Conlangery #27: Irregularity

We start off with a reccomendation of sorts of the Speculative Grammarian Podcast, and George’s own long post on romanization.  Then we get into the meat of the show talking about all kinds of irregularity and “regular irregularity”.  Then we take a 180-degree turn and talk about the insanely regular Esperanto. Top of Show Greeting: Ayeri Featured Conlang: Esperanto (also here) Feedback: Email from Nathaniel: I’ve developed a fairly complicated type of poetry for my conlang Japaratu. This kind of poetry is known as the Gį́į́, and takes advantage of several rules that Japaratu has such as tone and nasal harmony. It also used consonance and alternating patterns of high, low, and middle tones. Interesting, the Gį́į́ does not use vowel length, although other poetry forms do.I write the mechanics of the Gį́į́ this way:A is a nasal syllable with high tone. B is a nasal syllable with low tone. C is a nasal syllable with middle tone. D is a oral syllable with high tone. E is a oral syllable with low tone. F is a oral syllable with middle tone.The first and second occurence of a syllable do not have to be the same word, but they must have the same features. Thus, péék and pár would fall in the same class. A, B, and C must all begin with the same sound. D, E and F must be the sound’s nasal equivalent. M is a nasal monosyllabic word with middle tone. O is a oral monosyllabic word with middle tone. Unlike the above, M and O have to be the same word in all contexts. 1. ABCA 2. M 3. DEFD 4. O 5. ABCA 6. O 7. DEFD 8. M 9. MMOO Because the structure is so strict, the poems do not have necessarily have to make sense, although it is more prestigious to do so. Because the Japaratu are a poetry-loving culture, they have developed an elaborate poetry notation system. Here is an example: 1.ká kùb-kot 2.mų 3.gų́ų́į́į́m gų̀m gǫǫg 4.et 5.kóp kììj kiuu 6.et 7.gę́ę́r-gį̀-gįįęr 8.mų 9.mų mų et et — tìt. Which literally translates as: rock marble clear autumn fern dirt poison tide clever branch poison elder clear clear clear poison poison Negative copula (to not be) My apologies if any or most of this is unclear. Thanks for sharing all of this with us. On little correction:the word tìt at the end of the Poem is the name of the author and is not part of the poem.