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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.
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In this episode, we chat about tackling academic linguistics articles, providing strategies for approaching articles and figuring out if they will be helpful to you or not. This episode is especially dedicated to anyone who has tried picking up linguistics articles but then feels overwhelmed because, well, academic articles are generally kind of notoriously cumbersome to get through. Our goal moving forward is to have episodes dedicated to specific articles that maybe you want to have read but don’t want to read–we will read them for you and tell you what they’re about!
I have attached the PDF of the slides we used (complete with all the original typos…), and I have attached the Haspelmath article we used for a focused discussion on reading strategies.
Happy reading (and happy sending us your reading wish lists)!
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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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Jessie put together a trivia game for David based on language features provided in Grambank’s database (https://grambank.clld.org/)! You can play along as you listen, and you can also download the attached PDF to see all the features and examples discussed.
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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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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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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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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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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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In this episode, we have some fun with fauna! We talk about different ways speakers come up with names for animals beyond having basic roots for them, and we hope it can inspire your own animal-name creation fun!
During our conversation, David mentions a thread on Reddit about butterfly names, which you can find here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1chmc4/eseneziri_im_david_peterson_the_creator_of_the/.
And I created a Keynote presentation for our discussion, which I’ve attached as a resource. When it gets to the discussion on butterflies, you’ll see there are a lot of names in Germanic languages, and those words are not necessarily standard across all dialects (and some are much more archaic!), which just adds to the fun of it all.
We hope you enjoy!
