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LangTime Chat, Episode 60: Call for Conlang Review Volunteers and Some Informal Chatting


I struggled with what to title this episode… but that’s what it is. We start with David putting out a call for volunteers to be a part of our new conlang review series, which will have varying formats, depending on what you (as a volunteer) would like to get out of the experience.

Then we continue the episode with a very informal chat about our recent experiences on a work project (all under NDA, so the chatting is very informal, vague, and, at times, nebulous).

This episode marks the wrapping up of our first five years of LangTime Chat! We look forward to what the sixth year brings!

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LangTime Chat, Episode 58: Conlang Relay Demo


In this episode, I give David a sample miniature relay text written in Vuochanad, and he works his way through translating the text, narrating his thought process as he works. Once he has a working English translation, he then translates the tiny text into High Valyrian, again narrating his thought process.

At the end, we discuss areas where the translation had already shifted from my original intentions, and we introduce the upcoming challenge of this month: a very mini conlang relay!

If you are interested in participating, let me know as soon as possible, so we can get the ball rolling. The relay is super informal and will be a very short text, so it will be a good way to test out a language you’re working on, to get introduced to what a conlang relay is like, or to just spend an evening of conlang fun doing a little challenge!

Attached are the slides we used, the document David received (with the typos I found later…), and the document where David typed notes and did his translations.

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LangTime Chat, Episode 52: The Conlang Guide


I submitted the manuscript of the textbook I’ve been writing for four years now, so David chose the book as the topic for this podcast. We talk about the overall structure of the book, my goals in writing it, and some features in its current state.

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LangTime Chat, Episode 50: Delicious Ambiguity


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!

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LangTime Chat, Episode 49: Dune 2, A Recap


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 47: A Place for Theory


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.

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LangTime Chat, Episode 44: Kopikon Recap


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 38: Borrowing and English, Part II


We wrap up our discussion of types of borrowings in the history of the English language and end with some book recommendations for anyone interested in learning more!

At one point, we discuss the ampersand, so I’ve attached a fun poster here to show what we mean.

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LangTime Chat, Episode 37: Borrowing and English, Part I


This episode is (quite accidentally) the first of a two-part discussion on borrowing and the history of the English language. We talk about different types of borrowing into English in the hopes that it might inspire you as you think about ways your conlang may borrow from another language.

The PDF of the slides used for this presentation are attached to this post!

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LangTime Chat, Episode 36: Conlang Relays


In this episode, we discuss conlang relays, providing an introduction to what they are and what participants can expect from them. We use some past conlang relays to give examples of how texts shift as relays progress.

One of the relays we discuss specifically is the LCC5 Relay. If you want to check out the full relay texts, you can find them here: https://conlang.org/language-creation-conference/lcc5/lcc5-relay/.

You’ll find the PDF of the slides we used for the episode attached to this post.

***SPOILER ALERT***

What I’m about to type below gives away some details of the LCC5 Relay, so if you want to be surprised by how the text shifted during the relay, do NOT keep reading! Listen to the episode first and then come back to check out this super cool information.

***SPOILING COMMENCING***

Three animals are included in the LCC5 Relay text. In the original, the animals are, in this order:

  • turtle(s)
  • horse
  • goat

I traced the evolution of these animals in the translations across the texts, and I was shocked to find out the turtle is what became the great lion!!! It started in Leg 4 (John Clifford’s text), where “turtle” became “reptile.” Then Zach Wellstood translated that as “dragon.” It stayed a dragon until Jan Strasser’s text, where it was translated as yuksa, a word specific to Jan’s conlang, which is glossed as “a legendary creature that eats people.” He goes on to describe it as an animal that looks similar to a panther with a long dinosaur-ish tail. Alex Fink translates that as “big people-eating cat,” and then Tony Harris turns that into “lion.” Jeff Jones calls it a “large cat,” and David translates it into Dothraki for the final text as “great lion.”

The horse stayed a horse AAAALLLLLLL the way to Jeff Jones, the 12th (and final) leg before the text was returned to David. That’s where the horse became a unicorn.

The same thing happened with “goat,” where Jeff translated that as “antelopes,” and then David translated as “deer” into Dothraki.

As for the plums and carrots… I translated these as “purple fruit” and “edible orange root” because Hiutsath did not have words for either (and wouldn’t because my speakers didn’t eat human food and had no interest in naming them). They stayed “purple fruit” and “orange root” for a few legs until Zach translated the “orange root” as an “orange fruit.” When that got to John Quijada, it turned into “red fruit.” (The “purple fruit” was still there at this stage.) But then it took a super interesting turn when Jim Henry conflated the two as apples, where the “real apples” are purple (assuming here that the red ones are not real!). That trend continued, where there were real/true apples versus bad/evil apples. When it got to Alex, the apples became “fruits” or “sweet fruits.”

It’s so much fun to trace these twists and turns that relay texts take!! I encourage you to read through all the English translations of the texts because there are delightful surprises in each one!