#Trigedasleng grammar

[keitrinkomfloukru]

Had a notion today that Trigedasleng's equivalent of the "cutesy" diminutive suffix could be just lengthening the final vowel. E.g.:

fecha, "dog" fechaaa, "doggie!"

#I mean #don't we already do that sometimes? #trigedasleng #noncanon trigedasleng #trigedasleng grammar

[dedalvs]

Jessie Sams (@quothalinguist) and I were interviewed for the Story Beast podcast, and it's out today! We talked about lots of stuff—language, popcorn, roombas—and each introduced our story beast. Check it out!

#conlang #language #quothalinguist #writing #grammar #got #game of thrones #hotd #house of the dragon #halo #shadow & bone #motherland fort salem #motherland #switches #the 100 #trigedasleng #defiance #paper girls #vampire academy #other stuff #Spotify

[lassieposting]

Ten languages!! bro. how. and what are they

I didn't have any friends until I was like. 18-19. So I used to hide in like a janitors closet at breaks and lunch, jam a chair under the door handle, and learn languages instead. The library had to order in a bunch of language books for me

That was a long time ago but I still remember the very basics of Finnish, Estonian, Egyptian Arabic, Polish, Russian

And I speak/understand decent Dutch, German, French and Spanish

And then there's Trigedasleng, a conlang by @dedalvs because I am a nerd

I always had a great mind for retaining vocab and I pick up accents really well, but grammar was my downfall Every Time. I'd get to a certain point and hit some grammar point (genders in German, different types of past tense in Spanish) that just. Would not compute, and I'd get stuck at that level. I wanted to be a translator at one point but the tism brain just won't grammar well (or translate fast enough). I could get by with like, visiting the countries though

#backyard anon

[lovergurrl411]

Trying to Learn or Write Trigedasleng for Fanfic or Fun?

I have no idea who needs to hear this but - There are a lot of resources to learn the language out there. And despite the common thought that the language doesn't have a lot of words, or is not fully thought out, there is actually a very thorough breakdown of how Trigedasleng words are created. It's good to remember that any constructed language (conlang) is going to have a fully fleshed out system for it's linguistic structure or else it'd be near impossible to learn it with any level of accuracy or speak it with others.  Here's a couple sources to help you on your way: 

1. This is a magnificent resource, especially if you're just trying to see the scope of the language with its syntax rules, etc. "Trigedasleng Reference: Grammar and Lexicon" - https://dedalvs.com/work/the-100/trigedasleng_v5.pdf

2.This is the best way to learn the language, I think, as it teaches you the language the same way you'd learn any other language and each section breakdown has levels to master: https://app.memrise.com/course/5522455/trigedasleng/

3. My absolute favorite to use as a fanfiction writer who needs quick understandable explanations about the language and find multiple words that are both canonical and non canonical is this website, but it's unfortunately been down the last couple of days. Hopefully it's back up and running soon! https://trigedasleng.net/search/prince 

As it's a conlang, the most important thing I would say to anyone is have fun and that’ll help you significantly figure out the best way to say what you want. Sometimes that'll be with a word that already exists in the lexicon, or it might be with a word that you create based on the rules of the lexicon. 

#The 100 #trigedasleng #learning trigedasleng #writing trigedasleng #fanfiction #the 100 fandom #the 100 fanfiction #bellarke fanfiction #i'm having way too much fun with this #i've probably included too much trigesasleng in my fanfic #i regret nothing #i love playing with this language #an unkindness of stars fanfiction #chapter 5 coming soon

[theinvisiblequestion]

Trigedasleng Notice

For those of you new to the show or new to being fans of Trigedasleng itself, please remember that trigedasleng.info will not update with new translations or terms until after an episode airs. I don’t have access to the information required to update the site until @dedalvs has time to post the translations, after which I need time to enter all that data into the site’s data.

Additionally, a grammar tutorial is forthcoming and, pending clarification of a few minor bits of information, will be posted on trigedasleng.info. More information on that when it’s ready.

#trigedasleng #trigedasleng dictionary #update #the 100 #cw #trigedasleng help #trigedasleng grammar #dedalvs

[willexxmercer]

For the ficlet starter lines, #6 with Echoven!

Haven't written these lovely ladies in a while! Thank you!

From this - #6 “That makes absolutely no sense.”

Not accepting any more prompts at the moment, sorry :) I'm trying to clear out my askbox!

They’re in the mechanical room on the Ring, surrounded by metal and pipes. All around them, Echo can hear the ever-present hum of the technology that keeps the space station, and therefore all of them, alive. She fiddles with her armbands while Raven rambles on about things she couldn’t possibly hope to understand, no matter how long she spends in space. Even though they’ve been on the Ring for close to four years, she still finds herself struggling to comprehend some of the more outlandish aspects of the technology that surrounds her. Not like Emori. Emori took to it all like a fish to water. Echo feels more like a fish in a tree.

“And so, the calibrator was off by an n’th of a degree, and it caused the reactor to misfire and that’s what caused the pressure to build up, but if I had a pressure regulator, then it wouldn’t be so bad,” Raven explains, talking with her hands in the way she usually does when she gets excited about this kind of thing. At least, that’s what Echo thinks she says. Really, all she hears is a whole bunch of “blah blah technology, blah blah nuclear reactor,” and when she hears ‘nuclear reactor,’ she usually gets nervous. Raven isn’t nervous, though. On the contrary, she’s beaming in pure story-telling mode, so Echo isn’t too concerned.

“Rae,” she says, gently touching the other girl’s elbow, “in English, please?”

The shorter girl immediately smirks, then launches into a rapid explanation of what she had just said, this time in Trigedasleng. It’s broken, and ripe with grammatical errors, and riddled with words that sound like Trig but are really just English words spoken in an accent.

Echo laughs, something she never thought she’d be caught dead doing, and holds up her hands in defeat. “Cute,” she says. Then, in Trig, she adds, “but our next lesson is on past tense.”

Raven whines. “I hate grammar lessons, though,” she complains, pouting at Echo.

She arches an eyebrow, trying hard not to give in to the urge to just let Raven win. It’s been harder and harder to fight that urge, though. There’s something in the way Raven smiles at her when she remembers which wrench is which, or how she always takes the time to explain things instead of just working rapidly and leaving Echo in the dust like she used to do. Raven makes Echo feel included, despite everything. She knows she’s a part of the family now, but the first couple of years in space still stick with her, and Echo finds herself wondering from time to time if she’s imagining everyone’s acceptance.

She never has to wonder with Raven.

“We’ll skip the next grammar lesson if you just explain to me in plain English, no technical terms, what you were just talking about,” Echo finally promises. The sheer look of glee in Raven’s eyes more than makes up for the guilt Echo feels at breaking her resolve.

For a moment, Raven stands still, her tongue poking out the corner of her mouth, her arms crossed in front of her as she thinks. It’s a cute pose, Echo can’t help but notice.

Finally, the shorter girl holds up a finger. “Alright! So, basically, the calibrator here, this is supposed to be like the army commander, right? It tells everything what to do and how to do it, and it’s responsible for making sure everything’s in the right place. But it screwed up, okay? It told someone the wrong thing, and they fired an arrow too early, and then the enemy army got all pissed off, and they started to attack back, but since they’re on opposite sides of a gorge, they can’t do much but shout at each other and occasionally fire arrows but like, they can see it coming so they dodge it, but every arrow just makes the other side angrier, and you just know that if that gorge wasn’t in the way then it’d be like a battle to the death.” Raven nods, as though it’s the most obvious thing.

“Uh huh…” Echo hums, an incredulous expression on her face. She can’t help but appreciate the lengths Raven’s going to just to try and help her understand.

Whether it’s working or not is a whole other story.

Raven continues. “And the pressure regulator, that would be like the heda swooping in at the last minute and yelling at them about the coalition and how they shouldn’t be fighting. Except in this case the heda is somewhere completely different, so the pressure’s building, and the best thing we can do is hope there’s a storm or something so the armies just go home temporarily.” With that, she grins, crossing her arms in front of her, clearly thinking she’s won the bet.

Except…

“Raven…” Echo starts, trying to speak as gently as possible, “That makes absolutely no sense.”

“What?!” Raven blurts, frowning. “But I related it to your life experience and everything. Come on, E, you gotta give me something.”

The nickname sends a warm, fuzzy feeling straight through Echo’s core, as if she hadn’t used a nickname of her own earlier. It’s just one more reminder that she isn’t alone, that she has people here on this hunk of metal floating in space who actually care about her.

“I’m sorry,” she says, shrugging. “It just doesn’t.”

Raven peers at her as though she’s trying to determine if Echo’s pulling her leg or not. Whatever answer she was expecting, she clearly doesn’t get it as she pouts.

“I hate grammar,” she grumbles, turning away. Echo chuckles, putting a hand on her shoulder.

“Tell you what,” she says, gently guiding Raven back around to look at her. “I’ll pretend to understand, and you just go on and do what you need to do to, er, temporarily stop the battle between the two armies.”

The look on Raven’s face makes it all worth it in the end, as Echo sits back and watches her work her magic on the machines.

#echoven #recho #spy mechanic #echo kom spacekru #raven reyes #echo kom azgeda #the 100 #t100 ficlets

[learntrigedasleng]

grammar - auxiliaries & modals

Auxiliaries and modals are used for a few different purposes, but mostly to distinguish tenses.

Present tense: no auxiliaries

I help him = Ai sis em au

Past tense: don

There is only simple past tense in trigedasleng, no perfect tenses.

I helped him = Ai don sis em au

I have helped him = Ai don sis em au

I had helped him = Ai don sis em au

Future tense: na

I will help him = Ai na sis em au

Na also means can.

I can help him = Ai na sis em au

Passive aspect: ge

I am helped = Ai ge sis au

Progressive: ste

I am helping him = Ai ste sis em au

Can also be used together with past or future tense.

I was helping him = Ai don ste sis em au

I will be helping him = Ai na ste sis em au

Modality: beda and souda

Beda means should.

I should help him = Ai beda sis em au

Souda means must.

I must help him = Ai souda sis em au

Question negation: din

Din means didn’t, won’t and isn’t.

Didn’t you help him? = Din yu sis em au?

Won’t you help him? = Din yu sis em au

Isn’t he helped? = Din em ge sis au?

#trigedasleng #learn trigedasleng #learntrigedasleng #the100 #grammar #auxiliaries #modals #auxiliariesmodals

[incorrect-motherland-quotes]

Hi! You'll be happy to know David J Peterson, inventor of Trigedasleng, was the one who worked on the Witch language for M:FS! You can see translations under dedalvs on AO3. :)

I was quite happy to learn that! I dug up what info exists online but I’m still looking for a full reference grammar so I can become the resident fandom pedant :Þ

I know the 100/M:FS overlap is strong but I still think it’s funny to make note of who thinks of him as slengheda / the dothraki guy / the defiance languages guy.

are you aware of david’s opinions on the validity of the big spoon / little spoon dichotomy?

[thelanguagecommunity]

“what language should I learn?”

“is it better to learn [x] or [x]?”

“is it worth learning [x]?”

I get this type of question a lot and I see questions like these a lot on language learning forums, but it’s very difficult to answer because ultimately language learning is a highly personal decision. Passion is required to motivate your studies, and if you aren’t in love with your language it will be very hard to put in the time you need. Thus, no language is objectively better or worse, it all comes down to factors in your life. So, I’ve put together a guide to assist your with the kind of factors you can consider when choosing a language for study.

First, address you language-learning priorities.

Think of the reasons why are you interested in learning a new language. Try to really articulate what draws you to languages. Keeping these reasons in mind as you begin study will help keep you focused and motivated. Here are some suggestions to help you get started, complete with wikipedia links so you can learn more:

Linguistic curiosity?

For this, I recommend looking into dead, literary or constructed languages. There are lots of cool linguistic experiments and reconstructions going on and active communities that work on them! Here’s a brief list:

Dead languages:

Akkadian

Egyptian (Ancient Egyptian)

Gaulish

Gothic

Hittite

Old Prussian

Sumerian

Older iterations of modern day languages:

Classical Armenian

Classical Nahuatl (language of the Aztec Empire)

Early Modern English (Shakespearean English)

Galician-Portuguese

Middle English (Chaucer English)

Middle Persian/Pahlavi

Old English

Old French

Old Spanish

Old Tagalog (+ Baybayin)

Ottoman Turkish

Constructed:

Anglish (experiment to create a purely Anglo-Saxon English)

Esperanto

Interlingua

Láadan (a “feminist language”)

Lingua Franca Nova

Lingwa de Planeta

Lobjan

Toki Pona (a minimalist language)

Wenedyk (what if the Romans had occupied Poland?)

Cultural interests?

Maybe you just want to connect to another culture. A language is often the portal to a culture and are great for broadening your horizons! The world is full of rich cultures; learning the language helps you navigate a culture and appreciate it more fully.

Here are some popular languages and what they are “famous for”:

Cantonese: film

French: culinary arts, film, literature, music, philosophy, tv programs, a prestige language for a long time so lots of historical media, spoken in many countries (especially in Africa)

German: film, literature, philosophy, tv programs, spoken in several Central European countries

Italian: architecture, art history, catholicism (Vatican city!), culinary arts, design, fashion, film, music, opera

Mandarin: culinary arts, literature, music, poetry, tv programs

Japanese: anime, culinary arts, film, manga, music, video games, the longtime isolation of the country has developed a culture that many find interesting, a comparatively large internet presence

Korean: tv dramas, music, film

Portuguese: film, internet culture, music, poetry

Russian: literature, philosophy, spoken in the Eastern Bloc or former-Soviet countries, internet culture

Spanish: film, literature, music, spoken in many countries in the Americas

Swedish: music, tv, film, sometimes thought of as a “buy one, get two free” deal along with Norwegian & Danish

Religious & liturgical languages:

Avestan (Zoroastrianism)

Biblical Hebrew (language of the Tanakh, Old Testament)

Church Slavonic (Eastern Orthodox churches)

Classical Arabic (Islam)

Coptic (Coptic Orthodox Church)

Ecclesiastical Latin (Catholic Church)

Ge’ez (Ethiopian Orthodox Church)

Iyaric (Rastafari movement)

Koine Greek (language of the New Testament)

Mishnaic Hebrew (language of the Talmud)

Pali (language of some Hindu texts and Theravada Buddhism)

Sanskrit (Hinduism)

Syriac (Syriac Orthodox Church, Maronite Church, Church of the East)

Reconnecting with family?

If your immediate family speaks a language that you don’t or if you are a heritage speaker that has been disconnected, then the choice is obvious! If not, you might have to do some family tree digging, and maybe you might find something that makes you feel more connected to your family. Maybe you come from an immigrant community that has an associated immigration or contact language! Or maybe there is a branch of the family that speaks/spoke another language entirely.

Immigrant & Diaspora languages:

Arbëresh (Albanians in Italy)

Arvanitika (Albanians in Greece)

Brazilian German

Canadian Gaelic (Scottish Gaelic in Canada)

Canadian Ukrainian (Ukrainians in Canada)

Caribbean Hindustani (Indian communities in the Caribbean)

Chipilo Venetian (Venetians in Mexico)

Griko (Greeks in Italy)

Hutterite German (German spoken by Hutterite settlers of Canada/US)

Fiji Hindi (Indians in Fiji)

Louisiana French (Cajuns) 

Patagonian Welsh (Welsh in Argentina)

Pennsylvania Dutch (High German spoken by early settlers of Canada/ the US)

Plaudietsch (German spoken by Mennonites)

Talian (Venetian in Brazilian)

Texas Silesian (Poles in the US)

Click here for a list of languages of the African diaspora (there are too many for this post!). 

If you are Jewish, maybe look into the language of your particular diaspora community ( * indicates the language is extinct or moribund - no native speakers or only elderly speakers):

Bukhori (Bukharan Jews)

Hebrew

Italkian (Italian Jews) *

Judeo-Arabic (MENA Jews)

Judeo-Aramaic

Judeo-Malayalam *

Judeo-Marathi

Judeo-Persian

Juhuri (Jews of the Caucasus)

Karaim (Crimean Karaites) *

Kivruli (Georgian Jews)

Krymchak (Krymchaks) *

Ladino (Sephardi)

Lusitanic (Portuguese Jews) *

Shuadit (French Jewish Occitan) *

Yevanic (Romaniotes)*

Yiddish (Ashkenazi)

Finding a job?

Try looking around for what languages are in demand in your field. Most often, competency in a relevant makes you very competitive for positions. English is in demand pretty much anywhere. Here are some other suggestions based on industry (from what I know!):

Business (General): Arabic, French, German, Hindi, Korean, Mandarin, Russian, Spanish

Design: Italian (especially furniture)

Economics: Arabic, German

Education: French, Spanish

Energy: Arabic, French, German, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish

Engineering: German, Russian

Finance & Investment: French, Cantonese, German, Japanese, Mandarin, Russian, Spanish

International Orgs. & Diplomacy (NATO, UN, etc.): Arabic, French, Mandarin, Persian, Russian, Spanish

Medicine: German, Latin, Sign Languages, Spanish

Military: Arabic, Dari, French, Indonesian, Korean, Kurdish, Mandarin, Pashto, Persian, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, Urdu

Programming: German, Japanese

Sales & Marketing: French, German, Japanese, Portuguese

Service (General): French, Mandarin, Portuguese, Russian, Sign Languages, Spanish

Scientific Research (General): German, Japanese, Russian

Tourism: French, Japanese, Mandarin, Sign Languages, Spanish

Translation: Arabic, Russian, Sign Languages

Other special interests?

Learning a language just because is a perfectly valid reason as well! Maybe you are really into a piece of media that has it’s own conlang! 

Fictional:

Atlantean (Atlantis: The Lost Empire)

Dothraki (Game of Thrones)

Elvish (Lord of the Rings)

Gallifreyan (Doctor Who)

High Valyrian (Game of Thrones)

Klingon (Star Trek)

Nadsat (A Clockwork Orange)

Na’vi (Avatar)

Newspeak (1984)

Trigedasleng (The 100)

Vulcan (Star Trek)

Or if you just like to learn languages, take a look maybe at languages that have lots of speakers but not usually popular among the language-learning community:

Arabic

Bengali

Cantonese

Hindi

Javanese

Hausa

Indonesian

Malay

Pashto

Persian

Polish

Punjabi

Swahili

Tamil

Telugu

Thai

Turkish

Urdu

Vietnamese

Yoruba

If you have still are having trouble, consider the following:

What languages do you already speak?

How many and which languages you already speak will have a huge impact on the ease of learning. 

If you are shy about speaking with natives, you might want to look at languages with similar consonant/vowel sounds. Similarity between languages’ grammars and vocabularies can also help speed up the process. Several families are famous for this such as the Romance languages (Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, Romanian), North Germanic languages (Norwegian, Swedish, Danish) or East Slavic languages (Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian). If you are a native English speaker, check out the FSI’s ranking of language difficulty for the approximate amount of hours you’ll need to put into different languages.

You could also take a look at languages’ writing systems to make things easier or for an added challenge.

Another thing to remember is that the languages you already speak will have a huge impact on what resources are available to you. This is especially true with minority languages, as resources are more frequently published in the dominant language of that area. For example, most Ainu resources are in Japanese, most Nheengatu resources are in Portuguese, and most Nahuatl resources are in Spanish.

What are your life circumstances?

Where you live with influence you language studies too! Local universities will often offer resources (or you could even enroll in classes) for specific languages, usually the “big” ones and a few region-specific languages.

Also consider if what communities area near you. Is there a vibrant Deaf community near you that offers classes? Is there a Vietnamese neighborhood you regularly interact with? Sometimes all it takes is someone to understand you in your own language to make your day! Consider what languages you could realistically use in your own day-to-day. If you don’t know where to start, try checking to see if there are any language/cultural meetups in your town!

How much time can you realistically put into your studies? Do you have a fluency goal you want to meet? If you are pressed for time, consider picking up a language similar to ones you already know or maintaining your other languages rather than taking on a new one.

Please remember when choosing a language for study to always respect the feelings and opinions of native speakers/communities, particularly with endangered or minoritized languages. Language is often closely tied to identity, and some communities are “closed” to outsiders. A notable examples are Hopi, several Romani languages, many Aboriginal Australian languages and some Jewish languages. If you are considering a minoritized language, please closely examine your motivations for doing so, as well as do a little research into what is the community consensus on outsiders learning the language. 

#o #writing this post took a long time but it was really fun!! #langblr #language learning #choosing a language

[slytherinbarnes]

How do you learn trig? I never would’ve thought about learning a fictional language! 💜

hi!!! okay, so basically I’ve been teaching myself but there are TONS of resources out there. 

Trigedasleng Resources

to start, I use this website from Slakgedakru, which has all of the canon Trigedasleng words from the show, and a bunch of non canon words that they created. the downside to this is that you can’t really type in an english word and get the trig equivalent, bc the website is meant more as a trig dictionary, not a translation dictionary. but if you ever come across a trig word you don’t know, you can type it in here and find the meaning!

Slakgedakru is actually a v cool lil community, with a tumblr of their own, dedicated to learning and teaching others Trig! They have so many lessons on grammar and vocab and tips and such on their tumblr, which is now abandoned bc they have moved to discord. But I’m pretty sure there’s a link to the discord on their tumblr, and you can go there and practice your trig bc I’m p sure that’s the main way they communicate. 

they are also recognized by the creator of Trigedasleng, David J. Peterson, who also has a tumblr (now abondoned). his page has a lot of words that were never on the show, but are technically canon bc it’s his language! he also recognizes a lot of the slakgedakru words as canon, it seems.

there is also a trigedasleng dictionary, which I love v much, bc you can search for the words in english, and the dictionary will give you a few words that might work for what you’re looking for. the words are shown in a sentence, which can help you with context, AND most of the sentences have a phonetic explanation of the sentence, as well as an audio recording of someone saying the sentence. 

other than that, there are a BUNCH of trig quizlets that you can use to test yourself and your knowledge. there are a couple of trig translators, similar to google translate, but just like google translate, they seem to get a lot wrong. 

whew wow, this was so long, I’m so sorry. I’ve just been geeking out about all these resources I found, and I’m happy to share them! I’m sure there’s more out there, which I can add to this post, if you guys want, but I feel like this is enough to get you started. so happy learning, friend!!! 

#the 100 #trigedasleng #language resources #the 100 resources #language #grounders #sb answers #sb geeks about trig #sweet anons

[azhefa-archived]

simple trigedasleng grammar rules & words

don: put before a verb to indicate past tense  “  ai don ban em op.  ”   “  i left her.  ” na: put before a verb to indicate future tense  “  ai na ban em op.  ” “  i will leave her.  ”

emo: put before noun to indicate plurality ( also the word for “them”)

em ste: it is / he is / she is em’s:  it’s / he’s / she’s

gon: for / to / with 

many verbs have what is called a satellite  (i.e. the “op” in ban op is a satellite). when a noun directly follows the verb, the satellite is then moved directly after the noun.   “ ban op. ” “  leave. ”

“  ban em op.  ” “  leave her.  ”  

much of trigedasleng is contextual so sentence structures are flexible and might not always have every single word. when you search for words and phrases in the dictionary there are often many examples of sentences which can help give you an idea for how people say things. some words will have different meanings according to the context, which will be understood by those speaking it. a lot can be figured out by reading the descriptions to the words you’re searching, the etymology is often included and will tell you which context each version of a phrase will belong in. (dictionary link here)

#i swear i made this post before but i can't find it #『 nou mou emo sontaim 』❅ ❆ ( OOC ) ♛ #resources #feel free to rebagel if u need

[keitrinkomfloukru]

How do you transition from learning individual words to putting together coherent sentences?

Gah! I spent most of the afternoon writing a big detailed response, and Windows 10 ate it. Whoever’s responsible for that crapware needs a good wamplei kom thauz kodon-ing.

Anyway, the short version is that I learned by copying the canon sentences on the show. I’d look for an existing sentence that had the same grammatical structure and just swap out words.

For instance, suppose I wanted to say “we need to talk.” I’d look for a canon sentence that had “need to {verb}” in it. Ep 206 had one:

ai don sen in chit bilaik ai gaf sen in, “I heard what I needed to hear”.

Then I swap the words out. For “we” I went with yumi, and “talk” without a direct object is chich raun:

yumi gaf chich raun.

And just keep doing that until you get a feel for it.

Unfortunately, the website I used is gone now, and our (Slakgedakru’s) replacement is still a work in progress. But meanwhile David J. Peterson uploaded a transcript of lines from seasons 2 and 3 here. Including some that were cut from the final ep or dropped back to English.

#as keitrin op #trigedasleng #learning trigedasleng #trigedasleng grammar

[dedalvs]

My apologies, what I meant is that most of your languages are made for fantastic, fantasy worlds, as opposed to a fictional culture on Earth. If you're creating a language for a culture set on Earth, you'd probably incorporate features that tie it to a real language, am I correct?

I think you still may be misunderstanding what the key questions are and how they factor into language creation. There are two questions:

Is this language supposed to be descended from an existing language (or set of languages) on Earth?

Is this language spoken by creatures that are identical to humans in all the ways that play a crucial role in language use, comprehensijon, and transmission?

These are the only relevant questions. Notice I didn't say anything about where the languages are spoken. That bit is irrelevant. Language has its own geography and it's the only geography that matters when it comes to a posteriori language construction.

For example, looking at Dothraki, the answer to (1) is no, and the answer to (2) is yes. For that reason, Dothraki should be a language that looks entirely ordinary, in terms of how it stacks up with languages spoken currently on Earth, but its vocabulary and grammar shouldn't be directly related to any language on the planet. How could it be, if our planet doesn't exist in that universe? But since Dothraki are completely ordinary human beings their language should be a compeltely ordinary human language.

If you look at the aliens District 9, the answers to both (1) and (2) are no, despite the fact that the movie takes place in South Africa. And, in fact, you see some very interesting linguistic phenomena in that movie, where you have two species that understand but cannot use each other's languages. Its setting, though, doesn't mean that the alien language should be influenced by Afrikaans in any important way, though. It may have "borrowings", but even those would be strange (calques, most likely), since the aliens can't actually make human sounds—the same way the humans wouldn't have "borrowings" from the alien language.

On the other hand, if you look at Trigedasleng, the answers to both (1) and (2) are yes. But the suggestion you seem to be making is that I might kind of haphazardly "borrow" features from an existing language into a language that I'm nevertheless creating from scratch. That wouldn't make sense. Trigedasleng is simply an evolved form of American English with some specific constraints (some quite unrealistic, due to the scifi setting) placed on the evolution. I didn't "incorporate" features from American English: it IS American English, through and through, evolved in a way that makes sense for the setting.

There are certainly a posteriori conlangs where the creator approaches the creation of the language by saying, "I took the initial consonant mutation of Irish and combined it with the triconsonantal root system of Arabic and added the Turkish plural suffix (with vowel harmony) and added the accusative from Esperanto", and the like. This is one of the hallmarks of an amateur conlanger. Not even a creole language in the real world does this. Creole languages draw influences from many different languages, but the resulting system can't be divided up neatly into different linguistic sources. Furthermore, the result is a coherent system that doesn't look like any of the sources. Tok Pisin gets a lot of its vocabulary and grammar from English, but also gets vocabulary from German and other languages that were native to the region. When listening to the language, though, it's not like it sounds like English, then it suddenly sounds like German for a word, then it sounds like a Papuan language, then back to English: the whole thing sounds like Tok Pisin. It's a seamless, coherent system—just like any language, since all languages on Earth have borrowings and features from other languages.

Also, minor nitpick: "real" language doesn't make sense. We say natural language vs. constructed languages. Both are equally real, in that neither has any kind of material existence. A constructed language is a real language with a fake history.

Does this make sense?

#conlang #language #tok pisin

[thereisnoneedtocallmesir]

RULES: Answer 20 questions, then tag 20 bloggers you want to get to know better.

I was tagged by @asobsesions

1. Name: Jessica

2. Nickname: uuh lets see which I can remember, jess, no!jess, PLP, grumpy, jessie and those are probably the main ones

3. Zodiac: cancer

4. Height: 174-175 cm so about 5 foot 8

5. Languages: oh geez I’m gonna need to know how fluent ya gotta be for this. I’m practically fluent in dutch and english. I’m supposed to be good enough at german to be able to study in germany BUT THAS DEFINITELY NOT THE CASE so like just accept me being able to follow along the general gist of written and spoken german and gimme 20 minutes per short thang in a room with 3 online dictionaries if you want me to write or speak german. Ooh and I’m supposed to be able to speak mediocre french but I can sometimes get the general gist of it if I read french and y’know thas good enough. (Also I’m working on learning the fictional language Trigedasleng from the 100 but I am no were near able to actually speak teigedasleng yet)

6. Nationality: dutch

7. Favourite season: anything but fall, ooh wait for the last years the entirety of fall, most of winter and half of spring have been almost exactly the same weather-wise as fall… ooh well

8. Favourite flower: I don’t got one

9. Favourite scent: cinnamon rolls

10. Favourite color: red or blue

11. Favourite animal: penguins, or polar bears, or turtles, or panda bears, or dogs, or ferrets, or meerkats, I CAN’T CHOOSE OKAY

12. Favourite fictional characters: lexa and octavia from the 100, ginny weasley from harry potter, P much all female characters from ATLA tbh, aaand my brain stopped being able to remember more

13. Coffee, tea or hot chocolate: hot chocolate

14. Average sleep hours: anywhere from 0 to 10

15. Dog or cat person: prooooobably a dog person

16. Number of blankets I sleep with: rn it’s 2

17. Dream trip: AAAAAAH, it’d include visiting my grandmother in washington dc fo sho but aside from that AAAAHHHH

18. Blog established: like somewhere in 2016 I think

19. Followers: 446

20. Random fact: I perform really good at school when it comes to english. Like some of my classmates did “bilingual school” for 3 years where almost all their classes are in english and after those 3 years you continue with english at the level they expect at proper universities in england, so those classmates ARE PRETTY DARN GOOD AT ENGLISH but I almost always out perform them. I also recently took the anglia exam at the highest level possible, masters/C2 level, and passed with merit. The thing is though THAT I AIN’T PUTTING IN THE EFFORT, ENERGY OR BRAIN CELLS WHILE ON HERE FOR ANY LANGUAGE. So yeah you feckers have to put up with my typo’s, grammar/spellings errors, “close enough” translations, absolute dumbfuckery while winging human language, brainfarts from a brain without active braincells, and a lot of “ENGLISH IS A LIL BITCH” and I’m just as bad when it comes to dutch. Also, I may have forgotten my point while typing this but I don’t feel like coming up with something else

I tag… not 20 people cause jesus 20 is a lot y’know. Okay so if you want to and can I tag @ravenclaw-has-claws @nerdie-faerie @one-moreminute @theclaireelyse @sarcastic-anxious and @whats-the-magical-fruit (I may have forgotten the url of yer main blog okay)

#also you tagged me in another tag thing #and I’ll get to that #eventually

[ndscottsummers]

[cracks knuckles] okay folks here’s some thoughts on doug ramsey setting out to create a language for mutantkind, mostly ignoring what canon has to say about the matter. i am not a linguist so take what i say here with several grains of salt, but i am a conlanger so, yeah, take what i say here with several grains of salt.

doug seems like someone who probably started conlanging before his mutation manifested and then threw himself into it even more enthusiastically once he started exercising those super-pattern-detection muscles, so i’m assuming he knows what he’s about. no need to worry about him understanding the basics of the craft, we can move on to other things. (also, side note, holy shit i want to see his portfolio. i bet it’s mind-blowing.)

doug also has two huge advantages over anyone else who has ever tried to make a conlang usable in day-to-day life by people from a wide variety of linguistic backgrounds: he has that cool mutation that means he probably has a good grasp on a ridiculous number of communication systems, and there are telepaths around who can download the language from his mind and upload it into other people’s.

there are two major goals for this language:

it should be easily usable by the largest percentage of mutants possible

it should be difficult to interpret for anyone who hasn’t had it uploaded into their brain

(we’d want a signed language as well as a spoken language; i’m not familiar enough with the mechanics of signed languages as a class to know how separate those two would be or if they would be essentially the same language with different mediums of communication. the points i’m going to make should apply to any configuration with appropriate adjustments for the medium; my examples are going to be spoken language-focused bc that’s what i know.)

i don’t really know how the whole telepathic fluency thing works, so here are some assumptions: it may make sound production easier but it won’t bring you up to a native speaker’s level re: phonology, it will give you the rough equivalent of natural fluency in all other areas, and it works as well for writing and reading as it does for speaking and listening.

first things first, we want the phonology to be simple. we want to hit phonemes that appear in lots of different languages families across the globe and we want to avoid sounds that are relatively rare. sorry, huge mass of english vowels! we just want a couple. maybe four. five if we’re feeling adventurous. also say goodbye to /θ/ (the first sound of ‘think’) - that’s a rare one, globally! and, to take the focus away from english, no pharyngeals or clicks either.

we also want to avoid weird consonant clusters that might trip people up, so you know what, let’s just say that the only possible syllable structures are V and CV. no vowel clusters, either; that V syllable can be tacked onto the beginning of a word but nowhere else. if my experience is anything to go by you’re not going to be able to tear diphthongs away from the anglophones but it’s okay for there to be differing accents; we just want everyone to be able to produce + understand the language without much difficulty, and telepathy can smooth over some of the bumps.

so that’s phonology out of the way, and now we’re getting to the good stuff: morphology and syntax. telepathy means we can go absolutely WILD with this. phonology has a lot to do with muscle memory and actual physical ability to move one’s tongue and throat in certain ways, but the rest of grammar is all in the mind and as long as a telepath can put it in your head you are good to go.

sadly i don’t know that i have the experience or linguistic knowledge to propose good ideas here, but you know doug has been sitting on some sweet shit. he’s got a handle on some really obscure grammatical features, he can pull details from language isolates and extinct languages and alien languages holy shit you guys the game is won* and he can make them play nicely together. we want phonology to be simple but we want everything else to be complicated in order to stymie attempts at outside interpretation, and if we can go overboard without damaging people’s abilities to use the language then full steam ahead! (there are going to be some limitations, probably, but still; we can have fun.)

if you can drop a writing system into someone’s head then i’d want to say go logographic, but that does have a muscle memory aspect to it and also poor doug would have to figure out all of those logographs, so maybe not. an alphabet is boring and if you’re doing a 1:1 sound:letter correspondence then it’s not adding much to keeping the language secret; same with an abugida. a featural system would be a step up until part of it is cracked, at which point the dominoes start to fall. canon hoxpox already has a thing going with a combination alphabet/logography which is cool, but i think we’d be better off with a combination syllabary/logography. we’re already doing mostly CV syllables and throwing some logographs in would confuse the situation enough that the number of symbols needed to understand the language would, i think, fall nicely into the ‘learnable but difficult to figure out without a guide’ category.

if we want to go really off-script the language can be highly idiomatic as well; i’m thinking trigedasleng from the 100, which iirc evolved from an english-based code rather than mainstream english. then even if they do figure out your writing system and also somehow figure out translations for individual words, they can’t necessary interpret what it is you’re actually saying. that may or may not be more difficult to get across via telepathy, but if you went too far with it you would end up with longggg average utterances.

anyway those are my opinions on how doug would approach this project! i really, really want to see what he would make of this, wow.

*how many features of the average alien language would be comprehensible to the human mind on a level that would allow even telepathy to bridge fluency gaps? i don’t know but doug** is going to find out

**can doug even do alien languages bc of like, basic cognitive differences? he’s done them in canon but does that make sense? send in your theories

#r: house of x #r: powers of x #doug ramsey #krakoan conlang

[theinvisiblequestion]

Trigedasleng.info Weekly Update

Alright, y’all! After some technical difficulties and solutions, trigedasleng.info is fully up-to-date including the 20-some new translations from “Echoes”. 

#trigedasleng #trigedasleng dictionary #update #the 100 #cw #trigedasleng help #trigedasleng grammar #dedalvs