Still Alive

No, this isn't a post about Portal, though that song is quite catchy.
Just saying that I'm still alive, despite not posting here in over a month.

Haven't really been in the mood, and haven't really been doing anything worth talking about.

I am re-enrolled in classes for next year, yay. That went through at the very last moment of today.
I applied for my Gen-Eds, with Healthy Living as my first choice. Second is Reading for Recreation, third, Science Fiction.
My roommate to be and I are getting psyched. She and I are in the same class, so decided it would be mutually beneficial for us to share a room.
I just hope we don't end up hating each other.

I picked up bead spriting. Which is basically a means to bring my loves of pixel art and melting things with a clothes iron into one craft.

I have been, for a long time now, rather upset by the number of crafts/hobbies I have.
I can't afford all of them (obviously. I have the time but not the money for anything, really), and I can never really excel at any of them.
So I put a lot of effort into thinking about how to narrow my choices. I never really come up with any conclusions.

Paper making has to go. I know, I've talked about it here several times, and I realyl do enjoy it, but look at it this way:
Soon (in the next two years) I will be moving out into the world on my own (or, likely, with roommates) Probably into an apartment or small house. Where will I put a large 3x5' vat of water? Where will I let 11+ sheets of sopping paper dry?
It is a space thing, mostly.

Knitting and crochet are on a back burner. The wool I have now, I am confining myself to.
Spinning is allowed to continue, and I can then knit/crochet with that. It is a good solitary thing, and stick spinning is also good for doing around people. Transportable. A high Pleasure:Cost ratio, too.
Felting sticks with spinning. I like it too much to get rid of entirely, and the materials pack down into tight places when not in use.

Writing/conworlding/languaneering( I like this term. I may have just made it up >.>) stay, because they take up little to no space (except on a disk drive); because I don't think I can ever stop; because they keep my mind sharp and active; because if I abandon all I have created, in a hew weeks I'll want it again and I'll be cursing myself.

Pixeling and, by relation, bead spriting: I want these to become a forefront activity. Pixeling is art, and I like art. Bead sprites allow me to bring that art into something tangible. I like tangible.
Plus, if I get better, I can make 3D objects. (Better than the one 3D I've made so far, at least.)

My problem with video games is that I don't get enough enjoyment/use time out of them compared to cost. I love playing pokemon, but I don't want a DS just to play them. Some PS3 games interest me, but I know that compared to the cost, they aren't worth it.

What I really need from a hobby is something that is fun, I can do by myself for the most part, but engage in a social side of it from time to time as well.
I thought once that DnD or Heroscape would do this for me.
Then I realised that, while I have friends, I don't tend to have friends who want to do the same things I do, or for the same reasons, or at the same times or....

I don't work well in social mediums I guess is what I'm getting at.

Which is my task for this school year, according to my counselor.
Yay.


Tangent much?
yeah, you should get used to that around here.
Neseta usoma!

Life, update, yay?

I was trying to think of a witty portmanteau of "Life" and "Update" but I couldn't so you get what you got and you'll be thankful for it, dangit.

Anyway. Life is as life does around here. I've been going to work, coming home, dicking about, sleeping and starting over.

And I'm tired. Not excessively to the point of hypersomnia like I've hit before (46 hours of sleep is not normal, no matter how you justify it!)

Just, worn out from the day. I feel active and good while at work, and then after work rather quickly die down to kinda sore, kinda tired, before going to bed at a reasonable hour.

It's odd. It's so normal, it's odd.

And I'll tell you a secret. I kinda like it.

Now if it weren't for the drive to/from work, and the constant tension between family members, I'd be at a great place.

But as it is, I'm kinda just coasting. I feel good and strong, albeit a bit unhappy. But I'm not depressed like I was. I'm hoping that carries through the school year next year. Maybe I don't need to be on anti-depressants anymore. I'm doing well without them now.

Then again, maybe I just need more instant satisfaction like work can give me.

Oh, I pulled another eleven or twelve sheets of paper the other day; they're flattening out... somewhere. (Oh dear, where did I put them...). I've cleaned the vat out and frozen the pulp; I want to start a more major project... I don't know when. You'll get some updates on that when I know more. However I hope to put pictures of the love-note set I made up soon, I think they are nice.

But moving on; I've been to the library today after work, and picked up a few books. So I've reading. (I finished a shorter novel already- a teen fiction)

And I realised keeping the Books in My Arsenal blog going is silly; so, if I can work it, the old posts from there will be merging over here. If I can't, we'll be getting some updates here of those posts.

As for the conlanging series, don't expect that to be drifting into nothingness; I'm just taking a bit to figure how I want the next part to go.

I've been playing with pixels again, to the detriment of the conlanging work, I'll admit.

Whelp, with that, I'm tired and I have books and pixels to work on. I shall see you tomorrow!

Conlanging and you, part two!

Alright, after that crash course, I'm going to go through how I work with you. This will likely be long, so it'll probably get cut into more than one post.

I am one of those people that usually starts with a phonology, or a set of sounds that I want to put into a language. A basic idea of how I want it to sound. This usually means I start by saying a random sentence like thing out loud, then try to write it down using my dialect of English.

So something like "griskle neff twandr-ikka"

This has the plus (or minus depending on how you look) of only making sounds that I can pronounce available to me.

Another way I've done this is to pound my keyboard and try and pronounce what came up, adding vowels or word breaks where I just can't do it

" dgxfhcgvjhugbm "

becomes

"Dgzf hucgiv jhug bem"

Which I can pronounce (albeit rather haltingly).

A third way is to think of a language (or a couple, though more than three or four would get difficult) that you like the sound of, and mash them together, either by yourself, or through the use of a program to help you.

I used to have links to programs like these, but I rarely do things like this (read: once), so I've long since lost them. If you find one, will you throw it my way?

After I have something that sounds kinda how I want it, I'm going to use that to extrapolate.

I'm going to use my current language in process, Torete, to explain the following things. It will become a major fixture in these kinds of posts because it is my most complete work.

So I start with something that sounds kinda like this:

"ela fokomo de nena eska no fala make. ina feza salopa yutese"

Which, using XSAMPA, sounds almost exactly as it is written.

/el.a fo.ko.mo de ne.na es.ka no fa.la ma.ke i.na fe.za sa.lo.pa ju.te.se/

From there I notice that I have a great affinity for vowels, and I greatly despise consonant clusters. The only one that showed up was "sk" which is a cluster I find every easy to say.

So I decided that words in this language will have no consonant clusters, and that all words end in vowels.

I also get a good idea of what kind of word length I am looking at. I prefer four letter words.

I also prefer words that start with consonants. This leads me to say that words starting with a vowel are being modified in some way, a prefix.

It also gives me an idea of sounds I like:

/f k m d n s l z p y e i u a o/

From there I decided to look through IPA to see if there were any sounds that I don't have day-to-day exposure to that I would enjoy.

I mostly found them to sound too similar or to be unpronounceable, so I left it alone.

Splitting these up into vowels and consonants I have:

/a e i o u/

and

/f k m d n s l z p y/

I don't feel like that is enough, so I'm going to add

/b v r/ to the mix, as I like them too.

A quick way to see if you are getting words you like is to play with Awkwords. Their help button is really helpful, but I can answer some questions if you have them.

Okay, this is long enough. So.... To be continued. Likely tomorrow or the next day.

Conlanging and you!

Alright, yesterday I explained through examples what a conlang can be at some of its highest peaks. If you're still with me you are likely insane or really bored. Both are acceptable.

You see these examples and think to yourself, hey, I want my own language! It'll be great for my book/my diary/confusing the hell out of teachers/profit/etc.!

While I give little hope to the last one, the others are a yes. Other neat things that can come from it are relieving boredom, procrastination, pure fun, the admiration of your peers(again, little hope), and gaining friends.

So let's get started, you yell. And I jump, because I startle easily.

Where, oh where to start when conlanging. It is different for a lot of people, some like to start with basic syntax, others have a random sketch of an intransitive verb combining with a noun in holy matrimony, still others start with a script, and a lot of people start with a phonology.

Wait, wait, wait. What? Intransi-whoey? Synta-what? Phrenology?

Okay, so I think it would be best to start at the top. Linguistics! Otherwise known as More Than Your Average High School English Class!

If you are groaning already and can't stand the thought of spending time on Grammar, then perhaps this is the wrong past-time. Maybe try cryptology? (Not to be confused with the science of crypts) (I hope to cover codes and ciphers another day, but for now that link should do)

So. Linguistics. Where to begin? Well, you certainly don't need a doctorate in it, but it would sure help. So if you think you can do it, go forth. I can wait.

No?

Okay. You don't need to know a lot of linguistics to start with, just a few basic terms and you should be rolling:

Phonology: Basically the set of sounds possible within a language. English allows "sss" "ch" and "sh", but does not allow "sch" (Unless it is "school" but that is more of a "sk") We also don't allow things like "ts" or "zx"

Morpheme: The smallest linguistic unit (word or word bit) that has definable meaning. Think "un-" "break" "-s" These are pieces we can tear out of other s=words and hold up as having meaning. I can break "break" into "br" and "eak" but neither has independent meaning, so are not morphemes.

Phone: the tiniest definable sound, such as one possible pronunciation of "b"

Phoneme: the smallest contrastive unit in the sound system of a language. So the entirety of possible pronunciations for "b", including "allophones" or sounds that all mean the same thing.

Syntax: The way that all the other things are put together to form coherent thoughts, the rules dictating order of things.

Parts of Speech: Noun, Article, Conjunction and a slew of others, you might want to get re-familiar with these.

The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA): A set of letters based on the Latin alphabet that is intended to be used as a standard representation of all sounds used in spoken language (by anyone, anywhere).

Having at least the ability to know what the symbols are is a great start. Being able to move things back and forth with it is even better.

X-SAMPA: At the most basic, a way to use IPA using ASCII characters. I use it as I find it easier to remember.

Everything else is probably okay to learn as you come across it.

Ugh, that got long quick. Okay, splitting this into two for today.

Other worlds, other languages

Remember how I apologised in advance for that rash of papermaking posts? The ones that never showed up? Yeah, I have a feeling this will be the same way, but just in case, I apologise for a rash of conlang/worlding posts to come.

Now that that is done, and I have a yummy banana ice lolly to eat, I thought I'd do a quick post about what I've been up to these last few days.

I'm a conlanger. Well, I prefer geofictionist...

A whosit? A whatsit?

If you don't already know, lemme throw some definitions at you. Stand still, this shouldn't hurt:

Conlang: A constructed language

Conlanger: A person who makes a constructed language

(Not to be confused with a canlang, or a Canadian language. Those are infinitely more frightening)

Geofiction: fictional worlds, geographic fiction

Geofictionist: A person who makes geographic fiction

Conworld: A constructed world

I'll let you figure out consports, conreligion, etc.

So yes, there, I've admitted to this oh so secret of vices. I know one other person, personally, that does it, along with a slew of internet folks, maybe two or three thousand as an upper guess (compiling all the numbers I know from a few forums and mailing lists, some of which are likely duplicated (like me!)), but I know there must be more lurking in the shadows.

So when you hear constructed language, what should you think of?

Well, think of Na'vi as a current example. The language spoken by the blue cat-people in Avatar? Yup. That's a constructed language. The people making that language hired a professor with a doctorate in linguistics to make a language for the movie. If you want to read more, wiki is a good start: Na'vi Language.

Want something a bit less current, but still alien? Reach only so far as Star Trek. The Klingons of that series have their own language which has become a major player in the field of conlangs. The language wasn't really intended, they mostly used nonsense "words" to get a feel of an alien tongue. But leave it to Trekkies to blow that up and out. Klingon is now a full fledged language with speakers around the world. You could even take classes at some point (This may still occur?) I unfortunately never really got into Star Trek, so my info is a bit dusty. However I have studied Klingon in a cursory manner, as it has structures similar to my conlang. You want to learn more, try the Klingon Language Institute.

So we want less current, but not alien. How about Tolkien? There's a reason that the secret vice quip was linked.

Tolkien made Elvish, and it seems that one reason he made the Lord of the Rings was to not seem crazy when putting forth the language. Neat, mm? Now Elvish I know as much of as anyone who never read the series (don't shoot!), but there are certainly a lot of resources about for it. So why don't we just direct you to the wiki, and you can put the knives down: Elvish Languages.

One more, then I swear I'll move on.

Esperanto. No, that's not some Spanish cowboy. It's a language developed by L. L. Zamenhof (Quite the mouthful, mm?) and his goal with this language was to have Esperanto be a politically neutral language spoken everywhere, allowing people of different nationalities to make an equal play towards peace.

A lofty goal.

And while it never reached that height (they don't teach you Esperanto in international business courses!) it is still the most widely spoken auxiliary language. There are 10,000 to two million fluent speakers, some of which are native speakers (that is, Esperanto is, or is one of, their first languages) Pretty big for something some guy just made up! Though, it has been around a while, the first book about it was published in 1887.

There is obviously tons of material about Esperanto out there, so I'mma leave you with just a Google search for Esperanto.

Now that you know a little bit about conlangs, I thought maybe I could share some information about how to go about making one, but I've kinda run out of space, plus you've probably wandered on to thinking about your dinner plans. That's okay, I ran out of ice lolly a paragraph and a half in, and I'm thinking about food too.

So I think I'll say:

ĝis la revido,

Qapla'

Mára mesta

kìyevame

or goodbye, in Esperanto, Klingon, Elvish and Na'vi respectively.