Our /lang/uage

This is going to be a long post. I might separate it into parts.

/lang/, stay with me for a second here, what if we (the /lang/ collective) were to write, publish, and fluently speak our own language? Wouldn't that be interesting? You remember when you were kids you always had dreams of concocting your own language to speak with your friends and stuff? Same concept, only you probably have the capacity, with a little patience, ingenuity, and help from others, to actually ACCOMPLISH it. This thought came to me a couple days ago, I was listening to "Prenzlaurberg" by Beirut, and since the song sounds like slurred gibberish, I decided to transcribe it the way I heard it/maybe fudge what I hear a little and have it take on its own meaning. I'm going to post a small portion of the song, what I think it would say in the new language. Completely by ear, make your own assumptions for any loanwords that it looks like I used

Prenzlaurforue / District of Prenzlaur (forue being a suffix)
Sol la vor ' manie fonore / The sunshine ' [on] balcony's edge
Zlait crie eurnre remoir / Even when people lament
Sol la vor ' manie fonore / The sunshine ' [on] balcony's edge
Zlait crie em nol dem deed / Even when I'm old and dead
Aicanter toni, zlait au crie / Singing tonight, even still
An lo eisis vai ensom foture / And look, [the] moon's face tells [of the] future
Addolot sem sair por la vire, soilar / [The] neverending sea dances at lit. "the"; in context: "its" call, shaking
Em wachet ver por la vire, taim, taim.../ He abruptly stills at his call, wait, wait...

Literally any question/comments/criticism are welcome, I really hope it can become a success.

If we're ending the infinitives in -en, should we not have nouns end in that to avoid confusion?
I like the -en ending, but I noticed some of the verbs already have it -.-

The wiki's coming along pretty good.
Words endings are decided so existing vocab needs to be adjusted accordingly. Also, that would make the language 'langianos' or 'лангианос'.
We just need to sort out verb endings now.
I think we should have four main tenses:
Past negative, post positive, non-past negative, non-past positive
Also a compound form which can be placed before other words to form conditionals, imperatives, exhortations.. (like te+kudasai etc. in Japanese)

>>121
Most of the ones I took directly from Latin end in en
As for word endings, I was jsut throwing out random sounds; existing vocab can always be changed.

>>122
Wouldn't that be the plural of Langian? Wouldn't Langian become Langiano? Sounds Italian.

Also the Basic Grammar page is coming along: http://langian.wikia.com/wiki/Basic_Grammar

We can start posting the grammar instructions there instead of the Community Portal.

>>122
I was saying just change nouns ending in -en, because that's what the infinitive ends with, so Langian (and other words ending in -n but not -en) are fine.

>>87
About accusative: I don't think it's a good idea using a suffix or something like that, I like using word order for this, like most languages do... so, something like SVO [subject verb object] would already work.

But if we're going to use accusative marking, why not a preposition for it? This allows free word order, but uses no inflection. Dunno, I suggest ба/ba because it sounds cool (source: Mandarin's object marking /pa/).

But still... word order is more intuitive... :D majority decides.

>>100
Needs some years, yes. But no way over 9000. In the first year, we already have something brute, enough to play around but not enough to use without other languages.
Vocabulary is the single most boring and time-consuming part, the rest is somewhat straightforward.

>>101
About grammar classes: I think using
nouns [almost obligatory], verbs [needed too], SOME adverbs [so we doesn't need to conjugate verbs], but NO ADJECTIVES.

We can use substantives for both things and characteristics. So, instead of saying "the girl is beautiful", we use "girl has beauty". Got it?

In this case, we won't need even a "to be" verb, just "to have" verb make its role.

I see this as a brainstorming... first, we throw all our ideas, after this we work them as a language.

ABOUT THE FLAG: pure awesomeness. You guys are GREAT.

>>115
Grammar-wise, what about something like
"fox with brown [past] with quickness jump over dog with lazyness"?

Vulpos is tricky because of /v/ and /l/ sounds, we can use another source for it. Chinese uses "huli", we can adapt to хури/huri.

Marroon here is acting as an substantive, not as adjective. And we can keep it simple using "dark red" instead - like, соў-рубеў/sow-rubew (see >>63 for my proposed colours).

"With" preposition can be worked as кун/kun, from Lat. "cum".
Repeating кун/kun to say that it is both quick AND brown is tiring, so I suggest using an "and" particle - aw/аў, from Hindi "awr".
So, using these changes in your phrase, goes as

huri kun sow-rubew aw kerera hopen supe kane kun pirasa
хури кун соў-рубеў аў керера хопен супе кане кун пираса

GUYS, GUYS, IMPORTANT: for those using Linux, like me, Gedit can transliterate as you write. Just right-click in text, select "input method", ?????, profit!

>>126 is mine, forgot the tripshit.

>>121
We don't need an infinitive concept, if we use just one verb form. So, past/infinitive/future/etc. will just be ruled by adverbs.
I.e. infinitive can be made with NO ADVERB.

>>123
Latin endings: we can wipe them out ^^ I did it with Greek's planet names...

ABOUT PLURAL: we can make it like Japanese. One ninja, two ninja, three ninja, few ninja, many ninja. The plural/singular is already told by the number.
And Quechua uses an optional particle "kuna", as another word... so thing kuna = things.

ABOUT SOUNDS
v/w distinction is tricky for most people, so when a loanword uses /v/, I suggest changing it to /w/.
l/r is too, so we can use /r/ instead of both.

"c" letter is a mess. Avoid it. If you want /k/ sound, use "k". If you want /ts/ sound, use "z". If you want /s/ sound, use "s". This is not Langian's fault, but Latin's - Latin /ke/ become /tshe/, most Romance changed it further to /tse/, and some changed to /se/. English took French's "ce" = /se/.

LETTER NAMES:
Will we use short names, like English? This is quick-and-dirty, gets confusing with background noise ("did he mean a D or a T?")

Or will we use long names like Greek? Alpha, beta, gamma... this is cleaner, but longer.

Guys, just for info.

"Konungrkhaos" at Langian wiki is me.
I'll throw here my e-mail, use them if you need to talk with me:
LVCIFER [at] BOL . COM (dot) BR
(^ V, not U)

Now I'll edit some things there... :-D

Hey guys

Wanted to say I won't be participating in the project anymore due to my own reasons, I know you probably don't care...

I'm glad to see my little brainfart has influenced solid work and a chunk of actual 4chan history, thank you guys so much for all your hard work.

Keep up the good work in my stead, I might just learn your cool new language in the future...

Его зай демукуз, ганбазу (I will leave, work hard)

>>131
Say whaaaat?

Khaos your work is awesome. Go ahead and slap it in the Basic Grammar section.

>>132

Or the Community Portal section.

>>131
:-( ARE YOU MAAAAAAAAD???
Yes, we DO CARE!
But serious, take your time. Rome was not made in one day...
Take your time, but come back to help us when you can, ok? :-D

>>132
>>133
I'm first lern2wiki, changing some few things until it gets familiar to me.

>>126
These are all excellent ideas. So 'kun' is going to work like a modifier ('no' in Japanese) meaning that all adjectives are nouns by default? This also means consistent word endings are not needed.

Also I agree with you on the verb structure; so someone needs to come up with the adverbs.
However, we can't do away with the verb to be. We need something to suggest existence. Perhaps jsut the adverbs on their own?

>>131
Why?

Looks like it's BR time

>>137
Forget you hater, I'm in PST

>>134
Thanks for the encouragement, I will slip in from time to time. Heaven knows you guys need the help.

>>135
It's not a modifier. It's just "with" preposition, worked in a way English allows but don't use often. See:

"Mary is that girl WITH BEAUTY."
"Mary is that BEAUTIFUL girl."

It's not like "with + substantive = adjective" in English - 1nd phrase have NO ADJECTIVE, and yet, carry the same meaning as 2nd phrase. кун/kun works this very way :D

We don't need to use кун/kun everytime you would use an adjective in English, see:
домо хабе рубеў. (original)
domo habe rubew. (transliteration)
House has "redness". (literal translation)
The house is red. (sensible translation).

What do you think? This makes a "to be" verb useless in Langian, since "to have" can do all the dirty work.

"Few", "many", "no" can be worked as the numerals.

(BTW, "domo" is Russian, "habe" is Latin "habere" without infinitive -re, "rubew" I told above :D

>>137
Haters gonna hate... e tô pouco me fodendo pra isso (I don't fucking care). :P

I'm not trying to be a pain in the rear here, but can we drop Greek Cyrillic? Pусский kириллица is so much easier to read imo...

>>140
I don't understand what you mean by "Greek Cyrillic"... exemplify, what could we change?

>>139
Sounds good to me.

>>141
домо хабе рубеў. - Greek Cyrillic
Домо хабе рубев. - Russian Cyrillic

Note the sliiiight differences.

>>143
Ah, the ў? I took it from Belarussian, since Russian doesn't have /w/ sound. So the pairings
ў(semivowel)-у(vowel)
й(semivowel)-и(vowel)
get symmetrical :D

However, the pairings aren't serious business, I'm happy using "в" for the semivowel instead, and I think most people will agree with you.

About capital letters: we can use them too - for word start, and/or for proper names, and/or all names (like German), or pronouns... we just need to agree where use them.
___________________

Guys, have you tried to pronounce Langian? At least, the vocabulary until now? How does it sound? Badass, boring, cool, funny...? We still can change this, add bits of complexity to color the language the way we like...

There's still time to do these kind of changes, so hurry up :D

>>144
I have for a few of my words, I'll go through the dictionary and read some in vocaroo and post here later.

Hey guys, I tried making a conlang once with some friends but they quit on me.

I suggest making it based on suffixes, like Persian. The grammar will be extremely easy.

    * All verbs end in -tan or -dan in the infinitive.
    * Take off the -an from this to get the past stem.
    * Now we add a suffix to this. Suffixes are: -am for I, -îd for you, -îm for we, -nd for they, and no ending for he/she/it.
    * All done! Close your book, there's no more learning the past tense anymore.

>>146
NO

>>145
Let's do this: you bring the words, I try to adapt to Langian's phonology until now. You see the results; if you like them, OK, if you don't like, we make some changes. Deal?

>>146
>I suggest making it based on suffixes, like Persian.
Inflecting language... most we've made until now is more isolating... person-agreement suffixes are redundant if you use the pronouns, and tense can be made with adverbs or auxiliar verbs (like English "i WILL eat").

This adds complexity to the language, but brings succinctness - see Spanish "quiero" [I want] - where -o means "present tense, indicative mood, first person, singular", all together. This is pretty cool ^^

Langian Anon and others: what we'll do? Isolating or suffixing?

Some more observations about your suffixes:
*Infinitive isn't all common... we could live without one.
*Most languages with singular/plural contrast have a singular "thou" and a plural "you all" pronouns (English is exception here - English, thou art strange...). We'll need to mark both separatedly, like with "he/she/it" and "they";
*Or instead we can use just 3 endings - one for I/we, one for thou/you all, one for he/she/it/they.
*Until now, Langian doesn't allow syllables endings in -d or in -m, so we would need to adapt them (I suggest -s and -n);*The circunflex accent (î) stands for what in Persian? If it's a long vowel, we can swap î for "je" or "ej".

>>148
I would be all for complex verb conjugations. It makes the language more exciting - part of the reason I love Latin and  Icelandic. Also, we're making this language for fun and not as an easy-to-learn auxilliary language so why not? However, I think this should still be achieved through adverbs as it just makes the language a little bit more different from Indo-European languages.

In that case the verb minus a conjugating adverb can be the infinitive, which will be necessary if we need more than one verb in a clause.

In any case, the adverbs/suffixes need to be decided upon so we can actually start forming grammatically correct sentences! I suggest we do it alphabetically i.e.
I=-a you(s)=-e he=-i we=-o you(pl)=-u they=-ej one=-ew
If we use adverbs to conjugate then the starting consonant can denote tense e.g v=imperfect therefore va=I was...

>>149
Using case-agreeing adverbs also does away the need for personal pronouns and also means that the stem is always instantly recognisable.

>>149
Cool, let's do this way.
However, the endings are sounding too similar [at least for me, e/i and o/u pairings are tricky]... what about
I = -a
thou = -e
he/she/it = -o
We = -as
You all = -es
They = -os
One = Ø (nothing)?

We can even work -s as plural mark, if Langian will have a plural ^^ so "domo" = house, "domos" = houses, like in English.

The consonants for tense/mood can like you made in >>87 (f- past, z- future, b- present), and we can use mood particles if we change them a bit, so:
-aj is continuous, ow is instant/non-continuous, on is subjunctive/hypothetical. So,

"the houses used to be red, now they're green" can be translated as
Domos fajos habe rubew, bajos habe sumurus.
Домос файос хабе рубев, байос хабе сумурус.
Lit. translation: "houses past-continuous-it-plural have redness, present-continuous-it-plural have greenness." The "now" isn't present, however it's pretty implicit.

If you agree, this can be the first grammatically correct sentence in Langian ^^

>>151
It's perfect! Our verbs are almost finished! ^^
But what about the passive voice? I would suggest a prefix starting with a hard consonant like 'de-'
>domos defajos ajdifike
>домос дефайос айдифике
>the houses were being built

If you agree with this, I'll begin writing out all the conjugations on the wiki...

Okay, I've gone ahead and made the page on the wiki.
It's basically just a complete list of tense particle conjugation and I haven't explained any of the tenses, so it assumes a reasonably good knowledge of linguistics.
I've read it out loud and pronounciation is easy, and gives the language a weird, quirky accent...
If you think there's any problems with the page, feel free to edit it.

>>151
One extra point - shall we say that all nouns take -o (s in plural) and all verbs take -e in the root/infinitive? I'd like a bit of regularity, even if it isn't necessary with our structure...

>>152
de- = passive verb? Wonderful idea.
We can extend its meaning, so phrases like "I was traveling by car" uses active mood if you were driving, and passive mood if you were just a passenger.

>>153
Sounds quirky to me too, but I like it, sounds like it's getting its own color...

>>154
What about a prefix instead of suffix? It's still regular, but we don't need to spoil the endings like Esperanto did.

Or we can go fancy and make instead some pattern - like, all nouns start with "hard" (occlusives [ptkbdg] and Z) consonants, all verbs start with "soft" (the other consonants) or no consonant at all... numerals, adverbs, etc. goes out of this scheme and can start with any...

The possibilities are infinite.

And I was thinking in one thing. What about a new set of aspirated occlusives, like Attic Greek, Hindi and Mandarin? English has these too, but doesn't use for contrast.

To write them, we can just pick leftover letters - there's a lot of them ^^

(Is this too fancy? :P)

About verb particles @ wiki:

Weren't we using "в" instead of "ў" for the semivowel /w/?
Langian Anon proposed that in >>143 , he says reading become easier. We need some agreeing in this ^^

>>155
I love the idea for noun and verb pattern. It's pretty awesome and original; definitely sets Langian apart from any languages I know.
Also the idea of using passive for 'passive' actions is a good idea - it reduces the number of verbs we need.

>>156
I'm not too hot on phonology... an aspirated occlusive, is that a consonant without the /h/ phoneme after it? Or a consonant followed by a stop? Could you give me some examples in English? I'm sure I'll understand it and I don't see why we can't add them. Maybe use archaic Cyrillic letters for them, just to make written Langian even more awesome?

>>157
Fair enough. It's definitely easier to pronounce. I'll change the wiki page.

And other thing... LangianFag, "z" is transliteration to "ч", not "з". I remember I did it so doesn't use dygraphs (like ch) or diacritics (like ĉ).

Until now, Langian lacks a /z/ sound, we can add it if you want, but in this case I propose adding a /v/ and a /ɣ/ too (voiced velar fricative) for symmetry.

BTW, how are you inputting the Cyrillic?