Tag Archive | conlang

Conlang all year round – Polysemarch in August

Aug17

Turns out I missed conlanging, and as I’ve missed many months of “365 Conlang thingies beyond #Lexember,” I decided in the remains of August, I would cycle through the first 8 months twice of conlang-exercises twice.

Today is Polysemarch – Add a new meaning a day to an existing word in March. This might be challenging for my Old Tongue vocabulary of 15-or-so words…

So I looked up Polysemy, assuming that was the basis for this challenge. It includes this phrase… “…usually related by contiguity of meaning within a semantic field.(11)

SO

We covered bunnies in Calenyen in Lexember.

A kaler is a domesticated fur rabbit. When in the wild, or in a burrow, it pops its head up to look around, much in the way early steam-pressure-relief valves did. (See also pressure cookers). Thus, a kaler in engineering terms is a pressure-relief valve, especially but not always a pop-up valve.

And in my 15-Word Old Tongue, we have a plot-based word, aeosthena, which means, in essence, “father-of-many,” “desirable stud.”

A tongue-in-cheek use of the word appeared in the early 18th century, mostly by Grigori scholars: in a manner similar to the Erdős number, a scholarly aeosthena was one whose papers had “spawned” new ideas or new papers, or one who had created many protegees, in part by co-publishing.

Morphambruary
Febmanteau
✒️
DisMaycourse
✒️
Polysemarch 2/ Juneme 2

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Conlang all year round – Febumantau in August

Aug16

As I said yesterday, I decided I missed conlanging, and as I’ve missed many months of “365 Conlang thingies beyond #Lexember,” I decided in the remains of August, I would cycle through the first 8 months twice of conlang-exercises twice.

Today is Febumantau – Create compound word a day for February. It specifically says it doesn’t have to be a portmanteau, but I decided to try for the challenge, especially since…

Portmanteaus are actually the rule rather than the exception in modern Calenyen, which tends to mush words together in compound words and then drop syllables. Yesterday’s words began as portmanteaus.

A modern-to-Edally-era would be

taabaam, pipe (from baam, tube and Taabo, an artifice, a “work”, i.e, pipes themselves are “tubeworks.”)

tyaala, a clog, from aatyaa, to obstruct.

tyaabaam, generally a figure of speech, a clog in the works.

Old Tongue is a much less active language; it is more or less dead, used for code and private conversations, for scholarly texts on Ellehemaei, magic, and the nature thereof, and sometimes for artwork.

Still, when you teach a school full of teenagers a language, eventually someone will come up with some mash-ups.

Although the word daetoshiar, “Sanctity”, already existed, some students of Addergoole decided “doorway-smash” better explained the feeling of discovering the sanctity of a doorway for the first time (i.e., that moment when you find you can’t enter a room without invitation because of the Laws of Sanctity).

Hiashebbana is a doorway, a threshold, the place you welcome people into your home.

Onussie, “to smash,” the sensation of smashing.

From those you get “Hiashebonussie” or just “Hiashebonus.”

(or, from some, Hiashe-smash.)

If you are not already following Haikujaguar, I suggest you check out her post today – 581 Words: on Language as Intermediary. Edited to add: MCA Hogarth deleted all social media but Twitter and moved to Patreon for reasons I completely support. 

Morphambruary
✒
Polysemarch
✒
Febmanteau 2

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Weekend, with non-weekend musings, questions, and such…

Aug15

 

  • This weekend was a weekend of “oh, well, maybe later?” We went a lot of places, but mostly achieved very little.  However, it RAINED!  Lots!  *dances around in the rain*
    (Also, we did a lot of shopping, but that’s not all that exciting).

    • I’ve been thinking that for Lexember — or possibly before — I’ll do two “translation” projects — a portion of an illuminated page in Old Tongue (the language of the Ellehemaei in Fae Apoc/Addergoole) and a poem in Calenyen (for Reiassan).

      Is there anything in particular you’d like to see “translated” for such projects?

  • We went to see Ghostbusters.  My “review”, such as it is, can be seen here (warning — non-positive): https://twitter.com/lynthornealder/status/764593963034669056

  • We got an Instant Pot! It’s an electric pressure cooker, rice cooker, slow cooker, etc, etc.  We made steel cut oats in it, and they turned out pretty awesome.  
    See the Kitchn’s article on the Instant Pot here — https://t.co/P35KyOxnNm

  • The Shannara TV series has very little to do with my memories of the books, but those memories are 30-some years old.  Also? So much eye candy, and much of it male!

  • If anyone has any more pictures of this guy, cosplaying as Emergency Costume Repair, I’d love to see them.  Great idea!

  • Shutsumon introduced me to #WebFictionChat, and they are having a monthly Serial Book Club.  Check it out: https://twitter.com/Chrys_Kelly_/status/763776957314129920

  • Random moment of awesome while looking into illuminated texts — https://t.co/AazDZfuX0m this dragon climbing his way out of the text.

  • There is still one 250-word slot open in “Leave a Comment, get a fic” over at Addergoole’s new site.

  • Annnnd the meta-conversation with Jaco from Lady Taisiya’s Fourth Husband is still going strong over here: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/tag/meta-conversations

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1157120.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

Conlang all year round – Morphambuary in August

Aug15

I decided I missed conlanging, and I’d missed many months of “365 Conlang thingies beyond #Lexember,” so I decided in the remains of August, I would cycle through the first 8 months twice.

Today, Morphambuary – Coin a bound morpheme a day in January.

Starting with Calenyena: Bekkut comes from two words no longer used on their own, beka, fish, and tukut, river. These words have been replaced with new words with similar meanings, but a bekkut is still a river-fish, and torkut, from Tora, grass, is still a river-grass.

In Addergoole/Fae Apoc’s Old Tongue, there are a number of morphemes only used as modifiers of other words. In the old ideograph system, they are often modifying diacritics.

-eleg is one of those. It means base in the sense of baseborn: lower, less-worthy, illegitimate.

In the word shenera, child, this would become shener/eleg/a, for instance.

next: Febmanteau
✒️ ✒️ ✒️
Morphambruary 2

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Languary, a finish!

Feb3

I am almost done translating an opening sentence into Whispers Drop!

I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. —Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle (1948)

Write this – (I am) sitting sink kitchen while in – I

Hunsharn din shimorn tishor [kitchen] chur-chi – [I]

All I have left is kitchen as a modifier and a personal pronoun!

so durd-, “used for” is probably right here, it’s the sink used for kitchen.

Kitchen, kitchen.

Okay, “To cook” is tenda

He/she cooks (continuous) is tendothe–chi, in

tothechi, cooks-in, kitchen.

durdtothechi, for the kitchen

And Personal pronouns!

Fan, Feb, fif, fefi I, she, he, ungendered-person,

Hunsharn din shimorn tishor durdtothechi chur-chi – fan

Yay! I did it!

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1062175.html. You can comment here or there.

Languary Catch-up!

Feb1

I continue to work on translating a quote into Whispers Drop

I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. —Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle (1948)

Write this – (I am) sitting sink kitchen while in – I

Here, I started with:

Hunsharn din, write this.

To Sit, shima

Present tense continuous, first person singular: -orn

Sink, noun, tishor

cha, chea, choe, chi: for, of, at, in…. chur, while (conjunction)

Hunsharn din shimorn tishor [kitchen] chur-chi – [I]

Almost there!

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1058787.html. You can comment here or there.

Languary Day 24

Jan31

The end goal of Languary is to translate into your conlang one of the sentences from this list. I couldn’t decide, so I used Random.org and got:

I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. —Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle (1948)

Verb Object (Object adjective) (adverb) Subject (subject adjective)

This will probably take more than one post, because I have to take it apart and put it back together again, and I have NONE of those words.

I write this [while] sitting in the kitchen sink.

Write this – sitting kitchen sink while in – I

To Write, Hunsha

First person present tense.
Present tense third person singular is -art
Present tense, surrounding: -artfea

Present tense, first person singular present: -arn

I write, Hunsharn

This, that, those din, dom, dush

Hunsharn din, I write this (more to come!)

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Languary Day 23: The Book (and questions)

Jan27

What will the reader do with the text?

(Do Text-with what reader?)

shufa, to do

Who, What, Where, When, Why:
Nen, nib, neath, nash, nom

Third person future tense: -alss

[cha, chea, choe, chi: for, of, at, in], chur, with

–Shufalls futheat sha – chur ssrussolss-

[personal profile] inventrix:Eat it.

Fifishart Futheat sha ssrussolss.

(the reader devours the book)

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Languary Day 22: A bit of a worldbuilding story beginning, with vocabulary

Jan26

haph-Tachie and haph-Fota1 were sixteen years old when the Place found the next pair of twins. They were already past their age of peak usefulness and had been training as acolytes in the Institution for almost a decade, but the arrival of a new set of twin infants meant –

Well, for Fota, it meant freedom. They could go out in the world now. They could explore, they could learn what life was like outside of the Place. Fota couldn’t wait to leave.

Tachie, on the other hand, liked the safety of the place and the comfort of an acolyte’s rituals. She wanted to know what the world outside was like – but she didn’t want to leave the Place, not permanently.

“The Institution will always support you,” the Head Reader of the Place reminded them. “You can do whatever you want with your life.”

“But what I want is to be here,” Tachie insisted. She felt guilty, going against her twin… but the freedom Fota might find outside, she thought she might find in a little bit of separation. The chosen twins were always together, waking and sleeping. And Fota had always been the stronger twin.

1. one-Left, one-Right.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1055678.html. You can comment here or there.

Lexember Day 21: A sentence and some worldbuilding

Jan25

I’ve been lax in my worldbuilding with all this WORDbuilding.

Today I am going to go back to a couple words I made earlier,
Ssrussolss, reading-person, and Ssolfutheat, book person.

“A reader, ssrussolss, is one who discerns the ancient texts. A ssolfutheat is one who keeps the books, a librarian.”

The librarian has found a text for the reader.
Has found – the reader for – text, Librarian

Librarians do this; they serve not only as keepers of rare texts (magical, historical, controversial, personal) but also seek them out, perusing the strange corners of the world where books lie.

The readers, in turn, delve deep into these texts, finding meanings from the predecessors, from the Channels, from untrained powers, and divining them for current use.

To find, mafeata
-olp is third person singular present perfect.

futheat is a book, Futheat sha is a text.

cha, chea, choe, chi: for, of, at, in

Mafeatolp – ssrussolss cha – futheat sha, ssolfutheat.

And what will the reader do with that text?

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