Hello all! This is my blog for conlanging, linguistics, and the like. I'm an amateur linguist and I don't know everything but I like learning about languages and how they work, as well as how they operate. Here's where else you can find me:
♡ @koifish-komeiji - main blog
♡ @koishiarts - art blog
♡ @/koishiarts- bluesky
Thank you for stopping by ^^!
LANGUAGES:
☆ Mewling Family
♡ MEWLING/ELDERMEWLING - Summary / Writing System / Tag
☆ Seraphic Family
♡ COLLECTIVE SERAPHIC - Summary / Writing System / Declensions / Tag
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Got any tips for evolving a language without keeping one's sanity?
I got into conlanging through Biblaridion's videos, which talked about creating naturalistic languages, and I had fun doing that... for a whole hour before I started burning out on keeping track of every sound change and word I come up with. But I digress, lol.
Back to my question, how do you make such in depth languages with histories behind them without getting bored or burnt out?
Long answer: I don't. I get bored all the time. When that happens, I usually just work on another language for a bit. There's always something in other languages I'm working on that I need to do, whether it be fleshing out grammar or adding more words to the lexicon. But even then, if I'm not in the mood to work on any language at all, I just... don't work on them. If I want to do something else I do something else. I can't really force myself to do something I don't want to do without any repercussions, or else my body just straight freaks out. So I only work on languages when I'm in the mood to.
I will say, one thing that's really *really* streamlined the process for me is that I use Lexurgy to keep track and apply sound changes. Honestly it is a GODSEND especially with inflection-heavy languages. You can just pop in the proto-forms and it will give you the modern versions of it, so I can input all the proto-forms of noun declension or verb conjugations and it will give me the words that I need. EXTREMELY useful honestly for helping develop my lexicon. I will say there is a bit of a learning curve to it though. It's basically, like, coding, and sometimes you won't know how to express a rule without some hiccups, but once you get the hang of it it's PRETTY STABLE as far as managing sound changes. And really your first pass of sound changes might not be enough, you might wind up needing to add more rules or refine preexisting ones because they cause or ignore a sound change that you didn't quite anticipate. With the Mewling languages, I didn't use it, so I had to go through each word individually and evolve it myself from a list of sound changes I kept. With the Seraphic languages I started out with that process, but eventually transferred all the sound changes to Lexurgy and I basically use that when forming new words. With Ancestral (and Pushmari, still in development), I now write the sound changes in Lexurgy as I go, which cuts out the middle man. I'm sure there a better ways of doing it, but I need the repetitive stuff done in 0.2 seconds so I can actually *work* on the deep, important stuff in a language.
I have been avoiding working on the story of Qom while / by organizing the lexicon (reorganizing, really) of Classical Swira … and not finishing that, either. While that goes on, it seems that it doesn’t matter that I prune every single protolanguage etymon that I no longer use, and that is a waste of time for now, at least. So I’m focusing on cleaning up particular semantic domains. This time, it’s the kinship terms.
(Of course, having done so, mewling central beat me to it & made a prettier chart.)
You may remember from a while ago, the kinship terms for the protolanguage.
Swira terms are mostly an update of this. This gives us:
In the traditional anthropological six-type typology of kinship systems, it seems to be somewhere between “Inuit” (because it doesn’t distinguish cousins much) and Sudanese (because it does distinguish different types of uncles). In addition, it distinguishes relative age within generations – both ego’s generation and the parents.
Many kinship systems will merge particular relationships in one term. I considered giving Swira a different set of kinship term mergers – all relatives of one’s own and one’s parent’s generation are referred to by the same term IF they are younger than the parent but older than you. Additionally, all people in ego’s generation, younger than ego, are ‘younger sibling’ regardless of whether they’re a biological sibling or cousin. (I don’t know if any earthly society does so, but why not? It does at least fit one rule of kinship which I do observe, which is that more distinctions are made in older ages / generations than younger ones. However, I did not do this for the chart.)
Many of these have multiple forms. I have shown one form, the “free” form, which is unbound, usually used in a direct address, sometimes in place of a name – and in some cases is found as a generic noun, for example, lara is also a typical word for just ‘old man.’ It is common to extend kinship terms to some people to whom one is not really related. For example, it is polite to address strange old men and women as “grandfather / grandmother,” and the terms without a personal prefix generally mean just “old man / old woman.”These words also have conjugated forms with a personal possessive prefix, which form may differ from the unbound form. For example, muku has the bound form just -mu as in kʷemu ‘my son.’
One thing I wanted to do is to have terms resemble each other in a “family-resemblance” way that is not entirely regular. Many of the words have broad regularities going back to the protolanguage, but altered by sound changes – visible in the o- on parternal relatives and the na- on maternal ones. That said, having all the words be etymologically / morphologically-derived / related isn’t super real. One thing I thing I’ve noticed while looking at kinship terms, is that (like names for sexes and ages of animals), when a language distinguishes numerous different words for different relationships, they’re often different roots, rather than transparently derived from some kind of ‘mother’s side’ / ‘father’s side’ / ‘in-law’ prefix as seen here. But I kind of like it, and don’t see any reason why it CAN’T be.
Another thing: cousins can be referred to as brothers or sisters, but also with the descriptor iksi. Iksi has not changed, but the etymology has. In the protolanguage kinship post, iksi simply is, it doesn't have any morphological complexity. However, I realized it could also be evolution of *isǝkǝg, and thus could be derived from *isa 'blood.' In that case it should refer to paternal (blood) cousins, but I figure it has extended to all cousins.
Here's the kinship terminology for the Ancestral language! Ancestral kinship is a modified version of Iroquois kinship, where the same gendered siblings of your parents/grandparents share the same term, while separate gendered siblings of your parents/grandparents have differing terms. Diluvians as a species are pretty sexually monomorphic, and biological sex isn't immediately apparent until a diluvian reaches sexual maturity. And in once you do, whether you have male or female sexual organs is largely irrelevant. Your sex is defined as being either homoecious (having both male and female organs), or monoecious (having either male OR female sexual organs, but able to switch when necessary). In Ancestral culture then, your gender isn't dictated by your sex , but by your parenting role; for Ancestral diluvians, the distinction is "mother" vs. "father" instead of "female" vs. "male". Since both homoecious and monoecious diluvians are capable of both gestation and fertilization, the roles are defined as which diluvian gestates (the mother) and which fertilizes (the father).
In Ancestral society, adults are expected to reproduce at least once in their lifetime, and so it is likely that one's parents' siblings have reproduced as well and knowing which term to refer them as will be based on that fact (e.g. if one's mother has a sibling who gestated a child, they would share the same gender of "mother" regardless of biological sex and, as far as kinship is concerned, would be referred to by the same term). Since these terms only are regularly applicable to adults whom have reproduced, you only see these distinctions in generations prior to the ego. In concurrent and future generations, the distinction doesn't matter. This is a remnant of the Proto-Ancestral kinship system, which was a Hawaiian kinship system. For in-laws, the term you'd refer to them as should reflect the term for your blood relatives. Your mother's sister is called "mother", so her spouse would be "father". Your mother's brother is called "uncle", so his spouse would be "aunt". And so on and so forth.
@yuk-tepat GREAT QUESTION LEGIT and to answer your question, yes! It's actually a pretty common occurrence. An individual can gestate one child and fertilize for another. For the child whom they gestated, they'd be called "mother", and for the child they fertilized, they'd be called "father". So there are cases of parents whom are called mother by one kid and father by another. Ancestral and eventually Pushmari culture are matrilineal, though. Everything passes down through the maternal line, although as Ancestral culture evolves into Pushmari it becomes less matriarchal (but echoes of it are still there). And since Pushmari society has a very rigid caste system, you would inherit your caste through your mother. There could be cases of siblings who share a parent but are of different castes because the parent acted as a mother for one and a father for another (though intercaste marriage wasn't allowed in the empire so recorded cases are few and far in between).
I don't know anything about Classical or Pushmari culture, or its stratification, but I can imagine this making things interesting for court politics. Like aristocratic marriage negotiations. There would be a lot of incentive for everyone to gestate and make the other partner fertilize. "Your clan is already big and powerful enough because you keep insisting your offspring gestate, so everyone belongs to YOUR clan, but we agreed that if we arranged our offspring to be married, that it was only on condition that YOUR child fertilizes, and OURS gets to gestate this time." (Assuming they have that kind of politics.)
Oh you have NO idea. Upper class Pushmari society is, similar to our world, rife with deceit and backstabbing and political mind games for the sake of gaining power and prestige. Something like this is DEFINITELY par for the course. And every imperial house is striving for one thing: to marry into the ruling imperial family.
Here's the kinship terminology for the Ancestral language! Ancestral kinship is a modified version of Iroquois kinship, where the same gendered siblings of your parents/grandparents share the same term, while separate gendered siblings of your parents/grandparents have differing terms. Diluvians as a species are pretty sexually monomorphic, and biological sex isn't immediately apparent until a diluvian reaches sexual maturity. And in once you do, whether you have male or female sexual organs is largely irrelevant. Your sex is defined as being either homoecious (having both male and female organs), or monoecious (having either male OR female sexual organs, but able to switch when necessary). In Ancestral culture then, your gender isn't dictated by your sex , but by your parenting role; for Ancestral diluvians, the distinction is "mother" vs. "father" instead of "female" vs. "male". Since both homoecious and monoecious diluvians are capable of both gestation and fertilization, the roles are defined as which diluvian gestates (the mother) and which fertilizes (the father).
In Ancestral society, adults are expected to reproduce at least once in their lifetime, and so it is likely that one's parents' siblings have reproduced as well and knowing which term to refer them as will be based on that fact (e.g. if one's mother has a sibling who gestated a child, they would share the same gender of "mother" regardless of biological sex and, as far as kinship is concerned, would be referred to by the same term). Since these terms only are regularly applicable to adults whom have reproduced, you only see these distinctions in generations prior to the ego. In concurrent and future generations, the distinction doesn't matter. This is a remnant of the Proto-Ancestral kinship system, which was a Hawaiian kinship system. For in-laws, the term you'd refer to them as should reflect the term for your blood relatives. Your mother's sister is called "mother", so her spouse would be "father". Your mother's brother is called "uncle", so his spouse would be "aunt". And so on and so forth.
@yuk-tepat GREAT QUESTION LEGIT and to answer your question, yes! It's actually a pretty common occurrence. An individual can gestate one child and fertilize for another. For the child whom they gestated, they'd be called "mother", and for the child they fertilized, they'd be called "father". So there are cases of parents whom are called mother by one kid and father by another. Ancestral and eventually Pushmari culture are matrilineal, though. Everything passes down through the maternal line, although as Ancestral culture evolves into Pushmari it becomes less matriarchal (but echoes of it are still there). And since Pushmari society has a very rigid caste system, you would inherit your caste through your mother. There could be cases of siblings who share a parent but are of different castes because the parent acted as a mother for one and a father for another (though intercaste marriage wasn't allowed in the empire so recorded cases are few and far in between).
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Here's the kinship terminology for the Ancestral language! Ancestral kinship is a modified version of Iroquois kinship, where the same gendered siblings of your parents/grandparents share the same term, while separate gendered siblings of your parents/grandparents have differing terms. Diluvians as a species are pretty sexually monomorphic, and biological sex isn't immediately apparent until a diluvian reaches sexual maturity. And in once you do, whether you have male or female sexual organs is largely irrelevant. Your sex is defined as being either homoecious (having both male and female organs), or monoecious (having either male OR female sexual organs, but able to switch when necessary). In Ancestral culture then, your gender isn't dictated by your sex , but by your parenting role; for Ancestral diluvians, the distinction is "mother" vs. "father" instead of "female" vs. "male". Since both homoecious and monoecious diluvians are capable of both gestation and fertilization, the roles are defined as which diluvian gestates (the mother) and which fertilizes (the father).
In Ancestral society, adults are expected to reproduce at least once in their lifetime, and so it is likely that one's parents' siblings have reproduced as well and knowing which term to refer them as will be based on that fact (e.g. if one's mother has a sibling who gestated a child, they would share the same gender of "mother" regardless of biological sex and, as far as kinship is concerned, would be referred to by the same term). Since these terms only are regularly applicable to adults whom have reproduced, you only see these distinctions in generations prior to the ego. In concurrent and future generations, the distinction doesn't matter. This is a remnant of the Proto-Ancestral kinship system, which was a Hawaiian kinship system. For in-laws, the term you'd refer to them as should reflect the term for your blood relatives. Your mother's sister is called "mother", so her spouse would be "father". Your mother's brother is called "uncle", so his spouse would be "aunt". And so on and so forth.
Here's another piece I wrote in Proto-Seraphic! I've fired it and it came out on one piece so now this is here forever! It's the first paragraph and a half of Ea-Nasir's complaint tablet translated into Proto-Seraphic
Clitics fully affix onto words. The Proto-Ancestral singular personal pronouns become the person agreement prefixes on verbs, so the plural person pronouns take their place, becoming singular in meaning.
Ergative loses its comitative meaning, and the imperfective patient voice participle form of the verb "to make" is used adverbially for the meaning of "with/using". The clitic "tomorrow" affixes onto the verb, forming the crastinal tense. The verb "to need" changes to mean "to have/hold". The auxiliary verb for the perfective aspect affixes onto the verb, forming a true perfective aspect. The subjunctive modal verb inflects into this perfective aspect, carrying the meaning of "to need, to have to, must", replacing the former verb "to need". Symmetrical voice begins being used.
Classical Ancestral
1S.ABS.[TOP] 2S.GEN with CRAS.1-play-PV | 1S.ABS.[TOP] home-LAT go-INF NPST.1.NEC.PV
Symmetrical voice is lost. The proximal determinative "this" starts to be used as a definite article to help encode topics. Crastinal tense becomes the future tense, and the phrase "tomorrow (lit. into the morning)" is used to denote "tomorrow". The patient voice form of the verb "to play" is also lost, and is replaced with the locative voice form. Most noun cases are lost, the ablative and perlative replacing the genitive and all locative cases respectively. Former postpositions in Ancestral become clitics, attaching to the end of either the ablative or perlative form of the nouns they modify. Definite article is also precedes the infinitive form of verbs. Half of all languages in the Pushmari family stem from this stage, due to spread of Pushmari culture during Araucana's conquest.
Messed around with a recent translation in CSP to try and make it look like it was carved in stone. This is written in the hieroglyphic new style. Here's the text and translation:
"Whenever sentient beings are in trouble, afflicted by calamity or suffering, and call upon me, I will respond and help them. If they call me, even with a single thought, I will appear to them in countless forms to relieve their suffering. Those who see me, hear me, or think of me with devotion, I will guide them to safety and happiness. If there are beings who are distressed by fire, water, poison, or demons, I will manifest to protect them. I appear in many forms to heal, teach and save all those who suffer, according to their needs."
"Avalokiteshvara"
"Sutra on the White Lotus of the True Dharma"
know-IPFV.AV.PTCP being-ABS.[TOP] destroy-PFV.AV.PTCP with or hurt-IPFV.PV.PTCP with hunt-INF MIR.INF NPST.3.COND.PV | and.CLS 1S.ABS NPST.3-call-IPFV.AV | all-ABS 3S.ABS NPST.1-respond-PFV.AV and.CLS NPST.1-help-PFV.AV || one.thing.MW.ATTR thought-DAT even call-INF NPST.1.COND.PV | all-GEN 3S-GEN pain-ABS NPST.1-heal-IPFV.AV so.that | all-LAT 3S.LAT number-GEN without form-GEN as NPST.1-appear-PFV.PV || 1S.ABS see-IPFV.AV.REL | or hear-IPFV.AV.REL | or devotion-DAT think-IPFV.AV.REL all-ABS 3S.ABS.[TOP] 1S.ERG safety-LAT and happiness-LAT NPST.3-guide-PFV.PV || fire-DAT or water-DAT or poison-DAT or demon-DAT hurt-IPFV.PV.REL being-ABS exist-INF NPST.3.COND.PV | 1S.LAT.[TOP] all-ABS 3S.ABS protect-INF NPST.1-display-PFV.LOCV || need-DAT according.to | suffer-IPFV.PV.REL all-ABS 3S.ABS many-GEN form-GEN as heal-INF | and.CLS teach-INF | and.CLS save-INF NPST.1-appear–IPFV.AV ||
I uploaded an old work stream from 2019 when I was creating the Chakobsa font for Dune. It had no audio, so I never did anything with it. Today Jessie and I watched it and recorded commentary seven years on. It was fun. :)
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Man I wish there was a way to my a typeface for logographic systems like Mayan, so I can make one for Ancestral. Sure it'd be like the most work ever, but that's just part of the fun
I've been learning to harvest clay and I used my very first batch to write something in Proto-Seraphic! It was a writing system originally meant to be written in clay so I'm very glad it came out so clear. On the left is the unfired tablet and the write is the fired tablet. It ended up cracking and breaking (first time firing greenware whoops) but I don't mind because it gives it an archaeological feel to it!
Ndeytğĺ pr-afwék ju-Tawawí, qe pr-vim ju-Kirawí, qe pr-jahwúvim ju-Tlad.
PFV.FUT.RES=that.[DIST] by (o).HEAT.[SG] of tëwėlwī and by (t).light.[SG] of cīralwī and by (m).crop-PL of tlāod
"By the warmth of Tëwėlwī (the Nurturer; Sun deity), by the light of Cīralwī (the Protector; moon god), by the gifts of Tlāod (the Firmament; earth goddess), it shall be."
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I've been playing around with a phonetic respelling of my dialect of English (California/Southwestern American English) and I wanna show off the ideas I had.
ā = /eɪ/ make
ă = /æ/ cat
ē = /i/ scene
ĕ = /ɛ/ hen
ī = /aɪ/ high
ĭ = /ɪ/ pick
ō = /oʊ/ low
ŏ = /ɑ/ lot
ū = /ju/ hue
ŭ = /ʌ/ mut
ōō = /u/ mood
ŏŏ = /ʊ/ wood
ow = /aʊ/ plow
oy = /ɔɪ/ soy
er = /ɚ/ fern
The letter 'c' isn't used, only 'k' and 's', otherwise everything else is spelled how it sounds. Altogether it looks like this, here's the UDHR:
I like how this sorta bridges the gap between traditional English orthography we're used to, and more accurate IPA-based pronunciation. I'm wondering if I should distinguish the dental fricatives, or the voiced post-alveolar fricative, but I'm not set on it all that much. The vowel symbols I got the idea from learning phonics in elementary school, which I feel like was a pretty succinct system actually. I have no doubt that something like this already exists and has existed for a while, and none of this is original whatsoever, but eh whatever I'm having fun. What do y'all think?
A recording of the Imperial Pushmari congregation chanting the Tëwėlwīrė Nėřëu (Hymn to the Nurturer). Below is the transliteration and translation, and under the read below is more information about the hymn itself, as well as the aspects of the chanting itself.
"I humble myself before The Nurturer, and cleanse myself of all impurities in Your presence."
"O Nurturer, The Shining One, You who Illuminate the Heavens and the Earth, The Eternal Flame, the Flower which Blooms Endlessly in All Directions, born from the Spark of the Stars, Firstborn Amongst All, Ruler of all the Universe, Great God of the Sun;"
"You are the supreme god above all else, whose light and warmth reaches into every corner of the universe. How beauteous Your form, how perfect Your will, how resplendent Your warmth. Your light is so luminous, shining forth from Your tail, that it obscures Your face in glowing aurora. The wandering stars of Adam and Eve trace a path in the sky, and all of the World rejoices in Your splendor and Your perfection."
"By the warmth of the Nurturer, it shall be so."
On the hymn:
The Tëwėlwīrė Nėřëu is a famous liturgy recited often in the Imperial Custom of the Empire of Pushmar. It is a hymn dedicated to Tëwėlwī (The Nurturer), the Pushmari god of the Sun and supreme god of the Imperial Custom. It is one of many hymns dedicated to the Nurturer, but is notable in that it is the first one to be written in the Pushmari Canon. It is often chanted at the beginning of morning services to purify the hearts and minds of the rrōñolwī (sages, clergy) as they begin their preparations to perform their duties. Being one of the older hymns, it is written in the traditional Hymn style which is as follows:
Ñëmyal [ɲǽ.mʲal] (Ablution, lit. "washing") - an declaration, usually a stock phrase, affirming that one intends to present themself honorably before the Gods and purify themselves of darkness and impurity.
Lōñal [lɔ́.ɲal] (Invocation, lit. "calling, summoning") - an address to the god(s) whom the prayer is intended for, often listing many of their titles and epithets.
Ëñwėlo [ǽ.ɲʷæ.lɔ] (Veneration, lit. "celebrating, honoring") - a celebration of the god's many attributes, often referencing well known stories pertaining to their triumphs or generosity.
Ëñėlo [ǽ.ɲæ.lɔ] (Incantation, lit "making pray, worship") - a mantra encapsulating the essence of the hymn itself and invoking the will of higher powers/deeper magics.
On the chant:
The Pushmari style of chanting follows a specific format. In this instance, since it's the first hymn of the day, special rrōñolwī know as ōlwi (horn players) announce the beginning of the hymn and of the period of chanting, prayer, and ritual purification. Then, the ringing of the ēmya řëubarr (great bell) signals the lōñolwī (lead chanter) to begin singing the ñëmyal (this will usually be done by the highest-ranking sage in the temple). Unlike the majority of the chant, the ñëmyal is sung in a specific style known as wōjonōw lā (turning/spiralling way) marked by expressive use of microtonal glides and transitions, vocal flips, and drawn-out, unstructured changes in meter.
The ēmya řëubarr is struck once more, and the lōñolwī leads the rest of the congregation in the main chant. Several instruments also accompany them, mainly for the sake of keeping time. The main beat is kept by the ñā cujōz (hand drum), while the larger tōmwėo cujōz (standing drum) provides a contrasting WHOLE WHOLE HALF-WHOLE pattern. The ījel řëubarr (flat bells/chimes) keep time by ringing on the stressed/high-pitched syllable of every word, and the iřeb řëubarr (small bell) is struck for the first syllable of every word.
The chanters themselves chant in a specific style (in this case they're chanting in F minor pentatonic), mainly chanting the stressed syllable of words in the tonic, while unstressed syllables are chanted on the minor 7th. Each syllable is chanted for one beat, except for dipthongs, which are chanted as two half-beats. For diphthongs starting on stressed syllables, the notes fall from the tonic to the minor 7th, while in diphthongs starting on unstressed syllables the notes fall from the minor 7th to the 5th. The entirety ėñwėlo is chanted in one continuous phrase. The ėñėlo, on the other hand, is chanted at a slower tempo without the accompaniment of other instruments, with the final syllable ending on the 5th.
The ījel řëubarr are struck nine times to invoke the powers of the Three Sacred Roots (The Nurturer [sun], The Protector [moon], The Firmament [earth]) and the Six Children of Heaven (The Canopy [sky], The Ashen [fire], The Minstrel [thought], The Ocean [sea], The Thresher [harvest], The Misfit [death]), and the ēmya řëubarr is struck for a final time, concluding the recitation of the hymn.
