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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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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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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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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, we focus on Kezhwa, the conlang we created for Amazon’s Paper Girls TV series. We are excited to share details about the language with you because we had so much fun working on it!
A PDF with the slides we used throughout the recording is attached.
Enjoy!
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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!
