#constructed languages

[theamberertrix]

all five linguists on tumblr are gonna go crazy after I post this funny script I made that's like... Korean syllable stacking but with japanese-esque glyph evolution

[cthulu-hoops]

Apparently the guy who develops languages for Game of Thrones and The Witcher posts all of the created dialogue and their translations to AO3!

He posted a translation of the Dothraki song that Ser Arlan was singing last episode of AKOTSK.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/79653671

[dedalvs]

The Art of Language Invention 10 Year Anniversary

The Art of Language Invention came out ten years ago today! ~:D If you want to hear more about how it came about and some other back story details, you can come to my YouTube channel at 2 p.m. Pacific (30 minutes from now!) and I'll be live streaming.

[godlymiseryclub]

[villainessbian]

Looking at how Modern Hebrew was constructed and it's incredible how politically motivated it is to consider it any sort of "revival." It's bits and pieces of very different periods of Ancient Hebrew, technically different languages, and then adorned with some bits of Jewish ethnolects from other languages aaannnd just a heaping bunch of "Arabic, but pronounced differently."

It's a conlang. Like. It's totally constructed. It's as if we created Modern English by taking Beowulf, a 15th-century Bible, and the English words used in the French language ("parking" for "garage" or "smoking" for "tuxedo") - and everything you can't find in one or the other is German with an accent.

"This makes Hebrew one of the oldest continually spoken languages" yeah if you subscribe to ethno-nationalist myths this probably feels good enough for you to want to believe it huh.

It's an incredible linguistic achievement don't get me wrong but the talk around it makes it seem like something it's not.

[cellarspider]

The new Dune movies are fantastic for constructed language dorks because of the great work of David and Jesse Peterson to make Chakobsa and the House Atreides Sign Language feel real. It helps with that feeling that the world of the movie somehow persists and extends past the camera, into places we're not looking at and will never see.

So I suppose that's why I spent an hour or so last night translating the first few minutes of Dune: Part One into my expanded form of Qunlat, salvaged from Dragon Age:

Keshlat kar raathom eb-ahissradar.

Ben-sataa ala Arrakis ebasit-daalnaan e tal-itwa rikaar. Tal-mer keta kesh... Ti vaarost melaanash ebasit-var imesaara.

E tal-ast itwali, ben-keshaani melaanash tomadim. Lethari sebodim na hera, ben-astali vat vah-art adim toh.

I promised that at some point I'd post a full grammar of the "Talat" dialect I created, and I still intend to do so. It's a flexible enough language now that it's capable of expressing complex ideals and more nuance in tone, and I find it enjoyable to work with.

Bonus:

Full translation and notes reproduced below the cut.

Dreams are messages from the deep.

[coded_message from deep COP-dream.]_apodictic

Keshlat kar raathom eb-ahissradar.

This just barely sidesteps a heresy by using a particular word for "deep". If "veraaskan" ("deep ocean") had been used, it would have implied "dreams are messages from the soul". The soul is a concept embodied in a physical, practical tool which helps a Qunari fulfill their best life. Dreams are uncommon among horned qunari, and are a deeply disquieting experience that is associated with demonic interference or becoming a Saarebas - a mage, something qunari find inherently dangerous. As it stands, this statement still begins the movie with a sense of unease and menace.

The phrase is in the Apodictic "this is a universal truth" OV.S word order, and thus "dream" is appended to the verb, which is not marked for its number or person. It's a somewhat archaic word order that's difficult to differentiate from normal SVO if read without tone of voice:, a speaker would have to alter their emphasis to make the Apodictic clear.

My planet Arrakis is so beautiful when the sun is low.

POS-world 1S Arrakis 3S.become_beautiful.ENC at INF-go_out sun.

Ben-sataa ala Arrakis ebasit-daalnaan e tal-itwa rikaar.

Talat has no word for "planet" as a place that one can live, so the word for "the entire world" is used instead.

"become beautiful" is created from a reflexive form of "to bloom" or "to realize", emphasized here with the use of the encantive. This is something natural that is revealed by the flow of events.

Rolling over the sands... You can see spice in the air.

Flow over sand... Can see.2P melange be-within breeze.

Tal-mer keta kesh... Ti vaarost melaanash ebasit-var imesaara.

To make it clear that spice melange is something special and different from cooking spice, "melange" is transliterated, despite never being used in the new movies. Admittedly, I also don't have a word for "spice" yet, so I need to get on that. :p

At nightfall, the spice harvesters land.

At INF-come_in night, POS-harvester melange descend.3P

E tal-ast itwali, ben-keshaani melaanash tomadim.

"Harvester" is literally "takes-plant-built_obj-animate_obj", specifying a machine that harvests things. A person who is a harvester would be simply "keshah". "Ah" (/ɒ/) is a vowel that can't form diphthongs, so "ah-a" (/ɒa/ becomes the long "aa" vowel /ɐː/.

The outsiders race against time to avoid the heat of the day.

outsider APPL.walk.3P DLM time, [POS-day heat avoid 3P]_HAB CAUS.

Lethari sebodim na hera, ben-astali vat vah-art adim toh.

"outsider" is literally "person from outside", as opposed to the usual qunari term for a foreigner, "bas". "Bas" has religious connotations that specifically mean a non-qunari. Thus, this term is used in precisely translating foreign speech, or by kabethari: people who live within the Qunari sphere of influence, but are not Qunari themselves. If a Qunari used the term, it could mean anything from "a recent transplant from another town" to "a neighbor" to "a confusing person", depending on context.

"race" is translated with "walk" in the deliminative, which specifically has taken on the meaning of "move quickly" in idiomatic Talat. It's also placed in the Applicative to create a ditransitive, zero-direct object verb phrase that literally means "the outsiders race [themselves] against time", which is the most idiomatic way to express the idea.

"avoid" is formed using the negative opinion prefix "vah" and has the judgemental tone of "shy away from".

The causative is in OSV word order to indicate habitual action.

[aeniith]

I wrote a new blog post on my Aeniith Wordpress blog about valency change in language (both natlangs and conlangs). It’s a modification of my presentation for the LCC 11 in Maryland last spring.

You can read it at Aeniith.blog. It’s a little technical but I’d appreciate it if you took a look if you’re at all into languages, linguistics, conlangs, etc.