Posted and filed under Podcast.

Today, we spend a ridiculous amount of time talking about adpositions, creating an hour-long discussion out of something William thought would be short.  We also have an extra special featured conlang today — one hand crafted specifically for this podcast!

Top of Show Greeting: Opaki Aŋkuati

Links and Resources:

Featured Conlang: Junen Rhá

Hey Guys,

Here’s my try at the caseless conlang exercise. Sorry it’s a little
late in coming, but I was busy the last few weeks and am only now
catching up with the podcast. 🙂

It’s been a good many years since I sketched out more than a phoneme
inventory for a conlang, so I apologize for it being a little rough.

Cheers,
Bryn

Feedback: Read more »

Posted and filed under Podcast.

We introduce you to a new host: Mike Lentine.  Then we cover the different ways you can get rid of adjectives or at least fuzz the distinctions between them and other word classes.  Also, we try to figure out what Lojban is all about.

Top of Show Greeting: Esperanto (translation by William)

Featured Conlang: Lojban

Feedback:

Email from Aidan: Read more »

Posted and filed under News.

Ok, this is absolutely, positively the FINAL version of the new Conlangery album art.  I have tinkered with this thing enough and I’m afraid that if I do anything more to it I will simply screw it up beyond repair.  Unless I decide again to completely change the aesthetic a year from now, or I get a professional artist to put a few touches to it, this is what the album art will look like from here on in.  You can see the earlier iterations here.  So, now for a run down of the languages depicted, from left-to right, top to bottom:

  • Itlani: sitsholenú (construct-language-thing-plural)
  • Ayeri: Narānacan (literally na-rā-na-tya-n) /naˈraːnaʧan/ narān (‘language’ + -ati ‘AGTZ’ + -an ‘NMLZ’)
  • Kamakawi: kalaka’ala’ile (“making language live”)
  • Himmaswa: Kangwauswa’iap /kaŋ.wɔ̰.swa.iə̯p̚/
  • Ancaron: Sidanaspotcor[ʃɪˈdanasˈpotkoɚ] si-create-language (“Related to conlangs”)
  • South Eresianp’eloniryos (“abstract quality of creating languages”)
  • Sindarin (translated by Roman Rausch): lamgar (lam “language” + car “do, make”)
  • Klai: [pˡəːsa̰ː ɟlĩək̚ sʉð̞]

That’s it, no more fiddling with the damn album art.  I’m done with it.  You can still submit your scripts (translate “Conlangery”, interpretively or phonetically, and send a black-and-white image to conlangery@gmail.com), but all additional scripts I recieve will appear in the random header you see at the top (if you refresh a few times, you’ll see you get a different conlang every time).  I will see if I can work up a page or something to tell people what languages all those headers are sometime in the future.  In the meantime, I need a nap.  Thank you to everyone who contributed!

— George

Posted and filed under News.

Conlangery has some new stuff.  I wanted to move away from the conlang flag design and come up with something a little more unique for our logo-type stuff, so I solicited some conlanging communities for  translations of “Conlangery” into their conscripts.  The result is new album art and a new site banner.

The contibutions I used are as follows, listed left-to-right, top-to-bottom as they appear on the album art (pictured right), with what background info I’ve been given:

  • Ayeri: Narānacan (literally na-rā-na-tya-n) /naˈraːnaʧan/ ‘Conlangery’, from narān ‘language’ + -ati ‘AGTZ’ + -an ‘NMLZ’
  • Hwagak: Wéng Wén Ŕinggén /ˈweŋ.wen ˈɹɨŋ.ɡen/ build PAS language-INDF
  • Himmaswa: Kangwauswa’iap /kaŋ.wɔ̰.swa.iə̯p̚/
  • Klai: [pˡəːsa̰ː ɟlĩək̚ sʉð̞]
  • South Eresian: p’eloniryos “abstract quality of creating languages”
I will still consider submissions to include in the album art or the banner, as I expect to tinker with them in the coming weeks, but the basic aesthetic I think is down.  If you would like your conscript to be included, translate “Conlangery” into your language (both interpretive translations and phonological adaptations are welcome) and send a black-and-white image of the word in your script to conlangery@gmail.com, preferably with romanization, phonetic transcription, and (for interpretive translations) a gloss.  Thanks!
EDIT:  As I said, I am continuing to tinker with this.  I have removed the Hwagak text (which is from the same creator as Himmaswa) and inserted a Sindarin translation given to me by Roman Rausch (he sent Quenya as well, but I only wanted one Tengwar name on there, and I preferred the Sindarin for a few reasons).   The new version is at left.  For those who are curious, Roman translated Conlangery as lamgar, which combines lam “language” with the lenited form of car “do, make”.
EDIT: Added Kamakawi.  On the version to the right you can see it right next to the Tengwar (after a little rejiggering).  I had asked David specifically for a translation, so I though it would be silly not to include it.  The Kamakawi translation of Conlangery is kalaka’ala’ile, meaning “making language live”.
FINAL EDIT:  I have added Ancaron (top left, the vertical script) and Itlani (bottom right).  This is probably the final edit of the album art, as I am running out of visual space, and making the conscript text smaller would not properly showcase it, I think. In any case, the translations for Ancaron and Itlani are as follows:
  • Ancaron: Sidanaspotcor[ʃɪˈdanasˈpotkoɚ] si-create-language (“Related to conlangs”)
  • Itlani: sitsholenú construct-language-thing-plural

Again, this is probably the last time I will update the album art, except perhaps to tweak the positions a bit (it is a mite asymetrical at the top, and it’s definitely not as tight as some previous versions).  However, you will have noticed that I changed the header.  Since I had trouble fitting even more scripts on the header, I changed it so that on each page load a random script will appear in the header.  As such, I’ll continue adding scripts to the header as long as people keep sending them to me, since all it takes is a little bit of time to put it together.  Thanks everyone for all your help.

ABSOLUTE FINAL EDIT (really this time):  Ok, I realized that I had forgotten Kamakawi in my previous “final” version, so I went a head and fiddled with the thing until now I am sick of dealing with it.  You can get all the details in this new post.  As I said before, I will still accept submissions for the header, since I’m not so limited in what I can display up there anymore.

Posted and filed under Podcast.

Bianca’s last show as a regular host goes into a rather ambitious topic: discourse particles.  Go listen to the show, because it’s too complicated a subject for me to summarize properly here.  We also feature a natlang going by two names.

Top of Show Greeting: Amjati

Links and Resources:

Featured NATLANG: Nootka and Makah

Feedback:

Email: Read more »

Posted and filed under Podcast.

After a big announcement, we delve into the mysteries and wonders of creating dialects, reviewing natlang tendencies and talking about some techniques that can be used to mimic them, and then we talk about a quite interesting conlang as well.

Top of Show Greeting: Palezi Urca

Links and Resources:

Featured Conlang: Anawanda

Posted and filed under Podcast.

George gets Bianca’s name wrong and no one notices.  We also have some digressions at the beginning and the end of the show, but somehow we end up talking a whole lot about noun incorporation, and the weird and wacky language known as Gevey.

Top of Show Greeting: Vaida Mi Ha

Links and Resources:

Featured Conlang: Gevey

Special Mentions:

Feedback:

Anthony Docimo (comment on #37) Read more »

Posted and filed under Podcast.

Today we talk all about derivational morphology and what can be done with it.  We also spend some time talking about Proto-Deithas

Top of Show Greeting: Sindarin (translation by Roman Rausch)

Links and Resources:

Featured Conlang: Proto-Deithas

Posted and filed under Podcast.

Aszev of the CBB joins us for a little talk about the many kinds of phonological processes: what they are, what you can do with them, why the order of processes in important.  We also review the awesomely well-developed Novegradian with its 500-page grammar and excellent dictionary.

Top of Show Greeting: Talmit

Links and Resources:

Featured Conlang: Novegradian

Feedback:

Email from Nathaniel Fischer: Read more »

Posted and filed under Podcast.

CORRECTION: A commenter below graciously corrected me on a point I (George) raised in the show.  When I talk about desiderative languages, please replace that word with dechticaetiative.  Look to the comments below for a relevant link.  I apologize for misidentifying the phenomenon I was talking about.

We talk a lot about morphosyntactic alignment, outlining the basic types, talking a little about various complications, and even bringing up a linguist who thinks it’s not all that important, anyway.  Also, we feature a natlang for the second time: Ngarla, a language of Australia, with some morphosyntactic oddness (that’s typical for Australia, but still odd).  Also, stick around after the end music to hear George’s informal review of China Miéville’s Embassytown.

Top of Show Greeting: Jameld

Links and Resources:

Featured NATLANG: Ngarla

Feedback:

Email from Bryn LaFollette: Read more »