Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast LangTime Chat

In this episode we continue work on our beaver names to try to get things done on Sovála in time for Kopikon then announce a new fun thing at the end!

In this episode, we chat about the Suh Ankripton language, which we created for James Gunn’s Superman movie. The presentation we use throughout the episode is attached.

We apologize for the belated appearance of this episode and hope you enjoy learning more about the Kryptonian language we created for the film!

In this episode, we chat with Jonathan about the practice of conlanging in general, including how taking different approaches can be helpful! They talk about their experiences working with different processes (evolving a language, creating a language as is, creating languages that stretch the boundaries of how we might currently think about languages…). It was a great conversation with Jonathan, and we hope you all enjoy it!

Miles joins us for this riot of an episode, where we talk about the Western and Eastern dialects of Chielúú. As a forewarning, be ready for an earful of belly laughs near the end of the episode.

The document Miles prepared with talking points about the dialects is attached to this post so you can follow along!

Nemo joins us for this episode to chat about aspect in Isfasori (the PDF discussed in the episode is attached to this post).

Nemo did some really cool things in the system, so check out this episode to hear about a singing squirrel and jumping rabbit!

In this episode, Tabby joins us to talk about one of her orthographies and ideas for developing the shapes of the glyphs in different ways to reflect the materials available to the speakers.

Tabby wrote a summary of the orthography as it is now and its historical development from older glyphs, which is attached here. (Don’t miss this document—the system is really cool!)

We really enjoyed speaking with Tabby and hope you enjoy listening to the episode!

Jake Penny is our guest extraordinaire in this episode, where we talk about the comparative construction in Jake’s language Pánkáshku. Jake provides a quick introduction to the basic grammar of the language before they dive into the features of the comparative.

A PDF of the relevant section of the language document is attached to this post.

Enjoy!

I struggled with what to title this episode… but that’s what it is. We start with David putting out a call for volunteers to be a part of our new conlang review series, which will have varying formats, depending on what you (as a volunteer) would like to get out of the experience.

Then we continue the episode with a very informal chat about our recent experiences on a work project (all under NDA, so the chatting is very informal, vague, and, at times, nebulous).

This episode marks the wrapping up of our first five years of LangTime Chat! We look forward to what the sixth year brings!

This podcast episode was special because it was a surprise livestream for the Patrons who joined us for the end-of-month Patron stream! We reveal the results of the first ever LTS Mini Relay, which ran during the month of December, and the episode features two very special guests: Jake and Miles from Let’s Have a Bouba!

Attached you’ll find the slides and the documents of the relay so you can follow along with all the texts.

Enjoy!

In this episode, I give David a sample miniature relay text written in Vuochanad, and he works his way through translating the text, narrating his thought process as he works. Once he has a working English translation, he then translates the tiny text into High Valyrian, again narrating his thought process.

At the end, we discuss areas where the translation had already shifted from my original intentions, and we introduce the upcoming challenge of this month: a very mini conlang relay!

If you are interested in participating, let me know as soon as possible, so we can get the ball rolling. The relay is super informal and will be a very short text, so it will be a good way to test out a language you’re working on, to get introduced to what a conlang relay is like, or to just spend an evening of conlang fun doing a little challenge!

Attached are the slides we used, the document David received (with the typos I found later…), and the document where David typed notes and did his translations.

We unveil the results of the a posteriori challenge introduced in episode 56. Patrons helped us create a whole family of Wokuthízhű languages for communities of kangaroo rats, and the results are absolutely delightful!

I have attached the slides for this presentation (really, a must for seeing all the amazing data set comparisons), and I’ve also attached the documents so you can all see the work submitted. It truly is astounding to see how much you all put into this challenge, and we can’t thank you enough for making this challenge so delightful!

In this episode, we introduce the next LangTime conlang challenge: you get a chance to create an a posteriori conlang sketch built on Wokuthízhű! Tune in to find out the details, including information about the speakers of this new language.

Attached here are the slideshow for the episode and guidelines for the challenge (both in Pages and PDF formats).

In this episode, David and I discuss some of the a posteriori conlangs we have worked on. It is a brief intermission between two conlang challenges in our five-part mini-series on conlanging from existing material!

It’s the long-awaited episode, where we discuss results from the (in)famous FrameLang Challenge! This is a continuation of Episode 53, which introduces the challenge.

All participants worked with the same data set: a sampling of English names, phrases, and clauses, which had to be treated as a base for a new conlang. It’s the same kind of process David and I use when we have to work with existing material in books/shows that incorporate bits of “language” that aren’t actually part of a full language system (i.e. varying degrees of gibberish) and then create an actual language built from those bits.

Along with David and me, six Patrons submitted sketches based on the data. Attached to this post, you’ll find all the sketches and the slides we used in the podcast.

This episode begins a five-part miniseries exploring ways to conlang using pre-existing material.

In this episode, we discuss some of the processes we use when we need to incorporate material from books (material that was created without the structure of a language) in a conlang.

I set out a challenge for the month, which requires taking words and phrases in English and treating them as unknown entities, as source material collected from a book that needs a language built around it. Our next episode will present the results from that challenge.

If you are interested in participating and having your results included in the next episode, send me your work via email or a DM on Discord before July 27, 2024.

I’ve attached a PDF of the slides that accompany the episode, and I’ve also attached the Language Sketch document David and I will be using in three different formats (PDF, Pages, and Word). I have no idea how well the conversion from Pages to Word worked, so the formatting may be wonky on that version!

I submitted the manuscript of the textbook I’ve been writing for four years now, so David chose the book as the topic for this podcast. We talk about the overall structure of the book, my goals in writing it, and some features in its current state.

In this episode, we chat about designing glyphs. David designs two glyphs based on an image of a chicken that I drew as a starting point. One glyph is in the style of High Valyrian, while the second is a style inspired by Sarkezhe.

I’ve attached the images of the chickens that I drew for inspiration for David to base his work on.

We did our best to narrate a very visual task… We hope you enjoy!

This is a special episode of LangTime Chat based on a career-focused presentation I gave at Georgetown University in September 2023 (right before Kopikon). David has been encouraging me ever since to record it as a podcast episode, and I’ve finally listened and done it. It’s a bit shorter than a typical episode, but I hope you enjoy it, nonetheless.

I’ve attached the PDF of the presentation slides I use throughout–there are quite a few images to go along with the journey!

We were finally able to see Dune 2 in the theater this past weekend, which means we finally saw and heard our work on the Chakobsa language in the film! And in this episode, we chat about the experience of seeing the movie and working on the film. At the beginning of the episode, David claims there will be spoilers, but there aren’t. While we talk about the language, we don’t give away plot points or even specific lines, really. We talk about the features in a much more general sense.

We hope you enjoy this slightly belated episode!

In this episode, we chat about tense and aspect in this episode, and you get to witness the unveiling of a new LangTime animation! On a podcast! (What better way of podcasting is there but to use visuals?) All joking aside, we use an animation to present a small set of events and discuss ways a tense-prioritized system might handle the verbs versus the ways an aspect-prioritized system might handle them.

For your reference, I’ve attached the slideshow we use throughout, and I am uploading the animation so you can witness it in all its 2.2-second glory.

In this episode, we talk about linguistic theory and its place in conlanging. As a spoiler alert, we specifically talk about how theoretical approaches are not so helpful to the art of language invention.

I’ve attached the PDF of slides we use throughout the episode, some of which have visual examples of theoretical approaches to show how language is analyzed in that particular approach.

In this episode, we chat about tackling academic linguistics articles, providing strategies for approaching articles and figuring out if they will be helpful to you or not. This episode is especially dedicated to anyone who has tried picking up linguistics articles but then feels overwhelmed because, well, academic articles are generally kind of notoriously cumbersome to get through. Our goal moving forward is to have episodes dedicated to specific articles that maybe you want to have read but don’t want to read–we will read them for you and tell you what they’re about!

I have attached the PDF of the slides we used (complete with all the original typos…), and I have attached the Haspelmath article we used for a focused discussion on reading strategies.

Happy reading (and happy sending us your reading wish lists)!

This is a Jessie-only kind of episode. In it, I walk through my thought processes as I attempt to get ready to translate a passage into Zhwadi. It focuses on how I’m thinking through decisions rather than on the actual creation of roots/words/items. The goal is to demonstrate just how much translation can help when you’re at a stage with your language where you’re ready to expand its features but aren’t sure what direction to go. Translation as an exercise can really push you to better understand your language and the features you most want to incorporate.

Attached is the PDF of the Keynote slides I used while talking through decisions. Also attached is the final translation of the passage(s) with notes throughout. If you want to hear the thought processes before seeing the final decisions, wait to look at that PDF until you’ve listened to the episode!

We give a recap of our glorious day of conlang fun, otherwise known as Kopikon. In this episode, we give a rundown of the speakers and their talks from the day, which we hope will be especially useful for anyone who couldn’t attend and wants to know more about what went on that day. We give some behind-the-scenes info throughout, and we let you know why you should go watch each and every talk from the day! (Eventually, those videos will be separated out so you can watch them individually on YouTube instead of scrolling through a full day’s worth of talks in a giant video. We promise we are working on it!)

Attached you’ll find the PDF of the presentation we used while recording the episode.

We hope you enjoy the recap of what was an incredible day!

David and I discuss common expressions in languages, including greetings and thanks. We hope it inspires you to think about some of these kinds of expressions in your own languages!

(The slides used during the episode are attached here, though they really just provide the words we talk about. You can, however, see just how weird “Thank you” looks in the Noto Serif font!)

In this episode, we wrap up our discussion of some best practices and other advice for Romanizing a conlang. While chatting, we used a Pages document to take some random notes, and a PDF of that document is attached here. (When I say random, though, I mean it. The notes won’t make sense without listening to the episode.)

In this episode, we begin a discussion on Romanization, talking about goals for Romanization and differences between an orthography, phonetic transcription, and Romanization. The PDF of the slides we used in the beginning of the episode is attached here.

We didn’t quite make it to the “best practices” portion, so we are extending this discussion into a two-part series that will continue in next month’s episode! 

In this episode, we talk about the kinds of information that make a conlang’s written grammar more helpful and accessible to other conlangers who want to learn about your language. (And also that make it better for you to keep track of your own language!) We provide examples from conlangers’ grammars to show strategies you can use in your documentation.

The PDF of the Keynote presentation we use is included as an attachment (where you can see the fonts David was so excited about!).

Happy documenting!

***SPOILER ALERT!***

At the end of the episode is a suggestion for using the Grambank features list as a method for documenting and sharing information in a readily accessible way and for noting areas of your language that you haven’t yet addressed. Click herefor a link to a Google Sheet that includes all the features, links to descriptions of the features on Grambank’s website, dropdown menus for selecting the response best matching your language, and cells for you to provide information about your language.

The first sheet is the full list of features. There is a second sheet (look at the bottom of the screen to find the second sheet) called “Instructions” that provides more information about how the sheet is organized and what you can do with it.

The sheet is view-only, so you’ll need to make a copy (an option under the “File” menu) before you can edit it and use it for your language.

Jessie put together a trivia game for David based on language features provided in Grambank’s database (https://grambank.clld.org/)! You can play along as you listen, and you can also download the attached PDF to see all the features and examples discussed.

We wrap up our discussion of types of borrowings in the history of the English language and end with some book recommendations for anyone interested in learning more!

At one point, we discuss the ampersand, so I’ve attached a fun poster here to show what we mean.

This episode is (quite accidentally) the first of a two-part discussion on borrowing and the history of the English language. We talk about different types of borrowing into English in the hopes that it might inspire you as you think about ways your conlang may borrow from another language.

The PDF of the slides used for this presentation are attached to this post!

In this episode, we discuss conlang relays, providing an introduction to what they are and what participants can expect from them. We use some past conlang relays to give examples of how texts shift as relays progress.

One of the relays we discuss specifically is the LCC5 Relay. If you want to check out the full relay texts, you can find them here: https://conlang.org/language-creation-conference/lcc5/lcc5-relay/.

You’ll find the PDF of the slides we used for the episode attached to this post.

***SPOILER ALERT***

What I’m about to type below gives away some details of the LCC5 Relay, so if you want to be surprised by how the text shifted during the relay, do NOT keep reading! Listen to the episode first and then come back to check out this super cool information.

***SPOILING COMMENCING***

Three animals are included in the LCC5 Relay text. In the original, the animals are, in this order:

• turtle(s)
• horse
• goat

I traced the evolution of these animals in the translations across the texts, and I was shocked to find out the turtle is what became the great lion!!! It started in Leg 4 (John Clifford’s text), where “turtle” became “reptile.” Then Zach Wellstood translated that as “dragon.” It stayed a dragon until Jan Strasser’s text, where it was translated as yuksa, a word specific to Jan’s conlang, which is glossed as “a legendary creature that eats people.” He goes on to describe it as an animal that looks similar to a panther with a long dinosaur-ish tail. Alex Fink translates that as “big people-eating cat,” and then Tony Harris turns that into “lion.” Jeff Jones calls it a “large cat,” and David translates it into Dothraki for the final text as “great lion.”

The horse stayed a horse AAAALLLLLLL the way to Jeff Jones, the 12th (and final) leg before the text was returned to David. That’s where the horse became a unicorn.

The same thing happened with “goat,” where Jeff translated that as “antelopes,” and then David translated as “deer” into Dothraki.

As for the plums and carrots… I translated these as “purple fruit” and “edible orange root” because Hiutsath did not have words for either (and wouldn’t because my speakers didn’t eat human food and had no interest in naming them). They stayed “purple fruit” and “orange root” for a few legs until Zach translated the “orange root” as an “orange fruit.” When that got to John Quijada, it turned into “red fruit.” (The “purple fruit” was still there at this stage.) But then it took a super interesting turn when Jim Henry conflated the two as apples, where the “real apples” are purple (assuming here that the red ones are not real!). That trend continued, where there were real/true apples versus bad/evil apples. When it got to Alex, the apples became “fruits” or “sweet fruits.”

It’s so much fun to trace these twists and turns that relay texts take!! I encourage you to read through all the English translations of the texts because there are delightful surprises in each one!

David leads this episode where we discuss the many options for expansion animals that Patrons are currently voting on. We hope this helps inform your decisions about what animals you’d like to see in future seasons of LangTime!

In this episode, we focus on Kezhwa, the conlang we created for Amazon’s Paper Girls TV series. We are excited to share details about the language with you because we had so much fun working on it!

A PDF with the slides we used throughout the recording is attached. 

Enjoy!

In this episode, David turns the tables on me and provides a list of words I need to create through compound, derivation, and grammaticalization strategies from the same root list used in Episode 32. You can see the words David selected for me to create in the attached PDF of the presentation we used, and I have re-uploaded the root list here so you can more easily find them!

(As a side note, we were recording this in Seattle, and… um… the audio is not its usual quality.)

In this episode, titled “Create That Word!”, we play a new LangTime Chat game!

We play a game where I provide David with a list of words that are basic roots in a not-as-yet-created language (all roots are English counterparts—not phonological forms), and he has to create strategies for forming new words. They aren’t just any words, though, that he’s creating: I provide specific words for him to create from those existing roots. 

We have three rounds of the game, focusing on different strategies: compounds, derivations, and grammaticalizations.

If you want to play along, I’ve attached a PDF of the root list and the presentation slides that provide the new words that need to be semantically formed.

We hope you enjoy the episode and have a happy start to your October!

In this episode, we talk about strategies for creating a conlang language family. The presentation slides we use throughout the episode are attached to this post so you can follow along if you need visual references. We hope you enjoy the episode!

In this episode, we chat about ways you can use your conlang once you’ve developed it, and I’ve attached a PDF of the Keynote presentation we use during the podcast to keep our discussion (mostly) organized. We hope you enjoy and find ideas in here that resonate with you and inspire you!

In this episode, we talk about some difficult phrases to translate, focusing the entire discussion on the many uses of “to have X” in English. We had recently needed to translate a line with such a construction and wanted to talk about other ways you could tackle taking apart some more idiomatic phrases when you translate them. 

Attached to the post is the list I had open during our discussion (which also had David’s entries, apparently). Even though it isn’t organized in the best way possible, you’ll see exactly what we were staring at as we discussed translating the phrases!

This episode is quite different from all the others because, as you’ll quickly see, David isn’t in this one. Instead, you just get me talking to you about conlanging and my struggles with imposter syndrome. I titled the episode “Art and Anxiety” and was so nervous about the whole thing that I wrote everything I wanted to say in an essay to read aloud while recording the episode. And, of course, I made an accompanying presentation to keep on the screen while I talked. I attached both the written essay (which is essentially a transcript for the episode) and the presentation here.

Stay grammar!

In this episode, we have some fun with fauna! We talk about different ways speakers come up with names for animals beyond having basic roots for them, and we hope it can inspire your own animal-name creation fun!

During our conversation, David mentions a thread on Reddit about butterfly names, which you can find here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1chmc4/eseneziri_im_david_peterson_the_creator_of_the/.

And I created a Keynote presentation for our discussion, which I’ve attached as a resource. When it gets to the discussion on butterflies, you’ll see there are a lot of names in Germanic languages, and those words are not necessarily standard across all dialects (and some are much more archaic!), which just adds to the fun of it all. 

We hope you enjoy!

In this episode of LangTime Chat, we discuss triconsonantal roots, including natlangs that have them, historical origins of triconsonantal systems, and how to approach creating one as a conlanger. Enjoy!

In this episode, we discuss the results from our LangTime Chat proto-sketch we began in Episode 24. Not only did we have our own modern forms to compare, but Patrons also submitted work, so we have a whole family of modern forms based on the same proto-sketch. To keep our discussion organized, I made an accompanying slideshow, which is attached to this post as a PDF. 

This episode was a lot of fun for us, and we hope you enjoy it, too!

We have officially been podcasting for two full years!! This episode is the first of a two-part series and is based on a Patron suggestion, and we are quite excited about it!

In this episode, we work together to create proto-forms of a conlang sketch and discuss why we made particular decisions along the way. We settled on a sound system, created a series of basic roots, and decided on a basic word order for the proto-language. Over the course of the next month, David and I will each work separately with the proto-forms, selecting our own sound changes and grammatical devices and what not. In the next episode, we will bring our work together to compare what we came up with.

For any who want to “play along,” the language sketch document we created in this podcast episode is attached (both in Pages and PDF formats). You can evolve these proto-forms in your own ways over the month to join in on the fun!

After getting a question from a Patron about how to select an area of specialization in graduate school, we decided to devote this month’s podcast to that topic. We hope you enjoy!

In this very informal podcast episode, we discuss Jessie’s first experience at San Diego Comic Con!

(Note: This was the condensed SDCC held during Thanksgiving weekend, 2021, so it wasn’t the full experience. Still, though, it was something!)

SPOILER ALERT! In this episode, we discuss the signed communication system David created for Dune. Because we talk about how it’s used in the movie, there are some (minor) spoiler alerts.!

For this episode, we took a suggestion from our Patron Miles on Discord and decided to talk about food! We talk about words for various types of food in natural languages and how to go about coining food words in a conlang. So grab a snack and enjoy!

In this episode, Jessie totally says the wrong episode number at the beginning… sigh. Eighteen is such a good number, she wanted to use it twice! In terms of content, we talk about our experiences with graduate school and linguistics programs.

Also, if you’re ever in Boulder, CO, you should try out Half Fast Subs!

In this episode, we take a suggestion from Jason, one of our Patrons in Discord, and chat about Avatar: The Last Airbenderand strategies we would take for creating conlangs for that world. Avatar famously didn’t employ any conlangs in their fantasy world, but instead minimally utilized bits of real world languages here and there for style. We discuss what we would have done differently!