George gives a short talk about how phonology affects phonetic transcriptions and why the narrow “phonetic” transcription of your language does not have to be overly specific (especially with vowels!). We should have a regular episode again next month. ORIGINAL SCRIPT: There is a tendency in the conlanging community to hew toward more narrow, standardized… Read more »
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Conlangery SHORTS #28: Fuzzy Phonetics
Saturday, April 14th, 2018#518
Monday, April 2nd, 2018—-BREAKING—-
We interrupt your usual schedule with this important announcement. Reports are coming in about a brand new conlang idea, where everything is written in the style of a breaking news report. This idea is believed to originate from one bored shitposter killing time as they waited in the departure lounge of a train station. More on this as it develops.
#503
Thursday, August 10th, 2017Create a conlang for a race of animate trees, that use human-shaped diagrams to represent language phylogeny.
#501
Wednesday, July 19th, 2017Your conculture has a specific dialect for each season, but they don’t have established boundaries on when each season starts on their calendar.
#459
Tuesday, May 31st, 2016Evidentiality is marked by the meter of a clause. Anything directly observed is iambic, hearsay evidence is dactylic, inferences are anapestic, etc.
#458
Monday, May 23rd, 2016Have a series of consonants that occurs mostly in words about the human body and in slang from a period about 50 years before.
These are, of course, the retro-flex consonants.
#446
Thursday, February 4th, 2016Get yourself some denim and make yourself a jonlang.
Remember Defiance
Tuesday, December 1st, 2015David J. Peterson received a BA in English and Linguistics from UC Berkeley in 2003 and an MA in Linguistics from UC San Diego in 2005. He created the Dothraki and Valyrian languages for HBO’s Game of Thrones, the Castithan, Irathient and Indojisnen languages for Syfy’s Defiance, the Sondiv language for the CW’s Star-Crossed, the Lishepus language for Syfy’s Dominion, the Trigedasleng language for the CW’s The 100, and the Shiväisith language for Marvel’s Thor: The Dark World. He’s been creating languages since 2000.
Abstract
The show Defiance aired on the Syfy network for three seasons from 2013 to 2015. It featured four full conlangs each with its own writing system. This paper details some of what went into making that a reality.
Version History
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
shadow is irjal (revisited)
Monday, November 23rd, 2015irjal = shadow (noun) (Some things Google found for “irjal”: an unusual to uncommon term; a rare last name that can be Indonesian; a rare first name; similar Ãrjál is in Hungarian a conjugation of the verb to write; similar Irja is an uncommon feminine Finnish first name; Irjal ash Shaykhiyah is the name of a place in Iraq; similar Irjala is the name of a place in Finland)
Word derivation for “shadow” :
Basque = itzal, Finnish = varjo
Miresua = irjal
My previous Miresua conlang word for shadow was iljar. I swapped the L and R around, which makes the new word look more similar to the Basque and the Finnish words.
The word shadow isn’t in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, although its plural can be found once in Through the Looking-Glass.
— the mild blue eyes and kindly smile of the Knight — the setting sun gleaming through his hair, and shining on his armour in a blaze of light that quite dazzled her — the horse quietly moving about, with the reins hanging loose on his neck, cropping the grass at her feet — and the black shadows of the forest behind —
Language Needed for Mystery Novel
Saturday, October 24th, 2015Description
Will Hodgkinson is looking for a conlang expert to create a language for a novel he is planning to write next year. In the context of the novel the conlang itself is fictional, created by one of the characters who uses it to write diary entries in it, and it serves as a kind of encryption method for both other characters of the novel and the readers themselves to crack, if they wish to do so.
The job itself consists of:
- Developing a full conlang with a 1000-word vocabulary and a complete grammatical description;
- Translating texts for the novel. This does not fall under the original compensation scheme and compensation for it will have to be negotiated between employer and applicant.
An orthography may be requested for the language at a later time. Compensation for it can be negotiated if the need arises.
Employer
Will Hodgkinson
Application Period
Closed due to reached deadline
Term
The employer is looking to start writing the novel itself in May 2016. The conlang is part of the preparatory work and should be ready before then. The employer is expecting the chosen applicant to set up a working schedule with regular updates in order to keep track of progress.
Compensation
$600 ($300 upfront, $300 on final delivery) for the language, grammar description and original lexicon. Compensation for translations and other additional work to be negotiated.
To Apply
Email – “at” – “dot” – to express your interest in the project. Examples of previous work are welcome.
Note: Please assume that comments left on this post will not be read by the employer.