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

dunomapuka · Post by **dunomapuka** » Thu Dec 24, 2009 3:41 pm

I put up a little bit on how Lukpanic verbs work: http://superlush.co.uk/~akana/index.php ... _languages

The morphology is supposed to be fun and quirky, allowing forms like aditaiŋiuəbitaki, "Apparently [you/he/they/etc] didn't used to spit."

(the Isi form, for your amusement (and assuming no grammatical changes), is ajitaiŋiobitake. Looks a bit Japanese!)

Cedh · Post by **Cedh** » Sun Dec 27, 2009 8:55 am

I was talking to Basilius on IRC a few days ago, and now that I have time again I'd like to summarize the ideas we had about the history of the Isthmus region in the 1st millennium. Some of this is not new, but we've started to outline a possible scenario for the beginning of regular intercontinental contact with Tuysáfa:

- c. 400 YP: Huyfárah starts founding colonies in some places on the Isthmus and Lotoka coasts and on the near end of the Ttiruku island arc. Most of these colonies are probably more like trade hubs, with a Fáralo merchant/military elite and mostly native populations.

- c. 500-600 YP: Takuña and Kennan pirates harrass the western Isthmus area, occasionally even attacking port cities in the Huyfárah heartland. The most successful of these pirates operate mainly in Affanonic territory, and many Affanons also take to piracy.

- c. 600 YP: Affalinnei becomes a vassal state of Huyfárah by treaty:

Basilius wrote:...the idea being, Huyfárah needed to end piracy, and the Affanons, with their geographical position, were probably the main nest of piracy in the area, but not suicidals, to oppose the big nearby empire. So a natural compromise was that the Affanons assured the safety of Fáralo trade ships, escorting them etc., and eventually became vassals of Huyfárah, but at first on very convenient conditions: Instead of paying taxes, they took fees for escorting the ships

the Affanons wrote:We are the best pirates and can chase all the others away, so the deal is, we don't kill your people and take some fees legally, and you don't have an endless guerilla at your frontier.

- c. 650 YP: While in position as vassals of Huyfárah, the Affanons begin establishing colonies of their own, mostly in remote areas of little interest to the Fáralo... for instance, further out along the Ttiruku arc, and finally on Tuysáfa and Zeluzhia.

<basilius>...and then there's their clan system...
<basilius> ...and clan dialects...
<basilius> ...some being actually dialects of Doroh or Lotoka...
<cedh> ...and then we have other players in the area, such as Legion's Sumarušuxi people and Radius' evangelical Kennan pirates and TzirTzi's Takuña...
<basilius> ...then we have settings where e.g. a Doroh dialect gets to Tuysafa or Zeluzhia...

- c. 750 YP: The Doroh invade Huyfárah (by land), finally conquering Ussor. Around the same time, the Affanons turn against the Fáralo, setting up an independent state of their own.

----

At this point, we got to a second topic: We need a better description of Doroh. And we were both of the opinion that this would make a great group project: (a) The Doroh are important neighbours for several cultures that some of us are working on (at least Basilius, Legion, TzirTzi, thedukeofnuke, and me); (b) the shape of the language depends on a lot of different stuff that has been worked out by several people (mostly Corumayas, Radius, and me), most siginificantly on the other Eigə-Isthmus languages; and (c) what's most severely missing for a good reconstruction of Proto-Eigə-Isthmus seems to be a detailed description of any specific descendant.

Basilius wrote:that is, everything is a bit shaky just because all the daughters are so obscure

So, the idea is:

- we could set up a Doroh thread on the AkanaForum to develop the language collaboratively, e.g. like, it would be nice to have feature X in Doroh - let's see how it fits with PEI
- in parallel, we can elaborate on PEI and canonize some of the info that is currently floating around as suggestions
- when Doroh has a reasonably detailed description, we can enter a new reconstruction phase, from which we can then proceed to a better description of Ngauro, Miwan, and Meshi.

What do y'all think?

the duke of nuke · Post by **the duke of nuke** » Sun Dec 27, 2009 2:49 pm

I'm in favour of making a thread on the Akana forum for this. A better description of Doroh is overdue, and it would make a good group project. (More vocab is needed as well, for borrowings...)

Post by **zompist** » Sun Dec 27, 2009 4:41 pm

Oops, someone did point out the Fáralo questions to me, and I've been forgetting about them. I'll try to respond in a few days.

Cedh · Post by **Cedh** » Sat Jan 09, 2010 2:54 pm

I was looking at the results of some old CONLANG-L translation relays yesterday, and I simply had to use one of the intermediate versions of the 9th relay (>) as the basis for a second sample text for Tmaśareʔ: Kwahoʔ eʔeńopahmę / The return of the rain.

Cedh · Post by **Cedh** » Tue Feb 09, 2010 7:24 pm

So I've been translating a lot in the last few weeks. First the above-mentioned text for Tmaśareʔ, then an adaption of another old CONLANG-L relay text for Buruya Nzaysa (Instructions for a marriage ceremony), and now an adaption of an ancient Babylonian text (by thedukeofnuke, see here – thanks a lot BTW!) for Ndok Aisô: The Cursing of Sagibleu.

Cedh · Post by **Cedh** » Sun Feb 28, 2010 3:32 pm

While creating some new vocabulary for Ndok Aisô today, I realized that NT paingkwu "to fear" is an excellent example for illustrating the phonetic differences between the major classical Edastean languages. In particular, medial /ŋkʷ/ gives very varied reflexes:

Adāta pēkhu
Ndok Aisô paihoi
Buruya Nzaysa pɛmo
Naidda piño
Fáralo popu

Just thought I'd share this observation. Also, maybe it's time we did some more detailed conworlding again? For instance, a history outline of the Isthmus region in the 1st millennium (see a few posts above), or a history outline of the Western sphere (building on thedukeofnuke's recent description of Ishe)?

Corumayas · Post by **Corumayas** » Sun Feb 28, 2010 6:45 pm

Neat. (Oddly, though, I get pewpu from the Fáralo SCs. I wonder what I did wrong.)

I've had some thoughts about history recently-- though mostly on a broader scale-- but I've been too busy (moving house this weekend) to organize them in writing. I'll get back to it when things settle down a bit here.

The Ishe article also reminded me of another long-term project I'd like to get back to-- the domesticated plants and animals of Akana. Especially now that we're working on several different regions at once, I think it'd be good to work out their history and biology and all that stuff a bit more. (The spread of agriculture was one of the things I was already thinking about, actually.)

Legion · Post by **Legion** » Sun Feb 28, 2010 9:06 pm

cedh audmanh wrote:While creating some new vocabulary for Ndok Aisô today, I realized that NT paingkwu "to fear" is an excellent example for illustrating the phonetic differences between the major classical Edastean languages. In particular, medial /ŋkʷ/ gives very varied reflexes:

Adāta pēkhu
Ndok Aisô paihoi
Buruya Nzaysa pɛmo
Naidda piño
Fáralo popu

That would give pjechu in Komejech (I will finish it some day, I promess).

Radius Solis · Post by **Radius Solis** » Mon Mar 01, 2010 8:23 am

Wow, Ishe looks cool. And a bit on the rough side, what with expanding the proto-Western habit of cannibalism. I think it's realistic to have some cultures that are a little less palatable to modern Euro/American/"Western" mores than the classical Edastean groups tend to be. (Though some of my own past proposals for such went kinda overboard, so I'm afraid to try again myself.)

the duke of nuke · Post by **the duke of nuke** » Mon Mar 01, 2010 3:26 pm

Thanks guys

I took the odd hint from TzirTzi's grammar and the comments... the general flavour is based on Mesoamerica, with plenty of warring city-states and human sacrifice. I think it fits reasonably with the (rather violent) PW culture.

The next section to go up on the culture page will be learning and technology. What sort of tech level do we want for these chaps? I was thinking that if tin is reasonably common in the area, similar to Cornwall, they could keep on running a fairly advanced, literate civilisation, and probably trade with the Wellawi and the Steppe peoples, without much need for iron. There seem to be no large states nearby, only nomads and subsistence farmers, so there's probably not much of an outside military threat.

On the other hand... we have some of the other groups (Lake and Plateau) wreaking havoc in other parts of Peilaš. By -500, the Tjakori and then the Anheshnalaks have carved out serious empires for themselves in the southeast, and the Wañelinlawag also have their own state centred on the as-yet-unlocated Great Lake.
I support Cedh and Corumayas in that we need to keep this reasonably organised, and do at least some outline work on the general history (and biology).

dunomapuka · Post by **dunomapuka** » Sun Apr 25, 2010 6:03 pm

thread bump! (just for the hell of it)

Mbwa · Post by **Mbwa** » Sun Apr 25, 2010 6:57 pm

Hey, do you think I could join in on this thing, or is it getting too packed? I'm more interested in language than culture, so my language-speakers won't impact anything you guys had planned really. They'll probably be some nomads or island-dwellers or something.

the duke of nuke · Post by **the duke of nuke** » Sun Apr 25, 2010 7:36 pm

Plenty of space. We have a good four continents to fill up yet!

Mbwa · Post by **Mbwa** » Sun Apr 25, 2010 7:38 pm

Alrighty then. I scanned over the proto-languages and I think I'd want to derive an Isles language. I see, though, that some other language families are a bit smaller. Isles didn't seem to overcrowded though, do you think it would be alright to have another Isles language?

the duke of nuke · Post by **the duke of nuke** » Sun Apr 25, 2010 8:06 pm

I don't imagine there's a problem with that, although the more senior members of the project know better than I do.
A descendant of Proto-Isles somewhere in the Ttiruku Arc or nearby should be good; a descendant of one of the first-generation Isles languages would be even more welcome, since we only have one at the moment and it's on hold.

Mbwa · Post by **Mbwa** » Sun Apr 25, 2010 8:19 pm

The first generation Isles languages seem to have many broken links or not a lot of info. I don't have a great track record with sticking to projects anyway; I'll probably create another first generation language spoken by a small tribe who moved to a little island somewhere.

Mbwa · Post by **Mbwa** » Sun Apr 25, 2010 9:10 pm

You know what, I'll derive a Lukpanic langauge. The pitch accent and other stuff in Proto-Isles was confusing me. Lukpanic looks nice, and lonely.

the duke of nuke · Post by **the duke of nuke** » Sun Apr 25, 2010 10:05 pm

That's great

It probably won't get any descendants of its own, though, because Coastal Western peoples overrun the area in the early to mid 1st millenium BP (about 1000 years after the grammar sketch is written).
On the other hand, it can be a big substrate influence on the Coastal languages. I derived a dialect for Ishe, but didn't put much effort in besides a few sound changes.

Mbwa · Post by **Mbwa** » Sun Apr 25, 2010 10:43 pm

That's fine, I wouldn't expect anybody to derive anything off of it anyway.

BTW, boy#12, do you plan on working any more on this language, or is there a more complete grammar somewhere? I like it so far, but there's not much to go off of. It's no big deal really, just wondering.

dunomapuka · Post by **dunomapuka** » Mon Apr 26, 2010 3:25 am

Mbwa wrote:That's fine, I wouldn't expect anybody to derive anything off of it anyway.

BTW, boy#12, do you plan on working any more on this language, or is there a more complete grammar somewhere? I like it so far, but there's not much to go off of. It's no big deal really, just wondering.

I should go in and fill in some more of the grammar. Insofar as it exists at all, it's only in my head. There's a couple things I know I want to put in but I have essentially zero thoughts regarding the syntax. Doing syntax isn't really my forte...

Mbwa · Post by **Mbwa** » Mon Apr 26, 2010 11:44 am

Don't worry about it (well unless you want to work on it of course). I'll do a brief sketch of a Lukpanic language. Tdon (heh, T-Don sounds like a cheezy nickname) said those people got overrun anyways. If I like the project I may do another language from a more complete Akana language, if that would be alright.

Radius Solis · Post by **Radius Solis** » Mon Apr 26, 2010 12:40 pm

It's always alright.

A pocketful of songs. · Tue May 04, 2010 7:35 pm

Hey again. I've been thinking about getting back into Akana, but reading the wiki one of the main things that made it hard was a lack of any map of all N. Peilash showing positions of the named cultural regions, so I made one. While I was at it, since a lot of stuff seemed just to-be-defined rather than scattered, I added a fair bit of new details, for your consideration.

1.1 MB, 2500x1182

the duke of nuke · Post by **the duke of nuke** » Tue May 04, 2010 7:58 pm

That's... gorgeous. And good to know that we have one of the original contributors coming back to the project.

I believe the Western regions have a few small errors, though:
- The Kipceʔ desert should be where you've labelled "Coastal Corridor." Where you've labeled "Kipceʔ Desert" is a continuation of the steppe, tuurning into taiga in the far north.
- The Lukpanic coast is the coastline southwest of Wañelin out to the western cape.
- There should be an island off the peninsula immediately southwest of Wañelin, because the island city-state of Kpitamoa is located there.

Can't think of any other problems. In case it needs saying again, that map is awesome.