The original source, here. Terrible suggestions, wonderful blog.
Oh, c'mon, let's use it for serious conlaging purposes. Why could go hrong?
#83
"A conlang that only uses suggestions off this blog."
Your suggestions are orders. Let's start.
#119
"Make a language where the number words are /i/, /iː/, /iːː/, /iv/, etc."
Hmm, sexy. For a protolang, maybe, no? And then I could work more realistic words from that. I need to think how I'll explain these [i i: i:
and [vi vi: vi:.
#72
"Express “in front of” with a prefix, “behind” with a suffix, and “within” with an infix."
Of course. Rational and elegant. No more words needed.
#73
"Instead of having adjectives agree with nouns for grammatical gender, try classifying nouns based on grammatical sexuality."
Yes, although this can be interpreted in different ways. On the other hand, one derivation could be nouns classified according to how sexual the meaning or derived connotations are. In a scale of five perhaps: innocent-asexual, eroticosensual, horny, pervert, hardporn-like.
#49
"Phonemic bidental fricatives."
This is so nice I may add it to Mintani, a language with an unusual phoneme inventory. After all it was a language spoken by telepathic gods, so no problemo.
#10
"Create a phonology for your conlang based in the symbols of the Periodic Table as if they were X-Sampa. Fe /ɱe/, H /ɥ/, Zr /ʒr/, Uus /ʊus/, Kr /ɬr/, etc.
AN: And name substances like this too. Water, as H2O, would thus be /ɥøɔ/."
Absolutely yes to all that.
#31
"A language with just two genders: food and not-food"
Actually, that is no bullshit. It may work for a demon language I have in mind... They ate humans and other animals, so...
#107
"To give flavor to your language, make words for oddly specific concepts like “the moment when someone asks you a question, and you are eating, but have not sufficiently chewed the food in your mouth to swallow it, and so you must wait awkwardly before responding” or “objects with sentimental value that were stolen by an angry ex, and are now being offered back to you because that ex’s new significant other wants you not to be angry with them”"
Oh well, that one is always a must, no? I mean, at least some examples per conlang doesn't hurt.
#118
"A conlang that has no present tense, because everything happens slightly in the future or the past."
And that one makes so much sense that it would be a crime not to apply it.
#184
"A reverse abuguida- that is, the script has vowels whose diacritics indicate consonants.
E.g.
<aîò ëéà ìu> = /tarino kesena nitu/"
That is an interesting idea, actually. If properly worked, it could give an interesting system, especially interesting with a minimal set of consonants.
Oh, c'mon, let's use it for serious conlaging purposes. Why could go hrong?
#83
"A conlang that only uses suggestions off this blog."
Your suggestions are orders. Let's start.
#119
"Make a language where the number words are /i/, /iː/, /iːː/, /iv/, etc."
Hmm, sexy. For a protolang, maybe, no? And then I could work more realistic words from that. I need to think how I'll explain these [i i: i:
and [vi vi: vi:.#72
"Express “in front of” with a prefix, “behind” with a suffix, and “within” with an infix."
Of course. Rational and elegant. No more words needed.
#73
"Instead of having adjectives agree with nouns for grammatical gender, try classifying nouns based on grammatical sexuality."
Yes, although this can be interpreted in different ways. On the other hand, one derivation could be nouns classified according to how sexual the meaning or derived connotations are. In a scale of five perhaps: innocent-asexual, eroticosensual, horny, pervert, hardporn-like.
#49
"Phonemic bidental fricatives."
This is so nice I may add it to Mintani, a language with an unusual phoneme inventory. After all it was a language spoken by telepathic gods, so no problemo.
#10
"Create a phonology for your conlang based in the symbols of the Periodic Table as if they were X-Sampa. Fe /ɱe/, H /ɥ/, Zr /ʒr/, Uus /ʊus/, Kr /ɬr/, etc.
AN: And name substances like this too. Water, as H2O, would thus be /ɥøɔ/."
Absolutely yes to all that.
#31
"A language with just two genders: food and not-food"
Actually, that is no bullshit. It may work for a demon language I have in mind... They ate humans and other animals, so...
#107
"To give flavor to your language, make words for oddly specific concepts like “the moment when someone asks you a question, and you are eating, but have not sufficiently chewed the food in your mouth to swallow it, and so you must wait awkwardly before responding” or “objects with sentimental value that were stolen by an angry ex, and are now being offered back to you because that ex’s new significant other wants you not to be angry with them”"
Oh well, that one is always a must, no? I mean, at least some examples per conlang doesn't hurt.
#118
"A conlang that has no present tense, because everything happens slightly in the future or the past."
And that one makes so much sense that it would be a crime not to apply it.
#184
"A reverse abuguida- that is, the script has vowels whose diacritics indicate consonants.
E.g.
<aîò ëéà ìu> = /tarino kesena nitu/"
That is an interesting idea, actually. If properly worked, it could give an interesting system, especially interesting with a minimal set of consonants.
#394
I'm already doing this one with Oksirapho, which is partly a radical investigation into sexism gone deeply mad. But I think I outdid the submitter: the feminine/natural verbs use an ergative syntax, literally enshrining passivity in grammar. Normally I hate Shitpost-Whorf theory but this one was too good to pass up.
#383
Wait, isn't that how infinitives already work? Shit. I've been bad-conlanging my whole life.
#326
This one's so depressingly obvious I might as well use it for Paligu. Contriving a writing system for it will be tough, though. I foresee infinite potential for language drift caused by hyperbole. Possibly with the occasional sarcastic inversion, like a planet's magnetic field?
The gender of nouns and pronouns in the sentence is relative to the gender of the verb. So if “to be” is a feminine verb, only women can say “I am” and have the statement be grammatically correct.
I'm already doing this one with Oksirapho, which is partly a radical investigation into sexism gone deeply mad. But I think I outdid the submitter: the feminine/natural verbs use an ergative syntax, literally enshrining passivity in grammar. Normally I hate Shitpost-Whorf theory but this one was too good to pass up.
#383
Create a conlang for academia, in which the unmarked form of a verb means that the action is happening in theory, and verbs receive an extra marking to indicate that they happen in practice.
Wait, isn't that how infinitives already work? Shit. I've been bad-conlanging my whole life.
#326
Screw discrete vowel systems. All possible vowel sounds are used. You can continuously vary the meaning of any word by continuously varying the vowels within it. Perhaps /kin/ means “large”, /kɒn/ means “small”, /kun/ means “tall but narrow”, /kan/ means “short but wide”, /ken/ means “large but not much taller than average”, and /kən/ means “of neutral size”.
This one's so depressingly obvious I might as well use it for Paligu. Contriving a writing system for it will be tough, though. I foresee infinite potential for language drift caused by hyperbole. Possibly with the occasional sarcastic inversion, like a planet's magnetic field?
#326 is interesting enough. Perhaps to derive broad meanings from a single root or a class-word by changing the quality of its vowels. I could use the idea for Mintani, or another not-so-human language.
Like, for example, a class-word hVggVsh "tool", in which V are the vowels to be modified. Any word that is the name of a tool will use this base, including the very concept of "tool", written hëggësh, for example. The ë stands for a schwa, the vowel used for all basic meanings. Okay.
A question arises, then. Is there a vowel pattern? Like, does, for example, a–i have a specific meaning? With which we derive haggish... which therefore means? And how do we apply the pattern to longer class-words, like eudVrtVlV?
Even more. Are diphthongs fixed? Are they to be modified as well?
Hmm, perhaps there are sets of natural and basic meanings represented by vocalic patterns, like "long", "big", "water", "fire"... Let's assume that a–i means "fire"; then haggish "fire tool", which encompasses tools like firearms and matchsticks. To create the word for "musket" perhaps a compound word would be advisable; like "fire tool" + "long".
Another thing is the vowels. The IPA chart has 31 symbols. Not bad, it's a challenge to find suitable symbols for its romanization. Welp, diacritic marks and digraphs, I guess, but still a nightmare. Perhaps a reduced system, with one symbol per family of sounds; ë for the schwa-like vowels ([ə ɘ ɵ ɜ ɞ]), and so on.
Like, for example, a class-word hVggVsh "tool", in which V are the vowels to be modified. Any word that is the name of a tool will use this base, including the very concept of "tool", written hëggësh, for example. The ë stands for a schwa, the vowel used for all basic meanings. Okay.
A question arises, then. Is there a vowel pattern? Like, does, for example, a–i have a specific meaning? With which we derive haggish... which therefore means? And how do we apply the pattern to longer class-words, like eudVrtVlV?
Even more. Are diphthongs fixed? Are they to be modified as well?
Hmm, perhaps there are sets of natural and basic meanings represented by vocalic patterns, like "long", "big", "water", "fire"... Let's assume that a–i means "fire"; then haggish "fire tool", which encompasses tools like firearms and matchsticks. To create the word for "musket" perhaps a compound word would be advisable; like "fire tool" + "long".
Another thing is the vowels. The IPA chart has 31 symbols. Not bad, it's a challenge to find suitable symbols for its romanization. Welp, diacritic marks and digraphs, I guess, but still a nightmare. Perhaps a reduced system, with one symbol per family of sounds; ë for the schwa-like vowels ([ə ɘ ɵ ɜ ɞ]), and so on.
I think that approach might walk you into the domain of philosophical languages. In order to subdivide the space you need to establish boundaries, which then must become explicit vowels. Any variability is then merely allophony that can be mapped to real phonemes, and the whole point of it is lost. The phonetic realization might be within any arbitrary, non-overlapping subdivision of the possible vowel space, but those still can (and must) be labelled for communication to be meaningful. Like with any oligosynthetic language, you'll find you run out of short words sooner than you'd like.
The original formula of using vowels as a kind of coordinate system for continuous traits (which I think was intended as a conceptual broadening of the bouba/kiki effect) is fundamentally a lot more interesting. You're right that it wouldn't be very possible/desirable to transcribe communication with exacting fidelity in an alphabet like the IPA, but you could use floating-point numbers for academic purposes, and a non-discrete scheme for a native script, such as the angle and length of a single line, or the intersection point of two lines—ideas that sometimes manifest in featural abugidas.
As to what to use these marking systems for, you're probably right that environment is key. Maybe there's a special set of adjectival morphemes, CVC, where the consonants indicate the qualities on each axis, and the vowel indicates the value. For example, "g" = size and "t" = taperedness, so "gɯt" indicates that something is big but not tapered, but "tɯg" (a synonym of "gat") means small and sharp. Insert rules about correct ordering (and the meaning of null consonants) per the chef's taste.
The original formula of using vowels as a kind of coordinate system for continuous traits (which I think was intended as a conceptual broadening of the bouba/kiki effect) is fundamentally a lot more interesting. You're right that it wouldn't be very possible/desirable to transcribe communication with exacting fidelity in an alphabet like the IPA, but you could use floating-point numbers for academic purposes, and a non-discrete scheme for a native script, such as the angle and length of a single line, or the intersection point of two lines—ideas that sometimes manifest in featural abugidas.
As to what to use these marking systems for, you're probably right that environment is key. Maybe there's a special set of adjectival morphemes, CVC, where the consonants indicate the qualities on each axis, and the vowel indicates the value. For example, "g" = size and "t" = taperedness, so "gɯt" indicates that something is big but not tapered, but "tɯg" (a synonym of "gat") means small and sharp. Insert rules about correct ordering (and the meaning of null consonants) per the chef's taste.
Yes, that approach I put there is more philosophical, and the problem you comment arose immediately, even having in mind the coordinate system implied in the original post, in Bad Conlanging Ideas. That's why I suggested further expanding the lexicon with compound words; it's clear that the system is exhausted quite soon applying the basic idea.
My problem with the IPA vowel chart is not so much that the number of sounds is what it is but that I don't/won't have a language using all of them. In any case, I don't to work with a vowel fuckfest!
In a certain way, what I said in the other post is what I've been doing in Mintani to derive some words: affixes are used, but also word/root modification playing with vowels. Not the exact idea but pretty close. Anyway, a nice idea that I'll explore more in depth.
My problem with the IPA vowel chart is not so much that the number of sounds is what it is but that I don't/won't have a language using all of them. In any case, I don't to work with a vowel fuckfest!
In a certain way, what I said in the other post is what I've been doing in Mintani to derive some words: affixes are used, but also word/root modification playing with vowels. Not the exact idea but pretty close. Anyway, a nice idea that I'll explore more in depth.
quoting Izambri, Duke, the Findible League:
#72
"Express “in front of” with a prefix, “behind” with a suffix, and “within” with an infix."
Nice idea for me, I think.
Something like, a made-up word "prao" would function as either one of the three. It depends on where you place the word.
Examples:
(Note: table will be translated as "chaloy")
In front of the table -> Prao-chaloy
Behind the table -> Chaloy-prao
Within (or on) the table -> Cha-prao-loy
From a purely aesthetic perspective this actually a pretty good idea, yeah. Not quite naturalistic but I like it.
The interesting thing about idea #72 is how are you going to use that infix. YuutaShinjou113's example is probably the most logical one, and it could result in a nice source of homophonic jokes. Also, a hilariously absurd solution with very short words, not to mention monosyllabs.
In a non–bad-conlanging-ideas context, I would expect that forcing the "within" infix on a one-syllable word either a) triggers an obligatory morphemic stump to be added at the end (e.g. vir –› vir-prao-us) or b) triggers some form of reduplication (vi-prao-vir, vir-prao-ir) or vowel splitting (vi-prao-ir), possibly with splitting of quantity (vīr -> vi-prao-ir).
...But within a bad-conlanging-ideas context, either single-syllable words should be reserved for non-within-able phenomena, and full duplication suffices for plurals: vir-vir = "men"; vir-prao-vir = "between men".
...But within a bad-conlanging-ideas context, either single-syllable words should be reserved for non-within-able phenomena, and full duplication suffices for plurals: vir-vir = "men"; vir-prao-vir = "between men".