Conlang relay [relocated] (aka "The Cursed Relay")

[Cedh]

Meanwhile, I present the revised Ayāsthi. And this time, it has a lexicon!

The grammar looks good. Very solid. Honestly I was impressed by the original Ayasth, and this only improves it!

Agreed. It's still extremely complex, but this time it looks a lot more natural. Very thorough work indeed. Only the new orthography with all these diacritics, hyphens, and apostrophes is even more difficult to read than the old one. But that's a very minor flaw given the complexity of the language. Two thumbs up!

[Corumayas]

1

Err, crap. I'd forgotten all about that.

Well, what does it matter anyway... we can leave the question of connection to Ngauro open for the time being.

I'm still curious, though-- did you design any of Ngauro when working on Ndak Ta? (If I remember correctly, there's also some Miw loans in Pencek...)

It might be an interesting challenge to try to construct a common ancestor. Maybe a few cognates can be added in as we go along...

2

One route to expansion would be if the small population were diasporated, and found some social niche in the wider population as an outsider group. Eg Jews, Gypsies, Hausa etc.

This idea sounds particularly interesting to me.

3
I'm enjoying reading the Ayāsthi grammar... and looking forward to the eventual day when the revisions (especially the new lexicon!) will filter down to Ghaf.

[Zhen Lin]

After doing serious Edastean languages three times (four if counting Ayāsthi separately), I think I should do something entirely different. But I'd still like to contribute to this conworld. Perhaps I will construct a language for use as a substrate. Or maybe a proto-language for one of the hitherto undescribed regions.

I recall describing a phonology with some crazy allophony/sandhi rules a while ago. (Things like /kumuan@u/ → [gm=:mano:].) I might use that as a starting point.

Only the new orthography with all these diacritics, hyphens, and apostrophes is even more difficult to read than the old one. But that's a very minor flaw given the complexity of the language. Two thumbs up!

Perhaps so. The hyphens and apostrophes can be ignored (for some reason I can't bring myself to write out clitics with spaces), and the new diacritics are perhaps superfluous (grave and diaeresis both indicate short vowels, acute, macron and circumflex all indicate long vowels), but it makes things easier for the conlanger who wants to make use of accents to condition sound changes.

[Dewrad]

As promised, here is some derivational stuff for Adata.

I've also become somewhat caught up by toying with Proto-Western. If I get far with it, I'll post on it.

[zompist]

I'm tempted, because it seems to be needed and no one else seems to be doing it, to derive a daughter of Naidda.

Standard languages tend to relate to a period of strength, so it'd be from a period when Kasca is united, recovering from its milennium-long doldrums. Can someone with more familiarity with the developing conhistory suggest a time for this? It should be between 1000 and 2000 years after Naidda.

I gather that the Adata family is (in this period) concentrated in Rathedan and doesn't extend much into Lasomo?

[Radius Solis]

I'm tempted, because it seems to be needed and no one else seems to be doing it, to derive a daughter of Naidda.

Standard languages tend to relate to a period of strength, so it'd be from a period when Kasca is united, recovering from its milennium-long doldrums. Can someone with more familiarity with the developing conhistory suggest a time for this? It should be between 1000 and 2000 years after Naidda.

I gather that the Adata family is (in this period) concentrated in Rathedan and doesn't extend much into Lasomo?

Actually two others have indicated interest in possibly deriving a Naidda daughter as well. Unfortunately Naidda is in need of a revision... but as I said in an earlier post, if anybody wants to do a daughter now, I won't stand in their way - the revised version can just be a different dialect.

There's basically four main regions that can reasonably host a daughter of Naidda:
* The Adata family actually expanded relatively early into southern Lasomo (the Eige river forming the maximum border of the Athalean empire in that region), the way we currently have the history written, but it never reached the northern half. Actually we'd been discussing finding another language to go in northern Lasomo... if that's what was on your mind, there's definitely room for it. And it would wonderfully complexify the history of that region.
* Another region that's open for the timeframe you mention is the whole Taem Ho, the southern coast below Kasca. There's some vaguely penciled-in peoples supposedly living down there in Naidda's era but we don't know what happens to them later.
* A third region that remains up for grabs starting about 800 years after Naidda/Faralo/etc is Buruja, the trading town halfway between Kasca and Lasomo. For a while Buruja and Kasca are presumed to be client states of Huyfarah; then once Huyfarah starts breaking up both get set free and the later history of both places is completely unaddressed thus far.
* The fourth region is of course Kasca itself. You're welcome to it if you want it.

One factor that might give Kasca a substantial economic boost is if the Eige delta could be opened for seagoing vessels. In the time of Naidda, the river spreads out into a vast swampy delta with no permanent channels large enough to be navigable for more than small boats. If this were to change, either naturally or by means of a canal, it would inject a lot of new economic lifeblood into Kasca. The Ndak once built such a canal, but it silted up after the Ndak empire stopped maintaining it.

Also relevent is that 800 years after Naidda, the Puoni are living in the forest SW of Kasca and speaking their Faralo-derived language there. I'd rather not have them get kicked out too quickly, as I'm fond of Puoni and hope to finish the language sometime in the next few months.

[kodé]

However ! Both you and Koka Kode are willing to derive a daughter from it. That means somehow you should find an historical justification for a drastic augmentation of the number of speakers (because it seems unlikely that 500 speakers give birth to two distinct daughterlangs!)

I have a suggestion or two about this, and krinnen/kode can use either, both, or none, at their discretion.

Kozado, as described, is clearly a dying language - what else do you call it when only 500 people still speak it in two villages in the middle of a kingdom highly dominated by another tongue? So we need a way to get these people not only out of the kingdom, but able to dominate a new area.

Suggestion 1 is to have one of the final blows to Kozado be the departure of at least half its remaining speakers to another land. Perhaps the Kozado speakers were persecuted for linguistic or even religious reasons; or perhaps they were simply economically disadvantaged, either way to the point they packed up and headed for the hills en masse. The 500 are the remnant population still within Khalanese territory after this departure.

Suggestion 2 is to have these departing speakers head for the mountains - doesn't matter which. But only in a mountainous area (which Khalanu is not) can they get the geographical separation necessary for such a small number of people to regrow their language into something viable. That or islands, but this is in the middle of the continent. Then the speakers can diverge into two dialects once they get into the mountains, again due to geographical separation.

Personally I like it much! Now to see what Krinnen and Kode can do with this...

I'm really enthused about this language (<Ko> /kot_454/--yes, it's tonal; it has six of them, in fact). However, I'm a bit hesitant about diving into the conworld stuff, since it'll have been taking place mid-to-late second millennium.

One route to expansion would be if the small population were diasporated, and found some social niche in the wider population as an outsider group. Eg Jews, Gypsies, Hausa etc.

I'm partial to this idea. However, IMO there need to be more than 500 members of such a community so as not to have them get stamped out/assimilated. Maybe the KozdO speakers (KozdO = transition period between Kozado and Ko:t) could have a brief political/military/somesuch resurgence, boosting their mother-tongue population to about 10,000, after which they could spread to form enclaves in various urban areas in the Rathedan. Of course, there'd probably have to be some sort of catastrophic destruction of their power as a state before they diasporize...

[Cedh]

I'm tempted, because it seems to be needed and no one else seems to be doing it, to derive a daughter of Naidda.

Standard languages tend to relate to a period of strength, so it'd be from a period when Kasca is united, recovering from its milennium-long doldrums. Can someone with more familiarity with the developing conhistory suggest a time for this? It should be between 1000 and 2000 years after Naidda.

I gather that the Adata family is (in this period) concentrated in Rathedan and doesn't extend much into Lasomo?

Here are the few dates we have so far for the second millennium. The item in red is an idea I've had while pondering about the Hitatc:

886 --- Northern Barbarians sack Ussor, Huyfarah never recovers
900s --- splinter states arise from ashes of Huyfarah
971 --- second fall of Akeladada: Empire loses southern Lasomo, then rapidly collapses
c 1000 --- Puoni
c 1100-1300 --- Pencek, Kozado, Middle Ayāsthi
1289 --- printing press invented
c 1500-1700 --- Ayāsthi, Yād, E'át, Ājat he-Heloun
1924 --- speakers of a (yet unknown) Hitatc language invade the Milīr and middle Eige valleys, setting up a powerful but short-lived kingdom centered around Buruja

For a Naidda daughterlang, Pencek (spoken in the Etewg Peidæm) and Puoni (spoken immediately southwest of Kasca) should definitely be taken into account as influences. Also, there's a Daiadak language in southern Lasomo c.900 YP, which is Æðadě (and its daughter Yād, c.1600 YP).

EDIT:
Radius answered faster than me, so now I'll answer to him:

Actually two others have indicated interest in possibly deriving a Naidda daughter as well. Unfortunately Naidda is in need of a revision... but as I said in an earlier post, if anybody wants to do a daughter now, I won't stand in their way - the revised version can just be a different dialect.

There's basically four main regions that can reasonably host a daughter of Naidda:
* northern Lasomo
* Taem Ho, the southern coast below Kasca
* Buruja, the trading town halfway between Kasca and Lasomo
* Kasca itself

One of these "two others" was me, and I'm targeting the Taem Ho region. Although Buruja would be an interesting place too...

One factor that might give Kasca a substantial economic boost is if the Eige delta could be opened for seagoing vessels. In the time of Naidda, the river spreads out into a vast swampy delta with no permanent channels large enough to be navigable for more than small boats. If this were to change, either naturally or by means of a canal, it would inject a lot of new economic lifeblood into Kasca. The Ndak once built such a canal, but it silted up after the Ndak empire stopped maintaining it.

There should definitely be a new Eige Canal. Let's add this to the history; it might be built sometime around 1300 when the "dark ages" following the fall of Huyfarah and Athalē have passed (the invention of the printing press is a good indicator for this). Of course this would most likely mean there would be a strong Naidda descendant spoken in Kasca at the time.

[Radius Solis]

I was thinking maybe the canal could be buildable earlier, perhaps in the era of Huyfarah's decline. Perhaps a stagnant Huyfarah might invest in it as a way to get more trade, which then backfires when most the wealth generated by the new trade stays localized to Kasca? Note that this would coincide with the decline of the Athalean empire as well - the Rathedan passes would no longer be so important for trading with the Xsali if a sea route suddenly becomes available, which would contribute to the Athalean empire's downturn in fortunes. If we have the canal be a major contributor to both empires losing steam, it would help explain why they both fell apart in the same century.

[zompist]

OK, I'm going to grab Kasca itself.

I like the canal idea. That, and the printing press, could lead to a nice renaissance in the delta.

When do Athale and Huyfarah collapse again?

Who invented the printing press?

Is gunpowder known yet? If not, mind if I introduce it?

[Zhen Lin]

I set the date for the invention of the printing press, but not a location or context. Rathedān, assuming it remains a centre of metalwork, seems like a reasonable place for metal movable type to be invented.

So... where can I introduce a completely unrelated language?

[Radius Solis]

When do Athale and Huyfarah collapse again?

The timeline currently reads:

c. 800s --- both Empires badly stagnant
886 --- Northern Barbarians sack Ussor, Huyfarah never recovers
900s --- splinter states arise from ashes of Huyfarah
971 --- second fall of Akeladada: Empire of Athale loses southern Lasomo, then rapidly collapses


None of these dates is written in stone yet, there's nothing else depending heavily on them. I think. So if you want to make adjustments of +/- 100 years or so to any or all of them, that's cool.

For reference, the Faralo, Naidda, and Adata grammars all date from the year 130.

[Cedh]

So... where can I introduce a completely unrelated language?

Well, there's the Eiwel Gouron natives (most probably nomads) which don't have a language yet. Their language might be useful as a substrate for the steppe variants of Adata, which I've mentioned on my linguistic map. Some of the tribes in that area will probably speak Western languages (the Gezoro made it to Rathedan and thus must have crossed the Eiwel Gouron), but there may be one or more other families there.

Secondly, we know next to nothing about Hitatc and Xsali. I'm planning to do some work on these in order to prepare for the 1924 Hitatc invasion of Buruja that I mentioned yesterday, and I was thinking they might be distantly related (e.g. common protolang 2000-3000 years before Ndak Ta). If you created a language of this family I'd be happy to go along with you, provided the morphology is a bit simpler than that of your Edastean languages (I was thinking of a mostly isolating grammar). On a side note: given our general outline of population movements it's likely that a descendant of Xsali would be an important influence for Yhat, so I'd personally include uvulars...

Yet a third option would be to create a language for the Tjakori valley; it's located far enough from the centre of the Xsali empire that it may retain its own language even after a few centuries under Xsali control. Again this might be a useful substrate should any speakers of Adata (or later: Athata, Mavakhalan or Kozado) cross the mountains there.

[Dewrad]

Secondly, we know next to nothing about Hitatc and Xsali.

To my knowledge, Radius might be planning to do something with Xshali.

[Radius Solis]

Secondly, we know next to nothing about Hitatc and Xsali.

To my knowledge, Radius might be planning to do something with Xshali.

If someone's got a burning desire to do Xsali, they're welcome to it. If not, I do have some ideas clicking around in the back of my head, yes. But they can easily find another home.

[Corumayas]

Yet a third option would be to create a language for the Tjakori valley; it's located far enough from the centre of the Xsali empire that it may retain its own language even after a few centuries under Xsali control. Again this might be a useful substrate should any speakers of Adata (or later: Athata, Mavakhalan or Kozado) cross the mountains there.

According to the Adāta culture notes, Tjakori is actually a Western language, related to Gezoro; it is/was written with a syllabary, which was also used to write down the earliest Adāta religious texts (so it may well be the basis for the Adāta writing system). As far as I know, those two facts and the name are all that's known about it.

Just to put all this info in one place, here's a list of all the language families and their members (up to c 130 YP for the Edastean family) that I'm aware of for this conworld.

Code: Select all

TALO-EDAK
|--Tlaliolz (Tali)
`--Ndak Ta
   |--Adāta
   |--Ndok Aisô
   |--Naidda
   |--Fáralo
   `--Qedik

ISLES (first relay Team One)
|--Máotatšàli
|--Mûtsipsa'
|--Thoktunèhotà
|--Ppãrwak
`--Zele

EIGE-ISTHMUS (?)
|--Proto-Eige Valley
|  |--Ngauro
|  `--Miwan languages
`--Proto-Isthmus
   |--Western Isthmus
   |  |--Proto-Ferogh
   |  |  |--Faraghin
   |  |  `--Feråjin (Ferój)
   |  `--Boesin
   `--Eastern Isthmus
      |--Kietek
      |--Ka'alikora
      `--Doroh

WESTERN
|--Gezoro
|--Tjakori
`--others (incl. languages of Western civilizations)

HITATC
|--Hitatc Mlir
|--Hitatc Wan (Ktacwa)
`--another (proposed by Cedh)

Isolates and uncertain relationships:
Xšali (possibly distantly related to Hitatc?)
Takuña (some info in Rory's Mûtsipsa' grammar)
Lotoka (see Legion's post below; possibly related to Talo-Edak?)
Necine (a "non-Miw indigenous language", possibly related to Hitatc?)
Ōmishima (isolate, descended from Proto-Anatolionesian)

[Radius Solis]

Maybe we should dissolve the family relationship between Eige and Isthmus. Because there are langauges described at least to the point of 100-item wordlists in both branches, with zero attention paid during their creation to their relationship, it would be next to impossible to reconstruct any manner of ancestor. Otoh, perhaps that's not important... I leave the question for the Relay Gods to decide!

FWIW, Meshi and Miw aren't really different languages - they're actually tribe names. Each has a speech variety that is part of a broad dialect continuum with few clear internal boundaries, which in the Pencek grammar I collectively referred to as the Miwan languages. There are no doubt other tribes that speak Miwan languages too.

To answer an earlier question, no, Ngauro has received approximately zero description. Presumably some of NT's words are of Ngauro vintage, but I couldn't tell you which.

I have no idea what Necine is. I just pulled a name out of the air because I thought it'd be good to have another on the list... perhaps it's a Hitatc language. That would make sense for the locale.

[Corumayas]

Maybe we should dissolve the family relationship between Eige and Isthmus.

I like the idea of a relationship there... if it's at all possible, I'd like to keep it. (I might even attempt to construct an ancestor myself at some point, if you don't mind...) But if it's really just impossible, we can let it go, of course.

FWIW, Meshi and Miw aren't really different languages - they're actually tribe names.

Aha. On the map, they're placed far enough apart that I assumed they were separate languages (Miu near the Ngauro homeland on the lower Aiwa, Meshi on the upper Aiwa and in Gauron Emwel). Maybe the map simplifies the situation somewhat then.

I take it you've done some work on the Miwan languages as background for Pencek?

To answer an earlier question, no, Ngauro has received approximately zero description. Presumably some of NT's words are of Ngauro vintage, but I couldn't tell you which.

I noticed long ago that some of the entries in the Ndak Ta lexicon online are green; I've always wondered if they were loans from Ngauro or something, but I guess that's not it. What does the color mean?

I have no idea what Necine is. I just pulled a name out of the air because I thought it'd be good to have another on the list... perhaps it's a Hitatc language. That would make sense for the locale.

It would. It could also be an isolate, or part of an otherwise unknown family; it wouldn't hurt to have a few of those hanging around.

[zompist]

Here's a rough outline of the resurgence of Kasca.

Some time in the early 1000s— in general a dark age— there is a major flood in the Eige valley which rearranges the river's outlets to the sea. This sort of thing happens once a century or so. But this time it cuts a fairly wide channel into an inlet of the sea. For the first time in centuries, ships larger than small boats can navigate the delta.

The new channel is in the northern delta, an area so unpromising even within the depressed Eige delta that its Naidda name was Wìmaduvo, Stinking Mud. (I can't find out how to make adjectives from verbs, so I welcome correction on the name.) Soon trading settlements began to appear and grow. By 1100 there was a thriving town there, which took its name from the region.

In the mid 1100s Wìmaduvo undertook a major project to enlarge and stabilize the channel. (A by-product of this work was the invention of the water mill. To be precise, the concept had been known, but never much exploited.) As a result, larger ships could navigate the river. The city's wealth and population now grew explosively.

Around 1175 Wìmaduvo's neighbors, Lujosja and Mospiñor, felt threatened by its increasing wealth and attacked it. They were soundly defeated, and their territories occupied. Rèjai and Jan were absorbed not long after.

The city was now in a position to cut off as well as facilitate trade; this became clear in the first of three wars with Ngolo. In the third, Wìmaduvo took over Ngolo as well as its ally Momuva'e, around 1250.

The city now controlled all of Kasca proper. Wisely, it elected not to expand further upriver or along the coast, areas with different cultures that would force it to become a true empire, rather than a mercantile republic. (Over the centuries it did fight some wars with other coastal states and with Buruja; the only lasting effect was an occupation of the Dagam islands.)

Kasca embraced the printing press when it was invented, and— perhaps because it still did not have a unifying religion— became a hotbed of philosophical investigation. Kascan savants were the first to produce gunpowder; though this was used in war, a major use was to create more canals. Kascan merchants spread throughout the subcontinent, and created a banking network.

(If some of this recalls the history of Venice and the Netherlands, that's intentional...)

The language itself will be, naturally, the dialect of Wìmaduvo. This derives from a delta dialect rather than the southern dialect that forms standard Naidda... If Radius has ideas on how the delta dialects differ I'll use that information, otherwise I'll make up something. The language will be standardized c. 1600, so it'll be a near contemporary of Ayasthi etc.

[zompist]

As a minor contribution to the study of the Isthmus languages, the city of Chisse in the far east of Huyfárah is supposed to derive from the locals; also the river Poráš.

Did anyone ever claim Lotoka (in between Huyfárah and Siixtaguna)?

[Radius Solis]

The language itself will be, naturally, the dialect of Wìmaduvo. This derives from a delta dialect rather than the southern dialect that forms standard Naidda... If Radius has ideas on how the delta dialects differ I'll use that information, otherwise I'll make up something.

Depends... how long do you want to wait?

As of your post yesterday I realized that I had probably better get cracking on the Naidda revision and began. The lack of derivational information (incl. making adjectives from verbs) is only one of several glaring holes in the language that only show up when you look at it closely - another is that when trying to work with the syntax I keep running up against contradictions and other things that make no sense. My knowledge of syntax was much poorer two years ago. So at the moment I have a reconstructed sound change list with a few differences - I can probably get a revised lexicon up in a couple days (I've gotten much more practiced now at doing this, and having the original on hand will make it go faster as well), and barring unforeseen obstacles I can have the grammar updated and its worst holes filled in by the end of the week.

So, if you're willing to either wait for that or you're open to incorporating the revisions*, then the revised version can be the delta dialect (and I can do the southern dialect later). If not, then go ahead with making something up, and my revision can be the southern dialect.


*the basic phonology will remain the same, with one fewer vowel being the only phoneme inventory difference (/I/ and /3/ will merge). But the particular outcomes of many words will be a little different. I will also make word stress explicit instead of just ignoring it with a cop-out explanation like I did last time. The morphology system (including auxiliaries, pronouns, prepositions, etc) I do not plan to touch, but the shapes of some of the morphemes will change just as the words do. Another thing that will not change is the basic constituent order in clauses.

[Radius Solis]

Maybe we should dissolve the family relationship between Eige and Isthmus.

I like the idea of a relationship there... if it's at all possible, I'd like to keep it. (I might even attempt to construct an ancestor myself at some point, if you don't mind...)

Cool... let me know if and when you want the Miwan wordlists that have been used thus far.

I take it you've done some work on the Miwan languages as background for Pencek?

Only basic phonologies and wordlists. I've loaned Miwan words into three languages now - Naidda, Puoni, and Pencek - and each loan set came from a slightly different phonology with a few lexical differences. This reflects their respective contact with different Miwan dialects.

I noticed long ago that some of the entries in the Ndak Ta lexicon online are green; I've always wondered if they were loans from Ngauro or something, but I guess that's not it. What does the color mean?

Heh. It means nothing at all, anymore. Originally the lexicon was created in two chunks. The black words were offered first; the green words were the later additions, set in a different color so that people could see what had been added.

[Legion]

ON LOTOKA:

I originally created Lotoka to be a source of loan words for my daughterlang in the original reconstruction.

It was never devlopped further : it's just a list of loan words with a phoneme inventory.

It can even be summerised here :

/p b t d k g m n J N S w l a e 2 i y o u/

Syky = spice
SyN2 = zebu
Sylo = silk
kyba = sake
kila = tiger
gula = pig
m2wa = millet
m2la = elephant
Nalu = noodles
n2go = chicken
Nyla = bamboo
Jagy = rice
bal2Sa = water buffalo
beJa = ivory
puSo = lotus
dal2 = panda
lamy = incence
lotoka = lotoka

so strict CV apprently.

This is supposed to be the language at the time of Ndak-Ta, by the time of classicle language it has evolve into a continuum of closely related languages and dialect.

I has originally planed to make proto-lotoka related to some other family (probably Edak) but I don't know if that's possible and/or desired...

If someone was going to flesh out proto-lotoka properly though, that would be interesting, as there a variety of Lotoka which is supposed to be spoken on the area I am working now...

[Corumayas]

Cool... let me know if and when you want the Miwan wordlists that have been used thus far.

Yeah, I'd definitely be interested in looking at them. (I guess the first step might be to identify some Ngauro loans in Ndak Ta, then use that to work out what Ngauro was like and [re]construct Proto-Eige...)

Lotoka seems oddly dissonant-- words for elephant, tiger, bamboo, panda, etc. don't quite fit my understanding of this part of this world. Especially since the area it's in looks like it should have the climate of New Brunswick (or maybe Manchuria). I don't quite know what to make of it...

However, I'm going to go back and modify my language tree post to reflect this new information.

[Zhen Lin]

I might be able to work with Lotoka, but it's quite different compared to what I had intended to start with. (Then again, by the magic of soundchanges...) So, er, where is this map with Lotoka on it?