@alynnidalar, I honestly like the repurposing of goblin the way you had done it, you were definitely more creative with words as an 11-year old than I was at that age. I mostly used ciphers I found online and a few I tried making up, but it wasn't until I found out about LOTR and Zelda that actually got me into conlanging at around 14. I've always made "cipher-bets" for writing stupid puns and messages, but the Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker actually introduced me to the syllabary, for the game used a writing system that's basically Japanese katakana with a woodblock aesthetic and is more rectilinear. Shortly after I found out about Japanese, and wrote EVERYTHING in hiragana and katakana like a feckin' weaboo.
After that I found out about the history of Japanese's writing systems, a little dabbling into Chinese and the cultures and myths of both countries, and while in school, I went digging into Greek mythology which introduced me to Greek itself, then Ancient Greek, Latin, and, eventually, PIE. Pretty much every language I came across at that point I simply borrowed a bunch of words I liked into my nooblang... until it became some sort of Greco-Roman-Japonic monstrosity with a seasoning of Arabic and Spanish and actual conwords rendered into a syllabary. Some traces of the more unique words live on in a proto-language I'm working on that's basically a revamp of my first conlang six years later, but I find it quite amusing when it's not cringey.
The other day, I had reunited with a sketchbook one of my best friends acccidentally kept for five years that has a bunch of text and translations, and since I wasn't able to read much of my language stuff anymore in the syllabary, I actually used it to translate a bunch of shit I wrote back then. Not much of it is really that cool, but the translating and the mystery was kinda fun.
Your Early Conlangs?
- Inkcube-Revolver
- cuneiform
- Posts: 126
- Joined: 05 Nov 2015 23:20
- Location: Miami, FL
Re: Your Early Conlangs?
I like my languages how I like my women: grammatically complex with various moods and tenses, a thin line between nouns and verbs, and dozens upon dozens of possible conjugations for every single verb.
- alynnidalar
- greek
- Posts: 700
- Joined: 17 Aug 2014 03:22
- Location: Michigan, USA
Re: Your Early Conlangs?
I just found a bunch of old conlang documents!
I'd forgotten this, but apparently not only were the dalar called "west", but humans were called "east". Spelled yst because <y> is cool.
I've also discovered a "conlang" that I have no recollection of. (to the point that I googled it to see if it's something of someone else's that I printed off, and I'm still not convinced it's mine) It's this... thing called Wecen /vikin/ (meaning "Viking"), and it's honestly just a respelling/re-pronunciation of English words to look and sound more "Viking". Here's the whole thing, for your amusement.
I don't even know what this wordlist is. Some sort of game? Actually supposed to be part of a language? I have no context for this, I just found the paper by itself.
I also found an ooooold Tirina lexicon, complete with horrible phonetic transcriptions like "YEER-rahn" and "sahl-AY-deer". What was up with my obsession with using <c> for /k/ back then? No, I know the answer to this one, and it's Tolkien. (although... I could repurpose some of these for Old Tirina to help buff up Modern Tirina's lexicon... no one but me would ever know...)
I'd forgotten this, but apparently not only were the dalar called "west", but humans were called "east". Spelled yst because <y> is cool.
I've also discovered a "conlang" that I have no recollection of. (to the point that I googled it to see if it's something of someone else's that I printed off, and I'm still not convinced it's mine) It's this... thing called Wecen /vikin/ (meaning "Viking"), and it's honestly just a respelling/re-pronunciation of English words to look and sound more "Viking". Here's the whole thing, for your amusement.
I don't even know what this wordlist is. Some sort of game? Actually supposed to be part of a language? I have no context for this, I just found the paper by itself.
I also found an ooooold Tirina lexicon, complete with horrible phonetic transcriptions like "YEER-rahn" and "sahl-AY-deer". What was up with my obsession with using <c> for /k/ back then? No, I know the answer to this one, and it's Tolkien. (although... I could repurpose some of these for Old Tirina to help buff up Modern Tirina's lexicon... no one but me would ever know...)
Re: Your Early Conlangs?
My first language was a Spanish-relexinspired conjugation table. Luckily, it has been lost, and probaby now is in some hipster's recycled-paper paper bag. Only thing I remember is one infinitive set being -dere. Thank god. After that I discovered here, (or rather zompist), and made the first copy of Akuriga. Not understanding IPA diphthongs, I used English as a basis for the reduced vowel phonemes, then realized I pronounced them as General Standard Foreign (Foreign being, unsurprisingly, Spanish). So I changed vowels around. And then I got bored and started working on other projects, like Dishashta, and MysteryLang. And thas how you get my 14.5 conla(n)gs: Akuriga, P-Dishashta, Mysterylang, Rushana, Northern Akuriga, Limba, Bislav, Traa, Kurkuru, Mish, Mikur, Neo-Mish, Collabrom, PIE-collab (sorta) and that Romlang in process
Spoiler:
Re: Your Early Conlangs?
My first language was in a lot of flux because as I started reading stuff I kept realizing things were crap. But what I remember of the initial attempts is:
Narulu, a language spoken in a jungle on a smallish island. It had lexical vowel harmony, with front and back vowels denoting opposites. And for verbs I remember that it had a subjunctive, which was denoted by a change of the stressed vowel. In my notes for what the subjunctive does I just wrote "works like a normal subjunctive", the implication being "identical to the Swiss German subjunctive".
Later I changed the language completely to a sort of proto-world. I gave it intentionally bad phonology so that I could play around with diachronics. From that language, I still carry with me two things I keep on putting in my languages: "sevin" as a greeting and the grammatical category of ego-clusivity (whether or not the speaker is a participant).
Narulu, a language spoken in a jungle on a smallish island. It had lexical vowel harmony, with front and back vowels denoting opposites. And for verbs I remember that it had a subjunctive, which was denoted by a change of the stressed vowel. In my notes for what the subjunctive does I just wrote "works like a normal subjunctive", the implication being "identical to the Swiss German subjunctive".
Later I changed the language completely to a sort of proto-world. I gave it intentionally bad phonology so that I could play around with diachronics. From that language, I still carry with me two things I keep on putting in my languages: "sevin" as a greeting and the grammatical category of ego-clusivity (whether or not the speaker is a participant).
At kveldi skal dag lęyfa,
Konu es bręnnd es,
Mæki es ręyndr es,
Męy es gefin es,
Ís es yfir kømr,
Ǫl es drukkit es.
Konu es bręnnd es,
Mæki es ręyndr es,
Męy es gefin es,
Ís es yfir kømr,
Ǫl es drukkit es.
Re: Your Early Conlangs?
I can only hardly remember my very first attempts of conlanging.
I remember trying to make one with 8, the word for "no" was [ˈjɛlɔf], undoubtedly loaned from English "yellow", one of the few (about 10) English words I knew at this time. Joke's on me, the word still lives on in Yélian as ielo [ˈɪ̯ɛlo].
I had a nooblang with 10 or 11, called "Tabalatisch". I remember that it had a few "verb conjugation rows", arguably no diacritics, and a 1PS pronoun that was oy (inspired by Spanish "yo"). That word also found its way into Yélian recently as òi [ɔʊ̯], an obsolete 1PS pronoun.
In puberty, I had a general lack of any interests. I fooled a little around with a conworld with a main character called Iyionaku, actually borrowed (although I am highly ashamed to digest it) by Ex-Duisburg football player Manasseh Ishiaku (sounded cool). I later split it based on the story I wrote into the morphemes iyi (child) o (Genitive) and naku (fire). Those became the first morphemes of Yélian.
In the beginning of 2014 I started to work at Yélian. I remember the first sentence I wrote in a grammar page: Nomen werden ganz normal gebildet. (Nouns are formed totally normal).
I heard most people scrap their nooblangs, but I instead expanded it piece by piece and it feels really natural. However, there are some clearly noobish concepts in it:
1. Genitive o' (clearly from English of)
2. Comparative -a (Germanic)
3. Vowel system /a e i o u a̯iː œ/ (I'm thinking of replacing /œ/ by /ə/)
4. The letter <y> marks /ʃ/ because cool and stuff (might come from Spanish <j>, I had no knowledge about diachronics)
5. <iy> marks /a̯iː/, inspired by Dutch letter /IJ/
I remember trying to make one with 8, the word for "no" was [ˈjɛlɔf], undoubtedly loaned from English "yellow", one of the few (about 10) English words I knew at this time. Joke's on me, the word still lives on in Yélian as ielo [ˈɪ̯ɛlo].
I had a nooblang with 10 or 11, called "Tabalatisch". I remember that it had a few "verb conjugation rows", arguably no diacritics, and a 1PS pronoun that was oy (inspired by Spanish "yo"). That word also found its way into Yélian recently as òi [ɔʊ̯], an obsolete 1PS pronoun.
In puberty, I had a general lack of any interests. I fooled a little around with a conworld with a main character called Iyionaku, actually borrowed (although I am highly ashamed to digest it) by Ex-Duisburg football player Manasseh Ishiaku (sounded cool). I later split it based on the story I wrote into the morphemes iyi (child) o (Genitive) and naku (fire). Those became the first morphemes of Yélian.
In the beginning of 2014 I started to work at Yélian. I remember the first sentence I wrote in a grammar page: Nomen werden ganz normal gebildet. (Nouns are formed totally normal).
I heard most people scrap their nooblangs, but I instead expanded it piece by piece and it feels really natural. However, there are some clearly noobish concepts in it:
1. Genitive o' (clearly from English of)
2. Comparative -a (Germanic)
3. Vowel system /a e i o u a̯iː œ/ (I'm thinking of replacing /œ/ by /ə/)
4. The letter <y> marks /ʃ/ because cool and stuff (might come from Spanish <j>, I had no knowledge about diachronics)
5. <iy> marks /a̯iː/, inspired by Dutch letter /IJ/
Wipe the glass. This is the usual way to start, even in the days, day and night, only a happy one.