Conlanging is a hobby I've had since maybe middle or elementary school.
I can't remember my first language, but it was probably a relex or regraphing of English alphabet.
Language #0 An agglutinative aesthetic take on Norse (abortive):
Basically just English with cases, and a revived agglutinative structure on the pronouns and deictics. Like esperanto but with icelandic looks. I gave up quickly, I think this was in 7th grade.
Language #1 Canto-Lisp (abortive, 9th grade):
Explicit bracketing (like LISP s-expressions) and a lexicon based on mapping concepts to the Ba Gua/八卦 I King trigrams/hexagrams then encoding those binary features into sounds. I was originally inspired by Paleo-hebrew "word-picture" lore.
The basic syllable structure was C1VC2 with tones. there were 16 initials for C1, 8 finals for C2, and 8 vowels for V, as well as 8 tones. This meant one C1VtC2 syllable held 13 bits of entropy.
I abandoned this project for two reasons:
1. Because of the local smoothness of mapping between semantic space and phonological space, corruption could not be detected in common signals and resolution signals were low entropy. Saussure's theory of the arbitrariness of the sign made a lot more sense now. I wanted that sort of mystical iconicity but the purpose of language is to get across meanings not associations, I think.
2. Semantic space cannot be divided into binary trees with the I King hexagrams-- parts of semantic space are denser than others which means I started to run out of sounds.
The grammar was mostly inspired by Cantonese (as well as Hokkien and Singlish) at the time and I made extensive use of aspectual and modal particles.
====
Language #2 (in progress, but likely will end up splitting)
Based on a study of various languages around the world. I started with Baxter and Sagart's reconstruction of Old Chinese, then applied sound changes to make the words sound more "elegant". I then added the grammar of Tocharian B. I also made a few Tocharian glyphs using the chinese writing + hangul and
kana:
https://twitter.com/abeillian/status/141625753681016194
I've also been taking some inspiration from native american Algic languages (like Ojibwe from what is now ontario), and some of the macro-altaic languages. I think this is starting to be scope creep though and makes me want to really pursue the proto-Japhetic linguistic crackpet theory I have (looping together Sino-Tibetan, Afro-Asiatic, IE, all of macro-Altaic, and all of the american languages among others).
This project has started to split though and now I've been wanting to take a more phil-lang turn and make the language more of a whorfian experiment for enforcing a certain pattern of thought that I find good (like merging the instrumental and agentive cases, futurelessness, or allowing pervalent avalency on verbs).
Posted at 2021/08/06, 20:37:10Post ID: 5307
Conlanging is a hobby I've had since maybe middle or elementary school.
I can't remember my first language, but it was probably a relex or regraphing of English alphabet.
Language #0 An agglutinative aesthetic take on Norse (abortive):
Basically just English with cases, and a revived agglutinative structure on the pronouns and deictics. Like esperanto but with icelandic looks. I gave up quickly, I think this was in 7th grade.
Language #1 Canto-Lisp (abortive, 9th grade):
Explicit bracketing (like LISP s-expressions) and a lexicon based on mapping concepts to the Ba Gua/八卦 I King trigrams/hexagrams then encoding those binary features into sounds. I was originally inspired by Paleo-hebrew "word-picture" lore.
The basic syllable structure was C1VC2 with tones. there were 16 initials for C1, 8 finals for C2, and 8 vowels for V, as well as 8 tones. This meant one C1VtC2 syllable held 13 bits of entropy.
I abandoned this project for two reasons:
1. Because of the local smoothness of mapping between semantic space and phonological space, corruption could not be detected in common signals and resolution signals were low entropy. Saussure's theory of the arbitrariness of the sign made a lot more sense now. I wanted that sort of mystical iconicity but the purpose of language is to get across meanings not associations, I think.
2. Semantic space cannot be divided into binary trees with the I King hexagrams-- parts of semantic space are denser than others which means I started to run out of sounds.
The grammar was mostly inspired by Cantonese (as well as Hokkien and Singlish) at the time and I made extensive use of aspectual and modal particles.
====
Language #2 (in progress, but likely will end up splitting)
Based on a study of various languages around the world. I started with Baxter and Sagart's reconstruction of Old Chinese, then applied sound changes to make the words sound more "elegant". I then added the grammar of Tocharian B. I also made a few Tocharian glyphs using the chinese writing + hangul and
kana:
[url]https://twitter.com/abeillian/status/141625753681016194[/url]
I've also been taking some inspiration from native american Algic languages (like Ojibwe from what is now ontario), and some of the macro-altaic languages. I think this is starting to be scope creep though and makes me want to really pursue the proto-Japhetic linguistic crackpet theory I have (looping together Sino-Tibetan, Afro-Asiatic, IE, all of macro-Altaic, and all of the american languages among others).
This project has started to split though and now I've been wanting to take a more phil-lang turn and make the language more of a whorfian experiment for enforcing a certain pattern of thought that I find good (like merging the instrumental and agentive cases, futurelessness, or allowing pervalent avalency on verbs).
Post 5307
Yep. Usually do it all the time. Need to check my journals and see how far I've gotten but everything has been on point with what you said. Languages to me is just an extension of vibrations. Vibrations of any sort are pleasing. Never understood why people don't like noise in the most federated way
I was born 4 burning.
I was born 4rm the galvanized dome.
// 3DT FOREVER ...
Try the new 3DT Mobile system
Posted at 2021/08/06, 21:56:36Post ID: 5307:5308
[post=5307]Post 5307[/post]
Yep. Usually do it all the time. Need to check my journals and see how far I've gotten but everything has been on point with what you said. Languages to me is just an extension of vibrations. Vibrations of any sort are pleasing. Never understood why people don't like noise in the most federated way
Post 5307
Yep. Usually do it all the time. Need to check my journals and see how far I've gotten but everything has been on point with what you said. Languages to me is just an extension of vibrations. Vibrations of any sort are pleasing. Never understood why people don't like noise in the most federated way
I never really kept a conlanging journal. Instead I keep several that I scribble in. Never learnt to "organise" unfortunately. The one thing I hate about the medium of the notebook is its inherent linearity. You can't reallocate pages. Perhaps I should just get loose paper instead.
I'm interested in the parallel between vibration and language though. You do get a bit of weird people saying whatever they want but spectral analises might have some applications to langage processing but im not there yet.
Posted at 2021/08/07, 01:14:45Post ID: 5307:5310
[quote=fod@5307:5308][post=5307]Post 5307[/post]
Yep. Usually do it all the time. Need to check my journals and see how far I've gotten but everything has been on point with what you said. Languages to me is just an extension of vibrations. Vibrations of any sort are pleasing. Never understood why people don't like noise in the most federated way[/quote]
I never really kept a conlanging journal. Instead I keep several that I scribble in. Never learnt to "organise" unfortunately. The one thing I hate about the medium of the notebook is its inherent linearity. You can't reallocate pages. Perhaps I should just get loose paper instead.
I'm interested in the parallel between vibration and language though. You do get a bit of weird people saying whatever they want but spectral analises might have some applications to langage processing but im not there yet.
Fellow linguistics fan? Hell yeah. I'm working on my Semitic based conlang called Shemi.
You ever read into Lojban? I love seeing how formal sciences and linguistics collide, so it interests me a whole lot.
Always happy to discuss old computers, philology, linguistics, history, and video games.
mamiya-mansion.net
Come over to my site. I talk about retrogaming, computing, history, linguistics, and more. Not a lot right now, but more is always coming.
Posted at 2021/08/07, 14:01:53Post ID: 5307:5314
Fellow linguistics fan? Hell yeah. I'm working on my Semitic based conlang called Shemi.
You ever read into Lojban? I love seeing how formal sciences and linguistics collide, so it interests me a whole lot.
I've taken interest in conlangs in the past, worked on an auxlang for Scandinavian languages for a bit but lost interest when I realized that time spent could go to actually learning a Scandinavian language. Though not a conlang I'm currently working on an English spelling reform & I'm using the Dao De Jing to standardize the spelling.
Also planning on making an artlang soon.
Posted at 2021/08/08, 06:09:33Post ID: 5307:5316
I've taken interest in conlangs in the past, worked on an auxlang for Scandinavian languages for a bit but lost interest when I realized that time spent could go to actually learning a Scandinavian language. Though not a conlang I'm currently working on an English spelling reform & I'm using the Dao De Jing to standardize the spelling.
Also planning on making an artlang soon.
Post 5307:5316
Scandinavian languages are already so similar that there doesnt even need to be an auxlang. They are their own auxlangs.
How are using the 道德經 to reform the spelling
Posted at 2021/08/08, 09:34:00Post ID: 5307:5317
[post=5307:5316]Post 5307:5316[/post]
Scandinavian languages are already so similar that there doesnt even need to be an auxlang. They are their own auxlangs.
How are using the 道德經 to reform the spelling
Post 5307:5317
Became aware of how similar they were when I started the project (was a younger lad at the time) after this I kinda stopped work on that.
I'm using the Gia-Fu Feng translation and rewriting it with the reformed spelling system. I use the Norwegian alphabet with the addition of ð and þ (also ȝ, ſ, and ƕ when hand writting it). The spelling looks a lot closer to old English, some words take on the Dutch spelling for them. Words that come from Latin or French look awful, just horrible, I hate looking at them, I need to work on this. the Germanic words look fine though.
In the beginning I was going to just spell everything as it sounded, but then had to work around the homophones so I got a bit more creative. Some of the spelling does depend on pronunciation, so there could be regional variants perhaps.
Posted at 2021/08/10, 21:08:26Post ID: 5307:5321
[post=5307:5317]Post 5307:5317[/post]
Became aware of how similar they were when I started the project (was a younger lad at the time) after this I kinda stopped work on that.
I'm using the Gia-Fu Feng translation and rewriting it with the reformed spelling system. I use the Norwegian alphabet with the addition of ð and þ (also ȝ, ſ, and ƕ when hand writting it). The spelling looks a lot closer to old English, some words take on the Dutch spelling for them. Words that come from Latin or French look awful, just horrible, I hate looking at them, I need to work on this. the Germanic words look fine though.
In the beginning I was going to just spell everything as it sounded, but then had to work around the homophones so I got a bit more creative. Some of the spelling does depend on pronunciation, so there could be regional variants perhaps.
“He's passed on to a better, more euphemistic place.”
I never got very far on building a full language, but I've built a bunch of alphabets. My most developed one was a better alphabet for English loosely based on the Korean system, but not as retarded.
I began making a purely logographic language based on Chinese, but that didn't get too far cause I saw no purpose in it. It was sort of like Chinese, but without any phonetic parts at all (it didn't even have a spoken counterpart). I'd like to at some point build a system that's totally written without any spoken version, something that you could use purely in writing and couldn't be spoken. It would be something you could probably use to teach people how it feels to learn to read as a deaf person.
I never got very far on building a full language, but I've built a bunch of alphabets. My most developed one was a better alphabet for English loosely based on the Korean system, but not as retarded.
I began making a purely logographic language based on Chinese, but that didn't get too far cause I saw no purpose in it. It was sort of like Chinese, but without any phonetic parts at all (it didn't even have a spoken counterpart). I'd like to at some point build a system that's totally written without any spoken version, something that you could use purely in writing and couldn't be spoken. It would be something you could probably use to teach people how it feels to learn to read as a deaf person.
Post 5307:5321
Just use runes for germanic words and latin alphabet for latin ones and greek for greek ones. jan misali (midwit) hates it but japanese does fine with 3 writing systems also.
Posted at 2021/08/11, 20:22:17Post ID: 5307:5326
[post=5307:5321]Post 5307:5321[/post]
Just use runes for germanic words and latin alphabet for latin ones and greek for greek ones. jan misali (midwit) hates it but japanese does fine with 3 writing systems also.
Post 5307:5321
Also, classical Avestan was/is written using pure phonetic realisations which obscures morphological connections in favour of preserving natural assimilations. Which is why its such a bad orthography
Posted at 2021/08/11, 20:23:26Post ID: 5307:5327
[post=5307:5321]Post 5307:5321[/post]
Also, classical Avestan was/is written using pure phonetic realisations which obscures morphological connections in favour of preserving natural assimilations. Which is why its such a bad orthography
[quote=ii2iidore@5307:5328][post=5307:5323]Post 5307:5323[/post]
Isn't that just emoji?[/quote]
No, cause emoji is pictographic and the only things that really have concrete meanings are just objects, not really many actions. also emojis are gay
[quote=ii2iidore@5307:5330][post=5307:5329]Post 5307:5329[/post]
Personally, I'm a big fan of emoji. Have you heard of Blissymbols?[/quote]
I've never heard of it but it looks interesting. Ideographic systems are cool
Post 5307:5339
I never wrote down the actual rules I was using but this is basically some of the rules I go by
0. characters shouldnt look too similar
i.e. 鳥 and 烏 should use their PRC simplifications because they make that single stroke/dot missing much more visible
1. simple pictograms should be simplified if they're more complicated than they need to be
- and they should not give red herring etymology
i.e. remove the 立 and 月 from 龍 and leave the right side.
2. simple ideograms dont really need to be simplified, but they can be if it aids my personal political-philosophical aims.
3. compound ideograms likewise, they should be reconstructed even from scratch to support certain whorfian aims.
4. freely make use of jiajie. the ancients did it so can we, to an extent. as long as it doesnt lead to confusion or opacity so 四 is fine and so is 麥/來 (plus, these are easily re-analysed). but 面 for noodle is not good.
5. when it comes to phonosemantic compounds, the phonetic fit doesnt need to be a perfect sound for sound reflex and also have a lot fewer strokes. it just needs to be a better phonetic fit.
6. if a character is "both" a rebus compound and a ideographic compound, treat it as an ideoggraphic compound first.
7. if a character's phonetic is itself a rebus-compound, unwrap to the base rebus as much as you can especially if its a more common word. 蜂's right component should just be 丰.
Here's a link to a thread of simplifications I've made: https://twitter.com/abeillian/status/1386144688009322496
I'm planning on automating all of this stuff with code but I can't find a good semantically-oriented set of character ideographic description sequences (AKA IDSes. There's a unicode block for them). They're all visually decomposed rather than semantically.
Posted at 2021/08/15, 02:11:27Post ID: 5307:5341
[post=5307:5339]Post 5307:5339[/post]
I never wrote down the actual rules I was using but this is basically some of the rules I go by
0. characters shouldnt look too similar
i.e. 鳥 and 烏 should use their PRC simplifications because they make that single stroke/dot missing much more visible
1. simple pictograms should be simplified if they're more complicated than they need to be
- and they should not give red herring etymology
i.e. remove the 立 and 月 from 龍 and leave the right side.
2. simple ideograms dont really need to be simplified, but they can be if it aids my personal political-philosophical aims.
3. compound ideograms likewise, they should be reconstructed even from scratch to support certain whorfian aims.
4. freely make use of jiajie. the ancients did it so can we, to an extent. as long as it doesnt lead to confusion or opacity so 四 is fine and so is 麥/來 (plus, these are easily re-analysed). but 面 for noodle is not good.
5. when it comes to phonosemantic compounds, the phonetic fit doesnt need to be a perfect sound for sound reflex and also have a lot fewer strokes. it just needs to be a better phonetic fit.
6. if a character is "both" a rebus compound and a ideographic compound, treat it as an ideoggraphic compound first.
7. if a character's phonetic is itself a rebus-compound, unwrap to the base rebus as much as you can especially if its a more common word. 蜂's right component should just be 丰.
Here's a link to a thread of simplifications I've made: [url]https://twitter.com/abeillian/status/1386144688009322496[/url]
I'm planning on automating all of this stuff with code but I can't find a good semantically-oriented set of character ideographic description sequences (AKA IDSes. There's a unicode block for them). They're all visually decomposed rather than semantically.
Post 5307:5341
write it too fast, lose it's meaning. any modern script has anacronyms because its building on centuries of history. DOnt make writing into yet another "modern" form of communication (Esperanto). Writing is an art, not a form of communication (speeech)
Posted at 2021/08/15, 03:16:57Post ID: 5307:5342
[post=5307:5341]Post 5307:5341[/post]
write it too fast, lose it's meaning. any modern script has anacronyms because its building on centuries of history. DOnt make writing into yet another "modern" form of communication (Esperanto). Writing is an art, not a form of communication (speeech)
Post 5307:5342
公孫鞅曰：「前世不同教，何古之法？帝王不相復，何禮之循？」
Gongsun Yang said: "Former generations did not follow the same doctrines, so what antiquity should one imitate? The emperors and kings did not copy one another, so what rites should one follow?"
The Qin small seal script differed from the scripts of the late Zhou, the Warring States, and the Chu silk scripts, and those differed from the oracle bone and unearthed Shang scripts in many ways-- and later on, the Han clerical script differed from the Qin small seal script. The PRC's simplification or indeed my simplifications are just attempts to make affairs succeed.
Posted at 2021/08/15, 20:29:07Post ID: 5307:5343
[post=5307:5342]Post 5307:5342[/post]
公孫鞅曰：「前世不同教，何古之法？帝王不相復，何禮之循？」
Gongsun Yang said: "Former generations did not follow the same doctrines, so what antiquity should one imitate? The emperors and kings did not copy one another, so what rites should one follow?"
The Qin small seal script differed from the scripts of the late Zhou, the Warring States, and the Chu silk scripts, and those differed from the oracle bone and unearthed Shang scripts in many ways-- and later on, the Han clerical script differed from the Qin small seal script. The PRC's simplification or indeed my simplifications are just attempts to make affairs succeed.
Enkidu_Warrior
I don't know what you mean by writing being an art but not a form of communication. Both speech and writing are the use of signs with shared meanings. Both can also be arts: the art of speaking is rhetoric.
Posted at 2021/08/15, 20:33:02Post ID: 5307:5344
[mention=Enkidu_Warrior]Enkidu_Warrior[/mention]
I don't know what you mean by writing being an art but not a form of communication. Both speech and writing are the use of signs with shared meanings. Both can also be arts: the art of speaking is rhetoric.
I once tried to create a programming language in which I could alter the way people felt.
I attempted this by creating a tumblr with images I identified as "popsicle programming". How successful I was judge by the following:
https://popsiclesandheroin.tumblr.com/
Posted at 2021/08/27, 02:21:27Post ID: 5307:5364
I once tried to create a programming language in which I could alter the way people felt.
I attempted this by creating a tumblr with images I identified as "popsicle programming". How successful I was judge by the following:
https://popsiclesandheroin.tumblr.com/
My Pastebin clone
