Conlang Random Thread

[Qwynegold]

You should see the disaster that is my sanakelat (books).

Sanakelat is your word for books? In Finnish it means "word spools", which I guess would be a poetic way to refer to books.

[Skookum]

If a language has kʷ but lacks p, what are some conditioned shifts that could lead to a change of kʷ > p? Obviously, just a universal shift would be totally plausible, and I want to do that in some daughter languages, but are some environments more likely to shift than others?

[Travis B.]

If a language has kʷ but lacks p, what are some conditioned shifts that could lead to a change of kʷ > p? Obviously, just a universal shift would be totally plausible, and I want to do that in some daughter languages, but are some environments more likely to shift than others?

From looking around a bit, it seems like following back vowels are likely to condition a shift of kʷ > p.

[Skookum]

If a language has kʷ but lacks p, what are some conditioned shifts that could lead to a change of kʷ > p? Obviously, just a universal shift would be totally plausible, and I want to do that in some daughter languages, but are some environments more likely to shift than others?

From looking around a bit, it seems like following back vowels are likely to condition a shift of kʷ > p.

Interesting, that should work for me as I have some vowel shifts in mind that would phonemecize that contrast. I know Romanian had *kʷ > p / _a, but I wonder if that might be better analyzed as *kʷ > k / _front vowels, with *kʷ > p being a later, unconditioned change. Wikipedia doesn't mention what happens before /u o/...

[Travis B.]

Opinion question ─ I am thinking of introducing a phonemic distinction between [b] and [β] and a phonemic distinction between unpalatalized [d̪]/palatalized [dz] and unpalatalized [ð]/palatalized [z] intervocalically in at least some dialects of Rihalle Kaafi based on a historical phonemic distinction between implosive (or preglottalized voiced, I'm not certain) and non-implosive (or non-glottalized) voiced stops/affricates where the two sets merge initially, finally, and in clusters but the distinction is preserved intervocalically due to the non-implosive (or non-glottalized) voiced stops fricating intervocalically while the implosives (or preglottalized voiced) stops/affricates merely lose implosiveness/glottalization.

Were I to make this change, then that raises the question of how to represent the distinction ─ while I could represent historical voiced [b] (with its synchronic allophone [β]) with ⟨v⟩, with that approach I would have to represent historical [d]/[dz] with something like ⟨dh⟩ (I want to limit myself to ASCII for Reasons), which would be an inconsistency. I am considering an alternate approach ─ as the alternation would still be productive synchronically (as due to affixation and clitics any consonant outside a consonant cluster in a morpheme may become intervocalic), I would represent the historical implosive/preglottalized stops/affricates as ⟨b'⟩ and ⟨d'⟩ or maybe ⟨'b⟩ and ⟨'d⟩ and the historical voiced stops/affricates (and synchronic fricatives) as ⟨b⟩ and ⟨d⟩.

Any thoughts?

[AwfullyAmateur]

You should see the disaster that is my sanakelat (books).

Sanakelat is your word for books? In Finnish it means "word spools", which I guess would be a poetic way to refer to books.

I had no clue it was Finnish, let alone meant "word spools"! Chance is funny like that, I guess...

[AwfullyAmateur]

In other unimportant news, AwfullyAmateur and their Adventures in Cases continues.

[AwfullyAmateur]

Also, question: If my conworld has card games not found in the real world, is including the names of those games in my dictionary proper?

[Raphael]

Also, question: If my conworld has card games not found in the real world, is including the names of those games in my dictionary proper?

IMO, yes, of course, same as with animals or plants or clothing styles that fit that description.

[xxx]

Also, question: If my conworld has card games not found in the real world, is including the names of those games in my dictionary proper?

or even to give the rules here,
or even to publish them if they can be of genral interest or bankable...
It would be an original way to come out as a conlanger...

[AwfullyAmateur]

I mean this nicely, but why does xxx seem to end all their sentences with an ellipsis? It's not important but if anyone can tell, I'd like to know.

[Raphael]

I mean this nicely, but why does xxx seem to end all their sentences with an ellipsis? It's not important but if anyone can tell, I'd like to know.

It seems to be a personal eccentrity.

[Richard W]

I mean this nicely, but why does xxx seem to end all their sentences with an ellipsis? It's not important but if anyone can tell, I'd like to know.

As a rightist in a den of lefties, he's probably frightened of getting his head bitten off. He was suspended recently, so a little nervousness is not unjustified.

[WeepingElf]

I mean this nicely, but why does xxx seem to end all their sentences with an ellipsis? It's not important but if anyone can tell, I'd like to know.

As a rightist in a den of lefties, he's probably frightened of getting his head bitten off. He was suspended recently, so a little nervousness is not unjustified.

I think it is just a personal quirk, he did this before he was suspended, and does so on CONLANG where we don't discuss politics.

[xxx]

I mean this nicely, but why does xxx seem to end all their sentences with an ellipsis? It's not important but if anyone can tell, I'd like to know.

As a rightist in a den of lefties, he's probably frightened of getting his head bitten off. He was suspended recently, so a little nervousness is not unjustified.

it's funny how, when freedom of expression is curtailed, everyone imagine what they want about the clues they imagine they'll find wherever they want...

[keenir]

I mean this nicely, but why does xxx seem to end all their sentences with an ellipsis? It's not important but if anyone can tell, I'd like to know.

As a rightist in a den of lefties, he's probably frightened of getting his head bitten off. He was suspended recently, so a little nervousness is not unjustified.

it's funny how, when freedom of expression is curtailed, everyone imagine what they want about the clues they imagine they'll find wherever they want...

curtailed?

[Richard W]

it's funny how, when freedom of expression is curtailed, everyone imagine what they want about the clues they imagine they'll find wherever they want...

curtailed?

Yes. Saying that certain posters should be killed is almost certainly prohibited and perhaps even illegal, and then it becomes a question of where the boundary is drawn, and being just doesn't necessarily yield the best results, alas. Also, troll suppression makes sense in principle. Suppressing nonsense also makes sense. The poster xxx was recently deemed to have overstepped the mark, but he seemed close to what I feared to be the boundary on previous occasions.

[keenir]

it's funny how, when freedom of expression is curtailed, everyone imagine what they want about the clues they imagine they'll find wherever they want...

curtailed?

Yes. Saying that certain posters should be killed is almost certainly prohibited and perhaps even illegal,
Also, troll suppression makes sense in principle. Suppressing nonsense also makes sense.

*nods agreement*

some of the things worse than the old "shouting 'fire!' in a crowded theater", those are.

(before now, when I'd heard someone saying something of theirs was curtailed, it was oft with a sense of it being unwarranted; unlike here and now)

[AwfullyAmateur]

I really like the Old Persian Case System so I have been trying to make a case system that emulates it.

caseswithmorevariation.png
I think it looks naturalistic, though perhaps the influence is a little too blatant.

I can't decide what nouns fall under what subclass, though I want to say that humans and gods are always of the -Vm subclass while non-humans and pronouns are of the long vowel subclass. I kind of also wanted to add a subclass of the neuter characterized by nominative -ar that would be used for animals and children (e.g. asm-ar "eagle" and simb-ar "child") though I know not what the other case endings or its plural would be.

This case paradigm is sort of the Old or Pre-Vrkhazhian case system, before/while some significant sound changes occured (e.g. elision of glides in most places and the merging and de-affrication of coronals such that /t͡ʃ t͡ʃʼ d͡ʒ ʃ/ becomes /s sʼ z s/ and /t͡ɬ t͡ɬʼ d͡ɮ ɬ/ becomes /ɬ ɬʼ ɮ ɬ/)

Interesting. I recently decided to start a project that bases its cases on the Old Persian case system. Never really worked with cases before and working on a vaguely desert conpeople, so yeah. And because the Mughals apparently spoke Persian (I'm on a bit of a Mughal kick at the moment).