#artlangs

[multiversetravelingjournalist]

Cryptonian Conlangs: Help wanted.

I need to make a few languages, they aren't supposed to be natural, for a confederation of supernatural hackers, one faction of which can upload their own bodies as well as those they take with them into a digital world, Tron style. I want these languages to feel like programming languages and I have a few ideas on how to achieve that:

Labeling of parts of speech to clear up ambiguity.

Variable assignment as anaphora.

vocal bracketing to set apart different parts of a sentence and enclose quotes.

Every sentence starting with a line identifier that can be used as a sort of anaphora when referencing them shorthanded.

What else could I do to achieve this effect? Also, I might also look to esoteric programming languages for inspiration as well.

[sannehnagi]

Yunt'untahaqenni uyuliigalasa laakitš'ilipia yaneqanoqiišuusail uitani ikiitšannilipia iluuliinng aakitš'ilaaq a'ušiišooq.

Most of them accepted namelessness with the perfect indifference with which they had always accepted and ignored their names.

astasatl'aq, a'assasayumaq, asangiikeqq, a'uunaqq yarhallii tataasail ušiisaš, matigalaasasii taniintalii astatliiš.

Whales, dolphins, seals, and otters agreed with particular alacrity, slipping into anonymity like into water.

Ayaak yaqrhaqenni atiyarhiišupai.

But a group of yaks protested.

Yaqq innantaraantlii haqaš, a'ama' ningaš ilaamatinipaš iinuliigaišoq.

Yak sounds right, they said, and almost everyone who knew about them called them that.

Aaq amapaanaškilii uiyatleeq uhah t’aparhaqq a’umaatanirhannipooq ariaak uliigaannilipia ap’atuu, yaqqit uliigang iinyooqaritlii haqaš. 

Unlike the ubiquitous animals like rats and fleas who have had many names since we began to speak, yaks could really say they have a name.

Russ ntanaassii ngiiyuukaranngipia. 

They discussed it all summer.

Uaašitš'iyuuaramb' astiiyap'ai anap uliigangit nngunng tliiyuurhinitaapia ayaak yaqqaayaasii haktambalaap'ayig uit arhilipia a'iintl'asili.

The council of elders finally agreed the name might be useful for others but from the perspective of yaks it was so redundant that they never said it themselves.

Aaq taaškinniš asaikitšavilapai, ataq uit uliigupiisuliaa nurhalipia.

Among domestic animals, horses never cared what they were called.

Peqilaq, ngiilakeqilaq, ušeeq, galaangqaak, haat'eq qagiililaaš, a'tataanasaak arhakit aatyooqilaniiši iluuligang hak’tliikitš'ooqyooqyatlipia kurumaš.

Cows, sheep, pigs, goats, chickens, and geese all agreed enthusiastically to return the names to those to whom they belonged.

Aniš nuutl'ainni ngiitšinilassii haivalihiit.

A few problems arose with pets.

Taskaq, matitu, uitani uliigang yuutlaaq ayaak niit ikitš'uurhiniik aragaš uliigang matigaisaš arianuyasasii tahatliinilipia nuyaš ayaak uit uvihireq iluuliigang aatšatliilaatlii a'umunirak nahaviši iilaak hatliiš aariyii t'aparhaq yaneq.

Cats, of course, always denied ever having names aside from those self-given, unspoken, ineffable names, which they spend hours contemplating, but none of the contemplators have ever admitted that it is their names they contemplate and some have suggested they contemplate the perfect mouse.

taroq, a'umuhakarahaat'eq, ratliihaat'eq, tšoq, a'yayarh uking ikiitl'ipia.

Dogs, and some parrots, lovebirds, ravens, and mynahs had the problem.

Niit aaq araqqannatyaš iluuliigang nutiniit rhii talalaaq, a'mbihatl'akilaa.

These verbally talented animals insisted their names were important to them, and refused to part with them.

Ayaak uking itš'inniit ataš aaniig nkateeq eqaasaš a'anaq uliigumbingiigaa atahanniil laatim, ana t'aniš, ana luupeq, ana haat'eqim sauigutl'ipia yaneqaš, hatl'anniit ikiitš'akilaa uumbing amaaš tuunt'ilaaq.

But when they understood the problem was one of personal choice, and anyone who wanted to be called rover, or little-one, or shoulder-sitter, or birdie was perfectly allowed, they had no objections and so left the generic appellations behind.

Atataataš iluuliigassii aatlaatlii yuntunrhiiš a'up'anng anni at ngiinuyaš aaniig, tsiitlii, a'oqqatlii, a'mu'untlii, a'utšatlii, a'laapunantlii.

Insects parted with their names in great clouds of ephemeral sounds, buzzing, and stinging, and humming, and crawling, and tunneling away.

Initlii ast'aq iluuligang ngiigannisii ngiintuuiviitleeq ušamaš utluurhunngurhurakiringatuu'taanik'oq yahit, a'assisii tuunassit igaaš.

Regarding the fish, their names scattered through the ocean silently like black clouds of octopus ink, and floated away on the currents.

At'uveq uyuliigalakamiišutlii, a'ilaninrharaa astl'ii a'sakumbai, a'atatlii, a'ngiyuutšatlii intinngannisii ana intuutiyangusii uutlii ana ii'skalisa ana skaa'nutlisa ilaiyaq.

Now there were none to unname, and I felt close to them when I saw them swimming, and flying, and running, and crawling across my path, or over my skin or hunting me at night or walking beside me during the day.

At'raraa ninrhuntipai nuutaš iluuligang kutiyaangayuuntlungit aasili, nintlii nuutaš intiisung a'ilutiisung yahatiisungit uinilip'ia.

Now I felt much closer to them than when their names made an invisible barrier between us, so close my fear and their fear became the same fear.

Uiliinariit aria' raranninga, aatitš'ikunni ana ngiitšintlii, ngatantluviniik, a'tuutiyang, a' sakung, a'oqoqang, aatagutšikunni ngaranni a'nkunni, poqquhinga.

Many of us felt the change in the air, the desire to feel or caress one another’s scales, and skin, and feathers, and fur, the desire to taste one another’s blood and flesh, to keep each other warm.

Niit uiliinarik tiisungit at'amayat'aapia, ska' skala' laaqegalaisaakin, a'yahaš giil' giilalaat.

This change was now all one with the fear, the hunter cannot be told from the hunted, a so too, the eater from the eaten.

Nga asaitanng uutšaap ningaš, lurutunig nayulaaq ayaak at'asakitšagahiisa yaašagaaš.

This was more or less what I had wanted, it was more powerful than I had expected but I couldn’t now make an exception for myself in good faith.

Ayoqanni nu'mbitšaap atinaš, ata' šiita a'ara,

I resolutely put aside anxiety, went to Adam, and said,

"nigati ngaat inkitš'uutšiurhapia nngunngaag haqaš ayaak yaa'iinnataarha."

“You and your father gave this to me, it has been very useful but it doesn’t fit me well anymore.”

Laakitš'ing iinhak’iitš'uunntšatlig a'qqusaš a'uinuuš nooqagaa, a'imišiiyayoqquugaa. Ušaqigapaš, šaavilaaq, a'ariš ataš,

It is difficult to give back something given and not seem peevish and ungrateful, and I didn’t want to leave him this impression of me. He wasn’t paying attention, as it happened, and said only,

"iimbaambinoq niit, yanuunig?"

“Set it down over there, okay?”

hak'šavaapia šasulaaq.

And went back to what he had been doing.

Iiššaavvaiilaa aratlii šašatlariiri, ayaak ngii'ušayutaat'aasa.

I had done what I did because talk was getting us no where, but I was still disappointed.

Yuukaaravvupoqava, ahišaap iinušiaq tiniilariiš a'arusili.

I had been prepared to defend myself, and thought when he noticed he might be hurt and would want to talk.

Taniš kussuna a'huutš'ia, ayaak šaaqiiš a'ušitagaagaa.

I busied myself a bit, and waited about, but he continued what he was doing and heeded nothing else.

Atšiyara,

Finally I said,

"muum, laata, hašaq, ušaya liiuintšaak hakivaliig."

Well, goodbye, dear, I hope the key reappears.”

Šaaqiiš a’ariš haniiriiš,

He was working and said, without looking about,

“Yaag, giilitiaq?”

It is good, when are we eating?”

“Matigaa.” Ara,

“I don’t know.” I said,

“At’tšiup…” tutš’ia a’atsili

“I am going now with…” I paused and then said,

“tšiutšiingaa.” Asatsili.

“I am leaving with them.” And went out.

Haqaš, yaa’ušišaap ataš atlivalintšatl’ahitšiga.

Truly, I had just noticed how difficult it would have been to explain myself

Arat’agisa yahatuu, imanni nuutl’aat, iapaat, arapaat, uiitš’ip’aat ši’inngaš paššanišaap tinngannissii ngiirinnitaangaa hurahandanagiisii agilušanniip’ia kanašit’aalasasii.

I cannot chatter like I used to, my words must be slow, must be new, must be singular, must be tentative as my steps along the path between the dark-armed tall dancers motionless against the winter shining.

[wrendeavore]

[aeniith]

Alright so. I kinda miss Lexember. Every year I always enjoy how it pushes me to add conlanging into my daily routine rather than going all at once at it.

So I am going to do a short translation every few days. For now, it’s in Rílin, but I may branch out to some of my more developing languages.

[ˈʃydap̚ ʌˈtʌse ˈbaʃo ko ˈlɔnu ˈfɛtla]

Rílin is a VSO language. So you see the verb there first, that being “was”. Literally, “He was successful only at the third occasion.”

[abnormalarcana]

A map of extra-dimensional spaces. While they are constantly changing spaces, a few aspects will remain the same for at least a few years.

[notreallynoah]

Directions to valrāyanasta

I got a new calligraphy pen so I thought I'd write smth cool. This also features a stamp I carved a few weeks ago.

[wrendeavore-conlangs]

It took a little longer than expected, but we got there! Lets talk about syllables, sounds, and the writing system.

The writing system is a syllabic alphabet, i.e. it has forms for individual letters corresponding to individual sounds, but they are arranged into blocks each corresponding to a single syllable. Let's take a look at an example, Kuembros.

If a syllable starts with a consonant, it goes on the left. The only consonant clusters in this language are formed with a plosive followed by an r, which is marked in the top left if present. The vowel(s) go in the top right. If there is a consonant at the end, it is written at the bottom connected to the initial consonant. Otherwise, a simple horizontal line takes its place.

Here are the consonants with their corresponding glyphs. Only m, n, and s may be at the end of a syllable. Their ending forms are shown underneath the table.

The first table below shows the plain vowels. This is the 5-vowel system. The second table shows the possible vowel combinations along with their typical realizations. Some of these are long vowels which are held for a greater duration (e.g. ā /aː/), some are diphthongs which glide from one vowel to another (e.g. /ai/ as in eye), and some starting with an i or u may be realized as a semivowel (y in you, and w in we respectively). Note that the IPA symbol for the English consonant y is /j/.

So there we have it. If you want to puzzle out some examples of the script, the banner at the top contains some randomly generated syllables of various forms.

Next up: People, Places and Things

[tinyweevil]

I'm remaking my ant language, so far so good.

It's a graphic language only (you can't hear pheromones) and I've designed the characters to resemble stink lines, which works well with them writing on leaves. Currently have a vocabulary of 147 words with pictographs, but I'm working up to a total of 286, maybe more!! It's so fun! I'm going to need to move online soon, it's hard to keep track of everything on paper

[mewling-central]

Sorry for disappearing, was busy working on next language in the Seraphic family, Ireturish! I had a lot of fun with this one, got to do a lot of new stuff with this like vowel harmony and formality registers. It uses a modified version of the shorthand Seraphic script which (mostly) lacks the segmenting and puts each syllable in a new block. Here's a translation of the UDHR, more info below:

/ˈeʔ.ner eʔˈsʰeˌræh eːˈs'ʰäh gu s'ʰem in æːˈtʰem im.bi æzˈzæ.ʝen bi ˈlexen im.bi ˈlen.zerˌhæh | ˈeʔ.ner reˈʎɯː.änˌnä inˈs'ʰæ ˈsʰe.ræh eːˈs'ʰäh ni ˌli.zænˈnim ɯːʔˈrɯm ˌɯː.ʎäˈwɯm im.bi s'äɲ ˌrø.søˈʝø eːˈs'ʰäh in lesˈs'ʰæ ɯːˌlɯ.zänˈnä sʰæh sʰeː eːˈs'ʰäh eːˈnɯː/

E’ner e’sherah ees”äh gu s”em in aathem imbi azzaźen bi lexen imbi lenzer-hah. E’ner reýüüännä ins”a sherah ees”äh bi lizannim üü’rüm üüýäwüm, imbi s’äñ rësëźë ees”äh in less”a üülüzännä shah shee ees”äh eenüü.

GNO PRE.MTL-seraph ANADJ-everyone out.of egg as ADJ-free and ADJ-equal with dignity and rights(COL) || GNO PRE.ACTN-help for seraph ANADJ-everyone with thought-PL INADJ-reasonable-PL INADJ-ethic-PL | and OBLG PRE.ACTN-3S ANADJ-everyone as reason INADJ-friendship between person ANADJ-everyone ANADJ-other

"All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood."

[jjuin-lang]

id like to make an artlang.... I don't really know where to start

having a lot of fricatives and affricates, keep vowels limited to a few whispery ones

i was thinking making it cursive, that looks like waves on a beach

adding shells on the shore or bubbles as a kind of abugida

thatd be really cute, i think

ill let you know how it turns out

[maonng]

Some basics of nominal classification

aight so, i wanted to make a post about nominal morphology but i cant be cause i would need to go into: case markings, derivational morphology and expression of plurality, most of which i have not stabalized in my master doc so ill just go into the expression of grammatical gender or grammatical classes in my conlang.

a lot of grammars talk about grammatical genders because a lot of grammatical gender systems are sex-based (french, spanish etc.) but i prefer the terme nominal classes for a three reasons:

the gender binary is fake and cant be limited to a binary sex system, even within natural gender systems (german (masc, fem, neutral), a variety of african languages which are not even sex-based)

even within sex-based, binary gender systems, it makes no sense to speak of gender for objects, concepts and so on so the sex dichotomy only applies to a few lexemes (and even then it's debatable)

the nominal classes in my conlang is based on different criteria that are completly outside of gender/sex considerations, at least within the nouns.

So, with these considerations in mind, lets get into the nominal classes in my language. I considered 4 different classes that are a result of the combination of 2 binary variable:

whether the considered (philosophical) object is animate

whether the considered (philosophical) object is found above or below the earth

Indeed, the linguistic community that speaks this language lives under the ground, and spends most of its life in complexe cave systems that they made as their dwelling.

this creates a few cognitive considerations in the distribution of objects into the different nominal classes that i will go into later.

from this we can deduce 4 nominal classes:

deep inanimate (dwelling, books...) DI

deep animate (people, bugs, fire...) DA

surface inanimate (mountains, rocks, fallen snow...) SI

surface animate (animals, clouds, falling snow...) SA

the usual way one can tell that a language has a nominal class system is agreement. In my language, gender agreement shows in different ways. one of the most elaborate is that each noun case affix agrees with the nominal class of the noun.

nominal class agreement shows in different ways all throughout the language besides nouns: all nominals bear some sort of agreement mark.

at first i wanted to give each noun a different ending depending on its nominal class but im starting to rethink this decision as it's kind of boring. going forward ill either have a few "stereotypical" endings for each nominal class but that are not necessary for a noun to belong to a class or ill just say f it and just make class unmarked in the lexeme.

im still working on the case markings and the case system so i wont be able to show much right now but ill start working on a few case infographics soon.

[namelessvoid77]

can you fucking believe im dating two people right now. i cant

[sannehnagi]

Ni ho'alarē mēteio ānarito þonegișō nauihurota.

/ni çɔʔaɾaʁɛː mɛːteɪ̆jɔ aːnaʁitɔ ðɔnɛɡiʃɔː naʊwixuʁɒta/

Ni ho'ala.rē mēte.io o.ana.rito Þo.negi.șō na.uihu.rota

1sg love.pt-HAB fond.ESS.too D-pl.star.3pACC neg.fear.CONV def-sing.night.4sACC

I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.

Art inspired by the paintings of @helveticablanc

[wrendeavore]

Dhàzan'a Orthography

This post by @thecrazyneographist inspired the Dhàzan'a writing system. I'm not very creative when it comes to designing unique letter forms, so it uses combinations of markings to get full coverage of the phonology. I suppose that makes it a featural writing system.

[aeniith]

A few more days of #Lexember! I’m continuing my metalsmithing theme. It’s actually revealing other words I needed too (such as zaíkó ‘until, up to’), so I’m ending up creating more terms than planned. :)

[abnormalarcana]