Conlangery Podcast

George reveals a peeve, which leads to a bit of a tangent before we get to talking about the wonderful world of evidentials and all the stuff you can do with them.  Then we cover a very curious language by the name Talossan. Top of Show Greeting: Gówa Links and Resources: Evidentiality in Tibetan Evidence... Read more »

Today we talk about demonstratives.  Chiefly, what distinctions are common for demonstratives, and what crazy out-there distinctions you can make.  We also review a conlang that should be very familiar to you all. Top of Show Greeting: Zelsen Featured Conlang: Quenya Thorsten Renk’s Quenya Course (archive download) Ardalambion on Quenya Feedback: Email from Stephen Rogers:... Read more »

George has put up a grammar!  Also, we talk numerals — what base to use, how to construct higher numerals, cardinal vs ordinal, etc.  Then we feature a little bogolang called Wenedyk. Top of the Show Greeting: Celinese Links and Resources: WALS Numerical Base WALS Ordinals WALS Distributives WALS Numeral Classifiers Alyutor (Wikipedia) Pame number... Read more »

After some discussion of one little New York Times article that quoted William(!), we move along to talking about designing your sound system and romanization, though it’s mostly about romanization.  After that, we break a pattern and for the first time feature a natlang rather than a conlang — going from a grammar that just... Read more »

A very special guest host joins us for this episode, where we try to talk about correlatives as a thing, but as correlatives is actually many different things, we end up just talking about indefinites the whole time.  We have much more Top of Show Greeting: pr̝̊ɛmɪsl Links and Resources: Esperanto correlatives WALS on Indefinites Featured... Read more »

We start off with a reccomendation of sorts of the Speculative Grammarian Podcast, and George’s own long post on romanization.  Then we get into the meat of the show talking about all kinds of irregularity and “regular irregularity”.  Then we take a 180-degree turn and talk about the insanely regular Esperanto. Top of Show Greeting:... Read more »

We talk about one of William’s pet peeves in conlang descriptions and linguistics in general: the overuse of the word “emphasis”.  We start out with some very strong reccomendations against using it in phonology, and then talk about some more standard terms you might use instead when talking about discourse or syntax.  We also review... Read more »

We have a guest on, Olle Heikilä, who we totally didn’t forget to add to the Skype call, and have a nice discussion on grammatical voice and what it’s for, what you can include, and just in general.  If you believe what your English teacher taught you about voice, prepare to be disabuse.  We also... Read more »

After some observations about the merits of Star Wars and plastic chopsticks, we tell you all kinds of stuff about possession: alienable vs inalienable, various marking strategies, “to have” and more.  Oh, and we talk about Abakwi. Top of Show Greeting: rejistanian Conlang: Abakwi Feedback: Email from Matt Pearson: Hi George, I finally had a... Read more »

We talk a little about what we like and dislike about alien languages — and what concepts we think are actually likely to work.  Then we reveiw Ebisédian. Top of Show Greeting: Cardonian Conlang: Ebisédian Feedback: Five-Star Reviews: Great for both people interested in conlanging and linguistics in general by stingerbrg I’m fairly new at the... Read more »

George’s father has pragmatics issues, but anyway … pronouns!  (Almost) every language is going to have pronouns of some sort.  We talk all kinds — closed-class, open-class, free, clitic, and even having pronouns for bizarrely specific people.  Also, we review Baranxe’i Links and Resources: Swahili concord (alternate) Mixtec Xavante (look for the reference to a’ama) WALS on demonstratives... Read more »

Bianca’s out for this episode, so William and I take the opportunity to talk about something she hates so much she wouldn’t let us have a show about it: poetry!  Figure out how to choose good poetic devices for your conlang, and how history can affect the complexity of poetry.  Also we talk about the... Read more »

We talk about ideophones, a fun, fun class of words that describe a general feeling.  We also review a language that’s not quite an elflang, so William doesn’t quite hate it. Top of Show Greeting: Dothraki Links and Resources The Ideophone Ideophone definition Japanese ideophones Daniel Tammet inventing an ideophone Featured Conlang: Old Albic Feedback:... Read more »

We puzzle through the very difficult and complex subject of thematic roles and role marking, and then review the awesomely complicated Okuna. Top of Show Greeting: Standard Telèmor Links and Resources: Fiat Lingua paper Chemehuevi (predicate marking langauge) Lexical Semantics Featured Conlang: Okuna (formerly known as Tokana) An excerpt from the grammar: Compare also the following... Read more »

We finish out our Holy Trinity of Verbs with Mood — a slippery, slippery subject if there ever was one.  Of course, after trying to make some sense out of that, we move on to review South Eresian Top of Show Greeting: tzoi Rescources: Wikipedia on Mood Conlang: South Eresian (blog) Feedback: Email from James... Read more »

The second in our TAM series, we spend a good deal of time on the basic perfective/imperfective distinction as well as talk a little about how you can go totally crazy with many, many more aspects.  Then we review the incredible Siwa. Top of show greeting: Salthan Featured Conlang: Siwa (CBB Thread) Feedback: (First of... Read more »

The first of our episodes of the holy verbal trinity of TAM.  We initially planned to do Tense and Aspect as one episode, but the more we talked about tense the more complicated it became, so the aspect discussion is pushed to next week.  We also have a wonderful time talking about the insanity that... Read more »

We throw out some tips for how to kick certain creative habits you might have developed as you create languages.  Then we review the Akana language Tmaśareʔ. Top of Show greeting: Myonian Links and Resources Spokan Hupa Featured Conlang: Tmaśareʔ Feedback: Okuno Zankoku (email) Since you always want to know, I’ve just started a sketch of an... Read more »

We give you some info on verb framing — that is the typology of how languages describe motion, as well as some discussion of postural verbs, aka positionals, and all the wondrous variety you can create with them.  Also, we review [k]enyani. Greeting: Gomain by Zach Hart Links and Resources: A run-down of all the posibilites for... Read more »