Hey conlanging folks! The 11th Language Creation Conference list of presentations and registration are now up! April 11–13, U. Maryland (College Park).
LCC11 will have over 26 hours of content (over twice as much as our last in-person conference); two invited speakers (Deaf linguist Dr. Erin Moriarty Harrelson and blind linguist Dr. Sheri Wells-Jensen); ASL and BSL interpretation; two tracks; multiple specialty sessions, including sign languages, loglangs, and writing systems; both open and private meetups (Christian, pro conlanger, ASL signer, autistic, disabled, plural, queer, and trans & non-binary); and a special conlang-centric performance from the Riddlesbrood Touring Theater Company.
Please register by March 4th to have a say in scheduling and time allocations (it's in the registration form).
Register by March 11th to get early registration discount, and to order an LCC11 shirt (and to contribute your conlang to its design).
Regular in person registration is $95, online $30 — with discounts for early registration and LCS members, and as-able rates for self-declared financial need. Shirts are $20 plus shipping (if any), only available if ordered by March 11th.
We look forward to seeing you all there! Please, I would ask anyone who sees this to spread the announcement and news far and wide. It would really help us get the word out about our event! This year’s conference is *by far* the largest and most ambitious LCC yet.
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I've talked about Léna and Kkeṛhaqom on this blog, but never mentioned my most fleshed-out conlang, Rhodian. You can read all about it here but in short, it's a fictional Romance language heavily influenced by Doric Greek.
Anyway, I've been translating my favourite novel, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet into it, and this has been my favourite paragraph so far. The first paragraph of chapter 2 is as follows:
Vyvre i cenoma erat omnia extra quietu. Terralaoi nunquau ftanerun. Alicui vo aluit i cton, esit modìcu suescre tos torbos e crepitos naou; atmosfera sempre ỳ cu ner tça macýn vecet. Ashby-a, iste fone eran ast tau hameré eiie pulsasiene. Y potuit notare quû devuerit ciere se ab gemite filtra abros eie cliné tegu. Quû saxa creperun to corpu forý cu eora pittettia gregale, ecvat quy eran sates parvy pre agnoere e quy eran cíndunoi. Y ecvat ab aritme pomecîie triens trans radio quantu mecu gegit intre y e ántropu ci podio alla. Te iste eran fone vyte prostranstvistoru, ys susensu vulnerablitas e macritas. Memnescerun helicou clablies esset, esse vyvu. Sè iste fone valuerun cê siriau. Absentia fone valuit aber ne effluxit magi, dvigateli ne poivet magi, retia tîazcesta fabriles ne tenuerun magi der podia ci hume. Silentia erat merx vacuie forá. Silentia erat mors.
Translation: Living in space was anything but quiet. Grounders never expected that. For anyone who had grown up planetside, it took some time to get used to the clicks and hums of a ship, the ever-present ambiance that came with living inside a piece of machinery. But to Ashby, those sounds were as ordinary as his own heartbeat. He could tell when it was time to wake by the sigh of the air filter over his bed. When rocks hit the outer hull with their familiar pattering, he knew which were small enough to ignore, and which meant trouble. He could tell by the amount of static crackling over the ansible how far away he was from the person on the other end. These were the sounds of spacer life, an underscore of vulnerability and distance. They were reminders of what a fragile thing it was to be alive. But those sounds also meant safety. An absence of sound meant that air was no longer flowing, engines no longer running, artigrav nets no longer holding your feet to the floor. Silence belonged to the vacuum outside. Silence was death.
Räzan's phonology & orthography resemble those of the neighbouring Upper Germanic varieties, much moreso than it resembles those of other Romance languages.
Consonants
/ŋ/ is an allophone of /n/ before velars, but can occur independently in educated speech in some loanwords
Unlike other consonants, voicing of /s/ is not entirely predictable. In general, it can be treated as a single phoneme, but intervocalically can be treated as two different phonemes /z/ and /s/ one of which undergoes voicing and the other of which does not
/h/ is an allophone of /x/ occurring word-initially
/v/ is the most common realisation of /ʋ/, the latter of which only occurs word-initially). It is not distinguished from /f/ intervocalically
Unless indicated otherwise, the second phone listed occurs intervocalically (and, for fricatives and affricates if they are the sole word initial consonant)
Vowels
/ə/ is an allophone of /ɛ/ & /e:/ which occurs in unstressed syllables (stress is usually on the initial syllable, and from the primary stress on, syllables alternate between unstressed, and secondarily stressed. The final syllable of polysyllabic words is always unstressed)
/i/ is the “long” counterpart of the “short” /ɪ/
/e:/ is the “long” counterpart to the “short” /ɛ/
The positions of the vowels and diphthongs on the vowel chart are shown below
Orthography
The Räzan alphabet consists of the basic Latin alphabet and four additional letters (ä, ö, ü, and ß), of which six letters (b, c, d, g, v, and y) only occur in recent or learned loanwords. There are also eight digraphs, of which two (ng, and qu) only occur in recent or learned loanwords, and four trigraphs.
<a> represents /a:/ or /a/
<ä> represents /ɛ̞:/ or /ɛ̞/
<au> represents /aʊ̯/
<b> represents /p ~ b/ in recent or learned loanwords. Usually voiced in all positions
<c> represents /k ~ g/ or /s ~ z/ before <e>, <ei>, <eu>, <i>, <ie>, or <j>; it only occurs in recent or learned loanwords
<ch> represents /x ~ ɣ ~ h/
<chu> represents /ʋ ~ v/ initially or the cluster /xf/ otherwise
<d> represents /t ~ d/ in recent or learned loanwords. Usually voiced in all positions
<e> represents /e: ~ ə/ or /ɛ ~ ə/
<ei> represents /aɪ̯/
<eu> represents /ɔʏ̯/
<f> represents /f ~ v/
<g> represents /k ~ g/ or /tʃ ~ dʒ/ before <e>, <ei>, <eu>, <i>, <ie>, or <j>; it only occurs in recent or learned loanwords. Usually voiced in all positions
<h> is silent. It may be used between vowels to indicate hiatus, or appear initially with no phonetic implication due to etymology. Occasionally represents /x ~ ɣ ~ h/ in recent or learned loanwords
<i> represents /i/ or /ɪ/
<ie> represents /i:/
<j> represents /j/, but occasionally represents /tʃ ~ dʒ/ in some recent loanwords
<k> represents /k ~ g/
<kch> represents /kx/
<l> represents /l/
<m> represents /m/
<n> represents /n ~ ŋ/
<ng> represents the cluster /ŋk/ in recent or learned loanwords. Sometimes pronounced as /ŋ/ in learned speech if no stop follows in the source language
<o> represents /o:/ or /ɔ/
<ö> represents /ø:/ or /œ/
<p> represents /p ~ b/
<pf> represents /pf/
<q> represents /k ~ g/ in recent or learned loanwords, usually pronounced /k/ in all positions
<qu> represents the cluster /kf/ in recent or learned loanwords
<r> represents /ʁ ~ ɐ̯/
<s> represents /s ~ z/
<sch> represents /ʃ ~ ʒ/
<ß> represents /s/ which is unvoiced in all positions
<t> represents /t ~ d/
<tsch> represents /tʃ ~ dʒ/
<u> represents /u:/ or /ʊ/
<ü> represents /y:/ or /ʏ/
<v> represents /ʋ ~ v/ in recent or learned loanwords
<w> represents /ʋ ~ v/
<x> represents the cluster /ks/
<y> represents /j/, /y:/ or /ʏ/ in recent or learned loanwords. Represents a vowel in Greek and Scandinavian loanwords, otherwise usually represents a glide
<z> represents /ts ~ dz/
Vowels take their long form if written with a single consonant (including <h>, but not including clusters represented with a single sign e.g. <x>, <qu>, or <ng>) between them and the following vowel, or in monophthongs ending in at most one consonant. Doubled consonants are not geminates but simply serve to mark the previous vowel as short and the lack of voicing.
Sound Changes
The main sound changes are roughly as follows:
The vowels are broadly Western Romance
The High German Consonant Shift is proceeds completely with p t k > f ss h intervocalically, and p t k > pf ts h otherwise, with voiced stops devoicing b d g > p t k
Back vowels umlaut when followed by i or e with at most one intervening consonant
Räzan (not to be confused with Rhaeto-Romance with also derives its name from Rhaetia) is a romance conlang (or romlang) spoken in Switzerland and Austria on and near the southern coast of Lake Constance, but historically spoken in parts of Baden-Wurtemburg and Bavaria. It is spoken by a relict of the Romans who traded across the Germanic limes from Rhaetia into Germania, in a world otherwise the same as our own.
It was cut off from other Romance languages by the early Germanic migrants, and invaders and so partakes in few shared sound changes with the other Romance languages. On the other hand, due to almost universal bilingualism with local Germanic languages, Räzan underwent many of the same sound changes as Alemannic and Bavarian German, notably the High German Consonant Shift which became productive about the time Räzan was cut off from the main Romance dialect continuum of the Western Empire.
Vowel reduction has resulted in a large degree of case syncretism, with only the genitive remaining. It also resulted in a loss of gender distinction except in the genitive plural of adjectives, where it was eliminated due to the lack of distinction in most instances. Personal pronouns have retained a distinct oblique case used for direct objects and as the object of prepositions.
The verb system has been reduced dramatically and is now largely parallel to that in German. Unlike the other Romance languages, it hasn’t developed new synthetic tenses (such as a conditional or future tense) through compounding with auxiliaries; instead it has a present tense, a preterite descended from the Latin perfect), and a subjunctive which has no tense distinction and doubles as an jussive and imperative.
The 1st, 2nd, & 4th conjugations remain intact, with the 3rd conjugation merging into the 4th. Their infinitive endings are -är, -ir, & -aur respectively. There is a complex series of stem alterations, with each verb having three stems defined by three principle parts, the first is the infinitive, the second is the present first person singular, and the third is the preterite first person singular. The past participle has also acquired a prefix modelled after the Germanic ge-.
The 1st, 2nd, & 3rd declensions remain intact in nouns but, whilst it is proscribed by traditional authorities, the 4th & 5th declensions have merged into the 2nd declension. Whilst it is usually proscribed by traditional authorities, the 3rd declension adjectives (and the feminine forms of 1st & 2nd declension adjectives) are usually merged into the 2nd declension. Each noun has two stems defined by two principle parts, the first is the nominative singular, and the second is the genitive plural whose stem is used in all other forms.
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