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For this episode, we took a suggestion from our Patron Miles on Discord and decided to talk about food! We talk about words for various types of food in natural languages and how to go about coining food words in a conlang. So grab a snack and enjoy!
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In this episode, Jessie totally says the wrong episode number at the beginning… sigh. Eighteen is such a good number, she wanted to use it twice! In terms of content, we talk about our experiences with graduate school and linguistics programs.
Also, if you’re ever in Boulder, CO, you should try out Half Fast Subs!
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In this episode, we take a suggestion from Jason, one of our Patrons in Discord, and chat about Avatar: The Last Airbenderand strategies we would take for creating conlangs for that world. Avatar famously didn’t employ any conlangs in their fantasy world, but instead minimally utilized bits of real world languages here and there for style. We discuss what we would have done differently!
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In this episode, we finish our four-part focus on tonogenesis in the language sketch we created to explore the introduction of tone. The PDF of the sketch with the information we worked on is included as an attachment to this post so you can see the final products of our sound changes that introduce tone!
Also, when you get to the part near the end where we disagree about whether David said “romanize” or “harmonize,” he totally said “romanize.” Just as I said I would, I went back and checked. 😂
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In this episode, we finally introduce sound changes that incorporate tone into our language sketch! During the episode, we reference an article on tonogenesis by Michaud and Sands, which is attached as a PDF to this post. We hope you enjoy listening!
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In episode 14, we began a language sketch that will eventually incorporate tone as a way of addressing tonogenesis in language. We continue that language sketch in this episode, as we add more details to the phonological inventory and sound shifts. While we don’t quite make it to tone (there is always more to add as you conlang!), we end in a place where we are fairly certain tone will be the focus of episode 16. We are getting there!
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In this episode, we start a new conlang sketch to target Mike K.’s suggestion that we focus on tones in the podcast. Rather than just talking about tone, we are crafting a language with tone in it, taking opportunities to discuss options and reasons for making particular decisions along the way. This will be a series of episodes, and in this first one, we introduce the sound system and create some preliminary sound changes. You can check out the work we completed in the attached PDF, too!
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On our Patron Discord server, Jasmine suggested an episode focusing on gaming, and we were very happy to spend an hour talking about games! We also managed to talk about language at various points during this episode. 🙂
We hope you enjoy the game-centric discussion!
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This episode focuses on how to create fanlangs, or conlangs created for existing fantasy worlds. The episode provides advice for conlanging within an existing framework and things to think about as you work, such as remembering that fanlangs don’t have to be true to every aspect of the canon, especially where the canon has incongruities.
If you’d like some examples of fanlangs for inspiration, you should check out Nina-Kristine Johnson’s Va Eheniv (http://va-eheniv.conlang.org/gerudolang1.html), a language for the Gerudo in Legends of Zelda (you can also find her on Twitter: @GerudosEheniv). Other fanlangs include the Mando’a language (for Star Warsuniverse), which was started by Karen Traviss but has since been taken over by fans (https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Mando%27a/Legends), and languages created for Andrew Smith’s Brithenig universe, such as Jan van Steenbergen’s Wenedyk. Perhaps less classically considered “fanlangs,” there are also spin-offs of the Toki Pona conlang.
We hope you enjoy the episode, and stay grammar!
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In this episode, we talk about teaching and conlanging (otherwise known as conlang pedagogy)!
After recording this episode, David let me know that my terminology may not be universally known, specifically my use of “made” in a sentence like “The course made.” For me, that means the minimum number of students enrolled in the course to allow it to run—every university has a minimum standard for enrollment that will allow a course to run, and for Stephen F. Austin State University (where I teach), the minimum is 10 students. So when I say the courses made, it means I have at least 10 students in the course. And that’s exciting! 🙂
We hope you enjoy this episode!