Nimyadelen

[marnanel]

Am soc caril tiricoth yalad far a yoroden til. So rejilen majanwi, am fam inten olic Jinarec, am til inten inec. Yad inten tirilec, jetac if ofefen am lath inten tiricoth. Soc inten ofefen al orefen, a soc inten gathamaran al naratifil. Am yad inten, jetil if coli ifoth, dasanmil e mim ten te ojil, ac joc rejilen if a mititij carilec tiricoth. Al dro carilwi te Joril ac fam in te dasan e til te rejilen ten. Yad te Joril, sil jim caran far e yad tenen yalad til ten laracen, jim inten laracen tiricoth. Jeso carilwi if ac tij yalad intenti ac mijoc inten tirilec. Am tij caldacoth carilwi tiricoth te Joril te rejilen, am mitac inten te coli. Ac lac tacan inti Tifij, sel tij te Joril te yalad cariloth tiricoth caldacec. Tij caldacoth te Joril inten thajacwi tiricoth.

You may not know that I've been working on a conlang called Nimyad for the last twenty-odd years. Names like "tajasel" and "firinel" and "marnanel" are words from this conlang. I worry that I don't know enough linguistics-- that things I want to do in Nimyad aren't *really* how a language would work. Also, I haven't worked on it in the last couple of years as much as I should have.

I would like to rectify this. Five is a special number in Nimyad. By this time next year, I would like to have done five things:

1. Finished the conscript (the canonical way to write down Nimyad words);
2. Have a lexicon with at least a thousand words in it (the current one I'm working with has perhaps a hundred);
3. Have written a comprehensive grammar;
4. Have written a primer (i.e. a text to teach people Nimyad);
5. Have translated the entire Gospel of Mark as a demonstration text. But feel free to advocate for other texts.

If you'd like to help with this, and be part of the Nimyad community, please join the Nimyad community on LJ and we can discuss it further. Or would you rather I posted Nimyad discussion in my own journal? Or should we run a forum or a blog on nimyad.org?

Comments

[pne]

I worry that I don't know enough linguistics-- that things I want to do in Nimyad aren't *really* how a language would work.

Do remember that languages often work in mysterious ways.

There are some things that many languages do, some that few languages do, and some that don't seem to be used in natural languages.

However, some things which seem implausible (to a given person) in natural languages nevertheless pop up from time to time in this or that language. (For example, the Semitic root-and-pattern morphology would probably have been deemed unnatural if it hadn't been attested in this languages.)

And lastly, whether you want to worry about whether a given thing is "natural" or not is up to you. Some people set off to create a conlang that could be mistaken for a natlang; others want the conlang to be how they like it, regardless of whether it could have been a natlang or not; and some even explicitly break "language universals", to see how things turn out. (For example, they create a language without verbs.)

If you're not on the CONLANG mailing list at brown.edu, I recommend that you subscribe; I've found it a treasure trove not only for linguistics information but also for seeing what other people do and for getting opinions on this or that language feature.

[marnanel]

I think you have some very good points. I will subscribe to CONLANG, but I didn't before because I worried that people who know about languages would tell me I was crazy or wrong. But clearly nobody on a conlang list will think I'm crazy for making a conlang, and as you point out, a lot of things which actually occur in natlangs would seem unnatural if they didn't.

[pne]

I will subscribe to CONLANG

Take care to use the interface at brown.edu and not, for example, YahooGroups. The list is mirrored there for historical reasons, but it's a one-way (read-only) gateway.

people who know about languages would tell me I was crazy or wrong.

People may point out that something is unusual or appears to violate a language universal, but if so, it's more likely to be for your information then because they're deriding you. They tend to be a pretty friendly bunch, in my experience.

It does help to know some linguistics jargon to understand the conversations, but some of it you may learn by watching (that's how I learned a lot of what I know about linguistics).

Offhand, I think that sloppy thinking is probably looked down on more than unusual grammatical or syntactic features -- and that conlangs that are too close to English are considered a bit less... artful, shall we say. (For example, languages where the grammar and word order is just like English, or where the author shows a conscript saying that this con-letter corresponds to "c", i.e. to an English letter rather than to a sound, implicitly implying that it can represent the same idiosyncratic range of sounds as the English letter.)

clearly nobody on a conlang list will think I'm crazy for making a conlang

Very true :)

a lot of things which actually occur in natlangs would seem unnatural if they didn't.

There's a saying about that on the list: ANADEW - A Natlang's Already Dunnit, Except Worse.

For unusual features someone has in their conlang, where someone else will say, "Actually, in Haida/Pirahã/Dyirbal, they do that, too, and even more oddly than in your conlang!"

So yes - don't worry too much.

[pne]

feel free to advocate for other texts.

Some "traditional" translation texts are the Babel story (Genesis 11:1–9); The North Wind and the Sun; Schleicher's Tale; and the Lord's Prayer.

None of those are particularly long, though.

In places that have longer texts, one of the Gospels (or the beginning of one, at least) was a moderately popular choice, so I suppose that works.

[marnanel]

The text at the head of this entry is the Babel story; I will have a go at translating the others and see what I come up with. Thanks!

[marnanel]

(It's from a translation I made several years ago; there have been a few phonetic changes.)

XblGIRIhPsPw

[(Anonymous)]

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