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Languages

speedblader03 said:
I am fluent in english and gibberish. I am also trying to design my own language, with grammar based off of english.
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Inventing a language sounds like the kind of thing I'd do if I could be bothered to and had the faintest idea where to start. I have invented an alphabet for some reason, though, which is something :p
 
MidnightSaboteur said:
... SVO word order is. um. probably the predominant word order in all languages.

Yeah I can foresee your conlang working swimmingly. And drowning. Have a link, 'cause you could likely do with some research.

(Not that I'm trying to dissuade you; a bunch of linguistically-oriented people toy with creating a conlang the way musically-orienteds write songs and spatially-oriented create sculptures, but. If you really want to do it, you should do it right, I think.)
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I don't understand why I would have to do any research. I'm simply replacing words with my own, removing parts to make it simpler, and eventually maybe making a set of characters.
Basically I'm hoping to make it almost seamless to translate between it and english.
 
James said:
That's pointless, then. Also more of a cipher.
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O.o Pig Latin, Gibberish and Al Bhed are all ciphers, but no one commented when I claimed they were languages. Although, I too am working on a cipher of sorts.
 
I know basic French from my GCSEs. In fact I can remember most of my oral examination thing, since I practically ingrained it in my head. Je prepare une presentation, et selon moi c'est tres interessant! And no, I'm not going to use the right accents because I actually don't give a toss. >:B

Aaand I know loads of random Japanese vocabulary, honorifics and a sort of basic understanding of how to say stuff in it. But I would never say I could actually speak it in any way. I also know hiragana and can pronounce it pretty well, probably because I used to have a Scottish accent and thus can roll my 'r's well, fuahaha~

...yeah, I went through that 'I want to learn Japanese and live there and everything!' phase a few years ago. Thanks a lot, anime.
 
speedblader03 said:
I don't understand. Elaborate.
(I didn't mean to make a discussion about this, I was just mentioning a project I'm working on when I get bored)
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I don't know about you, but I find that learning languages is more interesting when they have features I can't find in my own native language. For example, the perfective/imperfective system and verbs of motion in Russian, the different word order and the honorifics system in Japanese, the retroflex sounds and ergativity (?) of Hindi...

If a language is like English but with a few words changed around, then it's boring.
 
sreservoir said:
wait, gibberish is a cipher? I thought it was a language that was spontaneously regenerated every time.
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Niddigope. Thiddigis iddigis giddiberish.

TRANSLATED:

Nope. This is gibberish.

To speak gibberish you divide the word approximately in half, then add iddiga dropping the I or the A if the two parts of the word end or start with a vowel.

EXAMPLE:

Dragon = Dr(iddig)agon

In the above word, the last A in "iddiga" was dropped because the broken word "agon" began with an a, and therefore, only one was needed.


You see? It's a cipher because it just adds, subtracts from, or rearranges already existing words.
 
... said:
I don't know about you, but I find that learning languages is more interesting when they have features I can't find in my own native language. For example, the perfective/imperfective system and verbs of motion in Russian, the different word order and the honorifics system in Japanese, the retroflex sounds and ergativity (?) of Hindi...

If a language is like English but with a few words changed around, then it's boring.
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But that's the part I don't like about learning a new language. Also, It isn't a few words changed around, it's every word has a separate translation. Things like making a word plural are also done differently, and there are no verb conjugations (I want to see if I can make that work).

And chaon, since when is that gibberish? I've always known it as random strings of sound, such as 'glefiggle strarble smek'. Gibberish isn't real words, its 'nonsense talk'. According to Wikipedia, you are talking about some new language game. Perhaps gibberish means something different in different areas.
 
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if you don't have anything in your conlang that doesn't already exist in ni+1 natural language, it's not worth having.

natural languages have at least the "it's our culture" aspect to it.

no verb conjugations is easy or impossible depending on how much qualifies as conjugation. if only modifying the root qualifies to you, goo look at, say, chinese. if anything that affects it at all counts, how are you expressing anything at all?
 
sreservoir said:
no verb conjugations is easy or impossible depending on how much qualifies as conjugation. if only modifying the root qualifies to you, goo look at, say, chinese. if anything that affects it at all counts, how are you expressing anything at all?
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If you just count the whole "I am, you are, he/she/it is, we/they are" etc. thing then I can't see how it'd matter much. Tenses would have to stay, obviously.
 
I'd rather settle on regular pronouns, too, but really, it doesn't matter if you just use the damn infinitive as long as you specify the subject.
 
sreservoir said:
if anything that affects it at all counts, how are you expressing anything at all?
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This reminds me of something which was, at first, mind-boggling to me but then became really cool.
In Hindi, 'kal' means both yesterday and tomorrow. You have to specify the tense to make it clear whether you're talking about yesterday or tomorrow. 'kal' is basically "one day from today".

if you don't have anything in your conlang that doesn't already exist in ni+1 natural language, it's not worth having.
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This.

But that's the part I don't like about learning a new language.
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:( This makes me a sad language nerd.
 
... said:
This reminds me of something which was, at first, mind-boggling to me but then became really cool.
In Hindi, 'kal' means both yesterday and tomorrow. You have to specify the tense to make it clear whether you're talking about yesterday or tomorrow. 'kal' is basically "one day from today".
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it also does not scale for time travel. "it will be yesterday for me tomorrow" starts making perfect sense. :(

This.
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tbf, 'linguistic consistency' is a good goal that really doesn't exist in ni+1 NL's, but anything building off english is going to be hard-pressed to reach that.

:( This makes me a sad language nerd.
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I can see why.
 
Please stop telling me what to do about this. It's just a small project that I made up to take up my free time. I will likely be the only one who will ever speak it, and it's only purpose would be so I could write or say things without people understanding me; basically allowing me to keep secrets without hiding anything, or to mess with people. Tenses do exist btw.
I just enjoy making up projects where I can do whatever I want.
 
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