Conlangery Podcast

For our 52nd episode we decided to take a break from our usual format and just have a good time talking about movies and TV shows — with a conlang twist.  So, here we are listening to a bunch of conlang (and pseudo-conlang) dialogue from various properties and talking a little about what we like... Read more »

We go a little out of our comfort zone and talk about language history — particularly as involves the diachronic method of creating a conlang.  Then we move on to some talk about a language called Dimana Lokud. Top of Show Greeting: Oupe Links and Resources: Wikipedia on the Neogrammarians Book with some information on... Read more »

In today’s bonus-size episode we have Carsten Becker on to join in a great discussion on the technologies of writing:  implements, media, formats, and even literacy itself.  Then we have an invigorating discussion with Larry Sulky about his “artlangy-engelang” Qakwan, among other things. Top of Show Greeting: Treyll Links and Resources: Palm Leaves as a... Read more »

This week, we have Jim Henry on the show to talk about his long-term labor of love, the “engelangy artlang” gjâ-zym-byn.  But first we talk in great detail about noun phrases and many of the things you can do with them. Top of Show Greeting: Qakwan Links and Resources: A paper on sentence word order and... Read more »

After a discussion of George’s recent consumption of bear meat, we get to talking about designing your sound system, a topic we meant to talk about in episode 29 but somehow didn’t end up saying much about.  After a long discussion about that topic, we feature perhaps the second most famous auxlang in history, which... Read more »

Today we talk about something we wish more conlangers would think about creating — isolating and analytic languages.  It seems that virtually everyone wants some polysynthetic madness or at least a complex verb paradigm, but there are ways to make isolation and analytic syntax interesting, we promise!  Also, Taila Top of Show Greeting: Hra’anh Links... Read more »

Check out the Serpent’s Tongue kickstarter I mentioned at the top of the show! After teasing Mike a bit about his trip to an Anime convention, we get down to business on how to make your conlang fit into a conworld.  Then we cover an interesting and enigmatically-named Arka language. Top of Show Greeting: German (translation... Read more »

This week we talk about the many peculiarities of how questions can be handled in your language.  Join us as we explore not only polar and content questions, but also talk about rhetorical and conjectural ones as well, with some insight on how different languages handle them.  We also have a natlang featured today, one... Read more »

First of all, George was on something called FourCast a bit ago.  You might enjoy it.  Also, CNN is doing a special on Dothraki on April 8.  But the meat of this podcast is all about negation: how to deal with scope, negative concord, and a number of other issues in your conlang.  Oh, and... Read more »

Today, we spend a ridiculous amount of time talking about adpositions, creating an hour-long discussion out of something William thought would be short.  We also have an extra special featured conlang today — one hand crafted specifically for this podcast! Top of Show Greeting: Opaki Aŋkuati Links and Resources: WALS: Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase... Read more »

We introduce you to a new host: Mike Lentine.  Then we cover the different ways you can get rid of adjectives or at least fuzz the distinctions between them and other word classes.  Also, we try to figure out what Lojban is all about. Top of Show Greeting: Esperanto (translation by William) Featured Conlang: Lojban... Read more »

Bianca’s last show as a regular host goes into a rather ambitious topic: discourse particles.  Go listen to the show, because it’s too complicated a subject for me to summarize properly here.  We also feature a natlang going by two names. Top of Show Greeting: Amjati Links and Resources: Paper with a typology and some... Read more »

After a big announcement, we delve into the mysteries and wonders of creating dialects, reviewing natlang tendencies and talking about some techniques that can be used to mimic them, and then we talk about a quite interesting conlang as well. Top of Show Greeting: Palezi Urca Links and Resources: Wikipedia on Romance Languages Emesal (a... Read more »

George gets Bianca’s name wrong and no one notices.  We also have some digressions at the beginning and the end of the show, but somehow we end up talking a whole lot about noun incorporation, and the weird and wacky language known as Gevey. Top of Show Greeting: Vaida Mi Ha Links and Resources: Notes... Read more »

Today we talk all about derivational morphology and what can be done with it.  We also spend some time talking about Proto-Deithas Top of Show Greeting: Sindarin (translation by Roman Rausch) Links and Resources: Gary Shannon’s notes on related words Lexical Semantics Agent nominalizations Nominalization in Thai Featured Conlang: Proto-Deithas

Aszev of the CBB joins us for a little talk about the many kinds of phonological processes: what they are, what you can do with them, why the order of processes in important.  We also review the awesomely well-developed Novegradian with its 500-page grammar and excellent dictionary. Top of Show Greeting: Talmit Links and Resources:... Read more »

CORRECTION: A commenter below graciously corrected me on a point I (George) raised in the show.  When I talk about desiderative languages, please replace that word with dechticaetiative.  Look to the comments below for a relevant link.  I apologize for misidentifying the phenomenon I was talking about. We talk a lot about morphosyntactic alignment, outlining the basic... Read more »

What do you do when you want to make a language without case marking?  Or with very little case marking?  That is what we attempt to explore in this episode.  If you would like to take up George’s “homework” challenge, make up a sketch of a language and send an example of some sort of... Read more »

Alternate Title: Genders, Classes, and Agreement, oh my! We talk today all about gender.  Or noun class.  Or both.  Really, they are the same thing, at least we think so.  Anyway, after a vivid and lively discussion on what can be done with the wonderful world of arbitrarily classifying nouns we review Taruven Top of... Read more »

We get right to it talking about suprasegmentals: mainly stress, phonation, tone, and nasalization.  After a long and fascinating (if incomplete) discussion, we finally get around to talking to DJP’s Kamakawi. Top of Show Greeting: Kinál Links and Resources: Phonation Types Mark Liberman has doubts about stress-timed vs syllable-timed Nambikwara (lots of suprasegmental distinctions) Featured... Read more »