#thestelmer

[dedalvs]

What's your favorite writing system and the favorite writing system you've created?

Sinhalese and this one I’m doing right now...!

[dedalvs]

Hey David! I wan wide ring how you would write the name "Stein" [stæɪn] in Norwegian or [stɑɪn] in English in the defiance languages and Sondiv. Thanks in advance! Elmer

Not gonna lie, it doesn’t work out great in every language, but this is my best shot:

Also, @thestelmer, you’ve asked so many questions over the years on this Tumblr. I see them, and I may not answer them all, because some of them are really tough, but I appreciate them, and I appreciate that you’ve followed me all this time. You’re awesome! <3

[dedalvs]

Hey David! I had a question for you and I realize that you've probably been asked this 100 times before but I want to ask. When you start creating a script do you have any idea or thought of how it's going to look or do you just write something down on a piece of paper and see what comes up. I'm really stuck at creating scripts but I want to and I'm terrible at it so if you have any pointers or if you're going to discuss it in an episode please let me know

I do have an idea sometimes. Usually something like “sharp”, “curvy”, “cool ascenders”, “descenders that go under stuff”. I just start there then start sketching and see what happens.

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What is your favorite word, proverb or sentence in your languages? I would say I would like to hear all of them but just a few is cool! I'm especially wondering about Kamakawi, Irathient, Sondiv and Noalath. High Valyrian and Trigedasleng also, haha, turned out to be more languages than I thought. But yeah, what's your favorites?

I don’t have any favorite words or phrases in any languages I’ve ever created. I just don’t work that way, for some reason. :(

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Hi David! I just started my 5th conlang. It's called Pälõ [pæːlø] and it's inspired by Estonian and Finnish phonology, but with more of a Bantu-ish grammar. The one thing I'm really struggling with though is Noun Class. I've made the clases and have taken some inspiration from your own Irathient on how to make them plural, but I'm just struggling with the concept. Am I supposed to create stems, and if so what does a stem mean with no class? Or create a word and change the prefix? Thanks! Elmer

Inspired by Finnish and Estonian yet you used õ for [ø]? I don’t hold with that.

Go back to the idea of using X kind of Y where X kind of becomes a class prefix (and it would be a class prefix if its Finnic). This would then apply to adjectives, too. Not sure how you’d get different plurals, though... Not with Finno-Ugric.

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Hi David. I’m the one that asked about the tattoo, I think I’ve asked this already but I also think it was anonymous. So I’ll just ask again so it’s easier to find. You asked if lighting a torch would work instead of turning in a light. And the answer is yes! “Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, if only one remembers to turn on the light” as long as the translation has the same meaning it’ll work perfectly! Thanks!

Yes, I can do that. This is not an easy quote, and it’s not a language I use a lot anymore, so this is not something that is actually easy or takes a non-trivial amount of work. This is something to bear in mind for those who ask for difficult translations. I mean, that’s basically the work I’m paid to do now (and also the part of the job that’s the least amount of fun!). >.<

What I came up with was: A neva’a’u elea tou, oi u ti’a’a kolu ani, avi keve’a kou e kakava fei. It doesn’t mean exactly that, but it’s close, and in keeping with the spirit of Kamakawi. A more literal translation would be “Happiness can be found during the dark times even if one remembers to light a fire.” I don’t know the context of this quote, so I hope it makes sense.

Visually, it’s pretty small if you want to fit it on one line:

Here’s a bigger one spread across three lines:

Hope this works!

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Hi David! I’m listening to your audiobook while reading it, and I thought about something... I know you’ve used people and things from your personal life in languages like your wife for tea, etc... When you name words after people, I’d assume you name something you appreciate or like. Do you do the exact opposite for stuff you hate? Like onion for example, do you purposely try to make the word gross(in your opinion) or do you just don’t make them unless you have to? Thanks in advance!

Oh, indeed. Every so often when someone has crossed me (like someone with the name of Greg whom I won’t say more about). But not as much. Actually, the Dothraki word for “onion” is glas, because I respect onions so little I felt like making the word for them a stupid joke (cf. the Beatles song). The word for “onion” in Kamakawi is hate, which looks like “hate” in English, but, of course, is pronounced [ˈha.tɛ] (or maybe [ˈha.ɾɛ]. Forgetting my stress rules…).

One thing I will do is add language-specific phonaesthetic patterns akin to gl- in English, and these can be positive, negative, or neutral. One negative one in Dothraki is qw-. Any time you see that, it the word has some element of revulsion to it, and is often onomatopoeic.

Something else we did for Dothraki specifically is the finalists, prompted by John Quijada’s suggestion, put in a negative word having to do in some way with the other finalists. It was an inside joke so that (a) we would all be present in the final language, and (b) people later on analyzing Dothraki would think the winner was being backbiting and vindictive, but we would know the truth (a bizarre practical joke). I made ithkoil mean “fragile” (made it built off the word for “straw”) from John Quijada’s Ithkuil; samva mean “broken” from Simon Olivier’s Sambahsa; and since Bill Welden didn’t have a language, I made sindarin mean “weak” (also means “left”; breaks down to “injured side”, referring to the weak side of the body), since Bill worked as a translator on the Lord of the Rings films.

Most of the time when creating words, though, I just go with what comes to mind (for roots) so long as they’re phonotactically valid. If I feel like something’s a little too on the nose, I’ll assign the root to something totally different from what I was planning to mix it up (after all, if you just go with what you think sounds good, it’ll be biased towards your personal sense of phonaesthetics). Easter eggs are probably like 0.1% of any language’s vocabulary (except maybe Trigedasleng, but then it’s a part of the design).

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Hi! Do you have any more info on wether or not you'll be able to stream a little of you conlang class this summer? San Athchomar, hang on that wasn't a word, thanks in advance! 😁

No official word yet, but it’s looking like no, with that answer coming from the department. :( Don’t know for sure yet, though.