Crazy idea of the day: Lets make a conlang.

[Luigi]

We can name it whatever we want. Lets say we name the speakers of this language after ourselves. We could take L(uigi), M(asato), and E(dge) G(etc.) and anagram it to Gelm. So our people could be called the Gelm people. The name of a language is usually the name of its ppl + a suffix to denote denomination(-ish in english, -ic in greek, -i in arabic etc). If we wanted to derive that from our names too we could say second letters of our names anagramed so with u, a, and d we could get -adu. So that would make our language Gelmadu, English would be Engladu, etc.

In regards to its use, we can write a story set in a fictional universe in which it is used(like elvish in lotr), we can go to the Sprechen Ze Jive subforum on sherdog and talk shit about mods, and we can just have fun speaking it and belonging to a crazy new age cyber culture!

[Masato]

That is pretty cool Luigi ^^

I am up to pick at this concept but need to warm my brain up. I say we start sneaking it into random posts, and see if whoever else is playing understands the meaning. PM each other to confirm/clarify, and we add it as 1 more piece of the language.

Other users won't know wtf is happening

lol

Lead the Way Luigi, this could get good with some time and patience

[Luigi]

Good thinking Masato.

I figure that in the interest of this project not losing its interest, we ought to get grammar out of the way quickly(Assuming that my interest in grammar is abnormal):

1:I propose that because it is highly unlikely that anyone on this board speaks Turkish or Tamil, its best that our language be a nominative-accusative language. All this means is that in a sentence there is an action(verb), something that does the action, and something that receives it(e.g. The man kicked the ball).

2: We must decide The word order of the language. The basic components of a sentence are the subject(this does the action. "the man" in the above example), the object(receives action. "the ball" in above example) and the verb(the action itself. "kicked" in the above example).

English and portuguese use a S.V.O. word order, Japanese uses a S.O.V. word order, Irish uses a V.S.O. word order etc. Here are all the choices:

Word Order by prevalence:

SOV "She him loves." 45%

Japanese, Latin, Turkish
SVO "She loves him." 42%

English, Mandarin, Russian
VSO "Loves she him." 9%

Hebrew, Irish, Zapotec
VOS "Loves him she." 3%

Malagasy, Baure
OVS "Him loves she." 1%

Apalaí?, Hixkaryana?
OSV "Him she loves." 0% ===> Yoda talk.


3: Any additional info has to be either conveyed with particles, gramatical case, or both.
English examples:

Particle system: The house OF the man.
Case system: The man'S house.

My guess is that nobody gives a damn about any of this so we could just pick a system at random and run with it. If this is the case just pick at random. If anyone is actually concerned with how this turns out feel free to say so as well.

[Masato]

No way man, that last post is fascinating

You just have to be patient with us, lol we are like a million steps behind your vision.

Was thinking about it last night, I will play along when my mind is sharp for it. Watch for some drops :)

[Luigi]

Sounds good to me :)

[Edge Guerrero]

Good thinking Masato.

I figure that in the interest of this project not losing its interest, we ought to get grammar out of the way quickly(Assuming that my interest in grammar is abnormal):

1:I propose that because it is highly unlikely that anyone on this board speaks Turkish or Tamil, its best that our language be a nominative-accusative language. All this means is that in a sentence there is an action(verb), something that does the action, and something that receives it(e.g. The man kicked the ball).

2: We must decide The word order of the language. The basic components of a sentence are the subject(this does the action. "the man" in the above example), the object(receives action. "the ball" in above example) and the verb(the action itself. "kicked" in the above example).

English and portuguese use a S.V.O. word order, Japanese uses a S.O.V. word order, Irish uses a V.S.O. word order etc. Here are all the choices:


3: Any additional info has to be either conveyed with prepositions, gramatical case, or both.
English examples:

Preposition system: The house OF the man.
Case system: The man'S house.

My guess is that nobody gives a damn about any of this so we could just pick a system at random and run with it. If this is the case just pick at random. If anyone is actually concerned with how this turns out feel free to say so as well.

- Using the order we use in our laguages would be ease no?

[Luigi]

Good thinking Masato.

I figure that in the interest of this project not losing its interest, we ought to get grammar out of the way quickly(Assuming that my interest in grammar is abnormal):

1:I propose that because it is highly unlikely that anyone on this board speaks Turkish or Tamil, its best that our language be a nominative-accusative language. All this means is that in a sentence there is an action(verb), something that does the action, and something that receives it(e.g. The man kicked the ball).

2: We must decide The word order of the language. The basic components of a sentence are the subject(this does the action. "the man" in the above example), the object(receives action. "the ball" in above example) and the verb(the action itself. "kicked" in the above example).

English and portuguese use a S.V.O. word order, Japanese uses a S.O.V. word order, Irish uses a V.S.O. word order etc. Here are all the choices:


3: Any additional info has to be either conveyed with prepositions, gramatical case, or both.
English examples:

Preposition system: The house OF the man.
Case system: The man'S house.

My guess is that nobody gives a damn about any of this so we could just pick a system at random and run with it. If this is the case just pick at random. If anyone is actually concerned with how this turns out feel free to say so as well.

- Using the order we use in our laguages would be ease no?

Thats one vote for S.V.O.

Does anyone agree or disagree?

Also in regards to #3, I have been thinking about it and I think for the sake of simplicity we should have words like of, from, by etc. Most modern languages have them and it can be hard to think without them. However Im not sure if we should also have case endings. If we do have them should we have many like Latin of just one like English(the man'S house)? We could also mix things up and have only one like English but use a different case. English uses the genitive(meaning "of") case ending -'s but we could have one for the dative( meaning "to/towards") for example.

[Masato]

Another vote for SVO. (not as cool, but yes much easier.)

I need to wrap my head around the 2nd part of Luigi's post
lol





on a side note, I recently did some graphic design for someone with the word 'Easier' in the logo. After looking at it for 30-40 minutes it suddenly became such a strange word (mostly visually) that I just couldn't read it anymore like I used to. Now it looks normal again but for the time I was working it looked like the wrongest/weirdest word ever lol EASIER

Languages are fucked, I can appreciate why Luigi digs them

[Luigi]

Cool, so it will be a nominative-accusative language that uses SVO word order and communicates grammar with separate words more than it does with cases.

Masato: Allow me to clarify the 2nd part of my last post. Grammatical cases make a word have a slightly different meaning. E.g. the genitive case has the meaning of possession. So in english, if we take the word "man" and put it in the genitive case, we add the case ending -s and it becomes man's. The genitive -s is the only case ending in English but many languages have more that express different meanings. I was just wondering if we should either be like english and have only genitive, or have only 1 other case, or just be reductionists and have none at all.

The word Easier is kinda funny because first it uses 2 vowels(ea) together to make one sound, then it uses 2 vowel(ie) that just do their own thing and each make a sound right after each other.

Languages are fucked in the coolest of ways. Did you know that pretty much all languages from Ireland to India are part of a closely related language family because some badass tribe 10,000 years ago conquered that entire area? If you go far enough back even Semitic and European languages are distantly related. I was recently doing research on the oil industry and I found a drilling site in Iraq called "Zubair". Some quick research told me zubair is the Arabic word for "Superior". Looks kinda familiar right? S and Z are closely related sounds, as are b and p. You will also probably recognise the German cognate "uber", where the s/z has dropped out but is otherwise really close.

I got a little carried away there but ya basically you can learn crazy shit from just the way ppl talk lol

[Luigi]

I think Im gonna vote just scrap the case endings. It is our first try, and it will also be more like Portuguese if we dont have any so it should help Edge pick it up.