Questions tagged [diachronics]
Diachronic conlanging refers to the simulation of language change in a conlang
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How to develop partial reduplication diachronically?
I want a daughter language of some proto-conlang to develop partial root reduplication for consonant initial roots as a productive and mostly regular morphological feature (the precise value it marks ...
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Can core argument markers swap roles? If so, how?
I have been trying for some time to figure out how to smoosh a bunch of my originally-unrelated languages into a larger family. They have a fair amount of noun and verb morphology that was ...
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How to create irregular pronoun paradigms
My language has several cases. I have their affixes worked out for the nouns, as well as the proto-affixes, but what I want to know is, how can I get the pronouns to have different-looking cases? I ...
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How much of the irregularity caused by sound change (e.g. vowel loss) will be retained in inflectional paradigms?
In creating a language family with multiple generations, I'm noticing a huge buildup of irregularity in my inflectional paradigms, mostly caused by things like vowel loss etc. How long would it take ...
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From what could I derive a morpheme that explicitly marks a noun as being a phrase head?
I have a number of languages I want to combine into a macrofamily, and one thing they have in common is nouns that ending the the pattern *-(V)nVm, e.g. *-n-om in a PIE-esque language, -unum in an ...
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How to prevent all of my words being eroded away to nothing
My latest project is a full language superfamily (the Thakina languages). I'm now at the fourth generation with Highlands Têyisa, and I'm noticing that most of the words are getting far, far shorter ─ ...
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What are the most common sound changes in natlangs?
What sound changes are most common in natural languages, and in what order do they usually occur? Are there any factors to take into account when modelling sound changes for a conlang that is supposed ...
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Evolution of irregular declensions and conjugations from reconstructed proto-languages
In designing an artificial dialect of the Greek Language, most words and inflections have predictable patterns with a well-guessed/documented evolution which show the origin of the word's roots and ...
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How to decay (remove) vowel harmony system by conlang evolution?
So I have a Back vowel harmony system in my conlang, where front and back vowel cannot occur in the same word. Now that I am evolving my conlang, How can I decay the harmony system giving space to ...
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Are words based on acronyms treated differently when the language changes over time?
Do sound and grammar changes affect acronyms, that can be pronounced as words, differently than other words in a language?
Are words based on acronyms treated differently or not when sound/grammar ...
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Reverse diachronic languages
There is quite an amount of so-called diachronic constructed languages, taking one language (historical like vulgar Latin, or modern like present-day English) and applying some sound shifts and ...
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Is there a set of sound change rules that undoes Grimm's law?
Zompist has a Sound Change Applier that comes with some example rules:
[sm]//_#
i/j/_V
L/V/_
e//Vr_#
v//V_V
u/o/_#
gn/nh/_
S/Z/V_V
c/i/F_t
c/u/B_t
p//V_t
ii/i/_
e//C_rV
Is ...
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How could the future "Kesh" language from the book "Always Coming Home" by Ursula K. Le Guin develop from modern languages?
In the book Always Coming Home, by Ursula K. Le Guin, the author created the future Kesh language and Aiha alphabet. Does anyone with an anthropological or etymological background and experience with ...
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How long do I need to influence language development?
Taja is a language with Verb-Subject-Object word order. However, emperor Kai wants to always be the first, so, he wants all sentences where he is the subject to have a Subject-Verb-Object word order.
...
Alex
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How do I naturalistically merge two languages without a clear Substrate and Superstrate?
For my latest worldbuilding project I'm trying to create a naturalistic language for a fictional empire I've been creating. This empire was born at the end of the Bronze Age when various kingdoms and ...
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How to naturally evolve verbs into adverbs or dependent clauses?
Currently I have a very simple proto-language which I'm trying to evolve. For example:
slishi hu ho shofli shofli pfufi tushi
repair person tool fish.V fish.V succeed cause
Person ...
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By what means might the roots "let" and "ly" mean the same thing in a naturalistic conlang?
I apologize for how this question may be perceived. I am casually learning linguistics with no curriculum. I can understand that this question may have many possible answers, but I am not quite sure ...
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How to develop a detailed, realistic a posteriori conlang?
Background
To begin, I’ve been conlanging ‘properly’ for around two to two and a half years now and have been into it for far, far longer. However, I have yet to create a conlang that is truly in-...
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How do you model language changes with wave theory (areal developments)?
I'd like to hear from anyone who has built a dialect continuum, in which innovations spreading from different centres affect overlapping subsets of the range (see wave theory). How do you model it? ...
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How can I explain the origin of the dual number in my Slavic-influenced East Nordic conlang?
The language I am creating is derived from East Norse and heavily influenced by Slavic. It has a quite complex grammatical structure - for example, it has not only taken over the two additional cases ...
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How to model the change of script over time
I want two languages to share a root but I want them to look unrecognizable written down (with the original language having a written form, so not independently created writing systems). Are there any ...
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How would the grammar of a conlang develop as a creole from other languages?
Assume that the backstory of a conlang is that it developed from a set of other languages. In other words, speakers of these (different) languages were living in the same area and were communicating ...
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How to make good analogy in one's constructed language?
What steps can be taken to reproduce analogy in a constructed language? Which parts of grammar are more likely to evolve with analogy, and why? Are there rules for what analogy does to which words, or ...
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Soudwegian: A Swedish-German process similar to what happened to English and French?
The idea is that the Swedes retain a small bit of what is nowadays German territory that they conquered in the 17th century. This is now independent territory, Soudway, with a language of its own ...
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From known languages, what are the expected features of a Generation Ship Language?
Pandorum is a generation ship movie. Generation ships are a fairly big sub-genre of sci-fi where people live for many generations in a ship while travelling to a distant star.
The movie Pandorum did ...
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Conlangs based on lesser known antique languages
The canon of classical languages studied in Europe comprises Latin, Greek, and Hebrew (and maybe classical Aramaic). Inspired by this answer mentioning a conlang based on Hittite, my follow-up ...
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Are there any rules of thumb for number of "steps" between two points in a language's natural development?
Let's suppose that you want to create Conlang B. You want this conlang to be derived from Conlang A. Let's also suppose that you have some arbitrary period of time in between A and B. Are there any ...
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Greek-based altlangs
The Wikipedia article on Artistic languages says in its current version
What if Greek civilization had gone on to thrive without a Roman Empire, leaving Greek and not Latin to develop several ...
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How did Tolkien model diachronic changes in his Elvish languages?
Wikipedia explains that Tolkien modelled changes to his Elvish languages, something we'd call diachronic conlanging these days:
Tolkien conceived a family tree of Elvish languages, all descending ...
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What are common origins of accusative case markers?
What are the primary way(s) accusative case markers can develop?
The primary way of development of oblique case markers seems relatively straightforward, with attachment of adpositions (which can ...
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What is an overview of sound changes?
One of my works-in-progress is a language called Proto-Oreadin. As the name suggests, it is a proto-language, which eventually I am hoping to expand into a family of languages. Currently I have a ...
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I want to create a family of languages. Should I do one first or should I concentrate on all of them? [closed]
I want to create a whole family of related languages like a natural language family, like Semitic, Italic and Germanic languages. In what ways can this be done? What are the requirements, drawbacks ...
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How do tones disappear from a language?
There have been many good writeups on Tonogenesis, i.e. how language acquire tones. But never have I seen such a writeup on the opposite phenomenon, which one might call Tonoexodus. Obviously, one way ...
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