kårroť scratchpad - Necroes welcome!

[Travis B.]

@Travis:
What do you suggest? I have been mainly writing for myself up until now.

Specify a template into which morphemes can be added, and for each morpheme specify its allomorphy and how it interacts with the morphemes adjacent to it. Of course this works better for more agglutinative languages rather than more fusional ones, for which a table might just be better, but your language here seems like it would be pretty well-suited for this.

[mèþru]

I am working on a different language (I won't post it to stay on topic here and go back to Proto-Kkasetan), and I made a strict word order (V dO iO S), but also a case system that eliminates the need for a strict word order. I don't want to use to reflect mood as in some of my other languages. Any ideas for another use?

[Vijay]

Emphasis? (Or is that still mood?)

[mèþru]

I have a wiki now, with one page:
https://karrot.miraheze.org/wiki/Geography

[mèþru]

More Khasoitoi:
Nouns
Like verbs, nouns have an a-stem, i-stem and u-stem. However, all sonorants, regardless of palatalisation and place of articulation belong to the n-stem. Each has their own plural.
I-stem – masculine (leutíni, leutínilìm)
-im after consonants, -lim after vowels
N-stem – masculine (xwal, xwálus)
-us
A-stem – feminine (muxábis, muxábisàx)
-ax after consonants, -lax after vowels
U-stem – feminine (múnulu, múnulukw')
-ukw' after consonants, -kw' after vowels
Mass nouns are usually n-stem or u-stem. Abstract nouns are mainly n-stem.
All nouns derived from other categories have neuter gender, whatever their stem is. There are other exceptions to the gender-stem alignment. Repeating a noun emphasises it.

[mèþru]

Now I will change to a project that I'm currently working on:
Telamkal
/p t k/ <p t k>
/m n/ <m n>
/s ʃ x/ <s š h>
/w j/ <v j>
/l/ <l>
Alternative orthography:
/p~b t~d k~ɡ] <п б т д к г>
/m n/ <м н>
/s~z ʃ~ ʒ x/ <с з ш ж х>
/w/ <ԝ>
/l/ <л>
/i u e o ə ä~ɑ~ɒ ji ju je jo jä wi wə/ <і у э о ӗ а а́ а́ ї ю ё я ԝї ԝё>

Aspiration as in English
Intervocalic voicing
/x/ is [h] before /ə ä/. It merges with /w/ in allophonic voicing. while /xi/ after a vowel become [ji]
/wi/ becomes [ɥi]. /t n l/ become palatalised before /ʃ j i/ and [ɥ].
Consonants are rounded before /w/ (bilabials are already round)
One dialect (D1) pronounces /xw/ as [ʍː], or [wː] intervocalically. Another (D2) pronounces /xwä/ as [ho], contrasting with [xo] and both turning into [wo] allophonically.
[n] becomes [ŋ] before /k x/ for most speakers. Both D1 and D2 speakers always have /nw nwi/ as [ŋʷw ɲɥ], while other dialects have the first only as tendency while preferring /nwi/ as [n̠ᶣɥi].

ä/æ/[jie]_
ä/ɒ/w_
ä/ɑ/_[kxŋ]C
ä/ɑ/_i
ə/ɵ/w_

Phonotactics
C=snʃmtljwpkx
1=kptsʃmnx
2=snʃmtlpkx
3=ntklmp
W=wj
S=ʃs
V=aouieə
CV
CV2
CV3S
1WV
1WV2
V
1WV3S
V2
V3S

sj/ʃ/_
s/ʃ/_wi
ə/i/j_
No gemination.

[mèþru]

I've lost the sound changes for all the descendants of the protolang I created in beginning of the thread. I need to remember to save things much more often (it was sitting in open SCA tabs without any copies for more than half a year!)

[mèþru]

The wiki now has the latest version of the species list

kårroť has a different star, a different distance from said star (even if you adjust scales proportionally for the different star, it is still not proportionally the same distance) and a different atmosphere than Earth. Plus most kårroť humans are tetrachromats. So how would they perceive colours? And what would be their colour terms? How would they see the things we see? What colour is the sky there? etc.

I promise Telamkal will be interesting. Here's a taste of the still-in-progress nominal system:

Nouns are declined for case, number and animacy. They have singular, dual and trial forms, but there is no plural. These are fusional, as the suffixes for the forms also indicate whether something is animate or not. Different roots have different declensions patterns for those forms.

Classifiers will be used in conjunction with numbers for when you have more than three things. I only found one language with both gender and classifiers, Khmu'. If anyone can find a grammar of it or of a language that has both classifiers and gender or case, it would be much appreciated

Cases are marked by prefix. There are eight cases

Direct objects after the verb akš (а́кш) “to go” generally take either the locative or ablative cases.

I haven't tried making a full blown number system with etymologies. Tips for that would be useful. My partner in making Telamkal suggested making them identical to/derived from the names of the ten fingers. The descendant languages would later distinguish them.

[gach]

Plus most kårroť humans are tetrachromats. So how would they perceive colours? And what would be their colour terms? How would they see the things we see? What colour is the sky there? etc.

Adding more base colours quickly explodes the number of colour distinctions that you are able to make. If you are only looking at simple mixtures of two of your base colours, then three bases (B-G-R) will give you three distinct mixes,

Code: Select all

  B
 / \
R - G

When you add a fourth base (let's call it Y for yellow), you'll get one additional binary mixture in the cycle of the bases (B-G-Y-R), but there also appear two distinct mixtures across the cycle that don't exist in the trichromatic system,

Code: Select all

B - G
| X |
R - Y

In other words, in tetrachromatic colours you can have for example a "blue-yellow" colour that's different from "green". You also get mixtures of three base colours that don't have direct counterparts in the trichromatic system.

More accurately speaking, adding more base colours to the colour vision means that you are dividing the visible spectrum with narrower basis functions, like these ones here, which are used to mix the rest of the colours. The effect of this is that your vision gives finer information about the spectrum of the incoming light and you are also better able to define colours that consist of narrower spectral areas with gaps in between.

Classifiers will be used in conjunction with numbers for when you have more than three things. I only found one language with both gender and classifiers, Khmu'. If anyone can find a grammar of it or of a language that has both classifiers and gender or case, it would be much appreciated.

I'm not familiar with Khmu, but the Arawakan languages, like Palikúr or Tariana, quite often have both a masculine-feminine(-neuter) gender system and some selection of rich classifier systems. And much closer to home, several Indic languages, such as Bengali, appear to have small sets of numeral classifiers besides having gender.

[mèþru]

Thanks!


By classifiers I meant specifically numeral classifiers.

[rotting bones]

I like this conworld, but I don't have the experience to critique it effectively.

Doesn't Bengali have case but minimal grammatical gender?

[rotting bones]

Here's an attempt anyway: You say your system has a K IV star. I'm no astrophysicist, but from this diagram: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-type_ma ... text-2.svg those are beige, right? You have to decide on the color of your star. (By color, I mean frequency range.) I couldn't find details on the atmospheric makeup of Courrauch. I was looking for those because I'm pretty sure you're supposed to apply this next: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rayleigh_scattering Once we know the frequencies entering the atmosphere, and the frequency ranges detected by the eyes of your species, we have to break those up into culturally distinguished "colors". Different cultures often distinguish colors differently, but there is still some degree of convergence on the basis of colors that are useful. For example, it is often useful for red to stand out brightly because it's the color of blood. At that point, we will know exactly what your species see when they look at the sky.

(Any or all of the above may be wrong. Being told over and over again that I'm raving maniacally has shot my confidence, so please be nice.)

PS. Never mind, I see the atmosphere on the wiki. Hm, you're supposed to find the Rayleigh cross sections of all the gases in the atmosphere. But it looks pretty similar to earth.

PPS. This document here gives Rayleigh cross section of methane as a function of wavelength on page 14: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi ... 012747.pdf

PPPS. Yeah, I think we just need to plug the wavelength you decide into the formula now. Is anything missing?

[rotting bones]

0.8% of your atmosphere being methane won't cause an explosion, but it is an extremely reactive gas. Won't you keep having to replace it?

PS. Methane is also a much, much worse greenhouse gas than CO2. I don't know if you have taken that into account, but it's something to bear in mind.

PPS. tl;dr You say the humans are tetrachromats, but what are the frequency ranges that their eyes detect as primary colors?

PPPS. Trying to create an account on your wiki says: [3a23e27598a6e9bc81403106] 2017-09-25 06:23:31: Fatal exception of type "Exception"

[mèþru]

Is anything missing?

Lack of knowledge on my part is the biggest problem [tongue sticking out smiley]. But thanks for all the help!

PPPS. Trying to create an account on your wiki says: [3a23e27598a6e9bc81403106] 2017-09-25 06:23:31: Fatal exception of type "Exception"

Try logging in again. I can see that you have an account on the userlist page. I'm pretty new to wikis and don't really know what I'm doing yet.

K-type stars are called orange stars, and this particular one is basically almost red: K8. But "red" stars are actually orange red and "orange"" stars are a light orange, so I guess this one is basically regular orange. I think I'll dramatically reduce the methane.

I know that I'm one of the people who said you're raving manically, so I'd like to apologise for my negative tone. I meant that your writing was kind of rambling and hard to read. But you've improved a lot since then.

[mèþru]

The fourth cone, E (for extra), is in between our M and L ranges (470-660). The L cone has been somewhat pushed away (550 nm - 750 nm), but the other cones are pretty much the same. The peak wavelengths are very slightly shifted so they are adapted to any differences in the distribution of visual light on kårroť, but they are mostly the same. Normal visual acuity is 6/4 or 20/13.333. Lower acuity is pretty common, but higher acuity is extremely rare. The E cone feeds into red-green perception: (L+E)-M versus our world's L-M. It does not feed into blue-yellow perception.

75% of humans are tetrachromats. The vast majority of people who have any kind of red-green colorblindness also lack E cones, and 36% of those who lack E cones are also deuteranomalous. Those without E cones that are not deuteranomalous still have a reduced sensitivity to greens, reds and yellows, although it is less dramatic.

Telamkal has four basic colour terms (given in terms of Earth human perception):

• Black, reds and deep blues and purples. More reds are included than purples and blues. Additionally, all colors visible to Caurrochans that are not visible to Earth humans (a tiny portion of near-infrareds) are in this group. The RGB value (170, 0, 0) is included, but more yellowish reds are not part of this group. When translating from Telamkal to English, this colour is called "black", as that is seen as the prototypical form of the colour.
• Blue, green, yellow. Mostly greens, with more yellows than blues. Any blue closer to purple than "pure" blue is not included, and dark blues that are less green than dark teal blue are not included. Blues that are both brighter and less green than cyan are not part of this group. When translating from Telamkal to English, this colour is called "green", as that is seen as the prototypical form of the colour.
• Light blues and whites. Basically all the lighter blues that are not "green", as well as various off-white colours (with a bias towards periwinkle-like off-whites). When translating from Telamkal to English, this colour is called "white", as that is seen as the prototypical form of the colour.
• Bright reds, brown and orange. Dull yellows closer to orange than pure yellow also belong to this groups. When translating from Telamkal to English, this colour is called "orange", as that is seen as the prototypical form of the colour.

Most Caurrochan languages would divide the colors as black/deep blue, green/saturated yellow/light blue, red and white/creamy yellow, and most descendants of Telamkal are descended from a dialect that did so. Those same languages also usually have 16-25 colour terms (23 being the norm in kårroť, but 20 being the norm in Telamkal descendants)

I'm not getting into non-basic color terms because all the descendant languages will have different terms for them. Blood is "black" immediately after coming out of the body and turns "orange". The people consider their own skin color to be "orange" (it is somewhat in between that of a pale skinned African American and the typical colour of the Bai people of China). Outsiders with lighter skin are called "green" (they don't encounter any people with significantly darker skin than their own). Their blond to black hair colours (plus the rare occasional auburn) are split between "black", "green" and "orange". Although both are used, it is more common to use "green people" to refer to those with platinum blonde hair or light grey hair than to refer to lighter skin colors. Most hair in the blond and in the lighter brown range are "orange", while darker browns are "black". Grey hair is variously "black", "green" or "white", depending on its lightness. The furs of deer, Eurasian wolves and bay horses also appear orange. Most mammals where Telamkal speakers live (I imagine it ranges from Cfa that is almost BSh to somewhat humid BSh, if one where to give Earth climates) likewise have "orange" fur. Plants appear to be variously "green", "orange" or both. For this reason, "orange" is seen as the color of nature, and later civilizations (which have more basic colors) might depict gods in orange similar to how blue is used a lot in Hindu depictions of deities.

[mèþru]

@rotting bones: I added to your account "editor" status

[mèþru]

I'm not sure if I should rename kårroť "humans". Earth humans and kårroť humans are mostly the same, but they are adapted for different atmospheres and weather patterns. This means that humans would find it very hard or even impossible to live in many of the centres of population in kårroť and vice versa. If I do rename them, I'm not sure what to rename them as.

So here are my questions:

1. Should I rename them?
2. If yes, what should I call them?

Names I've considered and rejected:

• Dwarves
• Humanoids

Names I rejected immediately after they were suggested:

• Hominids
• Johnsons

For the same reason for why I rejected "dwarves", I will also reject other common fantasy race names.

[Ars Lande]

I believe the question to ask is: how do Earth humans know about kårroť? Who found out about the species and how did kårroť humans look to them?

If there is no or very little contact between Earth and kårroť, using "human" makes a lot of sense. There is no real need to distinguish both species most of the times, and when it does kårroť works just fine.

[mèþru]

There is no contact.

[mèþru]

A side project

about life on one of kårroť's two unnamed moons.

[mèþru]

I tried to derive the creature from today's xkcd by changes to Japyx solifugus and gave up. Anyone have ideas? It needs to be at least as large as a rat.

[mèþru]

I have non-paying language commission from a borderline friend/acquaintance, so that's one of the things I've (not really) been working on this month. I think I might incorporate into kårroť, because it needs as many a posteriori conlangs as it can get. The problem is is that the language doesn't really fit well into any of the language zones I want and as a personal language for a resident of modern day New Jersey who speaks English and Spanish it won't fit lexically on an alien planet. She isn't a linguist or conlanger, so it will be difficult to make a language as alien as I want to for kårroť. In fact, she already isn't that good with the two languages she knows (I'm not sure, but she might not be fluent in Spanish, even though it is her native tongue. She's fluent in English). What do you guys think?

[mèþru]

Solution: I have a proto-langauge. One descendant will be the commission that doesn't exist in kårroť , and the other will exist in kårroť.

[mèþru]

Learning about how sleep used to be divided into two parts is making me rethink the daily habits of kårroť humans. Maybe they sleep four hours, wake up and then sleep another one and a half? The in-between period would last about three fourths of an hour.

[mèþru]

I had an idea older than the kårroť project for a non-eukaryote carnivorous creature that looks like an African wild dog and does photosynthesis. Later, when coming up with the ideas of intelligent beings in kårroť, I wanted to include them as a being that evolves into sapience during and next to mankind's civilization. Other weird Ideas I had: they have an area in their body that stores energy for long-term use in the form of starch rather than glycogen; they have three lungs: one for oxygen and carbon dioxide, one for water and one for other stuff; they have three circulatory systems with the gases and water from the lungs instead of blood and the lungs both being for breathing and to pump the circulatory system; and they are entirely green both for camouflage and for photosynthesis.