Posted and filed under Podcast.

Today we tackle a big grammar and discourse topic: anaphora and co-referentiality.  We go through a list of options you have for cleaning up ambiguities and keeping your discourse coherent.  Just don’t throw them all into the same conlang.

Top of Show Greeting: Minhast

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Special Mention: Talossa has been reunited

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From Robert: Read more »

Posted and filed under Podcast.

This week we cover the monumental and yet incomplete amman îar, a heavily Tolkien-inspired language that nevertheless manages to have its own flavor.

Top of Show Greeting: Uskra

Featured Conlang: amman îar

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Email from FE: Read more »

Posted and filed under Podcast.

So, for various reasons we have now changed the format of the show.  Now we will be doing only one topic per show, alternating weeks between discussion topics and featured conlangs.  We hope that this addresses the issues some people have had with show length while still allowing us to have thick, meaty discussions.  As such, this week’s show is all about phonotactics and how the way you allow sounds to combine into words is often more important to the overall sound of your conlang than your phoneme inventory is.

Top of Show Greeting: Khangaþyagon

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No feedback today, sorry.

Posted and filed under Podcast.

Today we take some time to talk to you about a conworldy topic: loan words in your conlang.  What words are likely to be borrowed?  What kinds of situations cause borrowing?  And how does grammar work for loan words?  Also, we talk about Kebreni, our second feature of an Almean language.

Top of Show Greeting: Lojban

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Featured Conlang: Kebreni

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Saluton!

A friend just posted this on my Facebook wall: a list of measure words in English! Everything from a murder of crows to a stand of flamingos to a blessing of unicorns (because it’s Unicorn Appreciation Day, of course!), and even some obviously contrived creations like “a brace of dentists”.

http://users.tinyonline.co.uk/gswithenbank/collnoun.htm

Now I wonder what the measure word for conlangers would be….

Cheers,
Michael from California

Posted and filed under Podcast.

This week, we talk all about the middle voice and the many things that that covers, as well as give you all sorts of options to make your own creative use of this feature.  We also have a featured natlang today that has very interesting features as well as some hilarious crackpot historical theories around it.

Top of Show Greeting: Fäesek

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Featured NATLANG: Burushaski (Wikipedia page)

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Email from Thomas: Read more »

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After a short update on George’s grad school situation and some musing over our tagline, we get to talking about the very complex interactions that animacy and agency can have with the rest of your grammar.  Then we talk about Interlingua, a very boring auxlang that appears to be comfortably readable by anyone who speaks a Romance language.

Top of Show Greeting: Kiswona

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Featured Conlang: Interlingua (another link)

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Dear George, William and Mike,

First of all, let me say, what a great show!  I just posted a 5 star review on iTunes.  I started three weeks ago and listened to every episode.  I wanted to bring to your attention the unwritten rule in podcasting not to go beyond 82 minutes.  No one can burn your episode onto CD and give it to a friend if it’s longer than that!  Let me be sure to emphasize to coolness of what yo do.

Thanks again,

Robert Murphy

Posted and filed under Podcast.

David Peterson joins us for a wonderful Supersize episode where we talk all about growing your lexicon, from generating roots to creating realistic polysemy and semantic fields.  Also, we finally feature an obscure little language we’ve wanted to talk about for a while 😛

Top of Show Greeting: Oltengo

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Featured Conlang: Dothraki (fan site, David’s blog)

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Email from Zelos: Read more »

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We give you a podcast today about how you can do without tense, and what other things in the language can be used to fill in the gaps.  Also, we have special guest Jeffrey Jones on to talk about his conlang.

Top of Show: Sheewan

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Featured Conlang: K’tlê

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Email from JS: Read more »

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Today is a big show where we tackle the topic of reduplication, something we think more conlangers should employ.  Then we talk about a wonderfully crazy click langauge called Sandawe — and it’s natural!

Top of Show Greeting: Chudihr

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Featured NATLANG:  Sandawe (Wikipedia)

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Email from Liam: Read more »

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After a short update on rain in Wisconsin and ankle injuries, we try to make sense of the topic of topicalization and topic prominent languages.  Then we talk about Talmit, a language created by active Conlangery listener and commenter Roman Rausch

Top of Show Greeting: Grewa

Resources:

Featured Conlang: Talmit (LCC talk, pdf grammar, more stuff)

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Email from Alex: Read more »