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Re: What have you accomplished today?
Posted: Thu Jan 21, 2021 3:38 pm
by Torco
oooo, neato. also, it's free! thanks a bunch.
Qwynegold wrote: ↑Wed Jan 20, 2021 5:07 pm
WTF?!
Is this the same language as in the accidental ergativity thread?
yup, that one... the only one I've touched in a bunch of years.
wanna see the messy notes?
Ares Land wrote: ↑Thu Jan 21, 2021 3:00 am
Hey, congrats!(...)
thanks, man. I don't think my french is good enough to browse through dense linguistics papers, but I'm gonna try anyway
. ¿got something on hand? I'll check with a grammar prof friend if she has anything on spanish.
Re: What have you accomplished today?
Posted: Thu Jan 21, 2021 5:01 pm
by Qwynegold
OMG spreadsheets are not for writing that kind of stuff!
Today I started working on the dictionary of Omni-kan, although I should probably have waited until I've finalized a bunch of other stuff. The dictionary has like 7 entries so far. But that's partly because it took a lot of time to set the dictionary up. I'm doing glosses in four languages. Japanese was probably a mistake to choose, because I have no idea if my Japanese translations of example sentences are correct.
Re: What have you accomplished today?
Posted: Thu Jan 21, 2021 9:13 pm
by bradrn
Torco wrote: ↑Thu Jan 21, 2021 3:38 pm
oooo, neato. also, it's free! thanks a bunch.
You’re welcome! (The ANU Open Research Library has lots of similarly excellent books, especially for that part of the world… my favourite is probably
Hyslop’s Lolovoli grammar, but there are many others.)
Qwynegold wrote: ↑Wed Jan 20, 2021 5:07 pm
WTF?!
Is this the same language as in the accidental ergativity thread?
yup, that one... the only one I've touched in a bunch of years.
wanna see the messy notes?
Aargh! I cannot think of a worse program to write a grammar in than a spreadsheet.
Re: What have you accomplished today?
Posted: Thu Jan 21, 2021 9:35 pm
by Torco
want me to write the next one in PowerPoint ?
na but seriously, spreadsheets are cool: they most resemble the blank page in that you can put text (and tables, which are a very useful part of a grammar) wherever you want. you don't have to worry about WYSIWSM conventions: That being said, I don't suppose this method is for everyone -hell, maybe even anyone other than me lmao, I *am* a messy dude- but the lack of structure feels very liberating to me, and frees the mind to just do the thing. I've been doing spreadsheets for conlanging since i was a kid, too. also, you can just build little functional things in there, like a dictionary (i.e. a cell that looks up whatever you inputted in the cell below and gives you the word in your conlang) with a little bit of bodging.
For conworlding I tend to just make a big document, like normal people.
Re: What have you accomplished today?
Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2021 1:57 am
by Qwynegold
Torco wrote: ↑Thu Jan 21, 2021 9:35 pmbut the lack of structure feels very liberating to me, and frees the mind to just do the thing.
Well, that's good. But they're really awful for writing sentences in. You instinctively want to click at the end of a sentence, but nope! You have to click the cell where it starts. And then you have to click again to get the cursor to be where you want it to be. And the width of your lines is not automatically adjusted. And a part of your text gets covered if you enter something in the next cell.
Re: What have you accomplished today?
Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2021 2:20 am
by Ares Land
Ares Land wrote: ↑Thu Jan 21, 2021 3:00 am
thanks, man. I don't think my french is good enough to browse through dense linguistics papers, but I'm gonna try anyway
. ¿got something on hand? I'll check with a grammar prof friend if she has anything on spanish.
Some resources:
http://irom.wn.uw.edu.pl/wp-content/upl ... ancais.pdf
http://bbouillon.free.fr/univ/hl/Fichie ... s/pron.htm
That one was written in 1931, but still fairly readable, I think:
https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Grammair ... n%C3%A7ais
Re: What have you accomplished today?
Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2021 8:13 am
by Vardelm
So I have 2 thoughts about this:
Torco wrote: ↑Thu Jan 21, 2021 9:35 pm
na but seriously, spreadsheets are cool: they most resemble the blank page in that you can put text (and tables, which are a very useful part of a grammar) wherever you want.
I *am* a messy dude- but the lack of structure feels very liberating to me, and frees the mind to just do the thing.
1) If this is working for you (and apparently it is) then AWESOME! Run with it! Run fast! It's great that you're accomplishing things with the method.
2) GOOD GOD ALMIGHTY, WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS THIS WAY???!!!!!!
Torco wrote: ↑Thu Jan 21, 2021 9:35 pm
you can just build little functional things in there, like a dictionary (i.e. a cell that looks up whatever you inputted in the cell below and gives you the word in your conlang) with a little bit of bodging.
Spreadsheets for dictionaries make sense. Using it for a grammar makes you a nutter!!!
Torco wrote: ↑Thu Jan 21, 2021 9:35 pm
want me to write the next one in PowerPoint ?
Actually, yes. I think that would be better!
Re: What have you accomplished today?
Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2021 8:27 am
by Ares Land
The spreadsheet format makes a lot of sense, because conlanging drafts mostly consists in tables.
(I use MediaWiki for the same purpose, mostly because I like the look of the tables).
Spreadsheets are also nice for conjugation paradigm; you can use them to run a large number of words through inflectional paradigms, run those form through the SCA and then try to make sense of the results.
Re: What have you accomplished today?
Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2021 8:52 am
by Vardelm
Ares Land wrote: ↑Fri Jan 22, 2021 8:27 am
The spreadsheet format makes a lot of sense, because conlanging drafts mostly consists in tables.
(I use MediaWiki for the same purpose, mostly because I like the look of the tables).
Yep. Yokai right now consists of about 6 large, empty tables, so I do the same. All of my conlang files are Google Docs plus posts here, so my tables are just in a Doc.
Ares Land wrote: ↑Fri Jan 22, 2021 8:27 am
Spreadsheets are also nice for conjugation paradigm; you can use them to run a large number of words through inflectional paradigms
OK, this I'm interested in. How detailed can you get with this? Is it just simple concatenation, or can you get into things like "if stem ends in a consonant, prefix is -ABC, otherwise -BC"? If so, how are you doing it?
Re: What have you accomplished today?
Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2021 9:05 am
by Ares Land
Vardelm wrote: ↑Fri Jan 22, 2021 8:52 am
Ares Land wrote: ↑Fri Jan 22, 2021 8:27 am
Spreadsheets are also nice for conjugation paradigm; you can use them to run a large number of words through inflectional paradigms
OK, this I'm interested in. How detailed can you get with this? Is it just simple concatenation, or can you get into things like "if stem ends in a consonant, prefix is -ABC, otherwise -BC"? If so, how are you doing it?
I only use Excel for concatenation. Any other rule I handle as additional sound change rules, or just do by hand.
But you can do fairly complex rules with a spreadsheet. Taking your example, for instance, you'd have verbs in column A and a list of consonants in cell, I don't know, B1 (in real life I'd put the list in a separate sheet), the formula would be something like this:
=IF (ISNUMBER(RIGHT(A1,1),B1)), A1&"ABC", A2&"BC")
Re: What have you accomplished today?
Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2021 9:56 am
by Vardelm
Ares Land wrote: ↑Fri Jan 22, 2021 9:05 am
I only use Excel for concatenation. Any other rule I handle as additional sound change rules, or just do by hand.
But you can do fairly complex rules with a spreadsheet. Taking your example, for instance, you'd have verbs in column A and a list of consonants in cell, I don't know, B1 (in real life I'd put the list in a separate sheet), the formula would be something like this:
=IF (ISNUMBER(RIGHT(A1,1),B1)), A1&"ABC", A2&"BC")
Nice. I'll have to look into this at some point. I've been planning on using VulgarLang to document my conlangs when they are more complete since it can do inflection w/ Regex. Having it in my own format in a Google Spreadsheet might be good since I would have more controls over how things are working in the background.
Re: What have you accomplished today?
Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2021 11:23 am
by Torco
I wouldn't know how to set up a sound change applier in excel, but I've seen (no joke) entire businesses run on highly sophisticated excel sheets: accounting, payroll, inventory, order management: people will use vbasic, auxiliary sheets that are not really human-readable, macros, spreadsheets are wack yo. I think someone managed to port Doom to excel.
Actually, yes. I think that would be better!
heresy
oh, oh, if you're cozy with regexes, google sheets can match them and replace them and all sorts of things.
EDIT: the year is 2029, the spreadsheets have become sentient
Re: What have you accomplished today?
Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2021 12:01 pm
by quinterbeck
Torco wrote: ↑Thu Jan 21, 2021 9:35 pm
na but seriously, spreadsheets are cool: they most resemble the blank page in that you can put text (and tables, which are a very useful part of a grammar) wherever you want. you don't have to worry about WYSIWSM conventions: That being said, I don't suppose this method is for everyone -hell, maybe even anyone other than me lmao, I *am* a messy dude- but the lack of structure feels very liberating to me, and frees the mind to just do the thing.
100% agree with this. I also default to spreadsheets for conlanging. Nearly everything I have done on Leima is contained in a single excel document, started in April 2014 and continually added to since then.
Re: What have you accomplished today?
Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2021 5:05 pm
by bradrn
Ares Land wrote: ↑Fri Jan 22, 2021 8:27 am
Spreadsheets are also nice for conjugation paradigm; you can use them to run a large number of words through inflectional paradigms, run those form through the SCA and then try to make sense of the results.
My
old SCA has something very similar: a paradigm builder letting you do exactly this. Here’s an example:
Code: Select all
[copy into ‘Prefixes’]
zhaa woo yaa
zh w y
[copy into ‘Roots’]
wabih
shiizkoh
waal
di
zhiim
zo
beeshim
gzhoom
[copy into ‘Suffixes’]
aa soo * wim
Which gives you this output:
Code: Select all
zhaazhwabihaa
zhaazhwabihsoo
zhaazhwabih
zhaazhwabihwim
zhaawwabihaa
zhaawwabihsoo
zhaawwabih
zhaawwabihwim
zhaaywabihaa
zhaaywabihsoo
zhaaywabih
zhaaywabihwim
woozhwabihaa
woozhwabihsoo
woozhwabih
woozhwabihwim
woowwabihaa
woowwabihsoo
woowwabih
woowwabihwim
wooywabihaa
wooywabihsoo
wooywabih
wooywabihwim
yaazhwabihaa
yaazhwabihsoo
yaazhwabih
yaazhwabihwim
yaawwabihaa
yaawwabihsoo
yaawwabih
yaawwabihwim
yaaywabihaa
yaaywabihsoo
yaaywabih
yaaywabihwim
(…skip very many…)
zhaazhgzhoomaa
zhaazhgzhoomsoo
zhaazhgzhoom
zhaazhgzhoomwim
zhaawgzhoomaa
zhaawgzhoomsoo
zhaawgzhoom
zhaawgzhoomwim
zhaaygzhoomaa
zhaaygzhoomsoo
zhaaygzhoom
zhaaygzhoomwim
woozhgzhoomaa
woozhgzhoomsoo
woozhgzhoom
woozhgzhoomwim
woowgzhoomaa
woowgzhoomsoo
woowgzhoom
woowgzhoomwim
wooygzhoomaa
wooygzhoomsoo
wooygzhoom
wooygzhoomwim
yaazhgzhoomaa
yaazhgzhoomsoo
yaazhgzhoom
yaazhgzhoomwim
yaawgzhoomaa
yaawgzhoomsoo
yaawgzhoom
yaawgzhoomwim
yaaygzhoomaa
yaaygzhoomsoo
yaaygzhoom
yaaygzhoomwim
Sadly, the documentation is on the old board, thus inaccessible (though progress continues on this issue). But as it happens, I am currently building a new SCA, and intend to include a more powerful and standalone version of this paradigm builder as part of it.
Ares Land wrote: ↑Fri Jan 22, 2021 8:27 am
The spreadsheet format makes a lot of sense, because conlanging drafts mostly consists in tables.
They do? Obviously I draft very differently from you. (Then again, my current conlang is an isolating one… and hmm, my agglutinating language drafts had a few tables in them, though I’d hardly described them as ‘mostly’ tables.)
Re: What have you accomplished today?
Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2021 7:16 pm
by Rounin Ryuuji
Is writing a tiny fragment of poetry in something an accomplishment?
Re: What have you accomplished today?
Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2021 3:19 am
by Qwynegold
Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Fri Jan 22, 2021 7:16 pm
Is writing a tiny fragment of poetry in something an accomplishment?
Well, the initial post states that there is no minimum limit for what's an accomplishment. Also, isn't it harder to write poetry than normal text?
Re: What have you accomplished today?
Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2021 9:37 am
by Ares Land
bradrn wrote: ↑Fri Jan 22, 2021 5:05 pm
My
old SCA has something very similar: a paradigm builder letting you do exactly this. '...) But as it happens, I am currently building a new SCA, and intend to include a more powerful and standalone version of this paradigm builder as part of it.
I'll be glad to test it then!
They do? Obviously I draft very differently from you. (Then again, my current conlang is an isolating one… and hmm, my agglutinating language drafts had a few tables in them, though I’d hardly described them as ‘mostly’ tables.)
Yes, I suppose it must be something to do with how my mind works
Even with an isolating proto-language, the parts of the grammar I end up using a lot are the tables.
Re: What have you accomplished today?
Posted: Sun Jan 24, 2021 8:03 am
by bradrn
Ares Land wrote: ↑Sat Jan 23, 2021 9:37 am
They do? Obviously I draft very differently from you. (Then again, my current conlang is an isolating one… and hmm, my agglutinating language drafts had a few tables in them, though I’d hardly described them as ‘mostly’ tables.)
Yes, I suppose it must be something to do with how my mind works
Even with an isolating proto-language, the parts of the grammar I end up using a lot are the tables.
Really? What tables are there to make for an isolating language?
Re: What have you accomplished today?
Posted: Sun Jan 24, 2021 8:45 am
by Vardelm
Yesterday's accomplishment was gathering a list of suffixes and syllable codas from several natlangs and other sources to serve as inspiration for noun class suffixes in Yokai.
I did this with my other 3 conlangs and I'm happy with the result. I find that I can't just pull words or affixes out of thin air; I need something to start with, twist it around a bit, or combine it with other words/affixes to get to my final result.
bradrn wrote: ↑Sun Jan 24, 2021 8:03 am
Really? What tables are there to make for an isolating language?
Combinations of words/particles where the meaning changes depending on what & how they are combined, perhaps? Maybe different words/particles that mean roughly the same thing, but are used in different contexts? Tibetan, for instance, combines tense & evidentials, which makes a table useful.
Re: What have you accomplished today?
Posted: Sun Jan 24, 2021 9:27 am
by Ares Land
bradrn wrote: ↑Sun Jan 24, 2021 8:03 am
Ares Land wrote: ↑Sat Jan 23, 2021 9:37 am
They do? Obviously I draft very differently from you. (Then again, my current conlang is an isolating one… and hmm, my agglutinating language drafts had a few tables in them, though I’d hardly described them as ‘mostly’ tables.)
Yes, I suppose it must be something to do with how my mind works
Even with an isolating proto-language, the parts of the grammar I end up using a lot are the tables.
Really? What tables are there to make for an isolating language?
They're more like 'lists in tabular format' I suppose! Pronouns, various anaphora, sentence slots and particles that can appear in them, measure words, etc.