Post Your Conlang's Inspiration

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Kereb
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Re: Post your conlang's inspiration

Post by Kereb »

so yeah, on topic n shit

for Rhean:

Turkish and various IE-langs for the grammar, a liiiiiiiiiiiittle bit Japanese, also for the grammar. From Turkish and Japanese I took Rhean's strong head-finalness and agglutinative morphology; from Greek, Latin, Russian I took its fusional-ish morphology, use of prepositions with varying cases, verb conjugation ... phonology was inspired by Turkish, Farsi, and slavic languages.

for Ishtol:

syntax inspired by Hawaiian and salish-langs, applicatives inspired by bantu languages, morphology kinda out of nowhere ... much of it designed not after natural languages but rather around the principle "let's do the opposite of Rhean".
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Re: Post your conlang's inspiration

Post by Nortaneous »

Kien: Vietnamese, mostly, although I'm stealing bits and pieces from Scottish Gaelic, and Meditsai was the main motivation to get around to making the thing instead of having Kett die out.
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Re: Post your conlang's inspiration

Post by Yagia »

Vayardyio was a priori from the onset but leaned heavily on word patterns and sounds from English, French and German ( the languages I had to cope with while in highschool ). Its first grammar was almost literally copied from my Latin textbook. Since then there have been scores of makeovers in the vocabulary, my aim ever since has been to replace words with any resemblance to natlangs by words that would fit into the (ever more clearly) emerging Vayardyio pattern. I introduced new grammatical features after I'd started reading books on linguistics.
What continues to annoy me at times is: that my whole mindset is so thoroughly IE that I just can't conceive words and features for my conlang that are altogether different. They just sound too alien to me and I reject them sooner or later.
The most rewarding and sometimes even exciting thing to do is to create a word which really sounds as if it evolved in a natural way, I mean phonologically and etymologically.
A word that just sits on a page and expresses beauty in itself. Wow.
Affacite iago Vayardyio fidigou accronésara! http://conlang.wikia.com/wiki/Vayardyio

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Re: Post your conlang's inspiration

Post by Ouagadougou »

Proto-Sèferi for the Etheria project is heavily influenced by Tagalog, but I've been thinking about adding Germanic features as well.

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Re: Post your conlang's inspiration

Post by Herr Dunkel »

For my newest project, Qaar, I've taken Blackfeet-and-toes as my primary inspiration, but I will actually draw inspiration from my other conalngs.
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Re: Post your conlang's inspiration

Post by cybrxkhan »

Proto-Arcesian for the Etheria project is vaguely Semitic and Greek, phonologically, but it is more Indo-European-ish and Quechua when it comes to grammar.

It's descendant, CLassical Arcesese, is more Greek and Indo-European ish.
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Re: Post your conlang's inspiration

Post by the duke of nuke »

Phonologically and orthographically, Meduzian is shamelessly based on Portuguese.

Otya lhenúkya, e marshala ovulu.

Gramatically, it's a little like Welsh, though rather more isolating. I think that was more worked out on my own.
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Re: Post your conlang's inspiration

Post by Skomakar'n »

I think Hungarian, Finnish and Greenlandic are having a little too much to say about Vanga right now, but old ideas from Kozea are also flourishing, and elements of the phonology are based on other stuff, and a lot of it is just my own imagination.
Online dictionary for my conlang Vanga: http://royalrailway.com/tungumaalMiin/Vanga/

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I'd love for you to try my game out! Here's the forum thread about it:
http://zbb.spinnwebe.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=36688

Of an Ernst'ian one.

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L'alphabētarium
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Re: Post your conlang's inspiration

Post by L'alphabētarium »

Is it just me or is Finnish a very "in" inspirational language for conlangs these days...?

(Don't get me wrong, I love the language. Just hearing "tervetuloa" makes me feel more welcome than in any other language! :D )

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Re: Post your conlang's inspiration

Post by Nortaneous »

L'alphabētarium wrote:Is it just me or is Finnish a very "in" inspirational language for conlangs these days...?
What "these days"?

Also, I think its status as the most accessible non-IE language helps there...
Siöö jandeng raiglin zåbei tandiüłåd;
nää džunnfin kukuch vklaivei sivei tåd.
Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei.

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Re: Post your conlang's inspiration

Post by Herr Dunkel »

Nortaneous wrote:
L'alphabētarium wrote:Is it just me or is Finnish a very "in" inspirational language for conlangs these days...?
What "these days"?

Also, I think its status as the most accessible non-IE language helps there...
Oh my! Finnish is not IE?
OH MY
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L'alphabētarium
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Re: Post your conlang's inspiration

Post by L'alphabētarium »

Oh my! Finnish is not IE?
Nope. It's a Finnic language, part of the greater Uralic family of languages.
Its closest relatives are Karelian, Estonian, Vepsian, Saami and (to a lesser extent) Hungarian.

It's a beautiful language and one of my favourites!

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Re: Post your conlang's inspiration

Post by MisterBernie »

L'alphabētarium wrote:
Oh my! Finnish is not IE?
Nope. It's a Finnic language, part of the greater Uralic family of languages.
Its closest relatives are Karelian, Estonian, Vepsian, Saami and (to a lesser extent) Hungarian.

It's a beautiful language and one of my favourites!
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Re: Post your conlang's inspiration

Post by WeepingElf »

Darkgamma wrote:
Nortaneous wrote:
L'alphabētarium wrote:Is it just me or is Finnish a very "in" inspirational language for conlangs these days...?
What "these days"?

Also, I think its status as the most accessible non-IE language helps there...
Oh my! Finnish is not IE?
OH MY
Indeed not. Finnish - or rather, the entire Uralic family - may be related to Indo-European, but the matter is controversial.
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Re: Post your conlang's inspiration

Post by L'alphabētarium »

...are we in the house?
talossa???
Indeed not. Finnish - or rather, the entire Uralic family - may be related to Indo-European, but the matter is controversial.
Yeah, it could be. It has been suggested it could be related to Altaic languages as well (as a part of an even greater Ural-Altaic family), but no-one can be sure for now...

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Re: Post your conlang's inspiration

Post by Nortaneous »

Fucking hell, Kett is turning into German.
Siöö jandeng raiglin zåbei tandiüłåd;
nää džunnfin kukuch vklaivei sivei tåd.
Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei.

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Re: Post your conlang's inspiration

Post by Eyowa »

I've recently jumped on the Finno-Ugric/Uralic boat too. My latest conlang is based largely on an attempt at hybridizing the phonologies and grammars of Hungarian and Gaelic (keeping some sort of vowel harmony while having a broad/slender consonant distinction). It's ergative and sort of non-configurational (constituent order is determined both by the specific verb being used and by pragmatic/rhetorical concerns), so I guess Warlpiri is also an influence on the grammar.
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Re: Post your conlang's inspiration

Post by Herr Dunkel »

WeepingElf wrote: Indeed not. Finnish - or rather, the entire Uralic family - may be related to Indo-European, but the matter is controversial.
I was ironic, people, I was ironic.
And I'm a supporter of the Indouraloeuropean family of languages since the urheimats seem to be on top of each other. If they're not related, then at least PIE and PU borrowed extensively from each other.
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Re: Post your conlang's inspiration

Post by Colonel Cathcart »

Turo is mostly inspired by Finnish and Greenlandic, though the former seems to come through more than the latter. I'm weighing the pros and cons of adding /q/.
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Re: Post your conlang's inspiration

Post by Mr. Z »

Efsig: Germanic languages, obviously. It's supposed to look Germanic. E zälten fädet hischö en Gömantöka.
Chiric: Zomp's Eretald conlangs, mostly Verdurian. It's supposed to appear similar to European languages. It's also inspired by Greek, because I was studying a bit of Greek at the time of its conception.
Izomafo: Has a CV(F/N/L) syllable structure and a small phoneme inventory. It's inspired by Japanese and Pacific languages.
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Re: Post your conlang's inspiration

Post by WeepingElf »

Darkgamma wrote:
WeepingElf wrote: Indeed not. Finnish - or rather, the entire Uralic family - may be related to Indo-European, but the matter is controversial.
I was ironic, people, I was ironic.
And I'm a supporter of the Indouraloeuropean family of languages since the urheimats seem to be on top of each other. If they're not related, then at least PIE and PU borrowed extensively from each other.
Sure. I am also of the opinion that the resemblances between IE and Uralic, not only in the lexicon but more importantly in the inflectional morphology, are best explained by a common ancestor. Yet, it remains to be proven.
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Re: Post your conlang's inspiration

Post by communistplot »

Hwairinese: Japanese with a twist. ;D
Kayalian: SAE with ergavity.
Yagalian: Initially based on Japanese, now mostly based off Turkic, Ugric & Nez Perce.
Avang: Celto-Chinese
Sayetic: Semitic, don't you see the resemblence?
Crimean: What would happen if Romans conquered the Ukraine.
Levanti-Romance: French but not lame.
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Re: Post your conlang's inspiration

Post by Left »

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Re: Post your conlang's inspiration

Post by ---- »

Tuyuk is like one of those small inventory Micronesian languages plus epiglottals (which I borrowed from Chechen) and a noun class system.

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Re: Post your conlang's inspiration

Post by Herr Dunkel »

WeepingElf wrote:
Darkgamma wrote:
WeepingElf wrote: Indeed not. Finnish - or rather, the entire Uralic family - may be related to Indo-European, but the matter is controversial.
I was ironic, people, I was ironic.
And I'm a supporter of the Indouraloeuropean family of languages since the urheimats seem to be on top of each other. If they're not related, then at least PIE and PU borrowed extensively from each other.
Sure. I am also of the opinion that the resemblances between IE and Uralic, not only in the lexicon but more importantly in the inflectional morphology, are best explained by a common ancestor. Yet, it remains to be proven.
I have to say it's likely they're related since it seems, hypothetically speaking, after the Proto-Indo-Euro-Uralic language split off into Pre-PIE and Pre-Uralic, the evolution likely continued into:
Pre-PIE > PIE > Late PIE
Pre-Uralic > Uralic > Finno-Permic and Ugric

Since Ugric and Finnopermic languages share at best around 200 roots, and IE languages share much more between themselves, and Preuralic and PrePIE seem to share some scarce morphology and roots, and these persist through Samoyedic, (N)enets and whatnot through Siberia, I'd say that IE and Uralic languages are either indirectly or (harder to prove) directly related
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