Podcast – Conlangery Podcast: Recent Episodes
Podcast – Conlangery Podcast
In this episode, I spoke with Gideon Henner about his language Laut, a thought experiment on how to create a language to illustrate some of the communication differences autistic people have.
Links:
- Introduction to Laut
- Upcoming site for autistic conlangers
I interviewed Jonathan of @levunalangs about their musical conlangs, Sdefa and Amnenas!
I have a chat with linguistics short-form creator Human1011 about his language, itræχnâħyq̇, or Draconic. We compare it to my dragon language, Ndăkaga, and discuss the challenges of making short form conlanging content.
Links and Resources:
- WIP itræχnâħyq̇ grammar
- WIP itræχnâħyq̇ dictionary
David and Jessie of @LangTimeStudio come on with an update on their conlangy projects.
Check out Kopikon II
Preorder Jessie’s book, How to Create a Language
Superman (2025)
William Annis has come back to the show to talk to us about subordinate clauses! This will be a broad overview of the topic, which we may dive deeper on in future episodes.
Links and resources:
Lingweenie: https://lingweenie.org/conlang/
Wikipedia on balancing and deranking: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balancing_and_deranking
Dixon, Robert M. W., and Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald. Semantics of Clause Linking: A Cross-Linguistic Typology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Cristofaro, Sonia. “Is There Really a Syntactic Category of Subordination?” In Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, edited by Laura Visapää, Jyrki Kalliokoski, and Helena Sorva, 249:73–91. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2014. https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.249.03cri.
Wälchli, Bernhard. “Selectives (‘Topic Markers’) on Subordinate Clauses.” Linguistics 60, no. 5 (September 27, 2022): 1539–1617. https://doi.org/10.1515/ling-2020-0242.
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. “4 A Medial Clause Does It All: Coherence, Continuity, and Addressee Involvement in Manambu.” In Celebrating Indigenous Voice, edited by Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald, Robert L. Bradshaw, Luca Ciucci, and Pema Wangdi, 73–94. De Gruyter, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110789836-004.
Dahlstrom, Amy. “15 Clause Combining: Syntax of Subordination and Complementation.” In The Languages and Linguistics of Indigenous North America, edited by Carmen Dagostino, Marianne Mithun, and Keren Rice, 345–62. De Gruyter, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110600926-015.
Shibatani, Masayoshi. “12. Nominalization in Crosslinguistic Perspective.” In Handbook of Japanese Contrastive Linguistics, edited by Prashant Pardeshi and Taro Kageyama, 345–410. De Gruyter, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781614514077-013.
We have a special episode today. Andrea Weilgart, the daughter of W. John Weilgart, the creator of aUi, came on to discuss her father’s language and her work to continue his legacy.
aUi website
The Ersatz Academy
I had a nice discussion with author Madeline James about how she has just begun learning conlanging to create naming languages and formulaic spells. Join us as we discuss how she focuses on limited conlangs for the needs of her story and about her journey learning the craft.
You can see a continuation of this conversation on Madeline’s channel here.
Today, ZeWei joins us to talk about their music and conlanging, as well as the Cursed Conlang Circus and more.
ZeWei’s channel.
Carl Buck joins us to discuss his work as co-creator of Sangheili on Halo as well as his own personal conlanging work.
Links:
- Halo (TV series)
- Omyatloko Logosyllabary for Kala
- Carl’s Blog
I interview Jessie Peterson of @LangTimeStudio about her Conlang Year project, as well as her other conlanging education and promotion projects. See Conlang Year here: https://www.quothalinguist.com/
I talked to Artifexian about his work on Abheski and the new conlanging community on YouTube.
Today, I interview Agma Schwa about dog languages, cursed conlangs, and creativity. Make sure to check out this year’s Cursed Conlang Circus!
George talked to Paul Frommer, the creator of Na’vi, about his work creating languages for movies.
Resources mentioned: * Looking at Languages by Paul Frommer and Edward Finegan * An Annotated Dictionary of Na’vi by Stefan G. Müller * Conlanging: The Art of Crafting Tongues * A Guide to Barsoom by John Flint Roy * Possible and Probable Languages by Frederick J. Newmeyer
George breaks down a paper that discusses ChatGPT’s supposed ability to create languages. It is not impressive.
Citations
Diamond, Justin. “Genlangs and Zipf’s Law.” ArXiv Computer Science, 2023. https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/2304/2304.12191.pdf
De Marzo, Giordano, Francesco Sylos Labini, and Luciano Pietronero. “Zipf’s Law for Cosmic Structures: How Large Are the Greatest Structures in the Universe?” Astronomy & Astrophysics 651 (July 2021): A114. https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202141081.
Gabaix, X. “Zipf’s Law for Cities: An Explanation.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 114, no. 3 (August 1, 1999): 739–67. https://doi.org/10.1162/003355399556133.
Li, Wentian. “Analyses of Baby Name Popularity Distribution in U.S. for the Last 131 Years.” Complexity 18, no. 1 (September 2012): 44–50. https://doi.org/10.1002/cplx.21409.
Wang, Ding, Haibo Cheng, Ping Wang, Xinyi Huang, and Gaopeng Jian. “Zipf’s Law in Passwords.” IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security 12, no. 11 (November 2017): 2776–91. https://doi.org/10.1109/TIFS.2017.2721359.
Links
The Tweet that stared this: https://twitter.com/JPSoucy/status/1638747703332175872?s=20 Genlangs and Zipf’s law data https://github.com/Justin-Diamond/genlangs-and-zipfs
Law brief article https://www.reuters.com/legal/new-york-lawyers-sanctioned-using-fake-chatgpt-cases-legal-brief-2023-06-22/
George interviews Marc Okrand on his work on Klingon and Atlantean and his experiences with both the Klingon speaker community and the greater conlanging community.
I’m announcing a new streaming series: Tongues and Runes. You can find the first stream scheduled here.
George talks to CD Covington about her upcoming book about linguistic worldbuilding, funding through Kickstarter. Links:
George has David and Jesse on to talk about Kopikon!
Links:
- Kopikon
- @LangTimeStudio
- LangTime Engine
- Cecil Garvin earns honorary degree
We have two conlang conferences coming up this year. LCC10 is this weekend, and in September, we’ll have Kopikon!
George talks about his experience streaming during Lexember.
NOTE: This episode was written and recorded in the middle of the D&D OGL debacle. The way it was resolved changes some calculations slightly, but I’m still a bit perturbed by it.
Original Script
Aidan Aannestad comes on the show to talk about information structure, which included discussions on topic and focus and how they can be realized in language.
Links and Resources
- Aannestad, Aidan Alexander. “A Typology of Morphological Argument Focus Marking.” University of North Dakota, 2021.
- Büring, Daniel. “Towards a Typology of Focus Realization.” In Information Structure, edited by Malte Zimmermann and Caroline Féry, 1st ed., 177–205. Oxford University PressOxford, 2009. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199570959.003.0008.
- Wal, Jenneke van der. “Diagnosing Focus.” Studies in Language 40, no. 2 (July 1, 2016): 259–301. https://doi.org/10.1075/sl.40.2.01van.
George will be streaming word creation for Lexember every Saturday of the month at 1 PM US Central Time! You can check it out here!
Today, Logan Kearsley joins us to talk about whistled registers, and to let us know about his whistle synthesizer that can help you make one. Links and Resources:
George discusses word substitutions people use to avoid Internet censorship, and how that could be applied in worldbuilding. Original Script One of the interesting things you find in internet spaces is the presence of content filtering and the attempts to get around them. On the one hand, the people who have control of a given... Read more »
George talks about some interesting terms he encountered in his most recent job, and how you can pay attention to language around you at work for inspiration. Original Script Welcome to Conlangery, the podcast about constructed languages and the people who create them. I’m George Corley. Today, I want to continue my occasional “listen like... Read more »
This episode, George gives a short discussion of the idea of language as having infinite fractal complexity, and what this means for conlangers building fictional worlds. Special Mention: Resources on the Line 3 protest: Stop Line 3, Center for Protest Law and Litigation, Sierra Club Fact Sheet, Line 3 Legal Defense Fund Original Script Welcome... Read more »
George talks to Jasper Charlet and his opera, Heyra, written entirely in the Carite language, which is currently in crowdfunding. Top of Show Greeting: Opaki Aŋkuati Links Heyra on Indiegogo Carite
William comes back on the show to tell us all about the category of Associated Motion. Links and Resources: Wikipedia – Andative and Venitive de la Fuente, J. A. A., & Jacques, G. (2017) Associated motion in Manchu in typological perspective. Language and Linguistics. 語言暨語言學, 19(4), 501–524. https://doi.org/10.1075/LALI.00018.ALO Jacques, G., Lahaussois, A., & Zhang, S.... Read more »
George takes some time with Kenan Kigunda to talk about his conlang Zevy and how writing gets standardized. Top of show greeting: Fysh A Links and resources: Kenan’s LCC talk Zevy wordbook Zevy grammar notes Transcript coming soon!
George gives a little info about his current conlanging project, a set of naming languages for a story. Original Script (below the fold) Welcome to Conlangery, the podcast about constructed languages and the people who create them. I’m George Corley. I thought it was time for another personal conlanging update. I’ve been doing something interesting... Read more »
George wants to talk to writers, filmmakers, and creatives about how conlangs can benefit worldbuilding, and how you can go about getting one made. Links: Language Creation Society Resources Page LCS Jobs Board Original Script In this episode, I want to talk to authors, directors, and other creatives who are creating fictional worlds and cultures... Read more »
George uses some research into the etymology of coronavirus to launch into a way to build a story around the etymology of a word. Links and Resources: Coronavirus on Wikipedia Almeida JD, Berry DM, Cunningham CH, Hamre D, Hofstad MS, Mallucci L, McIntosh K, Tyrrell DA (November 1968). “Virology: Coronaviruses”. Nature. 220 (5168): 650. Bibcode:1968Natur.220..650..... Read more »
George and Joey Windsor use the various names of COVID-19 as a jumping off point to talk about naming diseases. Note that this episode was recorded in May, and quite a lot has changed in the intervening time. Top of Show Greeting: Chátsu Special mentions (from top of show note): A list of BLM charities,... Read more »
George brings on David J Peterson and Jesse Sams to talk about their new livestreaming adventure, LangTime Studio. Top of Show Greeting: Nekāchti Transcript {00:00:00} {Greeting} {Music} George: Welcome to Conlangery, the podcast about constructed languages and the people who create them. I’m George Corley. In plague-ridden California we’ve got David J. Peterson. David: {Clears... Read more »
George brings on two conlanger DMs, Joey Windsor and David J Peterson, to discuss how to incorporate conlanging into Dungeons and Dragons and other role-playing games. Top of Show Greeting: Boral (by Jack Keynes) Links and Resources: The 5E d20 Standard Reference Document Matt Colville’s YouTube channel The Chain Matt Colville speaking “Gith” D&D Beyond... Read more »
George talks a little bit about how choosing a theme for Lexember can be helpful for your conlanging. Original script Welcome to Conlangery, the podcast about constructed languages and the people who create them. I’m George Corley. I went on social media recently to ask what people wanted covered before Lexember and got some great... Read more »
George talks a little about little tidbits of his daughter’s linguistic development, and talks about how listening to child language might help conlangers find inspiration.
Margaret Ransdell-Green and Eric Barker come on to talk about the music they created for Margaret’s concultures in the world of Aeniith, which they performed at LCC8. Top of Show Greeting: Muipidan Transcript {00:00:00} {Greeting} {Music} George: Welcome to Conlangery, the podcast about constructed languages and the people who create them. I’m George Corley. With... Read more »
We bring Mike McCubbins on to talk about his new Kickstarter project, Anasazi, a comic which uses simple constructed written languages to tell a story in a visual medium. You can find the Kickstarter here! Top of Show Greeting: Salbécyk / Salbekian
George brings on Christophe and Joey to talk about their experience at the Eighth Language Creation Conference. We also have clips from interviews Joey made at the conference. Top of Show Greeting: Bizhida Links: 8th Language Creation Conference Livestream: Day 1, Day 2
George and William invite Prof. William Croft to talk about his theoretical approach to word classes and constructions. Forget a language without adjectives, let’s talk about how your property concepts are predicated! Links and Resources: Croft, William. in preparation. Morphosyntax: constructions of the world’s languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chapter 1, Chapter 2 Croft, William.... Read more »
George spends some time talking about his recent revisions of his Istatikii grammar, with a focus on organizing writing to serve the needs of the language and the readers. You will find the two drafts of the Istatikii consonant processes below. Script below the fold, see the history here. Welcome to Conlangery, the podcast about... Read more »
Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets joins us to talk to us about Ainu, a minority language of northern Japan. Top of Show Greeting: Bwángxùd by alr2569 (Translation Notes) Links and Resources: Japan’s new policy on the Ainu is misleading A Topical Dictionary of Conversational Ainu Bugaeva, A. (2004). Grammar and folklore texts of the Chitose dialect of Ainu:... Read more »
Jessie Sams comes on the show to talk to us about how she uses conlanging in the classroom. We discuss how these courses can be designed, what fields of linguistics they address well, and the results she saw from the course. Jessie also requested the following message be added to the notes: I would also... Read more »
George and William come back to talk about telicity and lexical aspect. Listen to us talk about endpoints in events and puzzle over why achievement and accomplishment are supposed to mean different things. Links and Resources: Agbo, M. (2010). Verb classification and Aktionsart in Ìgbò. California Linguistic Notes, 35(1), 1–21. Aoki, N., & Nakatani, K.... Read more »
George reflects on completing his PhD, and talks to those conlangers who might be considering graduate study in linguistics. Script below the fold: Welcome to Conlangery, the podcast about constructed languages and the people who create them. I’m George Corley, and we’re back! We’re going to have a short episode today, just to catch y’all... Read more »
George gives a short talk about how phonology affects phonetic transcriptions and why the narrow “phonetic” transcription of your language does not have to be overly specific (especially with vowels!). We should have a regular episode again next month. ORIGINAL SCRIPT: There is a tendency in the conlanging community to hew toward more narrow, standardized... Read more »
Colm Doyle comes on to talk about his Nymeran language, created for the comic series Glow, as well as some of the process and challenges of making a conlang and script for comics. Top of Show Greeting: Vaq’ǫ̀ʔ Nąśą /vàqʼõ̀ʔ nã̀ʃã́/ Glow issue 2 Kickstarter
Joey Windsor and Christophe Grandsire-Koevets join George to discuss what tools we can get from more advanced linguistics theoretical frameworks. What tools do they provide the conlanger, and where do you have to be careful about applying them. Top of Show Greeting: Gidurguyt [ɡɪ-ərdɡuː-jɪt] LCC Presentations: Doug Ball’s Talk Unfortunately, the video of Joey’s talk... Read more »
George discusses last year’s Lexember and some of the things that came out of that. Also, help us correct our transcripts on the Conlang Sources Wiki. What we reblogged on Tumblr. The Conlangery Twitter account. (Sorry, twitter search is bad, so I can’t conveniently direct you just to Lexember retweets.)
Conlangery Statement on Patreon Fee Changes (audio and transcript) We use Patreon to get a little money to pay some of the site fees and such for Conlangery. Our Patreon has grown some since it started, and I’m grateful to all our Patrons. However, I need to inform you that the way you pay through... Read more »
Today, Matt Pearson joins George and William to talk about non-finite “adverbial” verb forms called converbs. Top of Show Greeting: Old Niveni Links and Resources: Imperative Converb in Archi (conference abstract) Expressing adverbial relations in clause linkage with converbs: definitional and typological considerations (workshop slides) Ylikoski, J. (2003). Defining non-finites. Action nominals, converbs and infmitives.... Read more »
Jake and Kaye come on to talk about how language can interact with identity, across ethnicity, race, gender, sexuality, and class identities. Top of Show Greeting: Faikari. /ˈvɐ͡ɪ.kʰɒ.ˌʁi/ Links and Resources: Plural you Key and Peele skits 1, 2 Stigmatization of speech associated with women “Sounding gay” Journal of Gender and Language Mondorf, B. (2002)... Read more »
This week, George discusses Phonix, a sound change applier that will help you with your historical conlanging.
This episode, we discuss Coptic, the last descendant of thousands of years of Ancient Egyptian, now spoken mainly as a liturgical language in Coptic Christian churches in Egypt. Top of Show Greeting: Nalathis Special Mention: Go watch Conlanging: The Art of Crafting Tongues! Links and Resources: Plumley, Martin (1948) An Introductory Coptic Grammar. London: Home... Read more »
This month Christophe and William come on to talk about their experience at LCC7. Along with a few people William recorded on his phone. View the conference page here and all the videos of talks here. Top of Show Greeting: Croatian (translated and performed by Dorian Frangen)
Kaye Boesme joins George to talk about her far-future audiodrama Epiphany. Top of Show Greeting: Narahji (Note, I am working on a transcript for this episode. It has been delayed by irregular baby napping.)
Jake Malloy and David Peterson join George to talk about sign language as well as a few other ways humans communicate non-vocally. Top of Show Greeting: Bakom Links and Resources: SLIPA ASL Lessons ASL classifiers Non-manual markers in ASL ASL Internet slang Plains Indian Sign Language Tactile Signing Black ASL Signed Exact English (signed English... Read more »
George talks about how to listen to the language all around you like a conlanger, especially when you encounter weird specialized terms or senses of words. Wiktionary entry on “wrong” (includes the sewing sense)
George talks a bit about his personal progress with Middle Pahran. Draft Grammar of Middle Pahran
David Salo comes on to talk about his historical research into George Dalgarno’s Lingua Philosophica, a 17th century philosophical language. We discuss the features of Dalgarno’s work, a little of how it compares to other work of the time and also its influence on the history of conlanging. Top of Show Greeting: Lingua Philosophica (translated... Read more »
William is out for this month so we have Jake Malloy here to talk a bit about language policy, both official and unofficial, as well as a bit about language attitudes. Top of Show Greeting: Shidhunarien
I reflect a bit on Lexember 2016. Links and Resources: My post on -piq Dragonlinguistics on Tumblr Also please check out Phonetic Calligraphy on Tumblr and Facebook!
George gives a quick update on the Paramount v Axanar case and the LCS’s part in it. This was previously discussed in episode 119. For more information, please see the Language Creation Society’s Axanar information page.
Today we bring on Cecil Garvin to talk about Hoocąk a Siouan language still spoken in Wisconsin and on the Winnebago Reservation in Nebraska. Top of Show Greeting: Ulazradũn Links and Resources Hocąk Waziija Haci Language Division (some recordings there) Hoocąk hįįt’ekjawi (still waiting to hear if we can share this) Hocąk Teaching Materials (Volume... Read more »
This month we talk about grammatical number. What number distinctions can you make for a language (beyond singular and plural)? What do you mark for number? And how does number interact with agreement and other grammatical systems? We’ll help you with all of that. Top of Show Greeting: Classical Latin (translated and read by Nicholas... Read more »
We welcome Matt Boutilier on to talk about Old Irish, from the destruction of verb roots due to initial stress, to how you can incorporate initial mutations into a language. Special mention: George recommends the show Cleverman. Nothing to do with this episode, it’s just good. Top of show greeting: Dubarne /du’barnə/ Links and Resources... Read more »
Today we talk all about word-level stress systems, a part of your conlang that can be done in a few minutes or have you stressing for many days, weeks, or maybe months. It all comes down to what kind of stress system you go with. Top of Show Greeting: Modern Standard Arabic (translated and read... Read more »
William invites Ada Palmer on to talk about her new book Too Like the Lightning, which, while not so conlangy, uses language in interesting ways for world-building, including neologisms, unusual punctuation, and gratuitous Latin revivals. Links and Resources: Ada’s book on Amazon Or Barnes and Noble Ada’s Blog Ex Urbe
Today, we bring on Scott Hamilton and BenJamin P. Johnson to talk about Brooding, a language that both of them have worked on for the Riddlesbrood Touring Theater Company. Special Announcement: Britton’s film Conlanging is now crowdfunding on Indiegogo! Top of Show Greeting: Finnish (translate and recorded by Eric-Mickya Liwata) Links and Resources The Riddlesbrood... Read more »
We bring on our long time “frenemy” David Peterson to talk about Trigedasleng, the future English conlang he created for the CW show The 100. Top of Show Greeting: Noserliq (< q > = [ŋ]) Links and Resources: Trigedasleng.info David’s Tumblr answers Skaigedasleng Tumblr Memrise courses
This episode we talk all about adjectives, what you can do with them and how they fit into a language. Special Mention: Glow (2 days left on Kickstarter) Links and Resources Grune, D. (1995) Hopi Survey of an Uto-Aztecan Language. Halling, P. H. (2012). Semantic Types and Prototypical Adjectives and Adverbs (“Dixon Specials” on page... Read more »
George brings on Sai, Christophe, and attorney Mark Randazza to talk about the LCS’s decision to file an amicus brief in Paramount v Axanar. Links and Resources: LCS press release (with links to press articles) Amicus brief (and exhibits) The Dentons legal memo The Visual Artists Rights Act (- Wiki — closest thing the US... Read more »
This month we present you with a bunch of online linguistics databases to help get an idea of what possibilities there are for languages. Top of Show Greeting: Maruħani Links and Resources: WALS (general typology) APiCS (pidgin and creole typology) eWAVE (English dialects and English-based creoles) SSWL (syntactic typology) PBase (common phonological rules) PHOIBLE (phonological... Read more »
Today, after a brief digression about Pahlavi, we get into last year’s Smiley winner Kash. Links Cindu website David Peterson’s Smiley writeup
Today we take some time to suggest a few books that conlangers should check out. Linguistics Books Heine, B., & Kuteva, T. (2002). World lexicon of grammaticalization. Cambridge University Press. Bybee, J., Perkins, R., & Pagliuca, W. (1994). The evolution of grammar: Tense, aspect, and modality in the languages of the world. University of Chicago... Read more »
George gives another short about what you can do with your Lexember words after lexember.
In this short episode, George puts together some of his favorites from the last Lexember! Also, a note, he also wrote a thing for Fiat Lingua. #Lexember #kardak #conlang #conscript #WOD #29 #languages pic.twitter.com/sAWio7VyXo — DachiiKardak (@dachiikardak) December 30, 2015 http://olilonien.tumblr.com/post/135933221852/lexember-day-25 This is probably the #lexember coinage I’m proudest of – pic.twitter.com/UaLD3ss5h9 — Zeke Fordsmender... Read more »
Victor Raymond joins us today to talk about the language Tsolyáni, created by MAR Barker and implemented in his campaign setting Tékumel in Empire of the Petal Throne. Top of Show Greeting: Proto-Continental Links and Resources: Tékumel official site Tékumel Foundation The Tsolyáni Language The Tsolyáni Primer All Tekumel books on DriveThruRPG
This month Britton joined us and we talked about the wonders of reduplication and nicknames in Thai. Top of Show Greeting: Dzuish (English-based conlang) Wikipedia on Thai Thai-language.com Noss, R. B. (1964). Thai reference grammar. Foreign Service Institute. Haiman, J. (2013). Decorative morphology in Khmer. In The Aesthetics of Grammar: Sound and Meaning in …... Read more »
Top of Show Greeting: Zametulian Announcements Radio West interview and Video West feature of Trent Pehrson The Art of Language Invention (George’s review, William’s review) Links and Resources Lamoureaux, S. V. D. (2004). Applicative Constructions in Maasai. Linguistics, (August). Austin, P. K. (2005). Causative and applicative constructions in Australian Aboriginal Languages. The Dative and Related... Read more »
In this very special episode, we interview Britton Watkins about his upcoming documentary Conlanging: The Art of Crafting Tongues while his husband films us for said documentary. Keep your eye out for their crowdfunding to start, and look forward to seeing our faces when the film is released next year. You can see information on... Read more »
George discusses his own observations about the use of kinship terms in his wife’s village in Henan province, China. NOTE: We’re going to change how our audio is hosted soon. This might mean some oddness in the feeds in the coming weeks.
Today we have a long talk with author and conlanger JS Bangs about conlanging, worldbuilding, and writing. Top of the Show Greeting: Praseo Links and Resources: JS Bangs’s conlang site JSBangs.com
Today Christophe joins us as we talk all about copulas, or copulae, however you want to talk about them. Special mention: Intro video for Britton’s new film Conlanging Top of Show Greeting: Dutch (submitted anonymously) Links and Resources: Curnow, T. J. (1999). Towards a Cross-linguistic Typology of Copula Constructions. Proceedings of the 1999 Conference of... Read more »
This episode, William tells us about the noun classifications in Palikúr, a language with both gender and numeral classifers (once thought impossible) and a couple other classifications aside. EDIT: An earlier version of the shownotes linked to the JSTOR page of the Aikenvald and Green paper. The new link goes to a page where you... Read more »
Today we review the Akana conlang Kataputi. In other news, the Sixth Language Creation Conference happened. Links below. Also, George is getting his Masters. Top of Show Greeting: Old English/Anglo-Saxon (translated and read by Scott Brewer) Links and Resources Kataputi Proto-Dumic Announced bits William’s post about legal stuff LCC6 site Day 1, part 1 Day... Read more »
Support Conlangery on Patreon! Announcements: David Salo talking at WiGL on April 11, in Madison, WI, USA The Sixth Language Creation Conference will be on April 25-26 in Horsham, UK Bianca joins us today for an episode on obviation, just another option for managing discourse while clarifying who does what to who. Also, we have... Read more »
Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets comes on to talk about his conlang Moten. Top of Show Greeting: Nærut Nɑnɑ́rɑ Links and Resources: The Moten page of Christophe’s blog Christophe’s presentation at LCC4
Suzette Haden Elgin passed away on January 27th. She will be missed. You can now support Conlangery on Patreon! William can now talk about conlanging he did for a videogame! In this episode, George and William go over the wonderful diversity of auxiliary verb constructions! So much to think about! Links and Resources: Auxiliary Verb... Read more »
This episode, George highlights a few words from last year’s #Lexember event. Words: ihar kopoyamtuki snūgā kwägilärä naagari hintul chyubīne tneban fri
Today George is on his own with a short and a book recommendation. You can find links to Gender by Greville Corbett here. LCS members can borrow it from the LCS Lending Library here.
Today it’s just George and William talking about the wonders of Navajo. Mostly William talking, as he knows more about it. Top of show Greeting: Yanem Links and Resources: Wikipedia The Navajo Language (best resource on the Internet) The Derivation of Meaning in the Navajo Verb Structure of Navajo A bunch of learning resources Reversing... Read more »
Today we discuss how languages talk about time. Particularly, how do we map time onto space metaphorically. Top of Show Greeting: Duojjin Links and Resources: From Space to Time (Haspelmath) — warning, big download Metaphor SPACE AS TIME across languages How Languages Construct Time Time and the mind: Using space to think about time Spatial... Read more »
We’re back! This episode we answer your emails on the show. Check the full emails below the fold. Top of Show Greeting: Fyai Thǔvn Email#1 Cherry-pick and paraphrase without mercy. Apologies if these have been addressed in the 30 released episodes I’m yet to enjoy. Over-long Ingratiating Preamble: I started listening to your podcast 29... Read more »
Today we discuss Afrihili in some detail, a discussion made possible by William’s work tracking down the book and publishing some highlights about the language. Links and Resources: William’s Paper Wikipedia article on Afrihili
George takes a moment to talk about a kind of language that is somewhat to related to the pidgins and creoles episode. CORRECTION: In the podcast I say that CIA is spoken on Copper Island. It originated there, but currently the surviving speaker population is on Bearing Island. Special note: conlang is now listed in... Read more »
David Peterson joins us to talk about pidgins and creoles and what conlangers (and linguists) can learn from them. Top of Show Greeting: Chudihr (revised) Links and Resources: Wiki on creoles APICS (WALS for creoles) An Introduction to Pidgins and Creoles Creole studies: a theoretical linguist’s field guide Wikipedia on Tok Pisin
We had a wonderful conversation with Christine Schreyer, the creator of the Kryptonian language featured in Man of Steel and a professor of linguistic anthropology at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan, who uses a language creation assignment in one of her classes. Top of Show Greeting: Moten Links and Resources: Christine Schreyer’s website Her... Read more »
Today George brings on his fiancé Li Wang to talk about some interesting little lexical facts in Chinese that might be an inspiration. Links and Resources Google shows nearly a million hits for 吃酒 A Conlanger’s Thesaurus Semantic Associations presenation
We have some fun telling you about nonconcatenative mophology — that is morphology that doesn’t involve stringing things together. It’s not just Arabic, folks (though we do talk about that a bit). Top of Show Greeting: Engeldish Links and Resources: “Down with Morphemes” talk and paper Wikipedia article Wikipedia “Apophony” Indo-European Ablaut “Transfix” Arabic broken... Read more »
In this episode, George points out a really interesting little subreddit that might provide some inspiration to conlangers. Links and Resources Etymology Maps subreddit camel clock beer Jew
George recorded a special interview with David J Peterson and Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets to talk about some recent events at the Language Creation Society.
Today we interview conlanger Britton Watkins about his journey from natlang enthusiasm through Vulcan and Na’vi fandom to creating a conlang for his and his husband’s ‘nano-budget’ movie. Korsaya.org Senn
Bianca tells us a little about the verbal system of Uskra, one of her conlangs, and how she played with giving grammatical forms multiple uses.
George and William have a discussion of those times when the subject isn’t in the case you might expect it to be in. Links and Resources: Wikipedia on Quirky Subject Subject cases in Sadani Oblique subjects in Slavic (handout/ PowerPoint) Warlpiri Comparative study with lots of examples from many languages Non-nominative subject in Oriya Okuna... Read more »
Today we talk about a bunch of wacky and wonderful auxlangs. Links and Resources: Real Character Caracteristica universalis aUI (Wikipedia, original site, a not-so-friendly review) Dnghu Babm Blissymbolics (official site, Wikipedia) Solresol
We go over politeness theory and discuss its implications for creating interesting conlangs and concultural interactions. Top of Show Greeting: Zametulian Links and Resources: Wikipedia on Politeness Theory Lecture notes on the subject (with some critiques) Power Point slides with good English examples Another Wikipedia article on Face
Today, William is gone, but we have Christophe Grandsire-Koevets on as a special guest to discuss one of his favorite natlang inspirations, Basque. Top of Show Greeting: Palethian Links and Resources: Theories on Basque’s origins (Spanish) Grammar of Basque Some useful charts and such (French) Another grammar Four Wikipedia pages: main, grammar, verbs, dialects
We go over the basic premise of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis and it’s (limited) usefulness to naturalistic conlanging, with a couple of tangents here and there. Top of Show Greeting: Danish (translated by Samuel Kilsholm) Links and Resources: Wikipedia entry on linguistic relativity Linguistic determinism Experimental languages Verb framing Eskimo snow word myth NPR story on study... Read more »
Today we talk about a language of dragons. It’s really, really hard to pronounce. Top of show Greeting: Jesesç Srínawésin grammar and dictionary: Section I Section II and III Section IV Section V Section VI Section VII Section VIII Lexicon of Verb Roots and Thesaurus
We resurrect the podcast with an episode that’s all answering listener feedback. We hope to keep this thing going for a good long time. Top of Show Greeting: French (translation and recording by Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets) Emails below the fold: Hi! I’m a rather bad natlanger. I’m too tempted to make Lojban-ish languages, where things are unambigous... Read more »
George continues his phrasebook series with a few musings about telling time. Long form episodes returning soon.
George continues his phrasebook series by considering what you say when you ask “How do you say …?” and “What does that mean?”
Today, we take a little time to talk about the topic of polysynthesis Top of Show Greeting: Gothic (translated by Roman Rausch) Links and Resources: Nootkan/Southern Wakashan grammar (featured on episode 41) ZBB thread on polysynthesis Nice Inuit article Iñupiatun Eskimo dictionary Ancient Egyptian (Amazon link) Feedback: Hello, I’ve posted in the comments as Panglott a... Read more »
George uses an example from Tagalog to highlight one of the decisions conlangers might need to make if they use infixing.
This week, we are going to focus on a language you’ve probably heard us talk about quite a bit in passing: Ancient Greek. Learn how it is the oddball of European languages. Top of Show Greeting: Pali (natlang) Special Mention: Linguistics MOOC Links and Resources: Tables and tables of morphological forms Some downloadable books Grammar... Read more »
This week, we do a little talking about determiners, a topic that has come up before in many episodes but that we hadn’t really treated on its own. Also, we get to reading some iTunes reviews we’ve been forgetting about. Top of Show Greeting: Brazilian Portuguese (Vítor) Links and Resources: WALS: Conjunctions and Universal Quantifiers... Read more »
Apologies for posting this so late. Technical difficulties. In this episode we explore the curious Himmaswa and its Chinese-inspired writing system. Top of Show Greeting: Swiss German (Zurich dialect) Links for Himmaswa: KneeQuickie ZBB Fkeuswa Feedback: Hi dudes… I’m still loving the podcast 🙂 I’ve got a question for you guys this time. I... Read more »
This week, we have a relatively short discussion on the creation and fictional portrayal of multilingual conworlds. It’s a linguistics-light topic, but we thought it might be useful. Links: Dragoman Feedback: Email: Azul*, guys: So, I’ve just got done with the Tone episode (#81), and at the end someone mentioned “bogolangs,” which put me in... Read more »
George talks about how we borrow words for cultural concepts, even when the concept isn’t all that alien to our culture. Links: Xenia Guanxi (关系) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenia_(Greek)
George and Mike have a wonderful conversation with Nizar Habash, creator of Delason. Featured Conlang: Delason Feedback: Hi! I discovered this podcast almost a month ago and I’m on episode 46. I’m actually not a conlanger, but I love linguistics and I love the discussions you guys have about different aspects of language. Thank you... Read more »
Today we tell you some techniques for using translations to flesh out your conlang. Top of Show Greeting: Pahran (George’s work-in-progress conlang) Links and Resources: Conlang Syntax Tests Aesop’s Fables (online collection)
William Annis gives us a wonderful review of how classification occurs in natural languages, and the many ways you can incorporate it in your langs. (Small note, we will no longer be putting translated greetings on the short episodes.) Links and Resources: Austronesian Possession (and another link) List of Chinese Classifiers (Wikipedia) Noun Classification in Dakelh... Read more »
Today we talk to Denis Moskowitz about his wonderful experiment Rikchik and the strange aliens who speak it. Top of Show Greeting: Forkëzoq Feature Conlang: Rikchik Rikchik physiology Smiley award
It took us two tries, but we managed to record an episode focusing entirely on tone systems. Learn about how tonal languages work, how they develop historically, and a few little bits you can play with. Top of Show Greeting: Frenkisch Links and Resources: Wobé Wè Nobiin Thai writing system IPA Tone Markings Hmong Gwoyeu... Read more »
Today, George and William have an interesting discussion on the phenomenon of “zonal” auxiliary languages, which seek to unite a region rather than the whole world. Top of Show Greeting: Ponuhi Links and Resources: – Germanic auxlangs Euronord Teutonish Folksprak Frenkish – Slavic auxlangs A big giant list of them Neoslavonic Interslavic Jan van Steenbergen’s... Read more »
I ended up cutting out about 10 minutes worth of excellent material in episode 13 that I’ve been sitting on forever just waiting for a chance to share it, so here you have it. Top of show Greeting: nQaixhaþ Maħàr
William tells us how lexemes need not be one continuous word or morpheme, using his characteristically exotic examples (and some not so exotic. Top of Show Greeting: fangait Links and Resources: Navajo Verb Template Asheninca Campa
In our last full episode of 2012, we talk all about Cherokee. Top of Show Greeting: Emberyad Announcements: Profile of John Quijada in The New Yorker Jim Henry Medical Trust Featured NATLANG: Cherokee Reference Grammar Lexicon Valley on Sequoyah’s syllabary Short lesson on classifiers Feedback: Email: Good Afternoon, I just finished listening to you... Read more »
Special mention: DJP had another podcast interview (Yeah, I know, we’re late on everything) Thanks to a wonderful email suggestion, we talk about how conlangers should read linguistics research papers, including what to look at (and what you don’t need to) and how to find papers to look at. Top of Show Greeting: Kobardon Email: Conlangery,... Read more »
This week John Ericson joins us to talk about his wacky and wonderful FairyLang. Top of Show Greeting: Russian (translation by Boris Listunov) Featured Conlang: FairyLang Feedback Email: Is it possible (or does there exist) languages in which the lexicon can be automatically generated (or at least guided) by a heuristic employing a pre-existing ontological... Read more »
William is back! He talks with us all about definiteness. Top of Show Greeting: Vreksi Links and Resources: Typology of definiteness Irish initial mutations (note the difference in masculine and feminine definites) Javanese and definiteness in subjects Another paper on definiteness Hungarian definiteness marking on verbs Feedback: Email from Patrick: I do in fact listen to... Read more »
This week, we invite Martin Posthumous on to talk about his new conlang Alashian. Top of Show Greeting: South Eresian (reuse) Featured Conlang: Alashian Feedback: Email from Kerri: Hello. Thanks for doing the podcast. For some reason, I just comprehend things better aurally than read, so it’s been very useful to me! I’m not a... Read more »
Today we talk to you all about vowel harmony, taking Turkish, Finnish, Moro, and Mongolian as case studies to help you figure out the intricacies of what choices you need to make in vowel harmony systems and how you can introduce interesting Top of Show Greeting: Maksinaunminverbe Links and Resources: Distinctive Feature Chart Vowel Systems Info... Read more »
We didn’t get a full episode out this week, but George didn’t want to have a week with nothing at all, so he “reads”* the date in Tagalog, then goes on a ramble about loanwords a bit. Top of Show Greeting: Lingwa de Planeta Text of that date and time expression, for the curious: Ika-4 ng... Read more »
Today we eventually get to talking about Khangaþyagon, and get a lot of interesting stuff out of it. Also, George forgets a notable conlanger who has been featured before on the show. headdesk Top of Show Greeting: Shokitin Featured Conlang: Khangaþyagon Email: Conglangerists: A while ago I finished my trawl through the Conlangery backlog, and I’m quite happy... Read more »
Today, we have a barely controlled, but good, discussion of relative clauses. David’s presentation on the Defiance langs is on YouTube. Links and Resources: Wikipedia on Relative Clauses WALS: Relativization on Subjects WALS: Relativization on Obliques Internally headed relative clauses in Japanese and Navajo Relative clauses in Lojban Feedback: Email from Logan: Thanks for the shout-out,... Read more »
Today, we all talk about the wonderful nuclear-fricitiveness of Ogami, a real life natural language in the Ryukyuan family. It’s got lots of little bits to inspire you in your conlangs. Enjoy! Top of Show Greeting: Mandarin Chinese (translation help and recording by Starrie Li (李昕)) Featured NATLANG: Ogami
Kickstarter I mentioned at the top of the show. Today, we finally get to talk about why David hates morphemes, among other things. Top of Show Greeting: Tslure Thujekatsoth Links and Resources: David’s LCC1 talk about Morphemes More explanation from David And more and more I don’t know why David put all his own stuff in... Read more »
This week we talk about one of the older languages in the conlang community, Arthaey’s Asha’ille. And no, that spelling has nothing at all to do with the language’s phonology. You’ll learn a bit about that in the episode. Top of Show Greeting: Ostunese Featured Conlang: Asha’ille
We are super excited to reveal that our third host for (we hope) the duration of William’s absence will be none other than David J. Peterson! Take a listen as we talk through the challenges of making an agglutinative language that isn’t depressingly boring. Top of Show Greeting: Kihā́mmic Feedback: Email from (another) Michael: Hey guys, I’ve... Read more »
Bianca joins us as we tackle a fun and wacky conlang with some serious phonological processes. Top of Show Greeting: Neo-Simikaka Featured Conlang: Alũbetah Feedback: Email: Hi guys, Greetings from Melbourne, Australia. Loving the podcast, keep up the good work. Only discovered it a few weeks ago, but have worked my way back through most of your... Read more »
Today we have a very enlightening discussion about conceptual metaphors and how thinking about them can help you avoid a relex as well as have loads of fun in usage and translation. Also, this will be William’s last episode for a while 🙁 Top of Show Greeting: Arahau Links and Resources: List of English conceptual... Read more »
William is leaving (temporarily), but don’t worry, we have one more episode before he goes. Also, we talk with Eric about his lovely language Tayéin Top of Show Greeting: Frixàð Featured Conlang: Tayéin Feedback: Email from Sai: George, William, & Mike – Howdy. Alex & I were just listening to your podcast #62 while on a... Read more »
Today we tackle a very interesting typology topic: head-marking and dependant-marking. Turns out that whether your language leans one way or another affects (or depends on) a wide variety of grammatical features. Be sure to check the links below for additional info. Top of Show Greeting: Toki Pona (translated by Vadim Fomin) Links and Resources: Great... Read more »
Today, we cover one of the weird and wonderful languages of Papua New Guinea. It turns out to be surprisingly not so weird, but there’s still quite a few things in it to inspire conlangers. Do check out the crazy verbs though — that bit is quite nuts. Top of Show Greeting: Pøplish Featured NATLANG: Kuot
Today we tackle a big grammar and discourse topic: anaphora and co-referentiality. We go through a list of options you have for cleaning up ambiguities and keeping your discourse coherent. Just don’t throw them all into the same conlang. Top of Show Greeting: Minhast Links and Resources: Indexicality, Logophorality, and Plural Pronouns Logophor in Ogonoid... Read more »
This week we cover the monumental and yet incomplete amman îar, a heavily Tolkien-inspired language that nevertheless manages to have its own flavor. Top of Show Greeting: Uskra Featured Conlang: amman îar Feedback: Email from FE: Howdy, I don’t know if someone has already addressed this, however, in episode 40 you discussed the ubiquity of... Read more »
So, for various reasons we have now changed the format of the show. Now we will be doing only one topic per show, alternating weeks between discussion topics and featured conlangs. We hope that this addresses the issues some people have had with show length while still allowing us to have thick, meaty discussions. As... Read more »
Today we take some time to talk to you about a conworldy topic: loan words in your conlang. What words are likely to be borrowed? What kinds of situations cause borrowing? And how does grammar work for loan words? Also, we talk about Kebreni, our second feature of an Almean language. Top of Show Greeting:... Read more »
This week, we talk all about the middle voice and the many things that that covers, as well as give you all sorts of options to make your own creative use of this feature. We also have a featured natlang today that has very interesting features as well as some hilarious crackpot historical theories around... Read more »
After a short update on George’s grad school situation and some musing over our tagline, we get to talking about the very complex interactions that animacy and agency can have with the rest of your grammar. Then we talk about Interlingua, a very boring auxlang that appears to be comfortably readable by anyone who speaks... Read more »
David Peterson joins us for a wonderful Supersize episode where we talk all about growing your lexicon, from generating roots to creating realistic polysemy and semantic fields. Also, we finally feature an obscure little language we’ve wanted to talk about for a while 😛 Top of Show Greeting: Oltengo Links and Resources: Analysis of English... Read more »
We give you a podcast today about how you can do without tense, and what other things in the language can be used to fill in the gaps. Also, we have special guest Jeffrey Jones on to talk about his conlang. Top of Show: Sheewan Links and Resources: Vietnamese tense/aspect marking Telicity (Wikipedia) Featured Conlang: K’tlê... Read more »
Today is a big show where we tackle the topic of reduplication, something we think more conlangers should employ. Then we talk about a wonderfully crazy click langauge called Sandawe — and it’s natural! Top of Show Greeting: Chudihr Links and Resources Iyo Grammar (see p. 21) Spokan (reduplication talk begins on p. 111) Reduplication... Read more »
After a short update on rain in Wisconsin and ankle injuries, we try to make sense of the topic of topicalization and topic prominent languages. Then we talk about Talmit, a language created by active Conlangery listener and commenter Roman Rausch Top of Show Greeting: Grewa Resources: Nice paper on topicalization Featured Conlang: Talmit (LCC talk,... Read more »
For our 52nd episode we decided to take a break from our usual format and just have a good time talking about movies and TV shows — with a conlang twist. So, here we are listening to a bunch of conlang (and pseudo-conlang) dialogue from various properties and talking a little about what we like... Read more »
We go a little out of our comfort zone and talk about language history — particularly as involves the diachronic method of creating a conlang. Then we move on to some talk about a language called Dimana Lokud. Top of Show Greeting: Oupe Links and Resources: Wikipedia on the Neogrammarians Book with some information on... Read more »
In today’s bonus-size episode we have Carsten Becker on to join in a great discussion on the technologies of writing: implements, media, formats, and even literacy itself. Then we have an invigorating discussion with Larry Sulky about his “artlangy-engelang” Qakwan, among other things. Top of Show Greeting: Treyll Links and Resources: Palm Leaves as a... Read more »
This week, we have Jim Henry on the show to talk about his long-term labor of love, the “engelangy artlang” gjâ-zym-byn. But first we talk in great detail about noun phrases and many of the things you can do with them. Top of Show Greeting: Qakwan Links and Resources: A paper on sentence word order and... Read more »
After a discussion of George’s recent consumption of bear meat, we get to talking about designing your sound system, a topic we meant to talk about in episode 29 but somehow didn’t end up saying much about. After a long discussion about that topic, we feature perhaps the second most famous auxlang in history, which... Read more »
Today we talk about something we wish more conlangers would think about creating — isolating and analytic languages. It seems that virtually everyone wants some polysynthetic madness or at least a complex verb paradigm, but there are ways to make isolation and analytic syntax interesting, we promise! Also, Taila Top of Show Greeting: Hra’anh Links... Read more »
Check out the Serpent’s Tongue kickstarter I mentioned at the top of the show! After teasing Mike a bit about his trip to an Anime convention, we get down to business on how to make your conlang fit into a conworld. Then we cover an interesting and enigmatically-named Arka language. Top of Show Greeting: German (translation... Read more »
This week we talk about the many peculiarities of how questions can be handled in your language. Join us as we explore not only polar and content questions, but also talk about rhetorical and conjectural ones as well, with some insight on how different languages handle them. We also have a natlang featured today, one... Read more »
First of all, George was on something called FourCast a bit ago. You might enjoy it. Also, CNN is doing a special on Dothraki on April 8. But the meat of this podcast is all about negation: how to deal with scope, negative concord, and a number of other issues in your conlang. Oh, and... Read more »
Today, we spend a ridiculous amount of time talking about adpositions, creating an hour-long discussion out of something William thought would be short. We also have an extra special featured conlang today — one hand crafted specifically for this podcast! Top of Show Greeting: Opaki Aŋkuati Links and Resources: WALS: Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase... Read more »
We introduce you to a new host: Mike Lentine. Then we cover the different ways you can get rid of adjectives or at least fuzz the distinctions between them and other word classes. Also, we try to figure out what Lojban is all about. Top of Show Greeting: Esperanto (translation by William) Featured Conlang: Lojban... Read more »
Bianca’s last show as a regular host goes into a rather ambitious topic: discourse particles. Go listen to the show, because it’s too complicated a subject for me to summarize properly here. We also feature a natlang going by two names. Top of Show Greeting: Amjati Links and Resources: Paper with a typology and some... Read more »
After a big announcement, we delve into the mysteries and wonders of creating dialects, reviewing natlang tendencies and talking about some techniques that can be used to mimic them, and then we talk about a quite interesting conlang as well. Top of Show Greeting: Palezi Urca Links and Resources: Wikipedia on Romance Languages Emesal (a... Read more »
George gets Bianca’s name wrong and no one notices. We also have some digressions at the beginning and the end of the show, but somehow we end up talking a whole lot about noun incorporation, and the weird and wacky language known as Gevey. Top of Show Greeting: Vaida Mi Ha Links and Resources: Notes... Read more »
Today we talk all about derivational morphology and what can be done with it. We also spend some time talking about Proto-Deithas Top of Show Greeting: Sindarin (translation by Roman Rausch) Links and Resources: Gary Shannon’s notes on related words Lexical Semantics Agent nominalizations Nominalization in Thai Featured Conlang: Proto-Deithas
Aszev of the CBB joins us for a little talk about the many kinds of phonological processes: what they are, what you can do with them, why the order of processes in important. We also review the awesomely well-developed Novegradian with its 500-page grammar and excellent dictionary. Top of Show Greeting: Talmit Links and Resources:... Read more »
CORRECTION: A commenter below graciously corrected me on a point I (George) raised in the show. When I talk about desiderative languages, please replace that word with dechticaetiative. Look to the comments below for a relevant link. I apologize for misidentifying the phenomenon I was talking about. We talk a lot about morphosyntactic alignment, outlining the basic... Read more »
What do you do when you want to make a language without case marking? Or with very little case marking? That is what we attempt to explore in this episode. If you would like to take up George’s “homework” challenge, make up a sketch of a language and send an example of some sort of... Read more »
Alternate Title: Genders, Classes, and Agreement, oh my! We talk today all about gender. Or noun class. Or both. Really, they are the same thing, at least we think so. Anyway, after a vivid and lively discussion on what can be done with the wonderful world of arbitrarily classifying nouns we review Taruven Top of... Read more »
We get right to it talking about suprasegmentals: mainly stress, phonation, tone, and nasalization. After a long and fascinating (if incomplete) discussion, we finally get around to talking to DJP’s Kamakawi. Top of Show Greeting: Kinál Links and Resources: Phonation Types Mark Liberman has doubts about stress-timed vs syllable-timed Nambikwara (lots of suprasegmental distinctions) Featured... Read more »
George reveals a peeve, which leads to a bit of a tangent before we get to talking about the wonderful world of evidentials and all the stuff you can do with them. Then we cover a very curious language by the name Talossan. Top of Show Greeting: Gówa Links and Resources: Evidentiality in Tibetan Evidence... Read more »
Today we talk about demonstratives. Chiefly, what distinctions are common for demonstratives, and what crazy out-there distinctions you can make. We also review a conlang that should be very familiar to you all. Top of Show Greeting: Zelsen Featured Conlang: Quenya Thorsten Renk’s Quenya Course (archive download) Ardalambion on Quenya Feedback: Email from Stephen Rogers:... Read more »
George has put up a grammar! Also, we talk numerals — what base to use, how to construct higher numerals, cardinal vs ordinal, etc. Then we feature a little bogolang called Wenedyk. Top of the Show Greeting: Celinese Links and Resources: WALS Numerical Base WALS Ordinals WALS Distributives WALS Numeral Classifiers Alyutor (Wikipedia) Pame number... Read more »
After some discussion of one little New York Times article that quoted William(!), we move along to talking about designing your sound system and romanization, though it’s mostly about romanization. After that, we break a pattern and for the first time feature a natlang rather than a conlang — going from a grammar that just... Read more »
A very special guest host joins us for this episode, where we try to talk about correlatives as a thing, but as correlatives is actually many different things, we end up just talking about indefinites the whole time. We have much more Top of Show Greeting: pr̝̊ɛmɪsl Links and Resources: Esperanto correlatives WALS on Indefinites Featured... Read more »
We start off with a reccomendation of sorts of the Speculative Grammarian Podcast, and George’s own long post on romanization. Then we get into the meat of the show talking about all kinds of irregularity and “regular irregularity”. Then we take a 180-degree turn and talk about the insanely regular Esperanto. Top of Show Greeting:... Read more »
We talk about one of William’s pet peeves in conlang descriptions and linguistics in general: the overuse of the word “emphasis”. We start out with some very strong reccomendations against using it in phonology, and then talk about some more standard terms you might use instead when talking about discourse or syntax. We also review... Read more »
We have a guest on, Olle Heikilä, who we totally didn’t forget to add to the Skype call, and have a nice discussion on grammatical voice and what it’s for, what you can include, and just in general. If you believe what your English teacher taught you about voice, prepare to be disabuse. We also... Read more »
After some observations about the merits of Star Wars and plastic chopsticks, we tell you all kinds of stuff about possession: alienable vs inalienable, various marking strategies, “to have” and more. Oh, and we talk about Abakwi. Top of Show Greeting: rejistanian Conlang: Abakwi Feedback: Email from Matt Pearson: Hi George, I finally had a... Read more »
We talk a little about what we like and dislike about alien languages — and what concepts we think are actually likely to work. Then we reveiw Ebisédian. Top of Show Greeting: Cardonian Conlang: Ebisédian Feedback: Five-Star Reviews: Great for both people interested in conlanging and linguistics in general by stingerbrg I’m fairly new at the... Read more »
George’s father has pragmatics issues, but anyway … pronouns! (Almost) every language is going to have pronouns of some sort. We talk all kinds — closed-class, open-class, free, clitic, and even having pronouns for bizarrely specific people. Also, we review Baranxe’i Links and Resources: Swahili concord (alternate) Mixtec Xavante (look for the reference to a’ama) WALS on demonstratives... Read more »
Bianca’s out for this episode, so William and I take the opportunity to talk about something she hates so much she wouldn’t let us have a show about it: poetry! Figure out how to choose good poetic devices for your conlang, and how history can affect the complexity of poetry. Also we talk about the... Read more »
We talk about ideophones, a fun, fun class of words that describe a general feeling. We also review a language that’s not quite an elflang, so William doesn’t quite hate it. Top of Show Greeting: Dothraki Links and Resources The Ideophone Ideophone definition Japanese ideophones Daniel Tammet inventing an ideophone Featured Conlang: Old Albic Feedback:... Read more »
We puzzle through the very difficult and complex subject of thematic roles and role marking, and then review the awesomely complicated Okuna. Top of Show Greeting: Standard Telèmor Links and Resources: Fiat Lingua paper Chemehuevi (predicate marking langauge) Lexical Semantics Featured Conlang: Okuna (formerly known as Tokana) An excerpt from the grammar: Compare also the following... Read more »
We finish out our Holy Trinity of Verbs with Mood — a slippery, slippery subject if there ever was one. Of course, after trying to make some sense out of that, we move on to review South Eresian Top of Show Greeting: tzoi Rescources: Wikipedia on Mood Conlang: South Eresian (blog) Feedback: Email from James... Read more »
The second in our TAM series, we spend a good deal of time on the basic perfective/imperfective distinction as well as talk a little about how you can go totally crazy with many, many more aspects. Then we review the incredible Siwa. Top of show greeting: Salthan Featured Conlang: Siwa (CBB Thread) Feedback: (First of... Read more »
The first of our episodes of the holy verbal trinity of TAM. We initially planned to do Tense and Aspect as one episode, but the more we talked about tense the more complicated it became, so the aspect discussion is pushed to next week. We also have a wonderful time talking about the insanity that... Read more »
We throw out some tips for how to kick certain creative habits you might have developed as you create languages. Then we review the Akana language Tmaśareʔ. Top of Show greeting: Myonian Links and Resources Spokan Hupa Featured Conlang: Tmaśareʔ Feedback: Okuno Zankoku (email) Since you always want to know, I’ve just started a sketch of an... Read more »
We give you some info on verb framing — that is the typology of how languages describe motion, as well as some discussion of postural verbs, aka positionals, and all the wondrous variety you can create with them. Also, we review [k]enyani. Greeting: Gomain by Zach Hart Links and Resources: A run-down of all the posibilites for... Read more »
Alternate Titles: AND … tits, Bugger is for Sodomy, Dog Japan’d, When “Damn it” Just Won’t Cut it, What Did My 16th Great-Grandfather Do to You? Today we talk all about taboo words. Make sure you have your headphones in or are by yourself when you listen, because we are going through the gamut of... Read more »
We have no Will today, but we do have Adam Skoog from Sweden. After a good discussion about personal names where I continually refer to Chinese naming conventions, we talk with Adam about his wonderful language Kozea and the kooky videos he has created with it. Classical Tailancan by Dewrad Links and Resources Chinese style... Read more »
Today we talk about nonconfigurationality, that is what languages do with word order when it’s not needed to show semantic roles. William regales us with tales of Navajo animacy-based word order, Nahuatl shifting its numerals around, and Ancient Greek’s confounding tendency to separate adjectives from their noun phrases. Also, we talk about Ayeri, a wonderfully... Read more »
We talk about how to organize your conlang, from organizing your notes to writing the grammar and lexicon, and what software is out there to help you. Also, some stupid example sentences, and a little old language called Alurhsa. Pre-show intro: Ancaron language by ZBB’s Lyhoko Leaci. Resources and Links: LaTeX The Field Linguist’s Toolbox The... Read more »
Listen to David Peterson talk to Tom Merritt and Veronica Belmont on Sword and Laser #68: Ad-libbing in Dothraki We’re all about formality today, from the intricate politeness system of Korean to some crazy Nahuatl stuff to the subtle syntax of the English polite request. We talk on just what kind of things languages do... Read more »
We talk about kinship terminology: what kinds of kinship schemes exist in reality, how they are related to family structure and marriage customs, and where you can find resources to give you ideas about these concepts. We also talk a little about Tepa (which I mispronounce a couple of times in the episode, it should... Read more »
George says: check out the LCS Podcast interview of Sheri Wells-Jensen. Meanwhile, on this side of the conlanging podosphere (literally, the other side, there are only two podcasts), we talk a little about how you can fill out that lexicon with words. And after that we talk about a language whose creator apparantly decided not... Read more »
We talk at length about linguistic typology and all the weird and wonderful tendencies that human languages seem to have. We also talk a little on Láadan, the language for women that our own token woman isn’t too fond of (philosophy-wise, anyway). Resources: The Universals Archive The World Atlas of Language Structure Online (WALS) Featured Conlang:... Read more »
We’re back to talk about scripts: what kind of script to use, how con-history fits into it, tips for developing a realistic script, etc. Then we talk about a language that, while not having a unique writing system per se, has incorporated existing systems in an interesting way. Featured Conlang: Rangyayo (see here, here and... Read more »
It’s just George and Bianca this week, as Will ended up dealing with the spontaneous combustion of a server. We do our best to stumble through some some recommendations for new conlangers and later take a look at an interesting little Germanic conlang. Links The Language Construction Kit The Zompist Bulletin Board The Conlanger Bulletin... Read more »
George finally gets Bianca’s last name right (it’s [mæŋgəm]) and we talk a little about people mispronouncing our names. Then we get into what makes a language good or bad, and don’t come to much of a good conclusion other than the old “eye of the beholder.” Then after Bianca leaves Will and George are... Read more »
We have William Annis of www.learnnavi.org on to talk about promoting conlangs, and also talk a little bit about Na’vi. Learn Na’vi
Tomás insults George’s Spanish, then we get into a discussion about why we conlang and just how personal the hobby is. Then, we talk a little about measure words and genders, and about our Conlang of the Week: Feayran — The language of a race of shapeshifters created by David Edwards. Links: Wikipedia on measure... Read more »