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    • Showing only topics with the tag "linguistics". Back to normal view

    5. What features would you add to languages?

      ~talk Text 179 words
      If you had the option to add new features to your primary language, what would they be? Is there something from a foreign language you'd like to import to your primary language? A couple examples:...

      If you had the option to add new features to your primary language, what would they be? Is there something from a foreign language you'd like to import to your primary language?

      A couple examples:

      • A prefix to indicate intensity or degree. BBS/early hacker jargon had terms like "k-rad" to mean 1000x (2^10?) as radical as "rad" without the prefix.
        That Montessori preschool was t-cool but why would they think calling it "Hobbledehoy" was a good idea?
      • Making an indication of how confident you are in an a statement obligate and easy. I hedge all the time because I think it's important to convey, but it's clunky. We do a bit of that non-verbally but that doesn't translate to text, and has the other complications of non-verbal cues.
        It would be nice if there was an established vocabulary to quickly convey things like "experienced first-hand, repeatedly", "99% certain", "I've heard but never looked into", etc. From there it would be nice if this was as required as the gender, in gendered languages.
      12 votes

    44. Anyone here into conlanging?

      ~humanities.languages Ask (survey)
      I've been creating new languages for a few years now. I like to do it in my spare time, which becomes smaller and smaller each year, mostly from proto-languages that already exist. I'm currently...

      I've been creating new languages for a few years now. I like to do it in my spare time, which becomes smaller and smaller each year, mostly from proto-languages that already exist. I'm currently working on a Slavic language in Belarus and Ukraine for fun. Anyone else into this stuff or wanna know more about conlanging in general?

      25 votes