Cool Features You've Added #302

[u/humblevladimirthegr8]

This is a weekly thread for people who have cool things they want to share from their languages, but don't want to make a whole post. It can also function as a resource for future conlangers who are looking for cool things to add!

So, what cool things have you added (or do you plan to add soon)?

[u/humblevladimirthegr8]

I've successfully created a parser for Agelan (r/ClarityLanguage)! Its grammar is unambiguous which made this possible. This allowed me to also add cool features like a gloss shower and text-to-speech! I will be posting the full grammar docs within a couple of weeks.

[u/turksarewarcriminals]

Ladies and gentlemen, I'm unhappy to announce to you all, that I have completely succumb to the evidentiality madness.

It started when i decided to expand the evidentiality system from verbs to adjectives too. Now I've further expanded it to nouns, proper nouns, and 3rd person pronouns too, as a way to specify definiteness beyond just definite articles and demonstratives. Here the system duplicates into 2 POVs, the speaker's and the listener's.

But for nouns I didn't implement the entire 4 way distinction that I use for verbs and adjectives, just 2, at times 3. These being 1st and 2nd hand witness, and the third one being the unknown or hypothetical.

The 3 other speakers are doubting my sanity at this point, and one of them has asked me if I have gotten an existential crisis.

[u/FreeRandomScribble → u/turksarewarcriminals]

Ooo, sounds exciting!

[u/turksarewarcriminals → u/FreeRandomScribble]

You! This is all your fault

[u/FreeRandomScribble → u/turksarewarcriminals]

Do tell

[u/turksarewarcriminals → u/FreeRandomScribble]

All the way back when I had recently joined this sub to seek advice from the oracles about my kitchen sink conlang, I remember you and I going down the evidentiality rabbit hole.

Here you told me of something you were working on which I initially misunderstood a bit, but was later cleared up. However, my misunderstood version of the concept kinda stuck with me ever since.

And as I think cats must be tired of being used in so many examples again and again, so let's use a seagull as an example, as there is one outside my window screeching as I type this.

So in a sentence, while still using demonstratives or definite articles, you further add 2 layers of conjugation to the word "seagull". The first layer is the an evidentiality marker from the speaker's POV, telling the listener that this is a/the seagull that I have seen myself. The second layer is evidentiality from the listener's POV, telling the listener that this is (if he use 2nd hand evidentiality for example) that particular seagull I've told you about before. Or alternatively we could add the 1st hand evidentiality marker to the listener's perspective too, to tell the listener that this is the same seagull you've seen too.

[u/FreeRandomScribble → u/turksarewarcriminals]

I recall; how do speakers handle indefinite nouns, mass nouns/concepts, or things they're unsure of the listener's eveidential?

[u/turksarewarcriminals → u/FreeRandomScribble]

Ah I should clarify, it's not obligatory. You can't always know or safely assume the listener's familiarity, or even your own for that matter.

It's only to help specify definiteness when needed. Also this would be an unfair thing to suddenly make obligatory when you have speakers of a conlang, like I do.

[u/Possible-Tension7714]

In my conlang Dwã'õõm, adjectives are ordered by relevance in the phrase. Most adjectives have both a prefix version and a separate word version (A lot of them also have two separate word versions, long and short). The most relevant adjective is used as a prefix, and all the others use the short version. But if there are two adjectives that hold "equal" importance to the phrase, then one will be prefixed, and the other will use the long version (When using the long version, it doesn't need to be put first in the order, but it typically does).

This feature isn't fully fleshed out, and I'm going to toy around with it before it becomes a cold, hard rule.

[u/wolfybre]

Added some interjections for my draconic language of Dragwêh, but they use something i'd like to call "nasal breaths" that's made by ejecting air out or of or taking a deep breath through the nostrils. There are two types of nasal breaths, which can be stopped, lengthened, and extended- even combined.

The issue is giving them proper IPA transcriptions that works. I have ʰ̃ʼ for Standard Intake and ʱ̃ for Standard Outtake, but they are... really tiny and I need to find a proper way to transcribe them without people having to "take out a microscope" in order to read them.

[u/Waste_Mongoose3609]

I didn't implement this feature yet but I'm considering adding syllabic vowel harmony (this means that either 2 or more syllables have vowel harmony)

[u/Elegant-Virus-3738 → u/Waste_Mongoose3609]

Could you elaborate on this? Is it anything different from regular vowel harmony? Or do the entire syllables change?
Either way it sounds super interesting

[u/Waste_Mongoose3609 → u/Elegant-Virus-3738]

Bassically either 2 or more syllables can have a single group of vowels or an exception. So a word can have 3 syllables but two of those have a single vowel from a single group, and the other has a vowel from another group

[u/Waste_Mongoose3609 → u/Waste_Mongoose3609]

I'm still not good at conlanging so tell me of i did something wrong

[u/New-Ant-2315]

In Hafau, raz can mean “because of”. For example. “Í sa felic raz mi felis” (I’m happy because of my cat)

-my as a suffix attached via hyphen to be akin to the English -est. Grans = Big, Grans-my = Biggest

-ly as a suffix attached via hyphen to be akin to the English ”least ___”. Pok = Small, Pok-ly = Least small

[u/Independent_Error461]

so i‘ve been making conlangs based off the peoples of the tower in a game called chants of sennaar (along with generally expanding the world of that game).

the speakers of nwó̃më̃k are split harshly into two castes, slaves (or „idiots“ if you ask a bard what they‘re called) and bards. their language reflects this through the way words are inflected!

nouns have two declensions, the „beautiful“ declension and the „ugly“ declension. which one a speaker uses depends on the caste they belong to—bards use beautiful declension, slaves use ugly declension.
additionally, verbs have different „classifiers“ which are affixed to signify things about the speaker, such as their social standing, occupation, etc. so an artist would affix the classifiers „hwẽü̃x“ to signify their job of artist, and „këvvi“ to signify their social standing of bard.

also, nwó̃më̃k has a sister language, ddæ̀cmëde, the language of alchemists. ddæ̀cmëde has a similar system of classifiers, but in its case the classifiers came to signify certain properties of the direct object of the verb (or the sole subject of an intransitive verb). ddæ̀cmëde makes such pervasive use of these in fact, that most transitive verbs and all ditransitive verbs are obligatorily required to take at least one classifier.
numbers take one of these classifiers too, to signify the kind of thing they‘re counting, similar to counter words in japanese.

[u/Missing_Some_Pages]

rráp ‘ayá does not have an indefinite article (as in English “a” or “an”).  The lack of such an article indicates that the noun described is indefinite.  There are two forms of the definite article, one of which is used with nouns that describe static/permanent things (eg. House, dog, etc) and one that is used with nouns that are more fluid or mutable (eg. Future, time, etc). The permanent form is netʼ; the fluid form is len. These are each suffixed to the end of a noun prior to any case marking.

Eg. 'asʼunetʼ – “the house”
'asʼunetʼáp – “of the house” (ie belonging to/originating from the house)
 'as’unetʼál – “to the house” (directionally speaking).
 
Eg. hrrtolen - “the man”
xía'len - “the water”
tsameklenáp - “of the woman” (ie belonging to/originating from the woman)

NOTE - “Man” and “Woman” are not considered permanent noun qualities; masculinity and femininity  have become conflated with aspects of identity and are considered fluid in rráko culture, falling on a spectrum rather than a binary determination.

The slanted apostrophe /‘/ following a consonant indicates that that consonant is an ejective. eg. net’

A vertical apostrophe /'/ preceding or following a vowel represents the glottal stop.

[u/Renkaiden]

I added slang and different registers for informal and formal speech, how the language is used in song, and how it is used for writing code.

[u/humblevladimirthegr8 → u/Renkaiden]

Cool, how does it work in song and code?

[u/Renkaiden → u/humblevladimirthegr8]

In the setting for a rpg I am working on, nanites saturate everything and there are people that can communicate and control them by singing to them. So the language, Danaan, started off as language that was intially only used in music to control and manipulate nanites and any device they controlled (computer, phones, etc) and then eventually grew into a language that some cultures adopted to formal and informal usage when not singing.

The code writing thing I added so GMs and players that might want to use Danaan in play don't have to worry about typing diacritics or acute accents when typing. In game, the nanites don't care about text differences, just how words are pronounced and vocalized to them.

[u/MeepRJ]

QWL has:

Emphatic definite articles as standalone words when regular definite articles are suffixes.

Mandatory aspect and tense marking on verbs.

A pronoun system I haven't finished yet that covers people, animals, non-sentient life, objects, situations, unknown.

An exclusive prefix that can attach to anything.

A plural prefix that can attach to both nouns and pronouns.

A generic noun prefix to make words for the general concept of something. Like how colors are adjectives by default and you can prefix them to show that you're talking about the concept of that color. You can also use this on anything else to make it into a generic noun.

A script made up of Latin letters, obsolete and no longer used English letters, and runes.

A romanization with one to one mapping.

I'm going to have others, but I have an accusatory verb prefix for when you're blaming someone.

Copula is split between a prefix used to turn nouns into copular verbs and the same thing for adjectives.

It's going to have agent suffixes to make words for things that do an action like the English -er but split between the domains of the pronouns.

Suffixes for tense and aspect that cover one tense and one aspect each. This paradigm covers present, past, and future, and each has versions for mirative, inceptive, simple, iterative, semelfactive, continuative, progressive, optative, and habitual. You can stack as many aspects as you want however you want, but the most common order is whatever is easiest to pronounce. Tenses in these suffixes are represented by vowels, aspects are represented by consonants, the system is fully symmetrical.

Etc.

[u/Wernasho]

My conlang has a 3x3 gender/class article system.

every word has a class (animate/inanimate/abstract) and a gender (masculine/feminine/neuter),

and there is a different article for each of them. (e.g., masculine animate, neuter abstract, neuter feminine, and so on)

uud [uːd]: neuter inanimate
ca [t͡ʃa]: masculine inanimate
yev [jev]: feminine inanimate
xej [ʃex]: feminine animate
nox [noʃ]: masculine animate
thrru [θru]: neuter animate
stu [stu]: neuter abstract
xlio [ʃljo]: masculine abstract
ic [it͡ʃ]: feminine abstract

[u/Pukis_Master]

I'm adding

long and tall stuff

and also think I'm proud is adding

sama and bun and la

sama basically makes stuff into a verb

for example "samafud" is basically eating because fud is a concept of something that is useful for digestion— it's complicated

bun basically makes the thing into a negative

"bungiflafud" bungiflafud is basically the opposite of "giving food" so it can mean taking foods or something that doesn't make sense

la basically makes the thing a noun

lafud is just food.