In search of isolating conlangs

[Astraios]

How is that isolating then?

Isolating and compounding aren't exclusive.

[Wattmann]

How is that isolating then?

Isolating and compounding aren't exclusive.

Isolating => near 1/1 morpheme/word ratio
Compounding => lot/1 morpheme/word ratio


I believe you're refering to analicty

[Ollock]

How is that isolating then?

Isolating and compounding aren't exclusive.

Isolating => near 1/1 morpheme/word ratio
Compounding => lot/1 morpheme/word ratio


I believe you're refering to analicty

I always took analytic and isolating to be synonyms.

[Wattmann]

Strange...
I've always had an image of them as seperate: analicity refers to a lack of inflection paradigms, and isolationality to a near 1/1 M/W ratio

Therefore, Mandarin Chinese and Vietnamese are on the opposite sides of isolationality: Mandarin has compounds, but is very analytic; while Vietnamese is perfectly isolational and analytic.

[Astraios]

Except Vietnamese isn't like that because it has compounds too (they're just still written separately).

[Ollock]

Strange...
I've always had an image of them as seperate: analicity refers to a lack of inflection paradigms, and isolationality to a near 1/1 M/W ratio

Therefore, Mandarin Chinese and Vietnamese are on the opposite sides of isolationality: Mandarin has compounds, but is very analytic; while Vietnamese is perfectly isolational and analytic.

Except Vietnamese isn't like that because it has compounds too (they're just still written separately).

Not knowing anything about Vietnamese, I'm more inclined to believe Astraios here. I find it hard to think that an analytic language can work without some level of compounding. You can only have so many possible syllables.

[Wattmann]

Except Vietnamese isn't like that because it has compounds too (they're just still written separately).

This is my "oh aw" moment.

[Astraios]

(Also Chinese also writes compounds the same as it writes single-morpheme words - except it just doesn't have a space between any of them.)

[----]

Except Vietnamese isn't like that because it has compounds too (they're just still written separately).

This is true, and extremely so. I would go so far as to say the *majority* of words in Vietnamese are compounds. Many forms have two words where one of them no longer has any meaning by itself (these are not to be confused with the reduplicated forms which are highly variable and pretty complicated). It also has inflections on some words depending on how you analyze it.

[Moanaka]

My latest endeavour is basically all analytic, and mostly isolating. So far there is only one affix, for derivation.

It doesn't have a phonology right now, and I would feel weird throwing up random glosses, so, I guess I'll just work on this till it sticks, or is at least semi-presentable.

EDIT: it's also probably gonna have quite a bit of compound nouns...

How is that isolating then?

Well I'm still deciding about the noun compounds. It originally was all isolating. If I decide to not use noun compounds, wtih only one affix I'd say it's still pretty damn isolating.

[Moanaka]

dubl post dunno how

[Wattmann]

/me cowers in shame.

[Astraios]

/me cowers in shame.

You should do that more often, it suits you. :3

[Turtlehead]

Try toki pona for inspiration.

[Moanaka]

Strange...
I've always had an image of them as seperate: analicity refers to a lack of inflection paradigms, and isolationality to a near 1/1 M/W ratio

Therefore, Mandarin Chinese and Vietnamese are on the opposite sides of isolationality: Mandarin has compounds, but is very analytic; while Vietnamese is perfectly isolational and analytic.

Except Vietnamese isn't like that because it has compounds too (they're just still written separately).

Not knowing anything about Vietnamese, I'm more inclined to believe Astraios here. I find it hard to think that an analytic language can work without some level of compounding. You can only have so many possible syllables.

Wait what? Maybe i'm not understanding what you mean here, but are you conflating analytic with monosyllabic? Also, on the difference between analytic and isolating, my understanding is that isolating refers to a 1/1 morpheme to word ratio as Wattman said, while analytic refers to a language that doesn't use bound morhpemes to indicate grammatical function. So in an analytic language, derivational morphology is perfectly fine.

[TomHChappell]

Strange...
I've always had an image of them as seperate: analicity refers to a lack of inflection paradigms, and isolationality to a near 1/1 M/W ratio

Please!
analyticity

[Wattmann]

Strange...
I've always had an image of them as seperate: analicity refers to a lack of inflection paradigms, and isolationality to a near 1/1 M/W ratio

Please!
analyticity

Thanks!

...now that you colourlight it, it bears an uncanny resemblance to "anal"

[TomHChappell]

Thanks!
...now that you colourlight it, it bears an uncanny resemblance to "anal"

Which is why I said "Please!" instead of just showing the correction without any exclamation.

[Ollock]

Wait what? Maybe i'm not understanding what you mean here, but are you conflating analytic with monosyllabic? Also, on the difference between analytic and isolating, my understanding is that isolating refers to a 1/1 morpheme to word ratio as Wattman said, while analytic refers to a language that doesn't use bound morhpemes to indicate grammatical function. So in an analytic language, derivational morphology is perfectly fine.

Wikipedia (kinda) agrees with you:

An isolating language is a type of language with a low morpheme-per-word ratio — in the extreme case of an isolating language words are composed of a single morpheme. A closely related concept is the analytic language, which in the extreme case does not use any inflections to indicate grammatical relationships (but which may still form compound words or may change the meanings of individual words with derivational morphemes, either of which processes gives more than one morpheme per word).

(Emphasis mine.)

Though Wikipedia takes it with some controversy, I would still say that Chinese is mostly isolating despite it's large number of two-morpheme compounds. Compare Chinese, for instance, with highly inflectional or agglutinating languages that may require upwards of four morphemes per word just to get the grammatical marking working, or German's batshit crazy compound chains. Also, word boundaries in Chinese are quite fuzzy (I would argue moreso than some other languages), with such structures as standardized verb+object constructions and the like.

As far as the syllable comment: they typological categories analytic, monosyllabic, and tonal tend to occur together, statistically, and I do believe that isolating runs with that group as well, so to speak.

[Moanaka]

Admittedly, Wikipedia was my main source for that. Anyway, I hope my post didn't come off as accusatory. It wasn't meant to be. Not that your post sounded defensive, I'm just making sure, you know?

[Nortaneous]

I always took analytic and isolating to be synonyms.

An analytic language is a language that conveys grammatical relationships syntactically — that is, via the use of unbound morphemes, which are separate words, rather than via bound morphemes, which are inflectional prefixes, suffixes or infixes. If a language is isolating, with only a single morpheme per word, then by necessity it must convey grammatical relationships analytically.

However, the reverse is not always true: for example, Mandarin Chinese can be argued[4] to have many compound words, giving it a moderately high ratio of morphemes per word, yet since it does not use inflections to convey grammatical relationships it is an analytic language.

It is also possible that a language may have virtually no inflectional morphology but have a larger number of derivational affixes. For example, Indonesian has only two inflectional affixes but about 25 derivational morphemes. With only two inflectional affixes, Indonesian can be considered mostly analytic.

[Ollock]

I always took analytic and isolating to be synonyms.

An analytic language is a language that conveys grammatical relationships syntactically — that is, via the use of unbound morphemes, which are separate words, rather than via bound morphemes, which are inflectional prefixes, suffixes or infixes. If a language is isolating, with only a single morpheme per word, then by necessity it must convey grammatical relationships analytically.

However, the reverse is not always true: for example, Mandarin Chinese can be argued[4] to have many compound words, giving it a moderately high ratio of morphemes per word, yet since it does not use inflections to convey grammatical relationships it is an analytic language.

It is also possible that a language may have virtually no inflectional morphology but have a larger number of derivational affixes. For example, Indonesian has only two inflectional affixes but about 25 derivational morphemes. With only two inflectional affixes, Indonesian can be considered mostly analytic.

I quoted precisely the same Wikipedia article later, though I disagreed with the statement on Mandarin (which I did not quote but tangentially mentioned), I am coming around to the idea that isolating and analytic are not the same thing. In other words, an Internet discussion has changed my mind. It is possible, you know.

[Pole, the]

Ki con lamu, cel pe tade, cel pe maxo tade,
1SG here be, place REL PAST, place REL born PAST

ki con cadal tade i con exo dede.
1SG here educate PAST and here decide stay

Semu tade waxel node i hoxo ha-con,
can PAST ride out and far from-here

go tomu-cu ki dede wide cak pe dede.
but despite-that 1SG stay with person REL stay

[clawgrip]

Thought I'd contribute a language of mine, Himmaswa, that seems to fit what the OP was asking for:

Tek jbuntrauk de jau dua tui nlooayk gnia euuk ptiah koh nek btiaork ler keuuyia. Jbuntrauk haeyt paiyt paeyk nlooayk bia bgaiy keuu beym dreung tkar joot keuuyia ler ot teuk swa ler ot. Yoan tui aajung keuuyia ler ot bio chai pñork dang bio borm gna lobnih sianghooay.

/ and / God / descend / approach / PAST / 3P / see / place / that (distal) / have / city / and / tower / of / people / . / God / say / send / go out / see / moment / now / person / many / get together / work / be like / people / of / one / use / language / of / one / . / if / 3P / become / people / of / one / succeed / do / this thing / therefore / succeed / can / regardless / what thing / imagine / .

The Romanization is a little odd, but I've been using it for so long and I'm not interested in changing it.

It is written in a fully logographic script as well.

[finlay]

It is written in a fully logographic script as well.

oh wow