Conlangery #89: Polysynthesis

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Today, we take a little time to talk about the topic of polysynthesis

Top of Show Greeting: Gothic (translated by Roman Rausch)

Links and Resources:

• Nootkan/Southern Wakashan grammar (featured on episode 41)
• ZBB thread on polysynthesis
• Nice Inuit article
• Iñupiatun Eskimo dictionary
• Ancient Egyptian (Amazon link)

Feedback:

Hello, I’ve posted in the comments as Panglott a couple of times. I

have a couple of episode suggestions and a small offer below. There’s

no need to read this email on the air, please 😉

 

I completely understand the need to go biweekly (being in grad school

myself, I’ve just been amazed at your ability to keep it going weekly

for so long). And as for suggestions for Shorts episodes, you might

ought go for really small topics, like individual words or

etymologies. Perhaps William could, in a series of Shorts episodes,

highlight some of the more interesting entries from his Conlanger’s

Thesaurus. It could be an interesting 5-minute discussion to overview

a word or idea that often has a strange or interesting semantic range.

Or even things like your discussion of 4-character poems in Chinese,

highlighting short epigrams or literary forms as a means of

developing/expressing a conlang. Are there any Esperanto-specific

literary forms?

 

After listening to episode 85 “Multilingual Conworlds”, I’d like to

suggest you do a long-form episode as a “Practicum on Naming

Languages”. It’s more of a beginner topic than what you ordinarily do,

but I think we’re all interested in science fiction and fantasy

writers doing more plausible and developed fictional languages. A

practicum episode on naming languages could give us a resource to

point to to say “look at that”. And I suspect there’s some demand for

more beginner-level content, as when people have requested that you

conlang live on the podcast. It could be a way to briefly review stuff

you’ve talked about in the past, and lay out a simple framework for

creating a small conlang for beginners (phonology, syllable structure,

orthography, head-initial vs. head-final compounding). And a naming

language or small sketch that is quite different from your main

language can be a great way to break out of a creative rut if you’re

“stuck” with your main language, as I recently discovered.

 

I’d also continue to encourage y’all to profile some of your own

languages or even your conworld settings for them, sometime. We get

hints here and there but little concrete information. After almost 2

years, it’s not self-promotion so much as connecting with your

audience 😉

 <snip>

Thanks,

Panglott (Jeremiah)