#proto-conlang

[duskicshrimp]

So this is my first attempt at a PIE (Proto-Indo-European) a postiori conlang, what I imagined for this scenario is somehow a PIE speaking group made it to the British isles before the Celts, however this is mostly just an exercise in seeing how to go about making a PIElang

Old Wharchish — Wharcanīćeh

Old Wharchish Numerals

ainē "one" /aɪ̯neː/

dvo "two" /dβo/

śreyā "three" /ɕrejaː/

whasvorā "four" /ʍasβoraː/

pęwha "five" /pẽʍa/

hvexś "six" /xβeχʂ/

haftan~haftą "seven" /xaɸtan~xaɸtã/

oxśu "eight" /oχʂu/

nuan~nuą "nine" /nwan~nwã/

dexąs "ten" /deχãs/

vikexątsi "twenty" /βikeχãtsi/

xącen~xącę "hundred" /χãkjen~χãkjẽ/

plucarwhahē "rainbow" /plukjarʍaxeː/

ilāi yxāen wamo "I like to walk the street"

/ilaːi əχaːen~(əχaːẽ) ua̯mo/

travel-LOC.SG path-ACC.SG like-1SG.NOM

Declaration of human rights (this will prob. Change)

h₂ólyoes ǵʰmónes h₁léwdʰeroes somHóeskʷe gʷr̥Htóteh₂ti h₃r̥ǵtúsukʷe ǵn̥h₁yóntor. éybʰos dh₃tóy ménos ḱḗrkʷe h₁stés h₂énteroeykʷe sm̥h₂éleyes bʰréh₂tr̥bʰos swé h₂éǵoyh₁n̥t.

↓ PIE > WHARCANĪĆEH

olieā qamonā elaodareā hemamaśwha qaricocātsi ārxśuhuwha qaniǫcor. ābē dicu manē xerwha iśtā ącaruwha hamālayā vrācarbē hva aquyas.

↓ Late old Wharchish

Olya kamna elodaza hemmaśv karićosi wāzūva kannuśu. avi diśu mani zēv iśca naśaruv hamwalaya evaśāvi hva acas

[kelasian]

wonderful things are happening in the vari-sentian branch

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

Doing research for a conlang

search: indo-european consonant shifts

results: Grimm's law, Grimm's law, nothing but Grimm's law, Germanic languages are the only ones that exist, don't even bother asking about anything else

search: indo-iranian consonant shifts

results: here's a map of Iran, here's ten thousand maps of Iran, and here's a chart of the Persian writing system. How about Indian food near you?

search: proto-indo-european daughter language sound shifts

results: GRIMM'S LAW BABY!!! And here's a map of Eurasia from Wikipedia for your troubles. Fuck you.

I checked; my library district has exactly ZERO books on any of the subjects I'm looking for across 12 branches throughout the entire county. Remember when the internet was the information super highway? I may as well be asking random strangers off the street!

[gingerdusk]

Writer woes

Been simmering on a novel for almost a year. Because I want to write it, but it's a fantasy world, and it is VITAL to my brain that the names of people and places are consistent.

So until I can name everything, everything is placeholder. Because I want to finish this conlang family first.

My hobbyist worldbuilder side is at war with my writer side. "No one will pay enough attention-" I WILL. I. WILL. It matters to ME that I know x y z about the planet. My brain relies on comprehending it as a real place.

But also. GAH.

[mother-spore]

Day 54

.    ʊvodas    ɛd͡ʑo²gi⁴z⁰   ɑtɑθ    ofɪ²ʎi⁴z⁰    obɑki¹z⁰   ip   æ⁰bæ⁰p     a⁰ç¹eg¹eɹid.

Sometimes world.plural and star.plural as thing they refer-to.

Sometimes it called them "planets" and "stars".

[velaraffricate]

another really cool thing: the plural suffix -saa ends up looking like an infix in some cases due to vowel deletion and metathesis. *inqwa, *inqwasaa > ivə, izva; *kwunkaa, *kwunkaasaa > kuga, kuzga; *khaari, *khaarisaa > kaale, kaasla. seeing irregularity arise spontaneously as a natural consequence of sound changes is neverending fun. i spend so much time just running random words thru the algorithm and seeing how they change with different affixes

[readmypaws]

Deeeeeeeeefinetly not for any upcoming project that I've been working on for 3 months now..... deeeeeefinetly not

[frogpaste]

I may be causing my own descent into insanity by trying to make a conlang based on real languages I don't speak..

[outfoxt]

I always make things so much more difficult than they need to be 😅 I was thinking of running a monster of the week one-shot with the intent to make a larger campaign once I get the hang of things. I thought it'd be cool if I set things in a fantasy world, but my nerd brain went "oh wait before you unveil this world you need to figure out all of the fake geopolitics and histories of all the nations in this world so that you can accurately portray this world." which is a months-long activity. so of course I'm going to do it

[ffxiv-langs]

Pronouns in Proto-Aldenardic vs Amaurotine

This shows the loss of several noun cases between the two languages, as well as the introduction of a new set of demonstratives into late Allagan.

[duskicshrimp]

Classical Wharchish kinship terms & pronunciation guide

You can think of Classical Wharchish as the "Latin" or "Sanskrit" of it's language family, in the lore I've set this conlang around the classical form of the language is still used in ecclesiastical settings.

The written tradition of Wharchish arose during the 3~4th century however the Anglo-Saxon invasions of Brittan drove a lot of this tradition underground or snuffed it out in certain areas not until the late 9th century do written texts appear on record.

The Alphabet (ilffebis /iwɸebis/) for Wharchish is as follows:

Letter — Name — IPA

A — Alffa — a

B — Bera — b

K — Kafa — k

D — dilra — d

G — Gana — g

E — Efiļo — e

Ff — Ffiļo — ɸ

Z — Zera — ʑ

H — Hy — x

I — Ira — i

J — Jura — j

C — cirna — ɕ

L — lama — w

M — mu — m

N — nu — n

O — ominna — o

P — py — p

Ll — llirna — ɬ

Ş — syz̧a — ʂ

Z̧ — z̧yça — ʐ

U — ufiļna — u

Ļ — ļama — l

Ç — çorna — tɕ~ʈʂ

V — vu — w

F — fera — β

Nn — annu — ɲ

S — sirna — s

R — ru — r

& T — to — t

Any vowel with a macron over it (āēīōū) is a long vowel, any vowel with an ogonek/cedilla is nasalised.

Kinship terms

Mecr ""mother"""

Fficr ""father"""

Ffrecr ""brother"""

Sifcta ""sister"""

Snuficr ""sibling"""

Dūtir ""daughter"""

Suny ""son"""

-safa, safa epicene pronoun "

Nifu ""nephew"""

Nift ""niece"""

Zefir ""son-in-law"""

Snusu ""daughter-in-law"""

Firy ""wife"""

Sofuru ""father-in-law"""

Sofu ""mother-in-law"""

Af ""grandfather""

Feruaf ""grandmother"""

Ymu ""twin"""

Fiz ""widow"""

[kelasian]

Lexember 2024: Day 6

Sorkish

sívab [ˈsiβæb] n. 1. knowledge 2. science (from sív- "to know" + -Vb "general affix for abstractions") → sívbvarë [ˈsiβb͡βærə] n. mathematics (from sívab "knowledge" + várë "art") → sívbvaraz [ˈsiβb͡βæræz] n. mathematician bornávarë [bɞrˈnɑβærə] n. anatomy (from borán "body" + várë "art") → bornávaraz [bɞrˈnɑβæræz] n. 1. anatomist 2. surgeon

Chytari

tereya [tɨˈr̝ɨjɐ] v. 1. understand, comprehend 2. notice 3. read 4. count → terețau [tɨˈr̝ɨd͡ʒɑu̯] n. numbers, numerals (singulative terețauda) (from tereya "count" + -țau "instrument, tool")

[miochimochi]

Alright, time to build the language.

Let's play around with word order after figuring some other stuff out first, although I'm leaning towards OSV right now. Let's just remind ourselves the system we're working with

Subject Object Verb Link

The Creator stood upon the mountain and overlooked a frozen land. This is how it was in the beginning.

I'll be going with Active-Stative alignment, so S¹=A and S²=P, perhaps going with agentive-default fluid-S, so this would mean that S¹=A will be unmarked, as it is assumed the default position, where S²=P will be marked, as it is a change to the default. Nouns will have a Agentive and Patientive form as a result, with the Patientive Sole being marked like the Patient. But languages aren't strict rule followers, they have exceptions. I could imagine there being exceptions to the rule, such as a Locative being marked in both Agentive and Patientive cases, depending on which one is being x'd on. Speaking of cases, I think I'll go with Genitive (GEN - attributive relationship between two nouns), Dative (DAT - marks the recipient of an action), Locative (LOC - indicates location in relation to another noun), and Instrumental (INS - something being used by another noun) cases. For the locative case, the specifics of in, on, under, &c. is inferred but helper words could be used.

And here's the rule for adpositions:

Prepositional - Demonstrative, numeral, adjectives, comes after the noun, possessive, genitive, and relative come before the noun

Quantity > Opinion > Size > Age > Shape > Color > Origin > Material > Purpose > Noun seems perfectly fine to me, I guess I could change some just to change some. Could order them by objectivity I suppose. I could go objective to subjective

Quantity > Material > Size > Shape > Origin > Age > Color > Purpose > Opinion > Noun

Or the reverse

Opinion > Purpose > Color > Age > Origin > Shape > Size > Material > Quantity > Noun

The noun should come at the end due to the language being prepositional. So I'll go with subjective to objective for this, keeping the objective closer to the noun just makes sense to me.

Number is something I didn't really go over, that's my bad. English only has 2 numbers: singular and plural. But I'll do more than just the two. Singular (SNG) "one dog", definite plural (DPL) "multiple dogs", indefinite plural (IPL) "many dogs". The definite plural is for a defined or implied set amount, such as "dogs in the city" or "two dogs". The indefinite plural is for an undefined amount, there's just "dogs" out there and we're not talking about some specific amount.

I will also go with a tri-gender system of Masculine, Feminine, and Inanimate. There is a neuter as well, but it would be based on syntax. So this means I would need to determine what triggers gender agreement. The most common is vowel-based triggers. I think I'll go with /i/ and /ɪ/ for the feminine neuter and /a/ and /o/ for the masculine neuter. The masculine and feminine are together the "animate" gender for this language, but this doesn't mean only animals will get it, as animacy has been applied to what is inanimate, such as rivers, mountains, the sun and moon, &c. Pronouns would come from this, so He/It (it¹), She/It (it²), and It⁰ are the pronouns that come directly from this gender system but some others will be used as well. There will be both an inclusiveᶦ and exclusiveᵉ to various pronouns. Clusivity is simply marking whether includes or excludes something. English doesn't have this, if you say "we" one would have to infer by context clues if you're including them or if it's you vs them. So, we have I/me, youᶦ referring to a group, youᵉ referring to an individual, weᶦ including you, weᵉ excluding you, and they. It⁰ would be divided between 3 definites: d¹, d², and d³. These are the this, that, those, and these of the language. There's also the relative and indefinite pronouns which I would say distinguishes directness rⁿ for the relative which refers back to something "to whom it may concern, that which we knew what was to come" and r⁰ for the indefinite which is more general "to each his own"

Another thing I forgot to mention in my last post: articles. Articles are the "the"s and "a(n)"s. English has 3 articles, 2 marked. Definite, indefinite, and zero. Definite is like "the book", whereas indefinite is "a book", and zero is simply "books" as it's only used for plurals and mass nouns. I'll go with animate definite "the¹ man", inanimate definite "the² book", and zero which will be for anything not definite "the² book" vs "⁰ book".

Now for verbs... imma be pretty basic with tense: past (PST), an unmarked present (PRS), and future (FUT). Then I have to think of the aspects that I want to convey. I think unmarked would be perfect (PER - it has happened and still has relevance to the now). There will also be a perfective (PFV - it has happened at some point in relation to the now), continuous (CON - it is ongoing in the now), discontinuous (DIS - it happened but might not be now), prospective (PRO - it is beginning to happen), and I couldn't find one for this so I'm creating the name suspensive (SUS - it is about to stop happening). The discontinuous could only be applied to the past. At least, I can't conceptualize it being used in a present or future tense.

Word order is still there to figure out, though... so the general rule across the majority of languages is Object-Verb bonding. That means that the Object and Verb are most likely to be next to each other. So SOV, SVO, VOS, and OVS. So would Proto-Mochians hold to this? Most likely. But part of what should be figured out is where exactly their Euro-Asiatic ancestors came from and then we can look at how their languages developed. One idea for the first peoples of the Americas would be through ancient Siberian populations. So what are the Siberian languages like? Itelmen is SOV, Chukchi is free but SOV is standard, Alyutor is also free with SVO and VSO being common, Nivkhe languages are SOV, Ket is SOV. It seems that among Siberian languages, there's a tendency towards SOV, but this also may be a result of contact with other languages, such as the Turkic, Slavic, and Mongol languages. What of languages in the region in our timeline? The Salish languages are by and large verb-initial with the most common word order being VSO. Alyutor has VSO also being common, so perhaps the Alyutors (sadly going extinct with less than 500 people and less than 10% of that actually speaking the language) and the Salish might have a common linguistic ancestor? Highly unlikely, bordering on the absurd, though interesting to think about such a possibility. So we could take the other approach to the Salish for that dichotomy of the two worlds, but I think a fusion of them might be better. So what do we get with SOV+VSO? We could use both, and indeed this proto-language will be free word order, but for the purposes of where we'll end up, let's go with VOS as the commonly used word order and give that a shot. Can always change it later as a part of the language's evolution.

Next step after putting all of this together is to take the phonemes and these rules and put them together to finally (for real this time) translate.

[mother-spore]

Day 6

Language time once again. I'd say I think I'm getting the hang of it but I really don't know if I am. Also I checked the calendar and such, if I don't miss any days, and don't split any lines across multiple days, I can be finished by mid February

It is reading our thoughts as though they were words on a screen.

. i²k⁰o⁵fi³z⁵ ɑ¹tʊp ɛ¹pevɑʥ̑¹i¹z⁷ ʊɭ¹ɛti⁴z⁰ a⁴ç¹ʊ¹t æ⁰bæ⁰p a⁴ç¹efig.

Thought.plu as communicator.their word.plu on they see

They see my thoughts as words on their communicator

[bliamapriori]

A smart person would not be backwards engineering their way to a *proto form of language root by way of sound changes for a fanlang they intend to use for the specific purpose I am making it for, but I am neither smart nor someone with the best impulse control so the prospect of elvish > old elvish > classical elvish > ancestral elfish > elfish fey is just something I do so I have something to do with my hands, blissfully ignoring the mountain of designated compound words in the actual version of the lang I mean to use. And yet. Here I am. Daydreaming about the concept of a greater fey language family again.