Episodes

David Peterson joins us for a wonderful Supersize episode where we talk all about growing your lexicon, from generating roots to creating realistic polysemy and semantic fields. Also, we finally feature an obscure little language we’ve wanted to talk about for a while Top of Show Greeting: Oltengo Links and Resources: Analysis of English phrasal verbs with out John Quijada on cognitive linguistics: LCC1 Some lojban dictonary resources Okuna dictonary ámman îar dictionary Asha’ille dictionary (...

We give you a podcast today about how you can do without tense, and what other things in the language can be used to fill in the gaps. Also, we have special guest Jeffrey Jones on to talk about his conlang. Top of Show: Sheewan Links and Resources: Vietnamese tense/aspect marking Telicity (Wikipedia) Featured Conlang: K’tlê Feedback: Email from JS: Conlangery hosts: I’m writing to say how much I enjoy your podcast. I only became aware of its existence a few weeks ago, and since then I’ve ...

Today is a big show where we tackle the topic of reduplication, something we think more conlangers should employ. Then we talk about a wonderfully crazy click langauge called Sandawe — and it’s natural! Top of Show Greeting: Chudihr Links and Resources Iyo Grammar (see p. 21) Spokan (reduplication talk begins on p. 111) Reduplication in Kikerewe Turkish reduplication for intensives Mon and Khmer Wikipedia on Reduplication Featured NATLANG: Sandawe (Wikipedia) Feedback: Email from Liam: H...

After a short update on rain in Wisconsin and ankle injuries, we try to make sense of the topic of topicalization and topic prominent languages. Then we talk about Talmit, a language created by active Conlangery listener and commenter Roman Rausch Top of Show Greeting: Grewa Resources: Nice paper on topicalization Featured Conlang: Talmit (LCC talk, pdf grammar, more stuff) Feedback: Email from Alex: Hey everyone, my name’s Alex and I’m a conlanger and regular watcher of your podcast (whic...

For our 52nd episode we decided to take a break from our usual format and just have a good time talking about movies and TV shows — with a conlang twist. So, here we are listening to a bunch of conlang (and pseudo-conlang) dialogue from various properties and talking a little about what we like and don’t like. Enjoy! Top of Show Greeting: Doon Properties Featured: Inkubo Star Trek Alien Nation Stargate and Stargate SG1 The Lord of the Rings Avatar Game of Thrones Bonus — a quiz we found on f...

We go a little out of our comfort zone and talk about language history — particularly as involves the diachronic method of creating a conlang. Then we move on to some talk about a language called Dimana Lokud. Top of Show Greeting: Oupe Links and Resources: Wikipedia on the Neogrammarians Book with some information on sound changes from Latin to Old Occitan Uto-Aztecan Uto-Aztecan Phonology Proto-Wintun Featured Conlang: Dimana Lokud

In today’s bonus-size episode we have Carsten Becker on to join in a great discussion on the technologies of writing: implements, media, formats, and even literacy itself. Then we have an invigorating discussion with Larry Sulky about his “artlangy-engelang” Qakwan, among other things. Top of Show Greeting: Treyll Links and Resources: Palm Leaves as a writing medium Brāhmī script Learn how to do cuneiform with a chopstick Curse tablets Jane Austen’s ink recipe Typical Chinese calligraphy brus...

This week, we have Jim Henry on the show to talk about his long-term labor of love, the “engelangy artlang” gjâ-zym-byn. But first we talk in great detail about noun phrases and many of the things you can do with them. Top of Show Greeting: Qakwan Links and Resources: A paper on sentence word order and noun phrases Wikipedia on Definiteness WALS: Dominant Word Order Order of adjective and noun Discussion on adjective order The Finnish Noun Phrase Adjective order in Ancient Greek Adjective Ord...

After a discussion of George’s recent consumption of bear meat, we get to talking about designing your sound system, a topic we meant to talk about in episode 29 but somehow didn’t end up saying much about. After a long discussion about that topic, we feature perhaps the second most famous auxlang in history, which goes by the terrible name of Volapük. Top of Show Greeting: Quenya (translation by Roman Rausch) Links and Resources: WALS on the velar nasal Arapaho (Wikipedia) WALS on gaps in pl...

Today we talk about something we wish more conlangers would think about creating — isolating and analytic languages. It seems that virtually everyone wants some polysynthetic madness or at least a complex verb paradigm, but there are ways to make isolation and analytic syntax interesting, we promise! Also, Taila Top of Show Greeting: Hra’anh Links and Resources: Wikipedia: Isolating Language (w/ section on analytic languages) Zero role marking and word order Gbe languages (Wikipedia) Nonconc...

Check out the Serpent’s Tongue kickstarter I mentioned at the top of the show! After teasing Mike a bit about his trip to an Anime convention, we get down to business on how to make your conlang fit into a conworld. Then we cover an interesting and enigmatically-named Arka language. Top of Show Greeting: German (translation by Carsten Becker) [NOTE: Yes, we are now accepting natlang greetings from native speakers] Featured Conlang: Iŋomœ́ (Akana Wiki Page) Feedback: The Damin language (http...

This week we talk about the many peculiarities of how questions can be handled in your language. Join us as we explore not only polar and content questions, but also talk about rhetorical and conjectural ones as well, with some insight on how different languages handle them. We also have a natlang featured today, one that I’m sure many people will be familiar with. Top of Show Greeting: Wateu Links and Resources: Wikipedia on “yes” and “no” Wh-movement Featured NATLANG: Welsh (Early and Midd...

First of all, George was on something called FourCast a bit ago. You might enjoy it. Also, CNN is doing a special on Dothraki on April 8. But the meat of this podcast is all about negation: how to deal with scope, negative concord, and a number of other issues in your conlang. Oh, and we also talk about Brithenig. Top of Show Greeting: Qlfhpfsq Links and Resources: Asymmetries in negation (WALS) Featured Conlang: Brithenig (FrathWiki page, Ill Bethisad Wiki) Feedback: Email from Lee: Hi, C...

Today, we spend a ridiculous amount of time talking about adpositions, creating an hour-long discussion out of something William thought would be short. We also have an extra special featured conlang today — one hand crafted specifically for this podcast! Top of Show Greeting: Opaki Aŋkuati Links and Resources: WALS: Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase WALS: Person Marking on Adpositions WALS on VO/OV order and adpositions Featured Conlang: Junen Rhá Hey Guys, Here’s my try at the caseless ...

We introduce you to a new host: Mike Lentine. Then we cover the different ways you can get rid of adjectives or at least fuzz the distinctions between them and other word classes. Also, we try to figure out what Lojban is all about. Top of Show Greeting: Esperanto (translation by William) Featured Conlang: Lojban Feedback: Email from Aidan: Just wanted to say that I finally tracked down these podcasts of yours, and I am thoroughly enjoying them! Really, I only heard about them fairly recentl...

Bianca’s last show as a regular host goes into a rather ambitious topic: discourse particles. Go listen to the show, because it’s too complicated a subject for me to summarize properly here. We also feature a natlang going by two names. Top of Show Greeting: Amjati Links and Resources: Paper with a typology and some general info (Mostly uses German and English) Mando Malay Chinese discourse particles (skip to the qualitative analysis) Featured NATLANG: Nootka and Makah Feedback: Email: Hey...

After a big announcement, we delve into the mysteries and wonders of creating dialects, reviewing natlang tendencies and talking about some techniques that can be used to mimic them, and then we talk about a quite interesting conlang as well. Top of Show Greeting: Palezi Urca Links and Resources: Wikipedia on Romance Languages Emesal (a Sumerian dialect/Kunstsprache) Uto-Aztecan sound correspondences Featured Conlang: Anawanda

George gets Bianca’s name wrong and no one notices. We also have some digressions at the beginning and the end of the show, but somehow we end up talking a whole lot about noun incorporation, and the weird and wacky language known as Gevey. Top of Show Greeting: Vaida Mi Ha Links and Resources: Notes on Mithun (1984) Featured Conlang: Gevey Special Mentions: Carsten Becker’s interlinear gloss plugin for WordPress The Last Lingua Franca Feedback: Anthony Docimo (comment on #37) Could part ...

Today we talk all about derivational morphology and what can be done with it. We also spend some time talking about Proto-Deithas Top of Show Greeting: Sindarin (translation by Roman Rausch) Links and Resources: Gary Shannon’s notes on related words Lexical Semantics Agent nominalizations Nominalization in Thai Featured Conlang: Proto-Deithas

Aszev of the CBB joins us for a little talk about the many kinds of phonological processes: what they are, what you can do with them, why the order of processes in important. We also review the awesomely well-developed Novegradian with its 500-page grammar and excellent dictionary. Top of Show Greeting: Talmit Links and Resources: Distinctive Features Types of Processes Featured Conlang: Novegradian Feedback: Email from Nathaniel Fischer: Dear Conlangery Podcast, I really enjoyed your epis...

CORRECTION: A commenter below graciously corrected me on a point I (George) raised in the show. When I talk about desiderative languages, please replace that word with dechticaetiative. Look to the comments below for a relevant link. I apologize for misidentifying the phenomenon I was talking about. We talk a lot about morphosyntactic alignment, outlining the basic types, talking a little about various complications, and even bringing up a linguist who thinks it’s not all that important, anyway...

What do you do when you want to make a language without case marking? Or with very little case marking? That is what we attempt to explore in this episode. If you would like to take up George’s “homework” challenge, make up a sketch of a language and send an example of some sort of narrative that demonstrates how you handle various semantic roles, with varying animacy, etc. Here is an example story you can use (though you are fully free to make up one yourself). There was once a man who beat hi...

Alternate Title: Genders, Classes, and Agreement, oh my! We talk today all about gender. Or noun class. Or both. Really, they are the same thing, at least we think so. Anyway, after a vivid and lively discussion on what can be done with the wonderful world of arbitrarily classifying nouns we review Taruven Top of Show Greeting: Knæknæk Links and Resources: — Zompist on gender (More in the book.) — WALS pages Number of Genders Sex-Based Gender Gender-assignment — Interesting gender systems...

We get right to it talking about suprasegmentals: mainly stress, phonation, tone, and nasalization. After a long and fascinating (if incomplete) discussion, we finally get around to talking to DJP’s Kamakawi. Top of Show Greeting: Kinál Links and Resources: Phonation Types Mark Liberman has doubts about stress-timed vs syllable-timed Nambikwara (lots of suprasegmental distinctions) Featured Conlang: Kamakawi Feedback: Comment thread on #30 Some comments we mention specifically: CMunk: A sh...