zompist bboard

I've recently jumped on the Finno-Ugric/Uralic boat too. My latest conlang is based largely on an attempt at hybridizing the phonologies and grammars of Hungarian and Gaelic (keeping some sort of vowel harmony while having a broad/slender consonant distinction). It's ergative and sort of non-configu...

greeting > bow > prostrate oneself > bring tribute > give > give up, go without > forsake > treason

Next: background

I wonder what a phonology that violated as many of these as possible would look like... Stops: t tʰ tʼ tʷ q qʰ qʼ qʷ ʔ Coarticulated t͡q t͡qʰ (eurgh, that feels weird to pronounce) Nasals: ɴ Laterals: ɬ ɬʼ ɴ and ɬ can be syllabic. Otherwise, syllable structure is strictly CV. Vowels: a i ɯ a̰ ḭ ɯ̰ 5...

This is pure speculation, but it could be that speakers of a language with almost phonemic spelling are more accepting of spelling reforms than those of more heinously-spelt languages, because the changes are less drastic. Someone familiar with reformed German orthography would no doubt still be abl...

Oh, and I want a grammar of Pirahã. I actually have that somewhere. Do you recall who it's by? Or what the title is? I've searched for "Pirahã Grammar" but all I've found is Everett's "Cultural Constraints on Grammar and Cognition in Pirahã" and Don't Sleep, There are Snakes . But what I really wan...

Re: the "sir" thing, I think Torco may be using it already!

http://zbb.spinnwebe.com/viewtopic.php?p=908520#p908520

Maybe not quite "affectionate and gender-neutral", but not the traditional formal sense either.

I often use "sir" as an affectionate (and gender-neutral) term of address for my close friends and sister. All of the people I use it with have picked it up too. I often wonder what would happen if it became commonly used, and what would replace "sir" as a formal term of address.

Oh, and I want a grammar of Pirahã.

Couldn't "El Hombre araña" be analysed as having 'hombre' as an adjective. I'm sure I've read that adjectives before the noun in Spanish tend to have a slightly different nuance (such as unexpectedness - man-spiders are quite unexpected...). That's how I processed it in my brain, but I'm not a nati...

El Hombre araña (the man spider) 'Spiderman' (appositive noun-noun compound: a man that is also a spider) (el) sacapuntas (takes.out-tips) '(pencil) sharpener' (verb-noun compound, more literally, 'a tip takeouter') (la) nochebuena (night-good) 'Christmas Eve' (noun-adj compound) (la) medianoche (m...

[magical device] Hey Lyhoko, you know how they say Superman is a boring superhero because he has too many powers, can do anything, and is pretty much invincible? No, of course you don't. Yeah, I agree that a comic book with that device as the protagonist would be pretty shitty :roll: I wish there w...

Okuno wrote: I can do a velar trill.

Post a recording? I have no idea what that would even sound like. Also, the IPA chart says it's impossible.

Welcome to the board! Have some pickles and tea! I like your vowel system. Why no rounded vowels? Your <lh> sounds like it might be a linguolabial flap /ɾ̼/ or something. Someone more skilled in phonetics might have a better name for it, though. No clue about <lr>. I'm not sure if the coarticulated ...

I hear that as /b/.

IMO a morpheme is an affix if: 1. It is bound to the word it modifies, another independent word cannot come in between the morpheme and the word root. 2. It has no independent stress. #2 is problematic because... what if the language doesn't have phonemic stress? Also, it's not much help for langua...

I have been trying to even out the volume since we started the show. So far all I have managed is horrible clipping for Will and Bianca while I'm still much quieter. I have no idea how to fix this problem with my current setup. Maybe if I get a mixer and a real mike and set up two computers I can f...

Incidentally, the isolating-synthetic distinction seems to me rather fake, because it is just, as far as I have seen, a matter of whether there is a space between the root and modifier. Well, it's not really arbitrary, although natlangs tend to blur the lines between morphemes being isolating or sy...

čafjan - doctor > čafjanie - doctors Shouldn't that be čafjanje ? The language looks really cool in general. The symmetry in the case system (with the adverbial and locative cases modifying the others) especially. What sort of implements/media do you envision being used for the writing system? Seem...

I think the name "Iberian Gothic" sounds cooler. But that could also be Portuguese, no? Or Catalan, or Basque. What are you thinking of for a writing system? Roman/Gothic hybrid? Not sure how that would work with the diachronics... Basically, this looks like an awesome project and I want to see more.

Conworlding always ends up with a product of some sort. In my experience, it too often doesn't. I can never seem to complete a language or conculture to the point where I feel I can show it to people. For me, the problem with conlanging is that, when languages are treated as an end in themselves, w...