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LangTime Chat, Episode 40: Conlang Documentation


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.

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LangTime Studio, Episode 33: Create That Word! (Part II)


In this episode, David turns the tables on me and provides a list of words I need to create through compound, derivation, and grammaticalization strategies from the same root list used in Episode 32. You can see the words David selected for me to create in the attached PDF of the presentation we used, and I have re-uploaded the root list here so you can more easily find them!

(As a side note, we were recording this in Seattle, and… um… the audio is not its usual quality.)

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LangTime Studio, Episode 32: Create That Word! (Part I)


In this episode, titled “Create That Word!”, we play a new LangTime Chat game!

We play a game where I provide David with a list of words that are basic roots in a not-as-yet-created language (all roots are English counterparts—not phonological forms), and he has to create strategies for forming new words. They aren’t just any words, though, that he’s creating: I provide specific words for him to create from those existing roots. 

We have three rounds of the game, focusing on different strategies: compounds, derivations, and grammaticalizations.

If you want to play along, I’ve attached a PDF of the root list and the presentation slides that provide the new words that need to be semantically formed.

We hope you enjoy the episode and have a happy start to your October!

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LangTime Studio, Episode 31: Creating a Language Family


In this episode, we talk about strategies for creating a conlang language family. The presentation slides we use throughout the episode are attached to this post so you can follow along if you need visual references. We hope you enjoy the episode!

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LangTime Studio, Episode 29: Difficult Phrases to Translate


In this episode, we talk about some difficult phrases to translate, focusing the entire discussion on the many uses of “to have X” in English. We had recently needed to translate a line with such a construction and wanted to talk about other ways you could tackle taking apart some more idiomatic phrases when you translate them. 

Attached to the post is the list I had open during our discussion (which also had David’s entries, apparently). Even though it isn’t organized in the best way possible, you’ll see exactly what we were staring at as we discussed translating the phrases!

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LangTime Chat, Episode 24: Language Sketch Evolution, Part I


We have officially been podcasting for two full years!! This episode is the first of a two-part series and is based on a Patron suggestion, and we are quite excited about it!

In this episode, we work together to create proto-forms of a conlang sketch and discuss why we made particular decisions along the way. We settled on a sound system, created a series of basic roots, and decided on a basic word order for the proto-language. Over the course of the next month, David and I will each work separately with the proto-forms, selecting our own sound changes and grammatical devices and what not. In the next episode, we will bring our work together to compare what we came up with.

For any who want to “play along,” the language sketch document we created in this podcast episode is attached (both in Pages and PDF formats). You can evolve these proto-forms in your own ways over the month to join in on the fun!

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LangTime Chat, Episode 20: Food Words


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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LangTime Chat, Episode 18: If We Created Conlangs for Avatar: The Last Airbender


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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LangTime Chat, Episode 17: Tonogenesis Language Sketch, Part IV


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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LangTime Chat, Episode 16: Tonogenesis Language Sketch, Part III


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!