Introducing Language Profiles

So after having this blog for like half a year, I am finally getting around to creating language profiles. How will this work? Each language will have some in-universe information, followed by out of universe stuff. I'll probably update them as needed and if I do lots of update or it takes a long time, do a new profile. And I'll keep a list of profiles here so that there's something central.  Or something like that.

Mythos wyrm universe:

• Ǩüttǩarrą Roś 
• Osogkum
• L'ip'ò

Kixot universe

• Bay area
• Toúījāb Kīkxot
• Neaso Uxlotsuz
• Towwu Pũ Saho
• Knǝnʔtǝǝʔ
• Unnamed-Papualang
•   South Continent
• Ākoṇṭemāṟuttōm
• Kélojùù 
•  Way far away continent 
  
  Edit 9/22: Added some more hyperlinks and also Papualang

Aslian Language Dump

Here's a dump of links on Aslian languages, since people keep asking me about them. (This is originally taken from a reddit post)

Sadly there aren't tons (and the grammars in the side bar are kind of lacking :/ ). But here's some
The big pile o grammars:

• Temiar
• Semai

What is good though is that the Temiar grammar has lots of links to new(er) materials, so that's gonna be the bulk of what follows (you might notice a common author):
General Information

• General Characteristics from the Encyclopedia of Malaysia
• Aslian: Mon-Khmer of the Malaysian Peninsula
• Why You should Study Aslian Languages
• Orang Asli contains information about the Austronesian Tribes of Malaysia as well
• A guide to pronouncing these languages
• Reduplication in Aslian languages
• Nasal Preplosion in Aslian Languages
• A hipster (?) magazine article on them
• Olafaction in Aslian languages

Specific Languages

• Jah Hut

• Jahai Phonology

• Temiar Grammar

• Temiar Causitive

• Maniq Phonology
  

  
  

The Problem of Polysynthesis

I hold many controversial opinions. One of them is polysynthetic is a bad term, not just because of it's vagueness but because of what it signals, especially in conlanging. Anyway, this argument with some people got out of hand (#selfexaminationhurts) (I said some dumb things too) so I never really got explain why it is bad beyond the vagueness.

Here's the first thing I never sent and then I'll follow up with some other ideas I've had since then:

"Anyway, my point is that even now, the languages we choose to label as polysynthetic (especially taking the large amount of morphemes approach) tend to fall on minority and especially disenfranchised groups. This wouldn't necessarily be a problem if there was actually an agreed on definition for polysynthesis. But there isn't, because whenever someone tries to come up with something, other people get angry because their language gets excluded (the biggest example of this being Baker and his exclusion of Inuit languages) or because a language they don't consider polysynthetic is included. So we are left with a category that means "lots of morphemes and if feels that way". Which then brings us back to the point that "feels that way", for whatever reason, closely aligns with "languages spoken by minority groups". So we have a category that (like all morphological typologies, mind you) doesn't tell us really much of anything about the languages classified in it, except that 1) they have long words with multiple morphemes; 2) are not placed with the other languages for some reason.

And that's crux of it. The category doesn't tell us anything that synthetic (here being agglutinative and fusional) doesn't already tell us. Yet people defend it so viciously and want their language to be in the category. Why?"

Well, a big part of it is what I call "fetishization of the exotic" (and I am guilty of it too). Polysynthesis is seen as something cool, so you want your language in it (especially for conlanging). It is seen as cool because it is different from IE (and especially English) therefore something you want to be. And that's where the underlying "racism" (for lack of a better term) comes in. It doesn't mean that the linguists/enthusiasts are being racist, but they are, because of the way the terms has been used, perpetuating stereotypes and signaling certain ideas (namely primativity/noble savage/north americanness) through the use of the term "polysynthesis". It is the "exotic" that really binds the different types of polysynthesis together, more so than head-marking, polypersonal agreement or noun-incorporation.

Why is this important? Well, the category "polysynthesis" hurts conlanging and reduces its diversity. How? First of all, since there is little if any actual tendencies that fit for polysynthesis, it isn't signaling features for the most part. Instead it signals that you want your lang to be North American-like, especially in a Salishanesque way. This is fine and all, but it further reduces the amount of languages people learn about and makes them think that polylangs actually have many binding features. It also means that they are less likely to learn about features not found in those languages. For example, I did an informal survey on switch reference (with a bunch of polylang enthusiats) and none of us could think of any conlang with a switch reference system (other than my own, in progress one). Why? I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that the primary references for polysynthesis don't have it, even though it is very common in polylangs in other parts of the world (like New Guinea) and even in the United States! In all this reduces the diversity of conlangs (I've seen one papualang (excluding my own) and none based on Australian langs, for instance) because people have an incomplete view of what "polysynthesis" really is and don't realize it.

Fetishization of the exotic aside, polysynthesis would be an okay term if it could be well defined, people agreed on a definition, didn't try so hard to fit every language into it and recognized its limits and unreasonability. It would be fine if the community used a wider variety (not just of Native American langs) of languages to act as references, showing the diversity in the term and maybe counteracting some (though not all) of the underlying marks/stereotypes within the term. But it doesn't and we don't have the self-awareness nor desire in the community to fix this. So I'm stuck ranting about it on a blog. Well the next time the inevitable "how do I polylang" or "I never see polylangs (cue 15 polylangs)" post comes up, I can link this as I try to raise awareness :p

Updates and Happy Canada Day

So I've been really bad at updating this. On the other hand, I've been quite active on the conlanging subreddit for at least the last month now. So I've actually been pretty busy. I'll include links to a couple of the conlang projects I've done there to here.

In other news, I hope to do some bigger world building posts and eventually create those dang language profiles. Of course, I keep getting more languages to profile so hey! Also, I need to find a way to upload my current grammar sheets in the like.

Anyway, here's the links to languages I've done:

Ākoṇṭemāṟuttōm

Kélojùù

Knǝnʔǝǝʔ

There's also been plenty of translations and vocabulary building exercises

Duty among Kīkxo's People

Time for something different!  Well sort of.  It's still conworlding, just not conlanging as it may be. Having a robust culture is an important part of creating a language. It provides the background to make things happen.

As I think I've mentioned before, religion plays a very important role in the daily lives on the Úīkmo Kīkxot (Actually that's where I got the idea for this lang in the first place). They even call themselves "Kikxo's people"! Kīkxo, of course is their main God. This posting is not an exhaustive account of their religion. That needs to be explained over the course of many posts. Instead I'll focus on one aspect: duty.

Today in may world religions class we were discussing Confucianism and the idea of the Junzi. It got me thinking "what would be the ideal person in this society?" Well, it probably would be broader than Junzi. In fact, I think it would be a lot more like the Hindu idea of dharma, obedience towards one's individual place in life.

Within this culture, people have three main duties: 1) To improve themselves; 2) To serve God; and 3) To advance society. The perfect person (úīkmo ikkuxat; gōtāpzō ikkuxat; kikxī are all common names used to describe such a person with kixkī having a very similar connotation to buddha or saint and often used as an honorific) has found balance in all three aspects, and while s/he shouldn't be worshiped, should definitely be emulated. However, none of three things mean exactly what we might think as westerners, and all three are very interconnected.

People improve themselves by learning about Kīkxo. The culmination of this is by going through all the rites in the Lōbopāb Kīkxot (lit "House of God", more normally "temple") and becoming a: possessor of the true knowledge of the Shīyto; a defender against evil; and receiving the promise of Resurrection from Kīkxo. So self improvement in this context has to do with progress through the religion more than self-improvement in a secular sense.

People serve God by keeping his commandments, both generally and caste specific. Proper sacrifices, being the best of your role you can be, taking care of the priest caste and the like are all ways in which people serve Kīkxo.

Advancing society basically means spreading the religion of Kīkxo, engaging in war with evil, serving others, and treating others well. But mostly spreading the religion. Asceticism, or rather hermitism, is seen as contrary to advancing society. In fact, the more close society is, the more advanced it is seen.

Therefore a kikxī is not just very good at whatever s/he is supposed to do, but also active in their community. A kikxī is altruistic, helpful, humble and open. A kikxī is obedient in all things. A kikxī from one caste would be quite different than a kikxī from another caste. It's not exactly what we would think of as a holy man, and that's why I think it converges quite a bit with the concept of Junzi, as I understand it, at least

Also, this took me two and a half months to write (it's 6/30 now).  I'm terrible but will hopefully start updating this blog more again

Some minor thoughts on opening, closing, and doors

So I was walking home and thinking about how mesoamerican languages use body part symbolism in word formation and compounding. Or I so I thought; I can't seem to find any references to it now. From there I was thinking how TbKt would express words for things like "door", "open", and "close". I decided that door probably wouldn't be a body part compound, most likely it would be something like "opening/what is opened". From there, I thought how the word "open" would be. I figure that some sort of thing where opening is an extension of revealing. Ends up I already have a word meaning open, so I just stuck reveal on there too. I don't have a word for "close" yet, nor do I have one for "hide" so I'm combing them into one root. Then I decided that door would probably fit better as "somethings that hides/closes things" (kind of by analogy with lid).

Some important distinctions (from English):

1. If you hide something by covering it up (from above, with another object) you use a different root YHT. I thought for a while that maybe door could be related to this root but I decided against it because it mostly has to do with things that rest over other things (hats, lids, snow, etc).
2. We might say that someone has an open mind but in this language it would be "unbounded mind" (if the ideas it is open to are "good") or a "soft/wooly mind" (if the ideas aren't). By extension the opposites are a "bound mind" and a "hard/rocky mind" respectively. A "hollow mind" could also work, though it has the implication that that person is so open-minded that they believe anything, so more like gullible. Actually, as I think about this more, I think the underlying metaphor is that the mind is a field/farm, so I'm not sure how well "hollow mind" would work. Maybe a "fallow mind"?
3. This use of door refers to things that open and shut, that is covers for door-space. This can be gates, curtains, what we actually think of as doors, and so one. A door that cannot be closed (because it is a space in a wall) is the nothinging (nonexistent) part of a wall. A "door" fills the nothinging of a wall (on that note, that whole root works really weird for english speakers, I think. A whole root for not existing).
4. I'm not sure if analogy/metonymy with doors and metaphorical ideas would work like they do in English. Probably something else would work better, depending on the metaphor. However there probably are times it would work. So I guess it depends on the figurative speech in question.

I was going to do some sentences and examples, but I don't think I will today. Just plain lazy and I ant to chase another post doing stuff on the metaphor of the mind being a farm.  Since that was a coolish sort of idea I had.  Metaphors are fun!

That last story but in TbKt

So I had fun writing the last story so I'm gonna translate it again, but in TbKt. Not that it's very sensible to the Kikxotian mind, but hey maybe it's the sort of story they publish in anthologies of tribal tales to make fun of their poor, ignorant neighbors. Also, this translation should hopefully have better flow and more flowery language (sort of), since this lang is way more fleshed.

Ūstu khosaowaxphīc-owphīc wōluf? Ūíonuc khoowaxphīc. Oshbīmiz, faoqcīl íopul. Smofizōchōp ūsimf-isumf. Īsaxumōfsā wōluf. Ugmasūkuc ofaxqīl. Īn wōluf amlōí līwūl ūstu. Usarsíuy īw naxiyka phruyāzō wōbothat. Thāxakh aksōtnāg, fīs khopīkūg īn wōluf. Īn wōluf khoāpkāg agis baxifwa ūstu. 
Most important things to note here? I tried to not bring up subjects unless the subject changed from the last sentence. So in TbKt narrative forms the subject is implied until changed. This also means that the patient focus and agent focus often switch while trying to maintain the same subject. I can't remember anything else of note right now.  It's been a while since I did this though I'm just now publishing it.  Probably could be cleaned up though but whatever.  I'm still learning this language too!