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I was wondering were you get your trigedaasleng information from I have my first clexa story in the works and im struggling to find away to put trig and the meaning of the language into English
Hey there! 👋 Hope you are well!
There used to be a fantastic website, trigedasleng.net. But it's been removed. Honestly, if I hadn't over obsessed and wrote a bunch of it down, I would be lost.
This is a link to a guide written by Trig's creator, David J Peterson. He's also on Tumblr and answers questions if you send an ask- dedalvs
Not sure how long it takes to get a response. Overall, I used what I scribbled down, the guide and if I don't have a reference for the word I make it up, use loose translation or bounce it off other Clexa writers. 🤷
I'm always happy to help, if you need it! If anyone has something to add, please feel free to respond.
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Do you have a must read list for those who wanto to create conlangs?
I do! Start with an intro linguistics textbook (or my book), then Campbell’s Historical Linguistics, Lakoff and Johnson’s Metaphors We Live By, Joan Bybee, William Pagliuca, and Revere Perkins’ The Evolution of Grammar, and have Heine and Kuteva’s World Lexicon of Grammaticalization handy. Also Thomas Payne’s Describing Morphosyntax.
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Linguistics Jobs: Interview with a Language Creator
These interviews are always titled “Interview with a...”, but when it comes to language creation, David J. Peterson has been the person over the last decade bringing other worlds to life with his conlang skills. He’s behind the Dothraki, and Valyrian languages from Game of Thrones, Shiväisith from Thor: The Dark World and Trigedasleng from The 100. As well as being a very talented language creator and font maker, David is also an enthusiastic and supportive person who is always the first to point out the great work being done by other language creators. Check out his website for some of his favorites.
David is on Twitter (@Dedalvs), and here on Tumblr (@dedalvs). He also has a great book on constructing language called The Art of Language Invention (my review here), and supporting videos that go into more detail on YouTube.
What did you study at university?
I began at UC Berkeley as an English major, then added Linguistics as a second fun major. I finished both, and then went on to graduate school in Linguistics at UC San Diego, where I received my Master's degree.
What is your job?
I work on a variety of different projects in film and television and sometimes theater. What I do varies, depending on what stage of a project I'm at, and what I'm working on that day. The longer the project lasts, the more time I'll be spending translating into my new conlang than creating the language. Actual language creation is done during the first stage; thereafter it's just translation, recording, and general consulting or voice coaching, depending on the project. Sometimes I also create writing systems, which entails designing the system, and then, if necessary, building a font for it, and then after that doing translation as well as trouble-shooting. I've also written a few books, so sometimes part of my day is spent working on a new book project.
How does your linguistics training help you in your job?
In creating a language, nothing you learn about language is wasted, be it actual linguistic education, language study, or work on a conlang, big or small. Every single day of my life is spent engaging with language in one capacity or another. Most useful in my day-to-day life is coursework I did in phonetics, phonology, morphology, historical linguistics, field work, cognitive science, and pidgin and creole studies.
Do you have any advice you wish someone had given to you about linguistics/careers/university?
Yes: TAKE MORE LANGUAGE COURSES! However many you're taking right now is not enough. There will never be another time in your life that it will be so easy or inexpensive to take courses in a second language, and the variety afforded you at a university is so much greater than you'll find in your regular day-to-day life.
Any other thoughts or comments?
Education in linguistics is not the same thing as conlanging ability. Just because you have a B.A. or M.A. or Ph.D. or equivalent in linguistics doesn't mean you can create even a mediocre conlang (and note that "functional" is not the same thing as "good". Functionality is a very low bar to clear). Similarly, you don't need any formal education in linguistics to create a language—you can start right now! Linguistics can definitely help, though. The best conlanger is one who has a solid understanding of theoretical and practical linguistics, who has studied many languages from many different language families, and who has spent a good amount of time creating languages. This person will know when linguistic theory can improve their work, and when it needs to be set aside because the linguists haven't figured out the theory is garbage yet—or because the linguists must pay lip service to the theory for political reasons. Conlangers are beholden to no one, which means they're ultimately responsible for all choices—and all mistakes. A conlanger who comes to conlanging from academic linguistics will need to unlearn some things to really get going, but they'll already have a pretty good handle on the multifariousness of language, and that's key.
See also:
David J. Peterson on Tumblr
The Language Creation Society
My review of The Art of Language Invention
Previously:
Interview with a Translator and Business Owner
Interview with a Conductor
Interview with an Accent Coach
Interview with two Communications Professionals
Interview with a university course coordinator
Check out the Linguist Jobs tag for even more interviews
(image credit: Wikipedia)
#language#linguistics#linguistics jobs#linguist jobs#careers#linguist#linguists#work#conlang#conlangs#conlanging#constructed language#language construction#aoli
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I've heard 'asalamu alakum' in the background to one of the scenes, khal drogo also introduces himself as 'ana khal drogo' which is Arabic- I'd it fair to say the dotharaki tribe are supposed to portray Arabs and the middle East?
Drogo does not introduce himself that way, and you didn’t hear assalaam al’aikum in the background. Others have thought this before, and they pointed out where, and I told them what was being said, and they agreed they misheard. If you think you spotted a different place, though, feel free to find the video on YouTube (it’s all up there) and send me a timestamp. It would be extraordinary, though, because the only one connected to the show that knew any Arabic was me, and I never instructed anyone to say anything in Arabic, and I didn’t provide any vocals for the show (i.e. my voice doesn’t appear on there anywhere).
Anyway, even if that was the case, I don’t know how you jump to “Are the Dothraki supposed to be Arabs”. First of all, I, the language creator, didn’t create them. Second, neither did the showrunners of Game of Thrones. The writer of the book series A Song of Ice and Fire did, George R. R. Martin. Furthermore, he has said himself that they were based on the Mongolians of the Silk Road era and a mishmash of Native American tribes. You can google this.
That said, are the Dothraki portrayed well as the only major non-white race in the books? Eh. Really the only saving grace is that practically no one comes off well; everyone sucks. That’s not a great defense, though. As the language creator, though, there really wasn’t much I could do about it, outside making the language the way I wanted, and even then there are times where I was overruled.
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Do you like cartoons?
Of course! Among my all time favorites are The Real Ghostbusters, Batman: The Animated Series, TaleSpin, Teen Titans, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Legend of Korra, and Muppet Babies. I mean, probably many, many more, but those are the ones that come to mind. Oh! The Simpsons, Archer, Rick and Morty, Metalocalypse, Home Movies, Futurama, The Boondocks, Bojack Horseman, and Daria. My life, man. MY LIFE!
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What is your favorite TV show and why??
The Prisoner. It wasn’t my favorite until the very last episode, when it’s revealed (SPOILER) that the entire struggle was internal. Blew my mind.
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So what is the etymology of the word "Heda" in trigedasleng. Since we know that the name of the first commander is Becca Pramheda, is it possibly in relation to Becca's last name? Pram-"head", with Pram being close to the grounder word for first "Praim". Other sources claim it is from the English word "Header" but it seems a bit too coincidental to be by accident.
Etymology is “head” + -a from Trigedasleng. Becca’s actual last name is not “Pramheda”: that’s just what she’s referred to as (kind of like Oedipus the King). And, indeed, pram ≈ praim. You can pretty much always render ai as a in Trig. (That was my original plan, after all. Ai wasn’t supposed to exist anymore—same with au.)
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Hey! So at the con you explained a bit about how Austronesian alignment comes about. I'd love to read more about it, but I haven't had a whole lot of luck looking for information about it myself. Are there any resources you could point me to?
Google “trigger system”. Some of my responses should come up. Basically, though, remember that languages can have different passives (i.e. passives of direct objects vs. passives of indirect objects) and different applicatives (benefactive applicatives, instrumental applicatives, and locative applicatives), and you can have one of each on the same verb—and languages can change how often they use passives and applicatives—and you’ll get to Austronesian alignment pretty quickly.
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What language is your Inha work from Emerald City based on?
None whatsoever. It’s an a priori language. A priori languages do not draw their grammar or vocabulary from any other language.
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Dothraki follow up question: I do see the difference between kash and affin now, but I am now confused about the difference between arrek and affin. If you don't mind, could you explain this to me?
Arrek means “then” but in the distant future (as opposed to ahhaz which is regular “then”). The entire rek series, though, is used for precisely this function:
Jini reki tih anha. “This is what I saw.”
Anha vo nesok rekke dothra me. “I don’t know where he went.”
It stands for “that which” or “the place that” or “the time that”, etc.
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How do you prefer to store the lexicon of your languages? With a simple text program? A sheet of some sort? Or do you use dedicated software?
I use Pages, which is the Mac version of Word. It’s nothing but a text program with formatting capabilities. I don’t like spreadsheets because they favor small entries, which doesn’t suit me. Love their sortability, though. Someone is building a conlang suite called Polyglot, which looks absolutely amazing. It’s almost enough to get me to switch, but it doesn’t support ligatures on fonts, which is a must for the kind of fonts I create. Nevertheless, keep an eye on it. It allows you to create custom fields and gives you a variety of options for output. That’s the type of thing I’ve always imagined. Be amazing if it achieved its potential.
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What inspires you?
Music! Music is the one thing in life I can’t do without. Another moment where I knew my wife @thisallegra really understood me is when she brought up (I forget the context) that the thing I would want to save the most in an emergency is my vast music collection. (The point is relatively moot now with virtual storage, but at the time it was meaningful.) Most people who know a bit about me will likely think that, e.g., my created languages are the non-person objects I care about the most—no way! Music is more important to me than anything. I listen to it 24/7 now that I’ve got one of those portable speakers in the bathroom. Pretty much the only time I’m not listening to music is when I’m watching something on TV (unless it’s sports and the volume’s low). I’m not the type of person that has a “soundtrack” for a particular project, per se, but whatever I happen to be listening to a lot certainly influences what I’m doing. I have a lot of mainstays (David Bowie, Electric Light Orchestra, Dream Theater, Hope Sandoval, the Flaming Lips, Iron Maiden), but at the moment I’ve been listening a lot to Janelle Monáe, Hawkwind, Chango, Monster Magnet, the Mars Volta, and Led Zeppelin/Greta Van Fleet (these latter are the same band with two different names).
Thanks for the ask!
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@wsperat replied to your post “@wsperat replied to your post “A recent question got me thinking: is...”
I guess my question is: why do certain sound changes happen in one population and not in another? Thanks for the patience! It's really noce that you take the time to talk with your fans
Sorry to be replying like this, but for some reason, no matter whether it’s on mobile or on desktop, even though I can SEE your reply, I can’t reply using Tumblr’s new “reply” function. If I look at the notes in the post itself your reply doesn’t appear at all. I can only see it in my notifications. Don’t know why.
Unless sound changes are triggered by another sound change (cf. the Hawaiian pull chain*), sound changes are totally unmotivated and unnecessary. I thought I mentioned this before... There’s no reason for any sound change to happen—even something basic like nasal place assimilation (cf. the pronunciation of “impossible” vs. the pronunciation of “unpopular”). Sound changes never have to happen. It has nothing to do with the language. I mean, if it did, how could we have different dialects? If /r/ wasn’t lost postvocalically in American English, then it shouldn’t be possible for it to have been lost in any British or Australian dialects, either—if, that is, sound changes could only happen if the language “licensed” them in some way.
As I said, in the entire world of sound changes, there will be some that will never happen to a given language simply because it’s irrelevant. For example, a sound change that lowered high vowels after uvulars in English could very well be happening right this moment and we’d never know because English has no uvular consonants. We’d need to have some other sound change to give us uvular consonants and then we could have that sound change—or not.
Like, at any point in time in any language the final vowel or consonant of a word can be lost. That can happen any time at all. Sometimes it doesn’t; sometimes it doesn’t. Also the loss of those consonants could lead to tone or they could not. They did in Chinese but didn’t in French. Why? No reason! They just did in Chinese and didn’t in French.
Now, if, as in the days of the Roman Empire, speakers of some language conquer another group of speakers and force them to speak their language, there will likely be some sound changes there because you’ll have an entire population of second language learners. Those sound changes will be pretty predictable if you know the phonology of both languages. Otherwise, though, if it’s a single population with normal amounts of immigration, changes can just happen for absolutely no reason at all. Any change. It’s all just random nonsense without any rhyme or reason. The changes themselves will be principled, but absolutely nothing specific initiates them. They just happen—or not.
*First, Hawaiian *ʔ and *h were lost. That prompted *s and *f to become h and prompted *k to become ʔ, which in turn prompted *t to become k. Even so, the loss of the glottals didn’t have to result in any other sound changes: They just did here.
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Hi there! I wanted to ask (if it’s not too much trouble) if you could help me with some Bodzvokhan names? It’s just one of my orcs is supposed to have a name meaning ‘to kill/ murderer’ and the others is just supposed to be ‘small/weak’. I only managed to google translate them into Russian as I’m horrible with languages! Apologies for bothering you!
Agentive names are formed using the P(r)(i/e)- -(ǝ/a) method. So something like “killer” would probably be Pridruzǝ. “Weak” is tor, and “small” is khin, so to make names out of those you’d probably do Torlag or Khinlǝg. Could also do reduplication with voicing to get Tordor or Khingrin. If you wanted to have the names be something like “weakness” or “smallness”, you could do Hatora or Hǝkhinǝ. Lots of options!
#conlang#language#Bodzvokhan#Bodzvokhan grammar#Orcish#Bright#Bright film#Bright Netflix#Netflix#dust-bun#dedalvs response
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@wsperat replied to your post “A recent question got me thinking: is it really possible to apply ANY...”
I was asking about the naturalness of applying an arbitrary (but possible) sound change to any language
Yeah, I get that’s what you were asking, and I still don’t know why. You can literally do anything. That’s always been the case.
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