Naming language for nonhuman civilization in RPG

[Chengjiang]

Recently I've had a series of flashes of inspiration and have decided to start designing a (software) RPG. This is a fairly low-key, casual project, since as yet I don't have the level of programming skill required to develop this game on my own, but I'm enjoying designing the game's world, and I may decide to make this an actual published game at some point down the line if I learn more programming.

The game's world is essentially Earthlike and contains humans, but there is a massive network of subsurface caverns inhabited by a relative of humans, the Gnomes. (I'm fairly confident I can make them interestingly different from standard fantasy gnomes. Thus far if anything they're more like Morlocks that don't eat their surface-dwelling kin.) The names of humans and human cities and countries are derived from various languages on Earth as a translation convention, as their cultures are inspired by various cultures on Earth, but as the Gnomes aren't based on any real culture, I wanted to give them and their works names divorced from that, and decided to give them a language with a characteristic sound that isn't strongly based on any one real language.

This is not intended to be a complete conlang. Basically what I'm looking to create is a phonology, a means of transcribing it, a list of common word roots and morphology, and morphophonological rules to derive names and phrases from those roots.

So, phonology. I decided to go with a phonemic inventory that showed a number of features that are uncommon, but not unheard of, in human languages, with the hope that they still form a naturalistic system.

The consonants, alongside my chosen romanizations:
/m m̥ n n̥ ŋ/ <m mh n nh ng>
/t d tː c ɟ cː k ɡ kː q qː/ <t d tt ch j tch k g kk q qq>
/ts dz tɬ dɮ kʟ̥ ɡʟ/ <tz dz tl dl kl gl>
/θ ð s z sː ɬ ʃ χ ʁ ħ/ <th dh s z ss lh sh kh gh h>
/l j w/ <l y w>

The vowels, modal and breathy voiced:
/ɪ ʊ æ ɔ æɪ ɔʊ/ <i u a o ay ow>
/ɪ̤ ʊ̤ æ̤ ɔ̤ æ̤ɪ ɔ̤ʊ/ <ih uh ah oh ayh owh>

The language allows syllables of the form C(w)V(C). Vowel-vowel hiatus is not permitted, and aside from one or two postclitic particles there are no vowel-initial words. All consonants can occupy either C position, with the exception that /ww/ and /jw/ are not permitted as onsets and /ħ/ does not occur in codas.

Stress is predictable and falls on the first syllable of the word. It is not strong, and is primarily indicated by a higher pitch.

Notes on uncommon features and on phonetic details:
*The language has an example of the rare but not unheard of square vowel system.
*As in Tlingit, labial consonants are nearly absent, with only /m m̥ w/. /w/ has relatively weak rounding, as do the vowels transcribed as rounded above. They might be pronounced with compressed rather than protruded lips; I'm not sure yet.
*As in Burmese, Welsh, and Liangshan Yi, there are voiceless nasals. As in Liangshan Yi, /ŋ/ has no voiceless counterpart.
*As in English, Burmese, Castilian Spanish, Modern Standard Arabic, etc., there are dental non-sibilant fricatives. I'm not sure whether I want to keep these.
*As in Zulu and Laghuu, there are velar lateral obstruents. I currently have them distinguished from coronal lateral obstruents, but I'm considering merging them because now that I look back at it having both isn't feeling right.
*/l/ may be pronounced with some amount of friction, approaching [ɮ].
*/ɔ/ is somewhat more open than cardinal [ɔ], intermediate between it and [ɒ].
*The palatal stops are more or less the "palatal stops" of Australian languages; they are palatalized laminal postalveolar stops that may be pronounced with slight affrication. They generally have a shorter and weaker period of frication than the alveolar sibilant and lateral affricates.
*As in Adyghe, there is /ħ/ but no /h/. I'm not entirely sure if I want to keep this sound, in part because I have trouble distinguishing pharyngeals from epiglottals. (I'm still not completely sure which sound I'm making when I try to pronounce [ħ] or [ʜ].)
*The consonants I've transcribed as long are a group whose exact nature I haven't decided on yet. They can occur in all positions and thus can't really be treated as geminates phonologically. They may be simply longer or they may be comparable to the Korean "tense" consonants.
*As there are a large number of segments distinguished, allophonic variation is not great. However, vowels are generally nasalized in the vicinity of a nasal, and may be voiceless word-finally following a voiceless consonant. /n/ and /n̥/ assimilate in point of articulation to a following coronal consonant, including the "palatal" stops; /ŋ/ assimilates to [ɴ] before uvulars. Clusters of stops with /l/ or /ɬ/ tend to reduce to the most phonetically similar lateral affricate.

My goal with this language's sound system is to create a clearly distinctive sound even to a reader who doesn't know exactly what sounds the romanization represents, and for the romanization to allow for reasonably identifiable pronunciations to its audience even if they aren't exactly the ones actually represented. It should work both for casually referring to people and places in an English sentence (e.g. [wɒdɫ̩] for Wahdl) and for transcribing the actual sound of the words for those who wish to learn them ([wæ̤dɮ] for Wahdl).

I've got more to come soon. I'm still ironing out the phonology, but I'm also working on derivational morphology and the structure of noun phrases.

[Chengjiang]

Here's one other question I have about it right now:

Gnomes are blind. What sort of system would they likely develop for recording their speech? Writing as humans know it doesn't really work. Etching? Something like Braille with raised characters? Mainly I'm looking for something that can be generated on multiple surfaces and can be produced without the aid of complex equipment. Their physiology is similar enough to humans' that you can assume that they can use any tools a small, blind human would be able to.

[Chengjiang]

As further aid on the question concerning writing or the equivalent thereof: Gnomes have superior hearing and smell as compared to humans, and their bodies are covered with long whisker-like hairs that can sense air movements.

[cromulant]

Touch-based writing seems like the simplest and most practical solution. I'm assuming from your description that they don't have claws that can simply gouge into stone, so two ideas might be:

-carving patterns into a soft (maybe waxlike) material. (I don't think the writing needs to be raised; it could as easily be engraved.
-glue. Squeeze some sort of adhesive out of a tube onto a hard surface to create raised characters.

As for the first idea, I've always liked the idea of writing that is carved into a wooden staff or cane, which is read by touch (not necessarily by the blind) from one end to the other.

I have some half-baked ideas for smell- and sound-based writing, but they seem silly.

For smell, obviously they could squirt variously scented substances onto a "page"--but don't most odors fade over time? And switching back and forth between the scents would be much more labor- and equipment-intensive than either touch-based solution.

For sound, they could perhaps use (very) tiny xylophones. Each key would be about the size of one of the letters of this post; each xylophone would be as long as a line of text, so maybe...50 keys per xylophone? And the xylophones are placed one next to one another in a rack. The gnome takes a tiny mallet and runs it the length of one xylophone after another, and hears the various notes which spell the various words. Yeah I know, it's ridiculous.

[KathTheDragon]

Perhaps a quipu-esque medium?

[Chengjiang]

Touch-based writing seems like the simplest and most practical solution.

I agree. I admit that while your ideas for sound- and smell-based orthography are interesting, they don't seem very practical.

I'm assuming from your description that they don't have claws that can simply gouge into stone

They don't, no. They have nails like humans. They're primates, although they might not be hominids. Evolution of some kind has occurred in this setting, or at least I'm using it as a guide to designing organisms in it.

-carving patterns into a soft (maybe waxlike) material. (I don't think the writing needs to be raised; it could as easily be engraved.

Of your ideas, I like this one best. It doesn't require anything terribly complicated to write, and I like that it has an incidental parallel with early sound recording. The depressions in the wax would degrade over time, but so does ink on paper.

As for the first idea, I've always liked the idea of writing that is carved into a wooden staff or cane, which is read by touch (not necessarily by the blind) from one end to the other.

This is also interesting. They would possess something resembling wood, since the underground biosphere has "forests" of thaumosynthetic* tree-like organisms.

*A word I kludged together for using mana as an energy source as plants use light. This is a setting where magic exists, and the vast network of underground caverns is considerably richer in mana than the surface. Mana continually radiates from the depths of the planet. One design principle I decided to go with for the Underworld (as it's called by humans) is to base it in part on deep-sea vent communities, since the primary energy source for its biosphere comes from lower layers of the planet.

Perhaps a quipu-esque medium?

That could definitely work. I'm going to give that some serious thought.

[Curlyjimsam]

Etching clay was one of the earliest methods humans used for writing, and used a lot - according to Wikipedia "between half a million and two million cuneiform tablets are estimated to have been excavated in modern times". Clay, unlike other materials, is very durable as well. The same writing system could of course be used on stone or wax or whatever.

[Chengjiang]

Looking back at the phonology, I think I'm going to get rid of /θ ð/. The only word I've coined so far to use /θ/ is Kittangath ([kɪtːæŋæθ]), which I've decided sounds about as good as Kittangalh ([kɪtːæŋæɬ]), and nothing thus far has used /ð/. I'm also going to merge the velar with the alveolar lateral affricates to yield a single set /tɬ dɮ/, whose realization may be alveolar [tɬ dɮ] or velar [kʟ̥ ɡʟ] for different speakers or in different accents. The only word I'd planned so far that definitely had a velar lateral affricate (and not just a medial consonant cluster that could be reduced to one) was Klotul ([kʟ̥ɔtʊl]), which I can just have be a variant pronunciation of /tɬɔtʊl/.

[Chengjiang]

Etching clay was one of the earliest methods humans used for writing, and used a lot - according to Wikipedia "between half a million and two million cuneiform tablets are estimated to have been excavated in modern times". Clay, unlike other materials, is very durable as well. The same writing system could of course be used on stone or wax or whatever.

Excellent point. OK, I think etching is pretty much the way to go here, provided it's sufficiently distinguishable by touch. I know braille is convex rather than concave, but I don't see any fundamental reason why etchings would be much too hard to read as opposed to bumps, and they're significantly easier to make in a wider variety of media without very specialized tools.

[Torco]

incidentally, there are programs that allow you to make an rpg without really learning how to program... i think they're not free, but hey, a few bucks'd be worth not having to learn python to me

[Chengjiang]

incidentally, there are programs that allow you to make an rpg without really learning how to program... i think they're not free, but hey, a few bucks'd be worth not having to learn python to me

What are you thinking of? RPG Maker? Any idea how much leeway you have in designing game mechanics with something like that?

[Chengjiang]

Any comments on the phonology? In particular, does anything not fit this ethos:

My goal with this language's sound system is to create a clearly distinctive sound even to a reader who doesn't know exactly what sounds the romanization represents, and for the romanization to allow for reasonably identifiable pronunciations to its audience even if they aren't exactly the ones actually represented. It should work both for casually referring to people and places in an English sentence (e.g. [wɒdɫ̩] for Wahdl) and for transcribing the actual sound of the words for those who wish to learn them ([wæ̤dɮ] for Wahdl).

Elaborating on that, does anything look too unfriendly to someone who would be playing the game and seeing names of characters, places, and objects? I mean, I'm fine with people reading Tchomitl as [tʃʰɒmətɫ̩] or Qalshow as [kʰæɫʃoʊ] or Tlatzti as [tʰəlætsti], so long as the names aren't too alienating. I want the language to look odd but not intimidating.

Also, does anything rub you the wrong way for any other reason? In particular, I'm wondering about the "long" consonants tt, tch, kk, qq, and ss. Do they fit into the system well enough? I admit I may have been influenced by having recently read about Chechen and other Northeast Caucasian langauges, which generally have a series of long/tense obstruents alongside voiced, tenuis/aspirated, and ejective. Something's also feeling wrong about the breathy voiced vowels, but I can't put my finger on what. It may be that I can't think of languages with contrastive vowel phonation that don't have a very restricted syllable structure (CV or nearly CV), a register tone system, or both.

If there aren't any in the next day or so, I'll move on to nominal morphology and noun phrase syntax, important parts of any naming language.

[Torco]

incidentally, there are programs that allow you to make an rpg without really learning how to program... i think they're not free, but hey, a few bucks'd be worth not having to learn python to me

What are you thinking of? RPG Maker? Any idea how much leeway you have in designing game mechanics with something like that?

not a lot; afaik rpgmaker's rpgs are for the most part standard snes-style rpgs, mechanically
there's other products similar, and better, than rpgmaker, i'm told.

[Chengjiang]

Some minor updates to the phonology:
/m m̥ n n̥ ŋ/ <m mh n nh ng>
/t d tː c ɟ cː k ɡ kː q qː/ <t d tt ch j tch k g kk q qq>
/ts dz tɬ dɮ/ <tz dz tl dl>
/s z sː ɬː ʃ χ ʁ h/ <s z ss ll sh kh r h>
/l j w/ <l y w>

/ɪ ʊ æ ɒ ɛɪ ɔʊ/ <i u a o ay ow>

Aside from eliminating the dental non-sibilant fricatives and the velar lateral affricates, I also took out the breathy voiced vowels for now, since I think I want to learn more about contrastive phonation on vowels before I use that feature in a language, and the vocabulary I created thus far barely uses them. I can easily change the phonation on vowels in established words at a later date if I decide I want the feature. I also changed /ħ/ to /h/ and made /ɬ/ an unopposed tense consonant, in a pattern similar to the somewhat common cross-linguistic tendency to have an unopposed lateral ejective. Finally, I made the diphthongs start slightly higher than the corresponding low vowels.

Orthographically, I've changed <lh> and <gh> to <ll> and <r> to slightly reduce the amount of <h> in the language and to create orthographic parallels to a number of real-world languages.

[cromulant]

Any comments on the phonology? In particular, does anything not fit this ethos:

My goal with this language's sound system is to create a clearly distinctive sound even to a reader who doesn't know exactly what sounds the romanization represents, and for the romanization to allow for reasonably identifiable pronunciations to its audience even if they aren't exactly the ones actually represented. It should work both for casually referring to people and places in an English sentence (e.g. [wɒdɫ̩] for Wahdl) and for transcribing the actual sound of the words for those who wish to learn them ([wæ̤dɮ] for Wahdl).

Elaborating on that, does anything look too unfriendly to someone who would be playing the game and seeing names of characters, places, and objects? I mean, I'm fine with people reading Tchomitl as [tʃʰɒmətɫ̩] or Qalshow as [kʰæɫʃoʊ] or Tlatzti as [tʰəlætsti], so long as the names aren't too alienating. I want the language to look odd but not intimidating.

Yeah, I think you've struck that balance pretty well. The four words I've seen don't look "odd" to me, nor probably to most other ZBBers, but I think we're a bit jaded. And I think they'll only look intimidating to the most sheltered of players.

I will say that (to me), <tz> and <tl> have a very strong pull, in the direction of Mesoamerica, on the overall impression an orthography gives, and it would probably take a lot of non-Mesomaericanness to counteract that. I can see your average player seeing Tchomitl and Tlatzi and thinking "Mexican." (EDIT: I see I misread "Tlatzti." And "Qalshow" certainly doesn't look Mesoamerican. I'd be curious to see a short text written out to get a taste of the flavor, though it may be too early to ask that.)

I'm wondering about the "long" consonants tt, tch, kk, qq, and ss. Do they fit into the system well enough?

Did you ever decide what they were, exactly? In any case, I'm sure they're fine--why not?

Do they contrast with cross-syllable sequences of identical consonants, i.e. is /V.ttV/ different than /Vt.tV/? If so, how how is the contrast realized? And are /Vt.ttV/, /Vtt.tV/ and /Vtt.ttV/ allowable?

I'd would expect the affricates to have doubled forms as well, but that they don't isn't exactly shocking. Perhaps /ss/ came from /ts:/?

[Chengjiang]

Er, I may have to delay posting the next part of this by a bit. I'm not sure how much free time I'm going to have this weekend.

That said, I'll quickly address this:

Do they contrast with cross-syllable sequences of identical consonants, i.e. is /V.ttV/ different than /Vt.tV/? If so, how how is the contrast realized? And are /Vt.ttV/, /Vtt.tV/ and /Vtt.ttV/ allowable?

I've decided that geminates aside from these long consonants don't actually occur. Two instances of the same consonant tend to collapse to a long consonant if there is a roughly corresponding one; otherwise they just collapse to a single instance of that consonant.

I'd would expect the affricates to have doubled forms as well, but that they don't isn't exactly shocking. Perhaps /ss/ came from /ts:/?

Again, I admit I based the long fricatives partly on Chechen. I think the long fricatives may optionally be realized as affricates with longer fricated portions. It's possible they were originally affricates. I think that, aside from geminates, the long consonants may derive from earlier ejectives.

[Chengjiang]

If there aren't any in the next day or so, I'll move on to nominal morphology and noun phrase syntax, important parts of any naming language.

I've been stalling on this in large part because I'm not absolutely sure that my current ideas are what I want, but this is what happens all too often with my conlangs; I get to a point (generally fairly early on) where I'm not sure where I want to go, and I get stuck. Well, the game this language would go in is years away no matter what, so I'm going to get something down in text right now, so help me Gwodz.* I can always change it later. With that in mind, I'm very open to suggestions about all this, even for very deep and far-reaching structural changes.

OK, let's do this!

Typology

Gnomish** is a high-synthesis, low-fusion (i.e. "agglutinative") language. It is largely head-marking and head-initial, although I'm not yet sure quite how consistently I want to follow either of these tendencies.

One of the general principles I want to strive for with Gnomish is "succinct". I want to get a lot across in a relatively small number of morphemes/syllables.

The noun phrase

Gnomish noun phrases consist of a head noun and various following elements that modify said noun.

Genitive phrases

The basic genitive phrase consists of a possessed noun followed by its possessor. Neither noun has to have a grammatical affix, nor is a preposition required between them.

mwiklo Jassaq
tablet Jassaq
"Jassaq's tablet"

Rang Shadlatt
chasm waterfall
"Waterfall Chasm"

The possessed noun may take a possessive suffix. A noun with a possessive suffix can stand alone and indicate its possessor:

mwiklo-n Jassaq
tablet-3.POSS Jassaq
"Jassaq's tablet"

mwiklo-n
tablet-3.POSS
"his/her/its/their tablet"

mwiklo-tzi
tablet-1SG.POSS
"my tablet"

Certain nouns are inalienably possessed and must always carry a possessive suffix:

hwa-n
ear-3.POSS
"ear, his/her/its/their ear"

tta-kh
father-2.POSS
"your father"

tta-n
father-3.POSS
"father, his/her/its/their father"

Prepositions can be used to make the relationship between the possessed entity and the possessor clearer:

mwiklo zay Jassaq
tablet created.by Jassaq
"Jassaq's tablet (that she made)"

mwiklo shul Jassaq
tablet used.by Jassaq
"Jassaq's tablet (that she is currently the user/holder of)"

chig shunodz
map tubetree.forest
"map of the forest"

chig mir shunodz
map from tubetree.forest
"map from the forest"

Lists of possessive suffixes and of prepositions that can be used in this kind of noun phrase will be forthcoming.

Also coming soon: adjectival constructions!

*Gwodz is one of a sizable number of short Gnomish personal names I've coined thus far. I'll probably have a name list, as well as the structure of Gnomish names, in an upcoming post.
**"Gnomish" is very much a placeholder name. On the one hand, it's somewhat justifiable as the protagonists will probably mostly have heard of the language by an exonym that would more or less translate to this. On the other hand, it's at most the language of one of the dominant cultures behind the creation of the current globalized Gnome society that is used as a lingua franca, not the native language of all Gnomes.

[Chengjiang]

Possessive suffixes

Here's a tentative list of possessive suffixes. I haven't completely decided how I want the personal pronoun system to work, although it's likely the possessive suffixes are somewhat degenerate with respect to person/number and that more distinctions are made by independent personal pronouns or verb conjugations than are made by these possessive suffixes. In particular, I kind of feel like giving the language a proximate/obviative distinction, which probably won't be reflected in the possessive suffixes.

1st person singular: -tzi
1st person plural: -ttal
2nd person: -ikh after consonants, -kh after vowels
3rd person: -un after consonants, -n after vowels

It's rare for the third person possessive suffixes to be used with an inanimate "possessor".

Assorted prepositions

This is basically just an incomplete list of prepositions that can head phrases that modify nouns, since I realized that syntactically there isn't much difference between that general category and their use in genitive phrases.

The role of prepositions in Gnomish is generally to clarify a noun's role, not to define it. They are generally there for semantic value and are not grammatically required in very many situations. Note that the locative prepositions are set up somewhat differently from what (as far as I know) is terribly common in human languages, due to Gnomes' society and structures being set up in a three-dimensional underground space where there is a natural ceiling as often as there is a natural floor and where varying depth is important to navigation.

zay "created by, having as its origin, child of"
shul "used by/currently held by"
kkuz "without"
mowssu "belonging to"
naykh "part of"
ssug "in the company, household, group of"
dlo "in"
siqq "in a space marginal to/contained by but not necessarily touching" (i.e. in a space between an object and the ceiling, the floor, or a wall)
chozing "above" (in a loose open space)
qwidlu "below" (in a loose open space)
jown "on top of, touching the upper surface of"
tlichaz "on (touching) the side or bottom of"
nhizgang "upslope from"
nhiztwol "downslope from"
tzaluj "beside"
mir "from, coming from"
tchil "preceding, in front of"
qasik "following, behind"
gizarllu "encircling, surrounding, containing"
dwiksi "including"

[cromulant]

Likin' it. Now that I've seen more words, I can affirm that the language looks exotic yet accessible, and not strongly similar to any language I'm aware of.

Got some questions about -n:

You say mwiklo Jassaq and mwiklo-n Jassaq are both acceptable ways to render "Jassaq's tablet." When would and wouldn't you use the possessive suffix? What factors influence its inclusion or omission?

I notice you also have a preposition mowssu, "belonging to." How is it different from -n?

Does -n combine with any of the prepositions in any constructions?

And, does -n have allomorphs? Your words don't all end in vowels, and your phonotactics forbid Cn codas.

[Chengjiang]

You say mwiklo Jassaq and mwiklo-n Jassaq are both acceptable ways to render "Jassaq's tablet." When would and wouldn't you use the possessive suffix? What factors influence its inclusion or omission?

I realized that I didn't actually have a clear sense of when it would and wouldn't be used. I think I'm going to go look at some languages that use possessive suffixes and then maybe alter that bit.

I notice you also have a preposition mowssu, "belonging to." How is it different from -n?

Sorry, I should have phrased that better. mowssu indicates that the possessor is the proper or legal owner of the possessed item, as opposed to just someone who currently has it.

Does -n combine with any of the prepositions in any constructions?

It and the other possessive suffixes can combine with any of them that denote actual ownership or possession, as opposed to, say, the locative prepositions.

And, does -n have allomorphs? Your words don't all end in vowels, and your phonotactics forbid Cn codas.

It has the allomorph -un after consonants. Sorry, I happened to put it entirely on words ending in vowels in the examples. I might give it an additional dissimilatory allomorph after /n/. -ul or something.

[Chengjiang]

Adjectival constructions

At least as I currently envision it, Gnomish does not have adjectives as a fully separate part of speech. All adjectives are either verbs or nouns used with adjectival syntax.

The element that makes an adjectival phrase is the postclitic -a. This clitic suffixes itself to the noun or noun phrase being described, in an ezafe-like construction.

tolun-a kkowm
lake-a deep
"deep lake"

It has the allomorph -ka after vowels.

lisha-ka kkowm
river-a deep
"deep river"

Although I can't go into too much detail because I'm still working out the verbal morphology, this construction can be used to create relative clauses:

lisha-ka zurwu mwich
river-a flow.NONFINITE(?) west
"west-flowing river"

I'll come back with some verbal info as soon as I can.

Also, one minor note, since this seems to be confusing people: The hyphens in the glosses are just there to mark morpheme boundaries. Hyphens will not actually be written at any of these points normally. "Our father", for instance, is ttattal, not *tta-ttal. One possible exception is -a, which I'm considering having use a hyphen since it's a clitic and not really part of the preceding word syntactically.

[Chengjiang]

And now for something completely different.

Names

A Gnome's name is, fundamentally, a descriptive phrase referring to said Gnome. The phrase may be figurative or literal, but it is always a phrase rather than an individual noun.

Structure

A Gnome's name will consist of a head noun (zwangtto) and a series of dependents modifying said head noun (shikhtto). The zwangtto can be just about anything in theory, but in practice it must not be anything that is likely to be confusing. This means that the following things are usually off the table:
-Professions (e.g. walim "teacher")
-Kinship terms (e.g. mu- "mother")
-Titles (e.g. dawatz "chief")
-Especially generic terms (e.g. mozu "Gnome")
-Entities likely to be referred to in the same grammatical and semantic contexts as people, dependent on the person's circumstances

Note especially that last one. It is a more flexible criterion than the others, and what does and doesn't count can depend on one's vocation or social role. For example, a pyrotechnist (rokhshonim)* might have a name that references smoke, but rather than making the zwangtto Hotch "smoke", which might lead to confusion if their coworkers or clients are trying to refer to actual smoke, one might instead use Kwig, a term meaning "smoky/fiery smell". (Gnomish languages typically have significantly richer basic vocabulary for sounds and smells than human languages do, somewhat paralleling terminology for color and other optical phenomena in human languages.)

Because of this desire to avoid confusion, Gnomish names, but especially their zwangtto, tend to draw from more colorful, poetic, specialized, or archaic vocabulary than is most common in regular speech. (No, I haven't entirely decided how number for regular nouns is going to work yet. I'm just using singulars for plurals for now.)

The shikhtto generally describe the zwangtto rather than the person themself, and therefore these usually do not include family names, patronymics, toponymics, or vocational names, as are common in human languages. However, they may reference those things indirectly in the way they describe the head noun.

A name typically has at least two shikhtto, ensuring that you're unlikely to run into other people with the exact same name, although it can have a good deal more depending on culture, lineage, profession, and the willingness of people to humor your having a stupidly long name. Here's an example of a fairly normal-sounding name in the dominant global syncretized culture: Gwodz-a Dlamchwin Chozing.

Gwodz-a Dlam-chwin Chozing
bell-a clang-iterative(?) above
"Ever-Clanging Bell Above"

As it so happens, this Gnome was named for his and his family's tendency to be talkative and loud people who dominate conversations.

*A professional constructor of safe fires. This includes creating ventilation from the place where the fire is to occur to a safe destination point for its exhaust, ensuring that nothing else flammable is nearby, ensuring adequate intake of fuel and air, and of course setting the fire itself. As Gnomes live underground and not always in terribly spacious chambers, it is very important to do this properly to prevent your neighborhood's air from becoming toxic. Due to various constraints imposed by their environment, Gnomes are big believers in safety, organization, and having a backup plan in case things go sour.

Assignation

Gnomes, like humans, are typically first given names shortly after their birth. Unlike what is commonly the case with humans (so far as I know, anyway), this is typically not the decision of the parents alone. Gnomes are very gregarious and community-oriented, and in most cultures the parents decide upon the infant's name with the aid of friends, family, or an authority figure in the community. One duty that forms part of some Gnome professions is "namer". Such a person is charged with recommending an auspicious or appropriate name to give the child, based on their parentage, social status, any notable physical features, and potentially other factors such as the timing of the birth. Although some of the original superstitious backing of choosing the "right" name is dying out among modern Gnomes, having an appropriate name is still considered important as one's name can contain a fair amount of implied or direct personal information and making a good first impression is very important.

Gnomes, like members of a few other concultures I've heard of, may have multiple names over the course of their lives. Although events that call for renaming vary by culture, common points where it may occur (none of these are points where it must) include:
-Coming of age
-Taking an apprenticeship or otherwise beginning a profession, whether it be one's first or a significant change in profession
-Getting married
-Having children
-Joining certain types of social group
-Making a life-changing accomplishment of some kind
-Making a formal request for a name change (this generally requires you to give a reason for the change)

As with naming at birth, changing one's name is a group undertaking. Choosing a new name is done with some level of ceremony and may be not unlike a court proceeding, with one's peers and family present alongside an officiator of some kind. The group will discuss what an apt new name would be until some kind of consensus is reached, whereupon the new name will be assigned. A new name will often contain some sort of reference to the previous name in its form. For example, let's say you're Gwodz-a Dlamchwin Chozing, as in the above example. You're becoming a pyrotechnist, and you need a fitting new name. With the aid of your peers in the vocation you're entering and a professional namer, you arrive at a new name: Kwig-a Tiradzchwin Chozing.

Kwig-a Tiradz-chwin Chozing
smell.of.smoke-a escape-iterative(?) above
"Ever-Escaping Smoky Smell Above"

As you can see, the new name also contains chozing and an iterative verb form.

The reference may be syntactic, as in the example given, but it may also be phonetic (e.g. making the zwangtto rhyme with the old name's) or semantic (e.g. making the zwangtto or the whole phrase a related concept to the old name).

Usage

The majority of the time, a Gnome is not referred to by their full name. Despite the importance they attach to doing things properly and officially, one practice that may strike humans as informal is their tendency to refer to each other by their zwangtto, regardless of the level of intimacy between them, professional or friendly context, or relative status. Full names (ttongosa) are used when people are being introduced to each other, when filling out forms, and in other contexts where a name is important as a unique identifier of that person as distinct from everyone else, not just the people they normally interact with. Ttongosa are associated less with respect or formality and more with clarity and precision. Ttongosa are also used for stylistic flavor in certain contexts, especially in music, poetry, and more artistic-leaning prose. A fairly common device in such media is to refer to someone by a slight variation on their ttongosa. For instance, a love letter to Jassaq-a Llus-a Hongwi ("Dewy-smelling Mossy Outcropping") might call her Jassaq-a Shokh-a Khamwi ("Pleasant-smelling Cushiony Outcropping"). A smear campaign against Sizlo-ka Tchiglod Kimash ("Chisel that Carves Warnings") might call her Sizlo-ka Tchiglod Ngayll ("Chisel that Carves Lies").

Zwangtto are used without any grammatical endings that are used in the full ttongosa, and with any grammatical endings they would have in the sentence they're used in. Thus, most of the time Gwodz-a Dlamchwin Chozing would just be called Gwodz ("Bell"), no matter who is talking to or about him. Gwodz would, however, introduce himself as Gwodz-a Dlamchwin Chozing and sign his name as such.

Due to their derivation, most Gnomish names are at least theoretically gender-neutral, although especially in some cultures, certain thematic elements in names may be preferentially given to males or to females.

More on usage later.

[Chengjiang]

Wow, I'm just doing this crap in whatever crazy order I feel like. Here's something that is does not directly concern the language itself but is relevant to how its division of semantic spaces and use of cognitive metaphors differs from human languages.

What a Gnome is

Given some of the questions that have come up, I owe you guys at least a brief physical description of Gnomes. Gnomes are semi-erect primates about 3.5-4 feet (1-1.2 meters) in height. Their bodies are covered with a coat of long white hairs, selected follicles of which are heavily innervated like whiskers, allowing them to sense movements of air and objects near their bodies. Their skin is also visibly white or nearly so in places where it is exposed. They have protruding bulbous noses and large batlike ears, both of which have little if any hair. Their hair typically covers their eyes, although as they are blind this is not a problem and in fact affords the eyes a small amount of protection. The eyes are vestigial and fully covered by skin.

Gnomes have an overall body structure comparable to a great ape or large Old World monkey adapted to locomotion on the ground. Compared to humans, they have proportionally longer arms and shorter legs, although not dramatically so. Both their fingers and their toes are longer than humans, although their toes aren't as long as those of many apes and are adapted for bipedal movement, not knuckle-walking. Their toes are more splayed than humans' and have a limited ability to grip uneven or curved surfaces.

As Gnomes are covered with hair and live in environments with fairly constant temperature, they generally wear little or no clothing. (If you're wondering, their primary and secondary sexual characteristics wouldn't be very obvious to a human observer without close inspection. They're less sexually dimorphic than humans are anyway.) The most common things for Gnomes to wear on their bodies are a purse or satchel for carrying tools, money, etc., and various adornments of extremities such as the ears and nose, or hats. It is generally normative in Gnome cultures for people to lightly touch each others' heads when they are first introduced, allowing such items to be felt. These are used to indicate status, occupation, tribal or family membership, and various other social categories. Gnomes working in hazardous conditions do of course wear protective gear. In particular, many Gnomes in physically oriented jobs wear footwear (more like a thick, stiff glove than a human shoe) and some type of protective or functional headgear on the job.

As you might expect from their appearance, humans interacting with Gnomes often find it difficult to tell individual Gnomes apart, or to tell male from female Gnomes. Gnomes themselves rarely have any trouble with this, as they are used to identifying each other by voice and smell.

[Chengjiang]

One more phonological revision: I've decided I don't really like the random labials /m m̥/, in part because I think bilabial consonants will just be rare in general in Gnomish languages. Therefore, I'm eliminating them. Here's what will happen to those words with /m m̥/ that have shown up in this thread:

/m/ > /n/:
tchomitl > tchonitl
mowssu > nowssu
mozu > nozu
khamwi > khanwi

/m/ > /ŋ/:
kkowm > kkowng
-im > -ing, e.g. walim > waling
dlam > dlang
kimash > kingash

/m(w)/ > /w/:
mir > wir
mwiklo > wiklo
mwich > wich
mu- > wu-

I realized after I started to write this post that no word I've posted in this thread uses /m̥/, but those words in my lexicon with /m̥/ will have it replaced in some cases with /n̥/ and in somewhat more with a phoneme I've added to replace it, /ŋ̥/.