ForestBoard

Ao diplomatic mission friendly reminder not to double post :) If you'd like to add in a second bit to your post, please edit it in into your original message.

Ao diplomatic mission wrote:

Do y'all have an offsite forum? My region uses a Taptalk and I already have an identity. We occasionally put out our region newspaper and share the info. If not I can share the news in Dispatches...probably.

We have an offsite forum (but it isn't very active at the moment) and we have a Discord server which is more active than the forums, but less active than the RMB. Links to both can be found at the top of the regional page!

Techno Furry wrote:

hello, are furries welcomed here?

I wouldn't say we have a policy on that, I mean we're a lot less rude here than... Some people, I'm sure as long as you didn't say anything rude to us, we wouldn't be rude to you.

Spooky mode enabled

Democratic Republic of Cacusia wrote:

Spooky mode enabled

Daarwyrth joined the spooky flag club.

Alright... got so involved with my conlang that I've since decided to split it up into 4 stinking factbooks. (In fairness, the Lexicon/Dictionary is quite pathetically empty atm.)

Finally getting to grammar... something I used to dread, but after having consumed an entire weekend learning about declensions and conjugation, actually find it surprisingly fun albeit horrendously complicated. (I won't get into the rabbit hole that I shamelessly forced into Ru's inbox.)

Suffice to say I've got a good few plans for Jutsaish, just gotta actually make them work together and also put them down somewhere (i.e. actually in the factbook). Odds are whatever I'm coming up with isn't considered all that naturalistic, but - to heck with it I say, I'm doing what I want and making my people suffer as a result. xD

To all of those of you who conglang: y'all are brilliant. Honestly even if you make a bad conlang, still props to you. Please do share your work, I'd be most interested.
To all of those of you who do not: Don't get started... it will consume so much of your life. xD

Siornor wrote:

I've been slowly chipping away at devising Sierelbosh for a year now (and am still next to nowhere... I have an ever-changing alphabet and a rough idea of the grammar I want to use). I think it's got to be impossible to design a language that is truly akin to any naturally-evolved one.

This is all-too relatable. I actually went over this in fair detail in the International Democratic Union discord (definitely recommend checking their region out lol) just last night, probably because I've been obsessed with getting grammar, i.e. actual progress, done in Jutsaish and consequently various other conlang shells I've had lying around (mainly Mozolephesian and Yukjuleidian, but also Carav, Entogan a couple others to a lesser degree).

Jutsaish itself used to be my first semi-successful conlang, and I still consider it a descendant of it even if they're nothing remotely alike. It still absolutely needs a ton of work imo, but it's better than anything I made afterward until I realized, many phonetic remakes and orthographic updates in, that it was a hyper-unrealistic kitchen sink monstrosity without any grammar - so the original with some small tweaks as Entogan, and the new kitchen sink with 90% of it thrown away as Jutsaish became their own distinct conlangs in an accidental form of language evolution.

Old Jutsaish on the other hand, which I really didn't want for Jutsa, I instead merged with my old naming scheme pseudo-conlang I used for Universe Sandbox planets, along with my second conlang's script (also sucked but less-so than most future ones lol) to become Carav (which still mainly uses Universe Sandbox for lore purposes and is my new naming system lol).

I tell you though, as much as I have learned in the years since, I still have so much to go. It's a huge time sync (and learning more early on imo helps a lot in actually getting things done and sticking with them, but it's not a 100% fix by any stretch). And don't even get started on naturalization - truly natural languages imply cultural norms, interaction with other languages (hard if you don't want any irl influences, means whole other conlangs), history and change over time and irregularities - most of which will confuse you beyond comprehension as well as any readers who might even begin to care about your work. Yeah, no, history's fun but I draw a line at a certain point. :')

Siornor wrote:

- What languages do you know IRL? Have you taken inspiration from any of these?

English. xD

Trying to learn French though (in college actually). Definitely know bits and bobs here and there, like Greek and Russian orthography, a great many phonetic inventories (though most not by heart, mostly just odd facts and bookmarked African languages), and a tiny bit of Norwegian (was gonna learn it, decided not to). I'd be interested in maybe learning Russian (admittedly less-so atm), Welsh or Portuguese, but uh... yeah no baby steps - I'm lucky if I get my English under control.

_{And yes, I appreciate the irony of studying grammar for and spending dozens of hours on my conlang instead of French.}

Siornor wrote:

- Have you done much formal study/work in linguistics?

Nothing formal - purely self-taught lol. Last weekend alone I spent way too much time looking up declensions and conjugation and parts of speech on the wikipedia, but yeah I've also read bits and bobs in a conlang book (The Art of the Language by David Peterson), research on various languages, way too much about phonetics and uh... yeah actually that's mostly it lol. I've a friend who's studying phonetics professionally and uh... hoo boy, some of the hyper-detailed stuff is scary even to me lol.

Edit: Then I go on hiatus for months at a time cause I spent too much time doing that and have other things I really need to get done, only to forget a chunk of it, forget what I'm doing with my conlang, and have to start all over.

Siornor wrote:

- What other resources do you draw from? (besides languages you know and formal experience)

I try to draw off of various languages for various projects, but admittedly I also try to create my own content too lol. For sure, Jutsaish is largely inspired by southeast Asian languages (like Cantonese and Vietnamese; see contour tones, implosives, some analytic bits, noun classifiers and logographs [even the main script is largely inspired by Tibetan]), and somewhat by Austronesian languages (mainly with voiceless consonants / several places of articulation, lots of nasals, some word constructions) and south/west African languages (mainly clicks, also implosives, and underlying register tones).

For Grammar I admit that I suspect I'm leaning more towards the fusional languages of Europe for conjugation, but aside from some wacky bits I'm hoping to make it devolve analytically like English has (although to a lesser extent). I also originally was going for a mini-alphabet-abugida thing sorta like with some Indian scripts, but I talked myself (with a little nudge from a friend or two) into making it more abjad-like as in Semitic languages. (It does look cleaner, although reading might be absurd...)

My being fairly new to this, I highly doubt I'm doing "great", but it's fun and it's progress, and certainly is something unique (though... maybe more of an optative "certainly".. xD)

Welp, I think I can confidently say I'm sick of the ancient Greek philosophers and their nonsense. They all make claims that are either (a) laughably incorrect, since they didn't have the capability to know otherwise, or (b) unfalsifiable and unprovable, since it's just linguistic flourish. Socrates alone avoids falling into this, since his thing was just showing that no one knows anything. I hope we get to a point in society where we have the time to talk about nothing as much as Plato did.

But I will never be sick of nature. Though it can make you sick. Wash your hands. Fun nature fact! Our current models of evolution have RNA predating cells altogether, with RNA reproducing without any living things, then becoming DNA (since it's more stable, which would be selected for), then having phospholipid shell structures actually form cells around it. It's a bit of a stretch to say that it's a nature fact, but my Invertebrate Zoology prof got Covid, so that's on hold right now.

what do you think of deserts

NOOOOOOOOO....

I ACCIDENTALLY DROPPED WELFARE 😫😫😫

I look at the MWQ site to get my basket weaving up and don't read the issue solutions... I only realised it bunned off welfare at the last second 😥😫