User:Jotadiego

Welcome to Jotadiego's user page on Linguifex!

Hi guys! I'm Jotadiego (people from the Facebook groups may know me as J Diego; I've also gone by the nicknames Taimunozhan and Squirrelwug).

I've been creating languages since I was 14 or so (2008-ish), after getting interested in Esperanto and Tolkien's languages. My first conlangs where rather uncouth (Spaele, which was an unholy mix of words from a dozen sources, and Mëntinlan and Calacalá, both of which attempted in some way or other to be logical languages) but, as years went by, I managed to create better conlangs (nonetheless, I've decided to keep those early languages rather than getting rid of them; my reluctance to abandon old conlangs is one of the key elements which have lead me to hoard dozens and dozens of conlangs of my own).

Although I'm not a linguist (nor have I pursued a career in linguistics) I'm passionate about languages. As it's the case for many conlangers, my interest is not as much about 'learning' languages (I'm only conversational in English, other than my native tongue [Uruguayan Rioplatense] Spanish) but about the quirks of different languages in their grammars, phonologies and history. I'm particularly interested on language evolution and comparative linguistics (something that has influenced me as a conlanger: I'll often make language families or try to work out relations between my conlangs). I just love the idea of seeing different behaviour evolve from a common ancestor and tracking down seemingly unrelated words to the same etymology (like Hittite 𒂊𒌍𒄯 ‎(ēšḫar, blood) actually being a cognate to English iron).

My conlangs usually fit the artlang category; I don't really intend to get people to speak them (I do not make much of an effort to learn them either); I'd just rather make them interesting to me. Sometimes, I'll make conlangs to explore some concept (Lynn, for instance, was born out of pondering what Spanish would look like if it had underwent a sound change like Grimm's law in Germanic languages; Dongh, a latter conlang, was the opposite: my attempt to make a Germanic language where those sound changes had been undone resulting in words like /puːd/ which actually comes from Old English fōt but which may looks closer to PIE *pṓds). I'd like imagining that some of my conlangs would be spoken by different groups of fictional folks (which further motivates me to make them naturalistic) though I don't normally go too deep in the conworld element. Many of my conlangs (between a third and a half of them, I think) have scripts of their own though I'll often stick with their more convenient romanizations (out of laziness, that is).

I've worked both on a priori and a posteriori languages; I don't have a clear preference for either, though I'm most commonly seen using Efenol (particularly its western dialect, Efenol del'Oth), an a posteriori language based on Spanish (my first language). Although I'm indeed fond of Efenol, it's actually not my favourite (my apparent preference for using it mostly stems from it being really easy for me to derive Efenol words and phrases by applying the appropriate rules; it is the only conlang that I'd be able to speak confidently enough). While I wouldn't claim to have a favourite either, I can say that both Tengoko and Lisnäit occupy a special place for me (though there are other conlangs I've made which are probably much more interesting in terms of grammar, history, etc).

I've got a certain tendency to make a new conlang every time I get what I deem to be an interesting idea. This, along with the facts that I'll seldom abandon an old conlang and that I like working with language families (which often results in new daughter/mother/sister languages) has effected the current situation where I've got a ton of conlangs most of which are, unfortunately, underdeveloped. From time to time I'll try to revisit an old conlang I hadn't worked on for a long time (which most often results in reforming the language), but my long sought goal of properly documenting each of my conlangs has remained elusive.

Other than conlangs and linguistics, my interests are science, maths, IT and programming (I've somehow ended studying computer engineering), geography (and cartography!) among others. My favourite books include His Dark Materials trilogy (by Philip Pullman) and stuff by Asimov (I like The End of Eternity better than the Foundation series but I think that his best works are actually his short stories like Nightfall, The Gentle Vultures or The Last Question). I've developed a liking for animé with FMA Brotherhood, Durarara, Puella Magi Madoka Magica and the little known Shinsekai Yori being my favourites. As for music, I'm mostly into rock and pop though I listen to a wide range of genres (there are only a few kinds of music I don't really like including some kinds of tropical music which, much to my dislike, seem to be way too popular where I live u_u).

By the way, I'm an admin and a founding member of Conlangs (Español), a Spanish-language Facebook group for talking about conlangs and related stuff. If you hablas español, make sure to check it out! ;)

Languages

INCOMPLETE LIST

I've got quite a few conlangs (the length of this list may prove that to be an understatement) though, unfortunately, most of them are underdeveloped (some are hardly more than sketches). While I'm certainly not developing all of them at a time most (if not all) could be said to be active in the sense that, from time to time, I'll review them and translate a thing or two (this has become specially the case in 2015, when I imposed myself the goal of coining a word each day alternating between my conlangs).

I plan to add examples and, eventually, articles of their own for each conlang but that is going to take quite a time.

Early conlangs

My first experience at conlanging was creating an Esperantido which is now lost (I only thing I remember is that it had the genitive/possessive suffix -esa). My first serious attempts, however, where Mëntinlan, Spaele and Calacalá (Mëntinlan being the first though I had worked with something which my be thought of as a precursor to Spaele before, so Spaele could also claim that title). Other than beginning as rather unrefined conlangs (due to my lack of experience and linguistic knowledge at the time) they do not share much, though I'll often treat them as a group just out of nostalgia (Efanyó, my fourth conlang, could also be included in here on a similar basis).

• Mëntinlan

Non-diachronic a posterirori.

Mëntinlan (originally spelled Meantinlan) is a language with agglutinative word formation and otherwise analytic grammar. Its lexical roots are mostly derived from English (though often "volapukized" to a less recognizable form); for instance Mëntinlan used* to mean 'symbolic language' and was formed by joining "mëntin" (symbol, itself from "mën", from English mean and "tin", from English thing) and "lan" (language).

• The language's head directionality was changed so now 'symbolic language' would be "Lantinmën". The old form of name, however, was kept unchanged.

Constructed scripts: Mëntinpiky (logographic)

• Spaele

Non-diachronic a posterirori.

Spaele (also Spaëlë) is an agglutinative language with a lexicon drawn from several natural languages (featuring most prominently English, Esperanto, German, Spanish and Latin). Nouns and adjectives are declined for two numbers and four genders (feminine, masculine, neutral and mixed) which can be determined from word terminations and accept a large number of case suffixes. Verbs may be conjugated to indicate both their subjects and direct objects.

Constructed scripts: Runei (in two variants, Runei proper and Runei Noviei or new Runei; featural), Piumafonte (alphabetic)

• Calacalá

A priori.

Calacalá (which may be Anglicised as "Chalachalah") is a logical language following a concept similar to that of Ro: each letter defines a category which can be further refined with additional letters (da for descriptions, dac for colours, dacaz for blue, dacazav for bluish indigo, etc). However, one feature that sets Calacalá apart of Ro is that only consonants count in this regard (the previous examples could be thought as D, DC, DCZ and DCZV respectively) while vowels are only auxiliary (they may help telling apart words with similar consonants). There exist two vocalization schemes (fixed set of rules determining which vowels to add to a consonant string) which account for what could be said to be two Calacalá dialects: Caladá and Çelçeli.

Constructed scripts: Calasifal (an abjad though, due to the peculiarities of Calacalá, it could also be though as a full alphabet).

Neo-Hispanic

There was a period where I experimented on conlangs based on Spanish (my native language). I collectively refer to them as Neo-Hispanic, as if they were their own sub-branch of Romance. Neo-Hispanic would be further divided in two major branches: the Germanic-ish Lynnic branch (which experienced a sound change analogous to Grimm's law) and the so-called Efanic branch (which shares some sound changes like /sp/ -> /f/).

Many of those conlangs follow the "language X evolved to look like language Y" which can be found in conlangs by other authors. At the time I did specially like Þrjótrunn, which was basically "Latin evolved to look Icelandic" (resulting in one of the best conlangs I've seen; which further motivated me to try that approach).

• Efanyó

A posterirori: Indoeuropean, Romance, Neo-Hispanic, Efanic

Efanyó was my attempt to foresee a possible future Spanish. It simplifies many consonant clusters, reduces (and loses) some syllables and it incorporates a phenomenon which is basically identical to French Liaison (some final consonants are only realized if followed by a vowel-initial word).

Constructed scripts: None (Latin alphabet is used instead)

• Lynn

A posterirori: Indoeuropean, Romance, Neo-Hispanic, Lynnic

One day I wondered what Spanish would look like if it had a consonant shift like Germanic Grimm's law. In a matter of hours, I had already begun to sketch Lynn. I've constructed three varieties of Lynn: Old Lynn (ancestral to the other two), Eastern Lynn (or Estlynn) and Western Lynn (Lyn Talost). Each of the latter varieties would give rise later to further descendants.

Constructed scripts: None (Latin alphabet is used instead)

• Lün

A posterirori: Indoeuropean, Romance, Neo-Hispanic, Lynnic

Lün descends from Estlynn, the Eastern dialect of Lynn. Although descended from Spanish, Lün was modelled to resemble German and, like German itself, it is actually a range of linguistic varieties which may not always be inter-intelligible. Since I reformed it in 2015 there are two main Lün varieties: High Lün and Low Lün (the first of which displays some of the sound changes that set apart real life High German form Low German).

Constructed scripts: None (Latin alphabet is used instead)

• Lyun

A posterirori: Indoeuropean, Romance, Neo-Hispanic, Lynnic

Lyun descends from Lyn Talost, the Western dialect of Lynn (Spanish × Grimm's law). There are a number of features that set Lyun apart from related conlangs, most prominently a reduced vowel system (3, compared to Lynn's 6 or 7 depending on the variety) and a vastly simplified verb conjugation.

Constructed scripts: None (Latin alphabet is used instead)

• Nystrr

A posterirori: Indoeuropean, Romance, Neo-Hispanic, Lynnic / Nystric

Just like Lynn/Lün/Lyun, Nystrr follows the idea of applying to Spanish the developments that set the Germanic branch apart from other IE branches; however Nystrr could be said to do better in this regard as it does not only incorporate Grimm's law but also a n analogue to Verner's law. Nystrr also has some other sound changes which are intended to give it an Old Norse-like look. Nystrr also includes Talsur (or Old Nystrr), an earlier stage between Spanish and Nystrr proper.

Constructed scripts: None (Latin alphabet is used instead)

• Fein

A posterirori: Indoeuropean, Romance, Neo-Hispanic, Efanic

Fein descends from Efanyó (which itself descends from Spanish). Compared to Spanish (or Efanyó, for the matter), Fein is more analytic and shows an incipient vowel harmony.

Constructed scripts: None (Latin alphabet is used instead)

• Efenol

A posterirori: Indoeuropean, Romance, Neo-Hispanic, Efanic

Efenol is the language I work with the most often (mostly because it is really easy for me to translate into Efenol). A hypothetical descendant of Spanish, Efenol has some features commonly found in Celtic languages like consonant and vowel mutations. For instance, the C in "cas" (house, from Spanish casa) is lenited to G in "a·gas" (the house) whereas the A is mutated to EI in plural forms like "a·ceis" (the houses, plural articles do not trigger lenition). Tolkien's Sindarin was at a time the main stylistic influence for Efenol (and still is, though to a lesser extent).

Efenol is a pluri-centric language with three main dialects: Western Efenol (Efenol del'Oth, the one I use the most), Northern Efenol (Efenol del Norz) and Eastern Efenol (Efenol del'Ez); what could have been a fourth major dialect, Southern Efenol (Efenol d'e·ssur), is divergent enough to be better understood as a separate(though highly related) language. Other than those major dialects, there are two more noteworthy dialects: Northeastern (Efenol Nordezîn) which could be thought of as a transitional variety between the Northern and Eastern varieties and Hunzad, a rather divergent variety of Northern Efenol which features vowel harmony but which is usually considered (in-world) as an Efenol del Norz [sub-]dialect.

Constructed scripts: None (Latin alphabet is used instead)

• Ifánico

A posterirori: Indoeuropean, Romance, Neo-Hispanic

Ifánico is a Spanish-based language which features a mostly agglutinative declension system (for number, gender, case and definiteness) based on suffixes derived from Spanish prepositions and articles (the shift in position, from pre-word prepositions and articles to post-word suffixes is a result of a [fictional] Vesre-like slang which grow to be incorporated in Ifánico). This leads to nominal phrases like en los árboles (Spanish for 'in the trees') to become alboriloren (albor, tree, -i, a plural marker derived from Spanish -es, -lor, from Spanish los, a masculine definite marker, and -en, the equivalent particle "in" now turned into a locative suffix).

Constructed scripts: None (Latin alphabet is used instead)

• Nust

A posterirori: Indoeuropean, Romance, Neo-Hispanic, Lynnic / Nystric

Nust would descend from Nystrr, a Spanish-based conlang with Germanic-like sound changes similar like those of Grimm's and Verner's laws. Nust is further removed from Spanish in phonology and grammar. One distinctive feature of Nust is that articles are now suffixed to their nouns (stehr, history; stehrs'/stehrse, the history) rather than coming before them as in Spanish (or being mostly omitted as in Nystrr). Nust's new articles are derived from Spanish demonstratives eso/esa/esos/esas (stemming from Latin ipse) which makes them related to the definite articles of Sardinian and Baleric Catalan (and Henrik Theiling's Þrjótrunn).

Constructed scripts: None (Latin alphabet is used instead)

• Southern Efenol

A posterirori: Indoeuropean, Romance, Neo-Hispanic, Efanic

Although I originally intended Southern Efenol to be yet another Efenol dialect it soon became distinct enough to re-classify it as a language on its own. Southern Efenol (natively Efenol d'e·Ssur, though most of its speakers would rather refer to it as Surýn, Southern) shares many features with the other Efenol varieties (which may be termed "North-Central Efenol") such as consonant mutation triggered by certain particles or ablaut-based pluralization patterns. However, it differs on the way it inherits nouns with ended in -o in Spanish (which is cheshirised by ablauting the previous vowel while North-Central Efenol simply elides it); for instance Spanish clavo (metal nail) is inherited as clòv /klɔv/ whereas Western Efenol inherits it as chalobh /ˈxaloβ/ (the relationship between the two words here is further obscured by the different ways to deal with initial /kl/ clusters and differing orthographic conventions).

Constructed scripts: None (Latin alphabet is used instead)

Tengesian languages

In 2010, I was asked by a friend to collaborate in designing a video-game (some sort of RPG). In his notes, he was using some words for game-specific concepts (like waza for a kind of elemental attacks) which I he had picked from Mayan, Egyptian and Japanese words he'd found in the internet. I decided to create an otherwise a priori language out of those words (working out some phonological patterns out of the reduced lexicon we had) which was to become a Latin-like ancient language (Tengoko, the language of time) from which the languages of various clans would descend (most prominently: the language of the Dragon Clan, Tonoryu, cf. Japanese ryū). The game never took on (it didn't ever leave the "concept" stage) but I kept Tengoko and its descendants (the Tengesia, languages of the clans) as conlangs I've continued to develop.

By the way, the ng in Tengoko and Tengesia is actually /ŋ/ but I don't care at all if people pronounce it as /ŋg/ in English. Also, Tengesia includes Tengoko's descendants but not Tengoko itself (much like how nobody calls Latin a Romance language); I'm fine with saying that Tengoko is a Tengesian language, though.

• Tengoko

Mostly a priori, Tengesian

Tengoko (which, in the internal history, was once called Wir) is an agglutinative language with mostly a priori vocabulary (as some roots can indeed be tracked to natural languages, specially Yucatec Mayan and Japanese). Many grammatical distinctions are optional in Tengoko as its the case for number (teng can mean either language or languages depending on context; the number can be specified by prefixes: tengnu for singular and tenga for plural). Similarly, verbs may or may not include prefixes to indicate their subject (and, rarely, their direct object) and may even omit tense suffixes (kezyumos, I swam, may be expressed as just zyum if it's clear that it was the speaker who swam and that the action occurred in the past).

Constructed scripts: Old Kar (a logographic system similar to Chinese (Han) characters), Kar (derived from Old Kar, with glyphs noticeably simpler than those of its precursor), Sibaz (an alphabet with featural elements)

• Tonoryu

Mostly a priori, Tengesian

Tonoryu (the language of the 'Dragon Clan') is one of many languages that descend from Tengoko. Tonoryu features vowel harmony (front and unrounded vs back and rounded) and, unlike Tengoko, it requires subject and tense marking in its verbs.

Constructed scripts: Sibaz (alphabetic)

• Xenechen

Mostly a priori, Tengesian

Xenechen (/xénet͡ʃɘʔn/, the language of the 'Forest Clan') is one of many languages that descend from Tengoko. Xenechen's phonotactics were intended to resemble Japanese. It features palatalization of consonantes after Tengoko /e/ and /i/. Unlike other conlangs in its family, it is a topic-prominent language.

Constructed scripts: Qibi (a mix of Kar logograms and an alphabetic script derived from Sibaz)

• Hahdek

Mostly a priori, Tengesian

Hahdek (the language of the 'Fire Clan') is one of many languages that descend from Tengoko. Hahdek underwent sound changes similar to those of Grimm's law and some elements of its grammar are loosely based on that of German (like mostly SVO word order shifting to SOV in relative clauses).

Constructed scripts: Sibaz (alphabetic)

• Zissiten

Mostly a priori, Tengesian

Zissiten (the language of the 'Birds Clan') is one of many languages that descend from Tengoko. Despite being unrelated, Zissiten tries to have a vague Romance (particularly Italian) feel; resulting from various sound and grammar changes.

Constructed scripts: Hévil (alphabetic, unrelated to Sibaz), Sibaz (rarely, alphabetic)

• Hishi Theng-thun

Mostly a priori, Tengesian, Tengtunic, Hishian

Hishi Theng-thun (the language of the 'little Rock Clan'; just Theng-Thun before other Theng-Thun languages were created in 2015) is one of many languages that descend from Tengoko. It belongs to the Tengtunic branch, a group of Tengesian languages inspired by real life Chinese languages out of which Hishi Theng-thun is the most different (due to being more conservative). It contrasts plosives based on aspiration (rather than voicing, as it's the case for its not Tengtunic relatives), restricts codae to nasals or /f~v~ʋ/ and, not surprisingly for a conlang which lists Chinese languages as an influence, it is tonal.

Constructed scripts: Tunsi Kar (a variant of modern Kar, logographic)

• Qiye-Zempa

Mostly a priori, Tengesian, Tengtunic, Hishian

Qiye-Zempa descends from Hishi Theng-thun, thus being a Tengesian language in the Tengtunic branch. It features a large number of changes that set it apart from Theng-thun languages, including the loss of tone.

Constructed scripts: Sibaz (alphabetic)

• Hjolþesc

Mostly a priori, Tengesian

Hjolþesc (the language of the 'Ice Clan') is one of many languages that descend from Tengoko. Not unlike Hahdek, Hjolþesc underwent sound changes similar to those of Grimm's law. However, while I intended Hahdek to loosely resemble German I wanted Hjolþesc to be more like Old Norse and Icelandic (you are probably starting to appreciate how creative I was with its name).

Constructed scripts: Sibaz (alphabetic)

• Middle Theng-thun

Mostly a priori, Tengesian, Tengtunic, Tunjic

Middle Theng-thun (MTT) would have been once the main language of the 'Rock clan', the largest nation in the Tengesia world. Like other conlangs in that conworld, it descends from Tengoko. MTT was created in 2015 (nearly five years before Hishi Theng-Thun, what had been the Theng-Thun language so far, which is now in its now in a sister branch to MTT-based Tunjic). MTT could be thought as Tengoko's world analogue to Middle Chinese.

Constructed scripts: Tunsi Kar (a variant of modern Kar, logographic)

• Tujietian Theng-thun

Mostly a priori, Tengesian, Tengtunic, Tunjic

Tunjietian Theng-thun (TTT) is the main language of the 'Rock clan', the largest nation in the Tengesia world. Like other conlangs in that conworld, it descends from Tengoko and, more specifically, from Middle Theng-thun. It could be seen as Tengoko's world analogue to Mandarin Chinese; as it's the case for Mandarin, Tunjietian is tonal and very restrictive with codae (only -n is allowed).

Constructed scripts: Tunsi Kar (a variant of modern Kar, logographic), Kar (logoraphic), Sibaz (alphabetic, only as transcription)

• Pha Theng-thun

Mostly a priori, Tengesian, Tengtunic, Tunjic

Pha Theng-thun (Tsúnsîʔì fâtséng, or Low Theng-thun) is one of the languages of the 'Rock clan' in the Tengesia world. Like other conlangs in that conworld, it descends from Tengoko and, more specifically, from Middle Theng-thun. It has little inter-intelligibility with Tunjietian, the leading Theng-thun language in its conworld. It could be seen as Tengoko's world analogue to some Chinese languages ('dialects') like Cantonese. Like nearly all Tengtunic languages, Pha Theng-thun is tonal. It is less restrictive about codae than other extant Tengtunic languages (being the only one that allows stops in syllable-final position).

Constructed scripts: Pha-Kha (alphabetic), Tunsi Kar (logographic, often following Tunjietian rules).

Tehya languages

Tehya is a family of constructed languages based on an early ancestor, Proto-Tehya. Proto-Tehya would develop into Tighaia which, in turn, is ancestral to Eharthen and Tecya. At first, I had only Eharthen as a stand-alone conlang before I decided to work a 'precursor' language out of it (and, eventually, a 'sister' language, Tecya). One interesting thing about Tehya languages is that I constructed a family of scripts for them that parallels the evolution of some real-world alphabets. Thus, Proto-Kirta (the script of late Proto-Teyha or early Tighaia) looks a bit pictographic (although alphabetic in nature; comparable to Proto-Sinaitic), Tighaia is written in Old Kirta (with simplified glyphs) which, in turn, developed into three scripts: Inscriptional Kirta (very angular, used for inscriptions in monuments and official documents), Monks' hand Kirta (more cursive, used by monks and clerics) and Vertical Kirta (which, as the name hints, was written vertically rather than horizontally as other Kirta scripts). Eharthen's modern script, Kirthai, is a combination of Inscriptional and Monks' hand Kirta, using forms [mostly] derived from the former as capital letters and forms [mostly] derived from the latter as lowercase (being the only bicameral Kirta script); on the other hand, Hirtau, Tecya's script, is based on Vertical Kirta (it is also a vertical script).

• Proto-Tehya and Tighaia

A priori, Tehya

Two stages of a language that is ancestral to Eharthen and Tecya. Both share a three vowel system (/a/, /i/, /u/). On the other hand, their consonantal inventories differ due to various sound shifts between Proto-Tehya and Tighaia (which can also be spelled Tiǵaia): Proto-Tehya laħa /ɬaʕa/ > Tighaia ñaza /ŋ̊aza/.

Constructed scripts: Proto-Kirta (alphabetic, late Proto-Tehya), Old Kirta (alphabetic, classical Tighaia), Inscriptional, Monks' hand and Vertical Kirta (alphabetic, late Tighaia)

• Eharthen

A priori, Tehya

A language descended from Tighaia. Eharthen displays several innovations with respect to Tighaia: the development of a six vowel system (adding /e/, /o/ and /y/ to Tighaia's /a/, /i/, /u/ inventory), some consonant shifts such as Tighaia ñaza /ŋ̊aza/ > Eharthen mara /maɹa/ and, most noticeably, the introduction of a so-called specular directionality: head directionality (mostly head final in Tighaia) now changes depending on whether a word comes before or after the main verb of a sentence. Thus, 'to the kingbecomes oi mara (DATIVE king; head final) in Oi mara gavarthu (it was given to the king; groups are head final before the main verb) whereas it is mara oi (king DATIVe; head initial) in Gavarthu mara oi (same meaning as Oi mara gavarthu).

Constructed scripts: Inscriptional Kirta and Monks' hand (alphabetic, early Eharthen), Kirthai (alphabetic)

• Tecya

A priori, Tehya

A language descended from Tighaia. Tecya syntax shows signs of split ergativity: first and second pronouns have Nominative-Accusative alignment whereas an Ergative-Absolutive alignment is used otherwise. Unlike other Tehya languages with largely free word order, Tehya almost exclusively use Verb-Object-Subject word order for non-interrogative sentences and Object-Verb-Subject for questions. It has also underwent a series of sound shifts since Tighaia: Tighaia ñaza /ŋ̊aza/ becomes haca /haça/ in Tecya.

Constructed scripts: Hirtau (alphabetic)

Aiedain languages

The Aiedain are the central civilization of what comes close to being my most developed conworld (which, being much more of a conlanger than of a conworlder, isn't nearly as developed as others). This group includes the Aiedain and related languages.

• Aiedain

A priori, Aiedainic

A flexive a priori language with a system of honorifics/formality that may mark a 'honorific level' (ranging from exhalted to extremely vulgar) in each noun. For instance, daines (of the fire, neutral) may be declined to dainsunes (of the most exhalted fire) or to dainunkes (of the goddamn fire).

Constructed scripts: Aiedain script (alphabetic)

• Taleane Raineri

A priori

Non-vocal language

Taleane Raineri (Aiedain for 'Royal Language') is a in-world cryptolang that would be used almost exclusively by royal courtiers. A non-vocal language, Taleane Raineri actually refers to two independent but culturally related communication systems: a sign language and a logographic written language, of which I have only constructed the latter. This conlang could be thought of as a constructed script without an associated spoken language (it should bear some relation to the royal sign language though, yet it is not a transcription of it either).

Triband languages

The Triband are a race of sapient extraterrestial beings. Unlike most aliens from fiction, they are markedly non-humanoid: they are more like weird flying manta-rays. In addition to anatomic differences, their sensory systems are completely different to ours, which has a profound effect in their communication systems: their languages are based on emitting electromagnetic signals in three range of lower-than-light frequencies (I haven't really decided which frequencies that should be; probably somewhere on the radio wave spectrum). Human beings may take advantage of the fact that human vision uses three colour components to 'translate' the three invisible frequencies to the three human-visible colour componentes (red, green and blue, RGB), rendering the otherwise ungraspable Triband 'speech' as a series of lively colours.

• Triband Common Language

A priori

Non-vocal language

The Triband Common Language (TCL) is the lingua franca of the Triband world; nearly all Triband individuals are fluent in TCL (as well as in some other local language). TCL's phonology (chromology, maybe?) uses a series of signal patterns that are common across natural Triband languages (so it would be a succesful good designed auxlang, further showing that Tribands and humans couldn't be more different 😋). More specifically, TCL uses the three 'channels' independently, with four phoneme types: sustained intensity (from 1, lowest, to 5, higher; other languages may use up to 9), continuous raising or falling (three intensities for each), abrupt raise or abrupt fall (two intensities for each) and pulses (two variants: either one pulse or several shorter pulses); with each phoneme having the same duration (which is slightly more common than the opposite in other Triband languages). I'm afraid that TCL grammar isn't as innovative as its 'phonology', it's grammar isn't far enough of what you could find in human languages (other Triband languages may be more innovative in grammar).

Constructed scripts: Triband Native Script (a cuneiform like alphabetic script used natively by the species), various Human transcriptions (including an ASCII transcription and RGB mapping, that is, rendering the three simultaneous Triband signals as rgb colours in a graph).

Other a priori conlangs

• Sohosi

A priori, Sohosic

A tonal analytic language with strictly CV phonotactics.

Constructed scripts: Sohosi Hieroglyphs (a pictorial logographic system), Sohosi 'Demotic' (a simplified version of Sohosi Hieroglyphs)

• Sôsh

A priori, Sohosic

A conlang descended from Sohosi. Its phonotactics are more flexible than those of Sohosi, its phonological inventory is larger and it is slightly more fusional than its older stage.

Constructed scripts: Sevesh (defective alphabet, sometimes closer to an abugida; descended from Sohosi's 'Demotic' logographic script).

• Minmá

A priori

Minmá intends to be a very simple and minimalistic language (hence its name); it's got only 3 vowels (which, accounting for pitch which also changes the quality of some of them, could be said to be 6) and 6 consonants (with some allophonic variation). It's grammar is analitic and accepts any verb-initial word order.

Constructed scripts: None (Latin alphabet is used instead; I've occasionally used Devanagari as well)

• Bartxe

A priori

Contrasting with Minmá's simplicity, Bartxe was intended to be pretty complex. It is agglutinative (though, maybe, it could be described as mildly polysynthetic) and requires to inflect verbs for mood, aspect, potentially modifiers (such as causative marks), tense, subject, object (which may be fully incorporated as a noun) and evidentials.

Constructed scripts: Qekhiave (or Ekiawø, also Naupali's script)

• Yqende

A priori

Yqende is an a priori conlang with a large system of nominal classes (or genders) inspired by Bantu languages like Swahili. Yqende includes classes for humans, animals, body parts, substances or resources and places, among others.

Constructed scripts: Piumafonte (alphabetic, also Spaele's script)

• Seldon

A priori

Seldon is an agglutinative a priori conlang. In Seldon, verbs must always be preceded by a particles that indicates whether the verb describes an action, a transitory state or a property (ie a non-transitory state).

Constructed scripts: None (Latin alphabet is used instead)

• Ilbaló

A priori

Ilbaló (or Ilbeló) is an a priori conlang based on bi-consonantal roots which (much like Semitic tri-consonantal roots) inflect with vowel transfixes (and, occasionally, some mutations). For instance, the root H-S (fire) gives rise to his (to burn), yehis (to start burning) and yehisá (the beginning of something burning, ignition).

Constructed scripts: Bithobal (alphabetic)

• Kenvei

Mostly a priori, some a posteriori lexical elements

Kenvei, an agglutinative conlang, was probably the first conlang I designed with phonoaesthetics in mind: I wanted it to sound as pleasing as possible and thus it reflects my linguistic tastes at the time (resulting in something vaguely Tolkienesque, with Quenya and Sindarin as clear influences).

Constructed scripts: Sinte (alphabetic)

• Elirba

A priori

An a priori polysynthetic conlang. Although it's phonology was partly inspired by Greenlandic, Elirba sets itself apart by having two sets of archiphonemes for plosives (derived from an earlier Irish-like broad vs slender contrast) which are realized differently depending on whether the following vowels is a front vowel or a back vowel (for instance, |kʲ| becomes /ke/ and /c͡ço/ whereas |kˠ| becomes /kʷe/ and /qo/).

Constructed scripts: Elir script (alphabetic)

• Pitá-Ruqaha

A priori (though with borrowings from natlangs, particularly Spanish), Pita-Inaí

A conlang inspired by Native American languages (specially Quechua and Guarani). It is an ergative-absolutive language; its morphology is mostly agglutinative and verbs conjugate for transitivity, aspect and tense.

Constructed scripts: None (Latin alphabet is used instead)

• Inaí

A priori (though with borrowings from natlangs, particularly Portuguese), Pita-Inaí

A sister conlang to Pitá-Ruqaha, it is also inspired by certain Native American languages. Unlike Pitá-Ruqaha, Inaí has nominative-accusative alignment and uses pitch accent.

Constructed scripts: None (Latin alphabet is used instead)

• Naupali

A priori

Naupali is a conlang with rather complex phonology (with up to 60 consonants and 10 vowels: five of which are considered 'front' and five which are classified as 'back'). It's morphology is based on roots which typically have the form CVC where C stand for consonants and V stands for a vowel of unknown frontness (the front and back variants of a vowel are used in the nominal and verbal stems of the root respectively; for instance chim, 'knife/blade', and chum, 'to cut', are the two stems of the same root).

Constructed scripts: Qekhiave (abugida)

• Classical Mizuyu

A priori at its core but heavily borrowing form natlangs (specially Middle Chinese), Mizuyu

Classical Mizuyu (Misùŋyu) is a conlang with heavy Middle Chinese lexical influence (it is similar in this regard to Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese, all of which incorporate 'sinoxenic' vocabulary despite not being genetically related to Sino-Tibetan languages). Classical Mizuyu is ancestral to other Mizuyu languages (Northern Mizuyu, Southern Mizuyu and Damle-Mýný). It features three stop series: aspirated, unaspirated and voiced (which are treated differently in descending languages).

Constructed scripts: None (Han characters are used, though sometimes with a different style derived from earlier forms such as Seal Script)

• Northern Mizuyu

A priori at its core but heavily borrowing form natlangs (specially Middle Chinese), Mizuyu

Northern Mizuyu (Mizuyu proper) descends from Classical Mizuyu, an a priori conlang with heavy Chinese influence. One distinctive feature of Northern Mizuyu (when compared to other Mizuyu languages) is the shift of Classical Mizuyu /p/, /t/ and /k/ to /f/, /θ/ and /x/ (or /v/, /ð/ and Ø between vowels or after nasals).

Constructed scripts: 'Mizugana' (a syllabary similar to Japanese Kana; characters are based on Han (Chinese) characters; usually used along Han characters)

• Southern Mizuyu

A priori at its core but heavily borrowing form natlangs (specially Middle Chinese), Mizuyu

Southern Mizuyu (Mishui) descends from Classical Mizuyu, an a priori conlang with heavy Chinese influence. Southern Mizuyu words are often simpler (and more Japanese-esque) than words in other Mizuyu languages; compare Southern Mizuyu yukku to Classical Mizuyu gäkkäw, Northern Mizuyu gokkou and Damle-Mýný hòkhô.

Constructed scripts: 'Mizugana' (a syllabary similar to Japanese Kana; characters are based on Han (Chinese) characters; occasionally used along Han characters)

• Damle-Mýný

A priori at its core but heavily borrowing form natlangs (specially Middle Chinese), Mizuyu

Damle-Mýný descends from Classical Mizuyu, an a priori conlang with heavy Chinese influence. Damle-Mýný is probably the most divergent Mizuyu language and is also the only one with phonemic tones (contrasting 5 tones: low, middle, high, raising and falling). It is also the only one which doesn't use Han characters or a script derived from them.

Constructed scripts: Damlish (alphabetic)

• Proto-Indoryan

A priori, Indoryan

Proto-Indoryan was to be the proto-language of a wide variety of conlangs in a conworld I had named Indorya. I'm afraid I only ended up developing one descendant for it (and using the word 'developing' is quite an overstatement as it is too barely a sketch). Proto-Indoryan has two distinct stages: Archaic Proto-Indoryan (API) with roots of the form CVXV where X is either /w/, /ħ/, /r/ or /s/; and Late Proto-Indorian (LPI) where most of those roots had collapsed to one syllable forms (for example: API tʰahi > LPI tʼay, two).

Constructed scripts: None (Latin alphabet is used instead; scripts were to be constructed for latter conlangs)

• Ur

A priori, Indoryan

Ur was the first (and, so far, only) Proto-Indoryan descendant. As of October 2015, Ur is hardly beyond the 'sketch' stage.

Constructed scripts: None (Latin alphabet is used instead; scripts were to be constructed for latter conlangs)

• Hudoima

A priori

Hudoima is an a priori conlang with Chinese-like phonology and phonotactics (that means, of course, that tones are all around the place). Most Hudoima morpheme are one syllable long and many can indeed be used as words on its own; however, monosyllabic words are avoided in High Hudoima, an influential literary register, which leads to replacing short words with often redundant neologisms. For instance, yû (fly, flight) is replaced in High Hudoima with denyû ("sky-fly") or yûné ("fly-move"). Many High Hudoima compounds have entered 'low' Hudoima, fully replacing the older monosyllables. This rule usually doesn't affect pronouns and most common particles though some speakers may even replace words like wei (I) for compounds like weine (I-person) in very formal situations.

Constructed scripts: Hudoima script (logographic, many variants)

• Lapaky

A priori

Lapaky is a rather complicated conlang with a large number of phonemes. I wanted it to have some of the expressive power of Ithkuil but it doesn't even attempt to have all the compactness (and complexity) of Quijada's conlangs. It uses plenty of suffixes too create derivations like ichåt′ouŋoum (that which is separated from the land) from chåt′ (to be separated).

Constructed scripts: Lapaky script (alphabetic... -ish)

• Ypak

A priori

The conlang I now call Ypak was once an overhauled version of Lapaky but, other than still being rather complicated and having a rather challenging phonology (and sharing their script) it hasn't got much to do with that other one (unfortunately, I've changed my mind way too many times about which conlang should have each name, resulting in confusing notes where I'm often at a loss about which conlangs I'm actually talking about). Ypak has some bits of logic embedded, a phrase like 'my eyes' would be translated as y ha′ my ′a, literally 'that are_eyes me belongs' ('that are_eyes' is interpreted as 'something which is eyes, those eyes'; then 'those_eyes me belongs' is interpreted as 'those eyes that belong to me', 'my eyes').

Constructed scripts: Lapaky script (alphabetic-ish)

Other a posteriori conlangs

Non-diachronic

The following are non-diachronic a posteriori conlangs, that is, conlangs that take all or most of its lexicon from real world sources but that are not supposed to descend from any natural language (be it modern or historic).

• Lisnäit

A posteriori, Lisnoutish

A language based on triliteral roots. The roots are constructed via a process that combines the letters from words in seven sources: Lojban (which itself combines roots from natural language sources in a different way), Arabic (from where I got the triliteral roots idea in first place), Romance (I try to use words representative to more than one Romance language), English, Quenya (Tolkien's High Elvish), Turkish and Greek (preferably Ancient Greek but I have resorted to using Modern Greek from time to time). For instance, I determined that I should combine Lojban ciska, Arabic katab, Romance scribire (as in Spanish escribir), English write, Quenya tec-, Turkish yazmak and Greek graphein as the triliteral S-K-T for 'writing'. Nouns and verbs are then derived from those roots and inflicted in highly regular ways.

Constructed scripts: Sikäitt (alphabetic; vowels written as diacritics)

• Alisne

A posteriori, Lisnoutish

A language based on Lisnäit. Alisne features a far simpler case system and a reduced number of verb conjugations.

Constructed scripts: Xiké (alphabetic; based on Sikäitt)

Indoeuropean

The following conlangs are either based on Indoeuropean languages or on Proto-Indoeuropean itself; so if they were actual languages they'd be classified as Indoeduropean. This doesn't include some IE conlangs that have already been mentioned above (like the Neo-Hispanic languages).

Romance

• Romanice

A posteriori, Indoeuropean, Romance

Your typical romlang; if this was a real-world language it would be spoken somewhere in Italy and the rest of Italians wouldn't doubt in calling it a dialetto. It features plurals inherited from Latin nominative (lupo - lupi), intervocallic voicing of stops up to the second-to-last syllable (with some synchronic effects: lupo for 'wolf' but lublo for 'little wolf; person that is not to be trusted'). It also preserves some archaisms like a limited form of passive.

Constructed scripts: None* (Latin alphabet is used instead)

*Piumafonte, nowadays Spaele's main script, was originally constructed for Romanice but I felt that it was out of place for a Romance language.

• Yanglish and Lundinian

A posteriori, Indoeuropean, either Romance or Germanic (most likely the former for Lundinian)

Yanglish is what I'd call a jokelang (a joke language), or at least started as one. It's long been noted that English borrows about half of its lexicon from Romance sources and there have been countless 'Anglish' conlangs which try to 'clean' English from non-Germanic influences (Poul Anderson's Uncleftish Beholding is one exceptionally good example). Yanglish, however, moves in another direction. Yanglish proper attempts to reverse English lexicon, using Germanic words where English uses words of French/Norman/Greek/Latin origin (so it could incorporate Germanic neologisms like Anderson's uncleft for atom) but also replacing English Germanic words for Latin/French-based terms (so king could be replaced by something like roy, cf. French). Doublets involving Germanic and non-Germanic sources would swap their meanings (so pork would be used for living animals while its meat would be called pig) and a few words are left unchanged albeit with altered etymologies ('me' would still be me but it would now be thought to derive from Latin me rather than from Old English mē). Grammar is kept as close to English as possible (sometimes replacing Germanic suffixes with Romance ones: parol-ant for 'talk-ing'); so it's basically a relex.

Lundinian, although still a relex, is a bit more serious. It's basically the opposite 'Anglish' conlangs: all Germanic bits of English are replaced with Romance analogues (as it was also the case for Yanglish) whereas English non-Germanic elements are kept unchanged. So, English the doctor is talking (which could be the leech is talking in a 100% Germanic 'Anglish' conlang) would become le leech es parolant in Yanglish and le doctos es parolant in Lundinian.

Constructed scripts: None (Latin alphabet is used instead; sometimes I'd also use Futhorc runes for Yanglish)

• Lindavor

A posteriori, Indoeuropean, Romance (or just Italic)

Lindavor would have descended from Classical Latin (rather than later Vulgar Latin), thus preserving features not found in most other Romance languages. Lindavor nouns are declined for 4 cases: nominative, accusative, genitive and dative; some of the forms are homophonous and are only disambiguated via articles. Its phonology follows the same vaguely Celtic-ish style I used in Efenol.

Constructed scripts: Alaved (alphabetic, derived from Roman hand)

• Xpanī

A posteriori, Indoeuropean, Romance [Xpanii world]

Xpanī (or Xpanii) descends from Mozarabic in a world were the Spanish Reconquista had failed and most of Spain remained as a mostly Muslim state. Xpanī preserves many Mozarabic features like dative pronouns ending in -b mib (to me, also existing in historical Mozarabic), includes many borrowings from Arabic (considerably more than our world's Spanish) as well as Romani ('Gypsy') and Native American languages.

Constructed scripts: None (Arabic script is used instead; Latin and Hebrew used as minority scripts)

• Ispaní Ballá

A posteriori, Indoeuropean, Romance [Xpanii world]

Ispaní Ballá (or Balearic Xpanī) is a divergent variety of Xpanī influenced by other Romance languages (mainly Provenço-Catalan, less differentiated in Xpanī's conworld).

Constructed scripts: None (Latin and Arabic scripts are used instead)

• Llionex

A posteriori, Indoeuropean, Romance [Xpanii world]

Llionex is an Ibero-Romance language from the same conworld as Xpanī, spoken in the analogue to real-world Northern Spain, the only parts of Spain not under Muslim rule. The language incorporates elements of real world Ibero-Romance languages like [Old] Spanish, Leonese, Galaico-Portuguese and Asturian while also incorporating several borrowings from English and a few from Brittonic languages.

Constructed scripts: None (Latin script is used instead)

• Gaelge

A posteriori, Indoeuropean, Romance

One day, I was looking at the language bar in Wikipedia and I noticed four similarly named languages: Gaeilge, Gaelg, Gàidhlig and Galego (that is, Irish, Manx and Scottish Gaelic and then Galician). I joked at how it almost seemed as if Galician (Galego) was trying to blend in among the Goidelic languages and then I got the idea of making a conlang based on Galician which looked as Gaelic-ish as possible. The result was this one weird conlang called Gaelge.

Constructed scripts: None (Latin alphabet is used instead)

• Alvic

A posteriori, Indoeuropean, Romance

Alvic is a Latin-based conlang which is intended to loosely resemble the aesthetics of JRR Tolkien's Quenya. It preserves most of Latin's case system, passive voice, vowel length, nasalization and mora-based prosodic accent.

Constructed scripts: None (Latin alphabet is used instead)

Germanic

• Inlush

A posteriori, Indoeuropean, Germanic, English-based

Inlush would descend from some undisclosed English variety (that is, it comes from English but I didn't really decide what kind of dialect it descends from; at least I can confirm it must have been a rhotic one). Its phonology involves a vowel shift (which reduces English gargantuan vowel system to just 7 vowels, with some quirks like shifting /ɪ/ to /ʌ/) as well as some consonant changes that bring some changes to morphology (word-final voiced plosives shift to fricatives, 'kid' becomes kud /kʌð/, the plural form 'kids', however, preserves the D as a voiced stop: kudd /kʌd/; this results in a new pluralization strategy where the new fricatives are 'fortited' to stops).

Constructed scripts: None (Latin alphabet is used instead)

• Dongh

A posteriori, Indoeuropean, Germanic

Dongh is an hypothetical Old English descendant which had undergone a sound change that partially reverted Grimm's law. Thus, an Old English word like þu (singular you, 'thou') would be inherited in Dongh as tw /tuː/, akin to several non-Germanic Indoeuropean second person pronouns

Constructed scripts: None (Latin alphabet is used instead)

• Narçer

A posteriori, Indoeuropean, Germanic, English based

Much like Inlush, Narçer would descend from modern English. It's phonology extrapolates some changes associated to the Northern Cities Vowel Shift; for instance, the vowel in 'cat' (which is typically an /æ/ but may be pronounced [ɪə] by some speakers of northerly parts of the USA) becomes /je/ as in xiet /çjet/ (cat).

Constructed scripts: None (Latin alphabet is used instead)

• Glenisc

A posteriori, Indoeuropean, Germanic

Glenisc (or Glenisk) is a conlang based on the extinct Gothic language although with a bit of pseudo-Celtic-ish style (for instance, Gothic harjis, war, becomes arí /ˈaʀiː/).

Constructed scripts: None (either Gothic or Latin alphabets are used instead)

• Ljentsk

A posteriori, Indoeuropean, Germanic

Ljentsk (which could be Anglicised as 'Lyensh') descends from Glenisc, a conlang which is based on Gothic. It only retains two cases (common and genitive).

Constructed scripts: None (Latin alphabet is used instead)

• Reerd

A posteriori, Indoeuropean, Germanic

Reerd (or Reard) is based on Middle English (roughly bearing the same relationship to modern English as Scots). Reerd remains somewhat closer to Middle English vowel pronunciation (as Reerd underwent a milder vowel shift than English GVS) and occasionally it resembles German (ich /iç/, I, is nearly identical; drei, three. coincides in spelling but is pronounced differently, /dɾeɪ̯/).

Constructed scripts: None (Latin alphabet is used instead)

• Sbaeg

A posteriori, Indoeuropean, Germanic

Sbaeg is closely related to Reerd, both being based on Middle English. Sbaeg, however, underwent sound changes that make it sound rather foreign (noticeably more than Reerd). For instance, 'swamps' has its Sbaeg cognate in the word ßoama /ˈzɶmmə/.

Constructed scripts: None (Latin alphabet is used instead)

Other Indoeuropean

• Nisan

A posteriori, Indoeuropean

A conlang based on Proto-Indoeuropean (on its own branch). Nouns are declined for two numbers (singular/plural) and four cases (NOM/ACC/GEN/DAT). Nisan preserves PIE three-way distinction of *ḱ (ḱm̥tóm >cencu /ˈcencʏ/, one hundred), *k (*kh₂en- > kana /ˈkana/, to sing) and *kʷ (though this one was re-analysed as *kw, *kʷékʷlos > *kwolkul > *kwulkur > kuukur /ˈkuːkʊɻ/, cart).

Constructed scripts: Nisan (alphabet)

Languages to be

This includes some conlang projects I plan to make someday but which I haven't even started so far.

INCOMPLETE LIST