Author Topic: Creating my own linguistic language  (Read 7531 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline Scipi

  • Omni Kitten Meow~ =^ω^=
  • LV10 31337 u53r (Next: 2000)
  • **********
  • Posts: 1547
  • Rating: +192/-3
  • Meow :3
    • View Profile
    • ScipiSoftware
Creating my own linguistic language
« on: April 03, 2013, 02:15:56 pm »
I've always been interested in inventing my own spoken/written language. Here lately I've actually been making some progress towards my first useable language that will be used for a hypothetical race/culture to be used in future games I make (The Kakrii race). The language is meant to be harsh sounding, thus it makes use of k/ch/sh/z sounds.

So far I have the written portion, basic grammar rules/syntax, and some words figured out.

Here is a guide for the written language:



Here's an example of a basic sentence:



The grammar tends to go as: [Question][Tense][Subject_1(Who/what is doing the action)][Subject_2(Who/what is receiving the action)][Action/Verb][Adjective]

This is still in progress, I don't know much about grammar rules.

Certain kinds of words always have a prefix of sorts.

Nouns always start with:

Ka - Physical
Ke - Conceptual
Ki - Nonexistent

Note: THis language does not distictuate between gender. All words are used gender neutral. What the language does do, however, is distictuate between if it exists, does not exists, or exists theoretically.

Verbs always start with:

Ch

Sh - Question

Kr - Adjective

Ra - Future tense
Ri - Past tense
Ro - Present tense (Used when you want to explicitly show present tense)

So far, that's about the extent of what I have. What I want to figure out next is the numbering system. I want it to be base 16, however I want a written form that's more efficient than the symbolic method we use as well as more compact and allows for mathematical concepts to be more intuitive. After that I just need to fill out the lexicon and grammar rules.

Words I have so far:

Kai - I/Me/Mine
Kao - You/Yours
Kas - Other

Check - Perform upon

Chakas - Speak

Kekaskak - Language

Kezech - Bonding (Best equivalent word would be marriage)
Chazech - Best equivalency would be "To love" (There is no word for Love since the race this language is developed for does not experience this emotion, but they do have something similar)

Chernas - Hello

So that's more or less what I have so far. Anyone have any suggestions for the numbering system? What do you guys think?

Imma Cat! =^_^= :3 (It's an emoticon now!)
Spoiler For Things I find interesting:
Spoiler For AI Programming:
Spoiler For Shameless advertising:

Spoiler For OldSig:





Spoiler For IMPORTANT NEWS!:
Late last night, Quebec was invaded by a group calling themselves, "Omnimaga". Not much is known about these mysterious people except that they all carried calculators of some kind and they all seemed to converge on one house in particular. Experts estimate that the combined power of their fabled calculators is greater than all the worlds super computers put together. The group seems to be holding out in the home of a certain DJ_O, who the Omnimagians claim to be their founder. Such power has put the world at a standstill with everyone waiting to see what the Omnimagians will do...

Wait... This just in, the Omnimagians have sent the UN a list of demands that must be met or else the world will be "submitted to the wrath of Netham45's Lobster Army". Such demands include >9001 crates of peanuts, sacrificial blue lobsters, and a wide assortment of cherry flavored items. With such computing power stored in the hands of such people, we can only hope these demands are met.

In the wake of these events, we can only ask, Why? Why do these people make these demands, what caused them to gather, and what are their future plans...

Offline aeTIos

  • Nonbinary computing specialist
  • LV12 Extreme Poster (Next: 5000)
  • ************
  • Posts: 3915
  • Rating: +184/-32
    • View Profile
    • wank.party
Re: Creating my own linguistic language
« Reply #1 on: April 03, 2013, 02:19:27 pm »
tl;dr
j/k
that seems very interesting :) I'll take time to read through all of it later though.
I'm not a nerd but I pretend:

Offline ElementCoder

  • LV7 Elite (Next: 700)
  • *******
  • Posts: 611
  • Rating: +42/-2
    • View Profile
Re: Creating my own linguistic language
« Reply #2 on: April 03, 2013, 02:29:15 pm »
This looks interesting, when my exams are over I'll read it :)

Some people need a high five in the face... with a chair.
~EC

Offline DJ Omnimaga

  • Clacualters are teh gr33t
  • CoT Emeritus
  • LV15 Omnimagician (Next: --)
  • *
  • Posts: 55941
  • Rating: +3154/-232
  • CodeWalrus founder & retired Omnimaga founder
    • View Profile
    • Dream of Omnimaga Music
Re: Creating my own linguistic language
« Reply #3 on: April 03, 2013, 02:54:44 pm »
Interesting. It's always cool to see different languages used in games and those languages actually makes sense. When I did that it was very limited, as it used alphabet and simply involved replacing vowels with the next one (eg e->i, o->u, y->a) and consonants as well or vice-versa, but I think I recall some games literally using something else than alphabet and you usually needed to find an item to translate it.

Offline harold

  • LV5 Advanced (Next: 300)
  • *****
  • Posts: 226
  • Rating: +41/-3
    • View Profile
Re: Creating my own linguistic language
« Reply #4 on: April 03, 2013, 02:57:57 pm »
What language(s) (if any) is it influenced by?

As for the number system, I .. don't really know. Personally I've long been an advocate of base 16 because of its simple connection with base 2, which makes it trivial to calculate with it [you only need algorithms for the basic operators, no tables], but as for the notation.. I don't really know. I have a couple of ideas that I think are bad which might somehow still be of value (you never know?):
- Residue Number System. I wouldn't call it intuitive, but you get to break up operations in lots of small pieces and is efficient in the sense that you end up writing down mostly small numbers (on the other hand you'd have a whole array of them, so that doesn't do that much good). It also allows trivial GCD and LCM, which is elegant IMO. But: division is terrible and you'd always be wondering how many moduli to use (and which).
- Continued Fractions. Not intuitive either. Doesn't solve the problem of how to write large numbers - you'd still end up with long base 16 strings. Harder for simple calculations. But it does let you write down crazy numbers efficiently and so some mathematical concepts could become easier to grasp, maybe.. such as fractions and square roots. I could see a mathematically super-advanced race using it all the time, but mostly because they'd be the "crazy mathematician" kind of guys, and I'm not sure what you're aiming for here.
- Base -16. Not too interesting. Doesn't help at all. But it's .. something?
Blog about bitmath: bitmath.blogspot.nl
Check the haroldbot thread for the supported commands and syntax.
You can use haroldbot from this website.

Offline DJ Omnimaga

  • Clacualters are teh gr33t
  • CoT Emeritus
  • LV15 Omnimagician (Next: --)
  • *
  • Posts: 55941
  • Rating: +3154/-232
  • CodeWalrus founder & retired Omnimaga founder
    • View Profile
    • Dream of Omnimaga Music
Re: Creating my own linguistic language
« Reply #5 on: April 03, 2013, 03:00:12 pm »
One thing we have to keep in mind is that in this age of post-apocalyptic games, we could create a language that looks ancient, but uses some elements from modern technology that people retained over the generations, such as binary for number display or even hex as you mention.

Offline Scipi

  • Omni Kitten Meow~ =^ω^=
  • LV10 31337 u53r (Next: 2000)
  • **********
  • Posts: 1547
  • Rating: +192/-3
  • Meow :3
    • View Profile
    • ScipiSoftware
Re: Creating my own linguistic language
« Reply #6 on: April 03, 2013, 04:16:50 pm »
What language(s) (if any) is it influenced by?

I would say, at least in the writing, a mix of Greek/Latin style lettering and Japanese characters. I've always liked how compact japanese/chinese symbols seem to be, yet latin/greek alphabets are better able to handle different syllables with fewer symbols. As for the actual spoken part, none. I invented it based on the idea that this is an aggressive culture.

For the numbering notation, I was thinking a modified Mayan style.



Edit: It seems pretty powerful, except for decimal notation, and perhaps exponents.
« Last Edit: April 03, 2013, 04:17:50 pm by Scipi »

Imma Cat! =^_^= :3 (It's an emoticon now!)
Spoiler For Things I find interesting:
Spoiler For AI Programming:
Spoiler For Shameless advertising:

Spoiler For OldSig:





Spoiler For IMPORTANT NEWS!:
Late last night, Quebec was invaded by a group calling themselves, "Omnimaga". Not much is known about these mysterious people except that they all carried calculators of some kind and they all seemed to converge on one house in particular. Experts estimate that the combined power of their fabled calculators is greater than all the worlds super computers put together. The group seems to be holding out in the home of a certain DJ_O, who the Omnimagians claim to be their founder. Such power has put the world at a standstill with everyone waiting to see what the Omnimagians will do...

Wait... This just in, the Omnimagians have sent the UN a list of demands that must be met or else the world will be "submitted to the wrath of Netham45's Lobster Army". Such demands include >9001 crates of peanuts, sacrificial blue lobsters, and a wide assortment of cherry flavored items. With such computing power stored in the hands of such people, we can only hope these demands are met.

In the wake of these events, we can only ask, Why? Why do these people make these demands, what caused them to gather, and what are their future plans...

Offline Juju

  • Incredibly sexy mare
  • Coder Of Tomorrow
  • LV13 Extreme Addict (Next: 9001)
  • *************
  • Posts: 5730
  • Rating: +500/-19
  • Weird programmer
    • View Profile
    • juju2143's shed
Re: Creating my own linguistic language
« Reply #7 on: April 03, 2013, 06:19:32 pm »
I myself planned for the people of Zarmina to use base 16 because, like harold said, it has many interesting properties and there's more trivial stuff like dividing by 2, 4, 8 and other numbers like that.

For the number system, the modified Mayan style (without the 5th column) sounds good to me.

Also can I use your language in my game?
« Last Edit: April 03, 2013, 06:21:14 pm by Juju »

Remember the day the walrus started to fly...

I finally cleared my sig after 4 years you're happy now?
THEGAME
This signature is ridiculously large you've been warned.

The cute mare that used to be in my avatar is Yuki Kagayaki, you can follow her on Facebook and Tumblr.

Offline Scipi

  • Omni Kitten Meow~ =^ω^=
  • LV10 31337 u53r (Next: 2000)
  • **********
  • Posts: 1547
  • Rating: +192/-3
  • Meow :3
    • View Profile
    • ScipiSoftware
Re: Creating my own linguistic language
« Reply #8 on: April 03, 2013, 06:22:48 pm »
Also can I use your language in my game?

Sure. If you go with the actual symbols and everything, you may want to have text with them loaded as an image though since there can be so many combinations of symbols.

I'll be sure to fill in some more of the lexicon and get an actual numbering system down. It'll be base 16, it's just how to represent numbers that I need to figure out.

Imma Cat! =^_^= :3 (It's an emoticon now!)
Spoiler For Things I find interesting:
Spoiler For AI Programming:
Spoiler For Shameless advertising:

Spoiler For OldSig:





Spoiler For IMPORTANT NEWS!:
Late last night, Quebec was invaded by a group calling themselves, "Omnimaga". Not much is known about these mysterious people except that they all carried calculators of some kind and they all seemed to converge on one house in particular. Experts estimate that the combined power of their fabled calculators is greater than all the worlds super computers put together. The group seems to be holding out in the home of a certain DJ_O, who the Omnimagians claim to be their founder. Such power has put the world at a standstill with everyone waiting to see what the Omnimagians will do...

Wait... This just in, the Omnimagians have sent the UN a list of demands that must be met or else the world will be "submitted to the wrath of Netham45's Lobster Army". Such demands include >9001 crates of peanuts, sacrificial blue lobsters, and a wide assortment of cherry flavored items. With such computing power stored in the hands of such people, we can only hope these demands are met.

In the wake of these events, we can only ask, Why? Why do these people make these demands, what caused them to gather, and what are their future plans...

Offline Juju

  • Incredibly sexy mare
  • Coder Of Tomorrow
  • LV13 Extreme Addict (Next: 9001)
  • *************
  • Posts: 5730
  • Rating: +500/-19
  • Weird programmer
    • View Profile
    • juju2143's shed
Re: Creating my own linguistic language
« Reply #9 on: April 03, 2013, 06:41:14 pm »
I just thought of something... Lemme write it up.

I mean, yeah the Mayan style would be interesting, laid up vertical style, maybe moving some strokes around. So you actually have a semi-quartery system, the dots alternating with the strokes. Also you would make out a character for 0, the decimal point and the basic operations, moving the character to the right for exponents and there you go.
« Last Edit: April 03, 2013, 06:54:26 pm by Juju »

Remember the day the walrus started to fly...

I finally cleared my sig after 4 years you're happy now?
THEGAME
This signature is ridiculously large you've been warned.

The cute mare that used to be in my avatar is Yuki Kagayaki, you can follow her on Facebook and Tumblr.

Offline Scipi

  • Omni Kitten Meow~ =^ω^=
  • LV10 31337 u53r (Next: 2000)
  • **********
  • Posts: 1547
  • Rating: +192/-3
  • Meow :3
    • View Profile
    • ScipiSoftware
Re: Creating my own linguistic language
« Reply #10 on: April 03, 2013, 07:48:06 pm »
Here's what I got. Symbols that connect values denote the operation. I think another parallel line on the right will denote parenthesis.

Imma Cat! =^_^= :3 (It's an emoticon now!)
Spoiler For Things I find interesting:
Spoiler For AI Programming:
Spoiler For Shameless advertising:

Spoiler For OldSig:





Spoiler For IMPORTANT NEWS!:
Late last night, Quebec was invaded by a group calling themselves, "Omnimaga". Not much is known about these mysterious people except that they all carried calculators of some kind and they all seemed to converge on one house in particular. Experts estimate that the combined power of their fabled calculators is greater than all the worlds super computers put together. The group seems to be holding out in the home of a certain DJ_O, who the Omnimagians claim to be their founder. Such power has put the world at a standstill with everyone waiting to see what the Omnimagians will do...

Wait... This just in, the Omnimagians have sent the UN a list of demands that must be met or else the world will be "submitted to the wrath of Netham45's Lobster Army". Such demands include >9001 crates of peanuts, sacrificial blue lobsters, and a wide assortment of cherry flavored items. With such computing power stored in the hands of such people, we can only hope these demands are met.

In the wake of these events, we can only ask, Why? Why do these people make these demands, what caused them to gather, and what are their future plans...

Offline Juju

  • Incredibly sexy mare
  • Coder Of Tomorrow
  • LV13 Extreme Addict (Next: 9001)
  • *************
  • Posts: 5730
  • Rating: +500/-19
  • Weird programmer
    • View Profile
    • juju2143's shed
Re: Creating my own linguistic language
« Reply #11 on: April 03, 2013, 07:55:04 pm »
It kinda looks like Arabic, especially drawn like this, with a felt pen or something.

Remember the day the walrus started to fly...

I finally cleared my sig after 4 years you're happy now?
THEGAME
This signature is ridiculously large you've been warned.

The cute mare that used to be in my avatar is Yuki Kagayaki, you can follow her on Facebook and Tumblr.

Offline Scipi

  • Omni Kitten Meow~ =^ω^=
  • LV10 31337 u53r (Next: 2000)
  • **********
  • Posts: 1547
  • Rating: +192/-3
  • Meow :3
    • View Profile
    • ScipiSoftware
Re: Creating my own linguistic language
« Reply #12 on: April 03, 2013, 07:57:55 pm »
I was having fun with the calligraphic pen in inkscape :P
« Last Edit: April 03, 2013, 07:58:04 pm by Scipi »

Imma Cat! =^_^= :3 (It's an emoticon now!)
Spoiler For Things I find interesting:
Spoiler For AI Programming:
Spoiler For Shameless advertising:

Spoiler For OldSig:





Spoiler For IMPORTANT NEWS!:
Late last night, Quebec was invaded by a group calling themselves, "Omnimaga". Not much is known about these mysterious people except that they all carried calculators of some kind and they all seemed to converge on one house in particular. Experts estimate that the combined power of their fabled calculators is greater than all the worlds super computers put together. The group seems to be holding out in the home of a certain DJ_O, who the Omnimagians claim to be their founder. Such power has put the world at a standstill with everyone waiting to see what the Omnimagians will do...

Wait... This just in, the Omnimagians have sent the UN a list of demands that must be met or else the world will be "submitted to the wrath of Netham45's Lobster Army". Such demands include >9001 crates of peanuts, sacrificial blue lobsters, and a wide assortment of cherry flavored items. With such computing power stored in the hands of such people, we can only hope these demands are met.

In the wake of these events, we can only ask, Why? Why do these people make these demands, what caused them to gather, and what are their future plans...

Offline chickendude

  • LV8 Addict (Next: 1000)
  • ********
  • Posts: 817
  • Rating: +90/-1
  • Pro-Riot Squad
    • View Profile
Re: Creating my own linguistic language
« Reply #13 on: April 03, 2013, 11:46:37 pm »
I would say, at least in the writing, a mix of Greek/Latin style lettering and Japanese characters. I've always liked how compact japanese/chinese symbols seem to be, yet latin/greek alphabets are better able to handle different syllables with fewer symbols. As for the actual spoken part, none. I invented it based on the idea that this is an aggressive culture.
I don't think Chinese characters are really that efficient, especially traditional characters. They may take up less space overall since the strokes are so compact, but i think the average Chinese character takes more strokes than it would to write out in, say pinyin. Chinese words tend to be much shorter, though. Though Chinese cursive might be more efficient than the Latin/Greek alphabets.

I think it's a really cool idea and a fun project, i hope to see more! Where did you get the idea of real/unreal/hypothetical? I think that's an interesting distinction :)

Also, your numbers require a lot of strokes (Chinese often use the 0-9 forms we use, especially for 0 -- compare that to the Chinese character for 0: 零 ;)), if you want to keep that format you could try something like:

Offline Hot_Dog

  • CoT Emeritus
  • LV12 Extreme Poster (Next: 5000)
  • *
  • Posts: 3006
  • Rating: +445/-10
    • View Profile
Re: Creating my own linguistic language
« Reply #14 on: April 04, 2013, 02:01:52 am »
This is very interesting!  I think it'd be cool if you included a couple of non-English vowel sounds, but it's awesome the way it is as well