CONLANG

Observations on verbal periphrastic constructions

John Q — 2013-05-24T17:32:24-04:00

I was thinking about the English periphrastic construction “to manage to + INFINITIVE”, in that it conveys quite a lot of semantic nuance that goes way beyond merely telic or goal-oriented aspect:

(1) a pre-existing expectation by the audience of failure
(2) a striving/struggle/effort against (presumed) odds
(3) the successful outcome of an effort
(4) an outcome against expectation [...]

Re: New language sentence trial

Roger Mills — 2013-05-24T13:14:05-07:00

My first reaction to your sentence was that it was rather similar to Basque usage, where most "verbs" consist of a base form (called IIRC a participle), plus an aux--
forms of "have" for transitive verbs, forms of "be" for intransitives. The "have" form indicates subject, object (and IO when present IIRC) + tense; the "be" forms indicate subject, tense, etc. [...]

Re: Dieing Languages

Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews — 2013-05-24T14:55:22-07:00

Let me work out the answers, and get back to you, since as of now I have some answedrs, not all.

Mellissa Green

@GreenNovelist

-----Original Message-----
From: Constructed Languages List [mailto:CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU] On Behalf Of Anthony Miles
Sent: Friday, May 24, 2013 11:05 AM
To: CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU
Subject: Re: Dieing Languages

Are any of your conlangs dieing or making a come back? [...]

Re: Dieing Languages

Anthony Miles — 2013-05-24T14:04:56-04:00

Are any of your conlangs dieing or making a come back?

Silknish was a dead language, that's making a come back.

There's a family who is the last line of Silknish speakers, and they're
trying to make Silknish rise again.

There are ten members in the family, four servants, three parents, and
triplets.

R: Now that's a different idea! What language do they speak to other people? Is this line the only line of Silknish people, or are there Silknish who oppose the revival? Many language revival movements face resistance from other members of the community (for that matter, why [...]

Re: New language sentence trial

Anthony Miles — 2013-05-24T13:35:58-04:00

Send transmission

Amtoni Mayales nesakam me esupusumsuna.

Sorry for the top posting - it would be even more confusing if I put it below, even farther away from the message to whfch I am replying. Perhaps the original 'go' turned into an auxiliary verb, quite likely the future. so the inflected 'go' originally had a broader meaning. Or 'go' is sliced differently than English. Of course, 'go' could be grammatically an infinitve, a participle, a gerundive, probably not a noun ... [...]

Re: Ideopedia - a French collaborative encyclopedia of conlangs

Billy J.B. — 2013-05-24T18:00:32+02:00

Très cool. Great find!
On May 24, 2013 5:57 PM, "Tony Harris" wrote:

> I was browsing around on L'Atelier (a French-language forum about
> conlanging) and just found this, which I thought I should share with the
> group:
>
> http://ideopedia.org
>
> The introduction says:
> Idéopédia est une encyclopédie collaborative francophone, qui traite
> principalement des idéolangues (ou langues construites), des univers et
> cultures imaginaires qui s'y rattachent ainsi que de leurs inventeurs.
>
> Son objectif est de constituer une encyclopédie en langue française, qui
> soit une référence dans le domaine de [...]

Ideopedia - a French collaborative encyclopedia of conlangs

Tony Harris — 2013-05-24T11:57:27-04:00

I was browsing around on L'Atelier (a French-language forum about
conlanging) and just found this, which I thought I should share with the
group:

http://ideopedia.org

The introduction says:
Idéopédia est une encyclopédie collaborative francophone, qui traite
principalement des idéolangues (ou langues construites), des univers et
cultures imaginaires qui s'y rattachent ainsi que de leurs inventeurs.

Son objectif est de constituer une encyclopédie en langue française, qui
soit une référence dans le domaine de la création linguistique. Les
aspirations qui en résultent sont ensuite diverses, telles que : la
promotion de l'usage et de la création de langues à portée universelle
[...]

Re: Too simple to be derived?

H. S. Teoh — 2013-05-24T07:48:52-07:00

On Fri, May 24, 2013 at 10:54:16AM -0300, Leonardo Castro wrote:
> How would be "antiparticle" in your-PL languages?
[...]

Currently there's no such word in Ebisédian or Tatari Faran, but if I
were to coin such a word, I'd use the anti- derivation instead of the
not- (or un-) derivation. A no-particle (in Ebisédian) is a particle
that isn't there; an anti-particle is an opposite-particle that's there.
Indeed, the nullar number in Ebisédian is used to indicate absence, but
a different derivation is used for anti-. Thus, you have a distinction
between human(nullar) - meaning the absence of a [...]

Re: Grammatical complexity

Adam Walker — 2013-05-24T09:00:06-05:00

On Thu, May 23, 2013 at 9:10 PM, Roger Mills wrote:

> --- On Thu, 5/23/13, Adam Walker wrote:
>
> Okay here is an example of the sort of case marking -.m thinking of:
>
> Tom-ag bet John-da hat-or father-gen money-pa Flicka-the race-tem.
>
> Tom bet John, who wears the hat, father's money on Flicka during the race.
> ======================================
>
> This isn't clear at all to me.......It seems to mean: Tom made a bet with
> John concerning Flicka in the race. The bet was made with (somebody's)
> father's money.
>
> [...]

Re: Too simple to be derived?

Leonardo Castro — 2013-05-24T10:54:16-03:00

How would be "antiparticle" in your-PL languages?

Até mais!

Leonardo

2013/5/22 H. S. Teoh :
> On Tue, May 21, 2013 at 06:13:48PM -0400, Matthew George wrote:
>> The language that I'm working on makes a variety of distinctions among
>> negation, separating usages that English (and from your comments, many
>> other languages) group together.
>>
>> For example, one form of negation is equivalent to the logical 'not',
>> another to the logical 'anti'. In English, if we say we're unhappy or
>> not happy, that's almost always interpreted as meaning we're
>> unsatisfied or displeased. But if [...]

Re: Date and time on Cindu

Douglas Koller — 2013-05-24T05:22:06-04:00

> Date: Thu, 23 May 2013 05:40:25 -0700
> From: romiltz@YAHOO.COM
> Subject: Date and time on Cindu
> To: CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU

> OK, another year has rolled by, another Geburtstag, cumpleaños etc. and it's time to update you all. (NB I'm still here!!)

And we are all the richer therefor. Many happy returns of the day! Se zdídalths techetneketh la öçkek nü! [...]

Re: Grammatical complexity

Roger Mills — 2013-05-23T19:10:01-07:00

--- On Thu, 5/23/13, Adam Walker wrote:

Okay here is an example of the sort of case marking -.m thinking of:

Tom-ag bet John-da hat-or father-gen money-pa Flicka-the race-tem.

Tom bet John, who wears the hat, father's money on Flicka during the race.

Re: Possible case system

Adam Walker — 2013-05-23T14:58:18-05:00

Yes, I need to try to reconstruct what my brain was doing when I produced
those examples. More and more, I'm thinking they just don't make sense. I
**think** I was intending some sort of animacy effect where John and Tom
are marked as Patient-NonvoluntaryExpiriencers and their Possessums are
marked in the Possessed/Construct/Whatev case, while in the other example
Teacher get's both markings because it it the Experiencer AND the
Possessum, but the lack fo any marking on fifthgrade is... and the other
bit.... Yeah. It's just weird/broken/REDO! [...]

Re: Possible case system

James Kane — 2013-05-24T07:46:30+12:00

>>>
>>> John-ev hairbrush-on is missing.
>>> Fifth grade teacher-ev-on is tired.
>>> Bob-ak killed Tom-ev cat-on.

To me it seems like the -on is tail marking in that it marks the teacher as: fifth grade its teacher i.e. fifth grade's teacher. Teacher is then also in the stative case (or whatever) because it is the subject of the stative verb. [...]

Re: Phonological alternation

Jeffrey Daniel Rollin-Jones — 2013-05-23T20:25:59+01:00

Apologies for taking ages in getting back to you; I've had a heavy few weeks. Very informative, thanks!

Jeff.

Sent from my iPhone

On 16 May 2013, at 12:28, Jyri Lehtinen wrote:

>>
>> Well originally the weak gradation of all of */p t k/
>> was stop > voiced fricative, i.e. */β ð ɣ/. In the
>> oldest written records these are spelled with
>> - /β/ = >> for v / V_V>
>> - /ð/ =
>> - /ɣ/ =
>
> Actually in the oldest written language you find [...]

Re: Possible case system

H. S. Teoh — 2013-05-23T10:42:20-07:00

On Mon, May 20, 2013 at 06:00:29PM -0500, Adam Walker wrote:
> On Mon, May 20, 2013 at 2:21 PM, neo gu wrote:
>
> > On Mon, 20 May 2013 13:17:14 -0500, Adam Walker
> > wrote:
> >
> > >I have been tinkering with what will eventually become the case system for
> > >Gravgaln (now that verbs are stabilizing) and here's what I came up with
> > >last night:
> > >
> > >John-ak ate the cake-ev.
> > >John-ak ate.
> > >John-ev fell.
> > >John-ak fell. (because he threw [...]

Re: Grammatical complexity

Jyri Lehtinen — 2013-05-23T17:33:48+03:00

> The Basque case system is another such can of worms. The usual paradigms
> given mask a whole bunch of complications, and various analyses disagree on
> things as simple as whether the genitive should be considered a case at
> all! I'm currently reading a great book about Basque (_Standard Basque, a
> progressive grammar_, by Rudolf de Rijk) and have practically given hope on
> the whole question of case in that language. It's a mess beyond belief :P . [...]

Re: Screen Readers and Conlangs

Elena ``of Valhalla'' — 2013-05-23T16:05:50+02:00

On 2013-05-22 at 17:40:23 -0700, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews wrote:
> The screen reader I use has nat lang support, but no conlang support. It
> seems to me someone should create a conlang sythensizer package. I think any
> programmer would need to work with the company who created Jaws, which is
> the screen reader I use. [...]

Re: Grammatical complexity

Adam Walker — 2013-05-23T09:01:03-05:00

Thank you both, Jyri and Christophe. This is just what I was trying to get
at, was feeling intuitively but poorly expressing, was driving me nuts.
Once you get past marking for the subject, DO and IO (and even sometimes
with the latter two!) the cases become less and less prototypically
noun-like and the distinctions between noun case and adverbal and/or
adjectival marking get progressively muddier. Last night as I pondered
this I got to thinking that perhaps the "difference" between a "case" and
some derivational marking is that the "cases" behave more like PPs that
straight adverbs or adjectives. [...]

Re: Date and time on Cindu

Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets — 2013-05-23T14:50:56+02:00

On 23 May 2013 14:40, Roger Mills wrote:

> OK, another year has rolled by, another Geburtstag, cumpleaños etc. and
> it's time to update you all. (NB I'm still here!!)
>
>
Adamla |ledan! As we say in Moten :) .
--
Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.

http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/

Date and time on Cindu

Roger Mills — 2013-05-23T05:40:25-07:00

OK, another year has rolled by, another Geburtstag, cumpleaños etc. and it's time to update you all. (NB I'm still here!!)

At 8:22am EDT (12:22 UTC) on today May 23, 2013, it was

12hr 33min (about an hour and a half after mid-day, siesta time :-)) ), uwam 16 açulus 760
(13 days hence will be New Year's day of 761, lembrim 1 açumbres)

Re: Grammatical complexity

Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets — 2013-05-23T14:24:01+02:00

On 23 May 2013 13:39, Jyri Lehtinen wrote:

>
> The distinction between adverbs and adverbial cases (cases used for
> adverbial noun phrases, such as the local cases) can be somewhat muddy. In
> addition to clear cases, a language might have some affixes that behave
> more or less similarly to these but lack their productivity. If such an
> affix is only attested with a closed class of words or in certain idiomatic
> expressions or if it has somehow aberrant syntax, it might be a better idea
> to call it a derivation. [...]

Re: Grammatical complexity

Jyri Lehtinen — 2013-05-23T14:39:50+03:00

> I'm trying to get a better theoretical grasp on why Dative is a noun case
> and
> not an adverb, why Genitive is likewise a noun case and not an adjective,
> and thus how I would defend ornative as a case as well.
>

The distinction between adverbs and adverbial cases (cases used for
adverbial noun phrases, such as the local cases) can be somewhat muddy. In
addition to clear cases, a language might have some affixes that behave
more or less similarly to these but lack their productivity. If such an
affix is only attested with [...]

Re: Senjecan orthography: weak vowels.

David McCann — 2013-05-23T12:24:27+01:00

On Wed, 22 May 2013 15:52:44 -0400
"C. Brickner" wrote:

> I don’t think I’ll ever be satisfied with the orthography for
> Senejcas! I’m trying to work with seven criteria:
>
> Obviously, there has to be some give and take. My current problem
> is how to represent what are known in Senjecas as “weak vowels”: I/ɪ;
> ə/@; and ʊ/U.
>
> The other day I was reading her translation of the Babel story and I
> noticed that Ms. Sotomayor had used several IPA symbols in her
> orthography. It didn’t [...]

Re: Grammatical complexity

Adam Walker — 2013-05-22T23:19:25-05:00

Okay here is an example of the sort of case marking -.m thinking of:

Tom-ag bet John-da hat-or father-gen money-pa Flicka-the race-tem.

Tom bet John, who wears the hat, father's money on Flicka during the race.

Does this make a lick of sense? Or is this another of those things
that only work between my ears but fail utterly in the outside world? [...]

1200 Sentences in Asirka

Scott Hlad — 2013-05-22T21:35:25-06:00

I continue with the 1200 Sentence project for Asirka. I have translated 12
sentences to date.

http://www3.telus.net/public/scottoh/asirka/1200sentences.html

Scotto

Re: Screen Readers and Conlangs

Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews — 2013-05-22T23:33:22-07:00

Yes, you can import synthesizers. And yes, I know people who have NVDa and
Jaws on their computers.
I guess it would be Unicode, as I'm not sure how sythesisers are created. I
know each conlang would need to be used.

Mellissa Green

@GreenNovelist

-----Original Message-----
From: Constructed Languages List [mailto:CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU] On
Behalf Of Daniel Burgener
Sent: Wednesday, May 22, 2013 7:27 PM
To: CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU
Subject: Re: Screen Readers and Conlangs [...]

Re: Screen Readers and Conlangs

Daniel Burgener — 2013-05-22T22:27:15-04:00

Hey Nicole,

So, this would likely not be an easy task, and may be impossible.

First off, working with the company that created JAWS is highly unlikely,
as most software companies would not be willing to help a random programmer
who called them up looking to improve their software.

That said, I've thought of a few options that might be pursuable, but I
need some more information from you. [...]

Re: Teonaht grammar?

H. S. Teoh — 2013-05-22T17:36:51-07:00

On Sat, May 11, 2013 at 07:55:05PM -0700, Padraic Brown wrote:
> Ah, very sorry indeed! I had fully intended to mention earlier that I
> heard back from Sally. She's moving her pages (yet again!). The new
> address is:
>
> http://www.concavities.org
>
> I gather it's not fully active as of yet. I tried yesterday and
> couldn't find the actual Grammar, but Sally says she's working on it!
[...] [...]

Re: Too simple to be derived?

H. S. Teoh — 2013-05-22T16:44:11-07:00

On Tue, May 21, 2013 at 06:13:48PM -0400, Matthew George wrote:
> The language that I'm working on makes a variety of distinctions among
> negation, separating usages that English (and from your comments, many
> other languages) group together.
>
> For example, one form of negation is equivalent to the logical 'not',
> another to the logical 'anti'. In English, if we say we're unhappy or
> not happy, that's almost always interpreted as meaning we're
> unsatisfied or displeased. But if we describe a color as "not green",
> no one assumes that the color must be [...]

Re: Senjecan orthography: weak vowels.

J. 'Mach' Wust — 2013-05-22T18:18:25-04:00

On Wed, 22 May 2013 15:52:44 -0400, C. Brickner wrote:

>I don’t think I’ll ever be satisfied with the orthography for
>Senejcas! I’m trying to work with seven criteria:

>1. It can be written in cursive.

>2. No diacritics.

>3. No digraphs.

>4. Latin letters.

>5. Composed characters for ease in replacing.

>6. Some semblance of correspondence between the grapheme and some
>phoneme somewhere. [...]

Re: New language sentence trial

James Kane — 2013-05-23T10:12:12+12:00

'Go' could be in the infinitive if you want it to be; it just means that your past tense is formed in an interesting way. But yes, it's more likely to be a bare, uninflected form (which could be identical to the infinitive somewhat like English). It could of course have some kind of inflection as well, maybe it also inflects for aspect, for example. [...]

Screen Readers and Conlangs

Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews — 2013-05-22T17:40:23-07:00

Adam, your question brought up for me, an interesting topic. I meant to
brint this up awhile back, but kept forgetting.

The screen reader I use has nat lang support, but no conlang support. It
seems to me someone should create a conlang sythensizer package. I think any
programmer would need to work with the company who created Jaws, which is
the screen reader I use. [...]

Re: Senjecan orthography: weak vowels.

Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews — 2013-05-22T17:31:49-07:00

Where did he have different spellings? It read the message fine. They just updated the screen reader. Why do you ask?

Mellissa Green

@GreenNovelist

-----Original Message-----
From: Constructed Languages List [mailto:CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU] On Behalf Of Adam Walker
Sent: Wednesday, May 22, 2013 2:23 PM
To: CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU
Subject: Re: Senjecan orthography: weak vowels.

What does your screen reader do with Chralie's different spellings since
they are just different letters to spell exactly the same word? [...]

Re: Senjecan orthography: weak vowels.

Adam Walker — 2013-05-22T16:23:04-05:00

What does your screen reader do with Chralie's different spellings since
they are just different letters to spell exactly the same word?

Adam

On Wed, May 22, 2013 at 7:10 PM, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews <
goldyemoran@gmail.com> wrote:

> What's 8? I like 1 through 4.
>
> Mellissa Green
>
>
> @GreenNovelist
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Constructed Languages List [mailto:CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU] On
> Behalf Of C. Brickner
> Sent: Wednesday, May 22, 2013 2:08 PM
> To: CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU
> Subject: Re: Senjecan orthography: weak vowels.
>
> Thanks. I apologize to all for the large gaps. It didn't [...]

Re: Senjecan orthography: weak vowels.

Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews — 2013-05-22T17:10:48-07:00

What's 8? I like 1 through 4.

Mellissa Green

@GreenNovelist

-----Original Message-----
From: Constructed Languages List [mailto:CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU] On Behalf Of C. Brickner
Sent: Wednesday, May 22, 2013 2:08 PM
To: CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU
Subject: Re: Senjecan orthography: weak vowels.

Thanks. I apologize to all for the large gaps. It didn't look that way when I typed it!
Charlie

----- Original Message -----
I think I like 2, 5 and 8 best. Of course you are the one who has to live
with the choice you make (until you change your mind!!), but any of them
could work. I don't think any of [...]

Re: Senjecan orthography: weak vowels.

C. Brickner — 2013-05-22T17:07:33-04:00

Thanks. I apologize to all for the large gaps. It didn't look that way when I typed it!
Charlie

----- Original Message -----
I think I like 2, 5 and 8 best. Of course you are the one who has to live
with the choice you make (until you change your mind!!), but any of them
could work. I don't think any of them would be particularly difficult in
cursive. Cyrilic cursive gets by with a whole bunch of letters that face
the "wrong" way. [...]

Re: Senjecan orthography: weak vowels.

Adam Walker — 2013-05-22T15:29:36-05:00

I think I like 2, 5 and 8 best. Of course you are the one who has to live
with the choice you make (until you change your mind!!), but any of them
could work. I don't think any of them would be particularly difficult in
cursive. Cyrilic cursive gets by with a whole bunch of letters that face
the "wrong" way. [...]

Senjecan orthography: weak vowels.

C. Brickner — 2013-05-22T15:52:44-04:00

I don’t think I’ll ever be satisfied with the orthography for Senejcas! I’m trying to work with seven criteria:

1. It can be written in cursive.

2. No diacritics.

3. No digraphs.

4. Latin letters.

5. Composed characters for ease in replacing.

6. Some semblance of correspondence between the grapheme and some phoneme somewhere.

7. My own esthetic sense. [...]

Re: Grammatical complexity

Adam Walker — 2013-05-22T14:38:27-05:00

Ah but I don't *have* any examples yet. I'm probably going about this
backwards- a not-unusual occurance for me, but I'm trying to
understand this first so that when I do build the structures, they do
what I want them to.

And while I agree the Dative is very noun-y when it marks a DO, I feel
it is rather adverb-y when it marks a goal. Maybe I'm just making this
more difficult than need be and the world inside my head is failing to
match reality. [...]

Re: Grammatical complexity

George Corley — 2013-05-22T14:18:27-05:00

On Wed, May 22, 2013 at 1:49 PM, Adam Walker wrote:

>
> All of which make(s) sense to me. I guess what I'm concerned about is
> setting this up in such a way that someone of us comes along AFTER I've
> done all this work of designing and tweaking and all and then says "Why are
> you calling THAT a case? All you're doing is deriving an adjective?" I'm
> trying to get a better theoretical grasp on why Dative is a noun case and
> not an adverb, why Genitive is likewise a noun [...]

Re: Grammatical complexity

Adam Walker — 2013-05-22T13:49:54-05:00

On Wed, May 22, 2013 at 1:21 PM, Jim Henry wrote:

> On Tue, May 21, 2013 at 9:45 PM, Adam Walker wrote:
> > Is anyone here the teensiest bit familiar with the Dumi language and
> > its ornative case? I'm trying to figure out why it should be
> > considered a noun case and not a strategy for turning nouns into
> > adjectives. Of course I accept genative as a case and it does pretty
> > much the same sort of thing - takes a noun and turns it into something
> [...]

Re: Too simple to be derived?

C. Brickner — 2013-05-22T14:39:59-04:00

gjâ-zym-byn has three suffixes corresponding roughly to Esperanto
"mal-".

Re: Too simple to be derived?

And Rosta — 2013-05-22T19:34:11+01:00

I'll contribute an AFMCL to this thread:

Livagian has words like "ginormous" and "titchy", words with some kind of element of expressiveness, but not words like "large", "fast", "heavy" (as in "It is heavy" rather than as in "How heavy is it") or "small","slow", "light"; in their stead it has words like "weigh", as in "She weighs ten stone", where, depending on the nature of the scale, the number argument can be a positive amount (e.g. "a small positive amount") or a negative amount (e.g. "a middling negative amount") or a fraction between "none" and "all"; there are also numbers [...]

Re: Grammatical complexity

Jim Henry — 2013-05-22T14:21:20-04:00

On Tue, May 21, 2013 at 9:45 PM, Adam Walker wrote:
> Is anyone here the teensiest bit familiar with the Dumi language and
> its ornative case? I'm trying to figure out why it should be
> considered a noun case and not a strategy for turning nouns into
> adjectives. Of course I accept genative as a case and it does pretty
> much the same sort of thing - takes a noun and turns it into something
> that functions more like an adjective. [...]

Re: Conscripts and computers

George Marques de Jesus — 2013-05-22T15:08:03-03:00

I don't have a Mac and don't have money to spend with my conlanging
eccentricities, so Glyphs is out of the roster (as also is Fontographer).
But it looks like the trio Inkscape + FontForge + Graphite will do fine and
it'll not be too much work.

And thanks for the help, everyone.

George Marques
http://georgemarques.com.br [...]

Re: Conscripts and computers

Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets — 2013-05-22T16:04:48+02:00

On 22 May 2013 12:32, Christian Thalmann wrote:

> This kind of thing should be quite feasible with contextual alternates —
> especially if your syllables all have the same overall dimensions. In my
> experience, though, FontForge is painfully clunky for such things. Glyphs
> will save you hours upon hours of frustration and is well worth the money.
> [...]

Re: Conscripts and computers

Christian Thalmann — 2013-05-22T06:32:34-04:00

This kind of thing should be quite feasible with contextual alternates — especially if your syllables all have the same overall dimensions. In my experience, though, FontForge is painfully clunky for such things. Glyphs will save you hours upon hours of frustration and is well worth the money.

Vaede

On Tue, 21 May 2013 01:05:47 -0300, George Marques de Jesus wrote: [...]

Re: Conscripts and computers

J. 'Mach' Wust — 2013-05-22T05:06:14-04:00

It might be possible to circumvent (most of) the smartfont programming by
making a monowidth font. That is to say, a font with monowidth base
characters and zero width overlay characters. Of course, this likely means
some esthetic trade-off. And depending on the complexity of the font, it
might be impossible. However, if it is possible, it will allow for the font
to be used in a wider range of applications. That is why I have chosen a
monowidth font when I have designed a tengwar font for the internet. It is
ugly, but it works relatively well:
http://freetengwar.sf.net/freemonotengwar.html [...]

Re: New language sentence trial

James Thain — 2013-05-22T03:23:51-04:00

I got this idea from a "simple syntax" that Rick Harrison made available ostensibly for an auxlang. I thought it would make a good blueprint for the VSO language I am attempting.
In his syntax (which I likely misunderstood) he has this explanation which I of course missed. 'where "did" is a verb modifier indicating that the preceding verb is in the simple past tense,' [...]

Re: Too simple to be derived?

Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets — 2013-05-22T08:53:10+02:00

On 22 May 2013 00:13, Matthew George wrote:

> The language that I'm working on makes a variety of distinctions among
> negation, separating usages that English (and from your comments, many
> other languages) group together.
>
> For example, one form of negation is equivalent to the logical 'not',
> another to the logical 'anti'. In English, if we say we're unhappy or not
> happy, that's almost always interpreted as meaning we're unsatisfied or
> displeased. But if we describe a color as "not green", no one assumes that
> the color must be red. In [...]

Dieing Languages

Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews — 2013-05-22T01:44:27-07:00

Are any of your conlangs dieing or making a come back?

Silknish was a dead language, that's making a come back.

There's a family who is the lst line of Silknish speakers, and they're
trying to make Silknish rise again.

There are ten members in the family, four servants, three parents, and
triplets.

Mellissa Green

@GreenNovelist

Asirka website

Scott Hlad — 2013-05-21T22:33:08-06:00

I have posted a website for my new conlang, Asirka. There is an incomplete
pdf grammar, a vocabulary page similar to Rosetta Stone (Rosetta Lite?) as
well as a page of sentences translated from English based on Graded
Sentences for Analysis by Mary B Rossman and Mary W. Mills (published 1922).
I will continue to add sentences over time. The book has 1,200 of them of
which I have completed 10. It all can be found at: [...]