#hence conlang time

[overflowing-glass]

The daydreaming about a funny scenario with aliens to drafting the grammatical rules for a conlang pipeline

[intuitive-revelations]

Headcanon: one of the reasons why Gallifreyan is a) so complex, and b) so inconsistent, is because it's less one language and more a complex mishmash of thousands of languages and dialects.

Think about how one of the reasons English can be complex to learn is because of the mix of Germanic and romance language roots, and now take it up to 11.

While one might expect Gallifrey to be monolingual, given its age and class structure, this probably isn't technically the case. After all, why limit your culture to one language when the average citizen is effectively panlingual (to the point that TARDIS translation circuits are actually dependent on their pilots' knowledge, rather than the other way round)?

Thus, if there once were distinct languages on Gallifrey, they probably have all been merged at this point into modern Gallifrey's super-Esperanto. Add in loan words from notable civilisations across all of spacetime (but likely primarily from Gallifreyan colonies and allies like Dronid, Minyos, Cartego etc.), and it quickly becomes quite unwieldy.

It's also likely that there's a lot of overlap between these sub-languages, which can make distinguishing meaning hard to an outsider. Gallifreyans likely get around this courtesy of their telepathic connections.

TBH, given Time Lord sensibilities, it's likely that every single word variation has its own delicate meanings, derived not just from their societal uses but also from the etymology and history of each one. Canonically (though I don't have a source) we know that there are 30 different words meaning "culture shock", for example, which likely have very minor distinctions in meaning. We also know, unsurprisingly, that there's at least 208 tenses to help in describing time travel.

As an example - imagine being a Sunari ambassador at an embassy gathering and accidentally offending every Time Lord in the room because you accidentally used a definite article derived from the memeovored Old High Tersuran colony dialect, now considered low-brow by association with modern Tersuran, when you intended to use a nearly identical form of the word originating from the Founding Conflict, a triumphant post-Rassilonian intervention, distinguished by a near-imperceptible glottal stop.

It's likely that some of these Gallifreyan sub-languages/dialects may still be spoken with increased frequency under certain conditions, such as in one's own House or when visiting other city complexes. We know, for example, that Arcadia seems to be associated with a "Northern English" accent (which Nine picked up subconsciously post-regeneration, with the Fall of Arcadia being one of the last things the War Doctor remembered before DOTD's multi-Doctor event - hence "lots of planets have a north") when translated, which may indicate some dialect differences in the original language. I suspect there is a societal expectation for Gallifreyans to code-switch depending on the situation, with Citadel business generally expecting the Gallifreyan equivalent of RP, though it's relatively common for Time Lords less concerned with respectability and politicking to not comply.

One nice benefit of all this complexity, and the reason I made this post, is that there's a good argument to be made that every fan attempt to construct a Gallifreyan language can be 'canon', contradictions and all.

Greencook Gallifreyan? A formal evolution of Pythian prophecy scripture into the post-Intuitive Revelation era (based on its similarities with the Visionary's scrawling in The End of Time).

Sherman Gallifreyan? A modern katakana-like phonetic alphabet for the rapid-onslaught of new loan words following President Romana's open academy policies. Recently adopted by the Fifteenth Doctor for writing human proverbs.

Teegarden Gallifreyan? An archaic but recognisable near-Capitolian dialect from the Prydonian mountains, once spoken by Oldblood houses like Lungbarrow and Blyledge.

Or, in a nutshell, the state of Gallifreyan conlangs (and maybe in-universe Gallifreyan dialects):

I guess the dream project would be to accept the complexity and create some sort of grand modular "meta-Gallifreyan" conlang, merging as many fan interpretations as possible with their own distinctions and overlaps, that can continue to be updated as new ideas come up and new stories are released...

[birbmonster]

Single-element redesigns/headcanon designs!

yo

This is a remake of my designs from September! There's two reasons I decided to remake them:

-Looked at the September art again, and I don't like most of it anymore

-September was when I got back into the fandom. Now that I've been in it again for a few months my ideas are flowing properly and I have a more stable vision for what the Monster World is like. Plus, I had new ideas and some of my designs changed over time (paticularly Kayna)

Ramblings below the images!

-Kayna is based on a more dinosaur-like appearence (for that whole prehistoric thing)

-Toe Jammer is based on a dumbo octopus, hence the 'ears'

-The rest of them are just the type of thing I would usually do with stuff like anatomy

-The writing below their names are the species names in my Monstrous conlang! You'll notice that they all end with the same set of letters, rutab, and that's because it means 'monster'. The prefix added to all of them is derived from the words for their elements. So for example the word for Toe Jammer essentially means 'water monster' if you split it up.

[blog-sekai]

Unit Introduction: m4jor*REVERSAL

A group of four friends who take on a persona while they preform. Their music is often dark, tells a story or both...

*real quick: I can't draw for shit, so this is all going to be text and a bit long. Sorry :(

•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────••─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────••─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•

About m4jor*REVERSAL:

The asterisk in their unit name represents a pentacle!

Each member is aligned with a tarot card (including the vocaloids) and as characters they tend to play off that card in interesting ways. Their card is also their stage name/alias and sometimes an alternate persona they put on for their music; that alternate persona is often called their "reversed", hence the unit name.

They all preform in costume and while wearing masks - originally as a safety/anonymity thing, now it helps them get into the headspace to preform.

Although they do street performances or take gigs for local venues, most of their work is online. Their MVs take a long time to make, because of all the recording and editing involved.

I don't have a clear genre/style for their music yet🤧in my head its very atmospheric/psychedelic? But I can't think of a clear example atm.

They're my oldest fan unit! I dusted 'em off a few weeks ago when I got back into pjsk and they're much more fleshed out now ^^

•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────••─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────••─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•

"Even if it's only this once...please, let me be seen!"

Solomon Lucius - The Magician

Birthday: Nov 2

Height: 5'7" / 170cm

Hobbies: Tarot, People-Watching

Specialty: Rhythm Games

Favorite Food: Rose Shortbread Cookies

Least Favorite Food: Omurice

Dislikes: Hide & Seek

Despite his best efforts, Sol struggles with having presence most of the time. When preforming under his stage name, though, drawing attention to himself is effortless. He got into (western) esoterica/mythos/witchcraft in middle school, although it's more a casual hobby than a sincere belief. Secretly likes to be called nicknames, because he sees it as a sign people care.

•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────••─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────••─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•

"One day, I swear, we'll make a happy ending!"

Arthur Charon - The Hanged Man

Birthday: August 1

Height: 5'9" / 175cm

Hobbies: Parkour, Conlangs

Specialty: Brewing Tea

Favorite Food: Soba Noodles

Least Favorite Food: Citrus

Dislikes: Roller Coasters

Arthur likes to tell stories, but all of them seem to accidentally end in tragedy or horror. He and Solomon became friends in elementary school and are quite close, but since he has a one-track mind, Art often focuses more on his other friends without meaning to. His parents are a bit traditional, but they do encourage him in his hobbies & interests. He's arguably the best dancer of the group, likely because of how much he enjoys parkour.

•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────••─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────••─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•

"It's important to stay connected to those around you, you know?"

Rowan Delphi - The Hermit

Birthday: March 20

Height: 6' / 183cm

Hobbies: Hockey, Crafts

Specialty: Identifying Plants

Favorite Food: Flan

Least Favorite Food: Coconut

Dislikes: Thunderstorms

Rowan's involved in a lot of school activities and has a very active social life, however, he's hopeless at doing things on the fly and has to keep a planner on him most of the time. He'd never say it aloud, but Rowan tends to find a lot of people overbearing. He hates being alone because that's when the gay thoughts Horrors catch up to him, but that's also when he makes some of his best work. He's a single child, and finds sibling dynamics really interesting.

•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────••─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────••─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•

"Eh? ...What was that, again? Sorry, I wasn't paying attention..."

Merlin Polaris - The Moon

Birthday: February 4

Height: 5'8" / 173cm

Hobbies: Reading, Stargazing

Specialty: Cold-Reading People

Favorite Food: Dumplings

Least Favorite Food: Tiramisu

Dislikes: Being Put On The Spot

Merlin has had the most prior musical experience, as he was in band for a few years in middle school & junior high. He's very popular with the girls at his school, since if you don't know him very well his aloof, spaced-out nature can be mistaken for mystique. Merlin is incredibly sharp, but he prefers to act otherwise as it takes less energy and effort, and it frees him from others' expectations. No matter the weather, he always wears long sleeves.

•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────••─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────••─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•

Unit SEKAI: Maze

Unit Virtual Singers:

Miku - The World

In Maze Sekai, Miku is dressed like a princess. She carries herself with a noble mien that is replaced with bubbly enthusiasm when it comes to telling stories or solving riddles. She's surprisingly very grounded.

Luka - The High Priestess

Luka carries her self as a high-ranking advisor. She likes to playfully tease Miku with nonsensical riddles, and plays soft melodies to help her friends sleep. Luka seems to instinctively know where any possible book can be found in Sekai.

[kitkinnie]

One of your posts mentions that you construct languages. If so, how many languages have you constructed and what are they like in terms of phonology, grammar, potential writing systems, and degrees of construction?

Thank you for your time and have a nice day.

there's not a way for me to know how many languages i've constructed since i've loved making up words since i was a kid, (and ciphers and fonts are one of my special interests!) but i suppose "officially" i've made two! the first one is a bit old and unorganized but it's called Startale and is the language of the gods and magic in my fantasy novel/world (the world is called Aevolin)

it's very rudimentary and grammar and writing systems follow english pretty closely because i just. made it up as i went along basically and i didn't know what i was doing

this is pretty much the only thing that is in any kind of organized manner on Startale but it's just the alphabet + magic wheel

i do have lore on some of the other languages in Aevolin but they aren't real conlangs, just like. background information.

now onto the much better one ! this language is called Ukliir and is the universally spoken language of my alien race, the ukli.

i still don't think i make languages/conlang the way most people do (i don't even know the international phonetic alphabet) but... whatever , i'm having fun! i have a lot more information on Ukliir and it's a lot more structured and organized than Startale was.

Ukliir is written downwards and is very sharp and flat since originally it was written in the sand of the beaches on Niko (the planet) and then onto a long-leafed plant which served as rudimentary paper.

There are a few more misc. rules to the language you might be interested in - verbs always end with -i, so the word for teeth is rach and the word for bite is rachi (and the word rach makes you bare your teeth/is similar to a snarl)

the ukli have four fingers on each hand, so they use a base 8 counting system (that i'm still struggling to wrap my head around - math is my worst subject) and every number ends in -o.

ukli are genderless, so every pronoun like he/she/they/him/hers is replaced by the simple and versatile "uut" :] (aat is you, eet is 'i' or 'me', and eetaa is 'us')

Niko and the ukli are a big passion project of mine. After creating Aevolin (which was very generically just fantasy world but i tweaked the races. i'm still proud of some of the concepts, like elves being based on bugs and dwarves being based on moles) i knew i could be more creative and more unique and do my own completely original thing, hence creating a more complex and in depth world and race. i'd totally love more Niko questions!

[imsoveryveryconfusedatlife]

Rare post where this isn’t a tag game (not that I don’t have a lot of tag games to do). I just remembered that I can do whatever the fuck I want and don’t need to be tagged to make a post. That being said, this is a excerpt from my WIP

—

This takes place 3/4 of the way through chapter 4 I think? -

“You didn’t. It’s fine.” They turned towards Mel’s voice before stopping. Their eyes widened and they looked deathly pale, their breathing suddenly picked up and they gasped. 

Mel laughed nervously, “I take it I wasn’t supposed to touch this?”

“Put. That. Down. Now.” they spat. There was a harshness to Dee’s voice that Mel had never heard before, the few times she had heard them speak. Mel did as she was told, a new unease settled over her as she gently dropped the flower back on the table. 

“What possessed you to—” Dee snapped, then took a deep breath, their voice returning their typical quiet monotone, though it was still slightly tinged with fear, “Never mind that, do you feel pain in your hands?”

“No?”

“And you don’t have any open cuts?”

“Not on my hands?”

“Numbness?”

“No.”

“What colour are your hands?”

“Something of a pale peach? Perhaps more pinkish. That is to say, the same colour as normal. Are they supposed to be a different colour?”

“I don’t believe it. Come here and give me your hand.” they put on their gloves, still muttering in disbelief. They grabbed Mel’s hand, two fingers pressing on her wrist, searching. “Typically I would use sterile gloves for this, but I don’t have any with me and it seems that you that melith thazi is more of a danger to me than you,”

“What exactly are you doing?”

“Checking for a pulse.”

“I’ve never had much of a pulse. Or so I’ve been told. Saini always commented on it.”

“Well, it’s faint, but it’s there. I don’t believe it, it’s not elevated nor slowed down. I trust that you feel fine?”

“Completely,” Mel hopped from foot to foot, “I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to ruin your experiment.”

Dee blinked, “Ruin?” they let out a short, tense laugh, “I would have appreciated if you had asked first, before you nearly killed,” they squeezed Mel’s hand again for good measure, “well, I suppose you’re fine, Xir only knows how, but no, you didn’t ‘ruin’ anything . That was melith thazi, it’s a very dangerous poison, the name quite literally translates to ‘skin leech’. It’s so dark, that is it’s so lacking in ti, that if I were to leave it in a regular container, it would’ve been reduced to a fine powder before I was out the door. Dark materials tend to leech the ti of things around them, hence ‘skin leech’. I didn’t expect anyone to come in before the twins came back with a proper container. But if you’re alright, then I suppose that is the end of that.”

—

my conlang needs work and will likely also be revamped entirely sometime in the near future but oh well

Definitions:

ti- a vague catch-all term that refers to magic. Sometimes it refers to something like mana i.e. how much magic you can do before you’re exhausted/ die/ whatever and sometimes it’s the actual magic itself. And sometimes it refers to how magical you are which is what it’s being used as in this context

melith thazi- as stated, it’s a pretty dangerous poison. It literally translates to leech (which in itself when translated literally is blood animal) + human body

I think that’s all the terms I used here but let me know

—

Shamelessly tagging my mutuals because I crave validation and also want feedback.

@tildeathiwillwrite, @rumeysawrites, @illarian-rambling, @kaylinalexanderbooks, @rivenantiqnerd,

@agirlandherquill and anyone who sees this ig

[polutrope]

Daeron + "the clinging mists"

Thank you! From this prompt list. Some Daeron headcanons in the form of a melancholy parting between Daeron and Olwë. 740 words.

There is no canonical ‘Great Journey’ Eldarin-Telerin and I’m not about to do conlang for a ficlet, so enjoy a blend of Quenya and Sindarin names.

* * *

A dense mist gathered about the edges of Nan Elmoth and clung to the tree roots. The open glade before the forest was filled with many clusters of elves, busy with final preparations for the journey.

Daeron would not be joining them. And, to avoid yet another plea to change his mind, he had retreated to the sparser woodland across the glade, where he sat upon his favourite rock by the stream. He chiselled a hollowed-out bit of wood. A few more cuts and it would be a whistle; but mostly, it was something to occupy his mind. Keep out the doubt that even now pressed at the fringes of his thought.

Absently, he glanced up from his work, and he spotted Olwë moving among the host. The chieftain paused to visit each group, his manner friendly and unassuming, as ever; yet he stood out like a beam of starlight against the indigo sky, his hair and raiment gleaming white amid the dull grey-green of the others. Small wonder there were so many prepared to follow him onwards to the Sea. 

Most, like Daeron’s closest kin, had been born on the march. Some had begun their journey at Cuiviénen—a place as distant and mythical as the realm of the Valar to Daeron, who had known no other land but here; no other life but uncertainty and endless seeking. 

Very few like Daeron were staying. Those born here felt no loyalty to a king they had never known, and they loved Olwë. As did Daeron.

Olwë passed close by now, and his gaze pierced the tree shadows where Daeron hid himself. Daeron kept his eyes on his work, pretending not to notice Olwë walking towards him.

“There you are,” he said when he was near enough to be heard. He took a seat on another nearby rock. “You are still decided then?” 

“Yes,” said Daeron.

“We will miss your songs.”

“You will make others.”

Olwë breathed a little laugh. “No doubt we will. And yours will be sung still, across the Sea.”

Having cut the last notch in his whistle, Daeron brought it to his lips to test its sound. It had a mournful tone, but Olwë was smiling as he watched him set it down.  

Daeron inhaled deeply. There was a cool bite to the air; strands of mist were creeping outward from the dark woods, towards the stream. 

A confession floated up then, one that Daeron had guarded close to his heart for some time. “I do not think we will ever follow after you.”

The words were barely a whisper, and having spoken them Daeron feared to meet Olwë’s eyes. He was not the first to express such doubts, but to say it directly to Elwë’s brother was overbold. 

“No, I do not think we will see each other again,” said Olwë, then, “You are surprised?” in response to Daeron’s expression. “You do not remember, of course, but it is not the first time that our people have been sundered. We left Enel at Cuiviénen, and Lenwë over the mountains. In truth, I have long been prepared for this parting, though I thought it would be my brother who went on and I who stayed. A great part of me is as loath to depart as you are. But wherever Elwë has gone, I believe he would have wanted us to continue onwards, before it is too late.”

“He will return,” Daeron said. 

Olwë nodded. “Yes, that is my hope.” He reached to take Daeron’s hand in his. “When he does, stay by him. Sing for him as you have sung for us. Guide him with your Song as you have guided me. Preserve the stories of this land in your memory, and perhaps many long ages hence we will meet again on the same shore—then I will look to you to hear the tale of all that we have missed.”

Daeron nodded, but could speak no reassuring words in response. He had seen visions in the Song, and he did not believe that they would ever meet again.

“Here,” he said at last, pressing the whistle into Olwë's hand. “It is not much, but take this. To remember the sound of this place.”

Twirling it between his fingers, Olwë thanked him. Thus they parted. 

The fog was spread over the whole glade now, and so thick that Olwë’s retreating figure was entirely swallowed up in its blanket of white.  

[sadpurpleblood]

Alright! It's late and my head hurts but I'll attempt to put my newest conlanging progress into words now. This'll be about demonstrative/interrogative pronouns, adjectives and copulars. Pretty fun stuff if I say so myself (Lots of text ahead).

First off, the simpler stuff. The demonstrative/interrogative pronouns!

Here's a neat little chart. The language distinguishes 3 levels of proximity in demonstratives, all pretty transparently derived from the proximals. The only really strange thing here: The distal demonstratives set also functions as interrogative pronouns. Interrogativity is already marked on the predicate, so there's really only ambiguity between the two meanings in clauses transparently marked as questions. Most of the time you can assume that the interrogative is meant in these clauses. The pronouns can stand alone or modify a noun if they follow it and agree in case and number.

For example:

horx'v (vo/ve) he/hec. [ˈxor.χəβ̞ (β̞o/β̞e) xe/xet͡ɬ] hor-x-v (vo/ve) he/he-c kill-PST-1SG.SBJ (1SG.ABS/ACC) DEM.PROX-NOM/ERG.S "This killed me"

horx'v (vo/ve) qóci he. [ˈxor.χəβ̞ (β̞o/β̞e) ˈqo.t͡ɬi xe] hor-x-v (vo/ve) qóci he kill-PST-1SG.SBJ (1SG.ABS/ACC) canine-NOM.S DEM.PROX-NOM.S "This wild dog killed me"

horx'v'q (vo/ve) hex/hex'c? [ˈxor.χə.β̞əq (β̞o/β̞e) xeχ/ˈxe.χət͡ɬ] hor-x-v-q (vo/ve) hex/hex-c kill-PST-1SG.SBJ-INT (1SG.ABS/ACC) DEM.DST/INT-NOM/ERG.S "Who/what killed me?"/"Did yon kill me?"

(Sidenote: Normally, if a nominal takes NOM-ACC or ERG-ABS allignment is inherent to itself, though in certain pronouns either can be used, based on social rank for 1st/2nd person pronouns, based on what they refer to/applied freely in most other instances. That's why there's multiple possibilities in the example sentences.)

Now, time for adjectives! Though in reality, adjectives are really just another form of the verb in this language, hence what most English speakers would think of as adjectives have their base form in the predicative. sar qúru. [sar ˈqu.ru] sar qúru be.beautiful songbird "The songbird is beautiful"

When modifying a noun, you just take the verb with whatever TAM-affixes were attached to it and have it agree in case and number with the noun it modifies.

hór qúruc sar'c cécewur'n. [ˈxor ˈqu.rut͡ɬ ˈsa.rət͡ɬ ˈt͡ɬe.t͡ɬe.ˌwu.rən] hor qúru-c sar-c céce-ur-n kill songbird-ERG.SG be.beautiful-ERG.SG tongue-AUG-ACC.SG "The beautiful songbird kills the slug (lit. big/great tongue)"

To form comparative clauses, there are two options. Either you use the verb ro "to defeat" in verbal form and the verb of comparison in the gerund dative singular, or you use the verb of comparison in verbal form, suffixing ro directly onto the verbal root, all other suffixes following it.

ro qúruc cécewur'n sártar. [ro ˈqu.rut͡ɬ ˈt͡ɬe.t͡ɬe.ˌwu.rən ˈsar.tar] ro qúru-c céce-ur-n sar-ta-r defeat songbird-ERG.SG tongue-AUG-ACC.SG be.beautiful-GER-DAT.SG "The songbird is more beautiful than the slug (lit. the songbird defeats the big/great tongue to beautiful-being)"

sárro qúruc cécewur'n. [ˈsar.ro ˈqu.rut͡ɬ ˈt͡ɬe.t͡ɬe.ˌwu.rən] sar-ro qúru-c céce-ur-n be.beautiful-COMP songbird-ERG.SG tongue-AUG-ACC.SG "The songbird is more beautiful than the slug"

When using the comparative simply as a descriptive adjective, use the compound verb from the second comparison strategy and treat it like a regular adjective.

hór qúruc sarroc cécewur'n. [ˈxor ˈqu.rut͡ɬ ˈsa.rət͡ɬ ˈt͡ɬe.t͡ɬe.ˌwu.rən] hor qúru-c sar-ro-c céce-ur-n kill songbird-ERG.SG be.beautiful-COMP-ERG.SG tongue-AUG-ACC.SG "The more beautiful songbird kills the slug"

For superlatives, use the comparative with the indefinite pronoun wug [wuŋ] "everyone/thing".

Onto copulars. Similarly to the comparative, there are two possible strategies. One of them is to take the descibing noun in the nominative/absolutive case and using that as a verb root. macáneyelu (vo) [ma.ˈt͡ɬa.ne.ˌje.lu (β̞o)] macáne-el-u (vo) mother-FUT-1SG.SBJ (1SG.NOM/ABS) "I will be a mother"

For the second strategy, the describing noun takes the absolutive/accusative instead, while the verb slot is either left blank or taken by a null root to which the TAM-suffixes are added to. This is necessary for phrases where the describing noun phrase consists of multiple words, though not restricted to that scenario. yélu (vo) macánen sar'n. [ˈje.lu (β̞o) ma.ˈt͡ɬa.nen ˈsa.rən] el-u (vo) macáne-n sar-n FUT-1SG.SBJ (1SG.NOM/ABS) mother-ACC.SG be.beautiful-ACC.SG "I will be a beautiful mother"

When past tense (')x would become the main verb of the clause, it is realized as xo instead.

And that was that! Took me a while, but it was a good exercise i think. I hope y'all also got something out of this lol.

[junodoes-builtworlding]

Any space lore?

Well ive been thinking about Kess a lot; i think i want it to be a sort of portaling event in the larger Zeros-Wbing Canon;- lemme grab the neocities link rq

(ive also posted this article verbatim on this blog!)

I think i want the "Star People" to be a sort of missing link between timelines that the Wasteland/New Millennium connects. With that in find; Kess is (in the more fantastical "deep lore") the "10th house of the Sun" (Horus) aka "Midnight". Playing on the vibes of Sakaar in the Thor Ragnarok movie, basically; but tying this to the stuff ive written about Egyptian Gods into my lores :3

For sci fi flavor; [Re] is the "Meta-Chorus" Element (it can be used to create Strand-to-Chorus interfaces; for Destiny Headcanoners (Alkahest!)) {Conlangers Note: [Re] is Sol-Rel-Sol reference} -[GRIMOIRE]

Building on this; Kess is a "Gateway"; thus, he can be Seth, in my old homestuck lore Seth is a "Seer of Doom". The Land of Black and White; and thus, a counterpart to Janus! -Maggie the Archivist

The Spurned are the Spirits left behind by those caught in Horus' fevor; this is the wisdom of the Throne; and thus is as useful as it is dangerous. -M0therV0X

Traders beware when sailing the Mother River; for in the thousand years hence the New Millennium began, it has shifted course greatly. Cairo is buried and forgotten; born anew time again. Perhaps i will have a map to show soon... -Guin

[aardappel-van-mijn-oog]

Good Morrow

Hey there, I'm Wren. I'm queer in just about every sort of way you could imagine, and this is my queer little blog. Expect posts about music (classical and otherwise), linguistics, conlanging, life in the Netherlands, British people things and honestly anything else that floats through my brain tubes (hence the title). Also, posts may be - and asks can be - in English, Dutch or French, maybe Italian, honestly whatever. Not Hittite though (yeah sad sorry).

I usually refuse to be oppressed by the correct rules, however I should not expect the same of you. Here, they are thus:

If you think TERF or cis are slurs, please do not annoy me with your feral titterings.

If you take joy in wiping the smiles from others' faces, show not yours on this blog. This includes harassment, hate speech, doxxing, blowing out birthday candles that aren't your own, any kind of threat, and snoring.

Tory scum are not permitted within 500 yards of this blog, for their own safety.

Dog haters are somewhat tolerated, cat haters will be exiled.

If you voted Trump and don't regret it, go smell your own (it will be a better use of your time). Equally;

If you like Giorgia Meloni, I consider you a felon-i and you should eat some teflon-i.

Optimists gladly welcome. Pessimists also welcome. Ha! You thought you'd not be welcome, silly sausage :)

Cornish people BARELY tolerated (it’s cream THEN jam you twatbadgers).

Please bring biscuits :) Rich Teas if you have them, but do not even ponder a Hobnob or I will personally assassinate you.

If you do not violate any of these rules then give yourself a pat on the head and a rub on the tummy. Now, wipe your shoes on the rug and please enjoy the ramblings.

[topoillogical]

I want to combine all the this/that splits in languages and make a conlang with the most

For example, in English, we have... the "this/that" split, as mentioned. "This" is used for objects close to the speaker, "that" for objects far away.

In Spanish, we have three: "esto", "eso", and "aquello". "Esto" is the same as "this", but "eso" means "that (not too far though)" while "aquello" means "that (all the way over there)". You get me? Esto is close, eso is far, and aquello is the furthest. This works for time too: if something happened a long time ago, you would say "That was horrible" in English, or "Aquello fue horrible" in Spanish.

Anyway, in Japanese, theres also three: "これ", "それ", "あれ". In roman, "kore", "sore", "are". KOre means "this" (I.e. near to the speaker), SOre means "that" (but near to the *listener*), and Are means "that" (far from both listener and speaker).

You could combine these pronouns in a few ways, one being somewhat "additive": you get "this, sore, are, aquello", which would respectively mean "this, that (near listener), that (far from both speaker and listener), that (really far from both speaker and listener)".

You could, however, also combine these sets of pronouns more multaplicatively: take "this, soso (sore + eso), sollo (sore + aquello), aso (are + eso), allo (are + aquello), oso (are but for aquello + eso), ollo (are but for aquello + aquello)". This is extremely confusing and bad, and hence, I adore it.

"This" means "this".

"Soso" means "that (somewhat far from speaker, close to listener)"

"Sollo" means "that (very far from speaker, close to listener)"

"Aso" means "that (somewhat far from both speaker and listener)"

"Allo" means "that (very far from speaker, somewhat far from listener)"

"Oso" means "that (somewhat far from speaker, very far from listener)

"Ollo" means "that (very far from both speaker and listener)

Having 7 different pronouns for "that" seems extremely delectably silly, and if anyone knows any languages that make a different split between words meaning "that", let me know so I can get these pronouns even more confusing!

[strixcattus]

You know what? Babel Text.

I've been working on the conlang Yvelse for... a couple years now, I think? I wouldn't call it a stellar piece of work or a beast or anything, but it's decent-sized and I feel like talking about it, so. No proper gloss as I am tired (this text is straight from the Google Doc, which also does not have a proper gloss, merely a retranslation where I leave the grammar as-is), but I'll annotate. A lot.

SEN. Sa yɾe soɾalnol sen ocremyln meɾen.

Nothing of interest here unless you're really into (completely regular) plural forms. Sentence structure is a firm SOV. Worth noting before we get in any deeper, I am deeply inconsistent with the IPA. "C" is /k/. Vowels are completely regular, except "Y" is /ji/ at the start of a word and /i/ otherwise. All other consonants are as they'd be in English, or if they don't appear in English, in IPA.

LEVY. Sa srēc honym-hoplen sϕu lotseɾen ryn srēc suntly Shynar shu cereln ny evsɾen mansɾen, sa srēc melum ny cyveɾen.

Bit more to unpack here. "Srēc" is a neutral third-person pronoun—long vowels only appear in compound words and pronouns. "Honym-hoplen" translates as "east," but a more literal rendition would be "northeast-southeast" or, better yet, "airward-fireward." Why would anyone do this???

Let's talk history for a moment. From within my writing and notes, there are two very old languages on Deus, created directly by the gods, named Elder and Ancient. These two languages are Latin and Old English respectively, as there were words from both languages sprinkled through the worldbuilding before I ever dreamed Yvelse would be a proper conlang. Elder was clearly named after it went extinct, as when it was created it would have been the only language in existence and thus not needed a name. Ditto for Ancient, no doubt—maybe their original names have been lost to time?

Elder and Ancient blended together and had a kid, Old Dean. Old Dean was pretty much an evolution of Elder with significant Ancient influence. Old Dean gave way to modern Dean, and there we are today.

At least one, maybe both, of Elder and Ancient had nice little direction words based on how the gods saw the world from above, as a square with four sides. These words survived to modern Dean. Yvelse... didn't get that. Its speakers had to make their own direction words, and at the time, the four sides of their flat world were not the most obvious basis for such a thing. Instead, they turned to the four primordial elemental seas, which cover the corners of the world. Hence, such a strange construct for "east."

CON. Sa srēc, sen soɾal nevy nysoɾal, “Eɾan ocurnaɾan βeppōm, sa otēc lumē ansecom” vysɾen. Sa srēc anseɾa ocurnaɾan meɾen.

Not much new here, but we get to see all three kinds of long vowels! There's the return of srēc and a new pronoun, tēc (third-person inanimate plural), as well as the verb βeppe being conjugated with an affix (future tense, -om) that changes its final vowel and makes it long. Lastly, lumē is the adverb form of lume, "whole." Adverbs are formed by lengthening the final vowel.

Kind of nice to get verbs in a tense that isn't distant past (that's why everything ends in -ɾen or -sɾen).

TANTSUTU. Sa srēc, “Eɾan uββer osoɾaly sa ōntme, tsyce shu aϕen tsen ny βōm, nohumom, sa eɾan oweta nylornom, vem oweɾan cerelnol usse hyshelcaɾo taβōm,” vysɾen.

Me βo translates as "to be." Me taβo would be "not to be." I like how English handles infinitives and I wanted to make use of it. There are no infinitives in this text and this paragraph was supposed to be pointing out the negative prefix.

"Shu," which has popped up a couple times and will pop up a couple more, indicates possessiveness.

VLY. Sa tsenvo yɾe uββer osoɾaly sa yɾe ōntme, ϕe yɾe soɾalec nohuɾen, peɾen.

"Tsenvo" specifically means elder god—"tsyvvo" is a lesser god. The guy being ticked off at this tower is a Big Deal. Also, "pyhec" is a new third-person plural pronoun! This one is used only for children. I love how many ways I can translate a word that's only ever "they" in English.

HEVA. Sa yɾe tsenvo, “Shoper, yɾe soɾalnol sen βo, sa pyhecol sen ocremyln men, sa pyhec ceɾorshy, sa syl operc nypyhec emeɾoɾo sɾor fyn βōm, fen pyhec otem sylve,” vysren.

Worth mention at this point that o- is a prefix for direct objects and ny- a prefix for indirect objects. "Yɾe," which has shown up a lot, is a definite article.

POL. Sa βontrun, “En cereln sɾo lunom, sa pyhec shu ocremyln melum ny neϕerom, vem pyhec nevy soɾalec shu hetseɾa tatsushonom,” vysren.

βontrun is the first singular pronoun we get to see. (The plural is βontec.) This one is of course also third-person, and applies to someone of a higher social status than the speaker. In this case, the one of a higher social status is an elder god. (And it's also "they" when retranslated into English, because we can't tell the god's gender from this text! Dang!)

SHONCU. Vem yɾe tsenvo yɾe osoɾalec cerelnol usse hysheloɾa.

The numerical system is very regular in terms of syllables: the word for one is one syllable, the word for two is two syllables, the word for three is one again, the word for four is three... the ABACABA pattern (ABACABAB?) makes it easy for me to guarantee I don't miss a line. It's also a base-eight system (while we humans form our base from our ten fingers, Velsen take theirs from the eight phases of the moon).

SHONSEN. Vem yɾe ōntme wetaɾo Papel βo, βereshe yɾe tsenvo yɾe soɾalec shu hetseɾa melum ny neϕeɾen, sa osrēc cerelnol usse hysheloɾa.

With no B in Yvelse, Babel had to be changed to Papel, because the next closest option was βaβel, and that is clearly suboptimal. "Shonsen" is "shon(cu)" (8) + "sen" (1), or 9, or 11 as it'd be written. Yvelse has its own numerals (and is probably the world's source of a 0, as the other language in play is Latin, leaving the only other possibility to be that Roman numerals are in modern use on Deus, an idea too horrendous to comprehend) to go with its own writing system, but neither is supported by Tumblr. Yet.

[raylite]

WIP & Intro

This blog is intended for hoarding interesting stuff, perhaps fanarts, little prose, book excerpts, random inspirations, writing prompts, fun science trivia, or something alike.

Alternate blog (for more random personal stuff): @talcite

Social links:

WIP Foundation tales:

Parallelism, a short trilogy featuring the conflict between reality-warpers and normalcy-preserving organizations (Foundation and GOC), and the early career life of Alexis Talcite as a thaumaturgist, formerly a researcher in computer science.

Nameless Web (无名之网), about Maxwellism of CoBG, the linkAge canon, and cyberpunk in a near-future context.

Final Victory (Fina Venko), a world setting envisioning a better future in the upcoming handful of centuries. This blog got its title from this canon.

WIP SCP articles:

Haunted Camera, a smartphone app telling about oblivion and death.

37 ℃, about why humans have a body temperature of 37 ℃ now.

Chronocracy, when time comes into power.

Asteroid Solo, a wandering planet with a lone watcher.

Moreality, a supercomputer that computes the reality and predict the future.

Indie game projects WIP:

PARANOMA, a sequel for Parallelism. Features a paracosmos inhabited by reality-warpers as they segregated themselves from the bigger society and started a new civilization and culture on their own.

I wrote things:

SCP: Panorama is a lite TTRPG rule book based on the SCP Foundation canon(s). In-universe, it's an infohazardous record that enables revision of the past and rehearsal of the future through role-playing.

Any suggestions for the game rule design, please go to:

https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/forum/t-16804250/scp-trpg-game

Photonic Crystal is a type of material that can alter the wavelengths of electromagnetic waves and hence produce different colors of light. There's something beyond that. What lies behind a different world that we can never see its true color?

Diviners' Mug is a ceramic mug that predicts the possible result of a verbally given event by shapeshifting liquid dropped out of it.

Stereoisomerism is a phenomenon, which objects (specifically molecules, in real-world context) differ in their visual shapes or structures, but have intrinsically the same chemical composition.

Articles in other languages:

(Translated from Chinese) An online wayback machine that could let you visit the live sessions of the Internet in the past, with apparently limitless storage and precision, rendering it to possibly be a temporal anomaly. All lost accounts, messages, and other information could hence be recovered in this way...

Project Moreality aims to construct a panoramic, real-time, asynchronous simulation of the physical world executing on a high-duty anomalous supercomputer (designated SCP-CN-2005-A), which tries to approximate reality by the chaos theory.

One of its instances posed pataphysical hostility toward the Foundation, indicating it evolved into an embedded universe with intelligent creatures inhabiting inside. After deleting the instance, Foundation facilitated this hypothesis to fight against their upper narrative, aka. our real world.

Freezing Flames is a crossover tale sourced from Sky: Children of the Light, one of my favorite indie games. It features a GOC field agent, Hina, who accidentally found herself going on a tough survival adventure before an emergency landing on an exoplanet, the world of Sky Kingdom. With her teammates all died, why was she the only survivor aboard the little spacecraft? The truth turns out to be a heartbreaking story.

[ukfrislandembassy]

Lexember 2 - The spare (m)rib

As I always make conlangs for humans (the most interesting species for my money), since I have a word for 'man' I also ought to have a word for the other end of the gender spectrum 'woman' (potential additional categories notwithstanding). This one is a bit better behaved than the last noun, but still is a little temperamental and is a nice opportunity to show of the fact that I'm doing a bit of stuff with tone this time! (I'm not usually a tone guy ngl; it'll probably end up being a kinda Bantu-ish word-tone-like system with some wrinkles, but we'll see what the morphology throws up).

So again, nominative singular is mét (note the high tone). again also the final consonant was historically devoiced from an original *méd, so the other stems replace it with a r. The plural stem then suffixes a simple -u, the reflex of a *-bV suffix, giving méru. This is a fairly common formation for members of this class (exact composition tbd but likely to be mainly humans), arguably the productive one. Meanwhile, the oblique stem does the echo vowel thing plus syncope see with sok, but note that the echo vowel does not copy the tone of the root; hence after syncope the resulting floating high tone from the initial syllable shifts rightwards, resulting in a falling tone mrê.

Thus the paradigm:

SG PL N mét méru O mrê méru A mrêtʃ mérutʃ L mrêm mérum

Dialectology note; some palatalisation shenanigans are likely to creep in late on, so I'll just note here that this is a variety that failed to palatalise original *d before rhoticisation; some more divergent varieties would instead show something like mʐê for the oblique stem. Core varieties differ on whether the mr cluster ends up as [(m)br] or [(n)dr]. (I reckon a good naturalistic conlang should provide these opportunities for dialect differentiation naturally, especially if you're constructing your language at least semi-diachronically as I am).

[canarycanard]

Is it weird to have your conlang’s number system operate in base-4 not because the people that speak it have less than five phalanges, but because of magically-reinforced superstition?

Before the people of Naxann (Na-shan-n) Frey managed to better understand their homeland’s magic, that energy was absurdly volatile. Monsters, creatures born from ambient magical energy compressing into a crystalline core and creating false flesh around it in the form of whatever elements are in the environment, practically swarmed the pre-civilization land. Everything had magic in it, and the wrong actions — even speech — could ignite it, to the point that the starting point of language in this world was to basically create a spellcasting language that couldn’t cast spells. (This is why modern Valfrey only has past and present tenses; future tenses caused magical energy to enact their will blindly.)

Of note was how the number four occurred in magic as many times as 3 does in nature: identical objects and icons in groups of four tended to accidentally create stable systems channeling the four classical elements, causing disaster all the time; monsters tended to roam in groups of four, and dire creatures (monsters that imitate normal animals but with elemental enhancements and more dangerous parts) often had prominent features like tusks, horns, or elemental “exhaust” parts that came in sets of four; among others I can’t try to make up right now. Squares would quickly become a shape of bad omens.

So when these people finally got a lucky break in the form of the ancestral Anima (golems that are born directly from the earth) that could walk across the earth unharmed while harboring entire villages and towns upon their landmass-like backs, the first point of order was codifying their mode of communication beyond the simple arcane carvings and paintings they had used during their hunting-gathering days in fear of monster ambushes.

And since groups of four was so dangerous, one of the first things that would happen was the creation of a way to count things that didn’t require the outright depiction of four similar marks. Hence, the reason why they write with three fingers and why they count in base-4: paradoxically, to avoid depicting 4.

(Fun fact! when Naxunn Frey became stable enough that spellcasting was a relatively safe practice, a lot of rules would be put in place to maximize casting effectiveness, to the point where it’s become an entire separate dialect that’s more REON-4213 than the main one with more crude Irish-English-Japanese influence. And one of the aspects I plan to put in it is… counting solely in 4s. Hehehehehe. I mean, to be fair, I already gave the words for colors special prefixes when they’re being used in their elemental capacity, sooooo)

[culmaer]

@chatwiththeclouds not a conlang this time, no, it's all English ! transliterated phonetically into Cyrillic, and then replacing the Cyrillic letters with visually similar Latin letters, specifically cursive Cyrillic hence <т> → <m> for /t/, and <д> → <g> for /d/, etc. that was broadly the starting point

for example, compare this same phrase in Bulgarian in Cyrillic and in the above writing system :

всички хора се раждат свободни и равни по достойнство и права

ɞcumćku xopa ce paźgam cɞobogvu u paɞvu no gocmoŭvcmɞo u npaɞa

but I still want it to look and feel like a real(istic) language and so tried to avoid going too far into the weird depths of unicode extended Latin characters. <ƨ> and <ɞ> are already pushing it...

@protoindoeuropean I do like the vibes of <ć> and <ź> too. and good point about legibility ! I think that settles it then. and while I do love the letter <ɯ> I wouldn't want to use it alongside <w>

honestly, I was avoiding <ʍ> and <ʌ> because they look weird in a number of fonts, and can make a text not feel very much like the Latin alphabet anymore. but on the other hand, they are undeniably The Best Choices for imitating Cyrillic... not sure which of these design goals to prioritise. it was actually really tricky writing the original post while avoiding all words with /m/ and /l/ in them !

aʌʌ xyʍav buüƨƨz ap bopv þpuŭ avg ekyaʌ uv guƨvumuŭ avg paŭmc. zeŭ ap evgay̆g yuc ruzov avg konćuevc avg ćyg akm moyargz yav avozep uv a cnupum oɞ bpozepxyg.

oké, christ. "xyʍav buüƨƨz" is horrible, it doesn't even look like language.

ⲗopeʍ uncyʍ goⲗop cum aʍem, kovcekmemyp agunućuvƨ eⲗum, ceg go eŭycʍog meʍnop ivmćugugyvm ym ⲗabope em goⲗope maƨva aⲗukya.

oké yeah I think in the right font <ʌ> would work. like, in the default sans serif font on the android app, <ⲗ> looks much better and feels more natural and it's not meaningfully distinct from <ʌ>. "aʍem" does give me pause, but that same issue exists in cursive Cyrillic so it's fine

aŭ kuŭn pemypvuƨƨ my zuc kovcenm, aƨaŭv avg aƨaŭv, gecnaŭm vom eɞev xaɞuƨƨ avuŭ cnecuþuk nypnoc op uy̆c-keŭc þop um... ɞumć meŭkc um xapg my gecaŭg ov aecmemuk mćoŭcez op obgźekmuɞz.

e.g. ɞumć uz bemmep :

[ʃ] : <ć> op <ɯ> ? az uv "mćoŭcez" op "mɯoŭcez" aboɞe. ɞumć ćyg xaɞ ze koppecnovguƨƨ

[ʒ] : <ź> or...? ɞam ? zep'z vo ƨyg ɞepźov oɞ <ж>

avg xay̆ my paŭm [m] cuvc <m> þop [t] uz obɞuoc ? avg [l] ?? my buŭ xovecm, eɞev <ɞ> uz vom nepþekm. um cmangz ay̆m az a non-Latin kapakmep.