Conlang Diachronics Relay II (now with schedule!)

Kuanye · Post by **Kuanye** » Wed Nov 11, 2009 1:45 pm

I'm going to have to be pushed back a phase, due to excessive amounts of things going on. Sorry for the inconvenience

Corumayas · Post by **Corumayas** » Thu Nov 12, 2009 6:06 pm

Some thoughts on the structure of the Western family:

Just out of curiosity, I spent a few minutes comparing the sound changes for the direct daughters of Proto-Western that exist so far. This was just a cursory comparison, but it looks like they could actually come from a realistic dialect continuum-- that is, while it's not possible to group them into subfamilies, there are developments shared by some but not others in a way that suggests the ancestral dialects might have been arranged in space in a particular way:

Code: Select all

Çetázó
  |
Iŋomóe --- Coastal
    \      /    \
    Tmaśareʔ --- Gezoro

(Maybe north is at the top of this diagram?)

[Edit: in case it's not clear, the connecting lines are paths that sound changes could spread along.]

The details: Gezoro and Tmaśareʔ share a rule where aspiration is lost when there's an [h] in the next syllable. They also have similar developments of *ł, which are partly shared by Coastal as well (but in much more limited environments). Coastal and Iŋomóe share a merger of labiovelars and plain velars (Gezoro eventually does this too), while Iŋomóe and Çetázó both develop long vowels from sequences of vowels in hiatus. Tmaśareʔ and Iŋomóe both have nasalization spreading from nasalized vowels to adjacent consonants (and somewhat similarly, Çetázó nasalized vowels become sequences of vowel+nasal stop). All but Tmaśareʔ merge *a with *o in at least some environments, while all but Gezoro have consonant lenition.

It also occurred to me that all the branches could have simple English names along the lines of "Steppe" and "Coastal", like this:

Code: Select all

WESTERN (Proto-Western)
|--PLATEAU (Gezoro)
|--DESERT (Tmaśareʔ)
|--COASTAL (Proto-Coastal-Western)
|--STEPPE (Iŋomóe)
`--LAKE (Çetázó)

...or something.

WeepingElf · Post by **WeepingElf** » Fri Nov 13, 2009 2:50 pm

Corumayas wrote:It also occurred to me that all the branches could have simple English names along the lines of "Steppe" and "Coastal", like this:
Code: Select all
WESTERN (Proto-Western)
|--PLATEAU (Gezoro)
|--DESERT (Tmaśareʔ)
|--COASTAL (Proto-Coastal-Western)
|--STEPPE (Iŋomóe)
`--LAKE (Çetázó)
...or something.

That's a good idea.

brandrinn · Post by **brandrinn** » Mon Nov 16, 2009 12:18 am

OK, I have a grammar sketch, but I will need another few days to clean it up, write the sample text, and add a short lexicon. Given the geographic position of the language, it seems to be absorbed by its neighbors anyway, so a descendant is unlikely. My copy of Word is on the fritz, so I've had to switch to Open Office for the time being.

PeteTheMadScientist · Post by **PeteTheMadScientist** » Wed Nov 18, 2009 4:57 am

When does round 4 kick off?

Kohorik · Post by **Kohorik** » Wed Nov 18, 2009 9:29 am

Now the morphology of Satnímʔa is also on the page. I will do the rest as quick as I can.

I also like the naming convention idea, with Steppe, Coastal, Lake etc.

Nortaneous · Post by **Nortaneous** » Wed Nov 18, 2009 6:17 pm

I have to study for a History of the English Language test today, and tomorrow I plan on spending a good portion of the evening very drunk. I think Haenhelubl is going to be very conservative everywhere but the phonology, and I doubt I'll be able to put up a sample text in time, but there will be one eventually.

Corumayas · Post by **Corumayas** » Wed Nov 18, 2009 7:38 pm

PeteTheMadScientist wrote:When does round 4 kick off?

When round 3 is done; according to the original schedule it should be at the end of this week, but it sounds like some of the participants might need a few extra days.

BTW, what's happening with the Peninsular team? Except for 4pq1injbok, it seems to have stalled before round 2.

Cadeshadow · Post by **Cadeshadow** » Wed Nov 18, 2009 9:05 pm

I'm still around, but I can't really go now because of numerous things IRL.

I'd start working now but would still end up around the same due-date, give or take a few days. (Had we been on time, I would have asked to be pushed back, but it didn't seem quite necessary.)

If that's the case, then I'll start working from Gaadràmarneš.

Perhaps we ought to PM the rest of Round II?

Tiamat · Post by **Tiamat** » Wed Nov 18, 2009 10:21 pm

I'll make sure I'll have the gloss of the text up soon for you. ANd PM me if you have any questions.

the duke of nuke · Post by **the duke of nuke** » Thu Nov 19, 2009 6:31 am

I'm happy to move up a round or two; it seems like Pete and I will be waiting a while otherwise. Don't know how disruptive it would be, though.

Cedh · Post by **Cedh** » Thu Nov 19, 2009 7:47 am

The Western team is mostly on time, so Pete, Trailsend and Tarasoriku can expect to get green light this weekend.

As for the Peninsular team, I think it will be best to rearrange things a bit so that those who have actually been creating a language are retroactively called "Round I", and the others are redistributed accordingly. Apart from the number of the round, not much would change though. If Vortex, Nebula and 4pq1injbok manage to complete their languages in the next few days, we can run the two teams in parallel.

Duke: I can put you into Kuanye's slot; he has asked to be moved to a later round.

Another option would be for people to switch from the Peninsular team to Western; we'll soon run out of participants there, and the current generation of Western languages is still at a rather early point in history...

---

Also, let me reiterate my earlier encouragement of discussion about the languages created in this relay:

I wrote:All of you are highly encouraged to talk about your languages while working on them. I know not everyone likes to present unfinished stuff, and of course you don't have to, but in order to get as realistic results as possible it would definitely be a huge advantage to include shared developments, borrowing, sprachbunding, and other contact phenomena in contemporary daughter languages. And this is easiest to achieve by communication.

This thread may not be the best place for this if you're going into the details, but there is the [url=irc://irc.sorcery.net/akana]#akana IRC channel[/url] for real-time talk and the AkanaForum for more thorough discussion of individual languages and their relation to each other. Every relay participant is welcome to open a thread there in order to discuss his/her WIP and to integrate it into the conworld setting!

the duke of nuke · Post by **the duke of nuke** » Thu Nov 19, 2009 8:23 am

I'd quite like to move to Western, if that's ok; otherwise I'll take Kuanye's spot.

4pq1injbok · Post by **4pq1injbok** » Thu Nov 19, 2009 9:36 am

cedh audmanh wrote:As for the Peninsular team, I think it will be best to rearrange things a bit so that those who have actually been creating a language are retroactively called "Round I", and the others are redistributed accordingly. Apart from the number of the round, not much would change though. If Vortex, Nebula and 4pq1injbok manage to complete their languages in the next few days, we can run the two teams in parallel.

That's sensible.

By relay standards all I've got left to finish on Kibülʌiṅ is the sample text and the lexicon, and I should have the text done by the weekend. EDIT: Fisherman and the Fish is up. And what's the lexicon being a few days later than the rest, among friends, right?

Arzena · Post by **Arzena** » Fri Nov 20, 2009 1:05 am

RL has prevented me from posting most of my material on Štåså online. I won't be able to make the goal date of 11/20; I hope to post my finished material on Akana wiki over this weekend and the Thanksgiving holiday next week.

Nortaneous · Post by **Nortaneous** » Fri Nov 20, 2009 1:42 am

I'll have my language finished by the end of the Thanksgiving weekend also.

Arzena · Post by **Arzena** » Wed Nov 25, 2009 3:08 am

The first material on Shtåså is on its page here and my user pagehere.

Radius Solis · Post by **Radius Solis** » Wed Nov 25, 2009 10:10 am

I confess that I have not actually read a majority of relay entries thus far. When someone posts a new Akana language normally I'm immediately all over it, but when half a dozen or more show up in a short time, I tend to put them on my mental to-do list and then forget. (That happened in the original Cursed Relay, too. There's some of those I still haven't even looked at.)

But tonight I have read two grammars, and was impressed with both:
- Nebula Wind Phone's Marnesha
- Cedh's Tma?are?

The first one caught me by surprise: I had intended only to skim the article and frankly was not in the mood to read a conlang. But it hooked me, and I ended up reading the entire article in fascination. It's a very well-executed language, and I hope to soon see a more finished version in its full glory, with a text!

The latter, also, I had not been intending to truly read. Instead I'd realized that I hadn't even looked at cedh's Western language yet, which made me feel bad, as we've been working together in Akana for three years now. So I looked... but it too grabbed me and pulled me in, and I just finished spending a whole hour reading it. I'm a bit meh on Western phonologies, in general, but the grammar made me smile to see all the juicy developments I'd ever pictured doing myself, manifest in high-D.

My kudos to both of you!

To those of you whose grammars I haven't really read yet: I'll get around to it, I promise.

nebula wind phone · Post by **nebula wind phone** » Thu Nov 26, 2009 8:36 pm

Ugh. Yeah. Apologies for the delay — this has been a real bitch of a semester. I'll try to have something useable up by Monday, but if it's better for the relay to route around me, go right on ahead and do it.

Nortaneous · Post by **Nortaneous** » Fri Nov 27, 2009 3:40 am

I'm starting on the example text now. I still have a lot of grammar to do, but it's mostly the little fiddly bits that take like three minutes to pound into shape.

edit: "syikaart hnyee ef syeerc mnghaa mnghaa." why can't I ever manage to design an orthography that doesn't look like an alien language from a cheap 1940s SF novel? not that there's much else to do with a language that allows words like /mN_0{:/ though.

brandrinn · Post by **brandrinn** » Fri Nov 27, 2009 4:47 am

Grammar sketch has been ready for a while, but I had formatting issues. I`m going to skip the lexicon and sample text, though. The language is basically a geonologic deadend anyway, perhaps only good for curiosity.

Cedh · Post by **Cedh** » Fri Nov 27, 2009 5:16 am

Nortaneous wrote:edit: "syikaart hnyee ef syeerc mnghaa mnghaa." why can't I ever manage to design an orthography that doesn't look like an alien language from a cheap 1940s SF novel? not that there's much else to do with a language that allows words like /mN_0{:/ though.

What about using diacritics? IMHO especially macrons or acutes for vowel length can do wonders. Carons or cedillas might be useful for postalveolar consonants, and likewise dot-below for retroflexes. Also, don't use <c> for /ʁ/. <r> or <ğ> would be much more intuitive, and <c> seems more useful for /tʃ/. Some possibilities:

šikāṭ ňhē ef šēṛər məŋhā məŋhā
syikārt hnyē ef syērğ mŋhā mŋhā
şikátt ņhé ef şérrăr mănghá mănghá

Nortaneous · Post by **Nortaneous** » Fri Nov 27, 2009 1:15 pm

I can't type diacritics. I guess I'll try to get some different keyboard layouts working. US-International never worked for me.

edit: fuck it, time to spend two hours beating the shit out of MSKLC

Nortaneous · Post by **Nortaneous** » Sat Nov 28, 2009 1:18 am

šikǣṭ hňē ef šērăğ măŋhǣ măŋhǣ

Much better, although I need to add æ-macron to my keyboard layout. Also, I'm using <ə ɨ ă> for /7 M 6/. And I should use <a> for /{/, but then what would I use for /A/? I'd use underdots for the back unrounded vowels, but I'm also using them for retroflexes, and I can't use anything that goes over the vowel because it would get in the way of the macron. Is there any other diacritic that I could use?

Cedh · Post by **Cedh** » Sat Nov 28, 2009 3:08 am

Unrounded back vowels could be called "backed front vowels", and retroflexes are likewise "backed alveolars". Therefore it would make sense to me to use the same diacritic for both:

/t d s n/ t d s n
/t` d` s` n`/ ṭ ḍ ṣ ṇ

/i e {/ i e a
/M 7 A/ ị ẹ ạ

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Conlang Diachronics Relay II (now with schedule!)

Round 4

Re: Round 4