really interesting to have the alien feature actually be something that’s not there! This language seems really interesting! Would love to see more about it!
pe'el!
Welcome to the first weekly c/conlangs post!
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Conlang of the week
This week's conlang of the week is: Klingon! The constructed language devised for the strict warrior aliens of the same name, Klingon was first heard spoken in 1979. Klingon is one of the first conlangs to be widely recognised in popular culture, with there even being groups of people learning and speaking the language.
What do you think of the language Klingon? Does it succeed at its goals? Do you speak some Klingon? Was it what first got you into the wonderful world of constructed languages? Tell us about your thoughts in the thread!
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Linguistic feature of the week
Keeping in the theme of Klingon, which was designed to sound extremely alien to the audience, the linguistic feature of the week is any feature not existing in a natural, human language.
Klingon was meant to sound extremely alien. This was mostly achieved by picking features and sounds that were exotic to English speakers. The most alien thing I could find in Klingon is the fact that it uses OVS word order, the rarest of all word orders. Some people say Klingon has not really succeeded at being "alien", because pretty much all features it has exist in some human language.
What cool and interesting "alien" features does your conlang have? Or which features do you think are super cool and would you love to see in a conlang one day? Please share it with us in the comments!
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Post of the week
There will be no post of the week this week yet, as all posts so far have been made by us, the moderators. Maybe your post can be here next week?
Happy conlanging everyone and thanks for being apart of the c/conlangs community!
Qapla'!
That book looks gorgeous! I might need to buy myself a copy! Definitely a good motivation to go and learn the language, so you can read the book!
I’m talking about uYouplus and specifically for sideloading
It is being updated. They just don’t provide releases anymore because that is what gets repos taken down. You have to build it yourself
Lego builder’s journey is another game that focuses more on the actual lego, compared to the more classic lego hame style.
I haven’t taken the time to sit down and read the entire thing yet, but I really love the fact that you’ve made a language set in an alternate version of the real world. The setting and languages influencing each other is really cool! I wonder how Ylmunusian has in turn influenced the languages around it!
Oooh Lojban is super interesting! Really fun to think about places where it would make sense to use it. I imagine a political manifesto, or law-book would be a really good place.
Yeah, finding resources for Esperanto is not the most difficult, duolingo is useful for vocabulary, and luckily the grammer is very consistent afaik.
Qapla’!
yI'el!
Another conlang I've been interested in for a long time is Toki Pona, and because it seems so easy to learn, I might start learning it too. The community for toki pona seems especially welcoming and wholesome, so that's a plus too!
I'll start myself: I've been quite interested in Esperanto recently, and I am thinking of starting to actually learn the language. Esperanto is just really interesting to me, because of its history and size, compared to other conlangs. I don't believe it will become the universal world language, like once was dreamed. And I do think esperanto has quite a few shortcomings when it comes to being an international auxilliary language. The reason I want to learn it is more just for that history and culture.
Great race imo. Bummer the fight at the front ended in trouble like that, but it was very exciting!
Piastri is doing great! Really showing his skill!
Love the drama between Gasly and Ocon. Glad to see some fighting on track too!
We're already listed in their sidebar! :) I might make a post a bit later too. The mod of !linguistics@mander.xyz actually helped us initially set up the community!
We want to be a welcoming community, for people to share and dicuss each others conlangs, and to find and share resources for making them. Promoting positivity and encouraging each other to keep making conlangs! Come join us at !conlangs@mander.xyz
We want to be a welcoming community, for people to share and dicuss each others conlangs, and to find and share resources for making them. Promoting positivity and encouraging each other to keep making conlangs! Come join us at !conlangs@mander.xyz
I’ll also take this opportunity to share some more great youtube channels to check out, that are tangentially related to conlanging:
RobWords is a great channel about etymology, and he has a great video about the conlang Toki Pona.
Some general linguistics channels, looking at languages all around the world are: LingoLizard, NativLang and LangFocus.
For a showcase of way more obscure languages check out imshawn getoffmylawn.
CONLANGING RESOURCES
If you have any suggestions for resources, feel free to share them in the comments, and try to provide descriptions of your resources too. Make sure to also upvote the ones you find useful!
General Resources
- The Language Construction Kit by Mark Rosenfelder. Collection of general information and tools to get started with creating constructed languages. A must for any aspiring conlanger! 1.1. LCK Resources. Resources recommended by Mark Rosenfelder.
- Glossary of Linguistic Terms by the SIL. If you ever come across a linguistic term that you haven't heard of, you can probably find what it means in here!
- World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS) A large overview of many features of the world's languages.
- The International Phonetic Alphabet. You don't need to know the IPA to make your own conlang, but it's a great way to refer to the sounds that you might include in your conlang.
- Conlanging course from the MIT. A free, university level course on creating constructed languages.
- Wikipedia Linguistics Portal. A nice gateway to lots of linguistics content on Wikipedia.
- ConWorkShop. A conlanging community and tools website.
Phonology
- The International Phonetic Alphabet chart.
- The Index Diachronica. It lists sound changes by family and sound, so if you're evolving your conlang from another, it gives you a good idea on what would feel natural
- Mark Rosenfelder's Sound Change Applier. An easy to use tool to apply sound changes to lots of words at once.
Grammar
- List of grammatical cases. (Wikipedia)
- Tense, aspect and mood. (Wikipedia)
Lexicon/Vocabulary
- Lexiconga. An easy way to store your own languages' lexicons.
- 625 Useful Words. A list of 625 useful words to add to your conlang's lexicon.
- A Conlanger's Thesaurus. A big lexicon of all the words that you could possibly want to have in your conlang, ordered by subjects and connections between words.
- Swadesh list. A list of words used to compare langauges. (Wikipedia) 3.1. Appendix. List of swadesh lists for many different languages. (and even some conlangs!)
- Kinship Terminology. One of the easiest ways to introduce non-English flavour to your conlang.
Conlanging on Youtube
- Artifexian
- Babelingua
- Biblaridion
- Connor Quimby
- David Peterson
- jan Misali
- Koallary
- Lichen the Fictioneer
- Nakari Speardane
Other Communities
- Conworkshop Events Another nice conlanging community.
- !linguistics@mander.xyz (Kbin link). A community about general linguistics.
- !linguistics_humor@sh.itjust.works (Kbin link). A community to post memes and funnies about linguistics.
- !worldbuilding@lemmy.world (Kbin link). A community to discuss all the other interesting facets of worldbuilding.
- !languagelearning@sopuli.xyz (Kbin link). A community to discuss practical language learning.
I think the app is proprietary, but it is run by a non-profit.
Yeah that happens a lot in the rest of the world too. In Italy there are two main manufacturers and they each have their own slight variations upon every regional design. Here in NL I don’t even see the classic (carta mundi brand) dutch style anymore. It’s mostly American cards here now.
Oops, maybe that was unclear. I meant even within each area of the map; blue, yellow, orange, green there are regional variations in designs!
