There are 13 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Conlangs in movies and TV
From: Fredrik Ekman
1b. Re: Conlangs in movies and TV
From: George Corley
1c. Re: Conlangs in movies and TV
From: Chris Peters
1d. Re: Conlangs in movies and TV
From: Roman Rausch
1e. Re: Conlangs in movies and TV
From: Fredrik Ekman
2a. Re: Happy New Year
From: Philip Newton
2b. Re: Happy New Year
From: MorphemeAddict
3. Re: Phonotactics Help
From: taliesin the storyteller
4a. Re: Dictionary Presentation Question
From: Jörg Rhiemeier
5a. Playing with Voice & Articles
From: Logan Kearsley
5b. Re: Playing with Voice & Articles
From: David Peterson
6a. Re: Introduction and A Question for the Group - THANK YOU
From: J. M. DeSantis
7a. Re: Custom sort orders (was: Re: The Grammar of Asirka)
From: Roman Rausch
Messages
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1a. Conlangs in movies and TV
Posted by: "Fredrik Ekman" ek...@lysator.liu.se
Date: Mon Jan 30, 2012 7:35 am ((PST))
The John Carter movie (Paul Frommer's Barsoomian language) and second
season of Game of Thrones (Dothraki) both premiere in April, so conlangs
in popular media seem pretty hot these days.
Does anyone know if there are any other movies or TV series in the making
with conlangs in them?
Fredrik
Messages in this topic (5)
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1b. Re: Conlangs in movies and TV
Posted by: "George Corley" gacor...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Jan 30, 2012 7:40 am ((PST))
Not that I know of. I look forward to watching John Carter and finally
getting to see the first season of Game of Thrones (I don't get HBO).
On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 10:35 AM, Fredrik Ekman <ek...@lysator.liu.se>wrote:
> The John Carter movie (Paul Frommer's Barsoomian language) and second
> season of Game of Thrones (Dothraki) both premiere in April, so conlangs
> in popular media seem pretty hot these days.
>
> Does anyone know if there are any other movies or TV series in the making
> with conlangs in them?
>
> Fredrik
>
Messages in this topic (5)
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1c. Re: Conlangs in movies and TV
Posted by: "Chris Peters" beta_leo...@hotmail.com
Date: Mon Jan 30, 2012 8:09 am ((PST))
>
> On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 10:35 AM, Fredrik Ekman <ek...@lysator.liu.se>wrote:
>
> > The John Carter movie (Paul Frommer's Barsoomian language) and second
> > season of Game of Thrones (Dothraki) both premiere in April, so conlangs
> > in popular media seem pretty hot these days.
> >
> > Does anyone know if there are any other movies or TV series in the making
> > with conlangs in them?
> >
I've heard rumors of "Avatar II" in the works, which may very well feature
other tribes of the Na'Vi, complete with their own separate dialects, or even
separate language families. How accurate that rumor is, I have no way to judge.
:Chris
Messages in this topic (5)
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1d. Re: Conlangs in movies and TV
Posted by: "Roman Rausch" ara...@mail.ru
Date: Tue Jan 31, 2012 3:16 am ((PST))
>Does anyone know if there are any other movies or TV series in the making
>with conlangs in them?
If indie webseries also count, then there is a fantasy comedy series called
Journey Quest (you can watch season 1; season 2 is currently in the making):
www.journey-quest.com/
They have an Indo-European-based Orcish language:
http://www.signalfirestudios.com/?p=238&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SignalFireStudios+%28Signal+Fire+Studios+LLC%29&utm_content=FeedBurner
In one of the episodes a mage actually corrects an orc about the use of the
infinitive (although in an English-relex kind of way). Also, anyone who
supported season 2 on Kickstarter had the possibilty to coin one or several
Orcish words (depending on the amount donated). Needless to say - I did.
And talking about funny example sentences:
Aka drur kelled ud no guro?
Is that your atrocity-knife in my stomach?
(I think: COP-3.SG your-NOM.SG atrocity-knife.NOM.SG.NEU in my-DAT.SG
stomach-DAT.SG.MASC)
I bet that can be splendidly translated into Dothraki as well. :-)
Messages in this topic (5)
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1e. Re: Conlangs in movies and TV
Posted by: "Fredrik Ekman" ek...@lysator.liu.se
Date: Tue Jan 31, 2012 4:07 am ((PST))
I wrote:
> The John Carter movie (Paul Frommer's Barsoomian language) and second
> season of Game of Thrones (Dothraki) both premiere in April ...
My bad. John Carter is in March, of course.
Fredrik
Messages in this topic (5)
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2a. Re: Happy New Year
Posted by: "Philip Newton" philip.new...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Jan 30, 2012 8:02 am ((PST))
On Sun, Jan 29, 2012 at 10:14, MorphemeAddict <lytl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I have glosses for 3290 of 21803 characters, or 15%.
What is the set of 21803? The set of Unicode characters in a specific
code point range? Something based on earlier coded character sets such
as Big5?
> I wouldn't mind sharing, but it's all in a spreadsheet, and I don't know a
> good way to share it.
Import it to Google Docs and make the document public?
Cheers,
Philip
--
Philip Newton <philip.new...@gmail.com>
Messages in this topic (11)
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2b. Re: Happy New Year
Posted by: "MorphemeAddict" lytl...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Jan 30, 2012 8:44 am ((PST))
On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 11:01 AM, Philip Newton <philip.new...@gmail.com>wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 29, 2012 at 10:14, MorphemeAddict <lytl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I have glosses for 3290 of 21803 characters, or 15%.
>
> What is the set of 21803? The set of Unicode characters in a specific
> code point range? Something based on earlier coded character sets such
> as Big5?
>
The set of characters is that set of Unicode characters (4E00-9FA5,
F900-FA2D) which is available (or was at the time I started it) in MS Word,
plus some other 'characters' that I created as intermediate forms. The
intermediate, ad-hoc forms are part of the count, and don't really have an
independent existence as far as I know, but it's useful to keep them.
I originally based the glosses on a 'dictionary' called "Read and Write
Chinese" by Rita Mei-Wah Choy. It contains 3210 characters with glosses in
English and pronunciations in pinyin (for Mandarin) and the Yale
romanization for Cantonese. My current main source of new information is
COJAK.org.
I'll try to put a sample on Google Docs.
stevo
>
> > I wouldn't mind sharing, but it's all in a spreadsheet, and I don't know
> a
> > good way to share it.
>
> Import it to Google Docs and make the document public?
>
> Cheers,
> Philip
> --
> Philip Newton <philip.new...@gmail.com>
>
Messages in this topic (11)
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3. Re: Phonotactics Help
Posted by: "taliesin the storyteller" taliesin-conl...@nvg.org
Date: Mon Jan 30, 2012 9:26 am ((PST))
* taliesin the storyteller said on 2012-01-30 09:16:47 +0100
> It's easy to find stuff for English but so far, outside of English, I've
> only found analyses for Georgian and German. Taruven phonotactics is
> simpler than both, so they're not that helpful.
What I've started doing is looking at the list of languages in WALS that
have a "medium" complex syllable structure and then google on from
there. Maybe I should make a page on Frathwiki with a list...
Finnish had a not too bad description on English Wikipedia.
t.
Messages in this topic (1)
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4a. Re: Dictionary Presentation Question
Posted by: "Jörg Rhiemeier" joerg_rhieme...@web.de
Date: Mon Jan 30, 2012 12:21 pm ((PST))
Hallo conlangers!
On Sun, 29 Jan 2012 15:05:34 -0800 David Peterson wrote:
> Let's say you had a partial nominal paradigm that looked like this (first
> column is the dictionary form; second column is some other form in the same
> paradigm; and third part in parentheses is the stem):
>
> abo~aba (ab-)
> abo~aba (aba-)
> abo~abala (aba-)
>
> Especially for those who look at a lot of natlang dictionaries, what, in
> your opinion, is the ideal way to present this information (working just
> with the citation form, and using the exact same order shown above for all
> examples):
>
> [...]
>
> (7) Second Form Always Shown, Plus Stem (Where Possible)
>
> ab-o (aba) (n.)
> abo (aba) (n.)
> abo (abala) (n.)
Like Roger, I feel that this is the best solution.
--
... brought to you by the Weeping Elf
http://www.joerg-rhiemeier.de/Conlang/index.html
"Bêsel asa Êm, a Êm atha cvanthal a cvanth atha Êmel." - SiM 1:1
Messages in this topic (6)
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5a. Playing with Voice & Articles
Posted by: "Logan Kearsley" chronosur...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Jan 30, 2012 12:36 pm ((PST))
I decided to throw together a sketch of a language (using Russian
lexis) to test out my musings on marking case strictly on articles but
disallowing personal / proper-noun articles.
For simplicity, I've just got one article that encodes nothing but
case (easily expanded to have lots of different articles for
definiteness or whatever), and cased pronouns based on the Russian
pronoun chart:
Trig Acc Dat Instr Nom
Gen
Art Tot To Tu Toj Tom
Tov
He On Jevo Jemu Im Jom
Jovo
She Ona Jejo Jeju JIj Jej
Jojo
I Ja Menja Menju Menoj Menje Monja
Rel. Koj Koj Kojemu Kojim Kojom Kojovo
Now, we need voice-changing constructions that allow any argument to
promoted a subject position, because that's the only syntactic
position that proper nouns can occupy. I decided to play with a
heterogenous system of different syntactic voice constructions that I
might somehow be able to explain as being logically derived from
circumlocutions in the pre-existing language, because that's more
complicated, and therefore more fun, than a morphological trigger
system. Conveniently, the Russian prepositional case is never used "by
itself", without a preceding preposition, so the construction of
free-standing prepositional case is open to be hi-jacked as an oblique
case for marking demoted subjects with no risk of ambiguity (as might
occur if we used, say, the instrumental case). Thus, I have re-named
Prepositional as Nominative and Nominative as Trigger.
The Voice Constructions:
Active:
normal conjugation
Accusative Trigger:
byt (stem)+en
Dative Trigger:
luchat (inf.)
Instrumental Trigger:
byt (stem)+jush
Genitive / Oblique Trigger:
byt (prep) (art) (stem)+nost
~~Examples Demonstrating Different Strategies For Dealing With
Different Numbers of Proper Nouns per Clause~~
"Bob introduced Mary to Alice."
*Topicalization, Active Voice, and Accusative Relativization
Mary, Bob poznakomil jejo tu zhenshina, kojom zven Alice.
Mary, Bob introduced her-ACC the-DAT woman, who-NOM 0-cop. called Alice.
*Topicalization & Reciprocal with Accusative Voice
Bob, jom byl poznakomen Alice i Mary tu drugdrug.
Bob, he-NOM was introduced Alice and Mary the-DAT each-other.
*Topicalization & Reciprocal with Dative Voice
Bob, jom luchal poznakomit Alice i Mary to drugdrug.
Bob, he-NOM got introduced Alice and Mary the-ACC each-other.
"England sent Nigel to Germany."
*Topicalization & Coordinated Predicates with Active & Dative Voices
Nigel, jevo England poslal i Germany luchal poslat.
Nigel, him-ACC England sent and Germany got send.
"I gave Bob the book."
*Dative Voice
Menje Bob luchal dat to kniga.
I-NOM Bob got give the-ACC book.
"Mary gave Bob the book."
*Topicalization & Active Voice
Bob, jemu Mary dal to kniga.
Bob, him-DAT Mary gave the-ACC book.
"Mary gave Felix to Bob."
*Topicalization, Dative Voice, and Accusative Relativization
Mary, Bob luchal dat to kot, kojom zven Felix, jej.
Mary, Bob got give the-ACC cat, who-NOM 0-cop. called Felix
*Topicalization & Coordination with Active & Accusative Voices
Bob, jemu Mary dal i Felix byl den.
Bob, him-DAT Mary gave and Felix was given.
"I left with Jack."
*Oblique Voice
Menje Jack byl c toj vyjdnost.
I-NOM Jack was with the-INSTR leaving.
"I killed the mouse with Felix."
*Instrumental Voice
Menje byl ubjush to mysh Felix.
I-NOM was killing the-ACC mouse Felix.
"I killed Felix." vs. "I did not kill Felix" (making use of the
Russian genitive direct object for negatives)
*Accusative Voice vs. Oblique Voice
Menje byl uben Felix. vs. Menje ne byl tov ubnost Felix.
I-NOM was killed Felix. vs. I-NOM not was the-GEN killing Felix.
-l.
Messages in this topic (2)
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5b. Re: Playing with Voice & Articles
Posted by: "David Peterson" deda...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Jan 30, 2012 1:08 pm ((PST))
On Jan 30, 2012, at 12:35 PM, Logan Kearsley wrote:
> I decided to throw together a sketch of a language (using Russian
> lexis) to test out my musings on marking case strictly on articles but
> disallowing personal / proper-noun articles.
Semi-related natlang phenomenon. In Moro, there is no grammatical case marking
for nouns (i.e. nominative, accusative or dative), but there is for proper
names. The language does have subject agreement, though, and fairly strict word
order. Couple examples:
ðamala ðafo Åini
/cl-camel cl-shot cl-dog/
"The camel shot the dog."
Åini Åafo ðamala
/cl-dog cl-shot cl-camel/
"The camel shot the dog."
But...
kodÊa gafo devido
/Koja cl-shot David-ACC/
"Koja shot David."
devid gafo kodÊaÅ
/David cl-shot Koja-ACC/
"David shot Koja."
Just thought I'd share. Lot of cool stuff in Moro.
David Peterson
LCS President
presid...@conlang.org
www.conlang.org
Messages in this topic (2)
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6a. Re: Introduction and A Question for the Group - THANK YOU
Posted by: "J. M. DeSantis" j...@jmdesantis.com
Date: Mon Jan 30, 2012 3:22 pm ((PST))
Conlang List,
I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who answered my two questions
about word creation. I didn't expect such immediate and in-depth
responses, so I really appreciate it. As for specifics:
For all those who did ask, yes I have the phonological systems built for
most of the 11 languages (though there are changes to be made). This was
fairly easy considering I'm basing them all strongly on natlangs.
Secondly, I also do have some of the grammar set up for many of them as
well (at least in theory-no specifics, but I might now say, one
languages' verbs will conjugate using a set of two prefixes, but perhaps
not what those prefixes are, just yet), most especially the basic syntax
(SVO, VSO, etc). Also:
@Nicole Andrews: I've (believe it or not) obtained and now read through
all of "Create a Language Clinic" (117 pages wasn't too
overwhelming--though I did want something shorter and think I'm finished
with researching linguistics on a formal scale for a while) and enjoyed
some of it while other parts I think will only work in certain
situations, but I think it was a great addition to everything I've read.
@Padraic Brown: Don't worry, I'm not a firm believer in
one-size-fits-all or there is only one way to do things. Though Lisle's
and Rosenfelder's books are immensely helpful, more knowledge is always
better and sometimes someone will have a method that just makes more
sense or is easier to digest than others. Also, thank you for the
Conculture Questionnaire. Though I have many of the cultures at least
somewhat fleshed out. This will give me a way of "studying" them more
in-depth and pinning things down.
@Roger Mills: While I appreciate you wanting to know more about my
invented world, I cannot divulge every bit of information just yet. But
I can't leave you with just that. What can I say? It began as a very
Tolkien-esque, European, Medieval fantasy world (and still largely is),
though there was always some thought to other cultures outside of the
"European" area. I worked on it avidly for years until, after graduating
from college, I took some time off and concentrated on other works
(partly because the "language" bit had me overwhelmed and stressed, and
I had no conlanging sources to turn to). Over the last few years, I
began thinking of it again (know I'm only nigh seven years out of
college) and have been working on some ideas for children's books for
one race of that world, the Figmunds (you can see them here:
http://www.figmunds.com). Lately, however, I attended the New York Comic
Con and did a painting of an "Indian" woman for my display-banner (here:
http://www.jmdesantis.com/images/Goddess_Sand.jpg). It was just to catch
people's eyes and it worked...too well. A few people began asking me
about her, and I decided maybe I have something there (though I've never
created a story from a painting; it's always the other way around). At
first, it was just going to be an Indian-fantasy epic, but then I
thought, "Why not make her stories take place elsewhere in my invented
world and tell a bit about those cultures." And so it is. I've been
brainstorming ideas and am pretty close to something I can go with for a
first script (it'll be a graphic novel, though I do prefer writing prose
and most of the remaining "mythopoeia" will be in traditional novel
format), but I also need the languages too (which, admittedly, I was
afraid to dive back into for years). So, I hope that gives you at least
a taste of something, even though it's not very much. What I can promise
is (since it will loosely relate to Conlanging), I will post to the
group when either of these works sees the light of day (which I hope
will be within a year or two's time).
Well, I suppose that's all for now. I'll keep reading your e-mails and
hopefully have something of my own to contribute to the group as well.
Thank you again everyone for the help and the warm welcome.
--
Sincerely,
J. M. DeSantis
Writer - Illustrator
Website: jmdesantis.com <http://www.jmdesantis.com>
Figmunds: figmunds.com <http://www.figmunds.com>
Game-Flush (A Humorous Video Game Site): game-flush.com
<http://www.game-flush.com>
On 1/29/2012 12:20 AM, J. M. DeSantis wrote:
> Hello Conlang List,
>
> My name is J. M. DeSantis, and I am a writer and an illustrator of
> (typically) fantasy and horror.
>
> I recently joined the List in pursuit of more information about
> linguistics, specifically with regards to conlanging. Currently, I am
> re-attempting to create languages for my invented fantasy world. I
> made an attempt years ago which was a mildly successful naming
> language, but abandoned the task, feeling it was too overwhelming,
> especially having so little information to go by. At the time, I was
> merely looking at other natlangs (I had, by then, at least taken four
> years of Italian in HS--making me at least familiar with a language
> besides my own) and Tolkien's (one of my inspirations) Elvish
> languages to get an idea of how creating a language might work. Know
> that I'm not a linguist by trade or study; it's merely an area of
> interest at more of a hobby level.
>
> Somewhat recently, I read through Mark Rosenfelder's "Language
> Construction Kit" (both the book and the online article), Pablo
> Flores's "How to Create a Language" and began creating a second
> conlang for my world based on Swahili and other Bantu languages.
> However, after e-mailing Mr. Rosenfelder (who was immensely helpful
> with his suggestions and insights) for more information I wasn't quite
> clear on, I had to re-think my approach, to some degree. I also then
> read further, finding articles by various linguists and conlangers,
> including David Peterson and Rick Morneau.
>
> That all said, I feel, though I am by no means an expert on the
> subject, I have enough information to go on and at least begin
> creating my languages (as naming languages first and developing the
> rest of the grammar over time). Currently, I have two projects related
> to this invented world that I've put on hold (one for a year and the
> other for a few months) whilst I research and build even a little of
> these languages to begin forming names and even some sentences. The
> trouble is, I really cannot afford to put them on hold any longer for
> this task--hence the decision, at Mr. Rosenfelder's suggestion, to
> create them as naming languages first. The total number of languages
> is around 11, though Mr. Rosenfelder suggested I break them into
> languages families to make things easier and "more natural," which I
> am going to do. That will bring me down to 3 or 4 proto-languages, as
> I figure it, to derive the others from. However, I am still stuck on
> two points, and I thought you all could help with some feedback before
> I at last move on with things:
>
> 1. The creation of words. Obviously now, I am looking into using roots
> (something I overlooked in the past), however, how do I form these
> roots? In the past I created words in a very sloppy fashion. (Note: I
> am attempting to make my languages sound reminiscent of many natlangs,
> many of them, you may have guessed, European, but also some Middle
> Eastern and African.) For instance, I might look up the OE word for
> "grave" (byrgen) and, without any rhyme or reason, change the word so
> that it still sounds like OE, but is different (thigen or perhaps
> diargun). The trouble is, I am quickly realising this is a poor way of
> developing roots, and I'm not always pleased with the words I get from
> such an ad hoc approach. I know Tolkien, at times, used the idea of
> onomatopoeia to create some of his words (which I could still use a
> little clarification on), but what other "scientific," "acceptable" or
> "more common" methods are there for soundly creating roots and words
> for conlangs--artlangs, specifically, in this case--especially (though
> not necessarily) when you want them to be reminiscent of existing
> natlangs.
>
> 2. Directly related, I've heard it said both ways: Which is the
> preferable method? Create verbs from nouns and adjectives from verbs?
> Or create both nouns and adjectives from verbs?
>
> Anyway, I do apologise about the length of this e-mail, as I am sure
> you all have much better things to do that listen to me ramble on. (I
> have a tendency toward wordiness, I'm afraid, though I do feel the
> more information you all have, the better you can help me solve the
> problem.) Though I would appreciate any further insights on creating
> root words (even in the form of recommended, short reading--I've
> already read so much, and do not want to hold things up for even a
> month more). Thank you all, in advance, for taking the time to read
> this message. All the best.
> **
Messages in this topic (13)
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7a. Re: Custom sort orders (was: Re: The Grammar of Asirka)
Posted by: "Roman Rausch" ara...@mail.ru
Date: Mon Jan 30, 2012 4:25 pm ((PST))
>I mention my own hack in this post:
>http://www.terjemar.net/php/2011/10/character-sets-collations-and-sort-orders-oh-my/
I have the sorting issue as well, as I'm mixing Greek letters into Talmit in
order to avoid digraphs and diacritics. I'm using an XML dictionary rather
than SQL which I think is more suited for a language family with its nested
structure. Here is my solution for a custom sorter in PHP:
http://sindanoorie.net/glp/sorter.phps
Here is its call:
http://sindanoorie.net/glp/wordlist_generator.phps
And the output (_phi_ in place of _f_ etc.):
http://sindanoorie.net/glp/tallist.html
http://sindanoorie.net/glp/kymlist.html
Perhaps it will be helpful to someone else. Another lesson I've learned: If
you're using an XML dictionary, don't use XSL to retrieve the data - it
makes your eyes hurt and just generally sucks. Use PHP.
Messages in this topic (15)
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