tepat-side

Side blog of @yuk-tepat (Yuk Tepat conlang blog)

[linguistlist-blog]

Aligner is a free lightweight web tool for creating aligned bilingual examples and glossed linguistic illustrations. It is useful for language documentation, language-learning materials, translation pedagogy, conlang presentation, and general linguistics teaching because it makes word-level correspondences, reordering, and phrase-to-phrase mappings visually explicit. Web-app link: https://aligner.tinygods.dev/ Repo link: https://github.com/tinygodsdev/bitext-word-alignment License: MIT http://dlvr.it/TSxSdN

[certified-linguistics-moment]

oh so this is what ppl have been using to make those cool diagrams!!

Word-by-word translation visualizer — see which words match · Bitext Align

Aligner (Bitext Align): free word-by-word translation visualizer. Stack multiple lines, link adjacent rows in the preview, optional gloss/IP

[ouroboros-clong]

Case in Semecétthab

Semecétthab has 5 cases: Nominative, Accusative, Dative, Genitive, and Locative.

Nominative

The nominative case is the typical subject case in the language. Most verbs’ subjects take the nominative case, as in the example below.

The nominative is also used for direct address, for which I have no current example.

Accusative

The accusative is used for the direct object of a verb, as below:

Additionally, it is also used for the time an event happens:

Dative

The dative is used for indirect objects:

Also the beneficiary or purpose of an action:

Experiencer subjects also often take the dative case (no current example sentences).

Genitive

The genitive marks the possessor of another noun (phrase):

The genitive also is used partitively:

It is also used to show the material an object is made of, or some other attribute:

Locative

The locative shows the location at/by/in where an action occurs:

It also shows the duration of an action:

[mewling-central]

Got any tips for evolving a language without keeping one's sanity?

I got into conlanging through Biblaridion's videos, which talked about creating naturalistic languages, and I had fun doing that... for a whole hour before I started burning out on keeping track of every sound change and word I come up with. But I digress, lol.

Back to my question, how do you make such in depth languages with histories behind them without getting bored or burnt out?

Long answer: I don't. I get bored all the time. When that happens, I usually just work on another language for a bit. There's always something in other languages I'm working on that I need to do, whether it be fleshing out grammar or adding more words to the lexicon. But even then, if I'm not in the mood to work on any language at all, I just... don't work on them. If I want to do something else I do something else. I can't really force myself to do something I don't want to do without any repercussions, or else my body just straight freaks out. So I only work on languages when I'm in the mood to.

I will say, one thing that's really *really* streamlined the process for me is that I use Lexurgy to keep track and apply sound changes. Honestly it is a GODSEND especially with inflection-heavy languages. You can just pop in the proto-forms and it will give you the modern versions of it, so I can input all the proto-forms of noun declension or verb conjugations and it will give me the words that I need. EXTREMELY useful honestly for helping develop my lexicon. I will say there is a bit of a learning curve to it though. It's basically, like, coding, and sometimes you won't know how to express a rule without some hiccups, but once you get the hang of it it's PRETTY STABLE as far as managing sound changes. And really your first pass of sound changes might not be enough, you might wind up needing to add more rules or refine preexisting ones because they cause or ignore a sound change that you didn't quite anticipate. With the Mewling languages, I didn't use it, so I had to go through each word individually and evolve it myself from a list of sound changes I kept. With the Seraphic languages I started out with that process, but eventually transferred all the sound changes to Lexurgy and I basically use that when forming new words. With Ancestral (and Pushmari, still in development), I now write the sound changes in Lexurgy as I go, which cuts out the middle man. I'm sure there a better ways of doing it, but I need the repetitive stuff done in 0.2 seconds so I can actually *work* on the deep, important stuff in a language.

Short answer: autism.

[apparition-within]

Conlanging has to be one of the most autistic endeavors. Anymore if a conlanger says they're autistic, I'm not surprised at all; just "You too?" and exchange declension tables.

I'll have to check out Lexurgy, though I often apply changes manually

[sannehnagi]

Díıši tikētıvée etínėm yíingėntši tot wātl’attán díıši atāváa.

A spell to distract someone with dancing stars above their head.

[sannehnagi]

/tʰɪ́ː.ʃi ti.kɛː.tɪ.vɛ́ː e.tɪ́.nəm jíː.ŋən.ⁿt͡ʃi tɔt ʍaː.t͡ɬ’at.tán tʰɪ́ː.ʃi ɑ.taː.váː/

The whole conceit of this script/language is that it is used to cast spells but very few people ever gain any real command of it as a language. They memorize spells by rote, and these mnemonic forms are passed down from teacher to student because they’re somewhat clear about what they do, or how to categorize the spells. It could be written out like this, or spoken, but most “mages” wouldn’t connect how it is written, the “sigil” of the spell to how it is said in any meaningful way. And so couldn’t modify the spell. The last one I posted, to hide things from others sight, would only work on inanimate objects. This spell should be able to work on anyone who can hear you cast it, animals too, theoretically, but I haven’t decided how that works out yet.

[suliqyre]

You're saying there is a serious problem. You're saying we cannot allow this to stand. You're saying we have to respond with immediate action. I tell you that I agree: there is a real problem, and we need to do something about it. I show you what I think is needed and what it will require from us. I formulate a plan of action and you agree that this is what we should do.

But when the time comes for us to act, I cannot find you anywhere. You said we needed to take action, but now you've slipped away, leaving me to manage on my own. You said “we” but you did not mean it. You realized what you'd have to do and you decided it was too much. You learned that fixing the problem will require real effort and sacrifice and you didn't want to take that on. You offered only words and no actions.

Read more...

[apparition-within]

We should absolutely do something about this. Get back to me tomorrow about it.

[shencomix]

Art is a sport

One common thing I see among artists who are just starting out is that they are very precious about their work -- ironically, way moreso than experienced artists. They need to get every line JUST right, because in their mind, getting that line just right is what stands between the piece being bad and it being good. I was like that too, for so long that I'm still struggling to catch up because of how it hampered my progress.

Being precious about every line is kind of like a track sprinter starting a run, but then restarting every time their foot lands in any slightly suboptimal way. This is comes off as silly, because we know that the "unit" of what they are doing is a sprint, and that they would make their greatest progress by finishing the full sprints, because that's how they train.

Well, similarly, the "unit" of art is a finished piece. What stands between the sprinter and the time they want isn't 1 individual step, but 1000 sprints. What stands between the beginner artist and making art they like the look of isn't that 1 line, but, i'm sorry to say, 1000 pieces.

Taking note of any mistakes you made afterwards is something done by both the experienced artist and experienced sprinter -- this is healthy and helps you improve. But you can do that later, after you're done.

That line is good enough.

[babamessiahoftheholycat]

in the same way that when attempting a hard boss fight, you don't restart every time you make a mistake (as tempting as it is);

you wait until you're defeated to start again, because sometimes, an attempt that you deemed botched at first is the one that will lead you to victory.

[apparition-within]

What I needed to hear today - and probably every day.

[apparition-within]

Alchemy IS possible, the problem is just that it's so time-consuming and energy intensive that it costs more than the amount of gold you'd make from a given amount of lead, so it offers no advantage over the old-fashioned method of digging gold out of the ground.

[analog-autistic]

if you reblog this post, nothing will happen and it will not dictate anything about you, because posts saying "reblog or youre [insert bad thing here]" or "reblog if you support [___]" are not only insanely shitty, but also dictate nothing about your morality.

reblogging something does not make you a good person, not reblogging something does not make you a bad person. ok? ok.

[apparition-within]

Japanese apophony

https://shizuoka.repo.nii.ac.jp/record/2001998/files/76_2-A047.pdf

An experiment on prosodic length effects in apophonic compounds in Japanese

The authors admirably test their hypothesis by making up a bunch of new Japanese compound words & foisting them on native speakers. I particularly like ametomodachi / ametomodachi 'rain friend' - although I think it ought to be amatomo to match the other cool new Japanese word hakatomo 'grave friend.'

May your rain friends become good grave friends.

[mewling-central]

Classical Ancestral Kinship Terminology

Here's the kinship terminology for the Ancestral language! Ancestral kinship is a modified version of Iroquois kinship, where the same gendered siblings of your parents/grandparents share the same term, while separate gendered siblings of your parents/grandparents have differing terms. Diluvians as a species are pretty sexually monomorphic, and biological sex isn't immediately apparent until a diluvian reaches sexual maturity. And in once you do, whether you have male or female sexual organs is largely irrelevant. Your sex is defined as being either homoecious (having both male and female organs), or monoecious (having either male OR female sexual organs, but able to switch when necessary). In Ancestral culture then, your gender isn't dictated by your sex , but by your parenting role; for Ancestral diluvians, the distinction is "mother" vs. "father" instead of "female" vs. "male". Since both homoecious and monoecious diluvians are capable of both gestation and fertilization, the roles are defined as which diluvian gestates (the mother) and which fertilizes (the father).

In Ancestral society, adults are expected to reproduce at least once in their lifetime, and so it is likely that one's parents' siblings have reproduced as well and knowing which term to refer them as will be based on that fact (e.g. if one's mother has a sibling who gestated a child, they would share the same gender of "mother" regardless of biological sex and, as far as kinship is concerned, would be referred to by the same term). Since these terms only are regularly applicable to adults whom have reproduced, you only see these distinctions in generations prior to the ego. In concurrent and future generations, the distinction doesn't matter. This is a remnant of the Proto-Ancestral kinship system, which was a Hawaiian kinship system. For in-laws, the term you'd refer to them as should reflect the term for your blood relatives. Your mother's sister is called "mother", so her spouse would be "father". Your mother's brother is called "uncle", so his spouse would be "aunt". And so on and so forth.

[mewling-central]

@yuk-tepat GREAT QUESTION LEGIT and to answer your question, yes! It's actually a pretty common occurrence. An individual can gestate one child and fertilize for another. For the child whom they gestated, they'd be called "mother", and for the child they fertilized, they'd be called "father". So there are cases of parents whom are called mother by one kid and father by another. Ancestral and eventually Pushmari culture are matrilineal, though. Everything passes down through the maternal line, although as Ancestral culture evolves into Pushmari it becomes less matriarchal (but echoes of it are still there). And since Pushmari society has a very rigid caste system, you would inherit your caste through your mother. There could be cases of siblings who share a parent but are of different castes because the parent acted as a mother for one and a father for another (though intercaste marriage wasn't allowed in the empire so recorded cases are few and far in between).

[apparition-within]

I don't know anything about Classical or Pushmari culture, or its stratification, but I can imagine this making things interesting for court politics. Like aristocratic marriage negotiations. There would be a lot of incentive for everyone to gestate and make the other partner fertilize. "Your clan is already big and powerful enough because you keep insisting your offspring gestate, so everyone belongs to YOUR clan, but we agreed that if we arranged our offspring to be married, that it was only on condition that YOUR child fertilizes, and OURS gets to gestate this time." (Assuming they have that kind of politics.)

[mewling-central]

Classical Ancestral Kinship Terminology

Here's the kinship terminology for the Ancestral language! Ancestral kinship is a modified version of Iroquois kinship, where the same gendered siblings of your parents/grandparents share the same term, while separate gendered siblings of your parents/grandparents have differing terms. Diluvians as a species are pretty sexually monomorphic, and biological sex isn't immediately apparent until a diluvian reaches sexual maturity. And in once you do, whether you have male or female sexual organs is largely irrelevant. Your sex is defined as being either homoecious (having both male and female organs), or monoecious (having either male OR female sexual organs, but able to switch when necessary). In Ancestral culture then, your gender isn't dictated by your sex , but by your parenting role; for Ancestral diluvians, the distinction is "mother" vs. "father" instead of "female" vs. "male". Since both homoecious and monoecious diluvians are capable of both gestation and fertilization, the roles are defined as which diluvian gestates (the mother) and which fertilizes (the father).

In Ancestral society, adults are expected to reproduce at least once in their lifetime, and so it is likely that one's parents' siblings have reproduced as well and knowing which term to refer them as will be based on that fact (e.g. if one's mother has a sibling who gestated a child, they would share the same gender of "mother" regardless of biological sex and, as far as kinship is concerned, would be referred to by the same term). Since these terms only are regularly applicable to adults whom have reproduced, you only see these distinctions in generations prior to the ego. In concurrent and future generations, the distinction doesn't matter. This is a remnant of the Proto-Ancestral kinship system, which was a Hawaiian kinship system. For in-laws, the term you'd refer to them as should reflect the term for your blood relatives. Your mother's sister is called "mother", so her spouse would be "father". Your mother's brother is called "uncle", so his spouse would be "aunt". And so on and so forth.

[apparition-within]

International Day of Slayer

It's that time of year again

International Day Of Slayer -- June 6 Every Year! Quit your job, skip school and LISTEN TO SLAYER!

The International Day of Slayer is an international holiday for all metalheads to celebrate the heavy metal culture, as exemplified by Slaye

[apparition-within]

Is it that time of year again? Yes, it's that time of year again!

[thememedaddy]

[apparition-within]

Black metal: The world is fucked, fuck it harder

[conlangery]

Big speculative biology series are really cool, but as a linguist, I think one thing I would love to see is some naturalism in the nomenclature.

When you're making the biology from the ground up with perfect knowledge of the clades, it's natural for you to just make clade names that are descriptive and perfectly align with the organisms under them.

But that's not how it works in the real world. In the real world we have:

Relics of outdated frameworks: The whole kingdom, phylum, order, class... setup is still kind of present even though we know Linnaeus was wrong about it being neat categories.

Relics of older ideology: Humans in the clade primates (related to prime, primary) because we put ourselves at the top of a hierarchy. We no longer think that's valid, but the name persists, as are the names that define lower clades of primates by proximity to humanity (Hominin, Hominid, Hominoid), and our self-assigned binomial name Homo sapiens "wise man".

Just plain errors: Like Crocodilia being in a clade called Pseudosuchia ("false Sobek") because originally we thought of those as crocodilian-like, but didn't realize crocodilians were actually part of the clade.

Of course, a spec-bio project is already a massive undertaking (one I probably won't be doing any time soon), and this extra layer would be a lot of extra work. You'd have to develop all your creatures with placeholder labels and then go back and figure out the history of biology and paleontology. Maybe you could do the biology work and hand off the naming to another person.

I also understand it could be confusing to the audience, especially if you have some historical errors thrown in.

But I think just a few of these things added in could be cool in the right kind of project. Maybe tweak a few of the names to reflect some historical misunderstanding.

[the-meaning-iz-42]

Public PSA: Royal Commission

The royal commission into antisemitism is closing submissions on MAY 31st. Please ensure you submit.

You can talk about your experiences if you are Jewish or not

Please do your bit. Tell everyone about what you see and experience.

There are free resources to help you draft your submission or if you get called up for a public hearing:

1. AUJS - for Australian Jewish Students contact [email protected]

2. National Legal Aid - [email protected]

3. Jewish Centre For Law & Justice - on their website

[beautifulpaxiel]

Reblogging this again to let my fellow Australian Jewish folks know that the deadline for submissions to the Royal Commission into Antisemitism has been extended to Sunday 14th June 2026 (Sources: https://asc.royalcommission.gov.au/share-your-story/submissions AND https://www.shareyourstory.org.au/).

[apparition-within]

On the off chance any one of my followers happens to be an Australian jew

[apparition-within]

“.…of course, you’re not allowed to say that,” he said, as he went on saying the thing he’s not allowed to say.

[a-book-of-creatures]

You really can say anything you want if you’re vague enough about phylogeny.

[a-book-of-creatures]

Just saw a popular post saying that muskoxen aren’t cows, they are goats.

The birdandmoon image “Animals With Misleading Names” says that the mountain goat is not a goat.

Now, unless this has changed recently, both of those animals are caprines.

Both of those statements can be correct, but only one at a time.

If you consider all caprines to be goats, then yes the muskox is a goat. And so is the mountain goat, the sheep, and so on.

If you consider only members of genus Capra to be goats, then no, mountain goats are not goats. And neither are muskoxen, sheep, and so on.

It’s just a matter of defining what you mean.

[a-book-of-creatures]

Just saw a post on my dash calling the muskox an ice age goat. Tapping the sign :3

If muskoxen are goats then sheep are goats

[apparition-within]

Some idiot: Whales are fish.

Regular person: No, whales are mammals.

Some biologist: Well, whales ARE mammals, but since all mammals descend from a subgroup of bony fish, and according to the principles of cladistic grouping, we avoid paraphyletic groups, any grouping termed “fish” would have to include mammals or else “fish” would be paraphyletic - so if whales are mammals and mammals are fish, then yes, whales are fish.