Language Families

[Homurakitsune]

Hiya! I'm hoping to get some activity back here! =D

So I was wondering, since I recently dug up a couple old conlangs, how many of you create entire conlang families? I've considered intermixing a few of mine, so I was just wondering how others go about doing this. ^_^  

[Tesar Eshne]

Well, Even if I only ever work on the parent language, my stuff is actually set up to make two similar but different sister languages. Basically, it's mostly a pronunciation shift mixed with a simplification of some grammatical structures.  

[Henneth Annun]

I was considering doing this. 3nodding

I have an entire conworld, so this should be very fun and very time consuming. xd

I'm even going to make dialects and such.  

[Xeigrich]

I did that with my conworld, but of course it's a lot more simplified than a real world, and there are a lot of Euro-American paradigms that I decided not to question.

There's Anzer Pex which is quite literally the mother of all languages, like whatever was spoken as the most common language on Earth pre-Babil. Except, in the case of Anzer Pex it was the ONLY language and was quite literally "given" to sentient creatures upon their creation by the "gods." Anzer Pex is still used in the conworld as a universal language, but only a small number of nations still use it as a primary language. Almost all languages in this world derive from Anzer Pex in some way.

From Anzer Pex came Danga, somewhat like how English came from early Germanic languages, or how French came from Latin. The orthography is completely different, and Danga is actually more of a synthetic language as opposed to the extremely isolating Anzer Pex. There is another language that developed alongside Danga, but which grew into a severely declining/inflecting synthetic language much like real world Hungarian. Danga and this other language rely on roots formed from modified Anzer Pex morphemes (there are no "roots" in Anzer Pex, since every word is basically a single idea or particle, with the exception of some pronouns). These two languages and Anzer Pex itself are considered one family of languages. I never came up with the word for the category since I never developed any vocabulary/lexicon far enough, but it would basically mean "orthodox" as they languages are relatively true to Anzer Pex. I might note that there are further derivatives of these two languages, with similar relational characteristics to Spanish and Portuguese (not that I'm claiming Portuguese is a form of Spanish, just the similarities).

Now, obviously not all of a world's languages can be a single family of languages. Thus, long, long ago, Anzer Pex speakers split and covered the world as the world itself matured and continents split apart over eons, and a second family of languages developed completely separately from Danga. This family of languages is more akin to the Chinese languages and ancient Mesopotamian languages of our world in that they typically retain the isolating characteristics of Anzer Pex, and as such developed morpheme-based writing systems rather than phonetic writing systems. The earliest "official" language in this family is extremely complex in both it's written and spoken forms, although the language begins to lose much of the variety of syllables found in Anzer Pex. I haven't fleshed out this family much, but the derivatives in this language family branch out just like the orthodox family. I never came up with a category name for this family.

Keep in mind, though, that I intentionally avoided mirroring real-world cultures. The overall idea with my conworld is that there are certain universal characteristics essential to the formation of sentient life, and in that vein there are certain characteristics in language (a major component of sentience... more accurately "advanced communication") that are universal as well. That's why there are so many symmetricalities between the world where Anzer Pex is spoken and our world. You could almost say that Sentience is a product of Language, not the other way around.  

[Homurakitsune]

@Xiegrich: Wow. And here I was just using a series of complex borrowings. You mean you actually have a plan? rofl I don't think I have the patience for that. xp

@Wraith: Yeah, time-consuming it is. But it's fun now that I've started! ^_^

@Tesar: Ah. Yeah, pronunciation shifts are becoming more frequent in this new conlang I'm making. (It's like an easier-to-pronounce Aprë.)  

[Eccentric Iconoclast]

Mazdrivonian and Pruttish are closely related, and Arbitian is more distantly related to those two. T'ant'api (also known as Eresian for reasons I can explain later) has several relatives as well, particularly Temarian. Aquénandi is related to some languages spoken in far northwestern Mazdrivonia and beyond.

Not all these languages are particularly well fleshed-out, but the relationships are there, and I have sketched out proto-languages and sound changes.  

[Mizenki]

Actually yes. I love watching languages evolve, and I have a sound change-applying program that I use to evolve lexicon along rules that I write.

Right now I'm working on a family of languages that are designed to look European (Celtic-like, actually) but are a priori. The mother language, Cole, has produced Chaol, Dod, Uamaca, Geab, and Eld. Here's a sample of their vocabs.

(Vocab is given in Cole, then Chaol, Dod, Uamaca, Geab, Eld, English)

öbu - ûbh - aeb - aoeb - aeb - aeb - eye
cyddama - chîdam - cedam - coedam - ciédam - pedeum - tooth
gea - ghea - gae - gæ - giáea - gaeh - I
didoccu - dhedhaoc - dedaoc - dedaoc - dedaop - grandfather
öscu - ûsc - aesc - aoesc - aesc - aesp - star
ööscē - oesc - éisc - ûasc - iáisc - djasc - stars
li - le - le - le - le - le - she
ly - lî - le - loe - le - le - he

All the daughter languages experienced vowel shifts that skewed with Cole's plural-formation (vowel-lengthening). Chaol, Uamaca, Geab, and Eld all had diphthongization (Uamaca had mass amounts of it), while Dod, Geab, and Eld all lost the front rounded vowels, collapsing gender distinction. Uamaca produced the most phonemic vowels (10), while Eld changed velars into labials before rounded vowels (hence the singular easp to plural djasc, from the sequences of -scu and -scē). Chaol produced mass amounts of lenition, with all initial and medial plosives becoming fricatives ( t->θ; d->ð; b->v; p->f; k->x; g->ɣ ). Plenty of other stuff happened, but it'd take me a while to go through everything in detail.

 

[The Archer12]

Xeigrich

I did that with my conworld, but of course it's a lot more simplified than a real world, and there are a lot of Euro-American paradigms that I decided not to question.

There's Anzer Pex which is quite literally the mother of all languages, like whatever was spoken as the most common language on Earth pre-Babil. Except, in the case of Anzer Pex it was the ONLY language and was quite literally "given" to sentient creatures upon their creation by the "gods." Anzer Pex is still used in the conworld as a universal language, but only a small number of nations still use it as a primary language. Almost all languages in this world derive from Anzer Pex in some way.

From Anzer Pex came Danga, somewhat like how English came from early Germanic languages, or how French came from Latin. The orthography is completely different, and Danga is actually more of a synthetic language as opposed to the extremely isolating Anzer Pex. There is another language that developed alongside Danga, but which grew into a severely declining/inflecting synthetic language much like real world Hungarian. Danga and this other language rely on roots formed from modified Anzer Pex morphemes (there are no "roots" in Anzer Pex, since every word is basically a single idea or particle, with the exception of some pronouns). These two languages and Anzer Pex itself are considered one family of languages. I never came up with the word for the category since I never developed any vocabulary/lexicon far enough, but it would basically mean "orthodox" as they languages are relatively true to Anzer Pex. I might note that there are further derivatives of these two languages, with similar relational characteristics to Spanish and Portuguese (not that I'm claiming Portuguese is a form of Spanish, just the similarities).

Now, obviously not all of a world's languages can be a single family of languages. Thus, long, long ago, Anzer Pex speakers split and covered the world as the world itself matured and continents split apart over eons, and a second family of languages developed completely separately from Danga. This family of languages is more akin to the Chinese languages and ancient Mesopotamian languages of our world in that they typically retain the isolating characteristics of Anzer Pex, and as such developed morpheme-based writing systems rather than phonetic writing systems. The earliest "official" language in this family is extremely complex in both it's written and spoken forms, although the language begins to lose much of the variety of syllables found in Anzer Pex. I haven't fleshed out this family much, but the derivatives in this language family branch out just like the orthodox family. I never came up with a category name for this family.

Keep in mind, though, that I intentionally avoided mirroring real-world cultures. The overall idea with my conworld is that there are certain universal characteristics essential to the formation of sentient life, and in that vein there are certain characteristics in language (a major component of sentience... more accurately "advanced communication") that are universal as well. That's why there are so many symmetricalities between the world where Anzer Pex is spoken and our world. You could almost say that Sentience is a product of Language, not the other way around.

Now this is really cool! Do you have a thread set up to teach your languages? or are they just used in your conworlds?

I am writing a story about two prehistoric tribes that meet, and trade. Later as they start growing into each other's territories they fight over resources before eventually melting into a single large village.

If possible, I'd like to explore your concepts a bit, as I will need to develop two languages for my story I am writing.  

[Homurakitsune]

@EI: Ah, well I'm trying to make a (VERY) sketchy outline of all this, so zomg Kitsune is planning, who woulda thunk! rofl Fun so far though. =)

@Mizenki: I. Really. Like. That. Approach. I think I might have to try it out. 3nodding  

[vampyre_smiles]

I'm working on a language called Kimyn, or "speech", from which several language branches will form. I'm planning on using these in a conworld for a story or video game.  

[The Archer12]

Hmm, it looks like most of you are writing languages that give birth to multiple variations and such. For my story, I have to do the opposite. I have to make 2 differing languages and meld them into one.  

[Homurakitsune]

The Archer12

Hmm, it looks like most of you are writing languages that give birth to multiple variations and such. For my story, I have to do the opposite. I have to make 2 differing languages and meld them into one.

If that's the case then you're looking to create pidgins, which are just that, if it developes into its own language it becomes a creole. 3nodding

Might want to check these out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pidgin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creole_language
http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/ssrg/pidgins/pidgin.html#Introduction  

[The Archer12]

Homurakitsune

The Archer12

Hmm, it looks like most of you are writing languages that give birth to multiple variations and such. For my story, I have to do the opposite. I have to make 2 differing languages and meld them into one.

If that's the case then you're looking to create pidgins, which are just that, if it developes into its own language it becomes a creole. 3nodding

Might want to check these out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pidgin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creole_language
http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/ssrg/pidgins/pidgin.html#Introduction

Thanks again!!  

[Eollodwyn]

I have two language families in the works, but I want to finish up my first language before I go into dialects or sister languages.  

[Song Wei]

I have Ancient languages (so the really retarded ones I wrote when I Was younger and didn't know anything lol) And then I branch them out into families based on the grammatical structure, and what sounds the closest. (though most of my languages never break a vocabulary of 250 necessity words lol.) Another cool way to make language families is by sorting them by the written script, that way they still have the apparent influence of the surrounding languages, but are still different.