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CONTENTS
Conlangs and the Identity of Micronations
-Mathias L. Magnussen-
Editorial Team
Editor in Chief:
Jonathan Fleury
-Reill Bautista-
-Jacqueline Woo-
Dome
Founders
Gabe Witmonger
Jonathan Fleury
Conlangs and
the Identity of Micronations
unfortunately
would be hopeless and wasteful to create as many languages as possible, just as it would be wasteful to create
as many nations as possible. Although national identity, independence and conlanging is a very creative and
fun process, it can also turn into a huge waste of time. Adopting already known languages can also be a very
unique and national thing.
will be able to speak. Nations are about community, and so are languages and culture. If everyone has
emotions, thoughts and motives .
one
Of course, I cant dictate what one nation should prioritise over the other, that would go against the original
are limits, and although you can center a culture around pretty much anything, you always fall back into
traditions, identity and community; and that is all what we humans seek, and that is why culture and
language should always be tried out by as many people as possible, it is only a matter of time for every
single human being on Earth to become comfortable with his national identity.
Jjewuu) wii iat jutin oswiisra aan ade ialthab ba aud kabrele:i ba
lunu aan biab kre ian gezon op.
Le:ia jeeb ba nau lee lesa keei kasahl wii erati, wii brasab gator
kasfeer. Meer jeed ba nau pa graoja kasmest, pal mead hetui, wi
skra jeed kiab gre kala kiab kasle:nial.
A ohii ba tasni lee lesa, lee tikitsa, basahl aan kiab eek wii aan
kiab kre dee mead ian juti aan ba priiab okameeaa aan raug,
aan okameeaa aan tsiald. Monnia, Jjewuu otiab asraug meer
jeed ba ma, wii skra masra asaen.
PAT!! O ta ivin baspat, wii miin eerain wii jaen gre kala eerain
dee ba osle:anee. Ee ialth baahl tree lee arasa ivi basahl uvesi,
gado lee keemaa, ba ee ba brele: basahl ule:iji! Gre iat jeeb ba
mon, lee arasa ivi bale:leet jaeb baahl ree faee ba jiav ba, wii
fuun ta siadin ba bafe, a lee Keemaa eerain gre eerain bale:leet,
Meer ba tedia, le:ithii-i asahl, wii ber op asle:anee, wii gre aan
sosale:i kasahl lee tikitsa, lee lesab wii aee askre, tu neaa op.
osa.
Skra fuun ba sem ba lunu ossa, ian fov osfeed ta siadin ivin, wii
ber op ba Nuukiam wii Jjewuu osfeed, wii pal ba reeji iat osahl
nu lee lesa wii lee tikitsa.
Lee tikitsa jeed asbra, wii bian asfeed aan atian manfe, wii gre
jeed jeeguu ossa aan ba mead pal ba lee lesa kasyum faee ivi ta
jee basahl mead auzoi, wii pal wwak ker osma ta safpabin. Gre
iat jeeb ba nau jeeguu ta jee oahl ussuin pal mead berai- tree
baahl usui, inee ba juti.
A auzo, lee lesa kasmeja aan skra ba ham ka fuun mii ba uurajab
ber lee jwar bastu, aan kiab katema jaekeem ba siad kasai faee ta
ivin. Kian sanab kasora aan jae, wii miibin kasuuraj.
Fii aan ba tju op baahl ejj tjurai, tree fuun op biab kateek, wii
biab pa ba priiab kaveel, wii gre pat ba mii nabei uu musa nabei
- A Yaundi story.
Before this time, Frog was small and quiet, and he never made
a sound. At that time, he lived in the dirt in a dry place, and
because of that he was always hiding himself.
carry him from one place to another, so that he could see the
world, and so that he could travel. One day, Jjewuu (a goddess)
saw them while they were doing this, and she laughed with
delight.
Because Frog had had so many of them, the bubble kept growing
and growing, and because the little bubbles were so many (to
Of course everyone went down to go see it- a bubble as big as a
lake, and of course they were all very excited.
Some of them wanted to pop the bubble, others danced around
its edges (Nuukiam and Jjewuu were of course there dancing
with them) and still others wanted to take a piece of the shining
skin to take home to their children.
make sure that they did not touch it. She did a good job of it,
POP!! It burst upon all of them, and many voices and impossibly
piece of it, except for Man, who got wrapped up in the shining
(skin of the bubble)! Ever since that day, all of the creatures
have one language for their kind, and they can understand all
another, even if they know the same language.
have a chance to meet with a god! Once she was gone away, he
fallen was a good one for both of them, and they have lived
there ever since! Even now those two are found in the same
place- if you see one, there is sure to be the other.
Well, Frog decided that because his lacking a voice had cost him
a meeting with a god, that he was going to make himself the
most skilled linguist of them all. He taught himself to speak,
and he gathered voices.
His children are put into bubbles in which a voice is put for
all of them- if you will look at them, youll see them turning
around in it! For this reason all frogs are the rulers of speech,
because even before they are born a voice is given to them.
Because they had seen the end of the bubble, all of them went
One day, Frogs collection (of voices) had grown so large, and
the number of bubbles (of voice) were so many, that they began
Frog didnt mind it too much. It made it easier to move the
a while when the bubble was as big as their lake, it became a
problem.
4
ways the Ainu have gone through much worse. While the
1
shinep
2
tup
3
rep
4
inep
5
ashiknep
6
iwanpe
7
arwanpe
8
tupesanpe
9
shinepesanpe
10 wanpe
Two Fellows were travelling together through a wood, when a Bear rushed out upon them. One of the travellers happened to be in
came down to his comrade, and, laughing, said What was it that Master Bruin whispered to you?
He told me, said the other,
Never trust a friend who deserts you at a pinch.
Khered Utakhof
Nikatsate khered qi rakhame an leshel ash takhof, unifdale
lirdaqh qedek, aqh nikme an teshem le. Ral nimzame le
nirdaqhe an deled nitkhafe tokhef va tsaqh qedek aqh va nikhde
ligmal. Nifzade zan qi nikhde liskham limzam ash qedek, tsi
zan pazdan qvom. Zan qzan nishkhane tsaqh ranul univkhaze
gayin lashdir ash tokhef, uaqh nikhde limzam qedek uaqh
niksane laqhe.
Khatsvits uvkhetsev
Nizlaqhin khatsvits uvkhetsev ditamutam qifsod, uninmani
nakhmin shadlid qah ash beder rasdir. Nisdali khatsvits an
deled tsakhdir qinami linman Keshelaqh madir zalaqh mirel
yazlin ugamnin khatsayiqh urkham. Akh va yazlin khatsad
nikhed mizlarin al qayin yankir.
An interview with
Giannhs Kenanidhs
Conlangs Monthly : What was your inspiration; is it based
on any real world languages?
Giannhs Kenanidhs.- Dama is not based on any of the worlds
languages. Of course every feature of Dama can remind
you of a natural language - that is not possible to avoid because
there are so many natural languages that there has to be one
with a feature resembling Dama. However, you can see it has
a very distinct character of its own: even in appearance, it has
mostly disyllabic words, a few monosyllabic, in general the
mathematical design is obvious, and the vocabulary is not
drawn directly from any language.
vocabulary, e.g. kur- to protect / defend / save is strongly
reminiscent of Turkic koru- to protect and kurtar- to save,
but I am sure that no words in Dama were made by me or
any person: the whole vocabulary - that is all connections of
morphemes to meanings - were assigned randomly. However
in my view nothing is truly random - everything is the work of
spirit. And that can explain why every one of Damas morpheme
can indeed be found to resemble some ancient root.
10
11
Albeit, there are still some students in the classroom who are
more successful than others and they seem to be relaxed while
Linguistic knowledge
second language as a traumatic issue. Rather, they look upon
Sociolinguistic competence: Sociolinguistically speaking, adult learners are by no means dumb since they
have already acquired the complex system of communication of their native community. Consequently, in
learning a foreign language, a good language learner must develop a cultural awareness about the culture of
the target language which will enable him to become fully aware of the cultural values, beliefs and perceptions;
moreover, a cultural-learner becomes able to produce and understand the suitable forms of politeness, like the
use of both formal and informal registers for addressing different kinds of people. (E.g. the appropriate use of
Usted in Spanish ).
Self-confidence: What characterizes good language learners is the healthy self-esteem they possess which
allows them to use the target language without stress. In addition to that, self-confidence lights up the desire
to acquire the targeted language, enjoy the learning process and experience real communication.
Creativity: Learning a language without using creativity is tantamount to eating a dish without species. Thus,
creative language learners hate being trained under a tedious atmosphere. They are able to synthesize, analyze,
reorganize, and redefine the whole process which helps them produce a wide range of unique ideas. In my
experience, there are some language learners who cannot learn at all if they are not allowed to be creative.
They just do not understand the point of doing a language activity for only practicing a language without a real
context, goals, ramifications or even a product.
Constant practice: You might wonder the causes behind the success of some professional basketball and
baseball players; it is only because they are constantly practicing their skills that they can achieve such high
levels of proficiency in their activities. This is exactly case of good language learners who are perfectly aware
of the importance of constant practice. Furthermore, practice may well affect the gap between the goals and
oneself, or the barrier that may make a learner wonder why others are so much better at it. That is why good
learners make practice their honest friend as they make use of each opportunity to test their skills, either with
natives or by using digital language applications.
Observation: Good language learners are the ones who keenly observe while reading and keep on reminding
themselves that this is another language; this is a totally different system! They continue to wonder: had
they remained writing in a particular way, would they use the exactly same language? As a consequence, if a
learner at any point admits a No in her study, then there is something she needs paying attention to and think
carefully about.
Generally, learners need to bear in mind that learning a language could be a long-term activity but at least it
is not an impossible task. When motivation correlates with self-confidence, ambitions and constant practice,
the journey becomes a pleasant one. But most importantly, learning languages involves both effort and joy. So,
I would like to wish you, Buon Fortuna! (as the Italians would say).
Remember, he who does not know foreign languages, knows nothing of his own.
-Goethe-
13
HOW CONLANGING
HELPED TO REBUILD A NATION -
What would you do if you were told that the language you
use for daily interactions, for complaining, for making love
and understanding your reality no longer is to be used in
any part of the country you go to?
During the supremacy of the Ottoman Empire the Old-Turkish
language, which had been evolving for centuries from the old
western Altaic language family, came to a stop that lasted over
six centuries. During this time, Arabic and Persian took over
the lexicon and many grammatical features (syntax, phrasing,
morphology) of the Old Turkish language and changed it
forever; even its writing system adopted the Arabic alphabet.
direct descendant of the Ancient Altaic Turkish - Kaba Trke
(raw Turkish as it was referred to) was treated as a spurious,
marginal language, not worthy of being studied and developed.
Nonetheless, this hexa-centennial Ottoman Turkish was about
to become extinct as Mustafa Kemal would express it later: We
are going to defeat Ottoman. Turkish is going to be a language
as free and as independent as the Turkish nation, and with
it we shall enter the world of civilization at one go (Tankut
an independent nation, free from the inept autocrat Ottoman
government, thanks to the endeavors of this military commander
Mustafa Kemal later known as Atatrk. He waged war with
the purpose of revoking the terms of the Treaty of Svres; 623
years of monarchical Ottoman rule were abolished and with
it their customs, language and culture; in a few short years,
the Ottoman Empire was brought down from within. Kemal
advanced the transition from the deceased Ottoman political
system to a new Republican government, he abolished the
Sultanate and as the new president, he introduced new reforms
that would change the development of the entire nation for the
next 90 years.
and write, a language that would unite the Turkish people; and
so the Grand National Assembly of Turkey favored the gradual
change which would span over a period of +5 years, however,
Atatrk insisted in having this change take place in a period
of only a few months. Being the president of the Republic, his
opinion was enforced and he himself personally contributed
to this change by traveling across the country, along with a
team of educators, with chalk and a portable blackboard giving
lessons in the new Latin alphabet; school by school, village by
village until the literacy rate reached 100% in the majority of
the country.
14
15
17
Babilmura no boi
Background:
proposed in linguistics is glottochronology. Glottochronology
deals with chronological relationships between languages.
By using a wordlist and a set of formulas, it ultimately aims
to map the evolution of languages together with dates of
separation, which mirrors the relatedness of languages to each
Now:
lexicostatistics; however, glottochronology is generally rejected
in mainstream linguistics (together with any method that
relies only on time as variable of language change); rather, a
combined comparison of lexicon, morphology, and syntax is
used to determine the relationships.
Other authors have used alternative word lists and there were
even proposed mathematical methods which do not use
constant rates of separation to predict the rates of separation.
For Conlangers:
wherein similarities in words between two languages would
suggest relationship between two languages.
Assumption:
95.
96.
97.
98.
99.
100.
full
new
good
round (not 1952)
dry (substance!)
name
For the examples given, the words are similar to Spanish. Hints
at: Mass borrowing from Spanish.
* Condensed from Lyle Campbells Historical Linguistics: An Introduction
and Paul Heggartys Beyond lexicostatistics: how to get more out of word
list comparisons.
19
Atlan and its history and were giving names to all the different
branches. The languages of the northern harbour cities were
put under the Harbour Atlan languages. Each group of related
languages was given their own name.
The Alternate Theories Society was not happy with this. They
looked at the extant languages and couldnt believe they came
from the same place. They published many papers showing the
deficiencies with the current method. They also came up with
their own family tree of languages, which didnt connect to each
other, as they felt certain languages groups couldnt have come
from the some older language.
Eventually, about one hundred years after founding, they
published their greatest work called the Avocathera (which
means That which advocates as it was advocating a new
way of looking at language). The capital Honalano, where the
Alternate Theories Society was based, was in an uproar.
People burst into houses and stole copies of the Avocathera and
burned them. Anyone who agreed with the societys work was
insulted and persecuted. It eventually got so bad that the King
had to relocate his court to the relatively peaceful northern
harbour city of Hammen, where the capital still is today.
The Colonial Rebellions
In about 500 AF, the Atlan Kingdom, which had many off
island colonies, wanted to increase production in current
colonies and expand operations to yet more colonies. One of
its oldest colonies, Kaasland (Modern Atlan for Cheeseland,
as it predominantly produced dairy products), was pushed to
increase dairy production. After many decades of increased
pressure, the Kaasians started to balk at the new pressures put
on them.
Many people left Atlantis to find a better life around the world. Some went to Europe, some went to Asia, some
went to America and others went to who knows where.
The common language of the people was now very much a new language, now called Middle Atlan. High Atlan
was still used for official purposes, but it required special training to use and understand. Middle Atlan has become
a great tool for Atlantean linguists, as most people that left Atlantis for elsewhere spoke Middle Atlan, so we can
track the modern language of an area back to Middle Atlan.
The Promise of Middle Atlan
Middle Atlan was not an official language, and those who could write wrote in High Atlan. Very little remains
of actual written Middle Atlan. But we know it evolved from High Atlan, and we know that it led to dialects like
Harbour Atlan, which eventually produced its own dialects as well.
Once we reconstruct the dialect of Middle Atlan spoken in an area, we can then compare that to the other
reconstructed Middle Atlan dialects and then use that to finally reconstruct Middle Atlan itself. Much is understood
about Middle Atlan nowadays, but whenever a new language is discovered, it gives us a possibility to understand
a little more about Middle Atlan.
Modern Atlan
The official language of the Kingdom of Atlantis is a language known as Coastal Atlan. It is a Harbour Atlan
language. It is often refered to as Atlaans, which is simply Atlan in the Coastal Atlan language. In the years after
the Colonial Rebellions, the power of the kingdom waned, and many of the southern areas broke off and became
independent countries. The kingdom remains in power of the north of Atlantis.
21
Wan-le
word order is not free: Chinese verb constructions also require
the order. If two verb phrases are in one sentence, it has to
across the table. A tape recorder was on the table between them,
collecting their oral production. In addition, eight subjects
were tested and they were required to speak English in the
experiment.
Data analysis and Results:
Examples of ad hoc loanwords in the experiment: give you
some colours to see see( a Chinese idiom that means showing
power); you ask me, I ask who ( I do not know either); geiliable
( good, a combination of Chinese character geili and
ok and Chinese character le ); dapian( Hollywood movies),
hunao( ridiculous), gao xiao (funny).
23
Dome
.
,
.
, .
DOME
Taurimpar lintaso.
simpar lajtin,
sukkijrmajntin suru.
Je xorimpar, nabes talm.
.
.
Enden erigo.
Klusnam arris wingan
aktaspe pjajntan.
.
;
HOME
I will sing of the forests.
Of the green leaves,
bowing to the wind.
And of the mountains, the pillars of the sky.
I yearn for the sea.
To hear its waves
crack on the coast.
And nothing will I say.
25
The endeavors of
26
Data section:
Four young Chinese people (20-30): Tian ke Wu, Xue Qing Wu, Xiao Ming Li, and Ran Feng.
Four old Chinese people (50-60): Jing Wu, Ying xiao Hu, Ying bin Hu, and Shu feng Zhao.
Their answers:
Tian ke Wu: 1. my name is Wu Tian ke, my English name is sky. I have a father, he is also your father, emI think my mother, and
she is your mother too. 2. People mountain People Sea. 3. It means a lot of people. 4. Yes, I use English in my computer programme,
I study in computer programme. 5. From the Internet and it is fun and gao xiao (what do you mean?), it means very funny.
Xue qing.Wu: 1. my name is Wu xue Qing. I am 21 years old; I study in Dalarna University two years. 2. People mountain people
sea, give you some colour to see see. 3. If you do not listen to me, I will put you in to the hell. 4. I speak English to communicate
with others in school and markets. 5. Internet, used in twitter for fun.
Ran Feng: 1. my name is Feng Ran. I come from Beijing; I am in BA programme in DU. 2. People Mountain People Sea, you
ask me, I ask who. 3. The second one means I do not know either. 4. I use English chat with friends on website. 5. Internet, fun
communication.
Xiao ming.Li: 1. my name is Li xiao Ming. I am studying English at DU. My mother is working in a bank, my father is no job, they
are living together in the apartment. 2. People mountain People Sea, geiliable. 3. Geiliable is used to describe something good,
strong and interesting, after able is geili, it means good in Chinese. 4. I talk with foreign teachers and friends in English. If I talk
with my Chinese friends, I often use Chinese instead of. 5. On the Internet, I use them when I make a joke with my friends.
Jing Wu: 1. Ole! My name is Wu jing. 2. Ole, Beijing kaoya. (Interesting words, how to explain?) 3. Em...it mean ok le. Beijing kaoya
is food. 4. (So you do not often speak English?) yes, I know three help, yes and no. 5. TV, I dont know.
Ying xiao Hu: 1. I see, there are four people in my family: my husband, my son and my daughter. 2. I do not know much, I am an
English teacher, and I think it is hunao (what do you mean hunao?)3. Em. I think it is bad. It is not good for Chinese and English.
English is English, Chinese is Chinese. We cannot mix them. 4. Yes, I teach English. 5. No. I tell you I do not accept any Chinese
English words. When I heard those Chinglish, I only take them as a joke.
Ying bin Hu: 1. Yes, Hu Ying bin is my name. 2. Kongfu. 3. It is China kongfu. 4. no. 5. Emdapian! (What do you mean dapian?)
Hollywood movie, it is good and it is our culture and memory (it is used to show something good).
Shu feng Zhao: 1. em...name Zhao Shu feng. 2. Beijing, Cha. 3. Cha is tea, it is good. 4. No English. 5. TV.
27