Which sounds could a lipless humanoid produce? In my world, I have a race of humanoids who speak a language called Gé̃kt, which is derived from various Eastern Iranian languages such as Khotanese, Ossetian, Yaghnobi and Bactrian with a dash of Persian (a Western Iranian language) thrown in for good measure. However, these humanoids lack lips and I have no idea how this traits would affect their speech.

For reference, here are Gé̃kt's constants and vowels.

Consonants: pʰ p p' b f v m w tʰ t t'd tsʰ ts dz s z n r rr l ṭʰ ṭ ḍ ṭsʰ ṣ ẓ ṇ ṛ tsʰ tṡ dż ṅ y kʰ k k' g x y ṅ h q qʷ m  t͡s t͡sʼ d͡z t͡ʃ t͡ʃ' d͡ʒ χ χʷ ʁ w j ɫ
Vowels: ι [i] ο [u] ε [e] α, ο [ə] ο [o]? α [a] ει, ι [iː] ο [uː] η [eː] ω [oː] α [aː] e æ o u ɨ ɛː ɔː

What sounds may they use to communicate?

At first sight, it seems that it is impossible for the lipless humanoids to produce any sounds that involve the lips in their production, this concerns the following groups of sounds:

bilabial consonants: pʰ p p' b m w
labiodental consonants: f v
labialised consonants: qʷ χʷ
rounded vowels: o u ɔ

But: There is a known art, named ventriloquism, where replacement sounds for those sounds that require visible lip movement are used to produce understandable speech. Maybe the lipless humanoids can cope with this and even learn to produce the Gé̃kt's sounds using such techniques.


Which IPA phones can be made and understood underwater? I have a human culture that gradually develops an underwater civilisation. They still require mouth and nose breathing and will be living in air bubbles, retaining traditional phones. They do spend a lot of time swimming around and I want them to be able to communicate through water as well. Modified and new underwater phones will develop over time etc.

What I'm interested in and haven't been able to find an answer to is, of our current available phones, which ones can be made, heard and understood underwater?

let's work off the idea that there is no breathing equipment in the way of these vocalisations. Free diving.

Before I start constructing modified sounds and augmentations etc I would like to know what I can keep of our current soundbank. What do I have to throw out completely. I may ask a later question on constructing/modifying new sounds for underwater languages.

I understand that humans hearing underwater is affected by bone conduction, skipping the first 2 ear bones. We will be able to hear much higher frequencies and from further away, although direction will be hard to discern. I'm still reading up on all of these features but just wanted to say I was aware of these various facts. For the purpose of this question, I'm just focused on using current known sounds underwater.

From reading the answers to the Worldbuilding SE you reference, I would draw the following conclusions:

anything unvoiced goes out of the window. So no /f/, /p/, /k/, /t/, /s/ etc. They are pretty useless, as they are predominantly in the higher frequency ranges (especially the fricatives) or very short and without much energy (which would be provided by the glottis). And higher frequency sounds travel less well in water.
consonants in general are either short (plosives) or prefer higher frequency bands (fricatives), so apart from /r/ and /l/ (and possibly /v/, /z/) would not carry well underwater.
vowels seem best suited. And looking at the frequency characteristics, those with lower formants seem slightly preferable, so /u/ and /o/, and the back /a/: vowels produced at the back of the vocal tract. The fronted vowels (/i/, /e/, frontal /a/) would have a higher frequency component again.

So in summary I would think a vowel-based phoneme inventory might be best. This inventory could be supplemented by some approximants (/l/, /r/, /j/, and /w/). Which is weird, as consonants usually carry most information in natural language!

Compare:

Whch s wrd, s cnsnnts sll crr mst nfrmtn n ntrl lngg!
i i ei, a ooa uuay ay o ioaio i aua auae!


How do you model language changes with wave theory (areal developments)? I'd like to hear from anyone who has built a dialect continuum, in which innovations spreading from different centres affect overlapping subsets of the range (see wave theory).  How do you model it?  How do you manage the results?

I suppose I'd start with a list of towns and a table determining how likely a town is to adopt an innovation from each of its neighbors.  The table can change over time as towns lose or gain influence, or new roads are made.

Then what? Maintain a separate grammar for each town?  Impractical.

With a list of sound shifts, you can easily generate a given town's version of a given lexeme as needed; but managing changes in syntax or morphology is, I'd think, not so easy.

I have never tried to do it, but I think the approach you call "impractical" is the way to go. You need to maintain a grammar and a vocabulary for each town and for each period (say, a snapshot every 50 or 100 years) to keep consistency.

The good news that can save a lot of time is, that you probably don't need complete reference grammars for each step in the evolution: Start with a good grammar of the oldest stage of your language continuum and than write the grammars of the evolving dialects/languages in terms of differences to the old grammar.

Only when accumulated differences become too large to be handled well, write a full grammar again.


Designing realistic pragmatics, particularly with respect to answering questions Coming up with new kinds of pragmatics is sort of fun, but it's hard to tell when an idea is incompatible with how people work psychologically.
For instance, what are the limits or universals around asking and answering questions?
I had an idea the other day for a particle that can be used to refuse to answer a question without giving an excuse such as I don't know, but that also isn't rude.
I can think of a couple of non-specific ways of refusing to answer a question in English, but they're all rude or combative.
1. None of your business.
2. Don't ask me that.
3. What a great question.
4. No comment.

The idea behind the question-refusal particle is that it shifts some of the social burden of asking appropriate questions from the asker to the recipient. The other part of the idea is that, in the larger pragmatics/[fake culture] surrounding this language, asking a question that the recipient cannot decline to answer is considered inherently hostile. Therefore, most questions in an ordinary conversation would not come with an expectation of being answered merely considered.
Let's assume with a generic verb-initial language with a few case suffixes for the purposes of this question
y/n.ques INT-see-FIN-REALIS   story-ACC
Did you see the movie (lit: story)?

NONRESPONSE
No comment.

Is it unrealistic to design such a language and then insist by fiat that the various ways of explicitly not-answering a question are not rude?

Consider the following:
"I can't answer that."
"I'd rather not say."
"I don't understand the question."
"It's not that simple."
"It depends."
All of these are examples of non-answers which, as far as I'm concerned, are not rude. So I see no problem with designing a language that just has a non-rude particle for any or all of those situations.


What is reduplication used for in natural languages? According to WALS Feature 27A, 278/368 languages surveyed have productive full and partial reduplication. Chapter 27 gives the following example of partial reduplication in Pangasinan:

báley "town" -> balbáley "towns"

And this example of full reduplication from Sahaptian:

té:mul "hail" -> temulté:mul "sleet"

But what is reduplication often used to express?

WALS Chapter 27 describes a number of functions for reduplication. All examples below come from chapter 27 unless otherwise noted.

On nouns

Pangasinan uses reduplication to mark plurals:

báley "town"
balbáley "towns"

Ilocano uses reduplication on nouns to mark a distributive plural:

sábong "flower"
sabsábong "various flowers"

Ilocano also uses reduplication to turn nouns into reciprocal verbs:

bales "revenge"
balembales "to avenge each other"

Chukchi uses reduplication to mark the absolutive case:

jokwat "eider duck"
jokwajow "eider duck (ABS)"

Kayardild uses reduplication to turn nouns into adjectives:

kandu "blood"
kandukandu "red"

Yawelmani uses reduplication to mark associatives:

k'ɔhis  "buttocks"
k'ɔk'ɔhis  "one with large buttocks"

On verbs

Luiseño uses reduplication to mark the number of an inherent object:

lawi "to make a hole"
lawlawi "to make two holes"
lawaláwi "to make more than two holes"

Mountain Arapesh uses reduplication to mark carelessness on the part of the subject or agent:

su "to touch"
susu "to touch all over"

Luiseño also uses reduplication to turn a verb into an adjective:

lepi "to tan, soften"
lepélpiš "pliable"

Ancient Greek used reduplication to mark the perfect aspect (Ancient Greek Press Book Chapter 42):

γράφ "write"
γέγραφ "have written"

Tigak uses reduplication to turn a verb into a person who regularly performs that action:

giak "send"
gigiak "messenger"

On Adjectives

Turkish uses reduplication to mark intensity:

beyaz "white"
bembeyaz "very white"

Automatic Reduplication

Additionally, automatic reduplication is possible, where an affix requires reduplication of the root with no additional meaning. Chapter 27 gives this example from Ilocano:

singpet "behave" + agin-
aginsisingpet "pretend to behave"


Is the concept of “spatial aspect” attested in any natural language? As described here, Aspect refers to the grammatical marking of the relation between topic and eventuality time, that is, it marking in what way the time an action actually occurs relates to the time currently being talked about. So in the sentence “Before returning home, he had gone shopping”, the topic time would be the moment of arriving home, and the eventuality time the time of going shopping, and the English past perfect marks that the latter happened before the former.

A logical extension of this system then would be to not only mark for differences in topic and eventuality time, but also topic and eventuality space. In the above sentence, the topic space (or location) would be the home, while the location of the shopping would be the eventuality space. The sentence might then mark for the fact that the shopping center is far away from the home, as opposed to (for example), inside the home. Further distinctions could be made with regards to motion: shopping is fairly stationary, but in “To get home, he had to drive on the highway”, there is clear motion towards the topic space and this too might be marked.

So I am curious, does anything along these lines exist in natural languages? The closest thing I was able to find were cis- and translocative markers in some languages, but the examples don’t really make it clear that this is used in a mandatory inflectional manner the same way temporal aspect is in many language.

I don't know of any languages where spatial marking is thoroughly compulsory in the same way aspect often is, however I do know of some potentially interesting cases of spatial marking. A lot of Papuan languages have grammaticalised systems for showing directionality and location. They are usually described as being relative to the speaker, but in at least some cases I have found them described as being relative to either the speaker or the village, or some other not wholly speaker-focussed system. The Nimboran languages in particular have highly complex systems e.g. Wilden(1976) describes Kemtuk as having the following system: https://i.imgur.com/cYKT8xS.png, but says that it is optional.  Anceaux (1965) describes 16 different spatial categories in Nimboran proper, but in a rather unhelpful manner. He notes that the unmarked position category, when the speaker is involved has a specific meaning of "near the speaker", but that it is also always used when the speakers position is indefinite or irrelevant, such as in stories or general statements. In at least some languages I have looked at, these markers were compulsory with motion verbs.

A somewhat different system involving location relative to other events is described by Huisman (1973) who reports that Angaataha has a class of medial verbs which are inflected for whether they occur in the same place or in a different place as the following conjunct.

As far as I can tell, none of this completely satisfies your request, but it shows that at least some things are definitely attested, and distinguish other, or more fine categories than what you've found yourself.


Has anyone analysed the invented languages in the Earthsea books? Ursula K Le Guin's Earthsea stories contain vocabulary and utterances from three invented languages. The first step to fleshing these out into fully developed conlangs would be to list all the examples from the books and make some notes on any regularities or inconsistencies. Has anyone done this and put it up online?

There is some information on one of them, Hardic, and a fragmentary word list.


Organizing a lexicon in a logographic writing system A little background before my question: I am an amateur in mid-development of a logographic writing system, not necessarily a whole language with phonetics. As I develop, I don't so much care about grammar, at least not yet. The language is heavily context-based, it requires you to have foreknowledge of the concepts it conveys, and ideas portrayed in the writing system are to be implied by the reader. It's memory-intensive, so you can't quite analyze it like, say, English, and determine its meaning through some roots or affixes.
In a nutshell, virtually no grammar. No specific way to order your ideas, just implied context.

Ideas are distinguished by category: nouns, verbs, adjectives. (That should be used as a dominant identifier for the question yet to be asked)

Okay, that'll probably do it for background. My question is this: Is there an advantageous method to sort and organize characters of a logographic system, specifically for dictionary look-up? (Given the properties I mentioned above.)

My current method is just sorting by the kinds of ideas. Ex.: In the verb category, I may sort verbs whether they describe positional things, e.g., to be underneath, or motional things, e.g., to run, etc. For nouns, a similar system may be employed (haven't reached this point yet), as well as for adjectives.

However, I imagine that such an approach would/could create confusion. (Is an ice cream cake a cake or an ice cream? Why?)

Certainly, there must be other options I'm not seeing. This question, for example, seems to brush the idea just a smidgen, but it is centered largely on computer programs for organization. For this, I should specify that I am working entirely on-paper. Computerization is not an option quite yet. I am strictly searching for methods for organizing a kind of lexicon, entries similar to those arrayed in an English dictionary.

Having a dictionary ordered by theme or idea is a good thing and it can carry you a long way in the design of your writing system.

For a more systematic approach, you need a way to order your logograms. Chinese sorting may be an inspiration for you. They identify a "radical" in each character, and than order by radical + number and order of additional strokes. The approach has the advantage that simpler characters (with fewer strokes, and probably more frequent usage) come before more complex ones.


What would be the most accurate character to use to transliterate the 'e' sound in 'bet' to the Arabic alphabet? I'm trying to transliterate toki pona words containing an 'eh' sound like 'esun', 'en', 'kule', 'ken' & 'seme'.
I found an online Kurdish transliteration tool that displays 'esun' as ئه‌سون  & 'kule' as کوله. Is that accurate? I've also seen ێ used.

the tool gives the initial vowels as: ئا for a, ئه/ئە for e, ی/ئی for i, ئۆ/ۆ for o, & ئو for u.  is there a difference sound-wise between ه and ة (as in سه‌مه/سةمة-'seme')?

I like the idea of using only harakat for vowels when possible & leaving them out if not neccesary for comprehension like کَلاَ/کلا instead of کالا for 'kala',(except for finals to make 'sin'/'sina' & 'pan'/'pana' clear) because it fits the minimalist nature of toki pona, but e (as in bet) & o (as in open) are a problem since they don't really exist in Arabic. I would probably use 'ۆ/ئۆ' for o, but is ه/ة or ێ better for 'e'? Could I use ِسِمه for 'seme' or is سةمة/سه‌مه better?

is 'میِ کن سِتِلِن إِ تۆکیِ یۆکیِ پۆناَ کِپِکِن سِتِلِن أَلَپیِ' a reasonable transliteration for 'mi ken sitelen e toki toki pona kepeken sitelen Alapi' or should 'kepeken' be کەپەکەن?

I don't know any language written using the Arabic script, but as far as I can tell the most common approach across languages for representing /e/ is using some variant of ي.
Somali uses ئ, Pashto and Uyghur use ې, and Kurdish, as you mentioned, uses ێ. The Jawi script used to write Malay even uses ي for both /i/, /e/ and /ɛ/. Urdu uses two different symbols, ے (which is based on ي) and ہ (which isn't).
I can't really speak in terms of how recognizable any of this would be to Arabic-speakers of course, but since multiple languages that needed an /e/-like letter reached for ي, it seems reasonable to suggest that approach.
But things are never simple - ە is also quite common. For example, you mentioned Kurdish which uses it to represent /ɛ/ (which is not /e/, but pretty similar), and Persian also uses it for /e/. And as I said earlier, Urdu does use ہ (based on ه), though I believe ے is more common (except word-intially, where it can't appear).
It seems to me like some twist on ي is the most common across languages, but which one to pick is not obvious (though I expect they'd all be about equally clear to someone who isn't already familiar with one of them). ە is more uniform, but might be a bit less common, and in languages that use both (like Uyghur and Kurdish) it seems that the ي variant usually represents /e/, while ە is something like /ɛ/.
So, I'd probably suggest ێ, but either option seems reasonable.
Source: Arabic script § Additional letters used in other languages (Wikipedia) (and various language and script articles mostly linked to from there)


Which constructed language has the largest body of literature? Which is the constructed language which has the largest body of literature, including both works that have been originally created in that language as well as works written in natural languages which have been translated afterwards?

According to magazine author Arika Okrent in "Discouraging Words" from Failure Magazine (July 21, 2009), it's Esperanto.  She writes,

What is the most widely used invented language?
Definitely Esperanto, which is ironic because when you say “Esperanto,” most people say, “Didn’t that die out in the 1920s?” Or, “Esperanto? That failed utopian project?” But in terms of invented languages, it’s the most outlandishly successful invented language ever. It has thousands of speakers—even native speakers—and that’s a major accomplishment as compared to the 900 or so other languages that have no speakers.

That's not hard to believe either.  According to Esperanto.net,

Professor Sidney S. Culbert of the University of Washington, Seattle, USA, has done the most comprehensive survey on language use ever attempted. He has conducted interviews in dozens of countries around the world and tested for "professional proficiency", i.e. much more than just "hello, please, goodbye".
Based on this survey, Prof. Culbert concluded that Esperanto has about two million speakers worldwide.

Obviously, this doesn't quite answer your question, since it was specifically about published literature.  However, according to this answer on the Esperanto stack, there are probably around 200 novels that were originally published in Esperanto, along with 400 volumes of short stories - and that's in the fiction category only.  There's a list of Esperanto libraries on wikapedia, some of which have thousands of works in them.

Very likely Esperanto.


Is it reasonable for numerals to behave like verbs? I am aware that adjectives can pattern like verbs in some natural languages. Is it reasonable for numerals to do the same? Thus

Some balls four.
There are four balls.

Fouring the balls were orange.
The four balls were orange.

Of course, my conlang has more interesting verbal forms than we have in English. Is something like this attested in a natural language?

One clear-cut example of a language that treats many things like predicates, numerals included, is Khoekhoe.

Khoekhoe marks many kinds of predicates the same way, including numerals. The paper argues that all three of the open word classes (nouns, verbs, and adjectives) in Khoekhoe can be analyzed as primarily predicates and non-predicative usage requires more morphology, specifically person-number-gender (PNG) affixes. Nominalizing stuff with a PNG clitic is extremely productive in Khoekhoe.

Here is an excerpt from page 3 of 21 from Predication and NP Structure in an
Omnipredicative Language: The Case of
Khoekhoe by Michael Hahn.

  Khoekhoe is an SOV language. The V slot may be occupied by a word from
  any of the three open word classes: a verb (1a), an adjective (1b), or
  a noun (1cd). Both commons nouns (1c) and proper nouns (1d) can be
  used. Even deictic elements (1e-f), numerals (1g), and possessives
  (1h) can act as predicates. While the choice of the TAM marker depends
  on the predicate, the syntactic behaviour of the different predicates
  is entirely parallel:

Here are some examples from the paper.

1a) saa=ts  ge   ra  |khii
    you=2ms DECL TAM come
    You (m) are coming.

1b) om=s      ge    (a)  kai
    house=3fs DECL  TAM  big
    The house is big.

1c) saa=ts    ge    (a)  gao-ao
    you=2ms   DECL  TAM  king
    You are a king.

1d) saa=ts    ge    (a)  Petru
    you=2ms   DECL  TAM  Peter.
    You are Peter.

1e) om=s      ge    (a)  nee.
    house=3fs DECL  TAM  this
    The house is this one.

1f) tii=ta    ge    (a)   saa
    I=1sg     DECL  TAM   you
    I am you.

1g) tara=di   ge    a  !nona
    women=3fp DECL TAM three
    The women are three.

1h) om=s      ge    a   tii
    house=3fs DECL TAM  mine
    The house is mine.


Is there some more detailed information about Dritok available? Dritok is a conlang by Dan Boozer without any voiced sounds. It is said to be based on chipmunk sounds.

While this language even has a wikipedia article, I was not able to discover some more detailed information about the language like full phoneme inventory or some information about the transcription system used or some glossed examples of it.

Are there some resources on Dritok available?

This website contains a video and links to some resources. The most important is this PDF, which explains gestures ("Dritok Gestural Syntax"), phonology and grammar.


What is the influence of Russian on Tolkien's languages? I have noticed some artifacts from Russian in published earlier manuscripts of Tolkiens works, e.g.,

The figure named Beorn in The Hobbit was named Medwed in earlier manuscripts
In Early Quenya, there is the word velike "great"

So what is the influence of Russian to Tolkien's languages?

To begin with, Tolkien writes in letter 142 that

  I love music but have no aptitude for it [...] Slavonic languages are for me almost in the same category. I have had a go at many tongues in my time, but I am in no ordinary sense a 'linguist'; and the time I once spent on trying to learn Serbian and Russian have left me with no practical results, only a strong impression of the structure and word-aesthetic

which implies that large portions of his languages are probably not structured on Russian. I then further point to this essay. In summary, the

  conclusion that Tolkien “consciously or unconsciously achieved a literary effect in terms of Slavic culture through the prism of the Germanic”, goes too far on too little evidence [...] Better would be to say that Tolkien did indeed incorporate a few Slavic elements into the multifaceted and multi-sourced structure and background of Middle-earth, but that he did so quite sparingly and, in almost every case, only at its furthest margins.

While the detailed analysis can be found in that article, it seems fairly clear that while a few words may have crept in here and there, these words were also Germanic cognates or were cut out of Tolkien's language, with only one or two exceptions.


Should Auxlangs have metaphors? Auxlangs are meant to be easily learnt/understood by the entire populace of the world, no matter their native language. So, they are constructed to be unambiguous and it's reference should have a one-to-one mapping to worldly objects/concepts.

Doesn't having metaphors undermine the whole point of Auxlangs? I mean a metaphoric phrase can have different meaning in different contexts, which leads to ambiguity.

Theoretically you can eliminate metaphor, yes, but you are working against human nature itself.

Certain metaphors are exceedingly common and embedded in the very grammar of many languages (although their exact expression may vary), so in that regard, avoiding metaphor is extremely difficult because it's somewhat an inherent part of the human psyche. Either you will subconsciously integrate some of it, or your users will inevitably create some. Grammaticalization typically originates directly in widespread metaphor.

Your etymologies and extended meanings (because even in an auxlang, creating a root for every meaning is downright exhausting: there's a reason most auxlangs borrow at least part of their vocabulary!) are usually going to be metaphorical in some ways, whether from real languages or from otehr roots. Indeed, "metaphor" is an example: etymologically, the meaning is "carry over, transfer".

Examples

Up is good, down is bad, quality is possession (hence the use of "have" for qualities and actions), individuals are samples ("a human has two eyes" is metaphor: you don't mean a specific human!).

Time is a major source of metaphor in this regard. Time usually moves from back to front. Movement is the key word: verbs of movements are extremely common expressors of time relations!

The body is space: using body parts to generate locatives is also a very common feature cross-linguistically, found in languages as distinct as Hebrew, Nahuatl and Swahili. The fact that virtually all languages in the world use body-relative directional (in front of, behind)... except for the aboriginal language Guugu Yimithirr, well known for using only absolute directions.

Fabrication is causation: the use of verbs meaning "make, create, fabricate" as causative auxiliary is a common metaphoric transfer of the idea of creating an object to "creating" an action in something else.


Simplified Version of IPA? In IPA, the sounds of many symbols are so close that they are indistinguishable to me! For example, [bʊk], [ɓʊk], or [βʊk]. Even though they do have some minor differences, but all a listener like me hears is "book".
So is there any "Simplified IPA" where they contain all possible pronunciations but yet omit all those phonetically indistinguishable symbols?

If you're notating a language that uses [β] or [ɓ] but does not distinguish it from [b], that is, if there are no words such that changing one of these consonants to the other changes the meaning of the word (perhaps because [β] occurs only between vowels and [b] elsewhere), then for most purposes you write them all as /b/; so that is a “simplified IPA”.  This is called broad transcription, written with slashes to distinguish it from narrow transcription using brackets.  A famous example: English /p/ includes both [p] and [pʰ], which are distinguished in many languages including Zulu, Hindustani, Mandarin.
No language makes phonemic distinctions between all pairs of phones represented by distinct symbols in IPA; but every symbol exists because some language contrasts it with others.


How can syntactic ambiguity with pronouns be avoided? Due to the way pronouns work in place of any particular noun (subject or object) in the sentence, this often leads to ambiguous grammatical constructions.

Take this phrase in English for example:

  Adam sent the essay to James to help him with his writing

Do him and his refer to Adam (where James will help edit Adam's essay or give him suggestions) or James (where Adam is sending James an exemplar to help James see examples of good writing)?

How would ambiguities like this be avoided in constructed languages? I know a simple solution is to just eliminate pronouns from the language but is there an alternative solution to allow pronouns to be used unambiguously?

Here are three options you might want to consider:

Noun classes assign each noun a class (well known examples include the gender systems of Indo-European languages, and also the more elaborate systems of Bantu languages). Having pronouns agree with the noun class of the nouns talked about greatly helps reduce ambiguity, though it would likely not help in your specific example with two male human participants.

Obviation is the system of having two distinct third person pronouns, one (the proximal) referring to the most salient (important, topical) referent and one (the obviative) to less salient ones. In your example, likely Adam would be the proximal, and James the obviative. There are nice examples on the relevant Wikipedia article.

A third option, which is to my knowledge only attested in signed languages is Indexing. This is basically the human language equivalent of variables in programming languages: a new variable, usually a location in the sign space, is assigned to every important referent, and referred to by pointing at the location or otherwise involving the location during signing of relevant words. I believe Lojban does something similar to this as well.


How to "Naturalize" a Conlang? Many conlangs that I have encountered have an “artificial” feel to them–all conjugations and declensions are perfectly regular, stress rules for speaking are rigorously adhered to, and so on. Obviously, changing that (e.g., introducing irregular conjugations or declensions, variant stress, etc.) is necessary to make the language feel more natural, but is it sufficient? What other ways are there to make a conlang less “artificial”?

There is one big point here that really ties it all together:

Languages have history

Any conlang that wishes to look naturalistic therefore needs to emulate history as well. I’ll show in what ways history can manifest with a bunch of examples from different areas.

Orthography

Almost no language with a history of writing has a fully regular orthography. Even if there are regular writing reforms, some aspects of the orthography will just be considered “part of it” and stick. English is of course a very extreme example of this, but you don’t need to take it that far. German for example generally has a rather regular orthography. But the digraph ⟨ie⟩ represents a long /iː/, reflecting that in the past (and in some dialects until the present) there was a diphthong /iə/ in German, which became to be pronounced that way. It also has two separate graphemes for the phonemes /ɛ eː/, namely ⟨e ä⟩, reflecting whether the sound originates from a fronted /a aː/ or not. On top of this, there are some segments which have unpredictable pronunciation: word final -ig for example is pronounced /ɪç/ instead of expected /ɪk/. In short, unless your writing system was designed very recently by linguists, it likely shows leftovers from the past. In the most extreme cases, writing systems can lag behind centuries (English, French, Tibetan), but even if they don’t they can preserve some old features.

Morphology

Most languages with inflections show some degree of irregularity among them. This can manifest in many degrees, from almost entirely regular (Swahili has only one class of six slightly irregular verbs, one of which is suppletive in the present tense) to a basically complete lack of predictability (Navajo verb stems have defied any attempts to find rules for their inflections thus far. There don’t seem to be distinct paradigms, every verb does its own thing!). However, these irregularities are not random. To show what I mean, compare these two sets of declensions. The first two are latin singular nouns (in an less traditional order), the second two made up on the spot.

NOM filius rēx      kwero   tulya
VOC filiī  rēx      kwerap  tulte
ACC filium rēgem    kweruf  tultsu
GEN filiī  rēgis    kwerim  tulne
DAT filiō  rēgī     kwerx   tulum
ABL filiō  rēge     kwert   tulwo

Two things should stick out:

The Latin forms of rēx show two distinct stems, those ending in /k/ (rēx, where the spelling hides the fact that really it’s rēc-s) and those ending in /g/ (all other forms). Looking a bit closer, we can see that the /g/ appears exactly before those forms with a vowel in the suffix. Intervocalic voicing (which accounts for /k/ becoming /g/) is a common sound change and applies here.
While in both languages, some of the affixes seem to be unrelated, there are still patterns: nominative takes -s, accusative takes -m, genitive has an -i in the suffix… If we added other paradigms into the comparison, even more such patterns would arise, indicating that they really originate from a much more regular system that got changed up over time by various factors like sound changes. In the made up language, on the other hand, the affixes are entirely random, and this causes the irregularity to look more unnatural than if everything took the same affixes.

Phonology

Consider the Japanese consonant inventory. It looks something like this (omitting allophones):

  m |   n |   ɴ |
p b | t d | k g |
    | s z |     | h
    |   r |     |
    |   j |   w |

What this table does not show however is that /p/ is significantly rarer than /t k/. Why would that be? Simply because many instances of that sound somewhat recently shifted to what is /h/ in modern Japanese. In other words, a sound change caused a significant imbalance in the distribution of sounds. If one were to simply generate words with a word generator, not paying attention to the history of the language, all sounds would show up with similar frequency.

Vocabulary

If I give you any word, you can probably find several alternative ways of expressing that meaning. “big”, “tall”, “large”, “spacious”, “gigantic”… they all have different connotations, sure, but in the end they’re all descriptions for roughly the same thing - objects which take up a big fraction of your field of view when near them. Meanwhile, many conlangs will have a dictionary entry like gwop adj “big” and that’s it. Adding synonyms, especially ones with subtly different meanings allows you to greatly affect the way texts read (in a positive way).

At the same time however, often complicated words are derived from simpler concepts. This naturally has the effect of making them longer, causing a variation in the lengths of words - many short words with a few longer ones in-between is a common pattern. But if you simply create a new root every time you make a word, you won’t get that - and your hypothetical speakers will have to remember every single word without help, even ones they barely ever use.

I could go on and on and list things in every category of linguistics I can think of, but in the end it all boils down to this:

Irregularity in languages either preserves older, then-regular systems in now untransparent ways (English verbs are another great case study for this) or are the creation of sound change messing with regularity. The former is the reason why common words tend to be less regular - if you commonly hear a word it’s easier to preserve its original form and remember the irregularity once it has arisen. In the case of Navajo I mentioned above, curiously it seems to be that first sound change caused irregularity, and then the native speakers applying analogy caused the whole system to become even more irregular. See the paper I linked above for some hypotheses on how that worked.

Now, onto the actual question: Assume you have a conlang already, and it lacks history and is entirely too regular. “Sterile”, one might say. What can you do? I’d like to present you two options:

Invent a history for your language. Sketch out how your verbal system may have looked in the past and see if you can lead that to some interesting irregular forms or alterations. Come up with some sound changes that may have led to the current state of the language. You don’t have to do this in great detail, but obviously (as always with conlangs) the more effort you put in, the better it will look.
Make your language the history. If you don’t mind your end result potentially looking vastly different from what you have now, you can decide to move the  current state of the language into the past. You may have to make some changes to vocabulary to keep it in line with technology, but otherwise there’s not really any difference between a modern language and a “proto-language”. Then, you can track its changes through history in great detail, and in doing so introduce its natural flavour. No one has to know that the proto-language you worked from was unnaturalistic (but you’ll have to live with that knowledge. Just remember that you have to start somewhere, you can’t derive every conlang from the first utterances of mankind).

As a footnote, I’d like to make a book recommendation: The Unfolding of Language by Guy Deutscher. In this book, Deutscher discusses (in a very accessible manner) exactly what this question boils down to: how and why did languages become the way they are - messy and irregular and oh so complicated. I believe every conlanger should read this book, regardless of level of experience.


what real world language does this look like? This isn't really about a conlang, it's an alternative orthography but I didn't know where else to ask it.
I found an alternative orthography for english called 'EBEO'(Even Better English Orthography) at https://alternatescriptbureau.wordpress.com/2018/02/09/ebeo-a-phonetic-orthography-for-english/. it uses the letters á, à, ā, ȧ, é, è, ē, í, ó, ò, ō. ú, ū, ù, đ, ŋ, ś, ŧ, ŵ & ź in addition to the standard english letters. What language does that look like (ŵat láŋúaj das đát luk lāk?)

Here's the Universal Declaration of Human Rights & the days of the week in EBEO:

Ól hùmen bíŋs ar born frí ánd ikūl in dignití ánd rāts. Đē ar éndàd wiŧ rízen ánd konśens ánd śud ákt tòerds wan enađer in e spirit of brađerhud. (Artikel 1 of đe Ùniversal Déklárēśen of Hùmen Rāts)

dēz av đ wík

mandē
túzdē
winzdē
ŧerzdē
frādē
sáterdē
sandē

dē is day

Well, it looks like a sample of an English based creole language written down by an amateur linguist or a missionary in a private orthography. It looks like a first attempt on a writing system for a previously unwritten language, it does not look really ripe: Too many diacritics on the vowels, and some confusable diacritics, too, e.g., á, à, ā, ȧ, what do they become in handwriting?

EDIT: Also important: What happens when all diacritics are left out, is this writing system still readable and understandable, or does it fail under such circumstances?


How to model the change of script over time I want two languages to share a root but I want them to look unrecognizable written down (with the original language having a written form, so not independently created writing systems). Are there any well known patterns of how languages can change their script over time? What is some general advise on how to make this change realistic?

The surface that things are written on. Runes were carved in trees and, as such, do not have curves. The Greek alphabet was written on tablets, and curved lines were possible. The Arabic alphabet was written quickly on papyrus. Also, some civilisations might prefer cursive script over others. Arabic letters differ whether they're isolated, at the beginning of a word, at the end or in the middle. So does your handwriting with the Roman script. But Arabic kept their cursive when the digital age came, and the Roman script got rid of it and created the same character.
Os (runes), psi (Greek alphabet, but modernised on a computer, see footnote 1), šīn (Arabic script, isolated)

ᚩ, Ψ, ش
Let's call the ancestor A. The two daughter languages will be called B1 and B2. A could be a pictographic script, from which B1 devised a syllabary but B2 kept pictographs. Or A was an abjad (alphabet without vowels) and B1 became an alphabet whereas B2 stayed an abjad.
Although language is passed on from mother language to daughter language with diachronics, script doesn't need to. In fact, you don't often see one script in the same language for three language-generations except in some cases like Latin (but Vulgar Latin wasn't really written much). Borrow a script from a neighbouring language. This is what I recommend doing.

Footnotes: 1) Ancient Greek part of the Rosetta stone. Greek characters in Unicode are in many fonts modernised, this is an example of typical Ancient Greek script.


Why are compound words in Volapuk hard to parse while compound words in Esperanto are not? Of all the criticisms you see of Volapuk, one the most pervasive is that it can be difficult to parse some of the longer compound words. Which is pretty obvious. With all words being CVCVCVCV... and prefixes being (C)V and suffixes V(C), it stands to reason it could be hard to figure out where the root word is amongst the long list of affixes.

But why doesn't Esperanto have this problem? Is it just because the roots are easy to recognize (if you're already familiar with a western European language)? Or is it that Esperanto has somehow managed to avoid the need to form words with long chains of affixes. If so, why was making long-winded compound words necessary in Volapuk but its hard to find a reason to in Esperanto?

Note that I don't know Volapuk, and I only know the utmost basics of Esperanto. I've never actually used the language at any point in time. But I've seen more examples of affix-heavy words from Volapuk than I have from Esperanto (the only Esperanto example I even know of is 'malsanulejo').

Esperanto phonotactics was never as restrictive as Volapük's. Its prefixes (including prepositional prefixes) are mostly not CV but CCV or VC, and its stems often enough begin or end with consonant clusters. So morphological boundaries are often easy to tell.

Moreover Esperanto initially avoided stem endings for multisyllabic stems that might be ambiguous with suffixes. Hence banquet becomes bankedo, not banketo, for fear of ambiguity with bank-eto "little bank".

Esperanto initially did pursue agglutinativity aggressively, and I'm not sure that it was less enthusiastic about doing so than Volapük. But malsanulejo is indeed exceptional for Esperanto.


Consider an isolated, close-knit community; which characteristics is their language likely to have? For the sake of concreteness, let's say my low-tech conculture is living in a few villages on a smallish island in the middle of the ocean (Pitcairn Islands comes to mind).

Basically, this would mean that no adult ever has to learn their language, and that everyone knows everyone else to some extent.

Can one make predictions as to how the language would more likely look? Such as:

Would it have a "large" phoneme inventory?
Would it tend to be heavily inflected or analytical?
Would there be a large number of irregular inflections?
Would there be a well-developed system of expressing consanguinity?

Lastly, would the size of the settlement(s) matter much? The difference between a single village or a dozen in regular contact, say.

Derek Bickerton and John McWhorter both have studied pidgins and creoles. A general observation is that communities that have to deal with other communities who don't speak their language, but still have to communicate resort to using pidgins, creoles which are simplified, grammatically speaking. McWhorter says English lost it's complex grammar when Vikings arrived and couldn't deal with the complexity.

On the other hand, island communities that don't have to deal with other people can tolerate arbitrarily complex grammar since children have a spectacular skill for acquiring their first language as compared to adults. So as an isolated language accumulates difficulties, there is no pressure to make them go away, they just get added to the pile of obligatory complexities.

Another feature of Island speakers in specific is they are more likely to use a "towards the shore/away from the shore" as a grammatical marker, ref "When "North" Isn't Actually North: Geocentric Direction Systems"

EDIT:
Large phoneme inventory. Chinese, a lingua franca has a small inventory and a small inventory of syllables. Rotokas has a small phonetic inventory. Someone would have to graph this to see if there is a weak relationship.

Inflections (really, any morphology), irregular forms (lexicalizations), culture-specific complexities-- I'd predict more of all of these for an isolated language. Proving it to satisfy skeptics would take a few academic papers. English's "2nd cousin twice removed" system, is complicated, but English is a lingua franca. Hard to say beyond generalities.


Grammatical cases occurring only in conlangs What are examples of grammatical cases that are not attested in natural languages, but occur in some conlang?

To qualify here, the conlang should have at least some bit of flesh (e.g., a few consistent texts, either original or translated). Pure sketches of potential cases aren't interesting to me.

The Respective or Dedative case in Quenya, also called Short Locative, is too speculative to be counted here; its attestation is very weak in the available material from J. R. R. Tolkien.

I think the best conlang to look for such cases is Ithkuil. http://ithkuil.net/04_case.html contains a list of all cases. My [short] research suggests that some of them (e.g. navigative for "noun relative to whose vector, arc, or trajectory of motion an event takes place" or allapsive for "amount of time that expected to pass between the contextual present and the time of a future event") aren't attested in any other well-known language. I may be wrong, but it seems plausible regarding Ithkuil's goal of expressing extensive detail.


International Language I was reading International Auxiliary Language, but I don't like their setups.

Because, mostly, they use Latin alphabets!

And that, my friends, cause confusions!

No matter what the letter was intended to be pronounced, EVERY country (especially those use uses Latin alphabets such as English, German, French, Spanish, etc.) WILL pronounce it in their own way!

'J' is pronounced 'h' in Spanish, 'z' in French, 'y' in German.

Many country also have different pronunciation for 'H' and 'R'.

Other than that, many countries are even "incapable of" pronouncing letters such as 'RR' in Spanish or 'Ü' in German!

Due to those drawbacks, the invented language bound to be less efficient than it was intended to be!

So, I was thinking, is there a way to overcome such drawbacks!?

First of all, the most obvious approach is to find a set of alphabets that "Nobody had in common"! At least, find those letters that are used by "only one country"! Such as some letters in Greek alphabets (As far as I know, Greek are the only country that use Greek alphabets).

Second, I think it's better to divide that alphabets into 2 group. First group are those letters that "every people in every country know how to pronounce". I think it's good to base it on Japanese, because Japanese has the least amount of pronunciations as far as I know. I believe they are the easiest language to learn pronunciation-wise.

This group of letters build up the "basic and conceptual words", where all other words are the "combination product" of these words. You can think it as the "building block" of the words.

Thus, I think it's better to make the words "a word a syllable" such as Chinese. And 1-syllable words made from the "Basic letters" are the "building block" of the words. More complicated words are the combination of these "basic conceptual words". Such as "Refrigerator" are actually "Electronic Ice Box" in Chinese.

I also think it's better to make the letters "phonetic"! 'A' is always pronounced 'a' NO MATTER WHAT! Unlike English, 'A' has 2 million ways of pronunciation!

The second group of letters are those pronunciations that "All the countries in the world that COULD EVER MADE! I know this might sounds like far fetching, but the idea is "Easy for everybody to learn such language. And for those who are familiar with the language, it will be easy for them to learn EVERY LANGUAGE"!

You can think it as "The first group letters are the intersection of the pronunciations of every language, and the second group are the union of the pronunciations of every language".

And the second group of letters are only used for those more advanced, probably grammatical, concepts. Which is "Unnecessary for basic conversations but critical for literature".

So, my question is:

Are such ideas feasible? What's the ups-and-downs, pros-and-cons of my ideas? Did I miss something? What else should I pay special attention to?

You seem to be confusing sounds with their representation in writing; similarly, countries and languages are not equivalent either.

There is an inventory of sounds that are used in human languages; though most languages only use a small portion of it. If you are aiming for an international language, you should probably select those sounds that are common to most or all languages. I believe that toki pona comes close to that.

Representing these sounds in writing is a completely different matter. Because different languages use the same letter to represent different sounds, your best bet might be to make up a completely new alphabet; then you don't have any pre-conceived notions of pronunciation to struggle with. On the flip side, everybody then has to learn the letters and how to pronounce them, which makes your language harder to learn.

In your question you also touch on morphology: that is a whole different field, which you should probably put in a separate question.

So, to summarise:

each language has an inventory of sounds it uses, these are called phonemes.
phonemes are represented in writing by letters; this is not a 1:1 mapping, and also
depends on accents and dialectal variation.
Letters can have diacritics (such as the dots on top of the ü) — these usually make them separate letters from the base form.
the letter-phoneme mapping is arbitrary; there is nothing inherent in the letter that determines how it should be pronounced.

In general I would recommend that you read up on some of the concepts of linguistics, as that would make it easier for you to express what exactly you want to achieve.


What are common origins of accusative case markers? What are the primary way(s) accusative case markers can develop?

The primary way of development of oblique case markers seems relatively straightforward, with attachment of adpositions (which can already be considered "case markers" under some definitions and which can in turn come from nouns or verbs) on the noun, then possible generalisation onto all elements of the NP as agreement. Ergative cases are a little less straightforward, but they very frequently have an oblique double function, hinting at origins such as reinterpretation of passive constructions or the generalisation of usage of e.g. instrumental or ablative case markers as markers of unexpected agency (e.g. via the occasional omission of agents in sentences like "[the man] opened the door with the key").

The emergence of accusative cases seem less straightforward to me though, and while reinterpretations of antipassives are a readily availible source that doesn't to me seem like a plausible origin for the majority of accusative markers, nor does it provide a way to go from no case marking to accusative (which seems like a thing that should be able to happen), and I'm not aware of any similar broad tendency of oblique double-function as seen in ergatives which could otherwise hint at origins. As such I particularly would like to know what oblique cases could reasonably be extended to accusative, and under what circumstances the original extension (from which further generalisation could be done) may occur under, and additionally if there are any reasons accusatives seem to have fewer double functions (even if this is just a result of me looking in the wrong places).

This is merely a marginal answer and I’m sure there’s a lot more data that might prove valuable, but in multiple Romance languages (at least Spanish and Romansh) the preposition a has developed into an accusative marker for particularly animate objects. This preposition derives from Latin ad “to(wards)” and is in both languages somewhat equivalent to English to or at in usage (in Romansh it is commonly used to mark the dative as well, as in French).

In general I would not be surprised to see allative or dative adpositions turn into accusative markers, there is quite a bit of overlap in the meanings (compare “I hit towards you” and “I hit you”).


List of conlangs whose goal is to minimize ambiguity Which conlangs have a primary goals of avoiding ambiguity?

I know Lojban had that as a goal (and is in fact syntactically unambiguous), but are there others?

Here are the top five best-known (see footnote 1).

Lojban at lojban.org is the better-known successor of Loglan.
Loglan at loglan.org is based on formal logic and is to some extent not unlike a transcription of formal logic (see footnote 2).
Ithkuil at ithkuil.net is like the two above but is as compact as possible, allowing to read, write, say, and hear complex thoughts and ideas in a matter of seconds.
Ceqli at http://ceqli.pbworks.com/w/page/5455970/FrontPage is originally inspired by Loglan but later a bit more naturalist
CycL at http://www.cyc.com/documentation/ontologists-handbook/cyc-basics/syntax-cycl/ is a lot like a programming language intended mainly for neural networks. It's more suitable for expressing knowledge than for communication.

All these have Wikipedia articles under their name, except Ceqli (available on Dutch Wikipedia) to which you can go via the link given.

Footnotes: 1) These languages (except Lojban and possibly Ithkuil) don't actively disambiguate phonemic ambiguity. That's the difference between 'an app' and 'a nap'. It resulted in English a nickname, from an ekename.
2) An example of formal logic, using prerequisite axioms [PERSON(a) 'A is a person', HAVE_ALIENABLE(a, b) 'A has B alienably', HEAD(a) 'A is a head'], is ∀ x: PERSON(x) → (∃ y: HAVE_ALIENABLE(x, HEAD(y))) ('Everyone has a head', 'For every X, if X is a person, there exists some Y which X has alienably and which is a head').


How can I explain the origin of the dual number in my Slavic-influenced East Nordic conlang? The language I am creating is derived from East Norse and heavily influenced by Slavic. It has a quite complex grammatical structure - for example, it has not only taken over the two additional cases from Russian but also developed several own ones.

One unique aspect is the dual noun form, which is avaliable for describing things that usually occur in complementary pairs. There are dual-only nouns for things that only occur in the described pairs (such as a romantic couple) and dual forms of ordinary nouns in “natural” couple forms (a pair of shoes, the poles of a magnet, my eyes - not two houses or a couple of road signs). Some features are either identic to either singular and plural. A part of the pronouns - most notably all second-person pronouns - are however unique (somewhat similar to the dialect of Bavarian spoken in Munich).

I am wondering how I can “trace back” such a development. According to my knowledge, (correct me if I am blatantly wrong) neither East Norse nor Old East Slavic had the aforementioned features, and just “inventing it by accident somewhere around 1100” would sound like a too handwaved explanation.

Both Proto-Germanic and Proto-Slavic had the dual grammatical number. So you could just say that your conlang retained it the whole time. Alternatively you could say that it lost it and then subsequently borrowed it again from one of the Slavic languages which retained it.

If you were after a specific source, Old Church Slavonic could be ideal because it could have a wider influence than other Slavic languages through its religious prestige status. If the religious traditions of the Slavonic Orthodox churches were very highly valued by your conlang's speakers then that would help to explain why the dual number was retained by them even though the other languages of the region had lost it.


How many different interjections like 'aha,' 'oh' would you make up for a conlang? I wonder if other people have thoughts and experience on this topic from the conlanging perspective. Have people with lots of translation experience found the  distinction between (for example) 'aha' and 'oh' worth translating into a conlang? What interjections are worth "translating" into parallel words?
I could get foreign language dictionaries and check for how many are listed there.
Thanks for considering.

This is as much a question of invented culture as it is invented language. Strictly speaking, one can devise as few or as many such interjections as one likes. Likewise, the breadth and depth of meanings, overlaps and distinctions are similarly up to the inventor.
I'd argue that if the speakers of the invented language sense the need to distinguish "aha" from "oh", then the discoverer of their language ought to take note! Likewise, if they divide the semantic space of "aha" into three distinct areas, or if they don't distinguish "aha" from "oh", then that should also be noted.
As for the question of which are worth making words for: that's more a matter of pragmatism. Most language inventors engage with the art out of inner joy and as an expression of fundamental creativity and generativity. Making words is almost never a problem for most language inventors! If she should discover that the speakers of the invented language have a little used interjection, a word will surely present itself!


How long do I need to influence language development? Taja is a language with Verb-Subject-Object word order. However, emperor Kai wants to always be the first, so, he wants all sentences where he is the subject to have a Subject-Verb-Object word order.

Obviously, people at the court follow this rule. Farmers in a remote region probably not that much. If Kai dies a few years later and his successor goes "Stop this stupid word-order thing" this would be forgotten quickly.

If, however, Kai lives long enough (or his successor also likes it this way), other nobles would start to require their servants to put them first as well, eventually even remote regions would pick it up. Finally, it becomes part of the language.

How long does this need to stay in effect until language development integrates it into the language? Such that even after replacing monarchy with democracy, the "Subject-Verb-Object" word order is still used when the subject is a person, and the speaker wants to express his/her respect?

Update:

Let me answer the questions in the comments.

First of all, Kai is not planning to systematically change the language. He is just pleasing his ego. So while he will punish people who do not do it (if he notices), he is not going to start a large-scale education program.
If the emperor is the object of the sentence, the sentence stays as it is. So "peasants must pay taxes to the emperor" stays unchanged.

  What is the equivalent Earth date for technology?

agricultural, probably medieval.

  How physically and demographically large is the country?

An entire continent. Think about the Roman Empire.

  How much trade is there with other countries?

I haven't given this one any thought. I guess less trade helps, so, let' say very little.

  How strong is/are the religious influences (a big deal with language)?

weak to medium

  How effective is the collection of taxes and the dispensation of justice?

Things are quite organized, however, this is a personal spleen of Kai. A judge (or policemen) in a remote province is very unlikely to sentence/imprison someone for not following this.

Assuming emperor Kai puts a strong pressure on his subjects, having the change permanent would be a matter of one or two generations. Once one generation is brainwashed and use naturally the new form, and that there is no backward trend (emperor Kai's death penalty may be a strong incentive to avoid such trend), consider that adoption should stay.

This however assumes that language is mostly spoken and not written (or you need to change writings as well), that teachers are supportive of Kai and teach the new proper way of speaking to all, etc.


What tools are there to make this alien language? Probably already been asked before but here goes.
Stevefan has traveled through some sort of trans-dimensional breach made of handwavium to another dimension where the inhabitants don't speak English. What tools are there on the internet that could help me form this language?
I want to make the spoken language for these aliens based off of Spanish and something similar to Spanish, close enough together that if you know Spanish you can kinda-sorta piece together the general meaning of the sentence. I could try to do something like the Minions from Despicable Me did where they alternate language every few words, but that doesn't feel very alien to me, just confusing.
As for the written language I'm not too concerned about, it just needs to be a glyph based written language. If you know of a little-known language like this I could just use Google Translate for that so I'm not too worried there.

Let's take modern Spanish Spanish and apply some nice natural sound changes to it, together with some plausible alterations to the spelling rules, and see what we get.
To begin with, let's take a Spanish text on which to apply the changes, so that in the end we have an example of Alien Spanish, with the goal of ascertaining that it is at the same time Spanish-like and alien enough. The chosen text consists of the first ten articles of the French Revolutionary Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, as given by the Spanish Wikipedia:

Los hombres nacen y permanecen libres e iguales en derechos. Las distinciones sociales solo pueden fundarse en la utilidad común. La finalidad de toda asociación política es la conservación de los derechos naturales e imprescriptibles del hombre. Esos derechos son la libertad, la propiedad, la seguridad y la resistencia a la opresión. La fuente de toda soberanía reside esencialmente en la nación; ningún individuo, ni ninguna corporación pueden ser revestidos de autoridad alguna que no emane directamente de ella. La libertad consiste en poder hacer todo aquello que no cause perjuicio a los demás. El ejercicio de los derechos naturales de cada hombre, no tiene otros límites que los que garantizan a los demás miembros de la sociedad el disfrute de los mismos derechos. Estos límites solo pueden ser determinados por la ley. La ley solo puede prohibir las acciones que son perjudiciales a la sociedad. Lo que no está prohibido por la ley no puede ser impedido. Nadie puede verse obligado a aquello que la ley no ordena. La ley es expresión de la voluntad de la comunidad. Todos los ciudadanos tienen derecho a colaborar en su formación, sea personalmente, sea por medio de sus representantes. Debe ser igual para todos, sea para proteger o para castigar. Siendo todos los ciudadanos iguales ante ella, todos son igualmente elegibles para todos los honores, colocaciones y empleos, conforme a sus distintas capacidades, sin ninguna otra distinción que la creada por sus virtudes y conocimientos. Ningún hombre puede ser acusado, arrestado y mantenido en confinamiento, excepto en los casos determinados por la ley, y de acuerdo con las formas por esta prescritas. Todo aquel que promueva, solicite, ejecute o haga que sean ejecutadas órdenes arbitrarias, debe ser castigado, y todo ciudadano requerido o aprendido por virtud de la ley debe obedecer inmediatamente, y se hace culpable si ofrece resistencia. La ley no debe imponer otras penas que aquellas que son estrictas y evidentemente necesarias; y nadie puede ser castigado sino en virtud de una ley promulgada con anterioridad a la ofensa y legalmente aplicada. Todo hombre es considerado inocente hasta que ha sido declarado convicto. Si se estima que su arresto es indispensable, cualquier rigor mayor del indispensable para asegurar su persona ha de ser severamente reprimido por la ley. Ningún hombre debe ser molestado por razón de sus opiniones, ni aún por sus ideas religiosas, siempre que al manifestarlas no se causen trastornos del orden público establecido por la ley.

(Spelling change) Replace ce, ci with the, thi (as they are pronounced): nacen $\rightarrow$ nathen, sociales $\rightarrow$ sothiales etc.

(Spelling change) The acute accent indicates the position of the dynamic stress when it falls in a place other than where it's expected:

If the acute is on the last syllable before an n or an s, delete the acute and double the consonant: ningún $\rightarrow$ ningunn, demás $\rightarrow$ demass, razón $\rightarrow$ razonn. (It's not deleterious, since Spanish cannot have double consonants in that position.)

(Spelling change) Replace ñ with ny and ll with ly. (It could have been the chosen spelling, but wasn't.)

(Spelling change) Replace qu with k (or c, since by now we no longer have any possibilit of confusion); que $\rightarrow$ ce, aquellas $\rightarrow$ acelyas etc.

(Spelling change) Replace all is and us with y and w when they represent semivowels (also called glides, the less sonorous parts of diphthongs): igual $\rightarrow$ igwal, cualquier $\rightarrow$ cwalcyer.

(Spelling change) Delete initial and intervocalic h. (It is silent anyway.)

(Spelling change) Replace ge, gi with hhe, hhi, and then j with h:
ejecutadas $\rightarrow$ ehecutadas, ejercicio $\rightarrow$ eherthithyo etc.

At this point we have regular Spanish with a somewhat novel, but yet still consistent, spelling. Let's go and apply some natural sound changes:

Replace endings in -ad, -ades with -à, -ass. (Italian did it, for the singular; in the plural, Italian keeps -à unchanged.)

Delete final -o; in order to preserve the position of the dynamic stress, you must of course double the preceding consonant, as required by rule 2. (Romanian did it; we have lup for Spanish lobo, tot for Spanish todo etc.)

If the word ends in -wo, replace with -u.
If the word ends in -yo (at this stage of the modifications), replace the -o with -u.
If the final -o is the only vowel in the word, replace with -u.

Replace final -i with iy, final -e with i, and final -a with e. (Old French did the last one.)

Now do the plurals: replace final -os with -uy. (Romanian went even further, but let's keep it Spanish-y.) Replace final -es with iy. Replace final -as with ey.

(Slight, if any sound change.) Consistently replace vl and vr with br and bl, and elsewhere consistently replace b with v.

Finally, replace clusters of two occlusives (also known as stops) with the second one doubled, as Italian did.

At this point we have:

Luy ombriy nathen yiy permanethen libriy i igwaliy en derechuy. Ley distinthyoniy sothyaliy soll pweden fundarsi en le utilidà comunn. Le finalidà di tode asothyathyonn polítice iy le conservathyonn di luy derechuy naturaliy i imprescrittibliy del ombri. Esuy derechuy son le livertà, le propyedà, le seguridà yiy le resistenthye e le opresionn. Le fwenti di tode soveraníe residi esenthyalmenti en le nathionn; ningunn individu, niy ningune corporathyonn pweden ser revestiduy di awtoridà algune ci nu emani direttamenti di elye. Le livertà consisti en poder ather tod acelyu ci nu cawsi perhwithyu e luy demass. El eherthithyu di luy derechuy naturaliy di cade ombri, nu tyeni otruy límitiy ci luy ci garantizan e luy demass myembruy di le sothyedà el disfruti di luy mismuy derechuy. Estuy límitiy soll pweden ser determinaduy por le ley. Le ley soll pwedi proivir ley acthyoniy ci son perhudithyaliy e le sothyedà. Lu ci nu está proividd por le ley nu pwedi ser impedidd. Nadyi pwedi versi obligadd e acelyu ci le ley nu ordene. Le ley iy expresyonn di le voluntà di le comunidà. Toduy luy thyudadanuy tyenen derechu e colavorar en su formathionn, see personalmenti, see por medyu di sus representantiy. Devi ser igwal pare toduy, see pare proteger u pare castigar. Syend toduy luy thyudadanuy igwaliy anti elye, toduy son igwalmenti elegibliy pare toduy luy onoriy, colocathyoniy yiy empleuy, conformi e sus distintey capathidass, sin ningune otre distinthyonn ci le creade por sus virtuss yiy conothimyentuy. Ningunn ombri pwedi ser acusadd, arrestadd yiy mantenidd en confinamyent, exthett en luy casuy determinaduy por le ley, yiy di acwerd con ley formey por este prescritey. Todd acel ci promweve, solithiti, ehecuti u age ci sean ehecutadey órdeniy arvitraryey, devi ser castigadd, yiy todd thyudadann receridd u aprendidd por virtù di le ley devi ovedether inmedyatamenti, yiy si athi culpabli siy ofrethi resistenthye. Le ley nu devi imponer otrey peney ci acelyey ci son estrittey yiy evidentementi nethesaryey; yiy nadyi pwedi ser castigadd sinn en virtù di une ley promulgade con anteryoridà e le ofense yiy legalmenti aplicade. Todd ombri iy consideradd inothenti aste ci e sidd declaradd convitt. Siy si estime ci su arrest iy indispensabli, cwalcyer rigor mayor del indispensabli pare asegurar su persone e di ser severamenti reprimidd por le ley. Ningunn ombri devi ser molestadd por razonn di sus opinyoniy, niy awunn por sus ideey religyosey, syempri ci al manifestarley nu si cawsen trastornuy del orden públic establethidd por le ley.

Now, this is still sufficiently Spanish-y for a Romance speaker to be able to go through it, albeit slowly. It may or may not be sufficiently alien...
If still not sufficiently alien, continue sound changes:

Replace intervocalic r with rh and intervocalic s with r (Latin did the latter).

Replace s between vowels, or at the beginning of a word before a wovel, with w (Greek did it).

If still not alien enough, you may want to go through some chain shifts (as in Germanic for example).


Is latino sine flexione dead? Latino sine flexione is a variant of Latin created by Peano in 1903. As far as I know it was used in scientific literature but since forgotten.

I found this site and a few discussions on Duolingo but not a single speaker.
A quite complete grammar can be found here.

Is this wonderful project dead?

Note: I posted the same question here and was suggested to "address a different community".

It is obviously not completely dead, there is at least one blogger posting short news items in Latino Sine Flexione here http://nuntios.blogspot.com/search/label/Latino%20sine%20Flexione

I don't know whether there is a functional speech community for this language left.

EDIT: There is another life sign of Latino sine flexione: Someone created a LaTeX package for it!


Anti-Newspeak, making a language harder So, the government of Oceania in 1984 creates a new, altered cersion of English to make its people easier to control.

What about the opposite?

A dictator wants to make his people harder to control, so that any invading nation would have to go through an ungodly amount of trouble to subjugate them.

Could he do it?

I'd imagine he'd start by gradually altering the language to be more complex, more foreign to neighbouring languages, and popularizing words or phrases that are harder to interpret by an outside listener.

He has already completely isolated this nation from the surrounding region, and the language present there is pretty unusual for the region, think Hungarian or Basque.

I am however unsure if this'd be enough; other ideas would be helpful if you think it could be done.

Implement some "levels of trust" in the language: Design phrases or word choices that signal the initiated that you are talking to non-trusted people or that non-trusted people may be listening, design other phrases that signal that you can talk more freely.

I have heard (but I don't have hard references for this) that travellers and gypsies in Europe have such devices in their languages.


Adding entire musical concepts to expand vocabulary I want my language, Syn, to be as precise, efficient, unambiguous, and aesthetic as humanely possible. To do that, I think even the texture, dynamics, rhythm, and the likes should be accounted for.

As far as I know, only Mandarin incorporates changes in intonation corresponding with a different meaning of the same spoken word, but even that can be hard to notice for non-speakers.

Are there any other languages that incorporte musical concepts?

If there are, how did people manage to use those concepts?

If there are none yet, will such a language possess an added difficulty when speaking it?

I imagine that the native speakers of Syn would be naturally adept in tone recognition, and every conversation would seem like an a capella get-together.

There is a precedent for the use of a musical tone scale in constructed languages: Solresol, a philosophical language constructed in the 19th century. Some natural languages also have a whistled mode, most notably El Silbo and Pirahã.

I am not aware of a language—neither natural nor constructed—that incorporates the concept of rhythm or other musical concepts.


Is there a Semitic zonal language? I am familiar with zonal languages that attempt to smooth out and simplify the differences between languages within a family, such as Slovio for the Slavic languages and Folkspraak for the Germanic languages. Is there an existing zonal language or language project for the Semitic language family?

This was not easy to find!

A bit of jazz Semitic auxlanging going on here.

Ayvarith seems to be an invented language based on Hebrew, Arabic and Aramaic.


Does The Syntax Construction Kit cover any new material that isn't in the other conlanging books I've read? I've got most of Mark Rosenfelder's books on conlanging except The Syntax Construction Kit (which I'm not sure I need).

The conlang I'm currently working on is a 'holy musical magic language' called Fae Spraesh which is developing differently than my other projects - it's Tolkienesque, while my other (mostly undeveloped) conlangs are mostly fictional blends of particular real-world languages and thus not Tolkienesque at all. I have no plans to study university linguistics, and I'm not looking to develop a Fae Spraesh writing system at this time.

Does The Syntax Construction Kit cover any new material that might be useful to my conlanging, or do Mark Rosenfelder's other books (Language Construction Kit, Advanced Language Construction Kit and The Conlanger's Lexipedia) and David J. Peterson‘s The Art of Language Invention suffice?

I will attempt to answer this question, despite not having read the book, so please take my advice with caution.

Looking at the website of the book, zompist.com/syntax.html, you can see an outline of the contents. Rosenfelder describes the book as "a tour of modern syntax".

Being a linguist myself, it looks like the book I'd loved to have had while at university. It covers (English) syntactic theory in a way that looks interesting and not simply dry and theoretical -- he supplements the book by a set of interactive tools to develop your own grammars based on the theoretical ideas of Chomsky and others. He does follow a particular strand of syntactic theory, which is mainly common in the US, not so much in the UK, but he also covers some alternatives to the Chomskyan approach. Rosenfelder's own view of Chomsky is nuanced and somewhat sceptical: he has an essay on this on his website (which I wholeheartedly agree with). Note, however, that this is about English, and these formalisms have been developed by linguists working mostly with English, so if your conlang is very different, they might not easily apply to it.

Apart from Chomskyan Generative Grammar, he also talks about Markov text generators, which would be useful to generate (random) texts in a given language. This might be a useful tool to practically explore your conlang: generate some text, and try to translate it. Several other tools are also aimed at generating sentences, rather than just analysing them. The meaning is often a bit random (as it is not really controlled), but at least the grammar will be correct.

So this is basically a syntax textbook, which will introduce you to syntactic theories while playing around with the formalisms and actively doing syntax (which to me is the best way of learning about them!) If you are interested in grammar, and the formal properties of different types of grammars, this looks like an ideal book. In fact, I have put it on my wishlist with a well-known on-line book retailer.

However, if all you want to do is build a smallish conlang, which might not even have a very complicated grammar, then this book looks like overkill to me. On the site he mentions that there is "a chapter on how you can apply all this to your conlangs". So conlangs are not really the focus of the book, but more a possible application of the described syntactic apparatus to invented languages. I would assume -- from the description on the webpage -- that this is a fairly advanced book, which is great for linguistics students and  for serious conlangers who want to make use of sophisticated formalisms when describing their languages. In that sense it will not cover too much of the same ground as his more 'applied'/'practical' books about language creation. If the previous books have kindled an interest in linguistics, though, and you want to know more about approaches to syntactic description, then this might be the book for you.


Is this sonority hierarchy correct? I need to sort these phonemes properly before I get into clusters and making syllables, but I'm not sure I did it right.

Sonority refers to the amplitude of the sound signal; ie the louder a sound is, the higher it ranks. Vowels are loudest, as they are voiced and generally less constricted than most consonants. Within the vowels, the open ones (eg /a/),  are louder than the closed ones (/i/, /u/). Then laterals, nasals, fricatives, and finally plosives. Within each of these groups (where applicable) the voiced variant is higher than the voiceless one (eg /g/ > /k/, and /d/ > /t/).

This matches the ranking in your image, so I would say it is correct.


Is there any general rule for constructing a word? Example: "q" or "w" should not end a word, something like this I am developing 4 conlangs (sparish, old sparish, elvian and barrish (need a new name)) for a story which is used by humans of Spar, Northern Sparian, Elves/Aspian, Barrians of south respectively. I have no knowledge about developing language whatsoever, I have learnt some few things from youtube and google(youtube was much helpful). I have the constants and vowels that I want to use in my language, but I am facing trouble with the letters.

The sound of "q". I don't understand how to pronounce any words that have "q" in it. According to IPA pulmonic consonant chart (with audio), it sounds like /ka/. So how should I pronounce a word like "qakt"
Are there any kind of rules for word building? Like a word should never end with certain letters, or shouldn't start with certain letters.

I want these languages to sound and feel as natural as possible. I am asking because some of my created words exist in one language or the other, and I want them to be as distinct as possible.
Moreover, I want sparish to have a word like "re(letter)". This letter helps them to in poetry, its intonation depends upon the letter that is placed inside the bracket, but it does not feel write when you pronounce it. Can anyone help me with it too?
How to Create a Language
How to Create a Made Up Word
Conlang Case Study
How to Make a Language
Artifexian (channel)
How to Create a Language

Yes, there are but they are language-specific. These are called phonotactics. They are well explained in the book of David Peterson "The Art of Language Invention"(E-book download link). Actually, these rules include:

structure of a syllable. E.g. in Hawaiian language closed syllables are impossible. So words like "heck" are not allowed. ;)

stress. The Finnish language always stresses the first syllable.

What consonants/vowels can be combined. "st" is quite common in English but not in Hungarian. But "ts" is quite common in Russian but not in English. But on the other hand Russian allows "st" too.

there are many other things. I suggest reading this article on Wikipedia.

P.S. I'm not good at linguistic terms in English, sorry for possible wrong use of words ;)


How many active Klingon speakers are there? I am well-aware of the fact that some people use Klingon in conversions at special conventions and events.

Is there an estimate about the number of Klingon speakers and how many of them are there?

According to Wikipedia, about 20 or 30 fluent speakers

Another more interesting article, a bit more scholarly, mentions a wide variety of numbers per study.


Sona: how complete it is and how alive it is? I find the basic ideas of Sona very appealing, but, from what I see in the web, it is not, by far, as popular as Esperanto or Lojban or other well-known conlangs. Therefore my question: Is it a complete language with a community of fluent speakers, translations of literary works available..? Or is it basically dead?

I think it's pretty much dead.

There is~was a Yahoo group. It has 80 members and no recent activity. But Yahoo groups are all screwed up now, so it's difficult to tell.

There is a dead Sona forum with 14 members. There are a couple translations. No activity since 2010.

There is a dead Sona twitter feed with 13 members. No activity since 2013.

There is a dead Sona tutorial website archived by the Wayback Machine. Not reachable by ordinary means.

The grammar book was hosted online in a now defunct location archived by Wayback Machine.


Is a naturalistic language without countable nouns possible? Is a naturalistic language without count nouns possible, thus having only mass nouns? This would mean having many words for things with water: a sea, an ocean, a bottle of water, a puddle, etc.
What about compounding to get these words?

As a matter of fact, Mandarin Chinese can be considered to be such a language - it treats every noun as a mass noun. Every noun requires a "measure word" for counting, like "bottle" in "four bottles of water" or "sheet" in "ten sheets of paper". Chinese has a considerable list of these (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_classifiers) but there's no particular reason that a language with only mass nouns would need to have so many classifiers.


Were Tolkien's Elvish languages based on known natural languages? I'm a great fan of Tolkien's books, especially The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. One thing I have always wondered about in his books though, is whether the Elvish tongues were actually fully new languages. Were they totally constructed as it were from scratch, or was Tolkien patterning them after some European / other languages that were actually in use (or ancient languages out of use)?

Tolkien started really early in his life to develop languages. Started at 13 and developed languages till his death.

  Tolkien was a professional philologist and a specialist in the Old
  English language. He was also interested in many languages outside his
  field and developed a particular love for the Finnish language (he
  described the finding of a Finnish grammar book as "entering a
  complete wine-cellar filled with bottles of an amazing wine of a kind
  and flavour never tasted before".

  Finnish morphology (particularly its rich system of inflection) in
  part gave rise to Quenya. Another of Tolkien's favorites was Welsh —
  and features of Welsh phonology found their way to Sindarin. Numerous
  words were borrowed from existing languages, but less and less
  obviously as Tolkien progressed. Words that are an exact match with
  existing Welsh words can be found in the early drafts of Tolkien’s
  manuscripts published as The History of Middle-earth,[4] but attempts
  to match a source to a particular Elvish word or name in works
  published during his lifetime are often very dubious.

Source: Languages (Tolkien Gateway)


Custom language creation This is my first visit here. I have been writing machine/computer languages for about 8 years now. I am completely self taught and use my own tools. I have many languages that I have completed that work wonderfully.
I have a program that I use with each language that translates in real time. Everything works nicely. My languages are around 56k words each. I use a combination of Excel and various custom tools to generate the languages.Language creation is not a easy process, but it is fun.It takes me about 4 hours to create one from scratch. I believe what I am creating is more like machine languages? I am certainly not knowledgeable about how to properly create languages as most on here. Its just a fun obsession.
Lately I have been into creating image languages. Languages based on images. I was curious if anyone has ever made a image language? How did you do it? Did you create your own custom font to go along with your language? Did you program a translation tool or app? What have you experimented with?
This is kinda the package I build with my languages. I even experimented with a meme language. A silly language using 500 of the most popular internet memes in .jpg format. With a tool to translate to and from English. It would be cool if others are doing stuff like this.
Thanks

This is only an answer to the first part of the question

I was curious if anyone has ever made a image language?

Yes, there are such languages. They are called pasigraphy or logographic writing system, and the most successful among them is Bliss symbolics (also known as Semantography) by Charles K. Bliss.
I am not aware of automated translation tools or other tools helping in creating pasigraphies.


Words for Mercy in Toki Pona? I would like to translate Bismillah Ir-Rahmani Ir-Rahim into Toki Pona.

The parts I'm struggling with are the Rahma part, and the Raheem part, as they encompass similar but subtly different meanings of Mercy.

Rahma is more closely associated with motherly love. Rahim is more of an extreme mercy regardless of what is being forgiven.

I haven't found a translation for mercy, let alone one that encompasses these subtle differences.

toki!
Toki Pona has a word for mercy, and it is simply olin, just like love, tenderness, warmth, etc.
For instance:

mi jo e olin tan sina

(I have mercy because of you),
or

mi jo e olin tawa sina

(I have mercy for you).


Conlangs based on Proto-Indo-European (PIE)? Have there been any attempts to create a language based on Proto-Indo-European (PIE)?

Of course PIE has had an effect on other languages, and through them ended up in many a posteriori conlangs as well. What I mean is whether there have been any attempts to create a usable language based on what we know of PIE and filling in the blanks with conlangery.

Academia Prisca published Modern Indo-European as a revival of a late stage of the Indo-European language (Northwest Indo-European, billed as the ancestor of Italo-Celtic, Germanic and Balto-Slavic). Resources published for learning include a grammar, syntax, conjugator, vocabulary, lessons and texts. Since it is meant as a modern revival, it introduces neologisms (such as read and write), but as far as I can tell, the entire lexicon is derived from cognate languages.


Finnish as if it were English I am fascinated by Finnish and sound changes. I had an idea for a funny version of Finnish where it has these properties:

Orthographic [k] changes to [q].
[Q] is pronounced /ð/ (voiced TH) before e or i (unvoiced TH) and /θ/ otherwise.
There are no noun cases.
Orthographic [h] changes to phonetic and orthographic [/f/].
There are a few irregularities. For example, even though hän is he, it becomes 'faqin'.
There is a word for a or the. It is 'ifi' and derived from the Finnish word for one.
The words are read as if they are English otherwise.
Words are translated word for word.
Phonetic /s/ or /f/ is removed before or after orthographic [q]
Word endings are copied from English. (-ed is same as English past tense, and verbs are conjugated though I don't have time to describe.)
Here is an example from Lord of the Flies (first three sentences):

Ifi poiqa qansa reilu fiqet lasqet faqinitqe alas ifi qesta farwat ilqa after roq qofti ifi laguni. Waiqa faqin omisted oted faqin qoulu wilapaita ia ialited se nit alqen ifi qasi faqin paita iutuned eta faqin fiuqsetwaes qipqied faqin farma paita iutuned eta faqin fiuqset qipqied faqin otsu. Qaiqi piorista faqin ifi piqa murqated osaqi ifi widaqo waes ifi iqilpi after lampo.

The question is about mutual intelligibility and translating things. I am curious about how this "reconstructed Finnish" translates to actual Finnish. I looked up how words are ordered, and it said that the word order tends to be the same as English. I suspect that the word endings and sounds (dental fricatives, voiceless labiodental fricatives, and more vowels) will pose major barriers to intelligibility.

Bottom line: if I were to speak this version of Finnish to someone in Finland who spoke Finnish, would they be able to understand without English?

Since this question was closed in Linguistics, I think it appropriate to note the answer here.

  I speak English and a reasonable amount of Finnish, and I could make absolutely no sense of any of that at all, even knowing the sound laws you posit and where the text comes from. It was basically utter gibberish from start to finish. I’m guessing the first three words are meant to be ‘with the boy’, but after that, I’m lost. –-- Janus Bahs Jacquet (9.APR.2020)


Lemmata in a prefixing language I'm developing a heavily prefixing language, and I'm trying to work out a lemma/citation form for my verbs. However, nearly all forms of the verb have a prefix. For example, the verb "to go" has the stem m(a), but the standard infinitive is um, the first-person singular standing conjugation is irim, and the participle is ënda.
Obviously, the latter is wholly unsuitable as a lemma because it has a tendency to set off a number of phonological processes that can cause the stem to get lost, I don't really want to list words under any of these forms in my dictionary, because if I do, I'll end up with all of my verbs listed in the lexicon under "u," "i," or "e."

You could just list them under the stem in that case. If you can easily reconstruct the infinitive by a simple rule, then that would be the easiest way. There is no law that states that you always have to put the infinitive as the main dictionary entry. It's only common practice in most Western languages because it suits the way they work.
Another possibility would be to look at how other languages deal with this issue. For example, Indonesian verbs also tend to have prefixes; I'm not sure what they do in the dictionary. In Arabic, I believe the root is in the dictionary, ie the three core consonants from which the other forms are derived.
Just do whatever works for you: it's your language after all!


Do I need a Dative Case? My conlang already has Benefactive and Lative cases, does it really need a Dative case? I'm racking my brain to find situations that couldn't be covered by those two and would require a separate Dative case.

Yours is a very interesting and legitimate question, but in the light of what we know from the languages of the world, what you ask is might not be what you mean to ask. Let me expand a bit below.

To answer your question in brief: no, your language does not need a Dative, but yes, your language needs a device (or "construction" in Construction Grammar terms) to express the third argument (also called the "indirect object") of verbs that take on three arguments (subject, object, indirect object).

Now, whether you have separate devices (constructions, or in your case "cases", no pun intended) for semantically different indirect objects or not, that is up to you. Since you already have a Benefactive case that could express an indirect object (whether that is semantically a recipient or a beneficiary or else), then you can use that to express an indirect object that is a simple recipient. So, note that there can be a mismatch between syntactic arguments and semantic arguments (for example indirect object vs. recipient, benefactor, etc). Moreover, depending on what linguistic framework you assume, things can be slightly different. Here I am adhering to some form of (Radical) Construction Grammar.

For example, since you have a Benefactive case and a Lative case you could use the former in sentences like "I gave the book to the man" and "I opened the door for the woman" and the Lative case for "I went to the market" and "I am throwing a stone at you". But again, that is really up to you, as also hinted at in other answers/comments.

The drafts of the first two chapters of Croft's Morphosyntax: constructions of the world's languages expand on this. See https://www.unm.edu/~wcroft/WACpubs.html.


Swadesh List for Verb Infinitives? I was looking through Wikipedia's Swadesh Lists recently and wondered if there was anything like a Swadesh list for verb infinitives, similar to how Spanish verbs work (to be, to want, to eat, to know, to jump, etc.) or verb meanings. Is there one? What verb infinitives does it contain (what number)?

It's worth noting that there are PLENTY of word frequency lists around, but almost no one ever bothers to even try compiling cross-linguistic ones (for reasons that should be pretty obvious). Lists for English, furthermore, hardly ever even attempt to separate different word categories (again for reasons that ought to be obvious).

The Conlanger Lexipedia is based off a 1500 roots list (with some caveats) compiled from a 1.1 million word corpus of science-fantasy writing. You can count the verbs yourself... once you decide what counts as a verb (the list can't tell apart verb vs. adjective vs. noun uses, and the commoner an English content word, the likelier it is to drift between noun/verb/adjective).

The top 200 words (page 36-37 of the book) have the following roots that are "primarily" verbs:

  go, will, know, see, come, like, would, could [end of top 50 words, could is 49]
  look, give, seem, must, call, think, make, ask, work, run, mean, may, wear, feel, want, stand, hear, open, should, end, keep, sit, need, turn, move, try, begin, place, close, talk, can, get, take, tell, find, speak, might, let, hold, fall, bring

Be mindful of the biases introduced by an English list: the English auxiliary system, in particular, wouldn't be reproduced in any other languages as the past forms (and very often the main forms!) would be regular verbal inflections instead of separate forms. Arguably, I shouldn't have included the auxiliary verbs at all, really:strictly speaking these verb have no infinitive form to begin with.


How would the grammar of a conlang develop as a creole from other languages? Assume that the backstory of a conlang is that it developed from a set of other languages. In other words, speakers of these (different) languages were living in the same area and were communicating with each other and from this a new language emerged, a creole.

In such a situation which aspects of the original languages would be inherited by the new languages? Obviously the vocabulary would be somewhat mixed but what happens with the grammar? Would the easiest concepts prevail? Would it be necessary that one of the original languages would be dominant in some sense or could they have an equal influence?

I would think that it relates to the power structures behind the language communities, and to their relative size.

This can be kind of observed with English after the Norman invasion. The basic English grammar still remained Anglo-Saxon (as the majority of the population spoke it), and the main influence of Norman French (the powerful but small elite) was in the vocabulary. There are a few instances (eg putting some specific adjectives after the noun, as in president elect or times past) where French structures were adopted.

I would think that vocabulary is more a conscious choice, and Norman power made people adopt French words, but the grammatical structures being more sub-conscious meant that they were harder to change.

Another issue is how closely related the origin languages are. Obviously, while Norman French and Old English are different families, they both share the Indo-European ancestry, so are not that radically different. Compare that to, eg the Philippines, where there is a great language variety, and Asian/Polynesian languages clashed with Spanish/English in the colonial period. Here is one creole, Chavacano, which apparently has mostly Spanish vocabulary (so that it is classed as a Romance language), but their grammatical structures are generally similar to other Philippine languages (Wikipedia).

So it seems that power drives the vocabulary, but quantity of speakers determines the grammar.


Has AI technology yet provide a language composed of multiple human languages yet? I'm from South Florida and noticed that my Haitian neighbors speak a language called Creole. Then It got my fantasizing a possibility that is well within our reach of no more than a decade.

Using AI to create languages by mixing other languages.

Question

Does anyone know any specific technologies that provide practical languages yet?

Not really AI, but the vocabulary of the two logical languages Loglan and Lojban was created algorithmically from the vocabulary of pre-defined source languages. In this case, the phonemes of the words were picked by the algorithm which is different from the formation of a creole where whole words are picked by the human speakers.


What are resources for conlangers designing a knot writing? I have not encountered many con-scripts encoding information in knots, rather than by marking flat media. I imagine that many conlangers would enjoy the inspiration of Andean khipus, which, going back to about 3,000 BCE, are ancient comparable with Proto-cuneiform.

I made one such conscript. I found another for writing English.
Some useful resources include:
Ashley's Book of Knots
Animated Knots
Various macrame websites and the concept 'sinnet' (you could decorate "nodes" within)
I think khipus and knot-writing most fascinating and I have greatly enjoyed the exercise. If people comment with specific curiosities, I will try to help. This question doesn't, per se, require an "answer" but I hope posting it may be useful and fruitful for the community.
Thanks, jk - Reinstate Monica, Andrew Ray, and curiousdannii for your input about correct posting!