Conlangery Podcast (Latest Ep: #94: Face and Politeness)

[Salmoneus]

Oh, THAT sort of creative rut!

I thought the show had taken a liberal turn.

[Ollock]

We had a few options:
a. Make them learn our conlangs.
b. Take over the world.
c. Make them give me money.
d. All the above.

Actually, you guys should give me some money. Seriously, I need money for a real microphone so I don't sound so dweeby.

Oh, THAT sort of creative rut!

I thought the show had taken a liberal turn.

Hmm? Well, Will did mention to us his quest to get some gay porn embroidered on some pillows.

[Ossicone]

Cross-stitching.

Maybe I should knit him some?
(Knitting is also different.)

[TaylorS]

Thanks, this is an issue for me because I like highly synthetic languages and I hate large vowel inventories (though the later has a somewhat practical reason in that I hate doing diacritics or digraphs for vowels

[Ollock]

Thanks, this is an issue for me because I like highly synthetic languages and I hate large vowel inventories (though the later has a somewhat practical reason in that I hate doing diacritics or digraphs for vowels

Hmm, then maybe you should make a language with front-rounded vowels and lots of diphthongs.

Or an analytic lang.

Or both at once, as long as you're careful to avoid simply remaking Mandarin.

[Přemysl]

Episode 16 on Tense is out

[Bob Johnson]

Maaan, I'm jonesin' hard, maan... I need a fix--

NINJA'D

[Risla]

You should do an episode on poetic and literary forms.

[Bob Johnson]

I keep hearing your <Na'vi> as <not vee>

[Ollock]

Sorry I was late to update the list. Here is your link: Conlangery #16: Tense

You should do an episode on poetic and literary forms.

I really want to do poetry. But every time we mention it Bianca says she hates poetry.

I keep hearing your <Na'vi> as <not vee>

Does your dialect have /t/ > [ʔ]? I wouldn't necessarily expect it given your location, but I'm pretty sure I produce [ʔ] correctly.

[Bob Johnson]

I really want to do poetry. But every time we mention it Bianca says she hates poetry.

There seem to be very few things she doesn't hate. ... Do it anyway.

I keep hearing your <Na'vi> as <not vee>

Does your dialect have /t/ > [ʔ]? I wouldn't necessarily expect it given your location, but I'm pretty sure I produce [ʔ] correctly.

Yeah, word-finally before a consonant, maybe in a few other odd contexts; not intervocalic which is just [d] (or free variation with [t⁼] unaspirated which I can't tell from [d] anyway). I guess that's it, though I swear it sounds like a [t]-release. (Both you and Bianca.) Maybe the tongue is still close to [n] position. *shrug*

Edit: Fixed markup

[Ollock]

I really want to do poetry. But every time we mention it Bianca says she hates poetry.

There seem to be very few things she doesn't hate. ... Do it anyway.

We'll see. We have a list of things for the moment

I keep hearing your <Na'vi> as <not vee>

Does your dialect have /t/ > [ʔ]? I wouldn't necessarily expect it given your location, but I'm pretty sure I produce [ʔ] correctly.

Yeah, word-finally before a consonant, maybe in a few other odd contexts; not intervocalic which is just [d] (or free variation with [t⁼] unaspirated which I can't tell from [d] anyway). I guess that's it, though I swear it sounds like a [t]-release. (Both you and Bianca.) Maybe the tongue is still close to [n] position. :shrug:[/quote]

Hmm. I do put a lot of emphasis on my [ʔ], often with a really strong release.

[Přemysl]

Bob's situation sounds like the Connecticut Glottal Stop. Did you live in CT or have contact with a number of Nutmeggers? I wonder if the phenomenon is spreading to New York from all the commuters.

[finlay]

Sorry I was late to update the list. Here is your link: Conlangery #16: Tense

You should do an episode on poetic and literary forms.

I really want to do poetry. But every time we mention it Bianca says she hates poetry.

I keep hearing your <Na'vi> as <not vee>

Does your dialect have /t/ > [ʔ]? I wouldn't necessarily expect it given your location, but I'm pretty sure I produce [ʔ] correctly.

I hear that too. I also had a good giggle when none of you could pronounce "Tmaśareʔ" properly last week, because I have [ʔ] as part of my own accent – I would just hear it the same as /t/.

[Bob Johnson]

Bob's situation sounds like the Connecticut Glottal Stop. Did you live in CT or have contact with a number of Nutmeggers? I wonder if the phenomenon is spreading to New York from all the commuters.

No, TN, dash of MI, bit of NY, listening to lots of BrE and careful GenAm (newscasters, radio, etc), stir until mixed, bake at 400F for a long bloody time, god I'm old.

It's more likely Southern; it's really obvious when I do my impression of Dana Carvey's impression of King George I saying <not gonna do it>. The first one almost turns into an ejective k, and at the end my tongue is nowhere near the alveolar ridge.

(... that's George Bush Sr., our president before Clinton)

[Nortaneous]

IMI [nɑʔ gn̩ːdʏ̯uːɪʔ]

isn't t > ʔ / _{# C} p. widespread in america?

[Přemysl]

It's more likely Southern; it's really obvious when I do my impression of Dana Carvey's impression of King George I saying <not gonna do it>. The first one almost turns into an ejective k, and at the end my tongue is nowhere near the alveolar ridge.

That is very interesting, my glottal stop wants to turn it into an implosive g.

[Bob Johnson]

Oh oops, did I mix those up? I'm not very good at either. (And trying makes my throat hurt)

It feels like swallowing my tongue.

[Ossicone]

I really want to do poetry. But every time we mention it Bianca says she hates poetry.

There seem to be very few things she doesn't hate. ... Do it anyway.

It is true -- I think poetry is absolute pissbilge so I don't have anything constructive to add to such an episode. Every time they mention it I sugget they get a guest who is more poetry friendly.

[Nortaneous]

Oh oops, did I mix those up? I'm not very good at either. (And trying makes my throat hurt)

It feels like swallowing my tongue.

That'd probably be an implosive. They're not that hard; I occasionally have them for voiced stops in normal speech. Try to do a redneck accent and you might end up hitting them.

[Ollock]

I really want to do poetry. But every time we mention it Bianca says she hates poetry.

There seem to be very few things she doesn't hate. ... Do it anyway.

It is true -- I think poetry is absolute pissbilge so I don't have anything constructive to add to such an episode. Every time they mention it I sugget they get a guest who is more poetry friendly.

If we do, we will have to find someone with a good variety of languages. I'm sure William will do some research, but I don't know if poetry is his thing. And my only references are English (with various systems, mostly stress-based), Spanish (sharing some forms with English, but with more syllable counting -- though there is an interesting interaction with syllable counting and stress), and one immensely rigid and complicated Classical Chinese poetic form.

[Latinist13]

I really want to do poetry. But every time we mention it Bianca says she hates poetry.

There seem to be very few things she doesn't hate. ... Do it anyway.

It is true -- I think poetry is absolute pissbilge so I don't have anything constructive to add to such an episode. Every time they mention it I sugget they get a guest who is more poetry friendly.

If we do, we will have to find someone with a good variety of languages. I'm sure William will do some research, but I don't know if poetry is his thing. And my only references are English (with various systems, mostly stress-based), Spanish (sharing some forms with English, but with more syllable counting -- though there is an interesting interaction with syllable counting and stress), and one immensely rigid and complicated Classical Chinese poetic form.

My references are English and Latin, and through reading the PCK, I have learned some things about how other systems work (I've learned a fair bit about how Hebrew poetry works through Bible studies, but I cannot speak it, yet). It all depends on when you guys want to do it or are able to do it. I am rather busy with clinicals, projects, and Latin Composition, but I could see if I could swing something. PM me date and time and approximate length of time, and I'll let you know. IIRC, don't you use Skype to conduct these podcasts? If so, add me on Skype. If you are interested, I'll PM my skype user name.

[Přemysl]

Poetry would be a great podcast. Look at how different poetry is between English, Latin, Greek, Japanese, Arabic, Persian, and Sanskrit. When I was working on my Irianian conlang it was interesting to see how meter and other devices work with what different languages have for accent (stress, pitch, tone?), phonotactics, and word length. I personally found it interesting how we use rhyme in non-inflected English and how alliteration was used in inflected Latin. It was also interesting to see how styles of poetry from one language are adapted for another. We see that with the Ghazal in Persian (Rumi anyone?) or the Haiku in English (with syllables instead of morae).

Then there are the considerations of theme. Some forms of poetry are used for unobtainable love, some for a pastoral theme, some for praise, and others for mourning. And that can be played as a device when you adapt the theme to something different, mourning the night, praising death, a deity as the object of unobtained love. I've read a series of poems that are ostensibly about praising wine but I've heard interpretations that the wine symbolizes the love of Allah.

There is a lot of consideration and playing with language that goes into poetry. To me that makes it perfect for conlangs and conlangers.

And may I just say the wikipedia entry on the ghazal blows furry goat chunks? It mentions nothing about meter pattern, couplets (ash'aar), rhyme (qaafiyaa), repeated phrases (radeef), the incorporation of the takhallus (a sort of pseudnym of the poet), or the final couplet (maqtaa or aakhiri sh'er depending if it has the takhallus).

[finlay]

Who's the fourth guy? Is he a member here?


Anyway, I had a quick correction for the Japanese example here: you have い (i) adjectives and な (na) adjectives, correct, but な is more of an attributive marker and only shows up before a noun, so the example given, ゆうめいなですyuumei na desu I think, should be just ゆうめいです yuumei desu. So you can say ゆうめいな人 yuumei na hito for "famous man" but 人はゆうめいです hito wa yuumei desu for "the man is famous".

Now it's been argued that Japanese doesn't have proper adjectives because the な attributive marker behaves in a very similar way to the の no genitive particle that can conjoin two nouns in exactly the same way, and I think there is cross-pollination, like some colours which use の instead of な (I can't quite remember, I only learnt it at a basic level and I demonstrably understood more of the linguistic theory than the teacher did, so we weren't taught it in this way, we were just taught that there were two different kinds of adjectives). So な adjectives behave "like nouns" and い adjectives behave "like verbs" – as you noted, they can take verbal suffixes like かった katta for the past tense or ない nai for the negative. But I'd argue at the same time that the fact that な is different from の shows that they seem to be distinguished by the language.

[Ollock]

As to poetry, I just got an email from William saying in no uncertain terms that he's a poetry guy, and well-versed at least in Ancient Greek poetic forms. Knowing him he's probably done research other places.

Who's the fourth guy? Is he a member here?

Jaime Monadero. He's actually just starting with conlanging (and the podcast is one of his first contacts with the conlanging world). He has a twitter account: @EternalAshes, which is where I found him talking about the podcast. I've decided that, our audience being so small, I'll have just about anyone on once. Jaime said he may want to come back as well, but so far he hasn't been able too.