LangTime Chat: Recent Episodes
Jessie and David Peterson
In this episode, we talk about linguistic theory and its place in conlanging. As a spoiler alert, we specifically talk about how theoretical approaches are not so helpful to the art of language invention.
I’ve attached the PDF of slides we use throughout the episode, some of which have visual examples of theoretical approaches to show how language is analyzed in that particular approach.
LangTime Chat – Ep47Download
In this episode, we chat about tackling academic linguistics articles, providing strategies for approaching articles and figuring out if they will be helpful to you or not. This episode is especially dedicated to anyone who has tried picking up linguistics articles but then feels overwhelmed because, well, academic articles are generally kind of notoriously cumbersome to get through. Our goal moving forward is to have episodes dedicated to specific articles that maybe you want to have read but don’t want to read–we will read them for you and tell you what they’re about!
I have attached the PDF of the slides we used (complete with all the original typos…), and I have attached the Haspelmath article we used for a focused discussion on reading strategies.
Happy reading (and happy sending us your reading wish lists)!
LangTime Chat – Episode 46DownloadHaspelmath article in Ep46Download
This is a Jessie-only kind of episode. In it, I walk through my thought processes as I attempt to get ready to translate a passage into Zhwadi. It focuses on how I’m thinking through decisions rather than on the actual creation of roots/words/items. The goal is to demonstrate just how much translation can help when you’re at a stage with your language where you’re ready to expand its features but aren’t sure what direction to go. Translation as an exercise can really push you to better understand your language and the features you most want to incorporate.
Attached is the PDF of the Keynote slides I used while talking through decisions. Also attached is the final translation of the passage(s) with notes throughout. If you want to hear the thought processes before seeing the final decisions, wait to look at that PDF until you’ve listened to the episode!
LangTime Chat – Ep45DownloadLangTime Chat, Episode 45Download
We give a recap of our glorious day of conlang fun, otherwise known as Kopikon. In this episode, we give a rundown of the speakers and their talks from the day, which we hope will be especially useful for anyone who couldn’t attend and wants to know more about what went on that day. We give some behind-the-scenes info throughout, and we let you know why you should go watch each and every talk from the day! (Eventually, those videos will be separated out so you can watch them individually on YouTube instead of scrolling through a full day’s worth of talks in a giant video. We promise we are working on it!)
Attached you’ll find the PDF of the presentation we used while recording the episode.
We hope you enjoy the recap of what was an incredible day!
ltc_kopikon_discussionDownload
David and I discuss common expressions in languages, including greetings and thanks. We hope it inspires you to think about some of these kinds of expressions in your own languages!
(The slides used during the episode are attached here, though they really just provide the words we talk about. You can, however, see just how weird “Thank you” looks in the Noto Serif font!)
LangTime Chat – Ep43Download
In this episode, we wrap up our discussion of some best practices and other advice for Romanizing a conlang. While chatting, we used a Pages document to take some random notes, and a PDF of that document is attached here. (When I say random, though, I mean it. The notes won’t make sense without listening to the episode.)
LangTime Chat Ep42Download
In this episode, we begin a discussion on Romanization, talking about goals for Romanization and differences between an orthography, phonetic transcription, and Romanization. The PDF of the slides we used in the beginning of the episode is attached here.
We didn’t quite make it to the “best practices” portion, so we are extending this discussion into a two-part series that will continue in next month’s episode!
LangTime Chat – Ep41Download
In this episode, we talk about the kinds of information that make a conlang’s written grammar more helpful and accessible to other conlangers who want to learn about your language. (And also that make it better for you to keep track of your own language!) We provide examples from conlangers’ grammars to show strategies you can use in your documentation.
The PDF of the Keynote presentation we use is included as an attachment (where you can see the fonts David was so excited about!).
Happy documenting!
*SPOILER ALERT!***
At the end of the episode is a suggestion for using the Grambank features list as a method for documenting and sharing information in a readily accessible way and for noting areas of your language that you haven’t yet addressed. Click herefor a link to a Google Sheet that includes all the features, links to descriptions of the features on Grambank’s website, dropdown menus for selecting the response best matching your language, and cells for you to provide information about your language.
The first sheet is the full list of features. There is a second sheet (look at the bottom of the screen to find the second sheet) called “Instructions” that provides more information about how the sheet is organized and what you can do with it.
The sheet is view-only, so you’ll need to make a copy (an option under the “File” menu) before you can edit it and use it for your language.
LangTime Chat – Ep40Download
Jessie put together a trivia game for David based on language features provided in Grambank’s database (https://grambank.clld.org/)! You can play along as you listen, and you can also download the attached PDF to see all the features and examples discussed.
LangTime Chat – Ep39Download
We wrap up our discussion of types of borrowings in the history of the English language and end with some book recommendations for anyone interested in learning more!
At one point, we discuss the ampersand, so I’ve attached a fun poster here to show what we mean.
Evolution of the ampersandDownloadLangTime Chat – Ep38Download
This episode is (quite accidentally) the first of a two-part discussion on borrowing and the history of the English language. We talk about different types of borrowing into English in the hopes that it might inspire you as you think about ways your conlang may borrow from another language.
The PDF of the slides used for this presentation are attached to this post!
LangTime Chat – Ep37Download
In this episode, we discuss conlang relays, providing an introduction to what they are and what participants can expect from them. We use some past conlang relays to give examples of how texts shift as relays progress.
One of the relays we discuss specifically is the LCC5 Relay. If you want to check out the full relay texts, you can find them here: https://conlang.org/language-creation-conference/lcc5/lcc5-relay/.
You’ll find the PDF of the slides we used for the episode attached to this post.
*SPOILER ALERT***
What I’m about to type below gives away some details of the LCC5 Relay, so if you want to be surprised by how the text shifted during the relay, do NOT keep reading! Listen to the episode first and then come back to check out this super cool information.
*SPOILING COMMENCING***
Three animals are included in the LCC5 Relay text. In the original, the animals are, in this order:
- turtle(s)
- horse
- goat
I traced the evolution of these animals in the translations across the texts, and I was shocked to find out the turtle is what became the great lion!!! It started in Leg 4 (John Clifford’s text), where “turtle” became “reptile.” Then Zach Wellstood translated that as “dragon.” It stayed a dragon until Jan Strasser’s text, where it was translated as yuksa, a word specific to Jan’s conlang, which is glossed as “a legendary creature that eats people.” He goes on to describe it as an animal that looks similar to a panther with a long dinosaur-ish tail. Alex Fink translates that as “big people-eating cat,” and then Tony Harris turns that into “lion.” Jeff Jones calls it a “large cat,” and David translates it into Dothraki for the final text as “great lion.”
The horse stayed a horse AAAALLLLLLL the way to Jeff Jones, the 12th (and final) leg before the text was returned to David. That’s where the horse became a unicorn.
The same thing happened with “goat,” where Jeff translated that as “antelopes,” and then David translated as “deer” into Dothraki.
As for the plums and carrots… I translated these as “purple fruit” and “edible orange root” because Hiutsath did not have words for either (and wouldn’t because my speakers didn’t eat human food and had no interest in naming them). They stayed “purple fruit” and “orange root” for a few legs until Zach translated the “orange root” as an “orange fruit.” When that got to John Quijada, it turned into “red fruit.” (The “purple fruit” was still there at this stage.) But then it took a super interesting turn when Jim Henry conflated the two as apples, where the “real apples” are purple (assuming here that the red ones are not real!). That trend continued, where there were real/true apples versus bad/evil apples. When it got to Alex, the apples became “fruits” or “sweet fruits.”
It’s so much fun to trace these twists and turns that relay texts take!! I encourage you to read through all the English translations of the texts because there are delightful surprises in each one!
LangTime Chat – Ep36Download
David leads this episode where we discuss the many options for expansion animals that Patrons are currently voting on. We hope this helps inform your decisions about what animals you’d like to see in future seasons of LangTime!
LangTime-Chat-Ep35Download
In this episode, we focus on Kezhwa, the conlang we created for Amazon’s Paper Girls TV series. We are excited to share details about the language with you because we had so much fun working on it!
A PDF with the slides we used throughout the recording is attached.
Enjoy!
LangTime-Chat-Ep34-KezhwaDownload
In this episode, David turns the tables on me and provides a list of words I need to create through compound, derivation, and grammaticalization strategies from the same root list used in Episode 32. You can see the words David selected for me to create in the attached PDF of the presentation we used, and I have re-uploaded the root list here so you can more easily find them!
(As a side note, we were recording this in Seattle, and… um… the audio is not its usual quality.)
LangTime-Chat-Ep33-root-listDownloadLangTime-Chat-Ep33Download
In this episode, titled “Create That Word!”, we play a new LangTime Chat game!
We play a game where I provide David with a list of words that are basic roots in a not-as-yet-created language (all roots are English counterparts—not phonological forms), and he has to create strategies for forming new words. They aren’t just any words, though, that he’s creating: I provide specific words for him to create from those existing roots.
We have three rounds of the game, focusing on different strategies: compounds, derivations, and grammaticalizations.
If you want to play along, I’ve attached a PDF of the root list and the presentation slides that provide the new words that need to be semantically formed.
We hope you enjoy the episode and have a happy start to your October!
LangTime-Chat-Ep32-root-listDownloadLangTime-Chat-Ep32Download
In this episode, we talk about strategies for creating a conlang language family. The presentation slides we use throughout the episode are attached to this post so you can follow along if you need visual references. We hope you enjoy the episode!
LangTime-Chat-Ep31Download
In this episode, we chat about ways you can use your conlang once you’ve developed it, and I’ve attached a PDF of the Keynote presentation we use during the podcast to keep our discussion (mostly) organized. We hope you enjoy and find ideas in here that resonate with you and inspire you!
LangTime-Chat-Ep30Download
In this episode, we talk about some difficult phrases to translate, focusing the entire discussion on the many uses of “to have X” in English. We had recently needed to translate a line with such a construction and wanted to talk about other ways you could tackle taking apart some more idiomatic phrases when you translate them.
Attached to the post is the list I had open during our discussion (which also had David’s entries, apparently). Even though it isn’t organized in the best way possible, you’ll see exactly what we were staring at as we discussed translating the phrases!
LTC-Ep29-to_have-listDownload
This episode is quite different from all the others because, as you’ll quickly see, David isn’t in this one. Instead, you just get me talking to you about conlanging and my struggles with imposter syndrome. I titled the episode “Art and Anxiety” and was so nervous about the whole thing that I wrote everything I wanted to say in an essay to read aloud while recording the episode. And, of course, I made an accompanying presentation to keep on the screen while I talked. I attached both the written essay (which is essentially a transcript for the episode) and the presentation here.
Stay grammar!
LangTime-Chat-Art-and-anxiety-EssayDownloadLangTime-Chat-Art-and-Anxiety-KeynoteDownload
In this episode, we have some fun with fauna! We talk about different ways speakers come up with names for animals beyond having basic roots for them, and we hope it can inspire your own animal-name creation fun!
During our conversation, David mentions a thread on Reddit about butterfly names, which you can find here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1chmc4/eseneziri_im_david_peterson_the_creator_of_the/.
And I created a Keynote presentation for our discussion, which I’ve attached as a resource. When it gets to the discussion on butterflies, you’ll see there are a lot of names in Germanic languages, and those words are not necessarily standard across all dialects (and some are much more archaic!), which just adds to the fun of it all.
We hope you enjoy!
LangTime-Chat-AnimalsDownload
In this episode of LangTime Chat, we discuss triconsonantal roots, including natlangs that have them, historical origins of triconsonantal systems, and how to approach creating one as a conlanger. Enjoy!
In this episode, we discuss the results from our LangTime Chat proto-sketch we began in Episode 24. Not only did we have our own modern forms to compare, but Patrons also submitted work, so we have a whole family of modern forms based on the same proto-sketch. To keep our discussion organized, I made an accompanying slideshow, which is attached to this post as a PDF.
This episode was a lot of fun for us, and we hope you enjoy it, too!
ltc25Download
We have officially been podcasting for two full years!! This episode is the first of a two-part series and is based on a Patron suggestion, and we are quite excited about it!
In this episode, we work together to create proto-forms of a conlang sketch and discuss why we made particular decisions along the way. We settled on a sound system, created a series of basic roots, and decided on a basic word order for the proto-language. Over the course of the next month, David and I will each work separately with the proto-forms, selecting our own sound changes and grammatical devices and what not. In the next episode, we will bring our work together to compare what we came up with.
For any who want to “play along,” the language sketch document we created in this podcast episode is attached (both in Pages and PDF formats). You can evolve these proto-forms in your own ways over the month to join in on the fun!
LangTimeChat-Proto-SketchDownloadLangTimeChat-Proto-SketchDownload
After getting a question from a Patron about how to select an area of specialization in graduate school, we decided to devote this month’s podcast to that topic. We hope you enjoy!
In this very informal podcast episode, we discuss Jessie’s first experience at San Diego Comic Con!
(Note: This was the condensed SDCC held during Thanksgiving weekend, 2021, so it wasn’t the full experience. Still, though, it was something!)
SPOILER ALERT! In this episode, we discuss the signed communication system David created for Dune. Because we talk about how it’s used in the movie, there are some (minor) spoiler alerts.!
For this episode, we took a suggestion from our Patron Miles on Discord and decided to talk about food! We talk about words for various types of food in natural languages and how to go about coining food words in a conlang. So grab a snack and enjoy!
In this episode, Jessie totally says the wrong episode number at the beginning… sigh. Eighteen is such a good number, she wanted to use it twice! In terms of content, we talk about our experiences with graduate school and linguistics programs.
Also, if you’re ever in Boulder, CO, you should try out Half Fast Subs!
In this episode, we take a suggestion from Jason, one of our Patrons in Discord, and chat about Avatar: The Last Airbenderand strategies we would take for creating conlangs for that world. Avatar famously didn’t employ any conlangs in their fantasy world, but instead minimally utilized bits of real world languages here and there for style. We discuss what we would have done differently!
In this episode, we finish our four-part focus on tonogenesis in the language sketch we created to explore the introduction of tone. The PDF of the sketch with the information we worked on is included as an attachment to this post so you can see the final products of our sound changes that introduce tone! Also, […]
In this episode, we finally introduce sound changes that incorporate tone into our language sketch! During the episode, we reference an article on tonogenesis by Michaud and Sands, which is attached as a PDF to this post. We hope you enjoy listening!
In episode 14, we began a language sketch that will eventually incorporate tone as a way of addressing tonogenesis in language. We continue that language sketch in this episode, as we add more details to the phonological inventory and sound shifts. While we don’t quite make it to tone (there is always more to add […]
In this episode, we start a new conlang sketch to target Mike K.’s suggestion that we focus on tones in the podcast. Rather than just talking about tone, we are crafting a language with tone in it, taking opportunities to discuss options and reasons for making particular decisions along the way. This will be a […]
On our Patron Discord server, Jasmine suggested an episode focusing on gaming, and we were very happy to spend an hour talking about games! We also managed to talk about language at various points during this episode. 🙂 We hope you enjoy the game-centric discussion!
This episode focuses on how to create fanlangs, or conlangs created for existing fantasy worlds. The episode provides advice for conlanging within an existing framework and things to think about as you work, such as remembering that fanlangs don’t have to be true to every aspect of the canon, especially where the canon has incongruities. […]
In this episode, we talk about teaching and conlanging (otherwise known as conlang pedagogy)! After recording this episode, David let me know that my terminology may not be universally known, specifically my use of “made” in a sentence like “The course made.” For me, that means the minimum number of students enrolled in the course […]
Neither David nor I can believe we have already reached episode 10 of our podcast! That fact will become pretty evident in the opening 15 seconds when we try to remember how long we’ve been recording these episodes. This episode is titled “Jessie’s Conlangs.” In this episode, I introduce five of my conlangs, which are […]
In this month’s podcast, we play a round of “Name that language!” where I read language facts and have David try to guess the language being described. In honor of National Indigenous Peoples Day, all languages discussed are native to North America. SPOILER ALERT! If you want to play along with David, don’t scroll down […]
Welcome to LangTime Chat! In this episode, Jessie creates a language-based game for David to play called LINGsanity (if you’ve ever seen Winsanity, then you’ll know the gist of what David’s in store for). In terms of gameplay, contestants are presented with numerical-based facts and must “stack” those facts in the correct order to win. […]