Zompist Bboard Again

I like the dualities of virtues and vices. And I like the Phong graph language, somehow I didn't read that earlier - graph languages are cool. I haven't been able to sort out my questions in my mind, but at least I'm wondering: if you have, say, two different storms in the situation you're describin...

Hi! I'm enjoying reading about Heláin. I like the groups of words from the same root - those are fun. I was confused by the meter but I think I understand now. I'm trying to understand the gloss in the first post, and I'm confused by the lowercase a, as in a.ABS.F. I couldn't figure out how it fits ...

The general pattern of a sentence or clause Reminder: word1\word2 means word1 is made of consonants only and word2 vowels only, and they are interleaved to produce what's actually said. The general pattern of a sentence or clause is subject\main.verb object\ACC where the object\ACC is optional; fol...

Thank you! It's reasonably frequent the world over; there are such things as singulative marking and inverse number. Thanks, that helps. I think I'll use some version of that myself.... What is Varay? I couldn't find it. It seems I spelt it differently than is typical, but in any case here is Wikip...

This one was interesting to read about. This is my equivalent of a kitchen sink conlang, sadly. I can't tell if it is a kitchen sink conlang, but if so - I've been wondering if such conlangs can be justified sometimes. E.g., is it the product of in-universe conlanging, or is it a natlang in-universe?

I really want to do a nonconcatenative morphology but not a triliteral-root one. I'd like that. The concept of Varay has a variant form “Iriy”, which is kind of homophonous with the large inland water body near which I live, which has been famed for the state of its pollution 4 . Therefore the unde...

Proto-Elvish /p m b ts n dz k ŋ g q ɴ ɢ ʔ/ /f s h/ /tɬ n dɮ/ /ɬ/ /β ɹ j/ /l/ /a ã i ĩ o õ/ I like it. Not a lot like stereotypical Elvish, but with prenasalized stops like Proto-Quendian. *kiant 'ant colony' *kiandj-ołq 'ant' *ʔiŋŋiofaoł 'hair (of head)' *ʔiŋŋiofaoł-ołq '(head) hair follicle' *sqãã...

Ok, maybe I'll gloss a short fragment. Here's the opening theme song from Jaatishwar Oh, oops, I didn't see this when I wrote my last post. Well, this one is good too, and I'm glad that this time I can actually match what's said in the clip to the transcription - sometimes it seems I'm not so good ...

I think the standard language only has medial and final velar nasals. Here's why I think so: (dictionary pic showing distinct lack of initial velar nasal) That is a good reason! Thank you. That movie's opening theme video is one of my most favorite songs. I did some searching and found the song E T...

Raphael wrote: ↑Thu Feb 12, 2026 9:22 am

WeepingElf wrote: ↑Thu Feb 12, 2026 7:16 am The ancient Elves believed (and the Elves of today still believe) that God (whom they called Máná 'The One')

And so, their operatives eventually inserted the name of their God, repeated once, into a popular children's TV show...

Hah, nice

Glossing engines are great. I'm wondering if the forum can advise about the rest of formatting a post: I've been writing my drafts elsewhere, copy-pasting them into the ZBB post-drafting-box, and then manually fixing all the formatting that was lost. Which besides glosses includes section headings, ...

Yes, it goes back to that star, and while I don't like Fëanor, of course, the idea of a white eight-pointed star in a blue field as the Elven flag is old and deeply ingrained within me. I considered changing it several times, but could not come up with anything I liked better. I understand. And I a...

But your question makes me wonder if I'm really meeting my conlang design goals. I think there are going to be lots of morphemes filled in with nulls (ʔ and ə), which is less pretty than matching up non-null vowels and consonants. So an answer to your question is there will quite often be ʔ's or ə'...

I've enjoyed reading what you've written, WeepingElf, for some time now, and I haven't had comments, but I want to say that I find it interesting. I liked your description of the epic. It reminds me of Tolkien in a lot of ways - I'm assuming that's because you're both drawing on earlier stories? (wh...

Good work on the phonology. I'm curious to see more details about the morphology. Maybe I missed this, but will there always be /ʔ/ and /ə/ at the ends of compounds and words with affixes, or do the noun and verb patterns fit the specific other they refer to? For example, could fefubodəsəgə have be...

*আপনি জদি বাহার আসেন... apni dʒod̪i bahar asen "If you would please step outside..." Now in addition to /asen/ instead of /aʃen/, he's using Hindi words like /bahar/ instead of /baire/. I'm wondering about /bahar/, and long vowels. I guess Bangla doesn't have a length distinction in vowel...

Hi! This is an interesting thread.

rotting bones wrote: ↑Sat Dec 20, 2025 1:44 am I think this is what misleads Hindi speakers into thinking they can use /atʃʰe/ like hai at the end of every sentence.

What else do Hindi speakers tend to get wrong? E.g., in phonology?

The Magmadrome is a very interesting concept.

Well, I don't know if the "spiraling around" direction is attested elsewhere. Yes, that's is good. I'm wondering, can you use it not just for spaceships and such, but for small things, like a ball, or a cat? I do appreciate it. Unfortunately, I've been sick recently. I will think about it...

So Haleza Grise wrote: ↑Sat Dec 13, 2025 10:35 pm Compass directions

Your reasoning sounds plausible to me.

In Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand, different planets have different numbers of basic compass directions. Including five. No reason is given - I think the author is intending to give culture shock.