So lets say i want to be able to say a sentence in one word like "i see you". I watched Biblaridion's video on verb agreement but i couldn't figure out what i needed to add to my language. And also can you help me with the whole thing of the head-final and stuff like that? couldn't really understand which order i should use like the noun-adjective or adjective-noun if i have SOV word order. Can someone help me with this please? Thank you.

(Link for the sheet of the conlang if you want too look and if you see some problems please tell me. And any comment or review is very welcome. Here it is)

BUILDING A FIRE

Today we’d like you to roll it back and get warm and toasty the old-fashioned, your situation permitting. Go chop some firewood way, shave some kindling, and/or build a tipi, log cabin, or whatever other way you may have once learned to start a fire, and get to burning. Revel in your human ability to create fire with your own two hands. Be sure to keep some snacks and blankets handy, too, and you could even try making a hot cup of cocoa over your fire.

How are you building your fire? Do you have to make a firepit, or do you already have a fire bowl or fireplace handy? Are you starting the fire with friction, a flint and steel, or a lighter? What kind of wood are you burning? Are you making anything to eat/drink over the fire? What shapes do you see dancing in the fire?

Tell us about the fire you built today!

See you tomorrow when we’ll be AIRING GRIEVANCES. Happy conlanging!

Hello fellow conlangers! I created a "sketch" of a language spoken by a nomadic/horseman people of the steppes for my Bronze Age fantasy world project, the Citarian language (probably provisional name). I share my work here so you can give feedback and help me improve. I presented this project in this post and you helped me a lot to find ideas. Thanks to the people who helped me create the basis of this conlang and who may find some of their ideas in this conlang.

My Inspirations

My inspirations for creating Citarian are numerous and I would like to mention them here. First, Turkish and Mongolian influenced the vowel harmony, the agglutinative morphology and some vowels. Hungarian also brought its touch to the "aesthetics" of the language. The phonology is very close to the Scythian languages, that's where the /xw/ sound comes from for example that I really like. There is also a small influence from Georgian (mainly with the /dz/ sound), and from Slavic languages ​​for the romanization and a bit of aesthetics. The phonology of Sioux also influenced the language and brought to Citarian the aspirated plosives pʰ tʰ kʰ . Many grammatical cases were borrowed from Finnish. There are perhaps also several other influences on Citarian that I have forgotten or that came to me unconsciously. However, the Citarian vocabulary is a priori (I got it mostly from a word generator) and so there is no outside influence on the vocabulary. I plan to create Proto-Citarian later.

Who are the Citarians?

I know we're not on r/worldbuilding, but I still want to quickly introduce the context where the language is spoken. Citarian, locally called Tsitárta /ʦitʰaːrtʰa/ is a language spoken by the Citarian people. The Citarians are nomads who populate a vast steppe called the Expanse, they are known to be talented horsemen and great warriors. They are masters of mounted archery and fiercely defend their territory. As I said earlier, the technology corresponds to that of the Bronze Age, so the Citarians mainly have tools made of tin, leather, bone, wood and bronze. I should point out that they are humans, they have light skin and hair shades ranging from brown to red (they have a somewhat Celtic appearance). However, their clothing is closer to that of the Scythians. They wear light tunics made of leather and wool, sometimes decorated with a few bronze jewels.

One of the major characteristics of the Citarians is their body paint and tattoos (a bit of a Pictish type) which indicate their social rank, whether they are married or not, their profession, their exploits etc. Women and men are equal in this society (which is quite different from other neighboring peoples), women can exercise roles as warriors, hunters or shamans. They are animists and live in yurts. Citarian has very little influence from foreign languages.

Phonology

The phonetic inventory of Citarian is rather extensive, with many vowels and consonants and several diphthongs. The romanization is indicated in parentheses, when it is not indicated it is because it is identical to the IPA. The consonant inventory is as follows:

https://preview.redd.it/kzeo6fw5ud8e1.png?width=1192&format=png&auto=webp&s=1039a4679c537f69c49838f10407c4c25413e518

As you may have noticed, plosives /t/ /k/ and /p/ are aspirated. Next comes the vowel inventory, Citarian has a lot of vowels. This is because vowels are phonetically louder and help with communication over long distances.

https://preview.redd.it/cmlwggq7ud8e1.png?width=938&format=png&auto=webp&s=5866a9bb3f8febaabdf69290f4371be6102602fd

Each vowel can be long or short. Long vowels are indicated with the addition of an acute accent : iː(í) yː(ű) ɨː(ý) uː(ú) eː(é) oː(ó) øː(ő) æː(a̋) aː(á). There are also five diphthongs : ua au ao ɨo(yo). When a diphthong is long, the acute accent is placed on the first vowel. The stress is placed on the penultimate syllable of the word: fedzä. Therefore, the stress can shift as the word gains suffixes: fedzäty.

The basic structure of a Citarian word is C(C)V(C)CV, V represents a long or short vowel or a diphthong and C represents a consonant. All consonants except /ʔ/ can begin a word, and all words must end with a vowel.

Now let's talk about vowel harmony (I love this stuff). Citarian is an agglutinative language, I talk about it in a bit more detail later in the post, and vowel harmony is very important. To put it simply: vowels are sorted into 3 groups. Group 1 includes the vowels a/ä e/ë and group 2 includes the vowels u/ü o/ö. A vowel from group 1 is not allowed to follow a vowel from group 2 and the reverse is also true. So, you have to change the vowels of the affixes added to the words so that they harmonize with the preceding vowel. There are also two neutral vowels i/y that can combine with any vowel groups.

Morphology

Citarian is an agglutinative language, this means that a large number of affixes are used to indicate many things (case, number etc) and they combine like lego bricks, so there is very little inflection and it can have very long words. For example bátsëtaŋejé /baːʦətʰaŋejeː/ means in one word "in the yurts" : batsë(yurt)ta(definite suffix)ŋe(collective suffix)jé(locative suffix). I don't know where else to write this so I'll say it here: the alignment of words in a sentence is SOV (Subject Object Verb), for example we would say "the man an apple eats".

- Nouns

Ok, now let's move on to how nouns work. There are two genders in Citarian, animate and inanimate. Animate nouns refer to living or moving things, for example words like "woman" or "horse" are animate. But for example, the words "wind" or "wave" are also considered animate. Inanimate words, on the other hand, always refer to something that does not move, such as "tree" or "bow" but also to abstract things and concepts such as "anger" or "love". Technically, you can't really call these grammatical genders I think, but they work the same way. Throughout this post I will use three nouns as examples, two animate nouns and two inanimate nouns: täxwo /tʰæxʷo/ (man), fedzä /fed͡zæ/ (woman), batsë /baʦə/ (yurt) and fýo /fɨːo/ (short hunting bow).

The first suffix that we start adding to the end of a noun is the definite suffix. Nouns are considered indefinite by default, fedzä actually means "a woman". The suffix -ty is added to the end of nouns to make them definite: täxwoty (the man). However, the suffix -ty is only valid for animate nouns and does not require vowel harmonization because the vowel /ɨ/ is neuter. Inanimate nouns take the suffix -ta/-to to obtain the definite state: bátsëta (the yurt) fýoto (the bow).

Now let's look at the number side. There are three grammatical numbers in Citarian: singular, plural and collective. They are also indicated by suffixes that come after the definite suffix (if it is present). Well then, the singular is not indicated. The plural is used only when the number is known. For example, if I want to say "these five cows", the cows will be in the plural. We really have to know the more or less exact quantity of things. In case the speaker does not know precisely the number of things to which he refers, or to refer to a group, the collective suffix must be used. The collective suffix is ​​the same for animate and inanimate nouns, it is –ŋe/-ŋu: fedzäŋe (women), fýotoŋu (the bows).

Finally, after the definite suffix and the numeral suffix comes the grammatical case suffix. There are many cases in Citarian, there are 14 to be precise. Grammatical cases specify the role of the noun in the sentence, there are not many prepositions in Citarian because most are replaced by cases. The 14 grammatical cases of Citarian are:

1. Nominative - indicates the subject of the sentence. It is not marked.
2. Accusative - indicates the direct object of the sentence. Suffix –sa/-so: fedzäsa, fýotoso
3. Genitive - indicates possession. The possessor is marked. Suffix -dẑe/-dẑu: fedzädẑe, fýotodẑu
4. Dative - indicates the indirect object of the sentence. Suffix -ŝa/-ŝo: fedzäŝa, fýotoŝo
5. Locative - indicates location. Suffix –jé/-jú: fedzäjé, fýotojú
6. Vocative - indicates interpellation. Suffix –xí: fedzäxí! fýotoxí!
7. Lative - can be translated as “towards, in the direction of”. Suffix –ţa/-ţo: fedzäţa, fýotoţo
8. Ablative - can be translated as “since, from”. Suffix –kë/-kü: fedzäkë, fýotokü
9. Perlative - can be translated as “through, crossing”. Suffix –va/-vo: fedzäva, fýotovo
10. Essive - can be translated as “similar to, as”. Suffix –jy: fedzäjy, fýotojy
11. Abessive - can be translated as “without”. Suffix –le/-lu: fedzäle, fýotolu
12. Temporal - can be translated as “at the time of, at the time of”. Suffix –fa/-fo: fedzäfa, fýotofo
13. Comitative/Instrumental - can be translated as “with, using”. Suffix -ze/-zu: fedzäze, fýotozu
14. Terminative - can be translated as "until". Suffix –ra/-ro: fedzära, fýotoro

This is the set of types of suffixes added to nouns, I think there may also be prefixes that allow morphological derivation but I have not created them yet. And here is a noun that combines all the prefixes: *täxwotyŋuze /*tʰæxʷotɨŋuze/ "with men".

- Adjectives and adverbs

Adjectives are placed after the nouns they modify. Since nouns are quite complex and have many affixes, I chose to make adjectives a little simpler. Adjectives do not receive any suffixes (no plural or gender) but only the grammatical case of the noun to which they are attached. Here is an example of the use of the adjectives koani /kʰoani/ "big" and vedẑa /veʤa/ "beautiful" : bátsëtajé koanijé (in the big yurt) fedzäŋeze vedẑaze (with beautiful women).

To form adverbs, we simply add the suffix ňé- to adjectives: vedẑa (beautiful) ňévedẑa (nicely). Adverbs are also placed after the verb. I also plan to create suffixes that are used to form augmentative, comparative adjectives, etc.

- Pronouns

I also created different types of pronouns. Using the personal pronoun before the verb is mandatory because there are no suffixes that indicate the person otherwise.

https://preview.redd.it/s14sznl9ud8e1.png?width=1191&format=png&auto=webp&s=82fad836bcd1c22c75821573527ec26b75a3e9fe

Note that the pronoun ţau is only used to refer to an animate thing, otherwise the pronoun teqoa is used. Personal pronouns can be combined with certain grammatical case suffixes. For example, possessive pronouns are simply formed by adding the genitive suffix: huadẑe therefore means "my". In the same concept, to say "without you" it is enough to attach the suffix of the abessive to the pronoun of the second person singular: tŝoale. The demonstrative pronouns are :

https://preview.redd.it/859zljzaud8e1.png?width=1182&format=png&auto=webp&s=7576bb39ac7b54792178bc88830bf5388ce0df77

And here of course are the interrogative pronouns (I have nothing else special to add about them):

https://preview.redd.it/kps77gbcud8e1.png?width=1070&format=png&auto=webp&s=008e8ea9fd91924d02396275552559c6fe352dee

I added the interrogative pronoun jödző which is used to ask for a distance. I thought that this pronoun should be quite important for a nomadic people.

- Verbs

Verbs are among my favorite features in Citarian. To put it simply, verbs do not undergo any inflections as an agglutinative language but also take very few suffixes. The only suffix that is added to verbs is the aspect suffix. In fact, in Citarian there are no grammatical tenses. We can specify the time of an action by using words such as "yesterday" or "tomorrow" but the tense does not exist at the grammatical level. There are, however, 7 aspects that can fulfill the role of tense if used well.

• Perfective - the action is completed (as expected). -dẑy
• Inchoative - the action is about to begin, or has just begun. -ŋaţi/-ŋoţi
• Progressive - the action is in progress (towards its completion). -zy
• Frequentative - the action occurs several times, often. -dyjé
• Imperfect - the action is continuous. -vëti/-vüti
• Cessative - the action has just ended or has been interrupted. -käti/-köti
• Momentary - the action occurs once, over a negligible period of time. -dze/-dzu

So let's take an example with the verb kufajür /kʰufajyr/ which means "to eat". I specify that -jür is a suffix which forms the infinitive. Täxwoty pẑátasa kufadẑy (the man ate the apple), täxwoty pẑátasa kufaŋaţi (the man is about to eat the apple), täxwoty pẑátasa kufazy (the man is eating the apple), täxwoty pẑáŋesa kufadijé (the man often eats apples), täxwoty pẑáŋesa kufavëti (the man eats apples {constantly}), täxwoty pẑátasa kufakäti (the man has just finished eating the apple), täxwoty pẑátasa kufadze (the man has sometimes eaten the apple).

There you go, I hope that's clear enough. Modal prefixes are also sometimes added to verbs. There are 5 moods indicated by prefixes. First, the indicative which does not need a prefix. Then there is the conditional which uses the prefix ty- and it could be translated as "if". The imperative is used to give an order or to exclaim, it is the prefix xá-/xó- and it could be translated as an exclamation mark. The desirative means "to want", it replaces the verb "to want" when it precedes another verb, it is the prefix -vy. Finally, there is the hypothetical, this can be translated as "maybe" and it is indicated by the prefix nühi-.

Conclusion and some additional notes

That's all I've already invented regarding the Citarian grammar. Writing this post took me 3 days because I didn't have much time for it and so I'm finally very happy to be able to present my work to you. I also want to clarify that it is not a definitive grammar and that it is likely to change over time and with improvements, even if for the moment I am rather satisfied. I still lack a lot of vocabulary, I have a few word lists but it's still too little. I don't think I can translate a text yet, but I will try to translate the Tower of Babel soon when I have enough vocabulary.

So what do you think? Do you have any advice? ideas or criticisms?

So, I'm creating a semi-naturalistic language and I have already made the proto language, and now I want to evolve it and make it sound quite different from the original, and I'm not really sure how.

My proto-lang is made up of purely CV syllables and stress on the second-to-last syllable, so for example I have words like takaru.
I could make a sound change where the vowels in the syllable preceding the stressed one dissapear, so it would be tkaru.

And now what? There are a lot of words like this in my language, and I can't figure out what sound changes to apply to make it evolve nicely. If you could provide some advice I would be grateful.

#"Please wait a little while!"

—Celerative: the encoding of speed in verbal morphology (pg. 16)

Please provide at minimum a gloss of your sentence.

Sentence submission form!

Feel free to comment on other people's langs!

My conlang has 24 possible standalone onsets, 191 onset clusters, and the option of not having an onset, so, 216 options for the onset. 21 of these onsets may not occur before a specific vowel.

For the nucleus, there are 6 vowels, and 30 diphthongs, so, 36 nuclei.

For the coda, there are 13 codas, plus the option of not having a coda, so, 14 coda options. 1 of these codas may not occur after a specific vowel.

(216*36*14)-(21*6*14)-(216*6)=105804, so, I have a hundred and five thousand and eight hundred and four possible syllables! This is quite a big number, which I didn’t like, but then I remembered I didn’t have to use all of them.

So, I’m curious, how many possible syllables does your conlang have?

This is a game of borrowing and loaning words! To give our conlangs a more naturalistic flair, this game can help us get realistic loans into our language by giving us an artificial-ish "world" to pull words from!

The Telephone Game will be posted every Monday and Friday, hopefully.

Rules

1. Post a word in your language, with IPA and a definition.

Note: try to show your word inflected, as it would appear in a typical sentence. This can be the source of many interesting borrowings in natlangs (like how so many Arabic words were borrowed with the definite article fossilized onto it! algebra, alcohol, etc.)

2. Respond to a post by adapting the word to your language's phonology, and consider shifting the meaning of the word a bit!

3. Sometimes, you may see an interesting phrase or construction in a language. Instead of adopting the word as a loan word, you are welcome to calque the phrase -- for example, taking skyscraper by using your language's native words for sky and scraper. If you do this, please label the post at the start as Calque so people don't get confused about your path of adopting/loaning.

Last Time...

Kirey by /u/Swatureyx

https://preview.redd.it/yp5jh7aa7p6e1.png?width=402&format=png&auto=webp&s=2183302267cf7b96688ea239facca3f6067d38df

Resijā́nwa [ɻesɪɟáːnʋa]

Resijay [ɻesɪɟáj]

From Resijay *resij - type of high grass

noun

1. (Kirea) Resijay province

Stay warm

Peace, Love, & Conlanging ❤️

So I think I want to try making a conlang, I've never tried before. Is there an app where I could write down the words, and the grammar rules? Either for Android or Windows. I want something where I could store my words, alphabetically, the English counterpart, and where I could write grammar rules, and maybe some extra features, so i don't think something as Word would work

Some of you think Lexember is easy, right? 31 words a year. BUT I have a challenge for you. If you think 1 word a day for a month, every year isn't enough, try 50 WORDS A DAY for 365 DAYS, which adds up to a total of 18,250 words a YEAR. If you somehow manage to complete this (including holidays), then you'll be fine for the next year or so.

This is optional, for anyone who wants to go hardcore.

I find cognates to be fun! But I also don't want to rely too much on real languages, because I don't want things to be too obvious.

So I'll rely on you all. Please give me words in your conlang, and I'll add them into mine. Please try not to give me basic verbs/nouns. Don't give me a verb for "to speak", or a noun for a cat. I already have the common stuff down.

Heck, you could give me a verb, and I might make it a cognate that means something slightly different. You can give me compounds, too.

My conlang is purely practical. I started to conlang because my mother read my journal once, and it scared me. She, thankfully, can't read in English, so she wasn't able to read what I wrote. But that scare was enough for me to try and create my own language.

Though, I do sometimes find myself writing about things that aren't real. At first, it was because, well, if my language was ever deciphered, it would still be inaccurate because what was real, and what wasn't, would be hard to figure out. But then I started to actually have fun with writing my own stories.

Do you all conlang to practical reasons, such as wanting to keep certain writings private? Did you start conlanging for practical purposes and then delved into fantasy? Or did you always want to write fantasy?

This is a weekly thread for people who have cool things they want to share from their languages, but don't want to make a whole post. It can also function as a resource for future conlangers who are looking for cool things to add!

So, what cool things have you added (or do you plan to add soon)?

I've also written up some brainstorming tips for conlang features if you'd like additional inspiration. Also here’s my article on using conlangs as a cognitive framework (can be useful for embedding your conculture into the language).

TAKING A HOT BATH

Today we’d like you to treat yourself to a spa day. Fill up the tub with water that’s just the right temperature, and get some epsom salts or bath bombs if you’re into that. You can set the ambiance just how you like with music or candles, and you can treat yourself with some bath snacks and a glass of wine or sparkling juice, or, better yet, get your partner to bring them to you. Be careful with open flames, and careful not to drop your snacks or a book in the water.

How are you dressing your tub? Do you like your bathwater scalding or lukewarm? What scents do you like in your salts or bath bombs? What snacks did you bring to the bath with you? What kind of music are you listening to or what kind of book are you reading?

Tell us about the bath you took today!

See you tomorrow when we’ll be BUILDING A FIRE. Happy conlanging!

What I am doing is, I am thinking of verbs that only have an infinitive form and an imperative form. They cannot be used with a subject, so have no present, past, future etc. This is the "verb" equivalent of uncountable nouns.

An example is "beware" in English. You cannot say "they beware", "I bewared" etc.

This is an interesting concept I am considering to add to my conlang. What do you think of this idea? And any more verbs you think could be unconjugatable?

Clarity: Impersonal verbs (to rain/snow/freeze) don't count, because they can have tense forms. I am not talking about person conjugation. I am talking about, for example, verbs that cannot be inflected for tense, like "beware" as discussed before.

Click here to search the lexicon.

I've been working on my Ousse lexicon for about three years now. I use a service called Notion, particularly a Notion database. The lexicon has been a proof of concept for how I might use Notion for my conlanging, and this searchable database certainly has its limit. For one, there's no 'public-facing' or 'private' aspect of the database, so what you see is literally what you get. I have tried to remove possible redundancies using filters, but it is possible from your end to remove them.

A generic database entry. The emoji at the top corresponds to noun or verb class. Most nouns link to a tri- or bi-consonantal root. These are stored in a separate database.

A bit about the language: Ousse is a fusional artlang with about 3400 words. The language is noun-centric, with many actions being represented by a 'verbal' noun (i.e. síatou, "crushing;" siltou, "running." ) My additions have slowed down a bit this year, but I still find I am adding new lemmata each week. I'm nowhere close to exhausting the possible consonantal roots, either, so I have tens of thousands of more words I could ideally add.

The world of the Ousse is roughly analogous to the North African Bronze Age, and lexicology tends to reflect a 'historical' worldview. Modern words like computer or vaccine are absent from Ousse.

I was able to code a formula to print the Oúsou script (under the property called súgis, "writing") and an IPA generator that more or less represents Ousse phonetically. Some minor quirks exist with the IPA generator, namely concerning the semivowel /w/ in words with long vowels (a simple bug I have yet to fix).

Finally, I am here to answer questions about creating a similar lexicon using Notion. I have a template you can look at and import here.

Did your conlang contain unsual phonotactics. I didn't talk about weird absurd phonemes but I talk about contrast that your conlangs do that contrast to natural tendency of natlang.

My one I want to present aren't conlang but my nativlang. It contrast vowel length. Yeah... Yeah... nothing weird... right? In some language might contrast both short and long vowel in all environment, or contrast it only in stressed syllable (as unstressed syllable always be short vowel), or contrast it only in open syllable and no long vowel exist in closed syllable (to prevent syllable with 3 morae to exist)

My nativlang aren't one of above as it contrast vowel length only in closed syllable. While in open unreduced syllable always be long vowel. (As reduced syllable can be only /(C)a/ but it have other term called minor syllable.) But closed syllable that end with glottal stop always be short vowel. (Although in our school we being taught that it's short vowel with null coda while phonetically isn't, just to make system look symmetric)

note: It also post problem for me to distinguish word from foreign langiuage that contrast vowel length in open syllable. Yes every single language that contast vowel length post problem for me despite my nativelang have vowel length contast becuase all other contast it in open syllable too.

Let's talk below!

like conlangs based on alt history events

examples like (what if latin didn't die out in britain) or (what if the vinland colony in north america survived and slowely developed its own north germanic language)

there are also some scenarios i've thought of making, like

what if some roman legions got drunk during one of the campaigns in germenia and somehow ended up in siberia ( northwest russia [Arkhangelsk, nenetsia] ) and mixed with the local uralic speaking population creating a hybrid uralic romance abomination.

or

what if the mongols reached livonia and took like a 10k livonians with them as slaves but then they get chased out of livonia by a Coalition of Denmark and Sweden, so they run through all of siberia picking up some karelians and turks on the way and then somehow they cross the Bering Strait and get trapped in alaska. this results in a mixed uralic mongol eskimo aleut language with some influinces from other languages in the region.

and this small state in alaska somehow ends up becoming last successor state of the Mongol empire

Hi, I am in the process of looking for conlangs to learn and I'd be grateful if I could learn your conlang. So if possible, can I have a reference grammar of your conlang? Thanks a lot!

Hey all, if it's happened to me it has to have happened to others and I'd love a good chuckle

You ever get a really unfortunate false cognate in your language? It doesn't mean the same in your language as the one you know the word from, but it's still a real "Dang" moment?

In an unnamed language I'm working on, all vowels end in -a, so "naza" was the word for "to think". However, as I was working out verbal inflections, I found that the second person future tense, -i, made naza into a very unfortunate word. So I decided naza would change z to a s when conjugating to avoid that.

Anyone else have that "oh crap" moment?

SINGING LIKE NOBODY’S LISTENING

Today we’d like you to express yourself and your voice. Pick your favourite song, something you know the words to, and give it your all singing through the whole thing. Don’t hold back! If the folks around you won’t mind, ignore them; if they do, find a space where you can sing your heart out, or find better friends/family and invite them to sing with you!

What song are you singing; what genre does it belong to? Is it a song you’ve liked for as long as you can remember, or is it a new find you absolutely cannot get out of your head? Are you singing in your room, out with friends, or to the trees?

Tell us about how you sang like nobody’s listening today!

See you tomorrow when we’ll be TAKING A HOT BATH. Happy conlanging!

For historic reasons, natural languages typically transcribe the ⟨r⟩ in "France" as if it were [r], even if closer sounds /χ/, /ɣ/, /x/ or /ʁ/ itself is present in the target language. which is somewhat against the principle of "phonetically transcribe the endonym". I'm quite indecisive on what to do with these ⟨r⟩s in my langs.

So, suppose you're making an a priori conlang that has both /r/ and /χ/ as phonemes. Would you choose /frɑ̃s/ or /fχɑ̃s/, or have other options? For those who choose /χ/, would you still do so if your conlang does not have any native words with the cluster /fχ/?

View Poll

if you want to get an insight on Kalennian grammar, i HIGHLY recommend you check out the article

Now, this is only a hypothesis on HOW Kalennian would be like if it chose to conjugate its verbs, not only for aspect, mood, and tense, but also for grammatical person.

I initially came up with this idea from learning Finnish (on duolingo specifically), because in that language, verbs conjugate for grammatical person (e,g. "-t” indicates the second person singular, and when it attaches to a verb like “olla” (a verb meaning “to be”), it becomes “olet” (“you are”)), and in my conlang, there are no grammatical person suffixes/prefixes to be found.

But if Kalennian DID have prefixes/suffixes that would attach to verbs to make them become conjugated for grammatical person, it would use these:

-ye = first person singular

-ho = second person singular

-râ = second person plural

-tiye = first person plural

-fâ = third person singular masculine

-yâs = third person singular feminine

-vâl = third person singular plural

-vom = third person singular neuter

For clarification, here is a sentence:

"Sukam silenkonsentrâtye."

Su- kam sil-en-     konsentrât-ye
NOM-1S  NEG-ABILTVE-focus     -1S

“I cannot concentrate/focus.”

Here, “-ye” indicates the first person singular is performing the action ("konsentrât"), so that means "su-kam" would be dropped entirely because the verb itself already indicates who's performing the action.

The Emporian trade language or otherwise Paraka, Palakka or Palkatung is a creole language spoken along the shores of the Emporian sea. The Emporian sea is an internal sea located at the heart of the known world and is the hub for maritime trade. The name has no basis within the world itself. The Uttarandians call it Marluunga (something like "great water", though they talk more often about its constituent parts as uupraani "our sea", tjarum uupraa "azure sea" and ikuuli uupraa "purple sea"), the Kuraites call it Ašam Šīda "southern sea" and the Melakkamidians call it Bahhadusitom "Sea of Bahhadu" (referring to leviathan-like whale deity). Like the sea it is connected to, Paraka doesn't have one name and one identity and it varies in all ports and towns where it is spoken ever so slightly.

Paraka draws mainly from three other languages (or language families actually), Kuraite, Melakkamidian and Uttarandian, while at the same time having its own profile. I haven't written much about the former two and so far only about the latter, so some thing might not match that impression. In general the vocabulary is very mixed, while the grammar is largely analytic and makes use Uttarandian syntax often (while ignoring most of the morphology). As such Paraka is also a neutral language, which, for better or worse, doesn't belong to any nation or empire alone. It belongs to the cosmopolitan community of traders along the great interior sea.

Paraka is old. Kuraite merchants arrived in Uttarand more than a thousand years ago. Some believe that Paraka was originally an attempt of Kuraite merchants to communicate with Uttarandians. They used their own vocabulary with Uttarandian clitics to it. This would make Paraka more than a thousand years old, at the same time it was constantly renewed through the trade network itself.
Paraka sometimes even preserves certain archaisms, like the pronoun mi(ni) "1SG" itself does not correspond to any of the donor languages directly. For Uttarandian it is anja or minja, for Kuraite it is imu and Melakkamid has the auxiliaries nejīl "I am" and niɰan "I am at.." for this function. So it is likely it is a form of minja or derived from the Uttarandian demonstrative miika.

Dialects and varieties
There are two principle varieties to Paraka and a lot of transitional forms in between. There is a northern and a southern variant. The northern one being spoken in the ports of Dur-Kurāt and neigboring Melakkamid city states, while the southern variant is spoken in Uttarand and its colonies, as well as parts of Melakkam.

As a general rule, the language is called Paraka in the north, Palkatung in the south and Palakka in the middle more often.
In the north Paraka is largely confined to port towns and spoken among the merchant class, as well as sailors. All over the south however Paraka is a secondary language of the lower class and colonial and enslaved subjects of Uttarand. Uttarandian itself has a plethora of registers.
Vocabulary is often sourced from the region from which a certain trade good comes. The plurality of words in every variety however comes from Kuraite. Sometimes it happens that Paraka words replace native words in vernacular or mercantile contexts. The Paraka word usi "salt" comes from Kuraite ūsi and can be found in Uttarandian as uusi, replacing the native word priindja in some contexts (The long vowel is due to accent, not a retention from original word). Some other words are common all around the Emporian sea with no obvious. For example kura means "house" in Uttarandian, but "city" in Kuraite. In Paraka the word kabon or kamon is preferred, both are sourced from Kuraite.

Likewise Paraka has some doublettes taken from dialects of similar languages or loaned and reloaned at different time periods. The word for "time" is yanga or yaga, which is taken from a southern Kuraite dialectal form, original /jaŋa/ as well. However there is also the term yeke "day", which has the same source, but is taken from eastern Kuraite yaga "day". Likewise there is samse from šāmsa meaning "daytime". yaga was first loaned from southern Kuraite into Paraka and then back into the northern variety of Pakara, which is dominated by eastern Kuraite phonology instead. The original Kuraite etymon thus split into two forms.

Phonologies

1 = only found in the north
2 = only found in the south
3 = found in both, but is often the result of (circular) reloaning

Voiced stops

Southern variants do not distinguish voicing, thus words, which enter Paraka vocabulary voiced are changed accordingly. If nasalised context is given, /b/ becomes /m/, /d/ becomes /n/ and /g/ becomes /ŋ/. If this is not the case /b/ is just perceived as /p/ and /d/ often becomes /ɾ~r/. /g/ has several possible outcomes, most often just /k/, but also /h/ or /w/ depending on context.
In the middle variants geminate stops are pretty common and unvoiced stops become geminate, while voiced stops are taken as plain stops. This somewhat extends into the south.

/a/ ~ /e/
In several donor languages, notably Kuraite, unstressed short /a/ is realised as [æ] or [ɛ] at times. In Paraka these are often reflected as simply /e/. Kuraite nīšana "land, region" becomes nisene and sitāka "door" becomes sataka or seteke or even setoka in the southern variety.

/a/ ~ /o/
The vowel /o/ is rare in donor languages. It is not present in Kuraite and only found as reduced vowel in Uttarandian. Only Melakkamid languages feature it. Nonetheless it exists in Paraka. Often long /a:/ becomes /o/ under labialising circumstances, such as Kuraite kabāna "house" > kabon or kamon.

/u/ ~ /o/
The other large source of /o/ in Paraka is unstressed /u/ from Uttarandian. Particles like yu result in yo instead.

/h/
The fricative /h/ has two sources, for one /s/ and /x/. In Uttarandian /s/ before stressed or long /a/ (or sometimes generally) becomes /h/. This is expanded to loanwords as well, thus the Kuraite nīšana is nihan in the southern variety.

The treatment of /x~X~h/ in donor languages however remain inconsistent. Eastern Kuraite has both /h/ and /x/, but they are generally confused in Paraka or even elided, [χ] = ḫ > ḫadu "moon", hadu "child" become adu in northern Paraka, in southern Paraka aru means "month" (not moon though). Kuraite ahu "water" is aw.

Affricates
There is only a single Affricate, /tʃ/, which appears mostly in words of Uttarandian origin, which previously were /c/ or /tɾ/. It can appear in central and northern varieties, but is often changed to /s/ instead. Uttarandian tjunga "tree" > cunga "tree" or suna or su(n)ga (Both appear).

Glide confusion
While most donor languages have both /r/ or /ɾ/ and /l/ there is a general confusion of which equals which. Foremost northern /d/ is changed to southern /r/ or /ɾ/. However there is a historical change in Melakkamid, which made *ɮ become either /l/ or /r/ and thus loanwords into Paraka are inconsistent in that regard as well. Likewise Uttarandian /r/ is always [ɾ], while Kuraite /r/ is [r] and thus Uttarandian /r/ is taken as /l/ in Kuraite and loaned back into Paraka as /l/ too.

/ŋ/
Phonemic /ŋ/ is only present in southern Paraka, but is found in southern Kuraite as well, but no in the dominant eastern Kuraite varieties. Loaned /ŋ/ can be changed to /g/ or /ng/ in intervocalic position or just /n/ in final position.

As the title says, I have been looking for a way to finalize the concept of my SolReSol-inspired language so that I can start using it in my story concept, but I keep running into mental roadblocks and I can't seem to come to a conclusion on how it's different pieces are supposed to function together properly.

For context, this is a picture of the language concept I created a few years ago, assigning one sigil to the octave and the sub-sigil for the note, all revolving around a form of simultaneous communication (e.g. speaking the words and signing with the hands). I also color-coded each note because I wanted to represent it's dual association with natural forces, animals, & even emotions in the cultural lore by way of gem-like objects containing mystic powerful entities that are associated with them (think Mesopotamian Gods; Gods of fertility, harvest, rain, storms, war, et al.)

For reference: Example of "Gem-like Object" I conceptualized in 2021, along with descriptions & dated mechanics for a video-game concept I had been working on simultaneously at the time.

In the lore i'm currently working on for this concept, the islanders of an ancient archipelago learn to harness powerful energies by using their almost long-forgotten mother tongue, a language that uses 7 octaves and 49 notes to describe and name everything in their lives, but as a result of the spoken language being forbidden by the oppressive regime that controls the archipelago, it ultimately becomes forgotten over time. Eventually, the islanders became the regime's mute labor force and forgot how to speak their own language, knowing only the sign language that accompanied it, which would eventually be secretly passed down.

Being a musically-inclined person with knowledge of the sound design process, my problems, as a non-conlanger, ironically lie in how to define the actual spoken language itself (e.g., the phonemes, syllables , etc.).

However, in regards to the hand sign language, I have a vague understanding of what I would like to do in order to translate sound into sign.

I have tried numerous times to create a language with the characteristics above. I have been working on this concept for over 3 years and have been stuck on-and-off for I don't know how long. If anyone can assist me with defining these features, I would be forever grateful. Open to collaborations.

Ciao homei!

So, I've decided to start a new project: Redditese! While it's similar to Viossa, it's different in a few ways. Viossa was where everyone spoke different languages and eventually formed a language to communicate, but in Redditese, people aren't allowed to speak any natrual language, and thus have to naturally evolve a language.

The rules are simple: you can't document the language, you can't explain the language in any other language, and if you're understood, you're speaking correctly. For example some people use buk and others use bük, but both of those spellings are understood by everyone, so both of them are correct.

So, uh, yeah! Here's the subreddit: r/Redditese. Also, I'm looking for one more mod, so if you DM me first, you have a chance of becoming one!