#conlang challenge

[lexosaurus]

Hey I wanna practice making conlangs (fake languages) to help study for my exams. For reference here’s a pidgin conlang I made last week. 

Shoot me an ask for a conlang challenge. It can literally be anything you can think of that you think would be cool if it was a language. Anything from “every sentence is one word long” to “the whole language is a dude playing a kazoo.” Legit send anything (within reason)!

[zomborgs]

Duozynis - Day 3

Create 2 idioms 

/muh’ʎo 'madzag ʃu'hat/ “Wet someone’s hands” (Upset or make an enemy of someone)

/’ʃɯje ɲuj nu’ma/ “Name the moon” (Similar to “speak of the devil”)

[zomborgs]

Duozynis - Day 2

List 10 new words (numbers)

Zero - /’dʒadʒi/

One - /'ota/

Two - /'nəfi/

Three - /'fudətʃ/

Four - /ʎeˈ’taɾ/

Five - /ro/

Six - /ro ʃɯ'ota/ (five add one)

Ten - /'nəfi rot/ (two fives)

Fifteen - /'fudətʃ rot/ (three fives)

Twenty - /'ʑeho/

[zomborgs]

Duozynis - Day 1

List 5 new words (adjectives)

Warm - /ɸadzi/

Wet - /go/

Weak - /kehome/

Wealthy - /muhun/

White - /frygɯ/

[zomborgs]

Duozynis - Day 0

So, I need motivation for working on my conlangs, so I thought, what better than to use that 100 Days of Languages challenge? Modified as necessary, of course. (yes, I know, it wasn't originally meant for this purpose, but I take my muse where I can find it).

First up: Duozynis

This is a "dead" language, based on the amalgamation of a few other languages. Basically, 3 or 4 cultures kind of got forced to squish together all about the same time and this is the language that developed because of it. I"m going to be using this for 2 other languages, so I need a real solid handle on it before I progress with the other two too much. (Also - I have't bothered with a writing system, so this will all be "spelled" with IPA symbols)

[yuk-tepat]

I wanted to do the DA conlang challenge for February and make a menu in Yuktepat. But I also decided to try doing it on the computer, and work on a font at the same time, which is a huge undertaking for a logographic script. On a computer it takes a few minutes to get the correct shape for even the simplest glyphs, which I can write on paper in one second, and they still don’t look near as good as handwritten. So in the end all I got done was the drinks section of the menu, shown above

[euletoaster]

(This is for the anonymous challenge I got, finished, and then accidentally deleted. Sorry)

The person wanted a mix of Finnish, Japanese, and a language of my choice. Which happened to be Hawaiian. The original was something like:

I shall stomp on those who oppose me. My stomping shall be quick. My stomping shall be painfull. And I shall stomp and not show mercy.

(If you happen to be the original sender, feel free to send it again)

That said, here it is in Sömy, my Polynesian Urgalic language from Japan:

Minä ysi pahkkaillen säytäväi tyynentäässi pahkkaillessinen mitua. Pöksi tuomeni ysi. Pöksi uonen, tahkammainen ysi. Ta uonen, ysi pahkkaillen ta käysi ähmääten.

I shall stomp on all people who try to stomp on me. My feet shall be quick. My feet, for them, shall cause pain. And to them, I shall stomp and I shall not pause.

Or to break it down:

minä ysi pahkkaillen säytäväi tyynentäässi pahkkaillessinen mitua. /minæ iʷsi pɑhʔ:ɑi̯l:en sæiʷtæβæi̯ tiʷ:nentæ:s:i pɑhʔ:ɑi̯l:es:inen mitɯ̯ʷɑ/ 1-NOM PST.DEC stomp-1 all-ACC-LOC-REL people-ACC-LOC-REL stomp-3.REL 1-DAT I shall stomp on all people who try to stomp on me

Pöksi tuomeni ysi. /peʷʔsi tɯ̯ʷɤʷmeni iʷsi/ foot.NOM-1.POSS fast-ACC FUT.DEC My feet shall be quick

Pöksi uonen, tahkammainen ysi. /peʷʔsi ɯ̯ʷɤʷnen tɑhʔɑm:ɑi̯nen iʷsi. foot-NOM-1.POSS 3-ACC pain-CAS-1 FUT.DEC My foot, for them, shall cause pain.

Ta uonen, ysi pahkkaillen ta käysi ähmääten. /tɑ ɯ̯ʷɤʷnen iʷsi pɑhʔ:ɑi̯l:en tɑ ʔæiʷsi æhmæ:ten/ and 3-ACC FUT.DEC stomp-1 and NEG.FUT.DEC pause-1 And for them, I shall stomp and I shall not pause.

How’d we get there? Well, the language is a mix of Finnish, Japanese and Hawaiian. It takes Finnish cases, vowel harmony and orthography practices. Finnish’s telic-atelic system is used (and all the sentences are Telic) as well as it’s methods for making relative clauses. From Japanese it takes compressed unrounded vowels (the subscript w is supposed to be β) and unmarked plural. From Hawaiian we get the lack of contrasting /k/ and /t/ with the addition of the glottal stops. Unseen geminated stops are realized as /ʔp ʔk ʔ̚ʔ/ While the vocab is based on Finnish, any similarities to real Finnish words are only coincidences (except maybe minä…)

This was fun, love to do it again some time :)