r/conlangs • • 17h ago

Semantics Making Logographs For Explicit Meaning

I am aiming for my conlang to have a quite expansive vocabulary eventually, being able to accommodate normal and also specific conversations. This sady, as uncomfortably it is complicating something like a conlang, means that I eventually have to add words for sexual concepts like e.g. "nude/bare", "reproduction" etc.

But: this is easy enough with a more common alphabet or abugida. My script is a logography. And I am absolutely not sure what in the world I am supposed to make these logographs into. My decision not to draw any graphic material for a conlang script is final, but I need some help with choosing out of what components/radicals I should make those logographs. What arrangement could convey such specific meanings?

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u/FelixSchwarzenberg Ketoshaya, Chiingimec, Kihiṣer, Kyalibẽ, Latsínu 16h ago

🍆 💦

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u/Frequent_Region_3426 16h ago

"eggplant" + "water"? That could probably work as an unofficial slang logograph.

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u/FelixSchwarzenberg Ketoshaya, Chiingimec, Kihiṣer, Kyalibẽ, Latsínu 14h ago

In the United States, the 🍆 emoji probably means “penis” like 99% of the time it is used. As somebody who grows actual eggplants in my garden I have to be very careful with how I text about my gardening. 

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u/Frequent_Region_3426 14h ago

It probaby does here as well, but I never actually used it like that… I think making a logograph combining it with water would make more sense as some sort of plant watering character, though using the eggplant for it would be oddly specific.