Tag: conlanging

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LangTime Chat, Episode 50: Delicious Ambiguity

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This is a special episode of LangTime Chat based on a career-focused presentation I gave at Georgetown University in September 2023 (right before Kopikon). David has been encouraging me ever since to record it as a podcast episode, and I’ve finally listened and done it. It’s a bit shorter than a typical episode, but I hope you enjoy it, nonetheless.

I’ve attached the PDF of the presentation slides I use throughout–there are quite a few images to go along with the journey!

LangTime Chat – Ep50 Delicious Ambiguity, v2Download

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LangTime Chat, Episode 49: Dune 2, A Recap

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We were finally able to see Dune 2 in the theater this past weekend, which means we finally saw and heard our work on the Chakobsa language in the film! And in this episode, we chat about the experience of seeing the movie and working on the film. At the beginning of the episode, David claims there will be spoilers, but there aren’t. While we talk about the language, we don’t give away plot points or even specific lines, really. We talk about the features in a much more general sense.

We hope you enjoy this slightly belated episode!

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LangTime Chat, Episode 48: Talking Tense and Aspect

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In this episode, we chat about tense and aspect in this episode, and you get to witness the unveiling of a new LangTime animation! On a podcast! (What better way of podcasting is there but to use visuals?) All joking aside, we use an animation to present a small set of events and discuss ways a tense-prioritized system might handle the verbs versus the ways an aspect-prioritized system might handle them.

For your reference, I’ve attached the slideshow we use throughout, and I am uploading the animation so you can witness it in all its 2.2-second glory.

LangTime Chat – Ep48Download
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LangTime Chat, Episode 47: A Place for Theory

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In this episode, we talk about linguistic theory and its place in conlanging. As a spoiler alert, we specifically talk about how theoretical approaches are not so helpful to the art of language invention.

I’ve attached the PDF of slides we use throughout the episode, some of which have visual examples of theoretical approaches to show how language is analyzed in that particular approach.

LangTime Chat – Ep47Download
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LangTime Chat, Episode 45: Translation as a Language-Expanding Exercise

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This is a Jessie-only kind of episode. In it, I walk through my thought processes as I attempt to get ready to translate a passage into Zhwadi. It focuses on how I’m thinking through decisions rather than on the actual creation of roots/words/items. The goal is to demonstrate just how much translation can help when you’re at a stage with your language where you’re ready to expand its features but aren’t sure what direction to go. Translation as an exercise can really push you to better understand your language and the features you most want to incorporate.

Attached is the PDF of the Keynote slides I used while talking through decisions. Also attached is the final translation of the passage(s) with notes throughout. If you want to hear the thought processes before seeing the final decisions, wait to look at that PDF until you’ve listened to the episode!

LangTime Chat – Ep45Download
LangTime Chat, Episode 45Download
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LangTime Chat, Episode 44: Kopikon Recap

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We give a recap of our glorious day of conlang fun, otherwise known as Kopikon. In this episode, we give a rundown of the speakers and their talks from the day, which we hope will be especially useful for anyone who couldn’t attend and wants to know more about what went on that day. We give some behind-the-scenes info throughout, and we let you know why you should go watch each and every talk from the day! (Eventually, those videos will be separated out so you can watch them individually on YouTube instead of scrolling through a full day’s worth of talks in a giant video. We promise we are working on it!)

Attached you’ll find the PDF of the presentation we used while recording the episode.

We hope you enjoy the recap of what was an incredible day!

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LangTime Chat, Episode 43: Expressions

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David and I discuss common expressions in languages, including greetings and thanks. We hope it inspires you to think about some of these kinds of expressions in your own languages!

(The slides used during the episode are attached here, though they really just provide the words we talk about. You can, however, see just how weird “Thank you” looks in the Noto Serif font!)

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LangTime Chat, Episode 42: Romanization, Part II

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In this episode, we wrap up our discussion of some best practices and other advice for Romanizing a conlang. While chatting, we used a Pages document to take some random notes, and a PDF of that document is attached here. (When I say random, though, I mean it. The notes won’t make sense without listening to the episode.)

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LangTime Chat, Episode 41: Romanization

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In this episode, we begin a discussion on Romanization, talking about goals for Romanization and differences between an orthography, phonetic transcription, and Romanization. The PDF of the slides we used in the beginning of the episode is attached here.

We didn’t quite make it to the “best practices” portion, so we are extending this discussion into a two-part series that will continue in next month’s episode! 

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LangTime Chat, Episode 40: Conlang Documentation

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In this episode, we talk about the kinds of information that make a conlang’s written grammar more helpful and accessible to other conlangers who want to learn about your language. (And also that make it better for you to keep track of your own language!) We provide examples from conlangers’ grammars to show strategies you can use in your documentation.

The PDF of the Keynote presentation we use is included as an attachment (where you can see the fonts David was so excited about!).

Happy documenting!

***SPOILER ALERT!***

At the end of the episode is a suggestion for using the Grambank features list as a method for documenting and sharing information in a readily accessible way and for noting areas of your language that you haven’t yet addressed. Click herefor a link to a Google Sheet that includes all the features, links to descriptions of the features on Grambank’s website, dropdown menus for selecting the response best matching your language, and cells for you to provide information about your language.

The first sheet is the full list of features. There is a second sheet (look at the bottom of the screen to find the second sheet) called “Instructions” that provides more information about how the sheet is organized and what you can do with it.

The sheet is view-only, so you’ll need to make a copy (an option under the “File” menu) before you can edit it and use it for your language.

LangTime Chat – Ep40Download