Poetry?

[Ghostfishe]

How many here write poetry in their langs?
How about translating existing poetry? I've found this to be a pretty entertaining challenge, since it makes you use pre-defined phrases.

Here are the first two lines of a poem in Kôbogzrak:

I used a repeating syllable pattern instead of rhyming, although I'll only post this much since it's a long poem. The rest worked but it wasn't quite as catchy.

[Aurora Rossa]

I am thinking that Terpish poetry will focus on patterns of tone and vowel length (more accurately syllable weight) rather than rhyme schemes like English poetry does. The poem might have a particular melody of high and low tones repeated in each line or stanza or else sequences of short and long syllables. In either case, I imagine this would make the line between poetry and song rather blurry. With some melodic embellishment and instrumental backing, the poem would become a song pretty easily.

[The Count]

One of the very reasons I created Xhaimeran in the first place was to use it for poetry, so yes there is a vast supply of poetry and song lyrics in my conlang. I've also translated a lot of material from Swedish poets Dan Andersson & Nils Ferlin.

[finlay]

So "zû" marks a directional allative function and infinitives, just as in English?

[Acid Badger]

And nebelik means misty?

[MisterBernie]

So "zû" marks a directional allative function and infinitives, just as in English?

Or just as in German (zu). My guess would be that it's a German(ic)-based conlang?

blaz – blass
gul – Gold
nebelik – neblig
un – und
moz – muss/müssen
wor – vor
won – von
+
kûlizaz – Kulisse?
zowan – suchen ?

[finlay]

So "zû" marks a directional allative function and infinitives, just as in English?

Or just as in German (zu). My guess would be that it's a German(ic)-based conlang?

blaz – blass
gul – Gold
nebelik – neblig
un – und
moz – muss/müssen
wor – vor
won – von
+
kûlizaz – Kulisse?
zowan – suchen ?

Too true, my German isn't good enough to notice all that. Also, I was too busy thinking that it looked like Tolkien's Dwarvish or Black Speech, particularly accompanied by the line "Misty Mountains".

[Salmoneus]

If you make up the words, and make up their meanings, and make up the syntax, and make up the connotations, and make up all the rules that poetry in that language has to fulfill... what's the point? I can see its use as an artifact to illustrate the language, I suppose, but as an endeavour in itself, there's no challenge to it.

[MisterBernie]

Too true, my German isn't good enough to notice all that. Also, I was too busy thinking that it looked like Tolkien's Dwarvish or Black Speech, particularly accompanied by the line "Misty Mountains".

...dammit, now my brain is parsing "nazgûl" as 'wet gold'.

A bit more on topic, I'm just gonna quote my note on Baranxeï poetics:
"The most common element of traditional Baranxeï poetry is alliteration, which dominates all early Baranxeï works and predates the emergence of Baranxeï language proper. It must be noted that the Baranxeï term talvaukaus includes alliteration, assonance and consonance, as well as alliteration of non-consecutive words."

An example for talvaukaus asxu, full alliteration:
báranxi ba | bílerat bégit || bádalnaŋ balbā́ni
Baranxi, father of a hundred books, broke wills

báranxi ba | bál-balat báltu || baĩ́ŋkhē bagā́ni
Baranxi, father of the lushest of fruits, wrote this scroll

Although begi and badalna have been retired from the vocabulary, so it's not quite current anymore.

[zelos]

I havent thought much on it but I think my lang would have long/short vowel/consonants working on it instead or perhaps focus on either one

[Cathbad]

If you make up the words, and make up their meanings, and make up the syntax, and make up the connotations, and make up all the rules that poetry in that language has to fulfill... what's the point? I can see its use as an artifact to illustrate the language, I suppose, but as an endeavour in itself, there's no challenge to it.

Unless you actively plan to write poetry in it at the stage you design it, I think it can still be a challenge. I mean, accepting Jakobson's minimal definition of poeticness, you can't just make everything up; you still have to work with a specific, predetermined set of materials in order to create various parallelisms.

For example, writing poetry in High Eolic is actually quite a challenge - even if I set up an arbitrary line structure of (in some way) alternating long and short syllables, I certainly haven't planned the words, grammatical endings etc. to make sense when put together in this formal way. I mean, sure, you could just write random sentences and say 'well this counts as poetry in my lang', but I don't think that can really count. Unless of course you're not trying to have a realistic set of linguistic functions for your language in the first place...

[Viktor77]

I should post some Falgwian folk poems called rybeita. The only problem is I can't guarantee the translations since I have trouble parsing them. The syntax is widely different. I've only been studying Falgwian for a few years and that's not enough to have an adequate understand to comprehand a rybeita.

[Přemysl]

I agree, as long as you don't tailor the language to it and the rules are set before you start your poetry then there is still a challenge. Its like the first people to play most well known games/sports. They made the rules but they were decided before the game was played.

That being said I don't feel any of my conlangs are developed enough yet to write anything approaching poetry. I do know I plan on using Omar Khayyam's rhyme scheme from his Rubaiyat for Haziam.

[Aurora Rossa]

Too true, my German isn't good enough to notice all that. Also, I was too busy thinking that it looked like Tolkien's Dwarvish or Black Speech, particularly accompanied by the line "Misty Mountains".

Same here. What do the circumflexed vowels mean, by the way?

[Dewrad]

If you make up the words, and make up their meanings, and make up the syntax, and make up the connotations, and make up all the rules that poetry in that language has to fulfill... what's the point? I can see its use as an artifact to illustrate the language, I suppose, but as an endeavour in itself, there's no challenge to it.

Not at all. The endeavour itself is challenging. If you set yourself rules for how poetry works in your language, then attempting to write something that conforms to these rules can be daunting. If you do it honestly, that is, and don't tweak the vocabulary or grammar to fit.

For example, while not sensu strictu a conlang, I have attempted to write poetry in Gaulish. With a fair amount of confidence, we can reconstruct some Proto-Celtic metrical forms and have Gaulish attestations of these. Attempting to write poetry corresponding to these attested metres is really difficult. Now, if you imagine that you've got a fairly well-established conlang and you devise some rules for how poetry works in that language. You've developed something tricky- not simple rhyme, syllable counting or even paralellism, but (for example) a quantitative metre wherein verses have twelve syllables, an amphibrachic cadence and stress-based alliteration. This isn't the kind of thing where you can just make up a new word to fit the rhyme.

I should post some Falgwian folk poems called rybeita. The only problem is I can't guarantee the translations since I have trouble parsing them. The syntax is widely different. I've only been studying Falgwian for a few years and that's not enough to have an adequate understand to comprehand a rybeita.

Give it up, it's not amusing. (Also, it's comprehend. Learn to fucking spell.)

[Ollock]

I am thinking that Terpish poetry will focus on patterns of tone and vowel length (more accurately syllable weight) rather than rhyme schemes like English poetry does. The poem might have a particular melody of high and low tones repeated in each line or stanza or else sequences of short and long syllables. In either case, I imagine this would make the line between poetry and song rather blurry. With some melodic embellishment and instrumental backing, the poem would become a song pretty easily.

Tang dyanasty poetry in China had alternating yin and yang tones (along with alternating rhymes, structurally parallel couplets, syllable counting and verse counting).

[Ghostfishe]

My guess would be that it's a German(ic)-based conlang?

Correct. Kob's based (primarily) on Old High German, a lot of which isn't too different from modern German.

The circumflexion indicates that a vowel is tense, while those that lack a circumflex are lax. I originally wasn't going to use any diacritical marks, but English vowels are too multipurpose.

[tezcatlip0ca]

Probably simple rhyme schemes with alliteration in the interior of the line. Examples in a few months, the languages are still not developed well.

[Risla]

South Eresian poetry is pretty freestyle, with some preferences for consistently-placed stress (though this is never absolute) and some strong tendencies towards conceptual repetition. Alliteration occurs in some styles, too. Rhyming is actually considered vulgar, and most poets take care to avoid it.

The point of writing poetry in South Eresian is not, actually, for it to be challenging to me; it's supposed to be easy.

I'll post some later, if I remember.

[Salmoneus]

Dew and Cath are correct, and I was wrong.

Technically.

However, what they said only applies if you have a completed conlang and then start writing poetry in it. An alien notion to me, this 'completedness' business, so it skipped my mind.

[Even so, I'd say no conlang can ever be as complete as a real language, because even when the words and grammar are set down, the connotations of each word, each syntactical decision, are only filled in by usage - so the poet would have a challenge writing formal poetry, but much of what makes poetry great (ie the finer nuances) would be decided by the poem, rather than being pre-decided. But anyway.]

[CrazyEttin]

[Even so, I'd say no conlang can ever be as complete as a real language, because even when the words and grammar are set down, the connotations of each word, each syntactical decision, are only filled in by usage - so the poet would have a challenge writing formal poetry, but much of what makes poetry great (ie the finer nuances) would be decided by the poem, rather than being pre-decided. But anyway.]

So the conlang will become more complete as more stories, poems and other texts are written in it.

[Přemysl]

All this general talk is fine but what about specifics. What meter are you using? Is your metrical foot based on vowel length, stress, morae? What poetic devices do you use? Why those particular things for your language?

While I agree the rules should be set out before you write the poetry, I do think the language as a whole should be considered when deciding on what kind of meter and poetic devices that are to be used.

For Haziam I have been considering two distinct popular forms, but it is still all in the air until the language gets more developed. In one each line ends in a spondee, something not easy in the present tense. That one is used for religious and reflective poetry. The other ends in a trochee, something very easy in the present and future tenses. A syllable is long is it contains a long vowel, a diphthong, or a short vowel followed by two or more consonants. I am still debating if I should consider a short vowel followed by a liquid a diphthong due to that combination diacrhonically acting similar to diphthongs.

The first form could be considered to have tetrameter, but some rules work on eight feet. It uses three feet of bacchius followed by a spondee. The last word or words are repeated in the second line and the fourth line. There is coda rhyme of the syllables before the repeated word/s. If there are more quatrains the rhyming syllable is based on final syllable of the third line of the previous quatrain. The suggested rhymed from the last quatrain is the same as the rhyme used in the first. Each pair of lines should be able to stand on their own. Older forms had caesura on the fourth syllable.

The second form consists three lines of 2 trochees, a dactyl, and 2 trochees followed by a fourth line of a dactyl and a trochee. There is caesura at the fourth syllable in the first three lines. Assonance and to a lesser degree alliteration are common. There is end rhyme in the pattern AABB. One variation is 3 quatrains with rhyme AABB AACC BBCC.

[maıráí]

Poetry in Eastern Aten focuses on rhyme, meter and tone level, sometimes all together.

A thaem is
five characters, Rhyme A
ten characters, Rhyme B
five characters, Rhyme B, and five characters, Rhyme A.
(This form is usually used in humorous poetry.)

A min is 4, 4, 5, and 3 characters to a line, rhyme scheme not required.

Be is tone falling throughout the line; the last line of a min would be High, High Falling, Low.
Beiang only falls at the end; thus the last min line would be High, High, High Falling.

There are words for orders of tone schemes; a min in be, be, be, beiang is a seuylmin, and is popular in depressing poetry. (The tone, when read dramatically, gives a sense of holding out, but finally succumbing on the last line.)

For something bigger, you'd combine the parts; four seuylmins, rhyme form BBBA ABBA ABBA ABBB is a iangseuylmin.

There's a bunch of other specifications I haven't words for yet.