All Star: Best song of the 90s?

I interrupt my being busy with the semester to bring you this essay on the beauty of All Star.

"As a scholar of Smash Mouth, I think there's a disagreement over what mugged means here, and we might actually have the same base idea. It's getting jumped, beat up, etc. It might not necessarily mean being targeted because he has something of value. The wise person says "Hey you, the way you're going, the world (that is life) is gonna catch you up and knock you down" to which the speaker replies "You know, I know that I'm dumb and that people think I'm dumb. But this doesn't bother me" What he knows is that he has to "hit the ground running," he needs to stay ahead of both the world and be prepared for one it does catch up (since the years don't stop coming). He may get knocked down by the world, but that shouldn't stop him from being who he is. That's why he explores the backstreets, and tries new things. Because he isn't afraid of the world. He's a rock star, an all star.

The second verse calls back to this imagery. The world getting cold is the same idea as the world rolling him. It's an unfeeling place. Yet as he says "the meteor man begs to differ, judging by the hole in the satellite picture" In the same way that he isn't afraid of the world rolling him, he is doesn't believe that life gets harder the longer it goes on. In fact, if the ice is going to break, might as well take it into your own hands and jump in the water on your own terms. It's a song celebrating individual freedom. It's an existentialist love song.

Consider the verse "Somebody once asked...all use a little change". Here the speaker encounters someone who has been rolled by the world. Yet they rather than taking the chance to swim, they try to run away from their problem. The singer is sympathetic, yet also realizes the foolishness in this action. A little fuel could do him some good, but it won't fix the problem. The change in sense of the word "change" highlights this. We could all do a little better with some "change" be it a change in scenery or the personality, but it will do us only as much good as we make of it. In the end, the years start coming and they don't stop coming, so we should adapt ourselves to it, rather than live in fear. And so in the end, this is why the singer is dismissive of the wise person at the beginning. He realizes that being smart does you no good if you don't use it. Why fear the future when you can instead prepare yourself for it and have fun while doing so?

Such must we all be."

Melancholic Bitch

No, that's not what I am. Rather it's a band I really like (been a fan since 2013, when they did a concert at @america and I was the official US representative) that just released a new album. Sounds great right? It is...if you live in Indonesia and can actually get a hold of one of their CDs. Only the single is on their youtube/soundcloud and so far there doesn't seem to be any other way to get the album proper. But hey, album+shirt+concert is only like $15 if you happen to be in the right area.

So yeah, it makes me happy, but also sad because I want listen. Word on the street is that it is good. It was hard enough finding their last album, Balada Joni dan Susi.

Language Profile: Knənʔtəəʔ

Name:Knənʔtəəʔ
Alternative Names: Toúījāb Shbīmut, The fishermen's language
Family: Kntic (also known as Gulf Islands), in the Central Islands branch.  Probably distantly related to the now-extinct languages of the West Bay. This is in turn has been linked to the hypothetical Gulf family, which includes the Neaso family and sometimes Towwu Pũ Saho. Closely related to the inland languages on their island
Location: On the north coast of the largest island between TbKt land and Uxlots.
History: They have lived in villages on the island for thousands of years. Recently a large Kikxotian outpost was founded on their island. Knənʔtəəʔ has become the largest and most prominent of its family from this, and is now a common third language throughout the Gulf islands.
Writing System: Not a written language, they use TbKt for writing purposes
Typological information:

• Word order: SVO, with VSO (sort of) in some intransitive clauses
• Alignment: Split ergative
• Morphological:Analytic with some agglutinative features

Notable Features:

• Incopyfixation
• Reduplication in general
• Minor syllables
• Crazy vowels
• 2 lengths
• 3 phonations (modal, creaky, and breathy)
• 9 qualities
• Relatively analytic (so I get the best of both worlds)
• Many derivational patterns
• Overly specific lexical items
• Expressionals (maybe eventually)

Some morphological markings:

• Verbs
• Subject (sometimes)
• Aspect
• Voice-ish
• Pluractionality
• Nouns

Origins: June 2017. I had recently learned about Aslian languages and wanted to do something like that
History: I was gonna do it for a two hour (and did do it eventually, though I never posted it) but then a new one was posted, so I did a two hour challenge on my own after doing Akm. Then like I week later I posted the outcome
Status: In-development. I often do translates in it, including in a relay. It's a pretty fun one to work with
What I'm doing with it and why:
Other Notes: I like to look through my birding books and turn the bird calls into words. Another source of vocabulary is typos on the internet

9/7/17- Probably enough for now. One day I'll get a CALS page and other stuff on i
4/21/18- Remembered to update morphosyntactic alignment to "split-ergative" from nom-acc

Language Profile: Ākoṇṭemāṟuttōm

Name: Ākoṇṭemāṟuttōm
Alternative Names: Dravidlang
Family:The Maruttom languages spoken in the north and interior of the Southern Continent. Might in turn be related to the heavily dependent marking and phonologically similar languages of the West Coast and interior, but that has not be proven yet.
Location:Along the North Coast of the Southern Continent and used as a lingua franca throughout the region. Despite their relatively close locations, it is firmly out of the TbKt sphere of influence.
History: I haven't really fleshed out their history at all except that they are the Kikxotians democractic rivals to the south
Writing system: Have a local alphabet
Typological information:

• Word order: SOV
• Alignment:Nominative-Accusative
• Morphological: Agglutinative

Notable Features:

• Lots of non-finite verbs
• No relative clauses
• Case system that is sort of European-like but also not
• Phonology stuff
• No phonemic fricatives
• Lots of sandhi
• Many point of articulation
• Many suppletive verb forms for marking moods

Some morphological markings:

• Verbs
• Participial endings 
• Directional
• Other derivationals
• Voice
• Tense
• Aspect
• Subject
• Mood (sometimes)
• Evidentials
• Nouns
• Gender
• Case
• Other postpositional clitics

Origins: June 2017 for a two hour challenge.
History: I was gonna do the previous two hour challenge with an Austroasiatic lang and then this one got posted so I did it.
Status: In-development. I often do translates in it. The verb system still needs a ton of work, and nouns can definitely be expanded on. Also I want to make it more unique (which I think is already happening since I haven't really looked at Dravidian grammars while working on it (for this reason) since the challenge)
What I'm doing with it and why:
Other Notes:

9/7/17- Probably enough for now. One day I'll get a CALS page and other stuff on it

Language Profile: Towwu Pũ Saho

Name: Towwu Pũ Saho
Alternative Names: The Language of the Mountain Peoples, Toúījāb Vīggo Kmurīt
Family: Isolate. Some (TbKt) linguists feel that it is a distant relative of TbKt and therefore an isolate branch of the Western Plains family. Others have tried to link them to the Kntic languages or even the hypothetical Gulf family, but the evidence is mostly typological in nature. Some also hypothesize that there are relatives living in the rainshadow desert, however this area is mostly unexplored and uninhabited.
Location: In the mountains and plateaus north of the Kikxotian plains. Basically, their villages start popping up as the hills start appearing. Many of them living alongside the cliffs, or even have villages built into the cliffs (think Dogon or Pueblo peoples sort of thing).
History: As far as anyone is aware, they have always lived in their area. They might once have been more spread out before being absorbed by the Kikxotians in the lowlands, however people are pretty sure that the coasts were once inhabited relatives of the Kntic languages, not of Towwu Pũ Saho
Writing System: Not a written language, they use TbKt for writing purposes
Typological information:

• Word order: SOV (but based on animacy and definiteness as well)
• Alignment: Direct-Inverse (strangely enough)
• Morphological: Analytic

Notable Features:

•  Many many (TAM) particles
• Well, sort of. They are particles that mark TAM but they also have many other functions depending on the POS they precede or follow
• Nasal harmony
• Contentive POS (not that I knew this word or classification when I started the language)
• Strong analytic tendencies (but allows compounding and some derivation)
• Direct-inverse alignment and definiteness of arguments marked with a portmanteau particle
• Detailed animacy hierarchy
• Complicated deixis/demonstrative system
• Visible vs invisible
• Proximal vs Medial vs Distal
• Above vs same level vs below

Some morphological markings:

• It's isolating so they are more of particle markings!
• Verbs
• Aspect (preposition)
• Modality (preposition)
•  Causative (reduplication)
• Nouns

Origins: Late 2016 after I decided to start conlanging again. A lot of the initial work was done in a hotel room in Cairo after being stranded there an extra day due to flight stuff
History: I wanted to do something new and had never done an analytic language before and I wanted to try my hand at a real Austronesian-alligned language. I don't remember if I had an idea for this language before the hotel room, but that's definitely where I started sketching it out. I honestly can't say what influenced it most. Obviously I was looking at Guarani for nasal harmony (I didn't know about Gê languages until later) and in world building I was definitely thinking of the Dogon. I know (at least) some Dogon languages are isolating, but I don't think that was an influence on this language, because I couldn't find any good information on them. I was reading a lot about austronesian alignment too. The direct inverse system came from me reanalyzing my attempt at an Austronesian alignment when I realized that what I had didn't really work as an austronesian system but with a couple tweaks it was (mostly like) direct-inverse.

Status: In-development. I work on it fairly often, since it is different than a lot of my other languages. Plus it just looks weird, which is great for showing to other people
What I'm doing with it and why: Sitting on it mostly :p . One day I'll figure out more uses for it.
CALS link:
Other Notes: I love getting people to say what languages it reminds them of. I once posted a story of it on facebook and got some good results.

9/2/17- Probably enough for now. One day I'll get a CALS page and other stuff on it

Language Profile: Neaso Uxlotsuz

Name: Neaso Uxlotsuz
Alternative Names: The Language of the Sea Peoples, Toúījāb Vīggo Gfutīt
Family: Neaso family (which might be part of a broader hypothetical Gulf family, though the links are shaky at best, especially with most of the family being extinct)
Location: In the city of Uxlots on the big delta of the big river on the northeast part of the bay and it's surrounding areas. Also serves as lingua franca in the eastern bay area. In reality, it forms a dialect continuum with other Neaso languages, which are spoken up and down the coast (to the mountains at least), along the rivers and more southernly plains and basically all over the eastern side of the bay.
History: While always an important trading center, the last couple of hundred years have boosted Uxlots importance and gave it more political power in the region, hence the choice of its language to showcase the broader features of its family.
Writing System: Modified version of the Kikxotian logography, mostly used as an alphabet with some logographs.
Typological information:

• Word order:VSO with secondary SVO
• Alignment:Active-Stative (mostly split-S but it has some fluid elements)
• Morphological: Fusional

Notable Features:

• Active stative alignment, of course
• Only stative verbs, no adjectives
• Umlaut
• Fusionality (since I've never really done that before)
• European(ish) case system
• Marked definiteness 
• Multiple declensions
• Finite vs non-finite verbs
• Lots of constructions are made with an auxillary + non-finite form
• Strong division between Parts of Speech, especially nouns and verbs 
• Limited compounding
• Willingness to loan

Some morphological markings:

• Verbs
• Agreement (one suffix)
• Tense
• Aspect
• Subject Person
• Subject Number
• Non-finitity (suffix)
•  Infinitive
• Stative
• General non-finite
• Nouns (all on one suffix)
• Definiteness
• Case
• Number

Origins: Mid to late 2015, in Indonesia while on my mission and after writing up a letter on TbKt and realizing how much I missed conlanging.
History: As mentioned, after I wrote my first letter about TbKt, I was having so much fun so I decided to make another language, to be a neighbor of TbKt that was really different than it. I wanted to do things with loan words and try out fusionality. And weird verbal things for some reason. Also a vaguely germanic feel? In retrospect, it's almost like it was meant to be a Germlang but also not at all a Germlang. Well I stopped conlanging before I sent the letter with this one so (I still have all the materials and) my friend has no idea of it and it sat around until I started again. I had a much harder time going back to this one because  the idea was just more nebulous and more difficult, but I do want to eventually fix up and flesh it out more. Now it is important for worldbuilding, but it itself is still very underdeveloped.

Status: In-development. I work on it sometimes but it usually gets shelved (because it is hard and its verbal system is a mess)
What I'm doing with it and why: Sitting on it mostly :p . One day I'll figure out more uses for it. It's weird romanization (and eventually orthography) has proved useful in justifying decisions for Papualang though.
CALS link:
Other Notes:This is probably one of my least impressionistic conlangs (so most unique :p ). I feel like it's really hard to pin the inspirations and stuff on it. Which is cool I guess.

9/2/17- Probably enough for now. One day I'll get a CALS page and other stuff on it

Isolating polylang?

I've already complained about polysynthesis before. I still think it's a stupid term. Anyway, here's one (very strict) definition I've seen for it:

1) polypersonal agreement
2) noun incorporation
3) extensive derivational synthesis
4) pervasive head-marking
5) verb-marking more than noun-marking

There's nothing about the phonological coherence in this one. Which, if I understand correctly, allows for the mythical "isolating polysynthetic language". Now this is a concept I've heard about before, in the back corners of internet forums and the like. I never understood how it was possible.

Then I met Abui. The author describes it as polysynthetic. Yet it sure doesn't look it. I think the most morphemes I've in a (phonological?) word is 5 and most of 2-3. Yet it's serial verbs allow for very complex verb phrases. While it's not isolating by any means (it's squarely in the agglutinating camp), it does show the diversity of "polysynthetic" languages and how the term really doesn't do justice. I'm sure if the average amateur (con)-linguist looked at it (even with glosses) they'd probably not label it as polysynthetic. Yet the author of this grammar was confident in doing so and I haven't seen anything disputing this. (Another fun one that I keep seeing brought up as polysynthetic (including by experts in the field like Michael Fortescue) with no discussion as to why it is classified as such. From my skimmings of the grammar, it sure doesn't look it).

In other news, I'm looking forward to the release of the Oxford Handbook of Polysynthesis which comes out in a few months.