"Hansenese" My Personal Artlang/Stealthlang

[storyteller232]

I am working on my own personal artlang/stealthlang and wanted to get others' reactions and suggestions. It's mostly just for the fun of it, and do i really care if someone can pick up how to speak/write it easily? no. There's no associated conworld or culture other than my own and it's not supposed to be "english done right" or "spanish in a hundred years" or anything like that. I want it

Right now it's mostly a list of features that i've decided on, but i haven't started word building yet. I have my phenomes decided on, syllable structure and some phonlogical rules that, admittedly i took from putting what i had so far into vulgarlang, but i won't be using most of what vulgarlang produced because decided on most of the grammar stuff and word building is what i find fun. So here is what i've decided so far:

Consonants: /b d f g h j k l n p s t ts tʃ v x z ð ŋ ɲ ɹ ʃ ʔ ʟ θ/
Vowels: i u æ ɑ ɔ ɛ ɪ ʊ ʌ plus eɪ , aɪ , oʊ
Syllable Structure (c)(c)v(c)(c)

Language type mostly agglutenating (?)
Sentence Order: OSV (subclauses VSO)
Gramatical Cases: Yes but still deciding on what specific ones. Will be suffixes Some categories of cases will be handled by prepositions but the category will also be marked on the nouns. So to at, near, etc. will each have its own preposition but where it is at or near will be marked additionally.
Tenses marked with suffixes

• Past

• Present

• Future

• Non-past

• non-future

• Eternal (?)

Aspect: Handled with a particle prior to the verb deciding on which ones
Other verb marking I'm thinking of handling making the negative, conditional (if you...), imperative as a prefix on the verb. Undecided though

So how does this rough outline of the beginnings of my conlang sound? Too weird, "you're missing x, y and z to make this a good conlang" or what?

[Ares Land]

So how does this rough outline of the beginnings of my conlang sound? Too weird, "you're missing x, y and z to make this a good conlang" or what?

Unfortunately, it's too early to tell
A few things you should maybe be aware of:
OSV word order is fairly unusual.
/g/ without /k/ is unusual as well.

That's not a deal-breaker of course! but I'd try to find an explanation.
Your vowel system is fairly close to English; and again it's not exactly common.

It's not clear how the tense system would work. Typically non-past is more or less a shorthand for a tense that can work as a present or a future.

[bbbosborne]

/g/ without /k/ is unusual as well.

Uhhh he has a /k/...?

[Ares Land]

/g/ without /k/ is unusual as well.

Uhhh he has a /k/...?

Ah, yes, he does. Sorry about that, and strike that remark.

[Tropylium]

Consonants: /b d f g h j k l n p s t ts tʃ v x z ð ŋ ɲ ɹ ʃ ʔ ʟ θ/
Vowels: i u æ ɑ ɔ ɛ ɪ ʊ ʌ plus eɪ , aɪ , oʊ
Syllable Structure (c)(c)v(c)(c)

Got any consonant clusters planned out yet? This sounds fairly close to English so far (esp. the vowels), but it could also end up quite far apart if you allowed syllables like /nmɪ/ or /ltsuʔv/.

Consider morphophonology a little: are roots monosyllabic, sesquisyllabic ("syllable-and-a-half" with suffixes then filling up either missing vowels or missing consonants), bisyllabic? Do suffixes join completely as-is or do they trigger cluster simplification (would something like (/zip/+/bæ/ be realized as /zipbæ/ or maybe rather either /zippæ/ or /zibbæ/)?

Any agreement in the plans? OSV sounds like probably not on the verb, but maybe on the object?

[Dē Graut Bʉr]

Did you forget /m/ or did you intentionally leave it out?

[akam chinjir]

You seem unsure of what to call your eternal tense. Maybe it's like what's sometimes called the gnomic aspect, used in same languages to state (purported) timeless truths? (Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnomic_aspect.)

[storyteller232]

Unfortunately, it's too early to tell

And i now realized what i am looking for is an evaluatiion of the ideas i have for the languages syntax and what do people think of the set of phonemes. So I do realize it, but like i am with fiction writing I am an extreme planner and like to do regular evaluations of what i have. So I get a one paragaraph overview of the story of what i'm thinking, then figure out the characters, what they're like and their backstories, get a slightly more detailed basic chronology of events, and then maybe do a chapter by chapter and scene by scene outline or go straight into writing the actual manuscript from that point, and that's sort of the line of thinking i'm applying to my approach to conlanging. I have never made it much past the "one paragaraph overview" stage of any novel, so maybe that's not the best line of thinking to follow, but we'll see.

I figure out what gramatical features I want, and sentence order and word order i want, get that to a place i'm happy with it. Then set the phonology, morphology, word building etc. This may be naive I admit, having never created a conlang before, but my sense is that even i have to scrap the phonology, morphology, derivationall structure, etc. It doesn't truly affect sentence order etc so i don't have to feel like i'm starting entirely from scratch.

OSV word order is fairly unusual.

I realize that...but i like it anway. How i decided on it was i was just playing around in english with different word orders to find one i liked best that wasn't SVO and the sample sentence that i liked best was an OSV. For example, "the boy who skipped class is running to his house," would become in my language, "to his house the boy who skipped class is running." That is a word order, while different, is something that i could as a english first speaker, easily get my head around without really pausing to think about it...assuming ive learned the vocabulary, case system, and morphology, etc.

Your vowel system is fairly close to English; and again it's not exactly common.

I realize that, and i like those vowels lol. I am willing at looking adjusting consonants, but i'm pretty set on the vowels I decided on. Also english is my first language and there's no associated culture or parent languages except my real world american culture and english, but it's not supposed to in a true linguistic sense be of the same language family as english, but also not be too hard for a native English speaker to understand.

It's not clear how the tense system would work. Typically non-past is more or less a shorthand for a tense that can work as a present or a future.

So for non-past what i'm thinking (and maybe i should call it something else to clear up confusion) is something that was not but now is. Likewise non-future would be something that is but will not be. so to use an example i had thought of, a mother is asking a baby sitter "is johnny doing his homework," and the if the babysitter had been having trouble getting him to do his homework she would say, "he is (now) doing his homework." Does help understand my thought process a little better?

[storyteller232]

You seem unsure of what to call your eternal tense. Maybe it's like what's sometimes called the gnomic aspect, used in same languages to state (purported) timeless truths? (Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnomic_aspect.)

I was unsure of whether I'd include it in my conlang. yes that sounds about what i was thinking, Timeless or within the context unchanging. Certainly my religion and political beliefs are going to influence my conlang, especially in deciding what roots make up certain concepts, but i'm here to talk linguistics not politics/religion for the moment i'm not going to open that can of worms any further. But other applications of the tense would be scentific laws, or constants in scientific and mathematical equations and stuff like that.

[storyteller232]

Got any consonant clusters planned out yet? This sounds fairly close to English so far (esp. the vowels), but it could also end up quite far apart if you allowed syllables like /nmɪ/ or /ltsuʔv/.

Again, I'm pretty set on those vowels to be honest but willing to change the the consonant inventory more to make it less englishlike. I have not really decided on what consonant clusters, beyond i had put my phonology and syllable structure in Vulgarlang Pro to get some ideas for that, but i'm for the most part not taking the language straight from vulgarlang. Here's a screen shot of the suggest consonant clusters and other phonological rules

Hansenese Phonology.JPG (69.39 KiB) Viewed 10316 times

Again, i'm in between brainstorming and finalizing what i want my language to look like so the answer is both yes and no. I do like the consonant cluster /xL/ and am thinking that making the prefix for the negative form of the words /xLek/ like "heck" but with /xL/ at the beginning instead;

Consider morphophonology a little: are roots monosyllabic, sesquisyllabic ("syllable-and-a-half" with suffixes then filling up either missing vowels or missing consonants), bisyllabic? Do suffixes join completely as-is or do they trigger cluster simplification (would something like (/zip/+/bæ/ be realized as /zipbæ/ or maybe rather either /zippæ/ or /zibbæ/)?

Hadn't gotten to that point yet. for verbs at least idk which this would be called, but do the conjugation endings like spanish does have ar, er, and ir verbs (but maybe make it like -at, -et, and -it verbs with maybe different vowels). Is that part of what you were asking?

Any agreement in the plans? OSV sounds like probably not on the verb, but maybe on the object?

i'm not sure that i understand what you're talking about. i'm thinking of adverbs taking the ending of the verb it's modifying and adjectives the ending of the noun. Beyond that i'm unsure, and unsure if that's what you're asking about.

[storyteller232]

Did you forget /m/ or did you intentionally leave it out?

i did intentionally leave it out, I was going through what I was thinking the language would sound like in my head and what sounds werent appearing, m, the non ipa but english letter sounding j, and v was missing from it so those were the ones i started with removing. Again this is far from set in stone, there are zero entries in the lexicon so far, so if you tell me "this phonology is boring, you should change it," i am open to that can easily do that at this point.

[storyteller232]

A few other features i was considering but forgot to mention:

• forming conjunctions like latin does as Mark mentions in LCK

• possibly taking a page out of ancient greek's book and not having punctuation the same way we do in english (haven't studied ancient greek, but i know my pastor has talked about that as one of the challenges of bible translating)

• Other way things are formed like how in spanish to say your age you say "you have 27 years" rather than "you are 27 years old" and to say someone is smart it's formed "the person has smarts" or something like that and for other similar type things

• For things like whether there is no "to rain" verb but rather it literally translates "the sky drops water" or to say it's humid, "the sky holds much water" or something like that

• People are named the same way native americans do...I would be Mr. Corny Jokes (I'd tell you the joke about the broken pencil but it's pointless), though i am moving away from that idea, because i feel it would almost be sacraligious to do that to religious figures, and give them nicknames

• sticking to the roman alphabet or maybe the cyrillic as i have zero artistic talent and do not necissarily think going down the road of creating a conscript would be a worthwhile way to spend my time

Again this is just my brainstorming list as of this moment.

[Ares Land]

Unfortunately, it's too early to tell

And i now realized what i am looking for is an evaluatiion of the ideas i have for the languages syntax and what do people think of the set of phonemes. So I do realize it, but like i am with fiction writing I am an extreme planner and like to do regular evaluations of what i have. So I get a one paragaraph overview of the story of what i'm thinking, then figure out the characters, what they're like and their backstories, get a slightly more detailed basic chronology of events, and then maybe do a chapter by chapter and scene by scene outline or go straight into writing the actual manuscript from that point, and that's sort of the line of thinking i'm applying to my approach to conlanging. I have never made it much past the "one paragaraph overview" stage of any novel, so maybe that's not the best line of thinking to follow, but we'll see.

I figure out what gramatical features I want, and sentence order and word order i want, get that to a place i'm happy with it. Then set the phonology, morphology, word building etc. This may be naive I admit, having never created a conlang before, but my sense is that even i have to scrap the phonology, morphology, derivationall structure, etc. It doesn't truly affect sentence order etc so i don't have to feel like i'm starting entirely from scratch.

Yeah, that sounds pretty reasonable. What I really meant is that so far it looks like a good start and that there'd probably more to comment on later on

As for the other features, by all means, do what feels right. What is important - in my opinion, anyway - is to be aware when you have English-like features, or otherwise uncommon features. So, there's really no need to change anything What I'd do is find some internal explanation for such features, but that's just me.

• People are named the same way native americans do...I would be Mr. Corny Jokes (I'd tell you the joke about the broken pencil but it's pointless), though i am moving away from that idea, because i feel it would almost be sacraligious to do that to religious figures, and give them nicknames

For the Tarandim, I've often picked names that constitute a complete sentence (there has to be a word for that.) and embarassing nicknames, and often both. I don't think it's a problem.
The Iroquois weren't bothered with having a religious figure called 'he combs', and culturally Abrahamic religions have taken great pride in 'he laughs'.
Roman patricians were extremely proud of their embarassing hereditary nicknames: Brutus 'thick', Scipio 'walking stick', Claudius 'lame', Caecilius Metellus 'blind, servant', Claudius 'lame', Porcius '(son) of a pig', Crassus 'fat'.

[elemtilas]

Sentence Order: OSV (subclauses VSO)

Tenses marked with suffixes

• Past

• Present

• Future

• Non-past

• non-future

• Eternal (?)

OSV I like.

Curious: what do non-pas & non-future do that present does not? Some examples might be helpful!

[storyteller232]

Curious: what do non-pas & non-future do that present does not? Some examples might be helpful!

So they are saying something that is but either wasn't before, or is but won't be. So like the example I used above, someone asking if someone was doing something, and hadn't been doing it before, the non-past tense would be used. So, "is johnny doing his homework," "he is now doing his homework."

[storyteller232]

Yeah, that sounds pretty reasonable. What I really meant is that so far it looks like a good start and that there'd probably more to comment on later on

I hope so too lol and hopefully won't get distracted from creating the conlang

As for the other features, by all means, do what feels right. What is important - in my opinion, anyway - is to be aware when you have English-like features, or otherwise uncommon features. So, there's really no need to change anything What I'd do is find some internal explanation for such features, but that's just me.

I understand, i want to balance not making an english clone with not making something too hard for an english speaker like me to get my head around. So i am looking for feedback. I am modifying the above phonology. i'll post that shortly.

For the Tarandim, I've often picked names that constitute a complete sentence (there has to be a word for that.) and embarassing nicknames, and often both. I don't think it's a problem.
The Iroquois weren't bothered with having a religious figure called 'he combs', and culturally Abrahamic religions have taken great pride in 'he laughs'.
Roman patricians were extremely proud of their embarassing hereditary nicknames: Brutus 'thick', Scipio 'walking stick', Claudius 'lame', Caecilius Metellus 'blind, servant', Claudius 'lame', Porcius '(son) of a pig', Crassus 'fat'.

Thanks, I'll think about that but i don't think i'll table this for now.

[storyteller232]

so here's my new phonology. I had decided on it, put it into vulgarlang and generated a bunch of sample languages, saved them and emailed them to myself and looked at it again and went..."crap, i took out /g/ but forgot to remove /ŋ/. but now here's the new consonant inventory, but same syllable structure and same vowels

/b d f h j l m n p r s t ts tʃ v z ð ɲ ɹ ʃ ʔ ʟ/

And again:

i u æ ɑ ɔ ɛ ɪ ʊ ʌ plus eɪ , aɪ , oʊ

[storyteller232]

Ok so this is the phonology i'm now thinking of going with and would like thoughts on
Consonants: /θ b d f h j l m r s t tʃ v n ɲ ɹ ʃ ʔ ʟ w/
Vowels: i ɪ ɔ u ʌ ʊ o a e plus oɪ , aɪ , eʊ , eɪ

[bbbosborne]

pretty decent; i'd add a /k/ but that's just personal perference.
one thing i'd like to know: can you hear the difference between /e/ and /eɪ/?

[storyteller232]

pretty decent; i'd add a /k/ but that's just personal perference.
one thing i'd like to know: can you hear the difference between /e/ and /eɪ/?

So i looked at the two sounds again, and yes i can tell the difference easily. /e/ as in the english word "heck" /hek/ and "hey" /heɪ/ so i am adding it back in which is why i deleted the modified phonology and my first response to this.