This episode begins a five-part miniseries exploring ways to conlang using pre-existing material.



In this episode, we discuss some of the processes we use when we need to incorporate material from books (material that was created without the structure of a language) in a conlang.



I set out a challenge for the month, which requires taking words and phrases in English and treating them as unknown entities, as source material collected from a book that needs a language built around it. Our next episode will present the results from that challenge.



If you are interested in participating and having your results included in the next episode, send me your work via email or a DM on Discord before July 27, 2024.



I’ve attached a PDF of the slides that accompany the episode, and I’ve also attached the Language Sketch document David and I will be using in three different formats (PDF, Pages, and Word). I have no idea how well the conversion from Pages to Word worked, so the formatting may be wonky on that version!



Word_FrameLang Language SketchDownload



LangTime Chat Ep53Download



Pages_FrameLang Language Sketch.pagesDownload



PDF_FrameLang Language SketchDownload

I submitted the manuscript of the textbook I’ve been writing for four years now, so David chose the book as the topic for this podcast. We talk about the overall structure of the book, my goals in writing it, and some features in its current state.

In this episode, we chat about designing glyphs. David designs two glyphs based on an image of a chicken that I drew as a starting point. One glyph is in the style of High Valyrian, while the second is a style inspired by Sarkezhe.



I’ve attached the images of the chickens that I drew for inspiration for David to base his work on.



We did our best to narrate a very visual task… We hope you enjoy!

This is a special episode of LangTime Chat based on a career-focused presentation I gave at Georgetown University in September 2023 (right before Kopikon). David has been encouraging me ever since to record it as a podcast episode, and I’ve finally listened and done it. It’s a bit shorter than a typical episode, but I hope you enjoy it, nonetheless.



I’ve attached the PDF of the presentation slides I use throughout–there are quite a few images to go along with the journey!



LangTime Chat – Ep50 Delicious Ambiguity, v2Download

We were finally able to see Dune 2 in the theater this past weekend, which means we finally saw and heard our work on the Chakobsa language in the film! And in this episode, we chat about the experience of seeing the movie and working on the film. At the beginning of the episode, David claims there will be spoilers, but there aren’t. While we talk about the language, we don’t give away plot points or even specific lines, really. We talk about the features in a much more general sense.



We hope you enjoy this slightly belated episode!

In this episode, we chat about tense and aspect in this episode, and you get to witness the unveiling of a new LangTime animation! On a podcast! (What better way of podcasting is there but to use visuals?) All joking aside, we use an animation to present a small set of events and discuss ways a tense-prioritized system might handle the verbs versus the ways an aspect-prioritized system might handle them.



For your reference, I’ve attached the slideshow we use throughout, and I am uploading the animation so you can witness it in all its 2.2-second glory.



LangTime Chat – Ep48Download

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 show how language is analyzed in that particular approach.



LangTime Chat – Ep47Download

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 to get through. Our goal moving forward is to have episodes dedicated to specific articles that maybe you want to have read but don’t want to read–we will read them for you and tell you what they’re about!



I have attached the PDF of the slides we used (complete with all the original typos…), and I have attached the Haspelmath article we used for a focused discussion on reading strategies.



Happy reading (and happy sending us your reading wish lists)!



LangTime Chat – Episode 46Download



Haspelmath article in Ep46Download

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 you’re at a stage with your language where you’re ready to expand its features but aren’t sure what direction to go. Translation as an exercise can really push you to better understand your language and the features you most want to incorporate.



Attached is the PDF of the Keynote slides I used while talking through decisions. Also attached is the final translation of the passage(s) with notes throughout. If you want to hear the thought processes before seeing the final decisions, wait to look at that PDF until you’ve listened to the episode!



LangTime Chat – Ep45Download



LangTime Chat, Episode 45Download

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 give some behind-the-scenes info throughout, and we let you know why you should go watch each and every talk from the day! (Eventually, those videos will be separated out so you can watch them individually on YouTube instead of scrolling through a full day’s worth of talks in a giant video. We promise we are working on it!)



Attached you’ll find the PDF of the presentation we used while recording the episode.



We hope you enjoy the recap of what was an incredible day!



ltc_kopikon_discussionDownload

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 weird “Thank you” looks in the Noto Serif font!)



LangTime Chat – Ep43Download

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 to the episode.)



LangTime Chat Ep42Download

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 into a two-part series that will continue in next month’s episode! 



LangTime Chat – Ep41Download