In search of isolating conlangs

[Ulrike Meinhof]

New grammars are posted on here from time to time, but at least judging from what I have saved to my hard drive, they are exclusively of primarily agglutinating or inflecting conlangs. I have never seen a conlang that's isolating to the degree that eg. Mandarin is. Surely they must be out there somewhere?

I'm asking partly out of sheer curiosity, and partly because my next large project will be isolating and I need inspiration.

[Legion]

I'm working on one, but there's not much to show right now.

[treskro]

How about this?

"In this brief introduction to the Illiad,
iñado du nudang ñežor dhas
Iliad GEN short introduction LOC,

we can't give entrance to the controversy regarding the person and work of Homer.
abəiu omero gami koryvi usu tešopau e’a athii ii.
[agree.NEG Homer self work] DAT permit.NEG Perf 1p.neut NOM

There are many who doubt the existence of Homer [...].
vatho tota gəbe amri ii nefi naktheiu omero ga.
think large.amt person NOM RN [exist.NEG Homer] ACC.

But then so did Whately conclude that Napoleon didn't exist,
rim noroit e’a ueityr ii nefi naktheiu naporion ga
Cntr conclude Perf Whately NOM RN [exist.NEG Napoleon] ACC

and so did Henry Smith suppose that Shakespeare's dramas belong to chancellor Bacon.
thiu muvorot fedhatha mə e’a qenri-zmith ii šeikšupiir ta a’yryn koryvi ga utykyn atəbi beikon usu.
also theorize own AUX Perf Henry Smith NOM Shakespeare POS excessive work ACC foreign leader Bacon DAT

Atheists, taking the shortcut, deny the existence of God and explain the world by spontaneous generation and the like."
eñedhan, kidhau e’a uumriamri ii umri du nakthei ga, ovurun edoptə deno mi dhas danšya dhyn və daizo ii.
circumvent, affirm.NEG Perf atheist NOM deity GEN existence ACC, describe one.time jump self LOC ocean CpLOC AUX Perf world NOM.

[Torco]

I'm working on one, but there's not much to show right now.

Ditto; Bixînke only has two bound morphemes, but at this time it's almost non-existent.

[Yng]

Likewise. I have a few sketchy notes on an isolating conlang, but nothing to show for it (yet).

[Cockroach]

Tll-Fusyn has only 3 bound morphemes, and in the future will have none.

[brandrinn]

Pretty much all of Qang/Sano's languages are isolating.

[roninbodhisattva]

I've been toying with the idea of making my next conlang endeavor very isolating, with any bound morphemes being very transparent. We'll see.

[Ars Lande]

Hieroglyphic Tarandim is isolating (although it has kept case distinctions for the pronouns); it has a ~700 words lexicon, and although I'm mostly interested in its descendant, classical Tarandim, I should write a complete grammar for it.
I'm rather fond of the way it works; and I can't resist showing off one or two sentences...

Gagwon beʔ swo, twum ha les poy rum əs tweŋ.
poor man low / lost PFV small.object not see OPT they
Lowly is the poor man, what he has lost will not be sought for

Men hi krawm kaw ha ŋammow hu ŋwas sah, trə ri gəh poy beʔ gwewŋ say poyskawm saʔ.
But I begin.to come PFV palace big door its / that.time desire know no man king my health his.
When I arrived at the palace gate, no one enquired after the well-being of my king.

I'm more interested in its descendants though; Classical Tarandim is agglutinating, Nebari will be isolating, with a Mandarin-like syntax.

[alice]

One of mine is in between English and Mandarin in its isolatingitude.

[Ulrike Meinhof]

One of mine is in between English and Mandarin in its isolatingitude.

And is there a grammar of it?

[alice]

One of mine is in between English and Mandarin in its isolatingitude.

And is there a grammar of it?

There is, but it's due for a significant overhaul, so I don't see much point in putting it online at the moment.

[Kilanie]

Couldn't you look to Chinese for inspiration?

[Ulrike Meinhof]

Couldn't you look to Chinese for inspiration?

Well yes, but it'd be nice to see what people have come up with for their conlangs too.

[Yng]

Or Vietnamese... mmm, sexy Vietnamese.

Not exactly isolating (later incarnations have spattered the spectrum of inflection), but close enough: one of my very early conlangs: Hariiji. Only a few bound morphemes.

[qiihoskeh]

I just started a language whose immediate ancestor is isolating, but I don't know yet if the grammar actually works in detail -- for that I need sufficient vocabulary. I'll post something if it does.

[langover94]

Or Vietnamese... mmm, sexy Vietnamese.

Actually Vietnamese is more of a turn off for me... It has one of the worst romanized orthographies that I have ever seen.

I've always wanted to make an isolating conlang, but I never took on the task because of its complexity. (Or, what seems to me like complexity.)

[Nortaneous]

I think I'm gonna start working on Gadaye sometime tonight then.

[Mbwa]

I've wanted to make an isolating language for a while now. I mean, all my conlang attempts have failed, so it's not like there's anything holding me back from isolating langs in particular. Once I figure out how to actually keep conlangs, I'll definitely make an isolating one.

[Rik]

O Yis is (mostly) isolating.

[Nortaneous]

how to actually keep conlangs

My method is to make a fuckton of them so that, when I lose interest in one or come up with a feature that I want to base a lang around, I can just put that one to the side and come back to it later.

[Ulrike Meinhof]

how to actually keep conlangs

My method is to make a fuckton of them so that, when I lose interest in one or come up with a feature that I want to base a lang around, I can just put that one to the side and come back to it later.

My plan is to make a quick one that I don't care much about first so I know what it's like to create a conlang, then gain obscene amounts of knowledge in every possible field of linguistics and make a lang that will blow everyone's brains out.

[Z500]

Puthe is pretty isolating. most grammatical particles appear as independent words. single letter affixes attach to their head, though that's mostly orthography i guess.

The lion ate the medicine man, I heard
PERF-eat-IMM medicine.man EVH lion
fhamś pkɯ́wɯ́t em jaŋkt

I ate...before I went to the market
PERF-eat-DIST.PAST ... to market before PERF-go
fhamé...mɯ̣́ ų fu fke

breakfast
(at first mealtime)
ɯt hà phɯ̀ŋ
ORD one at-mealtime

[Yng]

Puthe is pretty isolating. most grammatical particles appear as independent words. single letter affixes attach to their head, though that's mostly orthography i guess.

The lion ate the medicine man, I heard
PERF-eat-IMM medicine.man EVH lion
fhamś pkɯ́wɯ́t em jaŋkt

I ate...before I went to the market
PERF-eat-DIST.PAST ... to market before PERF-go
fhamé...mɯ̣́ ų fu fke

breakfast
(at first mealtime)
ɯt hà phɯ̀ŋ
ORD one at-mealtime

That's pretty cool (perhaps because I have a strange liking for amazingly ugly orthographies ) and vaguely similar to what I was planning on doing. Do you have a grammar?

[Z500]

yeah, look in the Memeyk family thread. it might be on page 2 now, i'm not sure