This is a game of borrowing and loaning words! To give our conlangs a more naturalistic flair, this game can help us get realistic loans into our language by giving us an artificial-ish "world" to pull words from!
The Telephone Game will be posted every Monday and Friday, hopefully.
Rules
1) Post a word in your language, with IPA and a definition.
Note: try to show your word inflected, as it would appear in a typical sentence. This can be the source of many interesting borrowings in natlangs (like how so many Arabic words were borrowed with the definite article fossilized onto it! algebra, alcohol, etc.)
2) Respond to a post by adapting the word to your language's phonology, and consider shifting the meaning of the word a bit!
3) Sometimes, you may see an interesting phrase or construction in a language. Instead of adopting the word as a loan word, you are welcome to calque the phrase -- for example, taking skyscraper by using your language's native words for sky and scraper. If you do this, please label the post at the start as Calque so people don't get confused about your path of adopting/loaning.
u/Yzak20When you want to make a langfamily but can't more than one lang.15h ago
on a technical level
Alert is used when the speaker is being careful, attentive, deliberate, or precise. Words tend to retain their more specific or literal meanings, and distinctions that might be blurred in casual speech are more likely to be maintained.
Relaxed is used in casual, familiar, or low-attention situations. Words can have broader, looser, metaphorical, or more context-dependent meanings. Speakers may use a word for a related concept without needing to make the distinction explicit.
more broadly
Alert is the default register Boglins use when they leave their houses, interact with strangers or someone they don't trust fully.
When they're comfortable they relax their pronunciation a bit lowering their vowels and the meanings of words get more... relaxed, a word meaning "to drown, flood" may lessen and be used for stuff like "to overflow, spill, crowd" like with a container. A word that specifically refers to people within their group/species becomes a word to mean anyone independent of species
vuh[vux] n. children’s party (onomatopeic: the sound made by children when get surprised about the big and joyful presence of friends invited and the gift they carry).
okmɒj- a pillar spesifically made for an flying animal,ɰɒjhɒɰ to make nests on and for it to help farm lands get rid of rodent-like creatures that might eat vegetables
Akýxribat'eyẖi ŕrs hár︭r dáan-kehó lá x︭rrt’ŕrs bàa oxrŕrr̤.
/aˈký.ʀə.ba.tʼe.yr̥ː.ə ŕ̩s r̥árː dɔ́n.keˈr̥ó lá ʀːɾ̩tʼˈŕ̩s bɔ̀ oˈʀŕ̩ɾ/
Akýxribat'e's spring fur and mane are very eye-catching.
akýxribat'e-yẖi ŕrs hár︭r dáa -n- kehó lá
akýxribat'e-ANIM.POSS fur of leaf-INAN.PL-first and
x︭rrt’-ŕrs bàa oxrŕr~r̤
AUG- fur be bold~very
Context: Speakers of this lang are not human. They are marsupials that evolved convergently with hominins in the Americas. They are sexually dimorphic, especially so in the spring when the manes (a ruff of fur around the neck/chest/upper back of both sexes) of the men grow bigger and bushier and their coat colours and patterns become especially bold and high-contrast.
織何 我 它被 語後 儞 火枝些被 手。 Rí dzi ke lóma tá cezyámumé zwéh!
/ɾi˥ d͡zi kɛ lo˥-ma ta˥ ɕɛ.zʲa˥m-ɯm-ɛ˥ zʷɛ˥h/
when 1SG 3SG.INAN.ACC say-FUT 2PL musket-PL-ACC use “Fire your muskets at my command!”
知死生星 mâyes /ma˥˩.jɛs/ n. the knowledge that one will die yet choosing to live in spite of it, existentialism, absurdism
雲哪 生 織 知死 知死生星到。 Zené ku a ywóm mâyesí.
/zɛn-ɛ˥ kɯ a ɥo˥m ma˥˩.jɛs-i˥/
live-PROG be REL existential_dread existentialism-TRANS “Life is about existential dread becoming existential acceptance.”
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u/StarfighterCHADFyuc [fjut͡ʃ], Çelebvjud [d͡zələˈb͡vjud], Peizjáqua [peːˈʒɑkʷə]21h agoedited 7h ago
Çelebvjud
drîî [dʀɨː*] *v.
to fear
to be afraid
Nix çics t͡sud drîî nemi drî ghesst mi.
[nik͡s d͡zit͡ss t͡sud dʀɨː nəˈmi dʀɨ ɣəsːt mi]
nix çic -s cud drîî nemi drî ghes-st mi
only thing-ACC 4.PN COP.SJV.PRS fear.INF fear.NOM RFLX-INS COP.PRS
Zabzddolhęttvi Dialect
(future language, evolved from Ąą’vo Tì)
sivi, sivu- noun - bird (nondescript)
nęs’sivu yâ augga
[nəsivo yo ogːa]
nə -siv -o yo ogː -a
prp-bird-PL NEG kill-IMPFV
the verb augg, augga highlights the collapse of the transitivity system in the descendents of Ąą’vo Tì. It was already weird in Ąą’vo Tì because it was a transitive verb realised as an intransitive verb with an indirect object. But once indirect object agreement is lost, along with all semblance of a regular conjugation, most verbs give up. So there’s a weird system where alignment is either marked on the verb or the noun, but some verbs do both and some do neither
"I saw an osprey on/at the lake, and (I) caught a fish there."
There is no information about the subject in the second clause, so the same subject is inferred. If the osprey were to be the one catching the fish, the dedicated Object>Subject swapping particle would be used instead of the clause joiner:
djuviň[‘djuviɲ] n. wooden sculpture, big wooden piece with recalling shapes djuviňi[‘djuviɲi] adj. pertaining to woodwork djuvišk[‘djuviʃk] n. Woodworker, carpenter
syol syotawa [ˈɕo̞ː.l̩ ˈɕoːtɑ̤ːɰɑ̤ː]
n. floccinaucinihilipilification, laziness, listlessness, lethargy
nothing-DAT nothing-CAUSF-PASS.ABSTR
“doing nothing for nothing”
syol syotawa enwi on kok eng wote ale
Laziness is killing our planet
[laziness] TOP-CAUSF 1IP world SBJ dead-COP ABSTR-DAT.COP
Thanks to laziness, our world is headed to being dead
sylzjat[‘sɨlzjat] n. laziness, idleness sylzjati[‘sɨlzjati] adj. lazy, idle sylzjata[‘sɨlzjata] v. being lazy, doing nothing (productive)
Compound of syl “only” and zjata “to sit”.
-Set ižbunat sylzjatkem! -Gut jemon, ce zim sylzjati čemek? -Šnja! Vjar aunim dimepmen, kežnoh dimebgen, vim setet sylzjata!
rospen[‘rospen] n. apology rospeni[‘rospeni] adj. apologising, relative to an apology rosnet[‘rosnet] intj. sorry, excuse me. Contraction of “(prinvačam) rospenet”.
-Rosnet! -Bukrut ce sustixal syl en rospen? -Ui tos sustixal, vesk rospeni urmot ki sustixal?
[‘rosnet]
[‘bukrut t͡se ‘sustiksal sɨl en ‘rospen]
[ui̯ tos ‘sustiksal vesk ‘rospeni ‘urmot ki ‘sustiksal]
INTJ
believe.IPFV.PRS-2SG that be.enough.PFV.PRS-3SG only an apology
And what be.enough.PFV.PRS-3SG if apologising word NEG be.enough.PFV.PRS-3SG
-Sorry! -Do you believe an apology is enough? -What is enough if not an apologising word?
bihánhnâ (bihánciþ), bihóng, bihóncu, bihánhnas /bɪˈhɑ̃xˌnɑ̃, biˈhɑ̃cˌɪθ, biˈhɔ̃g, biˈhɔ̃ˌcu, biˈhɑ̃xˌnas/ v.S6. to anaesthetize (strong verb class 6) (more formal or scholarly anaesthesia than the native word daubinâ, for which cf. Germ. betäuben "to numb", En. deafen)
Biháncistæ alzábri.
/biˈhɑ̃kɪˌstæ ɑlˈzɑˌbri/ Bihánc-ist-æ alzábr-i.
anaesthetize-2SG.PRS-PASS surgery-DAT
"You will be anaesthetized for the surgery."
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u/Zephreyt Strialmst 1d ago edited 1d ago
Yhó
枱會 wǔh /wɯ˩˥h/
n. feast, big celebration
咱 八五廿 起前、枱會被 做問。
Á lywásúksán yū́ro, wǔhe slúu.
/a˥ ʎʷa˥-sɯ˥k-sa˥n ju˥-ɾo | wɯ˩˥h-ɛ slɯ˥-ɯ/
1PL eight-five-twenty reach-PF | celebration-ACC do-SJV
“We just reached 800, let’s do a celebration.”