In-jokes/References/Easter Eggs in your conlang's lexicon

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Re: In-jokes/References/Easter Eggs in your conlang's lexico

Post by WeepingElf »

hwhatting wrote:
alice wrote:How about a conlang called "Zedeti", with noun classes called S, Z, H, N, P, V, and C, and an unproductive formerly iterative suffix /-ir/ which only appears in verbs meaning "move large quantities of something", "search for", "drink", and "vomit"? And that's just the start.
I'm intrigued now. What does it all allude to?
AFAIK, the Z80 microprocessor, which was used in various 1980s home computers such as the Sinclair ZX Spectrum. As I know nothing about Z80 assembly language, I don't really understand these references.
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Re: In-jokes/References/Easter Eggs in your conlang's lexico

Post by hwhatting »

Danke!

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Re: In-jokes/References/Easter Eggs in your conlang's lexico

Post by alice »

WeepingElf wrote:
hwhatting wrote:
I wrote:How about a conlang called "Zedeti", with noun classes called S, Z, H, N, P, V, and C, and an unproductive formerly iterative suffix /-ir/ which only appears in verbs meaning "move large quantities of something", "search for", "drink", and "vomit"? And that's just the start.
I'm intrigued now. What does it all allude to?
AFAIK, the Z80 microprocessor, which was used in various 1980s home computers such as the Sinclair ZX Spectrum. As I know nothing about Z80 assembly language, I don't really understand these references.
Well remembered!

The names of the noun classes come from the individual flags (or "condition codes") of the Z80; you should be able to work out why H and N are less common than the others, and why some authorities group P and V together.

The /-ir/ suffix comes from the instructions LDIR, CPIR, INIR, and OTIR, which mean "(load/compare/input/output), increment, and repeat". Relics of instructions from other 8-bit microprocessors appear in the lexicons of languages in different areas, as do the names of the ASCII control characters and various instructions from home-computer BASICs of the era. It makes generating vocabulary much easier.
Zompist's Markov generator wrote:it was labelled" orange marmalade," but that is unutterably hideous.

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Re: In-jokes/References/Easter Eggs in your conlang's lexico

Post by Duns Scotus »

alice wrote:
WeepingElf wrote:
hwhatting wrote:
I wrote:How about a conlang called "Zedeti", with noun classes called S, Z, H, N, P, V, and C, and an unproductive formerly iterative suffix /-ir/ which only appears in verbs meaning "move large quantities of something", "search for", "drink", and "vomit"? And that's just the start.
I'm intrigued now. What does it all allude to?
AFAIK, the Z80 microprocessor, which was used in various 1980s home computers such as the Sinclair ZX Spectrum. As I know nothing about Z80 assembly language, I don't really understand these references.
Well remembered!

The names of the noun classes come from the individual flags (or "condition codes") of the Z80; you should be able to work out why H and N are less common than the others, and why some authorities group P and V together.

The /-ir/ suffix comes from the instructions LDIR, CPIR, INIR, and OTIR, which mean "(load/compare/input/output), increment, and repeat". Relics of instructions from other 8-bit microprocessors appear in the lexicons of languages in different areas, as do the names of the ASCII control characters and various instructions from home-computer BASICs of the era. It makes generating vocabulary much easier.

I love this! Definitely one of the coolest sorts of easter eggs I've ever seen.
My conlang is Fyrthir.

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Re: In-jokes/References/Easter Eggs in your conlang's lexico

Post by alice »

Duns Scotus wrote:
I wrote:(some stuff)

I love this! Definitely one of the coolest sorts of easter eggs I've ever seen.
Thanks!

Here's another little example: some microprocessors write the "jump" and "compare" instructions as JP and CP, while others prefer JMP and CMP. By a curious coincidence, roots with similar meanings to these appear with /m/ in some areas and without it in others...
Zompist's Markov generator wrote:it was labelled" orange marmalade," but that is unutterably hideous.

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Re: In-jokes/References/Easter Eggs in your conlang's lexico

Post by snappdragon »

I just realized that one of my demonstratives is a vowel away from being "pepsi". It is the plural concrete/magical "at a distance" demonstrative of the language, "pepsu".
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Re: In-jokes/References/Easter Eggs in your conlang's lexico

Post by Pogostick Man »

Well, u-fronting is a fairly common sound change…
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Re: In-jokes/References/Easter Eggs in your conlang's lexico

Post by Zaarin »

While scanning through my notes, I found another one, from a Future English-based cant that I was sketching for a side project: gwa', "alcohol," from grog.
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Re: In-jokes/References/Easter Eggs in your conlang's lexico

Post by Dillonator407 »

Mantid, my first, failed conlang, has this example of a kind of Easter egg in its lexicon:

darek (dʌɹekʼ)= exterminate

In reference to a certain race of cybernetic omnicidal maniacs who use the term quite a lot.

It's kind of sad that the Mantid language has a two syllable word for exterminate but it takes six syllables to say "mother".

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Re: In-jokes/References/Easter Eggs in your conlang's lexico

Post by Duns Scotus »

Here's one I'm particularly proud of:

nwẃwt /nʏːːt/ meaning connection. The pun is rather lame: it's a two way on being similar to English "net," and the fact there there's three w's in a row: thus reminding one of www as in World Wide Web.
My conlang is Fyrthir.

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Re: In-jokes/References/Easter Eggs in your conlang's lexico

Post by alice »

I might also mention the root /sag/, which with the ending /-an/ makes a word best glossed as "a very large number".
Zompist's Markov generator wrote:it was labelled" orange marmalade," but that is unutterably hideous.

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Re: In-jokes/References/Easter Eggs in your conlang's lexico

Post by Pogostick Man »

I added the root *ljʁm 'take' to the Proto-Tim Ar-O lexicon today. In Ngade n Tim Ar, it becomes liam and shifts in meaning to 'retrieve'.

Archaic Wǫkratąk has √ppt 'be powerful, have power to back up a threat', from Microsoft PowerPoint.
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Re: In-jokes/References/Easter Eggs in your conlang's lexico

Post by alynnidalar »

Pogostick Man wrote:I added the root *ljʁm 'take' to the Proto-Tim Ar-O lexicon today. In Ngade n Tim Ar, it becomes liam and shifts in meaning to 'retrieve'.

Archaic Wǫkratąk has √ppt 'be powerful, have power to back up a threat', from Microsoft PowerPoint.
Both of those are fantastic, but I love √ppt the best.
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Re: In-jokes/References/Easter Eggs in your conlang's lexico

Post by Salmoneus »

alice wrote:I might also mention the root /sag/, which with the ending /-an/ makes a word best glossed as "a very large number".
Presumably a reference to Peter Sagan's palmares...
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Re: In-jokes/References/Easter Eggs in your conlang's lexico

Post by tiramisu »

By coincidence, sound change rules apparently make "daughter" [bɪtʃ] in my Semitic language.

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Re: In-jokes/References/Easter Eggs in your conlang's lexico

Post by spanick »

tiramisu wrote:By coincidence, sound change rules apparently make "daughter" [bɪtʃ] in my Semitic language.
"Bitch mitzvah"

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Re: In-jokes/References/Easter Eggs in your conlang's lexico

Post by Zrukal »

My 1st focused conlang that isn't a naming language has the word 'zin' which depending on the context means either eye or a knife with a blade between ~6 and ~12 inches. This was done by accident but I decided to keep it, in large part because of the thought of an interpreter saying something along the lines of "...his blade or his eye, I'm not sure which."

The word 'rushzan' simultaneously means a thin book and kindling.

There's also the greeting "Ghatza kago?" A rough translation would be "You still have your head?" and is used by soldiers.
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Re: In-jokes/References/Easter Eggs in your conlang's lexico

Post by WeepingElf »

In my Old Albic vocabulary, there briefly was a word vorpal meaning 'sword'. But it did not survive the next day - it was totally at odds with the diachronic phonology of the language.
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Re: In-jokes/References/Easter Eggs in your conlang's lexico

Post by Soap »

I only make a priori languages, so I generally can't do this. There were a few very obscure etymologies in andanese,which used a mathematical alphabet like Hebrew gematria.

Most related to life eventz, and wouldn't make sense even w explanation. E.g. I didn't know what "143" meant but I figured it must be the opposite of 134, where 1xx means "i can ...." and 34 was my favorite number at the time.


53 meant stupid, may have come from a TV channel that played Barney when I was young. But I didn't borrow things like 69 and 666 whose meanings are mainstream, even through the mask of the gematria-like number system, because even then I did only a priori.
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Re: In-jokes/References/Easter Eggs in your conlang's lexico

Post by Zaarin »

Less an in-joke and more a coincidence, but in my current Canarian Punic WIP nabol "fool" becomes nevil*, which made me think of Neville Chamberlain, of "peace in our time!" fame. :p

*Like Phoenician/Punic, Canarian Punic does not exhibit begadkapet like Hebrew and Aramaic; like Neo-Punic, however, it exhibits the change b/v/_C. Thus the process here was nabol > nabl > nivl > nevil. (In case it's not obvious from context, Canarian Punic diverged from Carthaginian Punic prior to the development of Neo-Punic. It retains its laryngeals and emphatics, and /p/ did not become /f/ in Canarian Punic [except in one dialect spoken chiefly by Catholics on Lanzarote, but in the context of spirantizing all plain voiceless plosives and deglottalizing the emphatics to take their place].)
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Re: In-jokes/References/Easter Eggs in your conlang's lexico

Post by finlay »

I think there are a few people who have or have contemplated having languages with lirlat the root word for laughing.

As for my ones... suika is my word for train. Can't think of any more. I don't do this very often I guess.

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