LangTime Studio, Episode 31: Creating a Language Family

This is a topic that we have been asked about a few times, really, and so I thought it would be good to start here so just first and foremost, as you know. reminder, a language family is really just a way that we talked about a group of languages that can be historically traced back to the same mother language, and so they come from the same historical source.

Which means that if you are creating a con like family that means you're making multiple languages from the same credit forms and so just like put that out there, before we start, so I don't want to make assumptions that's good. Well, thank you, thank you, and this is something that I know David has done. A little bit yeah. Because for high valerian you also needed to make a story yeah you're in there, you also you know way back when this would have been in.

let's see I was in that room, so it would have been 2001 we did a little. Little. Language family experiment on the contact list, where a number of us took the same proto language and each of us who evolved. Our own version of it mine was called on glutes and.

said that sounds like oh what's The thing that they play in the office Jim and Pam the when they have a longer term Thank you like that's what it reminds me of it and it's it sounds like it had about as much thought put into it the name does. And then the name was probably better than the language itself. pollutes and yeah that is amazing, and so what we're going to be talking about like some advice that that.

Maybe will help if you're going to be doing this and ways to think about different kinds of situations that can happen historically. So of course not going to be exhaustive, of all the ways that languages can can change within families, but just to give you some some different ideas, if this is something you're interested in doing. Of course, this also means that you do need a proto form so remember that all of this is based on you coming up with some proto forums to start the whole process.

The number one thing, though, that I think that you need to start with, is to figure out some sort of timeline and it doesn't and I don't mean like specific like. 50 years later this happens, none of that just really just saying I want you know this speaking community to break off here I want this to break off here so that way you can keep. Essentially, by stage of development, which languages are following the same path which are going different.

You know, some sort of timeline I mean it's not a bad idea to have a real timeline it's just more effort than I usually put in more effort and it's also difficult, I think. In other world development to really think through How long do these changes take to happen. And so, like because sometimes we get questions like is this realistic for 100 years, and you know within the language development.

and honestly the answers always it depends because it's like were they relatively stable for those hundred years or were they all over the place where the where the speaker is going through great changes, where they. You know it's like you really have to know what happens in those hundred years and, like you, can't even compare like, if you look at. English as development you look at 100 year segment versus another hundred year segment and you're going to see like.

Very different amounts of changes happening, but it's all because of what was going on, you know, politically and and within the speaking communities and so. I think it's really you can definitely create an actual timeline i'm not saying don't do that but i'm also saying it's not necessarily something you have to do to be able to make a language family.

All right, and so start with a timeline in your timeline you want to make sure you indicate how many daughter languages, you want because it's kind of important to know. If you are making a family yeah how many are you creating it's got to be at least two it to have a family that is best you know, yes. And so i'm going to stop here on my advice for the timeline and go to an actual little timeline image and just say like let's just say you want.

Three daughter languages, and so they all this is situation, one which, unfortunately, our little speaker screen may cover situation, one up in the corner, which is really unfortunate as you're watching this and you shrink it. I unfortunately I found out the hard way that on zoom whatever you do to your screen on the speaker view does not take away the speaker view.

Man unless you completely turn off the camera I think if somebody knew that they would have probably put say the word situation, one down there. You would think but I forgot that when we were doing this. But whatever right it's fine it's fine he situation, one got it, you know what most of you are listening anyway, and not even watching, and so it doesn't even matter what the screen looks like sure it's listening.

And not watching they're just sitting there on their phones so situation, one is that we have some proto language, a and three groups split off roughly the same. You know time frame, and so it just goes in three directions and we've got languages B, C and D and there so absolutely gorgeous slide I love it Oh, thank you.

So this is situation, one, and this situation is similar to what we did well, it really is what we did for our produce sketch challenge for link time chat and episode 25 minutes right because we had one credit form, and then we had six of us. ended up doing the challenge, and so we ended up with like six daughter languages that all broke off from the same proto forums and like there was no communication among us to be like Oh, we want to have these changes in common.

So any changes that were in common were purely coincidental three completely No six in that case completely different languages, resulting from it, and so. All that is to say the daughters split off from the proto form all language development independent from the others, this is situation, one Okay, this is one way that language families.

Start not really excited for situation, too, but first a little example Okay, so this is from the challenge no yeah, so this is just a show like again how different things can happen so we had a bass pro form in. The meantime chat challenge, who yeah which meant person case you forgot and it's three of the six resulting were quake. Because we had some tonal languages kusa was yours and then Korea.

was another one, and so, like you can see, like they sound very different, of course, you can see similarities, because they were based on the same route so it's like you still have. Some some of those similarities there but they were really quite different, most of us, though don't have. Like other people helping us develop a family and so that adds an added layer of challenge because it's you coming up with all the different.

Changes to run each daughter through right it's you coming up with all of this on your own, let me tell you, though, if you trust the color though it can be really cool and. You know, it could also be like you know disaster you don't just you know doing this, you know mousy little garbage where it's like no don't just I didn't like that.

So this doggy stuff, shall we say, oh my gosh oh my gosh no it's pasta me where it's just like you know you've gone through the trouble of creating a really cool authentic daughter language and then they're like you know. We decided to just take the words for man, woman and throw them on the ends of verbs and have them be conjugation and then also child and then also dog and cat and it's just like oh God done what depends on that's when that daughter language dies down to marry boy.

So yeah that does require trust, if you do have trust in the other calling or so obviously this is sort of an easier way to make sure you have very distinct languages, because you know you're just doing it on your own group. But most of us when we sit down to make a language family aren't going to have that ability and so there's that added challenge of not getting inside your own head of Am I making these daughters different enough, like, I think that.

It feels like you have to do, radical things when you're sitting down and like planning it out like Oh, you know, like all of the changes have to be different, all of them need to be. completely different, I think we kind of get in our own heads that way when in reality it's like but remember. The language is still need to look related to actually feel like a family, so you know they're there do still need to be strains that you can really feel those similarities.

And also, as a way of showing you that sometimes some words just don't change that much in our challenge. The word for daisy started out as haley and almost every single form in the modern form was haley yeah that's pretty maybe with tone in it, maybe with a long Val like haley. But, like the only one that was actually really different was yours, and it was either day.

Instead of a daily because there was like some metastasis or something or like wow had changed because there's something and another. But also the only one that like even had a different form the rest of them were almost identical on the surface. And that's from again completely different con lingers not talking to each other and putting you know these changes into action, so these letters are probably shouldn't be those letters anymore.

Because mine was previously see yeah I was just doing an example Dave. You don't have to be represented every slide well, I was just saying I don't even know who this haley is now, who is that, who is that, who is this see oh. Are they getting called my see I don't know, I was really liking that letter i've just been staring at it it's gorgeous better than de. De for David, no one cares but anyway, anyway, so, but that is just a reminder that as you're making these changes and applying them.

it's okay if you're like oh my gosh these platforms didn't really change very much across the languages, I mean this is why we can recognize. Words in Spanish, English and you know other languages, where it's like Oh, those are similar yeah it happens now Okay, so that situation, one they will break off early same time. Alright, so sometimes, though, what you will see is that some language features and shifts are shared amongst some daughters and not others.

And so, if this is part of your plan, make sure you indicate, you know, again, where the splits happen. So, looking at situation to this was the original split where it's just a split into three languages, at the same time, roughly. However, you could add a bit of a wrinkle and say that language see david's favorite split off into two distinct languages. Which means that languages E and F are going to share things in common that language is being D don't.

Because if you recall again if you're not looking at the screen there is going to be a PDF of this attached to the the post on patreon, of course. But what's happening here is we start with proto a it splits off into B, C and D. B and D just develop a single languages here but see splits off into E and F. And so, this is where you're going to see some of those micro relationships, where it's you know you can go all the way back to the proto forms and see how they're all related.

But he and I are going to be much more similar and form and shape than B and D will be to any of them yeah, so this is kind of like I guess a be proto Indo European D amp D, or like Armenian and Iranian, and this is in see would be. what's one that only split off in it to. Not only entity that's hard that is yeah David is leaving so difficult he's leaving. Or maybe he's getting resources to be able to answer that question. He just he just stops and links.

But this is another situation that you can have again, though, you need to make sure you document. Which changes are applying to which end at which stage so that way you know, for instance, that you know language he is going to have these features distinct from F, but they still share these in common, because that was something that its ancestor did before they split off. Without any sort of input from wherever David when i'm going to move on to the next one.

and hope that's okay i'm rory john that was it like there is it, I have some mega examples coming but I need to get through these situations, you disappeared. Though your opinion, Jeremy JEREMY to wait until you get this answer. Really hold on. hold on. don't. Forget it nevermind Okay, thank you nevermind all right okay.

So another thing to think about in your timeline is whether there's any sort of language contact going on, or, of course, if the language you know this weekend community is so isolated that it's completely unaffected by. Everything else around it and so that leads us to situation three where, for example, we had split off into we have you know languages bmd remember see it split off into languages enough.

But let's say the speakers of you know, language F move to a location close to language D, and so it had some of it had some influence from language D to create language g. And so there's some little language contact going on.

Where now language F has split off because some of it speaker stayed in its original spot some of it speakers, though moved into an area where they had a lot of contact with speakers from language D. This kind of situation usually it's going to affect the lexicon most and so. on the screen, I have a thicker arrow from the F bar yeah to indicate that this is still really related more to language F than it is D, but there's going to be enough lexical.

additions from language D coming into it, that it really is distinct now and it is its own language, it is G, and this is kind of. I won't say similar. Okay it's kind of similar but you know, like when English was very heavily influenced by French and it's like the vocabulary changed a whole lot.

The reason I say it's not really the same as we don't have an English that was affected by the French to say look, this is how English developed without the French influence, and this is how it developed with it. I was thinking of Romanian That would be a better example with the Slavic influence yes um so that's because this can be a lot of fun and, of course, like all of these things are a ton of fun, but.

The the sticking point or the difficult part or the time intensive part is that you actually have to have these languages, before you can actually do the interesting stuff yeah. Which is why sometimes it can be fun if, like you just have a couple different people working on a couple different families that are supposed to be in the same area, and then you know you reconvene after a year you start the intermingling.

and be like, I want to work with your language and not with yours yeah i'll take these words, for me, but not that. Oh, my gosh Could you imagine like a model UN situation for complainers. Where you're like all in a room together and it's like all right listen, I hear you're cooking is great i'm going to borrow some cooking terms and some dishes from you. And you know, like you decide really dramatically because that's how borrowing happens it's not just random and piecemeal it's.

Oh you're really you know, like you've set up quite a trading Center so i'm going to learn certain terms, I need for trading like money terms, and you know specific goods that we're going to want to trade and like this is how it happens, but would that be.

Do funny funny stuff reminds me of Japanese it's like okay we're going to take Curry from you actually it'd be better if we did this this and this actually you know what now it's going to be this and, by the way, it's pretty much our national dish now. don't worry we're still going to call it Curry rice borrowed from English. And so yeah things like that happen also This is just within the same family, of course, you could have another situation situation three be.

Where one of the daughter languages is influenced from some outside force or outside language, and so in this slide i've added language ah we've now split off again, where the. Language D speakers one of its communities got influenced from some unknown outside arrow coming in. it's not at all related to anything that is going on with the rest of the daughter languages yeah that would be similar to ask for a Bulgarian been.

Getting a lot of vocabulary and some structural similarities from discovery. Which is not from the same language family, whereas you know with the Romanian and Slavic example, they are from the same language family right right and so and that. adds a further interesting wrinkle because, especially if the languages are so different. That the sounds don't really line up in the same way, because then you get to have some fun decisions about like yeah they borrow this word but they don't have.

Half the sounds or they don't have it all the same syllable structure, and so you know how are they going to end up borrowing these terms, again, this would usually be a heavier influence on lexicon. You know from outside sources than anything else, but having to figure out how to borrow those words phonetically is fun yeah a really interesting case study would be.

A Thai language, which has borrowed so much terminology from Hindi and Sanskrit and the two phonology they couldn't be more different it's just. I don't even know how it's done honestly it, it seems impossible, I mean there's just so many consonant clusters in Hindi and no tone and then, then you know zero consonant clusters and tone. In Thai but they seem to make it work in that is another interesting thing, especially if you have a tonal calm lane.

Because it's I think easier to envision borrowing from a tonal language to a non tonal where it's like well you just get rid of the tones and whatever you're left with. it's totally it's going to be like a totally different word of like they ever heard it in the native language that you borrowed it from kind of like how we bird all the you know terms from Chinese and did not bring tone with it yeah.

I think it's much harder to conceive How are they going to add tone in a way that's meaningful and relevant to the way that the language system works. In terms of like is it then based on similarities, as well the syllables quite often end up having high tone so it's just going to like by analogy have high tone. Is it like borrowed words have a certain tonal pattern and it's like you just kind of do that generically unless speakers do something different, like it's so.

Interesting to me to think about how that could work well it's kind of like with English when we hear words from language as tone like Chinese. And then we repeat it back English Lee like we hear the tone and assign stress somehow we figure out how stress should be and we assign it. The same happens in reverse they hear stress, if your speakers of tonal language and they figure out how that maps to the tone closest and just kind of go with it.

And yeah there are rules that will change, depending on the language so you just have to kind of set up your tonal language and then figure it out, once you have stressed words to borrow. As well seriously can't stop thinking about our model coddling UN that needs to happen now. And we got to record the whole thing. Alright, so this is just an overview of some of the like major ways that that languages can break off and so thinking about.

How do you want this to happen, do you want some daughters to share some features and not others like How exactly do you want this to go i'm going to do. A very brief example where I also talk about why documentation is so important yeah very thorough documentation so that way you keep track of which features are relevant, at which point in the timeline.

So that way when you need to create a new word, and you know, like Okay, I want this to be a really old word so it's going to go all the way back to the photo stage. that's one thing, but what happens when you want to create a new word that you know language see developed, and so it is not shared with languages bmd, but it is passed down to languages, the NF and then run through their change like you need to know where the language was.

When that new word was developed at whatever point yeah thorough documentation which you know, David and I excel at. At all times started coming in, oh yeah alright so for each stage of development, you want to make sure you have track of what sound changes are applicable like up to this point, and then, from this point on.

What grammar developments have there been and so where's the you know current state of basic grammar features and that will come that's important for everything from like understanding if there's already inflections to what derivations there are. To also like how compounds will be formed things you know things like that, and then also any lexical you know growth or shifts as speakers move about new words happen.

So a quick example, are you ready for that oh i'm super excited okay so for one coddling I did like I actually had envisioned a language family. It has not yet happened, but I envisioned it, so I have a whole scenario, and I have like historical reasons for these speaking communities to be like breaking off and I actually did a whole timeline thing by year, like, I was that person, because I am that person and when did.

um well I mapped this all out it's been a while it's probably 2017 really mapped it all out. it's been a while I have a whole story going on it's nothing's happened with it, but it's still a story in my head can something still happen with. Something can always happen with things at some point in some future if I ever have time to do things and some people are still interested.

yeah, how can we do the quick example, and then we can talk about this story which is not that big, I think that even the people listening are quite intrigued. me I don't have something like that alright so here was the map, a true. So this is a hand drawn map of an island, and this is where my language, family was going to grow, or maybe we'll groom someday.

There was, there are a variety of terrains which plays an important role to this island offers sort of a bit of all the climates that you could hope to have from. Like kind of. marshy forests to what I call the the badlands which is like not desert, because there are these giant trees that like don't grow we use. yeah like so enormous that they kind of take over the landscape and you can live in them it's the ghost section that's where the ghosts are like in length Oh, that would be.

there's also like a really large mountainous area that for most of it is you know not populated just because it's so mountainous. there's even a tundra like there's little those little purple dots are the tundra flowers, are these mountains. Those are types of trees have these were mountains sorry, no, no mountains up top, and this is some giant waterfalls coming on the mountains, where it drops.

That, and then we go into like a hilly region and so it's like lots of hills, is it then kind of flattens out and then what you get at the left or the rocky cliffs. And so it's like it just drops off huge drop off, whereas like so there's no way to port on the West side.

that's like huge cliffs if you were to come into the island you'd have to come in on the South side because that's the only place that you can actually get in easily and so anyway yeah This is my little island so we've got all these different terrains. The speakers of the original language came from another land, but they were run out of it, and so the produce stage is that they were somewhere else right.

And then they they came into that southern area where it's possible to actually get into the island. out the produce stage, this is what i've labeled as language, a you know they've already gotten established word order they've got 10 subject verb agreement some noun cases and basic derivations. But what's important is that these inflections are set, they haven't yet all become like so grammatical lies that they're actually attached to reach it right like it's just like.

they've got these in the protest stages. When they get to their new location of course there's some immediate you know language changes that happen, just because they need to describe brand new surroundings and so you know, like some new compounds and things like that to describe these things. That their language didn't have words for because they just didn't have it in their old location.

And so on this, by the way, what I did was I took that hand drawn map and then I outlined and then I just color coded it by region so that way it was easier to see so it was really hard to write on top of the the map with all of the the coding. And so, this is where the language starts. So this is example now from here on out in the example i'm going to actually give forms, this is not a language i've actually developed, yet this is just I want to show you.

How you could end up with some very different languages from one Prudhoe Okay, so I created just some roots put them together and created a sentence in proto proto a, and so the sentences a rabbit chase to firefly and you're that tree that was it pronounced. Like it looks i've done your romanization system okay so and for those who aren't watching or are simply listening, how would that be pronounce i'll I will pronounce it, but you need to not judge my pronunciation.

You are you saying how is it like how do I not judge your pronunciation I get it, I get it all right so who you to use now who moves fee down by yeah I like that Okay, so this is the pro stage now to break it down for you is the word for rabid it's just a route. Use not breaks down to spark bug, which was a new compound because they didn't have fireflies until they moved to this area moves is a verb meaning to chase and but I is a root meaning tree.

The grammatical portions are that hook which originally meant to take has become used as an object marker so for like the accusative case feed is a verb meaning to finish, and that is being used as a prospective. marker for the the chasing dough comes from a root meaning ground or place and it's used as a proximal demonstrative so it's that tree and then he comes from a root meaning to stand, but it is also now being used like radicalized as a post position, meaning near close to or next to.

And so that's the grammatical pieces that have come together Okay, we on board so we're about to do a whole lot of changes four stages. Alright Stage one. Community breaks off there's been a major rift, it has to do with magical powers it's a whole thing. One group of speakers is like done and out very early on in these rifts in the Community, and so this is language be and they move out to the western those rocky areas and so they're out on the cliffs and so now we have language amb.

Language a down there and that southern forested area experienced some changes, and so I decided that dip songs beginning with a high value shifted to glide onset so he becomes yeah we becomes we etc. And the inflections merged to become suffixes compounds are realized as one word so now the input was the proto form which i've already read out loud.

The output is now at the end of Stage one those speakers who are still down in that southern area would say the sentence who you choose no hook movie doubt right yeah. Okay, so that's the new new output for Stage one of the language, a speaker's. Be they broke off real hard there dip thongs actually separated, there is a slight sort of glottal stop inserted between the balance so it's actually like they became instead of.

It became like who you so they kind of separated and enclose syllables the high vowels lowered okay right, so this is language, be this isn't. I was, I was mistaken this isn't like this is sound change one, and this is soundstage to the first one was the people who stayed behind the second one or the breakers, yes, God, are the ones that are over on the cliffs now okay so they're dip songs broke. And enclose syllables the high value lowered, so he lowered the a and move over to go.

So this is also an introduction by the way, because a an old new values for the language, yes, so now the input being the same as the input for language, a at the end of Stage one the output is quite different, we have. to lose now hope most feed that will probably yeah okay that don't worry the language be speakers realized real quick that's going to have to be smooth out don't you worry. So I also have little mid stage slides to remind you, where we are Stage one.

amb have split be is now on the cliffs a is still on this other marshy beautiful forest area alright, are you ready for stage. That was just two changes, by the way, yeah. All right, stage two, there are still a lot of speakers down in that southern area in that a language, a speaking community. Be, of course, has already been split off so they're still doing their own thing.

However, now another group splits off from that southern portion they go into the eastern badlands, and this is language see. And so every ball of these people they're looking at this island and say wow look at this beautiful forested grassy area with two rivers that are right next to each other, I like.

yeah anyway so that's easy to get through, so that we can get to our cliffs and our desert badlands said, you want to know why yeah Okay, the speakers for be moved that way, first and foremost, just because the easier passage way that way.

but also because they are the non magic's so they don't have any magical power and they wanted to be the cliffs offered more wind power and things that they could use for their technology they were developing and so they are using what is available to them for what they need.

The group that breaks off to the eastern badlands or an element controllers and they were more interesting storms and things going on there that they could actually work with okay like do things so they have reasons for settling in these areas. I told you there's a whole story. Alright, so stage two, we now have three languages, but again, the largest speaking community is still a down in that southern area okay so let's just run through some additional shifts that happened at stage to.

The a the southern speakers, we have three new sound changes what you see on the slide if you're looking at this slide is the input from Stage one of language, a So this is the new sort of. proto part to form yeah and so that way you can see, well at stage two when these new three changes are introduced this is where you know language, a stood at the time.

So now palatable glides are going to actually palatable is a consonant if it comes, you know, after a consonant dip thongs a and I will merge to become a an oh. So now, they also have those same sounds and then, when to non nasal consonants appear side by side, you know constant cluster or not no just side by side rather sorry not even cluster the second consonant takes the voicing, of the one before so we get some voicing assimilation.

Non nice holes importance we didn't get witless measles so here the output is now for language, a speaker's the southern speakers, we have viewed choose know who moves ve w yeah. And so we've got some some changes just slight but changes going on there and we got the chat, which is very important questions comments know. You ready for what's going to happen.

These are the language see speakers and i'm presenting their language next, because if you recall they're going to have the same input from the language speakers, because they were down in the south right. they've now broken off, and so there are two new changes are applying to what they already had come out with at the end of Stage one as previous language speakers.

So here, they also have voicing a simulation but it goes the opposite direction, and so the first consonant takes the voicing, of the one following it. And then initial syllables actually received the stress here and unstressed syllable lose their kota consonant if the kota consonant was voice the balcony linkedin as sort of compensatory thing, so now language see at the end of Stage two is will do us know who most fi debris if. You have a question mark the length. The only us know who.

But that last. A voiceless kota. kota cancer is voiced go got it got it got it so only happens if if it was voiced here it didn't affect it and so yeah Q snow hook becomes gears now who because this does not have the palette realization and so the T combo is treated us just two continents. And so, that is, see over on our cliffs language be, of course, it's still shifting because times are changing.

Here unstressed words lose their unstressed syllable stress falls on the penultimate syllable or a final heavy syllable. And compounded forums, have the heaviest stress on ahead word but they're still treated as sort of like separate units they're not quite like joining together like we see words and other things. But here we're starting to have some some dropping of unstressed unstressed syllable where it's like you're in a word that we don't stress anyway.

and your unstressed syllable is so unstressed it disappears and so now the output for language be at the end of stage to whoever T snow hope most fi Deborah er. And so we've we've dropped some things there. it's actually quite a fun way you can do in just four stages.

Alright, so here's here's our standings end of stage to pure looking at this slide what you're going to see is obviously what you see for like language, a and language C is much more similar than what you see over and language be which broke off earlier.

Okay Stage Three, finally, yes, yes stage three, we have a group of speakers breaking off and they move to the beautiful hills right at the base of the waterfalls you know great great water source big rivers and it's hilly and brassy and beautiful and so. David is like I get it, I would move there to this is like when you're doing a draft and like you know if you're doing a draft lottery and you're slotted fourth and you're like oh my God.

Then the draft actually happens and it's like he has that one for the first one, they chose that for the second page shows that, for the third. And then you're like all right i'll take grudgingly. Shall I take my rivers and trees and hills and rolling hills and rolling hills alright so Stage Three. down in the south, we still have language speakers, the Community is you know, of course, growing because population growth, but like in terms of people splitting up a lot of people keep leaving.

So Stage Three a speakers have a couple more changes here where to frickin lives. appearing side by side second one becomes a stop, so it kind of like fortifies I guess you could say kind of assimilation assimilation, would be a better way of putting that and then the w everywhere just shifts to a V. It just does, and so the output here is viewed choose no hook moves be though better yeah, and so this is the end of Stage Three down in the south.

right language D, which has recently broken off and move to the hills and the kota free quick, it is our last. week break it is lost in kota position and demonstrative or realizes prefixes, and so this is a bit of a grammatical analysis going on. And so, at the end of Stage Three, the people in the hilly area would say we'll choose know who moves V dub Ray yeah, and so this is their new output Nora.

Over in the eastern badlands language see which looks a bit more still, like the other languages than language vetoes language see over on the east. The word internal kota consonants are lost, so this is only word internal. If the kota was voiced Val was linkedin and then unstressed case endings are lost and board order shifts to sb oh boo because the case endings are lost and we've got like a stack of nouns so here the output for see is which movie do not, though, great yeah, and so this is.

See way over on the cliffs language be has three major changes the voiceless quotas are lost the glottal frickin if he is lost all together. Because it's like those voices coders disappear, the ages just up next consonant clusters are broken where glides disappear after stops, but in a in all is inserted in other cases. And so here we've got a glides I meant liquids, I was wondering yeah sorry I meant to write liquids disappear after stops wow that is embarrassing.

But here, so at the end of Stage Three the sentence for be now sounds like empty sauna or most fida but yeah. And so now that's where be is. So the end of Stage Three, once again, you can see that a and D because they've more recently broken off share a lot more features than, say, a dnc but they all share more features than he does with any of them because of when things broke off. And then the final stage.

A finally like basically loses all standing and the speakers who stay in the south now i'm going to call language F because it's like a doesn't even exist anymore, they broke off into. And so speakers moved up to the the mountains, those are language he now they took over the mountain area, whoever stayed behind the developments now going to call language F because it's like a split up and it's like not even worth calling it a anymore. I don't really follow that but I accept it.

Well, which one gets called a if you label one a bad one, just because it's still in the south. Are you saying, like most as one over here they kind of split in half, they split in half, well, I would say if they stayed then yeah you call it a okay. Then you leave you don't get to be called a anymore yeah yeah all right well i'm going to run through changes you're going to miss them and no. Okay, so David doesn't support my decision to call it now languages Ian F, but I think I even mentioned.

yeah I mentioned on the next slide I put a little text box language is no longer represented, because that speaking community broke off into E and F and so now i'm calling them enough just to really distinguish like where they are. And i'm waiting for David to return for the big unveiling of what happens in Stage four is extremely controversial, it is extremely controversial it's my language, family, though, so I get to decide what to do with it well i'm just saying that we.

Have region D don't recognize the rebranding of a as F and we will still refer to you as a. Are you talking about me i'd be up and he i'm gonna go to those mountains. hey there's just mountains up there, there isn't even any rivers there's there's water there's there are these isolated lakes, but apparently no rivers in the mountains, but you can see that the top of the waterfalls.

I would you want to stand at the top of the waterfalls for the waterfall the most exciting part is the front at the bottoms that you can see, it would you said at the top of the waterfall so I decided on, you know unbelievable. All right, regardless of what you call it we've now got some new shifts that get applied. Everywhere alright So these are our mountain speakers up in the mountains language he they have three changes that happen, of course, what they took with them.

was what they were speaking in the south before they ran off to the mountains here the STOP forget of consonant clusters, reduce our constant I should say, with the initial stop being deleted, oh no, no, I meant consonant clusters, because view just becomes view. consonants assemblies and voicing to a following consonant across the board and then word final voiceless stops become frickin lives.

And so here the output, at the end of stage four, which is the end of the final stages we're doing for this fun little experiment is veal choose know who moves be doubly off and so that is language. Language F or as David calls them language, a down in the south just that one change, and I was that code of voices consonants or deleted and unstressed syllable.

And so, feel choose know who moves be who is what we're left with here you to that yeah this unstressed because it's a post position and so it's a grammatical word and not like fully stress. And stress levels for the unit and not, for you know orange necessarily okay. In D over in the hills they had some more changes they had actually for changes going on in the stage where common post positions are we analyze this case.

Stop stop and frickin of frickin of pairs Gemini where the second consonant as simulates to the first entirely. Word final voiceless coda's disappear, and stresses typically assigned to the penultimate syllable and this just affects how it's going to sound and so here the output is queer choose now who moves the debris. With. Sorry, you have to speak nine people's language correctly I didn't get the the geminids that I know we'll just now, who moves the doorbell Erica you got it.

good job on your language, thank you and language see over in the eastern badlands so they were again like the the you know certain people to our second people rather to split off the segments T y amp D wide palette allies and become church and job respectively and word final freak. I actually wrote week break it is today, think couldn't even get it out right three week it is. Those word vinyl ones fortify becoming stops and so at the end of stage for language see is when movie juna debris yeah.

And so that's where we are in language scene and way over on the cliffs language, be the word final liquids are lost a copy values inserted after I work final consonant and speaker show a preference for verb final structure, so the verb ends up. migrating over to the end of the clause so now, the final output here is a ti Sana O w E, oh no let me get my phrasing right who a ti Sana Sana or double er Mazel fee yeah and they make sure I was saying, the right.

things together, because he sauna or is like one unit could be sent out the most happy yes okay sorry yes. And so that is language be and so here is the outputs from you know all across the board again so just for being able to compare at the end of stage for how different things are, and this was again, not a whole lot of changes event.

And so we haven't even touched on like lexical changes that would happen, as you know, these speakers are moving to new areas, for instance, some ideas I had for like how the lexicon would shift. Is that over in the mountain region or up in the mountain region, I should say there are no fireflies, and so this word which is pronounced for them choose na. Because the WHO is a grammatical marker so choose not that compound.

would shift potentially and, for me, I thought that would be a poetic way of referring to stars now they they twinkle and kind of linked like little fire flies in the sky. They don't have firefly so it's like there's no longer that need to call them, you know to is not, they can use this word entirely for something new.

And over in the cliffs of be the word for rabbit just generalize to any small animal so here clue as rabbit and the proto form becomes a and for them that just refers to any small animal. And down in see because the trees are so different in gigantic in those badlands the word that used to mean tree, which is Bray in language see now means Bush mikey they have a new word to refer to like their new concept of what a tree is because they're like gigantic.

Alright, so that those are some ideas for lexical shifts so again like we haven't even gone into ways that you can play with you know how how words shift meetings. And also, you may have noticed that, like there were relatively few changes at each stage the most I had at any one stage was for. And yet, you can see, like how much things shifted just by having those those little shifts.

The next few slides are really for people who are super interested in the comparisons and so i'm not going to read them because we've already gone through them. But i've organized the information by branch, so you could be like Stage one here are the changes happening, two, three and four, so that way it's like for language be you see that at each stage be the changes only applied to be because they broke off super early.

But you can see, like all of them in order and so altogether, there were only nine changes that I introduced for language be, even though it like really changed what it looked like. For language see there were eight changes, all together, and Stage one the changes are shared for all see through af but then once it hits stage to these are only applying the language see.

For stage D again just kind of showing you like here's D, I think, had the most that had 11 changes altogether that one had the most mainly QA stage for hit the four changes that happened david's language yeah. And then language he had 10 changes. And language F had eight and so those slides really it's like I took that same information that I read through.

and put it so that way you could see like what were all the changes that happened to each branch individually and by stage and then color coded them so that way it goes back and forth between yellow and blue so that way you can just kind of see more easily where those brakes are. All right. So you can see that not very many changes can can lead to a lot of different results and you may have noticed that I recycled quite a few sound changes things like voicing assimilation.

Things like quotas being lost or otherwise changed I recycled a lot but applied them in different orders and they came up with brand new things and that's. really important, because I think another thing we get in our head about is like oh i've already done a simulation in one branch I can't do that in another. You totally can one, it could go in a different direction, so you know whether it's you know for to simulation or backward assimilation, is going to completely change the results.

But to depending on when you actually have the assimilation again it's going to affect some units and not others, thus giving you different results in general and so like don't be afraid of using the same rules, but in different places different orders different stages and so on. That was my other thing we. Are there more science or is that. The final slide, the key is keeping track of what you've decided for each stage, so the daughter languages can develop organically, and I want to.

On that note, I want to go back and I know that if you're not watching you're not going to be able to see this but. Something that I found useful in documentation is having the same information presented presented in multiple ways. So, for example, now that I have the writing system or I valerian i've got you know the valerian to English dictionary I the English to valerian dictionary then below that.

I have a dictionary that says like here are all the things that you can type in alphabetical order in English alphabetical order. And what the results will be and then below that I have all of the glyphs listed singly arranged by shape and so that makes it easy, depending on what information I want I know which list to go to to get it.

What you see here on the screen is extraordinarily useful, so I mean she's gone through all the examples and then the sound changes, presumably would be listed somewhere just in a big list. But this has it separated by language so that you could see them by era and in order you could also do it. You know just by era and then have it tagged so it's like here's so like a big list here sound change Number One absolute.

And then, just in parentheses, at the end and applied to this language search engine number two it applied to this language centuries number three applied to these languages, and then by when and then also have and then have that you know separated by areas as well. And I think it's a really a really useful way to be able to actually use all this. Because because that's, of course, the the next part it's like when you're sitting down for some con lightning.

You know, whatever you happen to be doing, whether you're creating words are doing a translation. it's pretty easy to stay in the moment, while you're doing that, whether you're working for an hour or two or whatever. The hard part is getting back into it, when you get to it next whether it's A week later, or whether it's even the next day, sometimes you forget exactly what you were doing and why and.

Being able to write these instructions for yourself, so that you can get back to the place that you were is crucial, and I think that this is extremely useful. This is one of the biggest problems that I had with asked to pour a valerian because I knew what the sound changes were and I wrote them down for the most part, but.

I kept mixing things up when I would go back to it because I would do things in the wrong order or I would start at the wrong stage, and the result would be something like a word where it's like you know you have like 10 words that work this way into that work this other way. Where it looks like the sound changes have been applied and opposite orders it's because they happen because I worked with the wrong like input.

same thing, going from astoria to mayor needs, sometimes I was working from high valerian sometimes I was working for masturbatory and neither answer was wrong, but you know it needed to be done consistently. And that was the thing that I screwed up on because I didn't write it down clearly and for you know non con length reasons.

Now to create both of these languages, at the same time, but obviously I had to create high valerian first, and not only that it was going to be the most important one. To the series, and also for the franchise moving forward and I knew that like there's just a very small portion where you're going to be hearing this so port part, it was important for season three. Through five of game of thrones but after that probably never be heard again in the entire history of the franchise.

So, like I put all of my work into high valerian but as a result, this background information got lost. And it's like you think about this stuff it's like that's not the fun stuff you want to show people the words you want to show people translations. they're not interested in seeing, like all this information, but it's important for you, you know.

And I think that we should work on that a lot of times, and then we get ourselves in situations which both of us have gotten into where it was like what the hell is this and how did we come up with that. In fact, just yesterday, I think, somebody else on discord I think he solved my mind problem. For high valerian I cuz like I just didn't know what the hell, it was and then he was like well, maybe.

The i'm an angry was like the the instrumental passive that there was one admin something like up and then NGOs came from ton and that's how you got scoop. guess that's it yeah i'm like that is what I did I just forgot nice yeah yeah so now i'm going to go back and figure that out anyway um but yeah so that was just. it's tough, because obviously a lot of people are going to be listening to this and not seeing it, I really encourage you to look at the PDF that's going to be produced.

But these slides, in particular, just a very nice reminder of how you can organize information for yourself to allow you to do the best job that you can do as a con linger. And I think that's really nice, I will say to like for me, it was important, as I was doing this little. example.

Because, again, I was doing this all myself, so it wasn't like I had other people saying Oh, why don't you add this sound change or whatever it's like it all needed to come from for me in the session, where I was working on it. And so, for me it was super helpful to do it by stage, first because that meant I was only looking at okay well what's going to be the sound changes i've got my input up here at the top here's the changes here is going to be the output.

And so doing it by stage made me kind of like not so worried about things being repeated or even like in the same language assimilation may happen twice. But it was different stages and the speakers don't know that that was you know, a change that happened hundreds of years ago, and why wouldn't they assimilate again to make something else easier to say. And so, like It made me really focus on like what changes do I want for this particular input.

But like if I didn't create these final lists of putting it all together, I wouldn't necessarily have like a full picture of like wait What did happen to language F. And so, like doing it stage by stage helped me break it down in a way that made me less worried about repetition or less worried about things being distinct. And then putting it all together as one form would make it so I can actually use them.

Now I want to throw something else out here that might be not it might be impossible, but I want to suggest it i'm just throwing it out there into the ether, maybe somebody can figure out how to do this, but there are some really cool things that you can do. On on the web, like with html or even with wiki code that you can't do on a word processing document that it would be nice to be able to do so, so like, for example, with this particular project you've got.

Well, five maybe six different languages, depending on how you want to do it. And it's just not practical to have all of that information in one document you really do want to separate it out into different documents for the languages. However, there's information that's relevant to all of them, and so, for example, it would be much easier to write up one list of sound changes. and say which languages it's relevant for and have that information be on every single document.

Which is not something that you can do you can do it on the web, though it's called an include. Depending on on which way you're doing it. But it would be, for example, like let's say that this is very simple thing, and I did it for my website way way way back with that when let's say that you want the bottom of every single web page of yours to have the same text. say this page is by David peterson whatever you just create a small little html file you type whatever you want to in there.

And then, with every page you create you just create and include that says include this this information. And then, if you want to change that later, you want to edit that information or you want to add to it, you just go to that one little file change it, and he immediately populates on every single webpage instantly. Rather than you having to go to every single web page and change it by hand. That wouldn't be perfect.

For this, because, for your big list of sound changes and every single way you want to separate it you want to be able to reference that very easily but it'd be impossible to change it like you've discovered, you want to change something on one document. and be like well, I want to add this and then you have to go through all the what other ones and change it as well, the only thing you can do is create another document that just has your sound changes or things like that.

Then you're working with a minimum two documents every single time you're working on one of these languages which can be cumbersome anyway. So that would be helpful to like again if you want to create vocabulary and you want, you know this one to be an old group. And you know because, like as you're creating the language family it's not like language is like.

done and you've got the proto form completely filled out with every route that you're ever going to need you may want to go and create a new route that applies to all the languages. versus maybe you want to create a new word that was you know created after this other one had split off, and so it only applies to these three branches and so it's like.

To be able to like quickly do that without like you said, like going in and entering like okay this route goes to all six this one goes to you know this one, this one, and this one like that that would be really nice yep. yeah that's beyond my capabilities so i'm glad we just threw that out there as a someone who asked free time and maybe the developer, the polyglot out.

will somehow hear this and make that a feature i'm still waiting, I think that's the future for con link documentation it just needs some tlc a lot of work and a lot of users to test it. So I just wanted to say that. This is probably one of the most brilliant pieces of coddling and i've ever seen. I don't understand why you haven't even told me about this, I never seen this map before. Like. i'm sorry and.

And it's it's difficult because I understand that you're working with a completely non sentence here. But i've now grown attached to these things, so I don't even know what the original looks like this looks pretty cool but. This is, this is just extraordinary and honestly I don't even know if I added very much this probably should have just been a presentation by you and I think actually it was reworked.

This could be a very good presentation to do, generally, especially with crab it's more linguistically diverse or has actually even without it. If you you just have to kind of dumb down the explanations a little bit you know not just referred to as simulation but introduced the concept, you know things like that, but. You know this is just extraordinary, this is just extraordinary and it was just sitting there in your back pocket.

Well, the map was yeah and the timeline yeah all the rest has happened we've seen me at my computer. All the rest happened there yeah it's. it's extraordinary. really, really, really good and now i'm blessing, and on that note. We have reached the end of this episode. david's going to. attempt Oh, what did you just do. Did you go into it, I don't think so I just did stop share, why did you. Choose that I can get me over to zoom we go.

yeah Okay, we are still recording there we go okay okay so David, just like broke everything. or didn't break everything, I guess, we just don't know what happened. It was still playing the slideshow what I should have done is just gone to the end and clicked out and then that would have helped, but Oh well, living you learn.

Thank you for being here and listening along and we hope that it was helpful for anybody who had you know wondered or had been asking about language families, I hope that this helped. and stay grammar right everybody.