Conlang relay [relocated] (aka "The Cursed Relay")

Substantial postings about constructed languages and constructed worlds in general. Good place to mention your own or evaluate someone else's. Put quick questions in C&C Quickies instead.
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Conlang relay [relocated] (aka "The Cursed Relay")

Post by Legion »

UP TO DATE INFORMATIONS BE HERE

[rest of post cut away because no longer revelent]
Last edited by Legion on Sat Jan 12, 2008 8:03 am, edited 13 times in total.

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Post by Radius Solis »

Ye Olde Collection of Linkes & Infoe


This post is meant to provide a basic guide for new participants. A lot of the Akana conworld information is still buried in this thread, worked out in discussion and not organized into or on any other website. However, a lot of it is also elsewhere, and here's a list of the main important links.

1. The Akana Wiki. Same link as Legion's above. This is our new repository for all things Akana, and a great deal of information can be found there, but much additional stuff remains to be added to it. Be sure to read the talk pages of articles, wherever they exist; some of them contain additional information and, increasingly, some of the discussion that used to happen in this thread is taking place on wiki talk pages instead.

2. The family tree of the Edastean languages. Please add yourself to the appropriate part of the tree if you are working on, or have previously worked on, an Edastean-derived conlang that is not already shown. Or if you know of another.

3. Nearly every conlang in Akana thus far is linked to from one of the above two pages.

4. The Kečǽnə pages on Almeopedia. (Kečǽnə is a different version of "Akana" from a different language.) This set of articles was the old repository for things from this conworld, and provides a decent snapshot of the state of the world as of 2006, though a couple things there have been updated more recently. There may still be some information here that has not yet found its way to the Akana Wiki; sometime soon somebody's going to have to look thoroughly and find out.

5. Want maps? Our map repository is here. Please note that the design of the world outside the Aiwa sphere is not yet entirely finalized, especially the other continents, and any maps showing such other lands should be regarded as proposals and subject to future change.

6. Lastly - want a primer for how participation in this collaborative conworld works? First, it may help to review the world's rather convoluted external history. Second, here are some basic points:
  • Diachronic language development is a strong focus of Akana - but all manner of contribution is generally welcome.
  • We all do our own things, have our own conlangs and areas, etc. You can too.
  • But we also have a general expectation that new material will try to be reasonably consistent with established canon. Sometimes canon can be changed to accomodate new ideas, but this needs group assent, and isn't always feasible if it would create a lot of work for others.
  • A basic principle to our operation has been: if you propose something, it's automatically canon unless anyone else objects or points out issues.
  • Generally we've been pretty open-minded about proposals - but if someone does have concerns, there's a general expectation that one will be willing to compromise.
  • We operate by discussion and consensus. So far there have been few significant conflicts. I have tended to be central in organizing things, but I'm not in charge (nobody is), and by no means do I have the last word.
  • Many of us have one or more chunks of the conworld that are our own territories, and in general we respect each others' domain over our areas. But there's little that is not open to discussion. A partial list of exclusive domains is provided on the Akana Wiki.
  • You can derive a daughter language from any Akana language you wish (except, see below), at any time and at your own pace. There are no deadlines. Others may or may not wish to derive daughters from your language in turn.
  • Exception: the languages Adāta and Ndak Ta have now spawned so many direct daughters and proposals for more that adding yet more may be unrealistic. You are still welcome to do as you wish on your own, of course, I just want to warn you there may be difficulty fitting further daughters of those languages into the historical context. Granddaughters of both the above (and all subsequent generations) remain not only fair game but strongly encouraged.
Last edited by Radius Solis on Thu Sep 04, 2008 5:32 am, edited 5 times in total.

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Post by Legion »

Okay, here is the first avalaible material on Kozado (contains : phonology and partial nominal morphology).

http://thelegion.free.fr/kozado.htm

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Post by Zhen Lin »

Hmm, interesting premise, though I see two minor problems:
1. Geographic overlap with Mavakhalan (assuming the two are in the same time period)
2. The ±palatal distinction of Mavakhalan is fairly recent and only arose after a fall of the yers analogue, which I estimate to be approximately 400 years after Adāta.

Also, I note that this would be the sole direct descendant of Adāta that does not have enclitic possessive pronouns.
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Post by Legion »

Zhen Lin wrote:Hmm, interesting premise, though I see two minor problems:
1. Geographic overlap with Mavakhalan (assuming the two are in the same time period)
2. The ±palatal distinction of Mavakhalan is fairly recent and only arose after a fall of the yers analogue, which I estimate to be approximately 400 years after Adāta.

Also, I note that this would be the sole direct descendant of Adāta that does not have enclitic possessive pronouns.
1 is not really a problem, geographic overlaps happens a lot in reality, even between closely related language ; And then Kozado is only a minority language, its presence by no mean does question Mavakhalan sovereignety in the region.

2 may be a problem, but on the other hand, I had planned the ±palatal distinction as a sound change stage before having a look at Mavakhalan, so it could as well just be a coincidence.

As for the last one, I said it was very conservative :p

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Post by Corumayas »

Wow! There's a lot of exciting development going on in this project right now. This is really cool.

I'd love to work on a daughter or granddaughter of Faralo, or revisit and expand Ghaf; but since this cursed relay finished off my computer I have limited computer access. I'm watching with interest though! And maybe I'll join in again later.
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Post by Legion »

http://thelegion.free.fr/kozado.htm

Updated ; I extented nominal morphology and did most of verbal morphology.

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Post by Zhen Lin »

I'm still working on the grammar, but the text and lexicon for Mavakhalan are final, I hope.

The Khalan language.
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Post by Legion »

http://thelegion.free.fr/kozado.htm

Updated again, added :
-Numerals.
-Prevarble particle.
(I think morphology can be considered complete now).
-Begining of syntax.
-The first example sentence in the introduction.

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Post by Cedh »

The phonology of Aradŕy is complete!

(I may still change the orthography, and possibly fine-tune some allophony rules, but most of it can be considered final. I'll also have to work out some conhistory to name the notorious "some dialects" :))

@ Zhen Lin: I hope you don't mind me recycling your css file...

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Post by Zhen Lin »

It looks impressively analysed, and the prosody part seems well researched. Though perhaps an explanation about the rows in the last table would be good - is that saying that the first vowel of the root affects the vocalisation?
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Post by Cedh »

Zhen Lin wrote:It looks impressively analysed, and the prosody part seems well researched.
Thank you :D
Though perhaps an explanation about the rows in the last table would be good - is that saying that the first vowel of the root affects the vocalisation?
The rows designate the last vowel of the root.
For example, the genitive singular (-ny) of kal- (Erhadzy kál) is kauny, but that of kelil- (Erhadzy kályəl) is keliyuny.
In the essive case (-ey), both keep the /l/: kaley/keliley

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Post by TzirTzi »

So, Yēt ( /jE:Ot/ ) is going well - phonology is finished except for phonotactics, and noun declension is finished. However, I've lost my pdf maker.. so I'll have to post it in .doc for now.

So for those who can read it - Here It Is So Far.
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Post by kodé »

I've started uploading. This may take a while, so don't hold your breath.

Seriously, my website doesn't have insurance to cover that.

*tumbleweed blows by*

Alright, here it is : http://www.soapboxindustries.com/zbb/aghiyi.html
linguoboy wrote:
GrinningManiac wrote:Local pronunciation - /ˈtoʊ.stə/
Ah, so now I know where Towcester pastries originated! Cheers.

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Post by 4pq1injbok »

Good to see this is still going -- last time I was active on the ZBB it looked moribund. Anyway, I anticipate having some time upcomingly so would very much like to take part. I don't particularly mind where in the tree I go, but somewhere with a big and undepleted lexicon would be nice.

I've always liked this sort of game: four of the langs at the talideon conlang wiki instance of the same thing are mine.

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Post by Cedh »

4pq1injbok wrote:Good to see this is still going -- last time I was active on the ZBB it looked moribund. Anyway, I anticipate having some time upcomingly so would very much like to take part. I don't particularly mind where in the tree I go, but somewhere with a big and undepleted lexicon would be nice.
Welcome!

If you want a big lexicon, you could either wait for TzirTzi to finish Yēt (which may take some time) or start right away from any other language of the Æðadě branch, or from Mavakhalan (in the latter case, you might first ask Zhen Lin whether he considers it complete). I personally think it'd be good to choose an early language in order to broaden the family...

For reference, an overview with links to the language descriptions is here.

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Post by 4pq1injbok »

I should confirm that I've started to think about a descendant of Mavakhalan: i.e. if there's someone out there maintaining a tree of the project, stick me in it. Got the phonology mostly worked out, consonants and tone(!) at least, and some plans for the verbal system.

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Post by Radius Solis »

Just a taster... I'm sorry, I can't help it. My lexicon has turned out quite Romance-esque in some ways. And very vocalic. There's a great number of words in the dictionary I'm finding aesthetically beautiful, so.... just for a sampling, here's a few of them.


alazia -- a birch tree
reuemio -- a ford, or shallow place in a river
tiliozo -- a principle or conviction
uateua -- a handle. Derived etymologically from "snake-tail".
uestir -- a criminal
zinieze -- a chemical solvent. Derived from "clean-wine"
tiatrei -- a shirt or tunic
sercaio -- an emperor
paogua -- a naval commander
otromea -- the study of alchemy
metraco -- a shoe
loleaca -- a ring
fuilian -- teamwork, cooperation
dioma -- glass



<c> = /ts)/. The rest is all pretty close to IPA values (but /i u/ are often [j w]).

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Post by Zhen Lin »

Hmm. It does sound nice. But is it a representative sample?
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Post by Radius Solis »

Zhen Lin wrote:Hmm. It does sound nice. But is it a representative sample?
No, most words are shorter. In fact nearly all of those are loans or compounds. But it is pretty representative of the vowel:consonant ratio, or maybe a little low. Puoni is really quite vocalic.

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Post by Radius Solis »

I'm cutting corners to be able to meet my self-imposed deadline... don't worry, I'll uncut them later. First off here's a grammar. Incomplete, but it should be enough for someone starting to derive from it if anyone's going to. More has been written but not wikified yet, and a lot more still needs to be written, but... good enough for right now. I'm aware it needs a lot more examples, I'll get to them.

I'm probably first going to just stick a .txt of the lexicon up and work on HTMLizing it into a pretty dictionary later; my task now is the text.

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Post by Legion »

Cool stuff you got there !

Interestingly, Puoni default word order is identical to the word order Kozado uses in non-declarative sentences with an auxiliary construction, that is : AUX - S - O - main verb

Compare :


Puoni (I hope I didn't make mistakes) :

Peni neca gui kreota
AUX-PAST-3sg.3sg knife take
The wife took a knife


Kozado :

Zu o ze ñire ša tozio avleža
PRVB.REL-CLAUSE be.PFV.SG the wife a knife take-VN
The wife who took a knife


Interrestingly, "neca" and "ñire" are cognates, ultimatly from Ndak Ta "netrai".

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Post by Zhen Lin »

Interesting. An auxiliary-oriented verbal system... (I see the future auxilliary, none, appears to be cognate with the verb to go? This particular word seems to have a particularly stable phonological form of alveolar/dental nasal + vowel + alveolar/dental nasal.) What is the motivation for the main verbs being placed at the end, as opposed to, say, after the subject like a participle?

As for Mavakhalan, the word order for sentences with main and auxilliary verbs is reversed, e.g.:

za-ôvlêję aśjênnêrê nož roþę
after-take-VN GEN-DEF;SG;ACC-woman knife IND-be-AOR;SG
"the woman had taken a knife"
(perfect of result, past tense)

Alternatively,
źnêrê ropę za-ôvlêjenaka nož
DEF;SG;NOM-woman IND-sit-AOR;SG after-take-VN-3SG knife

Or even with two full verbs:
źnêrê ropę za-rôvlą nož
DEF;SG;NOM-woman IND-sit-AOR;SG after-IND-take-AOR;SG knife

Also, a note for 4pq1injbok, I've just noticed that some fine-tuning I made to the sound changes has created a new declension class. This necessitates some changes to the various examples.
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Post by Legion »

Zhen Lin wrote:Interesting. An auxiliary-oriented verbal system... (I see the future auxilliary, none, appears to be cognate with the verb to go? This particular word seems to have a particularly stable phonological form of alveolar/dental nasal + vowel + alveolar/dental nasal.)
And, still in Puoni, the perfect auxiliary ta is cognate with the verb to become - said verb having been reanalised, in Kozado, as the suppletive form of the mediopassive voice of se to be (which is very convenient, as the use of se as an auxialary requires the possibility to use it in the mediopassive voice, and because to become is no longer needed as a stand-alone verb in Kozado, precisely because the auxiliary construction conveys a dynamic or inchoative aspect).

What is the motivation for the main verbs being placed at the end, as opposed to, say, after the subject like a participle?
I don't know for Rad, but for me it is reminiscent of the V2 word order of germanic languages.

Also the things in Kozado are more complex than this.
The basic word order is SVO :

Ze ñire ro avlas ša tozio.
the wife PRVB keep-IPFV.SG a knife
The wife keeps a knife.

If a preverbal particle other than <b>ro</b> or <b>ras</b> (negative particle) is used, the word order becomes VSO (and the subject is switched in the oblique case, but this only affect pronouns, since Kozado nouns do not decline).

Zu avlas ze ñire ša tozio.
PRVB.REL-CLAUS keep-IPFV.SG the wife a knife
The wife who keeps a knife.

If we want to had a dynamic meaning (to keep > to take) we use the auxialiary construction, but in Kozada, two word orders are possible in this case :

The conjuct order is the least marked one. The verbal noun comes right after the auxiliary :

Ze ñire ro se avleža ša tozio.
the wife PRVB be.IPFV.SG take-VN a knife
The wife takes a knife.

The disjunct order is more formal, more affirmative (kinda like the use of -dir (3SG of the verb olmak to be in Turkish, as opposed to nothing). In this order, the verbal noun goes at the very end of the verb phrase :

Ze ñire ro se ša tozio avleža.
the wife PRVB be.IPFV.SG a knife take-VN
The wife takes a knife.

(we could have been even more formal and use the irregular form of the verbal noun, evlleža)


Staccato wrote:I love this project, and hope it continues.... I initially wanted to be part of the action, but with the last deadlines of November...it looks like it may be twenty years before it gets to the last person. Can anyone update me with the progress here, so I don't have to read through twelve pages of confusion?
You've got a page of who does/did what which is regularly updated here :
http://www.spinnoff.com/zbb/viewtopic.p ... 816#493816



Also : I'm in the opinion that new comers in this relay should be allowed to just make a daughter of the language they like, instead of keeping the team thing. That way people don't have to wait for months, and the resulting tree will be much more realistic.

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Post by Zhen Lin »

Legion wrote:I don't know for Rad, but for me it is reminiscent of the V2 word order of germanic languages.
Yes, but the thing is, German has SOV underlying the V2... The family ancestor, though, has VSO. I suppose, since Fáralo provides the SOV base here, Radius isn't really in a position to answer the question.
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