Episodes

George talks about his experience streaming during Lexember. NOTE: This episode was written and recorded in the middle of the D&D OGL debacle. The way it was resolved changes some calculations slightly, but I’m still a bit perturbed by it. Original Script

Aidan Aannestad comes on the show to talk about information structure, which included discussions on topic and focus and how they can be realized in language. Links and Resources Aannestad, Aidan Alexander. “A Typology of Morphological Argument Focus Marking.” University of North Dakota, 2021. Büring, Daniel. “Towards a Typology of Focus Realization.” In Information Structure, edited by Malte Zimmermann and Caroline Féry, 1st ed., 177–205. Oxford University PressOxford, 2009. https://doi.org/...

George will be streaming word creation for Lexember every Saturday of the month at 1 PM US Central Time! You can check it out here!

Today, Logan Kearsley joins us to talk about whistled registers, and to let us know about his whistle synthesizer that can help you make one. Links and Resources: Logan’s whistle synthesizer Meyer, J. 2008. Typology and Acoustic Strategies of Whistled Languages: Phonetic Comparison and Perceptual Cues of Whistled Vowels. Journal of the International Phonetic Association , 38 ,1, pp. 69 – 94, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025100308003277 Rialland, A., 2005. Phonological and phonetic aspects o...

George discusses word substitutions people use to avoid Internet censorship, and how that could be applied in worldbuilding. Original Script One of the interesting things you find in internet spaces is the presence of content filtering and the attempts to get around them. On the one hand, the people who have control of a given space have impressive control over the language that is allowed to be used on their platforms. Yet, on the other hand, many of their tools are fairly easy to circumvent,...

George talks about some interesting terms he encountered in his most recent job, and how you can pay attention to language around you at work for inspiration. Original Script Welcome to Conlangery, the podcast about constructed languages and the people who create them. I’m George Corley. Today, I want to continue my occasional “listen like a conlanger” series talking about how you can think like a conlanger at work. Language is everywhere at the workplace, and by having language on your mind ...

This episode, George gives a short discussion of the idea of language as having infinite fractal complexity, and what this means for conlangers building fictional worlds. Special Mention: Resources on the Line 3 protest: Stop Line 3, Center for Protest Law and Litigation, Sierra Club Fact Sheet, Line 3 Legal Defense Fund Original Script Welcome to Conlangery, the podcast abou t constructed languages and the people who create them. I’m George Corley. Today, I’m going to talk a little about the...

George talks to Jasper Charlet and his opera, Heyra, written entirely in the Carite language, which is currently in crowdfunding. Top of Show Greeting: Opaki Aŋkuati Links Heyra on Indiegogo Carite

William comes back on the show to tell us all about the category of Associated Motion. Links and Resources: Wikipedia – Andative and Venitive de la Fuente, J. A. A., & Jacques, G. (2017) Associated motion in Manchu in typological perspective. Language and Linguistics. 語言暨語言學, 19(4), 501–524. https://doi.org/10.1075/LALI.00018.ALO Jacques, G., Lahaussois, A., & Zhang, S. (2018) Associated motion in Sino-Tibetan/Trans-Himalayan. In The 12th conference of the Association of Linguistic Typology: ...

George takes some time with Kenan Kigunda to talk about his conlang Zevy and how writing gets standardized. Top of show greeting: Fysh A Links and resources: Kenan’s LCC talk Zevy wordbook Zevy grammar notes Transcript coming soon!

George interviews Lauren Gawne of Superlinguo and Lingthusiasm about her work on Aramteskan for the Shadowscent book series as well as her other work with authors. Top of Show Greeting: Swedish (Umeå dialect, translated by Ruben Drott) Links and Resources: Shadowscent: The Darkest Bloom Superlinguo Lingthusiasm Transcript coming soon

George gives a little info about his current conlanging project, a set of naming languages for a story. Original Script (below the fold) Welcome to Conlangery, the podcast about constructed languages and the people who create them. I’m George Corley. I thought it was time for another personal conlanging update. I’ve been doing something interesting regarding historical development that I thought I might share with y’all. Before we get to that, Conlangery is entirely supported by our patrons ...

George wants to talk to writers, filmmakers, and creatives about how conlangs can benefit worldbuilding, and how you can go about getting one made. Links: Language Creation Society Resources Page LCS Jobs Board Original Script In this episode, I want to talk to authors, directors, and other creatives who are creating fictional worlds and cultures where a conlang might be really helpful for their work. I am going to talk to you about how creating a conlang or hiring a conlanger to create a con...

George uses some research into the etymology of coronavirus to launch into a way to build a story around the etymology of a word. Links and Resources: Coronavirus on Wikipedia Almeida JD, Berry DM, Cunningham CH, Hamre D, Hofstad MS, Mallucci L, McIntosh K, Tyrrell DA (November 1968). “Virology: Coronaviruses”. Nature. 220 (5168): 650. Bibcode:1968Natur.220..650.. doi:10.1038/220650b0 Tyrrell DA, Fielder M (2002). Cold Wars: The Fight Against the Common Cold. Oxford University Press. p. 96. IS...

George and Joey Windsor use the various names of COVID-19 as a jumping off point to talk about naming diseases. Note that this episode was recorded in May, and quite a lot has changed in the intervening time. Top of Show Greeting: Chátsu Special mentions (from top of show note): A list of BLM charities, When We Stay In, Corley English (YouTube, Bilibili, website) LInks and Resources: World Health Organization Best Practices for the Naming of New Human Infectious Diseases /r/linguistics discu...

George shares some ambitious plans for a new world with lots of naming languages. Map of the migrations in this conworld. Darker color is the urheimat, ligher is my first stage migration. The story is planned to take place near the triangular sea in the southeast quadrant. Natural color map of my conworld as it stands now, to give a clearer idea of the environments involved. Links: Ankong Family Ingar Family X Family Lexifer Phonix Songs of the Eons Script: Welcome to Conlangery, the podcast a...

George brings on David J Peterson and Jesse Sams to talk about their new livestreaming adventure, LangTime Studio. Top of Show Greeting: Nekāchti Transcript Conlangery146.pdfDownload Conlangery146.txtDownload {00:00:00} {Greeting} {Music} George: Welcome to Conlangery, the podcast about constructed languages and the people who create them. I’m George Corley. In plague-ridden California we’ve got David J. Peterson. David: {Clears throat several times} We have who? George: What? David: I mean,...

George brings on Ezekiel Fordsmender and Margaret Randsdell-Green to talk about techniques for creating polysemous lexical entries. Top of Show Greeting: Chicken Links and Resources: CLICS3 Wiktionary (esp. Arabic, Latvian, Scottish Gaelic words) STEDT Lakoff, G. (2008) Women, fire, and dangerous things: What categories reveal about the mind. University of Chicago press. Heine, B., Bernd, H., & Kuteva, T. (2002) World lexicon of grammaticalization. Cambridge University Press. Dent G.R. & C...

George brings on two conlanger DMs, Joey Windsor and David J Peterson, to discuss how to incorporate conlanging into Dungeons and Dragons and other role-playing games. Top of Show Greeting: Boral (by Jack Keynes) Links and Resources: The 5E d20 Standard Reference Document Matt Colville’s YouTube channel The ChainMatt Colville speaking “Gith” D&D Beyond Shadowrun A list of role-playing games Transcript PDFDownload Plain TextDownload {00:00:00} Greeting: Nos som Ideologofaction, l’astravoca...

George talks a little bit about how choosing a theme for Lexember can be helpful for your conlanging. Original script Welcome to Conlangery, the podcast about constructed languages and the people who create them. I’m George Corley. I went on social media recently to ask what people wanted covered before Lexember and got some great suggestions. The one that I’m going to cover today is creating your words based on a theme. Many lexember entrants do themes throughout the month or follow lists of...

George talks a little about little tidbits of his daughter’s linguistic development, and talks about how listening to child language might help conlangers find inspiration.

Margaret Ransdell-Green and Eric Barker come on to talk about the music they created for Margaret’s concultures in the world of Aeniith, which they performed at LCC8. Top of Show Greeting: Muipidan Transcript PDFDownload Plain TextDownload {00:00:00} {Greeting} {Music} George: Welcome to Conlangery, the podcast about constructed languages and the people who create them. I’m George Corley. With me in Hawaii, we have Margaret Ransdell-Green. Margaret: Hello. George: Also, Eric Barker. Eri...

We bring Mike McCubbins on to talk about his new Kickstarter project, Anasazi, a comic which uses simple constructed written languages to tell a story in a visual medium. You can find the Kickstarter here! Top of Show Greeting: Salbécyk / Salbekian

George brings on Christophe and Joey to talk about their experience at the Eighth Language Creation Conference. We also have clips from interviews Joey made at the conference. Top of Show Greeting: Bizhida Links: 8th Language Creation Conference Livestream: Day 1, Day 2