LangTime Chat, Episode 45: Translation as a Language-Expanding Exercise

In this episode, we talk about linguistic theory and its place in conlanging. As a spoiler alert, we specifically talk about how theoretical approaches are not so helpful to the art of language invention. I’ve attached the PDF of slides we use throughout the episode, some of which have visual examples of theoretical approaches to […]

In this episode, we chat about tackling academic linguistics articles, providing strategies for approaching articles and figuring out if they will be helpful to you or not. This episode is especially dedicated to anyone who has tried picking up linguistics articles but then feels overwhelmed because, well, academic articles are generally kind of notoriously cumbersome […]

This is a Jessie-only kind of episode. In it, I walk through my thought processes as I attempt to get ready to translate a passage into Zhwadi. It focuses on how I’m thinking through decisions rather than on the actual creation of roots/words/items. The goal is to demonstrate just how much translation can help when […]

We give a recap of our glorious day of conlang fun, otherwise known as Kopikon. In this episode, we give a rundown of the speakers and their talks from the day, which we hope will be especially useful for anyone who couldn’t attend and wants to know more about what went on that day. We […]

David and I discuss common expressions in languages, including greetings and thanks. We hope it inspires you to think about some of these kinds of expressions in your own languages! (The slides used during the episode are attached here, though they really just provide the words we talk about. You can, however, see just how […]

In this episode, we wrap up our discussion of some best practices and other advice for Romanizing a conlang. While chatting, we used a Pages document to take some random notes, and a PDF of that document is attached here. (When I say random, though, I mean it. The notes won’t make sense without listening […]

In this episode, we begin a discussion on Romanization, talking about goals for Romanization and differences between an orthography, phonetic transcription, and Romanization. The PDF of the slides we used in the beginning of the episode is attached here. We didn’t quite make it to the “best practices” portion, so we are extending this discussion […]

In this episode, we talk about the kinds of information that make a conlang’s written grammar more helpful and accessible to other conlangers who want to learn about your language. (And also that make it better for you to keep track of your own language!) We provide examples from conlangers’ grammars to show strategies you […]

Jessie put together a trivia game for David based on language features provided in Grambank’s database (https://grambank.clld.org/)! You can play along as you listen, and you can also download the attached PDF to see all the features and examples discussed.

We wrap up our discussion of types of borrowings in the history of the English language and end with some book recommendations for anyone interested in learning more! At one point, we discuss the ampersand, so I’ve attached a fun poster here to show what we mean.