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

Cedh · Post by **Cedh** » Sun Jul 20, 2008 4:00 am

Radius Solis wrote:I'm thinking it would make a lot of sense to divide timelines up by sphere as well. If I want a history of the Aiwa valley the clutter from other spheres isn't currently huge, because there's so much material for the Aiwa sphere, but it will be a different story when I get the Xsali timeline up! It's two pages long in Notepad and that still only covers the second empire and interregnum... in barebones. I figure I'll leave earlier stuff for anyone else who's interested, but I'll need to do some third-empire material so it can be up to date with the Xsali language, down the line when I get it done.

This should be a good idea.

Alternative: a columned-table format, one column per sphere. Or two columns, one for the Aiwa sphere and one for everything else.

One column for each sphere could work, but is not good for people with small screens. The other option is not that good because it groups regions together that don't have any contact with each other. IMO we should aim for the following four spheres: 1. The Aiwa sphere; 2. The Xšali and Peninsular sphere; 3. The Western sphere; 4. The Siixtaguna and Isles sphere. (Events in the far southwest or on other continents are not likely to bother us soon, and when they do these regions can get their own spheres.)

Another idea I just had would be to have a master timeline where each event is assigned a sphere via a template, and where the user can select which spheres are to be displayed. This could even involve a more detailed filter, or showing multiple spheres at once.

What I'm not sure of though is how to implement it exactly. Wikipedia has collapsible tables that show only part of their content unless you click on the header of the part you want to see, using the CSS property display. Here's how I imagine this (for those who are into wiki/web formatting):

Timeline article

Code: Select all

{{Timeline|SPHERE}}
{{Event|aiwa|0|Death of Zārakātias}}
{{Event|xsali|3|Rebellion in Tjakori}}
</div>

(Note that "SPHERE" should not actually appear in the wikitext, but represents a variable containing the sphere(s) that the user wants to see.)

Template:Timeline

Code: Select all

<div class="timeline" id="{{{1}}}">

Template:Event

Code: Select all

<span class={{{1}}}>
* {{{2}}} YP: {{{3}}}</span>

CSS file

Code: Select all

.timeline li {display:none;}
#aiwa .aiwa  {display:inline;}
#xsali .xsali  {display:inline;}

With this (I think) we only need a way to set the SPHERE variable in Template:Timeline to either "aiwa" or "xsali" dynamically, based on user choice. This should be possible with JavaScript (which I'm not very good at, unfortunately), or even directly using link parameters. The output should then look like so:

if SPHERE="aiwa"

0 YP: Death of Zārakātias

if SPHERE="xsali"

3 YP: Rebellion in Tjakori

if SPHERE="aiwa xsali"

0 YP: Death of Zārakātias

3 YP: Rebellion in Tjakori

Zhen Lin · Post by **Zhen Lin** » Sun Jul 20, 2008 5:27 am

I've added the new items into the lexicon. (I have uploaded the new file.) There are now over 100 roots and 350 forms - thanks for the contribution!

I've also included some words for numbers:

Code: Select all

1: *ptata
2: *ptaptu	 20: *ptaptusria
3: *maru	 30: *marusria
4: *luaxi	 40: *luaxisria
5: *trŋs	 50: *trŋssria
6: *mamir	 60: *mamirsria
7: *nartŋ	 70: *nartŋsria
8: *lalux	 80: *laluxsria
9: *srilupta 90: *sriluptasria
10: *sriata
100: *paikta

But I wonder if I should have roots for thousand and higher numbers?

Cedh · Post by **Cedh** » Sun Jul 20, 2008 5:56 am

Zhen Lin wrote:I've added the new items into the lexicon. (I have uploaded the new file.) There are now over 100 roots and 350 forms - thanks for the contribution!

You're welcome!

Two minor comments:

- The definition of *silu should read "spouse of the spouse's sibling".

- You have changed the compound order of "child-in-law" to *fmar-xina, while the analogous "grandchild" stays *xina-paŋa. I admit that *fmar-xina sounds better than *xina-fmar, but I was of the impression that PPI used almost exclusively head-final compounding? Maybe it's because *paŋa already contains the notion of belonging to a younger generation, so with *fmar you interpreted *xina as the head to highlight this notion?

But I wonder if I should have roots for thousand and higher numbers?

I don't think this is necessary. I'm currently pondering myself whether to even include numbers higher than 25 in Proto-Hitatc (which has a base-5 system).

TzirTzi · Post by **TzirTzi** » Sun Jul 20, 2008 6:02 am

I wouldn't think so - it would seem unlikely in a culture at the level of technological and organisational development that I imagine PP is that they would have enough need of high numbers that they'd have common or survivable terms for them. I like the numbers there are, though

.

As for the spheres and the wiki formatting... I'm afraid I know no javascript either, but I don't suppose we could just set the variables with ?sphere="" in the address could we? Probably not, I really don't know anything about this kind of thing - the only web programming I've ever done is php and html.

Zhen Lin · Post by **Zhen Lin** » Sun Jul 20, 2008 9:28 am

cedh audmanh wrote:- You have changed the compound order of "child-in-law" to *fmar-xina, while the analogous "grandchild" stays *xina-paŋa. I admit that *fmar-xina sounds better than *xina-fmar, but I was of the impression that PPI used almost exclusively head-final compounding? Maybe it's because *paŋa already contains the notion of belonging to a younger generation, so with *fmar you interpreted *xina as the head to highlight this notion?

Mmm, something like that. In *fmar-xina, I'm using the nominal sense of *xina, whereas in *xina-paŋa, I'm using the adjectival sense.

Cedh · Post by **Cedh** » Sun Jul 20, 2008 4:39 pm

I wrote:Timeline filtering...

It works!

I've found a JavaScript library at openwetware.org which accomplishes exactly what I was looking for. I have then created two templates for the wiki, one for displaying a toggle switch and the other to wrap around each event in the timeline.

Template:Event has the syntax {{Event|Class|Year|Text}}, where "Class" is the value of the CLASS attribute to be assigned to this event. This should simply be the name of the region simplified to ASCII. "Year" is the date of the event, and "Text" is the description.
(In theory we should even be able to include several regions in the CLASS attribute of a single event, which would be handy if both regions are involved. However, this doesn't work properly yet).

Template:Toggler can be called via {{Toggler|Class}}, where "Class" refers to the CLASS value associated with the region whose history should be displayed or hidden with this switch. I intend to eventually create a hierarchy of regions, where e.g. Huyfárah, Kasca, and Lasomo are all affected by an "Eigə Valley" switch.
(The Toggler template is fairly generic and can be used to display/hide elements in other wiki articles as well, provided they have a CLASS value not used by not-to-be-toggled elements on the same page.)

Now someone has to take upon himself the task of converting the timeline data...

TzirTzi · Post by **TzirTzi** » Sun Jul 20, 2008 5:53 pm

Brilliant stuff! That's a very nice bit of script, exactly what was needed ^^.

Corumayas · Post by **Corumayas** » Sun Jul 20, 2008 6:09 pm

Cool! So most of the events we have so far should be in the class 'Aiwa', yes? Or do we want to divide it into smaller regions (like your example: Kasca, Huyfarah, Lasomo)?

[Edit: oh, I see: we should start with the smaller regions, and later they'll get grouped together hierarchically. I can start on that, I guess.]

Also, there are still some references to Komeyech-speakers in the upper Aiwa (e.g. on the Adata page and the timeline). These should either be removed or changed to refer to another group...

dunomapuka · Post by **dunomapuka** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 2:12 am

Corumayas wrote:Also, there are still some references to Komeyech-speakers in the upper Aiwa (e.g. on the Adata page and the timeline). These should either be removed or changed to refer to another group...

How about the Damak, the cousins of the Habeo? We've got them floating around that region somewhere.

TzirTzi · Post by **TzirTzi** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 12:15 pm

Some tree and plant vocab for Proto-Peninsular.

EDIT: forgot, I also put in colour vocabulary - a three term system. Hope that's ok with all

.

Also, I've been playing with sound-changes for an Ehlaut Peninsular language. So far, it has developed rounding vowel-harmony (with /u/ as a neutral vowel), the syllabic nasals have vocalised into nasal vowels, /C/ has been lost as has the distinction between /x h/, there's been some palatalisation and a few vowel shifts.

For example, the seven words given on the PP page as examples of sets of cognates come out like this:

*fŋrix → /f̃uris/
*naxrix → /nɑxris/
*ptata → /ptɑtɑ/
*tiçarxa → /tiərxɑ/
*kaxsn → /kɑʒ̃i/
*marnaçxa → /mɑrnəxɑ/
*mrisaŋfa → /̃ɑresɑmfɑ/

I thought I might make a very limited sketch at this point - just a set of changes from PP, really - to leave as a mid-way protolanguage so that a sisterlang could be made at somepoint.

No worries if there's not really space for such a language at this point, I'm happy for it to be just a minor language which then disappears if need be

.

Corumayas · Post by **Corumayas** » Tue Jul 22, 2008 7:35 pm

cedh audmanh wrote:Now someone has to take upon himself the task of converting the timeline data...

Done.

boy #12 wrote:
Corumayas wrote:Also, there are still some references to Komeyech-speakers in the upper Aiwa (e.g. on the Adata page and the timeline). These should either be removed or changed to refer to another group...
How about the Damak, the cousins of the Habeo? We've got them floating around that region somewhere.

Also done. It's now the Damak who're in conflict with the Mohudza ca -500. (Of course this can be changed.)

I also added links in the timeline to anything that I thought we might possibly write an article for someday. Maybe I went a little overboard, but I'm optimistic that, e.g., each of the Kascan cities might eventually get a little write-up.

Radius Solis · Post by **Radius Solis** » Tue Jul 22, 2008 7:59 pm

Corumayas wrote: Maybe I went a little overboard, but I'm optimistic that, e.g., each of the Kascan cities might eventually get a little write-up.

Not a bad idea, although I would probably want to do them within a single article. In any case there's some quickie-descriptions of Momuva'e and Påwe coming up, which will (for now) be included in the Culture article.

-------

Also, there are two disruptions coming up for me:

1. I am moving, from Tucson to Seattle. I won't have internet between, roughly, the end of July (give or take a couple days) and 10th or 11th of August. Add a week or so of reduced online presence at both ends of this.

2. The University of Arizona webspace I have been using all this time, which is Pharazon's, will be going poof sometime in the next month or so, as he has graduated. I can't guarantee that all my stuff won't be offline for a few weeks - but either way, it won't be terribly long before I find hosting elsewhere. If there's anything hosted on my space you need continual access to, such as the Naidda or NT dictionaries, now would be a good time to save a local copy.

schwhatever · Post by **schwhatever** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 7:50 pm

Hey, remember how I was going to producing one of the descendents of Fáralo? Yeah, I finally got around to making something specific. I'm thinking this is probably about 1500-2000 years out.

Plosives and Fricatives
*h *b *g

h B G

0 0 G /V_V
*tS *dZ

S Z
*k *g G

c J\ j\ /_i,ei),E,{
*kp *kt

k: /V_V
*kp *kt

p t
*pk *pc *pt

p: /V_V
*pk *pc *pt

k c t
*tp *tc *tk

t: /V_V
*tp *tc *tk

p c k
*mb *nd *Ng *NJ\

m: n: N: N:
*p *t *k

b d J\ g /l,5,r,m,n,N_
*p *b *t *d *k *g

p_h v t_h z k_h G /_r,h,s,z
t_h

ts)
k_h

t_h

Rhotics, Approximants, Nasals
*l

5 /@,u,ou),O,a_
*l 5 *r *m *n *N

l= 5= r= m= n= N= /@_C,#
l= 5= r=

@^

0
m= n= N=

@~
l 5 *r

0 /_#
*lg 5g

5:
*r

R

h\

Vowels
*{ *E *ei)

E /_r,l,m,n,N
*a *O *ou)

V /_r,l,m,n,N
*i *u

1 8 /r,l,m,n,N
*i *u

j w /_V
j@ w@

jU wU

}: u:

u:
ji jei) jE j{

ji

i:
wu wou) wO

wu

u:
*@

0
(Epenthetic /a/ for most new clusters - except where syllabic rhotics)
@~

E~ /i,ei),E,{(C)_
@~

O~ /u,ou),O(C)_
@~

V~ /8,V(C)_
E 8

@
*{

E
*a

{
V V~

A A~
*'ei) *'ou)

i u
*ei) *ou)

E: O:
{i {E

E:
Au AO

O:

So the Phoneme Inventory is...!

/p p_h p: b t t_h ts) t: d c J\ k k: g/
/f v s z S Z h h\/
/l 5 5: m m: n n: N N:/
/i 1 E { A O u/
/i: E: O: u:/
/E~ @~ O~ A~/

Grammar is soon to come.

dunomapuka · Post by **dunomapuka** » Fri Jul 25, 2008 2:22 pm

schwhatever wrote:Hey, remember how I was going to producing one of the descendents of Fáralo? Yeah, I finally got around to making something specific. I'm thinking this is probably about 1500-2000 years out.

I would go for more like 1500 -- that time period at least has some level of description (though not much), and there will be languages around to borrow from (see previous discussion of zompist's Wï'makwå language). 2000 years out, the world is barely described: we have no idea what the various languages are (except those on the long Adata-descendant-chains) or what the political situation is like; your language will be floating in a sea of nothingness until we catch up to it.

dunomapuka · Post by **dunomapuka** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 1:32 am

If anyone is interested, I have written a whole bunch of stuff about Ndok culture: http://superlush.co.uk/~akana/index.php/Ndok .

I have included a section on personal names, tangentially inspired by Tzirtzi's discussion of same. Anyone had thoughts about personal names in their cultures? I'm especially curious about the Fáralo.

Radius Solis · Post by **Radius Solis** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 4:08 am

Aha! Good to see some culture work. And good to have a better idea what the Ndok are like! I really like the naming system for nobles. The naming system for commoners is solid too.

I did have a thought about the names of clergy... the way you've structured it, it would be easy and interesting for there to be some conflation of names with titles. For instance, if in addition to switching to a matronymic, the clergy also added an additional matronymic naming the goddess as another mother, for use in formal naming. (Or do they still worship her?) Or just replaced their secular matronymic with such, for some purposes. Then, if they would ever normally be addressable by matronymic alone, there'd be room for an interesting social system for when to pick addressing the priest by his secular matronymic vs. his religious one. Or whichever; your system just seems to offer so many possibilities.

Cedh · Post by **Cedh** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 7:44 am

boy #12 wrote:If anyone is interested, I have written a whole bunch of stuff about Ndok culture: http://superlush.co.uk/~akana/index.php/Ndok

This sounds like a very interesting culture. We should get to work it out in more detail soon, in order to get on with history.

As a step towards dealing with Lasomo and environs around 1000 YP, I've extended the Æðadĕ lexicon with approximately 700 new words, including borrowings from most neighbouring languages (Fáralo, Buruya, Namɨdu, Old Ayāsthi; and a few terms each from Naidda, Mavakhalan, and Pencek). Still missing are additional derivations in Adāta, recent derivations in Æðadĕ (I've put aside a few Adāta words to create new derivational morphology from), and, most importantly, loans from Ndok Aisô, of which I think there should be at least a hundred.

So...
boy #12: How much of a NA wordlist do you have currently?
Zhen Lin: Could you please check my Old Ayāsthi loans - do they seem sensible for the time period?

dunomapuka · Post by **dunomapuka** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 11:57 am

Awesome stuff, cedh. Glad you made use of my little Buruya thing, I thought that would be ultimately forgotten

cedh audmanh wrote:boy #12: How much of a NA wordlist do you have currently?

It's about 130 entries, not totally finalized. I re-discovered this just now; I'm in the messy process of moving files around and I have all these contradictory entries and stuff, and I keep slightly changing the sound changes, but I think I've got them where I want 'em. So, maybe I will upload the lexicon on the wiki pretty soon.

Zhen Lin · Post by **Zhen Lin** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 9:11 pm

cedh audmanh wrote:Zhen Lin: Could you please check my Old Ayāsthi loans - do they seem sensible for the time period?

Those are essentially phonologically correct. Some notes:
* ḋjèmah should represent [z\E~mah]. Likewise cáseıə should be cáṫjeıə, representing [kA:s\e@]. (Personally I would have used ḑ ţ instead of digraphs.)
* hèısoṁ is a loan of MK hêsom.
* jàw should be jàḃḃ (there was /w/ distinct from /B/), representing [jAB:]. Likewise pàvo should be written pàḃo.
* cálaṅ-ċeınn should be cálaċeinn. Likewise càılaṅ-ċeınn should be càılaċeınn.
* cìʒetsy, at the time would be pronounced [kiZetsM] - the /1/ of modern/new Ayāsthi is a merger of old [ u ] (conditionally), [M] and [1]. Likewise màrry (which is a loan of Fáralo mardu), péchy (which has the stem péchu-), and ʒechózy. However, rytşé should be rutşé, and ċényoıll should be ċénuoill [xE:nuwœ:l:]. tỳṫy should be tùṫy [tuTM]. ùrȳ should be ùruḃy [ur\uBM].
* şîmw and şîry are contractions of old şî əm ùċ and şî ər ùċ, respectively. (şî in turn is a contraction of şìp.)

There's a problem with one of the MK loans though - beauty is jemo, not imo. In general, no /i u/ before nasals. But I suppose you could chalk it up to interference from native īmo.

Question: what's the difference between vulgar and imperial? Different sound changes?

Cedh · Post by **Cedh** » Wed Jul 30, 2008 5:36 am

Thank you!

Zhen Lin wrote:* ḋjèmah should represent [z\E~mah].

I originally wanted the modern pronunciation [jEmah] (< Ad. DEMAS), but you mentioned somewhere in this thread that the change *D > [j] took place around 1250, which is too late for me. I thought maybe a dialect bordering Æðadĕ-speaking areas (where initial [Dj] is common) would palatalise the dental fricative earlier on. But I think I'll just use [DEmah], which is still much better than the native reflex [Dims].

* hèısoṁ is a loan of MK hêsom.

I'll take it directly from Mavakhalan then.

* cìʒetsy, at the time would be pronounced [kiZetsM] - the /1/ of modern/new Ayāsthi is a merger of old [ u ] (conditionally), [M] and [1]. Likewise màrry (which is a loan of Fáralo mardu), péchy (which has the stem péchu-), and ʒechózy. However, rytşé should be rutşé, and ċényoıll should be ċénuoill [xE:nuwœ:l:]. tỳṫy should be tùṫy [tuTM]. ùrȳ should be ùruḃy [ur\uBM].

Hmm. I've changed most of these accordingly, except for [r\utSe:], for which I'll use the native reflex [rute].

There's a problem with one of the MK loans though - beauty is jemo, not imo. In general, no /i u/ before nasals. But I suppose you could chalk it up to interference from native īmo.

You gave ate-imo as an example in the grammar.

Question: what's the difference between vulgar and imperial? Different sound changes?

In general, "V.Ad." means that the word is either not attested in the Imperial Adāta lexicon or has undergone slightly irregular changes such as additional contractions (e.g. AXA > Ā) or a change of a tenuis plosive to an aspirate to make the outcome more aesthetically pleasing (Æðadĕ has way too many voiced obstruents IMO). With derivations it can also mean that the word was coined late enough to allow medial clusters, leading to nice doublets such as dūda "to spoil, to pamper" and dwesta "to adapt, to accommodate", both from TUS "home" + -TA causative suffix - except that the former is the reflex of TŪTA and the latter that of TUSTA. Another thing I'm planning to exploit is to use NA stress (on the last vowel that is followed by a consonant) in contrast to Adāta stress (usually first syllable), mainly with Ndok Aisô loans. This gives e.g. [{xloDo] ~ [galDu] (both from AKELODO).

EDIT:
I should maybe add that [galDu] derives from */akelo"do/, with the stress pattern of NA /NahE?8l"do?/, in which the last syllable was followed by a consonant.

Zhen Lin · Post by **Zhen Lin** » Wed Jul 30, 2008 7:20 am

cedh audmanh wrote:I originally wanted the modern pronunciation [jEmah] (<Ad> [j] took place around 1250, which is too late for me. I thought maybe a dialect bordering Æðadĕ-speaking areas (where initial [Dj] is common) would palatalise the dental fricative earlier on. But I think I'll just use [DEmah], which is still much better than the native reflex [Dims].

Well, the history of /d/ is a bit complicated:

From Adāta to old Ayāsthi, a.k.a. Adhāsth:
1. /d/ > [D] (at the same time, /b/ > and /g/ > [G])
2. [D] > [z\] / _[E e i] (at the same time, /T s z n/ > [s\ S Z J] under the same conditions)

From Adhāsth to Ayāsthi:
3. [D] > [z\]
4. [z\] > [j\] (at the same time, [s\] > [s])
5. [j\] > /j/ (at the same time, > /w/ and [G] > /h\/)

You can get [DEma] from MK though.

You gave ate-imo as an example in the grammar.

Yeah, I guessed something like that might have happened. (That's what I get for not running words through sound changes properly.)

In general, "V.Ad." means that the word is either not attested in the Imperial Adāta lexicon or has undergone slightly irregular changes such as additional contractions (e.g. AXA > Ā) or a change of a tenuis plosive to an aspirate to make the outcome more aesthetically pleasing (Æðadĕ has way too many voiced obstruents IMO). With derivations it can also mean that the word was coined late enough to allow medial clusters, leading to nice doublets such as dūda "to spoil, to pamper" and dwesta "to adapt, to accommodate", both from TUS "home" + -TA causative suffix - except that the former is the reflex of TŪTA and the latter that of TUSTA. Another thing I'm planning to exploit is to use NA stress (on the last vowel that is followed by a consonant) in contrast to Adāta stress (usually first syllable), mainly with Ndok Aisô loans. This gives e.g. [{xloDo] ~ [galDu] (both from AKELODO).

Ah, interesting. Dialect-borrowing...

TzirTzi · Post by **TzirTzi** » Wed Jul 30, 2008 7:41 am

Some bodily function and disease related words for PP.

Corumayas · Post by **Corumayas** » Thu Jul 31, 2008 6:59 pm

boy #12 wrote:If anyone is interested, I have written a whole bunch of stuff about Ndok culture: http://superlush.co.uk/~akana/index.php/Ndok .

I have included a section on personal names, tangentially inspired by Tzirtzi's discussion of same. Anyone had thoughts about personal names in their cultures? I'm especially curious about the Fáralo.

Cool! I'm glad you filled in some information on the other twelve dynasties.

The social structure is a definite departure from what ghur wrote... it used to be that Ndok kings became gods upon taking the throne, which doesn't exactly fit with the "first-among-equals" attitude of the nobility to the king (nor, maybe, with the strict division between clergy and nobility).

Radius Solis · Post by **Radius Solis** » Thu Jul 31, 2008 8:12 pm

That's true, but eh, I don't see why we couldn't either 1. ignore that ghur wrote that (just as we've had to ignore other such things) or 2. retcon a way for both descriptions to work together - e.g. if the king were a god to commoners but first among equals to nobles, who might also believe themselves to be a little divine.

dunomapuka · Post by **dunomapuka** » Fri Aug 01, 2008 12:54 am

Radius Solis wrote:That's true, but eh, I don't see why we couldn't either 1. ignore that ghur wrote that (just as we've had to ignore other such things) or 2. retcon a way for both descriptions to work together - e.g. if the king were a god to commoners but first among equals to nobles, who might also believe themselves to be a little divine.

Oh, I'd forgotten about what ghur wrote... I rather liked that bit, too. I think the solution is that the nobles think they are invested with some divine essence - they are literally descended from Ombàsi. When the king is crowned (sanctified by the high priest), he's set on the path to full godliness, to be fulfilled when he dies (note the expression "now he has become a god" in the Tsinakan Text). Likewise when the nobles die, they enter some lower tier of godlings.

I'm picturing a defined hierarchy here:
The first tier is the quartet of the Sun, the Moon, the goddess Ombàsi, and the Emperor Tsinakan.
The second tier includes some other ancient gods, as well as all former kings.
The third tier (probably called "neheu") are the dead nobles and various minor gods and demons.

The clergy are not possessed of divine essence in themselves - it's just a vocation - but they are the earthly keepers of what is sacred.