rwg 0.1.1 released

rwg 0.1.1 is released, with these improvements:

• interactive mode
• null option
• improved error messages

Releasing a new version every few days is cool!

The link is here.

I intend to work on compilation next.

rwg 0.1.0 released

I'm happy to announce the release of rwg 0.1.0, a random word generator for conlangers.

You can download it here, or read the (short) manual here.

On my todo list:

• better error messages
• interactive UI
• improved disallow directive
• optional choices
• rulefile compilation

Happy conlanging!

Type safety + auto = win!

A while back, playing around with functional programming, I started trying to implement interesting functions in Lisp. It all went well until permute, a function which isn't that complicated but involves lists, lists of lists, and lists of lists of lists. This was so confusing and complicated that I gave up.

More recently, I tried it again in Haskell. It took less than twenty minutes! The reason was Haskell's type declarations, which made it so much easier to think about what was going in and out.

The type system can often get annoying, and become a pain (e.g. Java), hence the popularity of dynamic typing (Python/Ruby/Ecmascript). But when thinking about complicated algorithms and systems, they are a great structuring force. Which is part of why I love D: "auto" and "Variant" lets you forget about a lot of it, but you can still be explicit when it is important.

gloss2lang

Check out this new software: gloss2lang. It merely translates interlinear glosses into specific languages. You have to create a G2LF file.

English-to-Latin-to-English-to-Latin-and-so-on

This shows you how bad even the best computer translators are.

Taking the Babel text, I translated it into Latin, back to English, back to Latin, and so on. But as that would just eventually put out gibberish, every time it was in English, I tried to make sense of the translation. Here's my favorite:

The whole world had only one voice, and they used the same words for the same things. A certain people found a plain in the in the east, the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there.

And they said to eachother: "Come, let us make brick, and bake with fire." And they had brick for stone, and slime for mortar. Then they heard a voice: "Come, let us make ourselves a city, so that we may make ourselves a name, and everyone else will be scattered across the face of the earth." It came from a tower in heaven.

The people spoke with the same voice, like one man uses the same tongue. The voice began to be seen. Put no trust in it. Then the people said: "Come, let us go down, and there confound the language so every man's voice will be unique.

The people stopped building the city. They no longer trusted Babel, because he had caused them to scatter everyone across the face of the earth.

By chance, the Lord saw the tower, and he finished building the city of the people. That place is all places all over the world.

This is kind of confusing, so here is a "retelling:"

Long ago, when everyone spoke the same language, a certain people lived in an eastern plain called Shinar. They were technologically advanced, and could make bricks and fire.

One day, they heard a voice that came from a tower in heaven: "make a city for yourself! Make yourself famous! Everyone will scatter away from you." They obeyed it.

Eventually, the Shinarites began to understand that the voice was evil. They stopped building the city, and mended their ways by giving everyone in the world their own unique voice. They no longer trust Babel (the united tongue).

Later, when the Lord saw what had happened, he finished building the Shinarite city. That city is Earth.

 May your days be merry and bright, and may all your Christmases be white!

Alloscythian update

It is now on http://personak.weebly.com/alloscythian.html.

Alloscythian

Okay. I give up on Sundays. Let's just go randomly.

The Alloscythian (other Scythes) language is a conlang that I did a while ago. It is a descendant of PIE, a relatively conservative Satem language, with most changes having affected vowel features (nasals and tone).

Here are some example words:

θὲσσου (thèssõ, dirt, uncleanliness). It derives from PIE *dʰéǵʰōm and is related to Latin humus and Greek χθών.

φὲρω (phèrō, I make, create). It derives from PIE *bʰérō, and is related to Latin ferō, Greek φέρω, and English bear. With its difference from Greek only in the diacritic, it must have made the ancients wonder...

Last but not least, the family. Archaically, they were:

• φετήρ, phetḗr, father;
• μάτηρ, mā́tēr, mother;
• φράτηρ, phrā́tēr, brother;
• συέσωρ, suésōr, sister;
• θυχετήρ, thukhetḗr, daughter;
• συσ, sũs, son;
• and specially, σνυὅς, snuhos, new member (bride/groom/baby/prodigal son);

The -τηρ -tēr ending on everything except sister and son changed those two into συέτηρ suétēr and σύτηρ sṹter. Now that -tēr basically meant family, the -tēr wore off as phetḗr became phe, and tēr became a word of its own meaning: a near relative or close friend.

Ignoring length and stress, that puts the Alloscythian word for siste the same as the greek word for luck. I'll need luck if I ever get a sister.

That's all for now, τήρε.

I am in the airport on the way back from Disneyworld! On the plane I'm going to do something which I will tell you about later.

How many times have I postponed things?

When you wish upon a star, your dreams will either come true or not.

I did it again

That's right, I did it again. I didn't post on Sunday. I think I'll have to start thinking about my posts much earlier and having them automatically post on Sunday. Today I'll just tell you about Latin Wikipedia, or more appropriately, Vicipædia Latina. It's basically Wikipedia in Latin.

It exists. Valētē!

Sorry about that description. I'm too lazy to do more.

MaoEG

Here's your mid-week post.

Medieval-and-on European Genealogy (MaoEG) is a great hobby of mine, especially finding houses. The unofficial genealogical definition of house is a group of people including and only including a person and all those who trace legitimate patrilineal or matrilineal descent to them. I will name houses by their common names, and in inventing my own give the place of birth or place of rule for their founder. Here I'm going to list some important ones.

And by important, I don't mean impact on history, but how many members they had. That's why you won't see the commonly known ones.

Have any with more people? Comment or contact.

Here's some things to know:

1. The founder is the person furthest tracable back. The MRCA (Most Recent Common Ancestor) is the person from whom all current members descend. An ancient founder tells you that the house has been important for centuries; an ancient MRCA tells you that the house probably has members all over the place, as it dosen't just consist of a bunch of extinct branches.
2. The head is the person most senior descended from the founder via primogeniture.
3. Patrilineal means in the male-line, no female interuptions. Matrilineal means the oppisite.
4. And I hate branches that are called houses.

Patrilineal
House of Wettin
Founder: Dietrich I von Wettin, 10th Century, 1st generation (duh)
MRCA: Frederick II, Elector of Saxony, 1412 -- 1464, 16th generation
Head: Michael, Prince of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, 1946 --, 33rd generation

If you look at the names, it looks German right away. Indeed, probably the supermajority of members were German. However, it has some non-Germans too: just look at Queen Elizabeth of the UK. She traces back through Queen Victoria's husband Albert, who was German (duh).

House of Este
Founder: Adalbert of Mainz, 9th/10th Century
MRCA: Ernest I, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, 1497 -- 1546, 20th generation
Head: Person Confidential, 31st generation

Known more often as the House of Welf, it's founder was Italian, it's MRCA was German, and it has members from across the map. In Britain it was known as the House of Hanover.

It's late MRCA dosen't mean there was a 20-generation line that didn't go anywhere; there were in fact two great branches from 5th generation on, of Welf and of Italian Este, but the Italian Este branch died out 1803.

House of Oldenburg
Founder: Egilmar I, Count of Lerigau, 11th century
MRCA: Frederick I of Denmark and Norway, 1471 -- 1533, 13th generation
Head: Christoph, Prince of Schleswig-Holstein, 1949 --, 27th generation

The early MRCA tells you already that this is a diverse house. It has two main branches: the main Glücksburg branch from the MRCA's older son, and the Holstein-Gottorp branch from his younger son. The Glücksburgs have produced Danish, Norwegian, and Greek monarchs, the consorts of the rulers of UK and Spain (the former meaning that the next king will be Glücksburg), and the Holstein-Gottorps have produced czars in Russia (the Romanovs weren't really Romanovs).

House of Capet
Founder: Robert II, Count of Worms, 770 -- 807
MRCA: Robert II of France, 972 -- 1031, 7th generation
Head: Louis Alphonse, Duke of Anjou, 1974 --, 37th generation

There is a confusion as to the ancestry of Robert of Hesbaye, so I list him here as founder, though there are sources denoting parentage.

As 39 generations have proved, you can't extinguish the House of Capet. It has two main branches, Bourbon and Burgundy, and both are famous throughout history. Need I say more?

Charlemagneering
Charlemagne, as one of the most prominent figures of the dark ages, is the de facto standard dream-ancestor; in other words, you want to trace to him.

As it turns out, the MRCAs of all of these houses trace to him.

To Frederick II, Elector of Saxony:

1. Charlemagne, 742 -- 814, m. Hildegard of Vinzgouw
2. Louis I of France, 778 -- 840, m. Judith of Bavaria
3. Gisela of France, 9th century, m. Eberhard of Friuli
4. Ingeltrued of Friuli, 9th century, m. Henry of Franconia
5. Hedwiga of Franconia, 9th century, m. Otto I of Saxony
6. Henry I of Germany, 876 -- 936, m. Matilda of Ringelheim
7. Otto I of Germany, 912 -- 973, m. Edith of Wessex
8. Liutgarde, 10th century, m. Conrad, Duke of Lorraine
9. Otto I of Carinthia, 10th century, m. Judith of Bavaria
10. Henry of Speyer, 10th century, m. Adelaide of Alsace
11. Conrad II of Germany, 990 -- 1039, m. Gisela of Swabia
12. Henry III of Germany, 1017 -- 1056, m. Agnes of Poitou
13. Henry IV of Germany, 1050 -- 1106, m. Bertha of Savoy
14. Agnes of Germany, 1072 -- 1143, m. Frederick I of Swabia
15. Frederick II of Swabia, 1090 -- 1147, m. Judith of Bavaria
16. Frederick I of Germany, 1122 -- 1190, m. Beatrice I of Burgundy
17. Henry VI of Germany, 1165 -- 1197, m. Constance of Sicily
18. Frederick II of Germany, 1194 -- 1250, m. Isabella of England
19. Margaret of Sicily, 1241 -- 1270, m. Albert II of Meissen
20. Frederick I of Meissen, 1252 -- 1323, m. Elizabeth of Lobdeburg-Arnshaugk
21. Frederick II of Meissen, 1310 -- 1349

Ernest I's wife was actually a 6-greats granddaughter of Frederick II:

21. Frederick II of Meissen, 1310 -- 1349, m. Mathilde of Bavaria
22. Elisabeth of Meissen, 1329 -- 1375, m. Frederick V of Nuremburg
23. Elisabeth of Nuremburg, 1358 -- 1411, m. Rupert II of the Rhine
24. Margaret of the Palatinate, 1376 -- 1434, m. Charles II of Lorraine
25. Catherine of Lorraine, 1407 -- 1439, m. Jacob of Baden
26. Margarete of Baden, 1431 -- 1457, m. Albert III of Brandenburg
27. John Cicero, Elector of Brandenburg, 1455 -- 1499, m. Margaret of Thuringia
28. Ursula of Brandenburg, 1488 -- 1510, m. Henry V of Mecklenburg-Schwerin
29. Sophie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, 1508 -- 1541, m. Ernest I of Brunswick-Lüneburg

Frederick I is also descended from Frederick II:

21. Frederick II of Meissen, 1310 -- 1349, m. Mathilde of Bavaria
22. Elisabeth of Meissen, 1329 -- 1375, m. Frederick V of Nuremburg
23. Frederick I of Brandenburg, 1371 -- 1440, m. Elisabeth of Bavaria
24. John of Brandenburg, 1406 -- 1464, m. Barbara of Saxe-Wittenberg
25. Dorothea of Brandenburg, 1430 -- 1495, m. Christian I of Denmark
26. Frederick I of Denmark, 1471 -- 1533

Robert II of France traces via Henry I of Germany:

6. Henry I of Germany, 876 -- 936, m. Matilda of Ringelheim
7. Hedwig of Saxony, 910 -- 965, m. Hugh the Great
8. Hugh of France, 939 -- 996, m. Adelaide of Aquitaine
9. Robert II of France, 972 -- 1031

Matrilineal lines next.

Explanations

Sorry I forgot to post yesterday; I went on a computer fast. Hopefully you'll see a mid-week post.

Matlang, Day 7

Hey y'all, it's back to Matlang.

In our continuing saga, I will start to outline my vision of Matlang grammar.

In English, the essence of the clause is in the verb. Look at the sentence now the whole world had one language and a common speech. The essence is in the verb, have. Everything else describes in detail that action of ownership. Who had, what was had? Everything else is an argument to the verb. I think, with my limited linguistic knowledge, that most languages are that way.

In Matlang, our goal was to create a language based off of principles of Material Logic. The fundamental concept of Material Logic is, in fact, concepts. There is also the principle of substance and accident: Substances are the essential, unchangeable, defining characteristics of a being, while accidents are things applying to it that are unessential and changeable. In other words, heads and modifiers.

But the substances are all nouns.

Therefore, we must in Matlang have clauses be based off of the noun. In the aforementioned sentence, it is the world which is the basis of the sentence.

Let's form a structure of the same sentence in Verb-based and Matlang terms:

Verb-Based
have{world
     -the
     -whole
     |{and|language
           -one
          |speech
           -a
           -common
-past
Matlang
world
-the
-whole
-have{{and|language
           -one
           -past
          |speech
           -a
           -common
           -past
-past


I'd like it to have a somewhat head-initial syntax, like world whole have language one speech common.

And for our first five words, they will be nouns:

1. Sōcrāt-, Socrates (duh)
2. pater-, father, ancestor
3. mater-, mother, origin
4. phrāter-, brother, friend (informal)
5. adelph-, brother, monk (formal)

Happy MLKJ Day

Sorry I forgot to post yesterday, so I'll just say Happy MLKJ Day.

In the spirit, should you donate to a civil rights group? Of course not, and this is why:

There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating: "For Whites Only." We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until "justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."

-- MLK's dream speech

Those were the injustices:

1. Racist policemen
2. Racist hotels
3. Poor black people
4. Racist water fountains and bathrooms
5. Racist polls

Hmm, how many of those really still exist in America? Only number 3, and that isn't a problem caused by racism. Trust me, when the civil rights people say "his work isn't finished" they lie so they can keep their jobs.

Why not just donate to an antipoverty group instead? After all, we are free at last to do so.

Thank God Almighty!

Positum Intitulō

This post is of multiple subjects, which is why it has no title.

Subject 1
I made it my goal to post once a week. I will do so every Sunday.

Subject 2
Last post I said that I would tell you about the papers. They included:

• A photocopy of a family record, showing the ancestors of my grandfather in two generations, including the names and BMD dates of Cora's parents. For those that don't know, BMD stands for birth-marriage-death, and Cora's parents were until now a mystery.
• A discharge record of my great-grandfather Frank Brown
• A letter to ditto from his cousin
• A handwritten poem about Father Christmas by my great-great grandfather
• A ditto about a boy drowning by ditto.

This leads to more research I will do over the summer, when I get an ancestry.com account:

• Search for immigration papers of Cora's parents (they were Norwegian), and after that birth records.
• Find out about my great-grandfather's regiment
• Do more research on his ancestry

Who knows what I'll find -- that's the beauty of genealogy.

Subject 3

I said that I was doing Perl; now I'm learning C++. So far I've managed to do, hmm, 0 successful programs.

I'm working on it.

Efharistó!

Geneology

I just found a case full of old documents; my great-great grandfather was a poet! More will come.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! There are two things to address on this first day of Anno Domini two-thousand and ten and one.

First, my new years resolution: to post more posts than last year. I did 27 last year, and that's every 13 days on average. I just have to make once a week, and that will easily break the record.

Second, I'm gonna tell you about the Emnonian calendar system.

There are twelve months, each with thirty days:

1. Spring
2. Latespring
3. Latterspring
4. Farfall
5. Formerfall
6. Earlifall
7. Fall
8. Autumn
9. Latefall
10. Latterfall
11. Winter
12. Earlispring

Mythday is put in-between Spring and Latespring, Latterspring and Farfall, Formerfall and Earlifall, Fall and Autumn, Latefall and Latterfall, and Winter and Earlispring.

Yearday is put before Spring every four years.

Efharisto!

Merry Christmas!

I just want to say Merry Christmas - in Emnonian: Mundeja ejut bebat Xristot muma se. Literally, this means may your celebration of Jesus' birth be happy. I have yet to go C.S. Lewis and incorporate Jesus into Gultz, so for now there isn't a common word for Christmas. Meanwhile, here's a link to my translation of the Christmas story.

Though it's been said, many times, many ways, Merry Christmas to you!

Decline of Definiteness

Why haven't you seen any Matlang posts? Blame the fact that Ιἐσούς Χρίστος' birthday is a bigger and busier holiday than His death/resurrection (which is probably more important).

Three days ago, the conlanging blog posted stuff about Google Ngram Viewer. Looking at it, I noticed that it showed the scale of percentage. I wondered what would be the most, and searched for the and a. No surprise that instead of being in the 0.000000s like constructed language, the and a were in the 1s.

I noticed a strict statistic. the has been steadily declining since 1850 (from 6% to currently 4.5%), while a has maintained 1.5%. Why is this?

The answer: I'm not a scholar, so I have no idea. Anyone who knows this can comment, and they will receive $0 plus a free review of any constructed language/world if they give me a link.

By the way, I originally decided to call this post the decline of definiteness, but to fit the mood changed it. Sorry for any inconvenience.

Efharistó!

Matlang, Day 6

I just realized I've posted every other day. I actually wrote this earlier, I just set it to post later.

At the bottom is an .sc file of the sound changes. It's for Mark Rosenfelder's Sound Change Applier, I should write a review of it one of these days :).

Anyways, this a declension of ferō to bear:

   Matlang      Latin        Greek
ferō   feromes ferō ferimus ferō   feromen
fereri ferete  fers fertis  fereis ferete
fereti feront  fert ferunt  ferei  ferousi

This is assuming Matlang is descended from PIE. But it isn't; it's descended from Pre-Matlang. Which means we can supply changes to Pre-Matlang:

  Pre-Matlang       Matlang
*ferō   *feromes   ferō  feromes
*fereis *feretis → ferīs feretis
*fereit *ferount   ferīt ferount


But wait. Wasn't the entire point of Pre-Matlang to have agglunative endings which wear away into inflections in Matlang? And wasn't this whole project supposed to be based off of Material Logic? This means we can scrap the verbs and start over...with nouns. Until next time...

--

C=mnpbftdþkgxqGQsrlywRL
V=eaoiuëäöêâôîû
S=tdþ
K=kgx
W=qGQ
H=fþx
P=ptk
D=bdg
Y=kgxqGQy
F=ie
B=uo
Ä=ëäö
N=pbkgs
*Labiovelars
W/S/_F
W/S/u_
W/S/_u
q/k/B_
q/k/_B
G/1/n_
Q/1/n_
G/w/_
Q/w/_
n1/nG/_
*Aspirates
H/D/V_V
þ/b/u_
þ/b/r_
þ/b/_r
þ/b/_l
*s
s/r/V_V
s/1/_P
s/h/#_
1/s/_P
*Liquids
y//V_V
*Beschwaed vowels
Ä//_#
Ä/a/_
*Beiotaed vowels
ei/ê/_Y
ei/î/_
ôi/ê/_
âi/ê/_
*Syllabics
R/ra/N_
L/la/N_
R/ra/#_
L/la/#_
R/or/_
L/ol/_
*spelling
f/ph/_
þ/th/_
x/ch/_
q/1u/_V
q/que/_
1/q/_u
g/1u/_V
g/gue/_
1/g/_u

Matlang, Day 5

Sorry if the last post was weird; blame Blogger. Now that we have a full inventory, it's time to work on sound changes.

Though we will keep the basic inventory the same, we will use some sound changes which we will apply to endings. All are based off of changes from PIE to Latin or Greek:

1. Morphing of Labiovelars:
1. kw, gw, kwh → t, d, th / _(i,e)
2. kw, gw, kwh → k, g, gh / (u)_(u)
3. kw → k / (o,u)_(o,u)
4. gw, gwh → w / [-n]_
2. Morphing of Aspirates:
1. ph, th, kh → b, d, g / V_V
2. th → b / (u,r)_(r,l)
3. gwh → gw / _
3. Morphing of s
1. s → r / V_V
2. s → h / #_[-plosive -voice]
4. Morphing of Liquids:
1. y → 0 / V_V
5. Morphing of -ə:
1. Və → 0 / _#
2. Və → a / _
6. Morphing of -i:
1. ei → ē / _([+dorsal -w])
2. ei → ī / _
3. ōi, āi → ē / _
7. Morphing of Syllabic Liquids
1. ṟ, ḻ → ra, la / (p,b,k,g,s,#)_
2. ṟ, ḻ → or, ol / _