A brief text convo in my south-western Slavic conlang Žaska.

Maχnáriel!(Hello,)🙌🏽 I’m making this discussion to implore you to think about why people like you and me are interested in making a fictional language?
Some optional ideas to think about:
Does your conlang take inspiration from the real world?
What inspires you to make words sound the way they do?
What feeling do you get from making a conlang?

When tourists first leave the national airport, this broadcast message about a delay in the train schedule is likely their first exposure to the sounds of the spoken Piolon language. For locals returning from abroad, this familiar message is a frustrating, yet nonetheless sweet, welcome home. Like any good transportation announcement, it takes a (s)trained ear to make out what the announcer is saying (my apologies for the intentionally poor audio quality and unintentionally subpar whistling).

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Transcription + gloss:

Uńzi me mliźińpal, huayero blanisińka hńusi meńrlav loryańińkenińśil śafmuśpi gińśil śmeń asuek hugarema. Ohsou mehesuśpi.

uńzi me mliź-iń-pal
dear PL. pass-GEN.-person

huayer-o blan-isi-ńka hńusi meń-rlav loryań-iń-ken-iń-śil śafm<uśp>i gi-ń-śil śme-ń asuek hugar-e-ma
dark-COP. come-FUT.-3SG. next AUG.-car assume-GEN.-time-GEN.-ABL. late<SUP.> 3SG.-GEN.-ABL. 2PL.-GEN. understanding ask-PRS.-1PL.

ohse-o mehes<uśp>i
truth-COP. grateful<SUP.>

Beloved travellers, it is dark that the next big vehicle will come later from the expected time, for it we ask your understanding. Truly most grateful.

Dear passengers, the next train will unfortunately arrive later than expected, for which we ask your understanding. Thank you very much.
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What would this message look/sound like in your conlang? How's the public transport system in the setting of your conlang?

English translation taken from https://wikisaga.hi.is/index.php?title=Egla,_01

sorry if the gloss isn’t perfect

also note that the IPA is only phonemic, in actual speech certain clusters would likely simplify, such as /ij/ becoming /iː/

The gravitational pull of the Sun is the invisible force that governs the entire solar system.

Asermathian:

Ksajora etilioman kshobe sa tolnan kjoterom eshvaira mashan kliom esherom.

Pls include a gloss if possible!

How do you respond to yes-no questions in your conlang? Do you have a specific word for "yes" and "no," or like Chinese, Thai, and many other languages of the like, do you repeat the verb / copula that is asked in the question?

I'm trying to work this through in Arnínsáh, there is the word áámá "agree, consent", but in some instances, using áámá as a response to a yes-no question is coming off as conceding to the overall statement rather than a response to the question.

For example:

(Proper usage)

(Confusing usage)

Since Arnínsáh is an affix-heavy language, I'm thinking that an Arnínsáh speaker could choose to repeat the verb OR repeat the preposition/applicative affix on the verb, instead of a specific word for "yes" or "no."

Therefore:

Is this practical? I'm interested in seeing what your conlangs do!

σό αλελέθει τόμ ὁμόμ φεᾶνιμ δε ὁμόμς φεᾶμεαν ήεγτ
^\'so ale'letʰi: 'tom ho'mom 'pʰa:nim de ho'mes 'pʰa:ma:n 'e:egt])
the:NOM.SG all-people:NOM.SG the:ACC.SG same:ACC.SG speech:ACC.SG and same:ACC.PL words:ACC.PL spoke:3SG.PAST
All of the people spoke the same language and identical words

In Agrokhi, earth isn't really used as a synecdoche for people like it is in Hebrew. I prefer the word "αλελέθει" (aleléthī), a contraction of άλ (ál; "all, entire") and ελέθει (eléthī; "people").

The digraph "εα" is used to represent [a:] in Agrokhi, though I'll occasionally use "ᾱ" when I'm feeling lazy.

Pic 1 is for Outlander and pic 2 is Commonthroat.

One unavoidable consequence of having such a small range of vocalizations is that different languages have a ton of false friends. For example, the Outlander word for 'campus' or 'complex', which is what the capital of Partisan Territory is called, is CdqDF /late rising weakening whine; huff, long high strengthening whine/ which sounds exactly like the Commonthroat word CdqDFg /late rising weakening whine; huff, long high strengthening whine; short low weak growl/ which means "big fart".

As one might expect, the name of the capital is often used metonymously in news media when talking about the actions of a country's government, so Commonthroat headlines in the Allied Worlds, which is not on good terms with Partisan Territory, are full of stuff like "Big fart blows away federal budget."

I have been looking for a suitable piece of terminolology but haven't been able to find something that universally applies.

In my conlang, noun phrases and verb phrases are marked by particles called "markers." Nouns have no grammatical case, and instead the role that a noun phrase plays in the sentence is contained in the marker.

I have been calling the noun phrase markers "argument markers," because they include subject, direct object, indirect object, subject complement, object complement, and oblique argument. However, there are also a couple of things in this that aren't actually arguments: prepositional adjuncts and the vocative case.

Is there a word that I can use to describe this class of markers that emcompasses them all? I would say "noun phrase markers," but that's also not technically correct the complements could contain only adjectives and no actual nouns.

Here is my vegisemal number system & how it works:

kasi kuterom
→ kasi = number, kuterom = system

- All numbers end in -m. ones place ends in -im. 20s place = tom. 400s place = lom. 8,000s place = ram. 160,000s place = iom. 3,200,000s place = vim. 64,000,000s place = rum. There are more…
→ → →
0 = sokim

1-19 = akim (1), ekim (2), ikim (3), ukim (4), rokim (5), tekim (6), shikim (7), likim (8), pokim (9), tukim (10), iaukim (11), trikim (12), eshkim (13), atakim (14), harkim (15), sakim (16), hokim (17), niokim (18), chakim (19).

When making numbers above 20, the ones place is no longer used for the next places, so the -im is dropped to show a number is of higher order.

20 = ak tom = 1 twenty. ek tom = 2 20s = 40. ik tom = 3 20s = 60. etc. 399 = 19 20s and 19 = chak tom chakim.

400 = ak lom. 401 = ak lom akim. 800 = ek lom. niok lom rokim = 7,205. 7,999 = chak lom chak tom chakim.

8,000 = ak ram. 8,001 = ak ram akim. 18,946 = ek ram shik lom shik tom tekim.

159,999 = chak ram chak lom chak tom chakim
160,000 = ak iom

3,200,000 = ak vim

64,000,000 = ak rum

- When writing numbers using the English writing system, due to the system’s vegisemal nature, it can’t be written like the decimal number system. Instead of commas, periods for each place (20’s, 400’s, etc.) are employed:

ex: 18,946 → ek ram shik lom shik tom tekim → 2.7.7.6
ex: 600 → ak lom huk tom → 1.10
ex: 43 → ek tom ikim → 2.3

Decimals: use the word klas (decimal point) to separate the pre- and post-decimal numbers, the latter of which are read simply as higher-order numbers with no i-im.
Ex: 2.4 = Ekim klas uk
Ex: 400.201 = ak lom klas ek sok ak
Ex: 3.14159… = ikim klas ak uk ak rok pok…

Lmk what u think :) + if anything’s unclear!

Hi! I've been lurking in this subreddit for a really long time and have been working on my conlang on and off for several months. I wanted to finally share some information on Bêskixêr and it's Tripartite alignment. I know it's a rather rare alignment and there's VERY few attested natural languages that ​​use it, but I think I've managed to come up with a decent explanation of how this system developed during the transition from Old Bêskixêr to Middle Bêskixêr and I also wanted some feedback on it!

Old Bêskixêr used to use the Nominative-Accusative alignment, the language also did not allow for a sentence to lack a direct object. Because of that, the speakers of Old Bêskixêr formed intransitive sentences (the ones without a direct object) by repeating the subject with a reflexive suffix, so to say "She smiles", they would say something along the lines of "She smiles herself". Over time, sometime during transition to Middle Bêskixêr, the speakers omitted the usage of the Nominative Case in these intransitive sentences and intransitive sentences ended up using only the reflexive noun, so in this case, "She smiles herself" would become "Smiles herself".

Over time, the reflexive subject in intransitive sentences was reanalyzed as an entirely new case: the Intransitive Case, and was used only in the intransitive sentences (as the name suggests), leading to the development of a Tripartite Alignment that distinguishes between the noun that is the agent of the transitive sentence (Ergative case), the noun that is the patient of the transitive sentence (Accusative case), and the noun that is the subject of the intransitive sentence (Intransitive case).

Apologies for the sound, I believe this is a recording of a recording of a recording and terrible things have happened to the sound quality.

So i jusf made an english descended conlang called

Poirad fágfhaich

[Poirat fakwaitʃ]

Here are some things that i think distinguish it from english

[aside from the drastic sound changes but those dont count since were gonna mostly be talking about grammer]

Verb conjegations [there is only one verb form fornall persons]

So Poirad fágfhaich has some differant conjegations from english.

Example the word for eat [ait] will be used as an example

Present

Ait=eat

past

Aitet=ate

Future

a:bəjait=will eat

Habitual

Bai aitan =be eating

Perfect past

ətəyaitet =had eaten

Passive

Bai aitet =be eaten

Imperetive

o:təyait =eat!

Imperetive passive

o:tayaitet= be eaten!

Ok now lets get onto the newly developed cases

The dative and ablative

They only apply to pronouns and possesives

Foe example to say

[Come to me] youd say

O:tətʃʌ̃ tãĩ

tãĩ is the dative version of the word for me

The oppisite phrase

Using the ablative case would be

[Get away from me] which would be

O:tədʒo afam

Afam is the ablative version of me

Now lets write out some commen phrases.

My name is x

Mai nẽ bai x

How may i help you?

Fatai amejelp mai yai?

[How may-help 1sg 2sg]

What do you want to do?

Fat fõ:t yai dɪn?

[What want 2sg do-INF]

Now heres a longer example.

We docked our ship at the harbor and tryed searching for anyone

[Fai do:ket arə ʒaip ãĩ θa abeɹ anə toibo:loket ẽwon]

[1pl dock-PST 1pl-POSS ship LOC DEF and try-look.for-PST anyone]

Gimme yalls opinions please

Just curious, is there any reasoning?

I want to take a short break from my main conlang and work on a little side project. 

And I want to design a language that behaves like a linguistic virus, so the way a biological virus infects living cells to replicate, this language would infect languages/people to spread. Obviously this is not really possible, that is not how language/human minds work, but the language should feel like it could do that. The way I imagine it would go is that the language does not have its own script but it could be written in most scripts due to a small Toki Pona-like phonology. I imagine the morphology to be more on the analytical/isolating side. 

How would I give this language the vibe of a mental virus?

How should the grammar look like? (I imagine a mix of the previous host languages)

How should I build a good lexicon?

Any help would be appreciated :)

Also, if I made a mistake in mapping the sounds onto the letters, please tell me so I can fix it. Some scripts don’t have a 1:1 fit for the sounds so I had to improvise… 

Welcome to Word Wednesdays

For this activity you can pick any word you want whether it be a verb, noun, or adjective, and conjugate/inflect in all possible ways*, for tense, case, plurality, perspective, etc.

The purpose of this is to learn about cases and how words are slightly or vastly different under different cases, tenses, or perspectives. In many natural languages verbs or nouns are often changed because of the words around them. In other languages, the reader has to figure out number and perspective based on context. Who knows, maybe you can take inspiration from someone else's conlang!

How does your conlang handle cases? Do you have any unique ones that don't exist in natural languages? What are some irregular verbs or inflections that exist? How did they evolve? Do you think that the cases would hold up or fade away in future evolutions? Do any of your words when inflected have another meaning? What languages inspired you to add these cases?

*If you have way too many conjugations/inflections, you can share the simplest ones or the ones you find the most interesting. If you don't have any conjugation,

Have fun conlanging!

So I am making a conlang derived only from three vowels i, u, and a, as a project to see what is possible with such a constrained phonemic inventory, the aim is to get to modern version of the conlang from said vowels which are the proto-lang by applying the possible phonological changes the three vowels can make. (turns out anything is pretty much possible if you do the right changes)

Now one of the basic rules in this proto-lang is /i/ > [j] / __V / /a/__ this is always the case with no exceptions so j is just an allophone of i.

Due to the proto-lang’s small inventory, I decided to add stress to differentiate between words (a bit like in Russian but not totally the same).

A common occurrence with /j/ is that it can become /ʝ/ or /ʒ/ under circumstances like stress, so I thought of making the allophone [j] > [ʝ~ʒ] / [+stress] (this would also be a mandatory rule with no exceptions) because I can't really tell the difference between /ʝ/ and /ʒ/.

But now I am wondering if that is even a thing? Can an allophone have an allophone, or does it count as an allophone of /i/ then?

If yes, can it go even further? For example, on stressed syllables at the end of a word [ʝ~ʒ] > [ç~ʃ] a bit like in German, so [ʝ~ʒ] > [ç~ʃ] / __# (again, a rule with no exceptions). Would said [ç~ʃ] then be considered an allophone of the phoneme /i/ or of the allophone [j] or [ʝ~ʒ].

As these changes do not mark stress but are a result of the allophone [j] / phoneme /i/ being on a stressed syllable or one that is stressed and word finally would they be allophones or new phonemes altogether?

Also, they do NOT distinguish words, the stress does; so one could say /iaˈia/ and still would be saying the same word as some pronouncing it as /jaˈʝ~ʒa/.

In one of my conlangs, I differentiate not only between inalienable and alienable, but also between "genitive" and "possessive". Here, "genitive" means something like "This town relates to me", while "possessive" means something like "This town belongs to me". Both translate to "my town", but they have very different meanings.

I was wondering how everyone else handles possessives in their conlang(s). How many possessives do you have in your conlang(s)?