Deconstructing Conlanging

If English were ergative...

setavulos — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 21:27:38 -0400

Let’s take a sentence like She smiles. The way English is now, the subject of this intransitive verb has the same form, she/I, as the agent of the transitive verb kiss, and the patient of the transitive verb kissed is the odd one out, with its her/me case forms. I’ll sum it up in a list, with the matching case forms having the same color:

She kisses me.

I kiss her.

She smiles.

I smile.

Now suppose that instead, the subject of this intransitive verb has the same form as the patient of the transitive verb kiss, and the agent of the transitive verb kissed is the odd one out. It might look something like this:

She kisses me.

I kiss her.

Her smiles.

Me smile.

In an arrangement like this, the she/I forms would be called ergative case forms, and the her/me forms would be called absolutives. So that’s how English might look if it were an ergative language.

More on ergativity in English at the original post and in the follow-up post on anti-passives.

man-in-space answered your question: What kind of post would you like to see? Id like to see...

setavulos — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 14:01:47 -0500

man-in-space answered your question: What kind of post would you like to see?

Id like to see posts on diachronics and on making good allophony/sandhi rules.

I’ve only ever worked on one language from one point in time, but I’ll do some research and ask around and see what I can come up with regarding diachronics.

Regarding allophony and sandhi rules, what kind of thing are you looking for? How to make rules that make sense or how to write them or just an explanation of what they are? (Keep in mind the intended audience for this blog is more novice, so I might have to start by explaining what it is and why it’s useful before I get to the core of it if you’re asking for more complex stuff.)

http://deconstructedconstruction.tumblr.com/post/42936119171/what-kind-of-post-would-you-like-to-see

setavulos — Sat, 16 Feb 2013 12:33:00 -0500

pssssst… you’re not being helpful if you just like the post and don’t leave any post ideas

What kind of post would you like to see?

setavulos — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 13:27:42 -0500

Hello everyone!

I have decided that I might want to end my hiatus from posting here on Deconstructed Construction and try to write some more posts. I’m not sure if I’m going to continue Historical Conlanging or Learning Your Conlang posts yet, so I wanted to see if there is anything in particular that our followers might want to hear about.

It can be more conlinguistically oriented or conworld/culture oriented; I have no preference. If you have an idea just leave it here or in the askbox and I might just use it to get this blog started up again!

Best wishes,
Nick

P.S. If you have found this blog through Marina Mikhaylova’s Fundamentals of Linguistic Anthropology course, do leave a message for me please! I’m curious to see if any of our followers are from my class.

Last question: I'm curious to know, after all this time working on your conlang, do you speak it fluently? I wish you the best in conlang & life, we'll probably have the opportunity to chat again one day.

setavulos — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 16:51:42 -0500

You know what? I have to say no. I mean, there are some things that I have memorized, and I can construct a damn fine grammatical structure in my language off-hand, but the vocabulary always evades me. I don’t know what about learning a conlang to fluency is so hard, but it just never worked out for me. I’m sure it can for others, but for me? Not so sure. Thank you for asking, though.

Best wishes,
Nick

Hey! If you feel that you were enough with it then fine. But I've discovered this tumblr today and it seems to be an amazing data base for anyone who starts conlanging like me. All these articles will help me for sure, even though English is not my first language haha - I'm French. Anyway, you and your co-writers did an amazing job. Very helpfull. Thanks for that! Are you still into conlang? I hope one day you'll start again writing articles, even for yourself ^^ Cordially.

setavulos — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 16:26:46 -0500

If in the future my health and schedule improves enough that it is feasible and worth it to write more posts, then I’m sure I will. As time- and energy-consuming as the process usually is, it is something that I was proud of. I’m glad you found it to be a good resource.

To answer your question: I am still into conlanging, yes, although I find that I rarely have the energy to do much work in Anikele. You can find information about my personal conlang here. I occasionally write longer posts on aspects of my conlang or conculture and put them on that tag. I actually have one in my drafts about possessives and power play that is sure to be interesting when I finish it.

I wish you the best of luck with your own conlanging! If you find that you want to share any of my articles with francophone conlangers, please feel free to translate it so that the information can be spread to more people. I do not mind that at all.

Best wishes,
Nick

Hey! No post since last summer! What's going on? We need new posts!

setavulos — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 14:09:49 -0500

Hey anon! Nick here. I’d been the one posting the weekly posts last year.

I don’t have any plans to post any more posts in the future on this blog. At least for now. I didn’t feel like it was getting anywhere or that it was worth the pain and struggle of researching and compiling the data. It wasn’t getting any easier to keep up with the posts and work and school and personal issues so I went on indefinite hiatus.

My cowriters are somewhere in this world, but really haven’t written many posts in my absence, it seems. Neither have the two backlogged podcasts we recorded early last year have appeared.

I don’t know what to say to you, anon. I didn’t feel like it was really all that worth it. Even unemployed and off from school I’m not sure if I can write the sort of posts that people would like. I don’t know if they were appreciated in the first place.

If you want to talk to me directly, feel free to contact me at setavulos.tumblr.com

Best wishes,
Nick

Ttuan

greybuck — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 19:23:28 -0400

My name is Chrys Jordan, and I am presently working on a second fictional language. The one already up and running is called Ttuan. It is the language of a fictional nation that occupies the southern tip of the continent of Ndongo, which is located on a fictional world called “the World.”

Here are a few points/comments about the Ttuan language.

The reason for creating the Ttuan language was in order to use it in a fictional world. Another writer, telling a similar story of exploration, would say: “The hero of course could speak the Banglala language…” Or, “The villagers were babbling in Banglala, and nobody could understand a word…” I thought a better approach would be to actually have samples of the language, to illustrate exactly how it feels to hear Banglala, or whatever.

The language has been most helpful in the story. To the extent it’s not a cliche, and the Ttuan are not a stereotypical Oriental tyranny, has come from the discipline of giving them a distinct language. And instead of treating their language as a distraction, I decided to treat it as part of the plot.

Ttuan has so far been featured in two Conlang relays. I have posted on my Tumblr blog (Greybuck) some details about the Ttuan language, and why the language is counter-intuitive in many ways.

If I can pick one feature of Ttuan to say is its best, that would be the 66 cases. These are versatile, from tense and mood to replacing the verb “to have,” and much more. A few cases exist specifically because Ttuan grammar requires them.

What fascinates me is that other Conlangers appear to develop languages with heavy transformational grammar and/or agglutination. Ttuan has gone in the opposite direction, and may be more isolating/analytical than Chinese. Arguably, Ttuan could be called an eccentricity among Conlangs.

If you would like more information, I will be happy to provide.

In the meantime, I will be working towards more languages for Ndongo.

Chrys

lesserjoke: petrovitch: Can someone explain the difference between ergative-absolutive and...

setavulos — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 19:17:00 -0400

lesserjoke:

petrovitch:

Can someone explain the difference between ergative-absolutive and nominative-accusative languages in simple terms?

Wikipedia is too confusing.

Nominative-accusative languages treat transitive and intransitive subjects as a single category and direct objects as something different. Ergative-absolutive languages treat intransitive subjects and direct objects as a single category and transitive subjects as something different.

So if your language has two cases, marked by suffixes A and B, a nominative-accusative language might have sentences like:

The boy-A laughed.

The girl-A threw the ball-B.

Whereas an ergative-absolutive language might have sentences like:

The boy-A laughed.

The girl-B threw the ball-A.

(In reality it’s more complicated than that, because what often ends up happening is some parts of the language’s grammar show a nominative-accusative split while others show an ergative-absolutive system. But above is the distinction that the terms are meant to represent.)

Learning Your Conlang: Learning Methods (part five)

setavulos — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 09:53:29 -0400

It is, of course, impossible to make this series a full and complete list of the different ways to learn a conlang, but even if I go on with this series for years, I will never cover all of the different ways that people can interact with a language in a way that helps them internalize it. Neither can I tell you what the way to go is for you. You just have to experiment and keep working with the conlang (or even natlang) that you want to learn and eventually you’ll improve. It just takes a few steps and a few missteps to get there.

The reason why I first suggested to learn some sort of other language (or even another conlang!) was so that you could get a feel for what would work best for you when you were to teach yourself your conlang. Learning in and of itself is a process, but many language learners get stuck before they even get started because they get so caught up in what kind of process they are using that they don’t actually start to learn the language.

I believe that that problem is even worse with conlangs, because in this case there are so many distractions one can fall prey to. You’re (most likely) creating the language yourself, so you can get caught up in working in the technical aspects of the language rather than experiencing it yourself.

In the end, it doesn’t matter what method you decide to use as long as you work with the language. It’s best to work in many different ways anyways in order to get the best understanding of your language as possible. Once you take the first step to learning your language, it should just roll along steadily. Just keep moving forward and don’t get discouraged by your progress (or plateauing). As long as you keep working seriously with the language it should work out for the best.

——-

Resources and Additional Readings:

http://www.spanish-only.com/2008/07/dont-be-a-quitter/

http://www.spanish-only.com/2009/08/turn-negative-positive/

http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/aim-to-fail

http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/how-to-accomplish-great-things-small-victories-winnable-games

Thank you for a great Q&A Week!

setavulos — Sun, 29 Jul 2012 09:47:00 -0400

I’ll be going back to normal posts from now on, but I just wanted to take a moment to thank all the people who submitted questions this week.

To the anon who asked about synthetic and fusional languages: I’m going to write up a separate post on all that for you, so I apologize for not including you in the Q&A week posts. I am not ignoring your asks, though! Hopefully soon I will be able to get that out for you.

I hope all of our followers continue to feel free to ask any questions that you feel we could answer for you!

Best wishes,
Nick

Do you find that conlanging interferes with your study of natlangs?

setavulos — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 20:43:00 -0400

I find that it doesn’t interfere any more than life itself does. I have a limited amount of free time, but I can’t see myself studying any of the natlangs that I do in the time that I use for conlanging.

It’s all a matter of what I feel like is the right use of my time. Conlanging gives me as much happiness as studying natlangs does, so I make sure to give them both the time they deserve. Sure, I would rather have more time for all of the things that I love doing, but one must balance work and play.

I know that other people might think otherwise, but I figure that since I am already out of the critical period (whether you believe in it or not) I have as much time as I need to learn the natlangs I am learning. I’m a slow learner of language, and I am fine with that. Taking away fro my conlanging won’t do anything to speed up that process.

Best wishes,
Nick

——-

I find that conlanging helps my study of natlangs. I am actually majoring in Romance Languages at Notre Dame, and I find the linguistic knowledge I get from conlanging helps me a lot. I think it really depends on how you go about learning the natlang. I personally find a systematic, linguistic based approach to be best for me, rather than an immersion approach.

-Jordan, creator of Deconstructed Construction

How many conlangs have you abandoned in the sketch stage?

setavulos — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 11:57:00 -0400

Personally? Probably two? But I’m the sort of conlanger who works on one language for years at a time, so all of my sketches seriously didn’t last more than a few days or so. They weren’t well developed past a general snapshot of features and I think one even had a definite phonology. Other conlangers are more serial conlangers and work on one language over a few months before starting the next project. Or they might have multiple projects going on at the same time.

I find myself too engrossed in what I am doing with my one conlang to even think of making another. It’s just one way of doing things, though, so there is no reason to compare yourself to me if you are the type to work on more different projects over a span of time.

I know that my cowriters (Jordan and Tommy) both have worked on more different conlang projects than I, so it might be worth asking them as well! I’ll see if either of them would want to edit their own personal experiences into this post. Keep an eye out for any edits here!

Best wishes,
Nick

——-

Personally, I’ve abandoned more than 5 in the sketch stage. I’ve worked on about 3 to a pretty advanced stage, but besides those 3, the rest have somewhat died during a phase that I call preconstruction (see my Birth of a Conlang series for more info!). Like Nick said, her method is pretty focused on one conlang at a time, I normally have more than one but it really depends.

Jordan, creator of Deconstructed Construction

I am studying linguistics in a university in Canada, and hoping to become a speech-pathologist. I moved there just last year, from the Philippines, and I don't speak English very well. Do you think I can be successful in this field? Thank you.

setavulos — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 22:39:56 -0400

Hi there! I’m glad you’ve decided that linguistics is the field for you! (Well, technically speech pathology which isn’t completely the same but Communication Sciences and Disorders is a more broad term that I personally know of from my university.)

That said, I’m not really sure if this is the sort of place to ask that kind of question, and I doubt that I’m the person to say how successful you’ll be in this field. Success is based on many things- your studies, for instance -not the opinion of some blogger from the internet (not to mention one not in your field). I have no idea of what is going on in your life and in your studies, but I know for sure that you are more qualified to judge how successful you are.

But, I can offer some tips for you!

Find some professors within your university and just start talking to them. I personally found that speaking with the professors and asking questions and getting advice was one of the best uses of my time at university.
Don’t be afraid to go out of your department! One of the best mentors I have had thus far wasn’t a part of the Communication Sciences and Disorders department, but rather, a part of the Spanish department!
Find some professionals in your field. There is nothing more helpful than talking to people who have already been through it all.
Talk to anyone you can that knows more than you, whether actual speech pathologists or just graduate (or even other undergraduate) students.
Research into your field whenever you get the chance. The more information you have about it, the better off you will be. If you can understand more than you should while you are at the level you are at (for example, understanding actual current research articles completely while still being in introductory classes) then that gives you an advantage. Plus it makes your feel more confident about what you are doing! Self-teaching is not necessarily a bad thing. Studying outside of classes is just as important as within the classroom.
Basically, just get as much information as you can! Whether it’s from books or other people, just go out there and try to learn as much as you can!

Most universities will have many resources for students to speak with professionals and get advice and experience, and I doubt your university is an exception to that. :)

As for your English, in this case it seemed just fine. Just keep working within the language and it should feel more natural to you. You’re probably on the right path already.

Thanks for the question! I hope some of this information will be helpful to you.

Best wishes,
Nick

Who is the sexiest conlanger you have ever known?

setavulos — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 09:09:00 -0400

Questions and Answers Week!

setavulos — Sun, 22 Jul 2012 14:43:00 -0400

Hello all Deconstructed Construction followers!

Instead of a normal post this week, I (Nick) will be holding a week of questions and answers!

Occasionally we get messages in our inbox about certain things related either to linguistics or conlanging, and I wanted to make sure that all of our followers have a chance to ask any questions that they have floating around. Of course, you can obviously send us questions at any time, but this is sort of a special occasion where there will be time set aside specifically to writing more personalized informational posts.

Our askbox can be found here. Don’t be shy!

Best wishes,
Nick

Historical Conlanging: Inspired by (Imagined) History and Made Possible by Cooperation

setavulos — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 10:17:47 -0400

Once in a while one might wonder what would the world be like if there was just a slight thing that had changed. This is the reason why thinking about alternate possibilities, even alternate histories is such a fun and entertaining process for people. It’s not just simply imagining that is the fun of it. If that were the case, it is probably easier to create something from whole cloth. I would have to say that the point and the allure of alternate history is that under some circumstance, it could have happened.

Take, for example, the language Brithenig. Brithenig is a conlang created in 1996 by Andrew Smith to experiment with the idea of Latin taking over as the dominant language rather than Celtic in Great Britain. Smith not only created the language of Brithenig, but incorporated into it a complete alternate history and timeline that would make this language possible to exist in a natural setting.

Granted, the alternate timeline (Ill Bethisad) only came about because of a large collaboration with others on it, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. One of the most interesting thing about conlanging and conworlding is that it is so easy for people to share their ideas and opinions on material given that they are well-enough informed to understand the material and are allowed to interact with others in a meaningful way that at the same time creates a product, an idea, that is just as meaningful. We have a community here that is more than open to discussion and collaboration. And that is a great thing.

I think the most interesting thing about any project is that people can form something so much more complicated than one mind can create. It gives it a realism that a single-person project can only strive for. It also takes things and brings them to interesting new places that are completely unexpected. Ill Bethisad is a great example of that, as well as other things going on in the community right now.

“There are several means by which the Members of this Project have created the alternate or pseudo history of Ill Bethisad. A project as long-running and with so many contributers (anymore both active and inactive) can’t be managed in a haphazard way. Nor can it really be run by a single person who is at the center of the creative activity. Indeed, in the first years, this was exactly how the project operated: the original deviser of the alternate history was at the center of a cadre of interested individuals.”

http://www.bethisad.com/principles.htm

It is sometimes not possible to use only one person for a project. It is impossible to have a relay without a friend to pass the message along to, just as it is impossible to play glossotechnia without someone else to challenge you to do better. Although that is not the same as creating a world by yourself- which is more than doable by one person -it does go to show how adding more people can add an element of human randomness to a project.

One doesn’t always have to look at the conlang itself to find inspiration for their own projects. Life takes us in many different directions, and you might start a project thinking that you’re going to be talking about alternate histories and the different influences languages have on one another and end up talking about cooperation and collaboration within individual projects and the conlanging community. Nonetheless, as long as something is moving forward, then it is worth the effort.

——-

Resources and Additional Reading:

Stephen D. Rogers. A Dictionary of Made-Up Languages: From Adûnaic to Elvish, Zaum to Klingon- The Anwa (Real) Origins of Invented Lexicons. Adams Media, 2011.

http://www.frathwiki.com/Brithenig

http://web.archive.org/web/20090529072556/http://hobbit.griffler.co.nz/introduction.html

http://www.bethisad.com/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brithenig

Please leave us feedback!

setavulos — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 20:27:46 -0400

deconstructedconstruction:

We have a form here for your convenience.

But if you would rather go by your own rules on the feedback, you may leave questions/comments/etc. in our ask (or mine if it is you prefer to speak directly to me about something I am doing on my own).

Edit: I will be responding to anonymous feedback in this post on my personal so not to clutter up this page with extraneous posts.

We want to hear from you!

justasseldom — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 19:48:00 -0400

We have heard some feedback from a few of you regarding the content and organization of the blog, but we’d really love to hear what you all have to say.

We are currently looking for suggestions for new series of posts. What do you guys want to hear? What do you want to learn? Do you want our opinions on something? We are open to anything you have to suggest. Since this blog is first and foremost a resource to the Tumblr conlanging community, we want to provide you with the advice and resources that you need so please don’t hesitate to ask!

-Jordan, creator of Deconstructed Construction

Calling all Tumblr conlang enthusiasts!

setavulos — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 19:44:05 -0400

deconstructedconstruction:

Having started this blog a little under a year ago, I can’t express enough how amazed I am at how well it has been received. Thank you for all your support.

We are now looking to grow a bit and add a few contributors to the blog who would write posts on a semi-regular or regular basis. If you are interested in joining a group of inspired conlang enthusiasts who are striving to help spread the love of conlanging to more and more people, please don’t hesitate to send an application as an ask and we will get back to you promptly. We are looking for 2 or 3 people to contribute so our next member could very well be you! (In your application, please include: name, age, how long you have been conlanging, a link to one of your conlangs if possible, any ideas you may have for a possible series of posts you would be interested in writing).

We are also now accepting submissions from all of you wondrous Tumblr conlangers. If you want your conlang reviewed or featured on our blog, send us a submission with a link to information about your conlang (if possible), the name of your conlang, a description of your language, a description of the con-culture who speaks it (if applicable), and anything else you think people would be interested in!

Thank you again for all the support you have given us!