)

Be the cause of a major revision to the UNCLOS. (5 points)

Mend the Great Schism/heal the Sunni-Shia divide/reunite Western Christianity. (10 points each)

Uplift a nonhuman animal to the point it can speak, write, or type a natural human language at least as well as a 10-year-old native. (10 points; +20 points if it's not a mammal; +20 points if it can also win a FIDE-recognized chess tournament)

Domesticate bears. (10 points)

Solve one of the remaining Millennium Prize problems in mathematics. (10 points each)

Build a medieval-style castle on the Moon. (5 points)

Receive a valid letter of marque from King Felipe IV, or his successor, and use it to capture a British-flagged vessel. (5 points; +45 points if you do this at or beyond low earth orbit)

Unite two non-Commonwealth countries in personal union. (1 point; +4 points if they're on different continents; +25 points if they're not monarchies)

Have Liechtenstein declare itself an empire, without its borders changing (5 points).

Convince Istanbul to change its name back to Constantinople, or Tokyo to Edo, or Mexico City to Tenochtitlan. (5 points each)

Convince Greece to change its name to South Macedonia. (25 points) 16. Successfully hoax the world into believing they're being contacted by aliens for at least a week. (15 points; +50 if you've got actual aliens on the line)

Start a new religion that gains at least 10,000 followers. (1 point; +4 points if it's not an offshoot of an exisiting major world religion; +10 points if it doesn't closely reference any major world religions' mythology or theology at all; +5 if that includes not borrowing any major new age or neopagan concepts; +10 if you do all this on, or convince your followers to move to, another body or planet in the Solar System; +10 if your religion subsequently becomes another major world religion; +25 if it's *not* principally a Scientology-style scam; +50 points if the place in the Solar System you establish as your religion's spiritual center is the one you convinced the IAU to name "Butthole")

Start a new political ideology that wins power in a UN member state. (1 point; +4 points if it's not just a cosmetic rework of an existing political ideology; +5 points if you win power through constitutional means; +10 points if you manage to retain power for at least 5 years)

Circumnavigate the globe under your own power. (10 points)

Leave the Solar System (dead or alive). (15 points; being on an escape trajectory will suffice for the purposes of scoring, unless that trajectory is likely to be intercepted or disrupted by a solar system body like a planet or asteroid; +50 points if you're somehow still alive when you hit the heliopause)

Touch an object of interstellar origin on an escape trajectory from the solar system (such as 'Oumuamua) and say "Tag, you're it," while remaining in contact. (20 points)

Develop a conlang that is used regularly by at least 10,000 people. (15 points; +25 points for every order of magnitude increase in users after that number; +100 points if it becomes a standard international auxiliary language spoken at least as widely as English)

Invent a word that makes it into OED. (1 point; +4 points if it makes it into desktop-sized abridged dictionaries)

[maniculum]

Bestiaryposting Results: Dikebael

This animal's name is, admittedly, a bit of a "Tirion upon Túna (upon Rye)" situation in that I did not process that there was anything unusual about the name until, shortly after the entry went up, it got a "heh. Dick-ball" reply. (And they weren't alone; at least one of the art posts that's gone up has acknowledged the unfortunate name.) It probably doesn't help that this entry references the animal's testicles.

I can't even go, "well, it's not pronounced like that," because by the orthographical rules of the conlang I used to generate these names, it would be pronounced /dɪ·kɛ·bæ·ɛl/, so the start still pretty much sounds like "dick". I'd say I'll be more careful about that in future, but I scheduled all of these ahead of time and I'm not sure it's worth digging through the queue, so we'll just have to see.

Anyway, for anyone who's not sure what this whole "bestiaryposting" thing is, you can find an explanation and previous posts here: https://maniculum.tumblr.com/bestiaryposting. The entry that people are working from this time is here:

(Also, I just want to remind anyone reading that you're free to join in -- this is not a closed thing, just check out the "maniculum bestiaryposting" tag and sort by latest to see what the current beast is. Felt I should say that since we've had the same group of people for a while and I don't want anyone seeing the same set of usernames each time and thinking this is an exclusive club.)

Anyway, art below the cut in roughly chronological order.

@sweetlyfez (link to post here), acknowledging the lack of physical description in the entry, has opted to just have fun with it and put together this strange chimerical creature. I think the flat little horns on top of its snout are really interesting -- the linked post describes them as functioning like a stone circle to make sure it has the right date for its annual announcements. I have no idea if that would work at all, but it seems like it fits the general logic of the bestiary, and I like it.

@silverhart-makes-art (link to post here) has an interesting explanation in the linked post about how they decided to combine features of various desert-dwelling animals with the basic body plan of a peccary (which is apparently the same animal I know as a "javelina" -- I learn a lot looking stuff up while I write these posts). They then acknowledge that, without the context of all the things they're working in here, it kind of just looks like they've drawn a very large warthog. It's a very good hog, though. Something neat that you might miss if you're just looking at the drawing without the context of the post, for instance, is that it has the same fat-storing tail as a fat-tailed sheep. For more little bonuses like that, check out the linked post.

@cheapsweets (link to post here) has given us a whole herd of critters here. They've also hooked onto the "desert" thing due to the lack of physical description, collected traits from real-world animals that make them successful in a desert biome, and combined them into a new creature. They make me think of jackals, which aren't mentioned in the linked post, and also make me think of donkeys, which (kind of) are. Let's all take a moment to note the baby hiding behind a pile of rocks to the right, watching a smaller animal of some sort. I think it's cute.

CheapSweets also wonders about the significance of March 25th, and I have to say so do I. It's not explained in the text. The symbolism bit does say they call the same number of times during the day and night to represent the devil wanting to make day and night the same, which... what?

@pomrania (link to post here) clarifies that this is a grayscale rendering and that the animal would actually be a sort of dusty tan in a color version. They also went the direction of "this animal lives in the desert, so let's focus on desert adaptations." So we've got the split hooves and nostrils that can close to keep out sand. I particularly like the overhanging lip; it adds a certain charm, I think.

@coolest-capybara (link to post here) has decided that this is an excellent excuse to draw an elephant, since we're short on specific description beyond them living in Africa and being able to make loud noises. As a bonus, this means that the young Dikebael can be conveniently hidden behind the mother's large ears. The other aspects of this illustration relate to Coolest-Capybara having a pretty solid theory as to "why March 25th" -- apparently that's the Feast of the Annunciation, which of course the medieval author would have known. So here we have the Archelephant Gabriel trumpeting at Mary. (Actually it seems like the baby is doing the trumpeting, and it looks adorable doing it.) The linked post describes the medieval artworks that are being referenced in the illustration, so I recommend checking that out.

Anyway, time to check the Aberdeen Bestiary...

... well, we can't, actually. The Aberdeen Bestiary is missing a few folios, and this is on one of those. I got the text from MS Bodley 764, since I have a print translation of that one and it's fairly similar. For the illumination, we're going to go to the digitized Ashmole Bestiary, which is even more similar but I don't have a translation of it.

So this is the onager or wild ass.

Interestingly, it looks pretty much identical to the image of the tame ass on the same page, but to be fair, I don't think I'd be able to distinguish between an onager and a donkey with any reliability. Makes one wonder why they have separate illustrations, though.

And yeah, I have no additional explanation for why... any of the stuff in the entry.