Hi, I was going to make a separate Q&A video, but the recording ended up 30 minutes long. I'd much rather spend all that time editing the next Kloun video, so I'm going to respond to the questions in the comments instead (the ones posted before this comment, that is). I hope that's okay!
It depends on the type of conlang, but I'm going to limit my answer to naturalistic artlangs made for fiction worlds (since those are the most popular). Given that scope restriction, I'd like to see more naming languages (bare-bones grammars used mostly for naming people and places). They're a lot more approachable than fully-evolved conlangs and they don't require much linguistics. Besides, a lot of people enter conlanging through worldbuilding, so it's very fitting. As for more complex conlangs, I'd love to see more synchronic syntax! It makes total sense why most conlangs don't include syntactic analysis at a single point in time: the author put a ton of work into the evolution and wants to show it off. Besides, synchronic syntax is really abstract, and it requires a lot of theory and jargon. Most conlangers (including myself) do just enough to describe how the grammar works, and that's totally valid. However, I'm always pleasantly surprised to see synchronic syntax in conlanging projects (Soton et al, to my understanding, are only allowing themselves to describe their project synchronically, which is super cool to me).
@@babelingua for synchronic conlangs, look for Japanese ones. They once in a while have Japanese relex/conlang(s) as easter eggs. A popular example is Jobless Reincarnation (Mushoku Tensei) that someone tried to decipher languages sprinkled in the book, after being convinced that it wasn't just random gibberish (I think there is something on Reddit about this).
Ayo! My script is done, so I will no longer be taking new questions (for the QA video - you can always ask questions in any of my comments). I'll try to get this video out before the 9th. Kloun episode 3 will be done when it's done. Judging by the script, it very well could be an hour long, so be patient! Thank you all!
Yep, I do all the visuals myself. Originally, I drew it by hand. Now, I have a big document with several different face angles and hand sketches. To make a pose, I throw them over to the staging artboard and make the arms using a path, which I outline and merge. For this Q&A, I’m reusing renders from previous videos, but I usually make unique poses for each video.
I mostly just designed my avatar to be easy to pose. Most PNG-tubers have to reuse images to express wildly different emotions, but my avatar mostly uses hands for expression, which are a bit more versatile. Because the hands are a separate sprite, I can emphasize different parts of the screen really easily, plus I can mix and match faces, bodies, and hands for a lot more variety. As for the hollow unmoving smile, I’ve used it before in a number of comics. And I picked the teal because I liked the color.
This is an interesting question. The language I would most like to be fluent in is nłeʔkepmxcín, but I very much want to engage in that learning process. Learning the language in parallel with my studies would help build my understanding, form a relationship with the language as an outsider, and possibly even inform teaching materials in the future. Instead, I’d pick a non-Indo-European language from which I could draw-out linguistic data. If magic fluency comes with a free writing system, I’d choose Mandarin Chinese: very big language, non-IE, and I learn a logography for free. For something less analytic, I’d choose Japanese - very interesting grammar; free Kanji. If instant fluency only includes the spoken language, I probably wouldn’t choose these, since I’d then have to study the writing systems which defeats the purpose of free language. Instead, I’d choose Swahili - widely spoken; very non-Englishy grammar; and needs to appear in linguistic literature more often. Finnish would also be quite cool. But really, you can’t go wrong. If a genie offered me instant fluency in any language (even Esperanto) I’d take it. Free fluency is free.
Can we get a handful of your favorite words in any language? Doesn't matter if it's because of an interesting history, a very niche definition or use, if it is incredibly poetic or just rolls off the tongue in a very satisfying way.
The obvious answer is to list words that are fun to say, but my favorite words are generally those that require several dictionary entries to describe in full detail. To give is phonetically boring, but syntactically and semantically delicious! In English, it’s ditransitive - which is already very spicy, but then you take into account the many different ways languages handle this concept - it’s fascinating! I’m also a sucker for extremely specific, highly-agglutinative words. I mean, kalsarikänni - what’s not to love about a word for taking off your pants and getting drunk on the couch?
Depends how you define “worldbuilding project.” Is it worldbuilding to build an abandoned castle in Minecraft with hints at how the inhabitants disappeared? Is it worlbuilding to draw a character with clothing that suggests a broader culture? It's kind of hard to count. My most complex is likely my Kloun project. Most of it hasn't been turned into videos just yet. My dream worldbuilding project would be to make a xenolang that embraces Carl Sagan's quote "If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe." In such a project, one small, but wide-scoping property of the universe would be changed (adding or removing a spacial dimension, tweaking a fundamental property of the universe's physics or geometry, maybe even something fantastical like physics being determined by the bedtime story of some cosmic being). That small change would be followed through into the physics, then chemistry, then biochemistry, then speculative biology, all the way into an alien's language. It'd be a HUGE project that would require lots of very well-organized people, but it'd be super cool.
I don’t understand the polarization of Toki Pona. Some people love it for its simplicity and philosophical direction. Others despise it, probably because they’re annoyed with Toki-Pona fans. I’m not very opinionated about Toki Pona. It’s cool, I guess, but there are definitely conlangs I like better
Doesn't it feel crazy to be making a project for Agma Schwa's challenge and then suddenly have 3 thousand more subscribers? Also, are you proud of Seraphim?
It's definitely surreal. I had 800 subscribers before posting that video, which already seemed HUGE to me. I'm definitely proud of Seraphim. Even though it was needlessly complex, I set out to meet a goal and I think I met it well. I do worry about an Ithkuil problem, in which people tout the language for its complexity rather than its actual features. Ithkuil is quite beautiful in many ways, but people only ever talk about how hard it is. I suppose it's not the end of the world if all people know about Seraphim is that it's complex -- that's sort of the point of it -- but I hope people understand WHY it's complex and get inspired to make their own complex stuff.
Do you plan to make other conlang projects outside of Kipip and Seraphim? I'm not that well versed in the wacky world of constructed language but I still find your videos on conlang and conlang as a whole very fascinating. Also how tall would your avatar character be in real life?
Yes! One language in the works is a movie-accurate reconstruction of Minion, but transcribing five movies worth of gibberish is gonna take a long time. My most complete conlang that has yet to be released is Whalesnore: the soft clicking murmurs of sleeping god-whales who dream the archipelago into existence -- it's the same archipelago in Agma’s hyperformal video! A bunch of us were gonna do a big collab, where we each claim an island, build a language or culture, and have them interact. But it mostly fell through. I may post Whalesnore as its own thing, but I’m holding out in case the collab actually happens
1. Your Klounlang videos were introduced in association with Arizona State U's thesis dept. - are these videos your actual thesis/based on your real college thesis? Incredibly cool. 2. Would you ever do a video about how you built the myth narration out of whistles and honks, and/or how you might go about building languages out of nonstandard sounds, like musical notes?
1. Yes! I did it as a thesis project, and I've got the grammar in my discord server. I'm going to make some changes before releasing any conlang videos though. 2. Yep! The whistled/performative/instrument register will be part of a later video
I’m actually training to be a linguist! My undergrad is in English with a focus on linguistics - Agma and I actually went to the same university and had the same thesis advisor a few years apart. I’m currently in my first year of a master’s program in linguistics, hopefully on-track to transfer into the PhD program after this year is up. My main area of interest is syntax (the structure of sentences), but I’m branching out into semantics and I hope to look at how grammar and meaning overlap. The main object of my research is the Salish family of languages, although I’m still very new to it - I’ve done one term’s worth of beginner’s fieldwork on nłeʔkepmxcín (Thompson Salish), but I hope to continue working with the speakers for the foreseeable future.
How do you put your videos together? What tools and software do you use? What are your favorite parts of the creative process? What parts do you dread?
I use photoshop and illustrator for the art and premiere for the video editing. Remember kids: NEVER pirate adobe products! ALWAYS buy their overpriced and predatory subscription service, because otherwise it hurts their feelings
This is an interesting semantic question. How many people can I wrap my arms around at once? I'm not sure -- as many as I can fit in my arms.. How many people can I provide an individual hug at one time? probably two (one per arm). I'm not big on hugging strangers, but I encourage you to ask someone in your life for a hug if you desire one! Physical touch is important for human wellbeing.
Hey, we poppin' in from the discord! Why are your body and arms so long in your avatar? Are you also long bodied in real life? Can we get a length reveal? I highly recommend taking any one of these out of context
The arms are long to make gesturing to different points on the screen easier. I’d occasionally add a joke in which the arm stretches in a weird way, or there’d be another arm, and it stuck. Don't know what a length reveal entails -- definitely sounds funny out of context
would it be alright if someone used your conlangs for a project (comic, movie, game, to give some examples)? or if someone made a conlang inspired by one of yours?
It really depends. If you’re using or referencing one of my projects directly, please ask. I don’t wanna stumble upon a comic profiting off Seraphim without permission or credit (plus, I only really trust myself to translate it properly). If you’re making money or getting lots of impressions, please ask first. That being said, I love it when people make their own spinoff projects. CheeseGoblin made an extinct Kípíp script that I liked so much I made it canon and paid him for it (back when I had money). A few people are working on a Kípíp/Sakha pidgin, which’ll probably be canon, too. Some people aren’t even working in the same universe. One story is set in a world where kloun don’t exist, but my Grammar of Kloun does. It warms my cold, dead heart to see people making their own spinoffs, so go right ahead: just give me credit where credit is due and talk to me if you profit off of it.
@@babelingua thank you a lot! i dont know anything about making a conlang, but one of my settings has beings born from humanity's emotions, opinions and understandings of concepts and the universe, and i might try to make a conlang that would fit these guys. your seraphim video really opened my eyes to something ive never thought about. sorry if im asking too many questions, but so you have any good resources for where to start? ty a lot in advance
"to inspire" is somewhat lexically ambiguous. Are you asking what motivates me? Or are you asking how I get ideas? In terms of motivation, I generally need very little motivation to work on this kind of stuff. I often do linguistics for fun -- the same goes for drawing and making videos. Instead, I need motivation to do OTHER things, like folding laundry or corporate work, but that's more of a question of attention and executive function than it is a question of motivation. In terms of ideas, I generally consume and process a lot of information constantly. I don't mean this in a toxic sigma-male grindset sort of way; I just like learning things and thinking about things on my free time. That often leads me to videos naturally
How long have you been doing conlangs? For how long have you been a fan of Agma Schwa? Are you in any large Discord communities, or a member of the CLS (Constructed Language Society)?
I only discovered Agma Schwa about a year or two ago, either through my youtube feed or through Connor Quimby. But by sheer coincidence, we had a lot in common. We’re both lifelong Arizonans who got our undergrads at ASU and made a conlang for our thesis under the same thesis advisor a few years apart. My advisor had even used Agma’s conlang as an example - I just hadn’t met him yet. We hung out a few times before I moved, mostly to chat about languages or playtest his card game. I’m in Agma Schwa’s discord server - highly recommend it to new conlangers looking for a community. I’m also in Connor Quimby’s server, Biblaridion’s server, Nakari Serverdane, Liken’s server, and probably others, but I’m not super active.
how did you first get interested in conlanging? What was your biggest struggle while starting out, and now, what is something almost all good conlangs have in your opinion
I was always a fan of Tolkien, so when I started playing D&D at around 10, I made little languages. Not TRUE conlangs; more like lists of draconic swear words, or writing systems that were basically just English cyphers. As I learned more about languages, I gradually improved, and once I started learning about linguistics, I started trying to make more naturalistic conlangs. My biggest struggle was probably over-adherence to rules. I was too concerned with following every tiny naturalistic detail because I didn't want my conlang to be unrealistic. That over-adherence ended up making it far more unnaturalistic in the long run, so have fun with it!
Can we have more info on kloun-human relations? Like do they know about each other, have they interacted in the 21 century, have modern entomologists of either classified the other, etc.
English is my native language, and the only one I speak at C-level proficiency. Je parle un peu français, mais je sais pas quel est mon niveau de compétence. Je l’ai étudié par intermittence au cours des huit dernières années. Je peux lire des romans et des articles de linguistique en français, mais je l’ai pas parlé depuis un ou deux ans. Je fais beaucoup d’erreurs stupides et j’ai besoin de pratiquer. I want to learn nłeʔkepmxcín, since I’m working on the language, but learning a first-nations language takes a very long time, especially when there aren’t a lot of resources. At the moment, I can rant about the grammar, but I don’t speak it by any measure.
hi!! I’m an actual linguist thus the seraphim video wasn’t such a mind-blowing thing for me hah (jk it was, but I at least understood the trees and movements lmao). however I am so glad to encounter your account after getting the seraphim video recommended to me. your content is so witty and informative, yet funny and entertaining. it actually reminds me why I like this science soooo much. thank u for doing what u r doing (btw the slender guy is so cute and I really like your voice too!) I just wanted to appreciate your work but i’d also be happy to know whether u studied linguistics at university. where did u do it if so? oh and what r u particularly interested in when it comes to the syntax-semantic interface (judging by your videos u must really like it)?
Yep! I'm in a master's program right now, and I'm hoping to transfer into the PhD at the end of this term. I'm learning to do fieldwork on Nłeʔkepmxcín (Thompson Salish) so most of my research so far has pertained to morphosyntax and lexical suffixes (basically nouns compounded to verbs that can't exist on their own anymore), but I'm still figuring out the specific theoretical areas I want to explore and trying to keep my options open.
what are some of your other intrests outside of the whole linguistics-conlanging area?, and also, are u on the spectrum and/or neurodivergent in some way?
Would you ever be willing to stream your conlanging process like what Biblaridion is doing? I find it very helpful to see somebody fingering this stuff out rather than just talking about a finished product
Maybe. The issue is that I don’t do this full-time like I suspect Bib does. As a result, my conlanging process is more comparable to occasional bursts, in which I develop an unorthodox grammatical feature, then abandon it and never touch the project again. When I do make more complete conlangs, I tend to be less organized than Bib. I don’t mind doing it, but only if my patrons really wanna see it
Could you do a video on the IPA, how its constructed/used, and how to use it for natlangs and conlangs? And as for the Q&A, I'd love to know if there is history behind your avatar, and since your brother watches your videos, I'd like to see his take on all this recent popularity/if he enjoys being an extremely minor internet celebrity
I wouldn’t say either of us is an extremely minor internet celebrity, but I'm sure my brother thinks it's mildly cool that he popped up in my biggest video
There isn't much history behind the avatar (aside from some other details I explain in some of the other comments). I did use the face in a few of my old comic strips, though, namely when I wanted the characters to be mildly unsettling
@@babelingua I think it's hella epic. Honestly really proud of you, even if you don't consider 8k subs to be very big, and I get excited for all your videos even though I only understand half of what's going on. You've been a big inspiration for me to make my own stuff too (eventually) and I look up to you in a lot of ways. I'd say my reaction is much more than "mild" enthusiasm!
Would u be willing or interested in touching on any of the following topics with your many, many hands: topic/comment, focus/background, giveness, thematic relations? I've been really interested in information structure in general, especially as it applies to languages with free word order, but its been difficult to grasp and I'd love to see more accessible resources covering these topics
How are sibilant and non-sibilant consonants different? Also vowels. What makes one rounded and another unrounded? I can hear the difference in samples, but what makes one sibilant or not and vowels rounded or not?
Oh, this is far too long to answer! People dedicate their entire lives to these questions. WALS is a good place to look for details, though! Hell, you can even just look through wikipedia for a general idea (although be careful with wikipedia articles on smaller languages: they can be really bad, and the people who edit them can sometimes refuse to let people make corrections)
Who are you? Like, how did you just pop up from nowhere with great video ideas and impressive editing? Also, who did the art for the origin story (ligma joke) video? Also, what is your recording setup? Also, what made you decide to speak with the cadence and tone that you use in your videos?
Who am I? “Who are you” is vague, but the follow-up question implies that you want to know how I got into youtube. I’ve been drawing since my pre-acquisition larval stage - baby-lingua, and my original plan had been to go into graphic design and marketing. I’m a great cartoonist and an okay video editor, but I am NOT good at marketing. So when I lost my funding and went to community college, I used that as an opportunity to explore other areas. All of my videos before the one on definite articles are part of that exploration. You can sort of see the progression: I begin with English etymologies - something I’ve always enjoyed - then get a bit deeper and deeper until I’m headfirst into linguistics.
My recording setup is a desk with a fifine mic. My office has a window facing the road, so I try to record at night at times when my roommates aren't around. I also got a sound isolation thing to go on my mic, but it only sort-of works
As for the tone, I just try to say things in an interesting manner, often using intonation patterns stolen from movies and people I hear in real life, all frankensteined together with some speech and debate conventions and a lifetime of generalized observations about how to speak.
@@babelingua Thank you for the replies! You’re right; you’re a great cartoonist. I asked because I really enjoyed the way it flowed in the origin story video. I inquired about the tone out of appreciation for your reading of The Green Knight. I welcome more of that kind of content but understand why it probably will not happen. It may be better suited on a second, more ASMR-flavored channel. Also, if you would ever like some free original music or sound design I would be happy to do that for you. I wish you the best in your RUclips endeavor
My first full conlang was called Plupupwe, and it was AWFUL. I’d done enough relex naming languages to avoid that pitfall, and I’d watched enough Biblaridion to avoid a Thandian disaster. The issue was that I grammaticalized every single morpheme from scratch: without any phonetic changes. See, I didn’t realize that I was allowed to erode words into morphemes without sweeping sound changes, which I didn’t want to do until the very end. To make matters worse, syllables were strictly CV. Case suffixes were 1-4 syllables, subject agreement was 1-3 syllables, and object agreement was 2-4 syllables. “He eats the food” was ‘oto-pepepe buma-kangingi-kapepepe-beti. It was bad. I scrapped it and remade it: again and again. The latest version is kípíp: my clownlang. It still has some dumb stuff left over from its plupuwe days - the romanization is terrible - but I’m oddly fond of those quirks now.
How do all your conlangs refer to speakers of each other? I.e. how would a cloun refer to a speaker of your celestial language, and how would they refer to clouns etc.?
They don't exist in the same world, and I'm answering this question at 2am because I can't fall asleep, so I'm not in the headspace to coin hypothetical terms. Good question, though!
@@babelingua Well, I suppose that answers that! Got to say, you're doing great on your channel, and I'm astonished to get an answer even if 4 weeks later. Hope your channel takes off more than it has already some day. And sleep well when you do!
So long as they're being led by the communities, I'm a fan. I personally work more on the documentation side of things, but I think revitalization is really cool and I'm all in favor of communities reclaiming and preserving their language and culture
In general? I've been goofing around with a camera since I was a kid, and I've been drawing for as long as I can remember. I started making videos for this channel, however, around the start of the pandemic. All my old etymology videos were made for fun. All the other videos (up until the one on definite articles) were made for miscellaneous classes.
How do you make conlangs? Im following a bunch of conlangists, but language isn't my strong suit, religion and mythology and cultural study is however. I was wondering how to create such a beautiful cursed conlang and what you looked at in order to make it, on top of that i absolutely love some of your other videos my personal favorite being the etymology of peepeepoopoo. Thank you for your beautiful creations and have a fantastic day, month, week and year
In terms of fictional languages, Quenya will always be special to me; I quite enjoyed Ilothwii, too. As far as Englangs go, Ithkuil is a classic. Lincos is pretty fun conceptually. My faves are those that bridge the gap between englang and functional lang. Although I have gripes with the grammar, Kēlen would be a good example: its syntax is engineered for a specific goal, but there’s some degree of fictional storytelling too. Europan’s a fun one, but they don’t even need to be that extreme as long as they break the rules in fun ways. Permechikan’s mostly naturalistic, but Agma’s choice to use a single vowel added a unique flare.
It's hard to count because most aren't complete. I have tons of spreadsheets with theory-bending grammatical features, xenolang phonetic inventories - stuff like that. Very few of these become conlangs. The only conlangs I’d describe as somewhat “complete” are kípíp, Seraphim, and whalesnore (a language for god-whales that dream reality into existence with click-basesd set-theory).
There are too many to list. Salish languages are cool, and so are Na-Dene languages. Swahili is great, Finnish is cool, Japanese is really interesting -- there are just too many good languages. I generally like agglutinative languages quite a bit, but not exclusively
Do you have a favorite constructed writing system? What aspects do you like about it? How do you feel about mimes? Congratulations on getting so many subs in such a short span of time!
I don’t really have any strong opinions about mimes, or clowns for that matter. I don’t find them funny, and all my interactions with clowns have been mildly embarrassing or uncomfortable. I do, however, find clowns and mimes very funny in unexpected contexts. Clowns in business meetings, municipal politics, zombie apocalypses - they’re funny when they’re out of place.
Not sure. There are lots of cool sounds. I personally like ejectives a lot. I also like syllabic consonants, but that's more of a phonology thing than a phonetics one
Ohhhh god there are too many to list here. I definitely take influence from them, although not always directly. For instance, Salish languages have overt transitivization affixes. They've inspired me to make my own transitivizers, but I don't do them in the same way as Salish languages. Another example would be noun incorporation. I also like Mandarin classifiers, but they inspire me to make my own unique classifier system (if anything, closer to Navajo) not to copy theirs. There's definitely influence, but it's not a direct copy/paste. Salish languages probably have the strongest influence since those are the ones I study -- I find my prefered phonoaesthetics often mirror the Salish family (particularly nłeʔkepmxcín)
A full video about wugs? Sounds fun! A full dancing animation? Probably beyond my skillset. I am not an animator, and that super-choppy animation alone took a hot sec
Scientifically, dinosaur is very specific. Linguistically, it’s basically any cool prehistoric reptile. Lucky for you, dinosaurs are a big special interest of mine. Avian? Archaeopteryx. Theropod? Spinosaurus. Non-Theropod? Pretty much any sauropod. Small ceratopsids are pretty cool, too. I liked triceratops as a kid, but I now prefer protoceratops. Prehistoric reptile? Quetzalcoatlus. Any extinct megafauna? Glyptodon.
I study linguistics, so it's really easy to apply the stuff I study to my language construction projects. I also watched a lot of youtube videos, read some books, and joined some online communities. The best way to get good at a thing is to do it a lot. You're going to suck at first (my first conlang was dreadful) but you have to start somewhere
Have you heard of any conlangs made with a very specific use in mind? Such as a conlang for muscicians, soliders, doctors, people with ADD, people with synthesia, neurodivergents.
Hello, Ben, my brother. First of all, it’s a ROMANTIC Thomas the Tank Engine love song. Second of all, the free beat I used was claimed by Don Sémaj to make J’ai Fait un Rêve. Third of all, that was in high school. Fourth of all, I’m not a musician or a singer, so I would not be able to do the lyrics the justice they deserve. Fifth of all, it's not on-brand -- maybe for a second channel, but I don't have time to make one at the moment
@@babelingua once your chanel reaches a big sub milestone I'm gonna force you to commission a vocalist to sing it. Also I think the beat was licensed, not claimed. Don Sémaj doesn't hold the copyright, so you can still use it
It's ongoing, but very time consuming. Each video requires lots of custom art, and I'm a full-time grad student with research, work, and lots of other stuff filling my schedule. On top of that, the next video will likely be about an hour long, so it will take a while
Why is your 'persona' so unsettling? I.e being overall cartoonish but having hollow eyes and detailed hands. Is it a deliberate choice or is it just your style of drawing (presuming you designed it). My apologies if this came off as insulting, it's just a very fascinating design and rather endearing in how it is both generally appealing but also unsettling
No it's not insulting at all! I intended to go for a mildly unsettling vibe, and it sort of grew over time. The design stemmed from (a) wanting the face to be emotionally ambiguous to avoid using the same image in incorrect emotional contexts, and (b) wanting the hands to be separate layers so they could point at things all over the place. Because the hands were separate layers, I made jokes where there'd be three hands on the screen at once, and they sort of added to the creepiness, which I leaned into
If we're communicating with aliens, I'd suggest using something similar to/based around formal logic. Realistically, I feel like any alien communication would have to be custom-made for the specific alien
Read a lot. Read about things you find interesting, read about how it occurs in natural languages, and read about how academics debate about it. Never just use one language as a source; reference multiple languages that do similar things. Read and experiment with the things you read
seriously is there something about arizona state that is just breeding conlang youtubers??? you, agma schwa and colin gorrie all have sizeable audiences on conlanging and i can’t tell if it’s a coincidence or the heat does something to your brain chemistry or what
That video was specifically made to be confusing. Real linguistics is not like that. If you want a good starting place, you can check out Andrew Carnie's syntax videos
im new to the channel so i may have missed it somewhere, are you a fan of toki pona? to me it is the quintessential conlang, it does something no natural language would ever dream of, its also the only conlang i have the attention span to learn
I don't have very strong opinions about toki pona. It's cool and it meets its goal; it's just not the kind of conlang I'm personally interested in (and there's nothing wrong with that)
How does it make you feel that there's a good chance that, for many of the people who watched your Seraphim video all the way through, the Linguistical explanation was just as incomprehensible as the language itself?
That’s the idea! Remember: I made it as an entry into a cursed conlang contest. The entire goal of the conlang is to be incomprehensible to linguists and conlangers. That anyone watched it all the way through genuinely shocked me.
Hi, I was going to make a separate Q&A video, but the recording ended up 30 minutes long. I'd much rather spend all that time editing the next Kloun video, so I'm going to respond to the questions in the comments instead (the ones posted before this comment, that is). I hope that's okay!
What would you like to see more often in conlangs? Are there any things that you feel are overlooked?
It depends on the type of conlang, but I'm going to limit my answer to naturalistic artlangs made for fiction worlds (since those are the most popular).
Given that scope restriction, I'd like to see more naming languages (bare-bones grammars used mostly for naming people and places). They're a lot more approachable than fully-evolved conlangs and they don't require much linguistics. Besides, a lot of people enter conlanging through worldbuilding, so it's very fitting.
As for more complex conlangs, I'd love to see more synchronic syntax! It makes total sense why most conlangs don't include syntactic analysis at a single point in time: the author put a ton of work into the evolution and wants to show it off. Besides, synchronic syntax is really abstract, and it requires a lot of theory and jargon. Most conlangers (including myself) do just enough to describe how the grammar works, and that's totally valid. However, I'm always pleasantly surprised to see synchronic syntax in conlanging projects (Soton et al, to my understanding, are only allowing themselves to describe their project synchronically, which is super cool to me).
@@babelingua for synchronic conlangs, look for Japanese ones. They once in a while have Japanese relex/conlang(s) as easter eggs. A popular example is Jobless Reincarnation (Mushoku Tensei) that someone tried to decipher languages sprinkled in the book, after being convinced that it wasn't just random gibberish (I think there is something on Reddit about this).
Ayo! My script is done, so I will no longer be taking new questions (for the QA video - you can always ask questions in any of my comments). I'll try to get this video out before the 9th.
Kloun episode 3 will be done when it's done. Judging by the script, it very well could be an hour long, so be patient! Thank you all!
Do you draw your character's various poses by yourself? If so, what's the process behind it?
I love the hands so much. They just add that prefect feel needed to keep my attention.
Yep, I do all the visuals myself. Originally, I drew it by hand. Now, I have a big document with several different face angles and hand sketches. To make a pose, I throw them over to the staging artboard and make the arms using a path, which I outline and merge. For this Q&A, I’m reusing renders from previous videos, but I usually make unique poses for each video.
How did you come up with the visual representation of yourself, and is the ominous and vaguely creepy vibe intentional? I dig it
I mostly just designed my avatar to be easy to pose. Most PNG-tubers have to reuse images to express wildly different emotions, but my avatar mostly uses hands for expression, which are a bit more versatile. Because the hands are a separate sprite, I can emphasize different parts of the screen really easily, plus I can mix and match faces, bodies, and hands for a lot more variety.
As for the hollow unmoving smile, I’ve used it before in a number of comics. And I picked the teal because I liked the color.
If you could choose one language to become instantly fluent in, what would it be?
This is an interesting question. The language I would most like to be fluent in is nłeʔkepmxcín, but I very much want to engage in that learning process. Learning the language in parallel with my studies would help build my understanding, form a relationship with the language as an outsider, and possibly even inform teaching materials in the future.
Instead, I’d pick a non-Indo-European language from which I could draw-out linguistic data. If magic fluency comes with a free writing system, I’d choose Mandarin Chinese: very big language, non-IE, and I learn a logography for free. For something less analytic, I’d choose Japanese - very interesting grammar; free Kanji. If instant fluency only includes the spoken language, I probably wouldn’t choose these, since I’d then have to study the writing systems which defeats the purpose of free language. Instead, I’d choose Swahili - widely spoken; very non-Englishy grammar; and needs to appear in linguistic literature more often. Finnish would also be quite cool.
But really, you can’t go wrong. If a genie offered me instant fluency in any language (even Esperanto) I’d take it. Free fluency is free.
Can we get a handful of your favorite words in any language? Doesn't matter if it's because of an interesting history, a very niche definition or use, if it is incredibly poetic or just rolls off the tongue in a very satisfying way.
The obvious answer is to list words that are fun to say, but my favorite words are generally those that require several dictionary entries to describe in full detail. To give is phonetically boring, but syntactically and semantically delicious! In English, it’s ditransitive - which is already very spicy, but then you take into account the many different ways languages handle this concept - it’s fascinating!
I’m also a sucker for extremely specific, highly-agglutinative words. I mean, kalsarikänni - what’s not to love about a word for taking off your pants and getting drunk on the couch?
How many worldbuilding projects have you made, and which of your projects is the most complex?
Depends how you define “worldbuilding project.” Is it worldbuilding to build an abandoned castle in Minecraft with hints at how the inhabitants disappeared? Is it worlbuilding to draw a character with clothing that suggests a broader culture? It's kind of hard to count.
My most complex is likely my Kloun project. Most of it hasn't been turned into videos just yet.
My dream worldbuilding project would be to make a xenolang that embraces Carl Sagan's quote "If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe." In such a project, one small, but wide-scoping property of the universe would be changed (adding or removing a spacial dimension, tweaking a fundamental property of the universe's physics or geometry, maybe even something fantastical like physics being determined by the bedtime story of some cosmic being). That small change would be followed through into the physics, then chemistry, then biochemistry, then speculative biology, all the way into an alien's language. It'd be a HUGE project that would require lots of very well-organized people, but it'd be super cool.
What is your favourite Conlang and why is it Toki Pona?
Jokes aside, which one is your favourite?
Also, what IS your opinion on Toki Pona?
I don’t understand the polarization of Toki Pona. Some people love it for its simplicity and philosophical direction. Others despise it, probably because they’re annoyed with Toki-Pona fans. I’m not very opinionated about Toki Pona. It’s cool, I guess, but there are definitely conlangs I like better
Doesn't it feel crazy to be making a project for Agma Schwa's challenge and then suddenly have 3 thousand more subscribers? Also, are you proud of Seraphim?
It's definitely surreal. I had 800 subscribers before posting that video, which already seemed HUGE to me. I'm definitely proud of Seraphim. Even though it was needlessly complex, I set out to meet a goal and I think I met it well. I do worry about an Ithkuil problem, in which people tout the language for its complexity rather than its actual features. Ithkuil is quite beautiful in many ways, but people only ever talk about how hard it is. I suppose it's not the end of the world if all people know about Seraphim is that it's complex -- that's sort of the point of it -- but I hope people understand WHY it's complex and get inspired to make their own complex stuff.
Do you plan to make other conlang projects outside of Kipip and Seraphim? I'm not that well versed in the wacky world of constructed language but I still find your videos on conlang and conlang as a whole very fascinating. Also how tall would your avatar character be in real life?
Yes! One language in the works is a movie-accurate reconstruction of Minion, but transcribing five movies worth of gibberish is gonna take a long time. My most complete conlang that has yet to be released is Whalesnore: the soft clicking murmurs of sleeping god-whales who dream the archipelago into existence -- it's the same archipelago in Agma’s hyperformal video! A bunch of us were gonna do a big collab, where we each claim an island, build a language or culture, and have them interact. But it mostly fell through. I may post Whalesnore as its own thing, but I’m holding out in case the collab actually happens
1. Your Klounlang videos were introduced in association with Arizona State U's thesis dept. - are these videos your actual thesis/based on your real college thesis? Incredibly cool.
2. Would you ever do a video about how you built the myth narration out of whistles and honks, and/or how you might go about building languages out of nonstandard sounds, like musical notes?
1. Yes! I did it as a thesis project, and I've got the grammar in my discord server. I'm going to make some changes before releasing any conlang videos though.
2. Yep! The whistled/performative/instrument register will be part of a later video
What is your background in the study of languages?
I’m actually training to be a linguist! My undergrad is in English with a focus on linguistics - Agma and I actually went to the same university and had the same thesis advisor a few years apart. I’m currently in my first year of a master’s program in linguistics, hopefully on-track to transfer into the PhD program after this year is up.
My main area of interest is syntax (the structure of sentences), but I’m branching out into semantics and I hope to look at how grammar and meaning overlap. The main object of my research is the Salish family of languages, although I’m still very new to it - I’ve done one term’s worth of beginner’s fieldwork on nłeʔkepmxcín (Thompson Salish), but I hope to continue working with the speakers for the foreseeable future.
-When did you get into linguistics?
-Why does the clownlang series have two unrelated first parts?
That was a numbering mistake!
How do you put your videos together? What tools and software do you use? What are your favorite parts of the creative process? What parts do you dread?
I use photoshop and illustrator for the art and premiere for the video editing. Remember kids: NEVER pirate adobe products! ALWAYS buy their overpriced and predatory subscription service, because otherwise it hurts their feelings
How many hugs can u give at once? And may I be a recipient of some?
This is an interesting semantic question. How many people can I wrap my arms around at once? I'm not sure -- as many as I can fit in my arms.. How many people can I provide an individual hug at one time? probably two (one per arm). I'm not big on hugging strangers, but I encourage you to ask someone in your life for a hug if you desire one! Physical touch is important for human wellbeing.
Hey, we poppin' in from the discord! Why are your body and arms so long in your avatar? Are you also long bodied in real life? Can we get a length reveal?
I highly recommend taking any one of these out of context
Hasn't he shown himself in multiple circumstances on this channel?
The arms are long to make gesturing to different points on the screen easier. I’d occasionally add a joke in which the arm stretches in a weird way, or there’d be another arm, and it stuck.
Don't know what a length reveal entails -- definitely sounds funny out of context
would it be alright if someone used your conlangs for a project (comic, movie, game, to give some examples)? or if someone made a conlang inspired by one of yours?
It really depends. If you’re using or referencing one of my projects directly, please ask. I don’t wanna stumble upon a comic profiting off Seraphim without permission or credit (plus, I only really trust myself to translate it properly). If you’re making money or getting lots of impressions, please ask first.
That being said, I love it when people make their own spinoff projects. CheeseGoblin made an extinct Kípíp script that I liked so much I made it canon and paid him for it (back when I had money). A few people are working on a Kípíp/Sakha pidgin, which’ll probably be canon, too. Some people aren’t even working in the same universe. One story is set in a world where kloun don’t exist, but my Grammar of Kloun does. It warms my cold, dead heart to see people making their own spinoffs, so go right ahead: just give me credit where credit is due and talk to me if you profit off of it.
@@babelingua thank you a lot! i dont know anything about making a conlang, but one of my settings has beings born from humanity's emotions, opinions and understandings of concepts and the universe, and i might try to make a conlang that would fit these guys. your seraphim video really opened my eyes to something ive never thought about. sorry if im asking too many questions, but so you have any good resources for where to start? ty a lot in advance
What inspires you to keep working towards the things you do?
Wishing ya well
"to inspire" is somewhat lexically ambiguous. Are you asking what motivates me? Or are you asking how I get ideas?
In terms of motivation, I generally need very little motivation to work on this kind of stuff. I often do linguistics for fun -- the same goes for drawing and making videos. Instead, I need motivation to do OTHER things, like folding laundry or corporate work, but that's more of a question of attention and executive function than it is a question of motivation.
In terms of ideas, I generally consume and process a lot of information constantly. I don't mean this in a toxic sigma-male grindset sort of way; I just like learning things and thinking about things on my free time. That often leads me to videos naturally
How long have you been doing conlangs?
For how long have you been a fan of Agma Schwa?
Are you in any large Discord communities, or a member of the CLS (Constructed Language Society)?
I only discovered Agma Schwa about a year or two ago, either through my youtube feed or through Connor Quimby. But by sheer coincidence, we had a lot in common. We’re both lifelong Arizonans who got our undergrads at ASU and made a conlang for our thesis under the same thesis advisor a few years apart. My advisor had even used Agma’s conlang as an example - I just hadn’t met him yet. We hung out a few times before I moved, mostly to chat about languages or playtest his card game.
I’m in Agma Schwa’s discord server - highly recommend it to new conlangers looking for a community. I’m also in Connor Quimby’s server, Biblaridion’s server, Nakari Serverdane, Liken’s server, and probably others, but I’m not super active.
I would love to hear you talk about Syntax Trees and how you make them. Love all your work man!
Will you remember me when you get famous?
Also sorry for being late
What is something really cool you’ve only seen in very few conlangs?
how did you first get interested in conlanging? What was your biggest struggle while starting out, and now, what is something almost all good conlangs have in your opinion
I was always a fan of Tolkien, so when I started playing D&D at around 10, I made little languages. Not TRUE conlangs; more like lists of draconic swear words, or writing systems that were basically just English cyphers. As I learned more about languages, I gradually improved, and once I started learning about linguistics, I started trying to make more naturalistic conlangs.
My biggest struggle was probably over-adherence to rules. I was too concerned with following every tiny naturalistic detail because I didn't want my conlang to be unrealistic. That over-adherence ended up making it far more unnaturalistic in the long run, so have fun with it!
Can we have more info on kloun-human relations? Like do they know about each other, have they interacted in the 21 century, have modern entomologists of either classified the other, etc.
What languages do you speak?
English is my native language, and the only one I speak at C-level proficiency.
Je parle un peu français, mais je sais pas quel est mon niveau de compétence. Je l’ai étudié par intermittence au cours des huit dernières années. Je peux lire des romans et des articles de linguistique en français, mais je l’ai pas parlé depuis un ou deux ans. Je fais beaucoup d’erreurs stupides et j’ai besoin de pratiquer.
I want to learn nłeʔkepmxcín, since I’m working on the language, but learning a first-nations language takes a very long time, especially when there aren’t a lot of resources. At the moment, I can rant about the grammar, but I don’t speak it by any measure.
hi!! I’m an actual linguist thus the seraphim video wasn’t such a mind-blowing thing for me hah (jk it was, but I at least understood the trees and movements lmao). however I am so glad to encounter your account after getting the seraphim video recommended to me. your content is so witty and informative, yet funny and entertaining. it actually reminds me why I like this science soooo much. thank u for doing what u r doing (btw the slender guy is so cute and I really like your voice too!)
I just wanted to appreciate your work but i’d also be happy to know whether u studied linguistics at university. where did u do it if so? oh and what r u particularly interested in when it comes to the syntax-semantic interface (judging by your videos u must really like it)?
Yep! I'm in a master's program right now, and I'm hoping to transfer into the PhD at the end of this term. I'm learning to do fieldwork on Nłeʔkepmxcín (Thompson Salish) so most of my research so far has pertained to morphosyntax and lexical suffixes (basically nouns compounded to verbs that can't exist on their own anymore), but I'm still figuring out the specific theoretical areas I want to explore and trying to keep my options open.
Where are your shoulders? How is your neck supporting your head?
Would you do Minority Language Report?
On a scale of one to ten, what is your favorite color of the alphabet?
yes
what are some of your other intrests outside of the whole linguistics-conlanging area?, and also, are u on the spectrum and/or neurodivergent in some way?
Would you ever be willing to stream your conlanging process like what Biblaridion is doing? I find it very helpful to see somebody fingering this stuff out rather than just talking about a finished product
Maybe. The issue is that I don’t do this full-time like I suspect Bib does. As a result, my conlanging process is more comparable to occasional bursts, in which I develop an unorthodox grammatical feature, then abandon it and never touch the project again. When I do make more complete conlangs, I tend to be less organized than Bib. I don’t mind doing it, but only if my patrons really wanna see it
"sometime this month... probably"
Could you do a video on the IPA, how its constructed/used, and how to use it for natlangs and conlangs? And as for the Q&A, I'd love to know if there is history behind your avatar, and since your brother watches your videos, I'd like to see his take on all this recent popularity/if he enjoys being an extremely minor internet celebrity
I wouldn’t say either of us is an extremely minor internet celebrity, but I'm sure my brother thinks it's mildly cool that he popped up in my biggest video
There isn't much history behind the avatar (aside from some other details I explain in some of the other comments). I did use the face in a few of my old comic strips, though, namely when I wanted the characters to be mildly unsettling
@@babelingua I think it's hella epic. Honestly really proud of you, even if you don't consider 8k subs to be very big, and I get excited for all your videos even though I only understand half of what's going on. You've been a big inspiration for me to make my own stuff too (eventually) and I look up to you in a lot of ways. I'd say my reaction is much more than "mild" enthusiasm!
have Seraphim speakers interacted with the Kloun? if so, how did Seraphim influence Kloun?
Nope! I refuse to do any more worldbuilding on Seraphim than what was required for the contest
Not a question, but a wanted to say that your art is really great. It adds a lot to every video.
What's your favorite/most interesting feature of a natlang to incorporate in a conlang? What natlang do you find most interesting? What conlang?
Would u be willing or interested in touching on any of the following topics with your many, many hands: topic/comment, focus/background, giveness, thematic relations? I've been really interested in information structure in general, especially as it applies to languages with free word order, but its been difficult to grasp and I'd love to see more accessible resources covering these topics
How are sibilant and non-sibilant consonants different? Also vowels. What makes one rounded and another unrounded? I can hear the difference in samples, but what makes one sibilant or not and vowels rounded or not?
My apologies for asking so late, I just found your channel now, but what would be your opinions on a constructed sign language?
Which language groups are there? Where are they geographically? I would love some insights to that!
Oh, this is far too long to answer! People dedicate their entire lives to these questions. WALS is a good place to look for details, though! Hell, you can even just look through wikipedia for a general idea (although be careful with wikipedia articles on smaller languages: they can be really bad, and the people who edit them can sometimes refuse to let people make corrections)
In your opinion, what is the most overlooked part of conlanging?
Where are you from? What career are you pursuing? What led you to make videos on RUclips?
I'm from Arizona, and I'm pursuing a career in academia (hopefully) -- at bare minimum in something adjacent to linguistics
What is your favorite sound in human language
what’s your favourite sound in the IPA?
I like laterals quite a lot!
Who are you? Like, how did you just pop up from nowhere with great video ideas and impressive editing?
Also, who did the art for the origin story (ligma joke) video?
Also, what is your recording setup?
Also, what made you decide to speak with the cadence and tone that you use in your videos?
Who am I? “Who are you” is vague, but the follow-up question implies that you want to know how I got into youtube. I’ve been drawing since my pre-acquisition larval stage - baby-lingua, and my original plan had been to go into graphic design and marketing. I’m a great cartoonist and an okay video editor, but I am NOT good at marketing. So when I lost my funding and went to community college, I used that as an opportunity to explore other areas. All of my videos before the one on definite articles are part of that exploration.
You can sort of see the progression: I begin with English etymologies - something I’ve always enjoyed - then get a bit deeper and deeper until I’m headfirst into linguistics.
As for the art, I did it! I do my own visuals
My recording setup is a desk with a fifine mic. My office has a window facing the road, so I try to record at night at times when my roommates aren't around. I also got a sound isolation thing to go on my mic, but it only sort-of works
As for the tone, I just try to say things in an interesting manner, often using intonation patterns stolen from movies and people I hear in real life, all frankensteined together with some speech and debate conventions and a lifetime of generalized observations about how to speak.
@@babelingua Thank you for the replies! You’re right; you’re a great cartoonist. I asked because I really enjoyed the way it flowed in the origin story video. I inquired about the tone out of appreciation for your reading of The Green Knight. I welcome more of that kind of content but understand why it probably will not happen. It may be better suited on a second, more ASMR-flavored channel. Also, if you would ever like some free original music or sound design I would be happy to do that for you. I wish you the best in your RUclips endeavor
What would you consider your first full conlang? What do you like and dislike about it? What would you change about it if you could redo it?
My first full conlang was called Plupupwe, and it was AWFUL.
I’d done enough relex naming languages to avoid that pitfall, and I’d watched enough Biblaridion to avoid a Thandian disaster. The issue was that I grammaticalized every single morpheme from scratch: without any phonetic changes. See, I didn’t realize that I was allowed to erode words into morphemes without sweeping sound changes, which I didn’t want to do until the very end. To make matters worse, syllables were strictly CV. Case suffixes were 1-4 syllables, subject agreement was 1-3 syllables, and object agreement was 2-4 syllables. “He eats the food” was ‘oto-pepepe buma-kangingi-kapepepe-beti. It was bad. I scrapped it and remade it: again and again. The latest version is kípíp: my clownlang. It still has some dumb stuff left over from its plupuwe days - the romanization is terrible - but I’m oddly fond of those quirks now.
what is your favorite word in any language ever
How do all your conlangs refer to speakers of each other? I.e. how would a cloun refer to a speaker of your celestial language, and how would they refer to clouns etc.?
They don't exist in the same world, and I'm answering this question at 2am because I can't fall asleep, so I'm not in the headspace to coin hypothetical terms. Good question, though!
@@babelingua Well, I suppose that answers that! Got to say, you're doing great on your channel, and I'm astonished to get an answer even if 4 weeks later. Hope your channel takes off more than it has already some day. And sleep well when you do!
What do you think about language revival/preservation efforts? Especially big ones supported by governments like Irish and Welsh?
So long as they're being led by the communities, I'm a fan. I personally work more on the documentation side of things, but I think revitalization is really cool and I'm all in favor of communities reclaiming and preserving their language and culture
What was your first conlang? How many conlangs have you made? Also Thandian?
I remember your “alternate mammoth steppe” with the funny sloths and glyptodonts and gran goats, were you ever going to continue that?
Would you rather have unlimited bacon but no more games or games, unlimited games and no games?
I don't eat meat, so I'd pick the unlimited games
When did you get into Creating videos?
Just a thing to ask.
In general? I've been goofing around with a camera since I was a kid, and I've been drawing for as long as I can remember. I started making videos for this channel, however, around the start of the pandemic. All my old etymology videos were made for fun. All the other videos (up until the one on definite articles) were made for miscellaneous classes.
How do you make conlangs? Im following a bunch of conlangists, but language isn't my strong suit, religion and mythology and cultural study is however. I was wondering how to create such a beautiful cursed conlang and what you looked at in order to make it, on top of that i absolutely love some of your other videos my personal favorite being the etymology of peepeepoopoo. Thank you for your beautiful creations and have a fantastic day, month, week and year
Follow up question, how do you create speculative evolution innovations such as the klouns
Follow up follow up question, is the god of kloun a particular pagliacci?
What is your favorite conlang?
In terms of fictional languages, Quenya will always be special to me; I quite enjoyed Ilothwii, too.
As far as Englangs go, Ithkuil is a classic. Lincos is pretty fun conceptually.
My faves are those that bridge the gap between englang and functional lang. Although I have gripes with the grammar, Kēlen would be a good example: its syntax is engineered for a specific goal, but there’s some degree of fictional storytelling too. Europan’s a fun one, but they don’t even need to be that extreme as long as they break the rules in fun ways. Permechikan’s mostly naturalistic, but Agma’s choice to use a single vowel added a unique flare.
What is your favorite fictional language and why?
Quenya, mostly because I grew up loving Tolkien and it was one of the first conlangs I got excited about
How many conlangs have you created and of them, how many have been successful?
It's hard to count because most aren't complete. I have tons of spreadsheets with theory-bending grammatical features, xenolang phonetic inventories - stuff like that. Very few of these become conlangs. The only conlangs I’d describe as somewhat “complete” are kípíp, Seraphim, and whalesnore (a language for god-whales that dream reality into existence with click-basesd set-theory).
Do you plan on having your will written in a script only you know?
No, that sort of defeats the purpose
What is your favorite language?
There are too many to list. Salish languages are cool, and so are Na-Dene languages. Swahili is great, Finnish is cool, Japanese is really interesting -- there are just too many good languages. I generally like agglutinative languages quite a bit, but not exclusively
Do you have a favorite constructed writing system? What aspects do you like about it?
How do you feel about mimes?
Congratulations on getting so many subs in such a short span of time!
I don’t really have any strong opinions about mimes, or clowns for that matter. I don’t find them funny, and all my interactions with clowns have been mildly embarrassing or uncomfortable. I do, however, find clowns and mimes very funny in unexpected contexts. Clowns in business meetings, municipal politics, zombie apocalypses - they’re funny when they’re out of place.
Honestly, I don't know many constructed writing systems. Quenya's nice, but I also like Tolkien a lot, so I'm a bit biased
if you had to describe agma schwa in exactly 10 words, what would they be?
agma schwa agma schwa agma schwa agma schwa agma schwa
favorite sound? mine is probably /s/
Not sure. There are lots of cool sounds. I personally like ejectives a lot. I also like syllabic consonants, but that's more of a phonology thing than a phonetics one
What is/are your favorite natural language(s)? Have you noticed taking influence from that in any way when you conlang?
Ohhhh god there are too many to list here. I definitely take influence from them, although not always directly. For instance, Salish languages have overt transitivization affixes. They've inspired me to make my own transitivizers, but I don't do them in the same way as Salish languages. Another example would be noun incorporation. I also like Mandarin classifiers, but they inspire me to make my own unique classifier system (if anything, closer to Navajo) not to copy theirs. There's definitely influence, but it's not a direct copy/paste. Salish languages probably have the strongest influence since those are the ones I study -- I find my prefered phonoaesthetics often mirror the Salish family (particularly nłeʔkepmxcín)
Full length wug video?
A full video about wugs? Sounds fun! A full dancing animation? Probably beyond my skillset. I am not an animator, and that super-choppy animation alone took a hot sec
what is your favorite dinosaur
Scientifically, dinosaur is very specific. Linguistically, it’s basically any cool prehistoric reptile. Lucky for you, dinosaurs are a big special interest of mine.
Avian? Archaeopteryx. Theropod? Spinosaurus. Non-Theropod? Pretty much any sauropod. Small ceratopsids are pretty cool, too. I liked triceratops as a kid, but I now prefer protoceratops. Prehistoric reptile? Quetzalcoatlus. Any extinct megafauna? Glyptodon.
wug time
if you would have been able to make a conlang the international auxiliary language, which one would you choose?
kay(f)bop(t)
what's your "soft" sounds do you prefer?
t' = [c] or [tʲ]
g' = [ɟ] or [gʲ]
n' = [ɲ] or [nʲ]
What do you think is the most interesting language?
Adding to this, what do you think is the most interesting sentence?
What do you use to keep track of all your conlangs and words? Love ur videos btw especially the Kloun videos.
Lots and lots of spreadsheets
what is your creepy avatar supposed to be? and why is it so creepy?
Not supposed to be anything in particular
Can we have more Wug Time?
How did you learn all you know about conlangs?
I study linguistics, so it's really easy to apply the stuff I study to my language construction projects. I also watched a lot of youtube videos, read some books, and joined some online communities. The best way to get good at a thing is to do it a lot. You're going to suck at first (my first conlang was dreadful) but you have to start somewhere
What are your favorite IPA characters (not the phonemes, the characters themselves)?
The glottal stop is a nice character! I also love click characters because of how hard it is to romanize them
Do you have a lexicon of Seraphim words outside of what you used in the video?
No, but now that people are trying to translate things, I may have to make proper documentation
what kind of music do u listen to 🥺
Have you heard of any conlangs made with a very specific use in mind?
Such as a conlang for muscicians, soliders, doctors, people with ADD, people with synthesia, neurodivergents.
I haven't heard of any, but that doesn't mean they don't exist
Are you ever going to release your erotic "Thomas the Tank Engine" love song?
Hello, Ben, my brother. First of all, it’s a ROMANTIC Thomas the Tank Engine love song. Second of all, the free beat I used was claimed by Don Sémaj to make J’ai Fait un Rêve. Third of all, that was in high school. Fourth of all, I’m not a musician or a singer, so I would not be able to do the lyrics the justice they deserve. Fifth of all, it's not on-brand -- maybe for a second channel, but I don't have time to make one at the moment
@@babelingua once your chanel reaches a big sub milestone I'm gonna force you to commission a vocalist to sing it. Also I think the beat was licensed, not claimed. Don Sémaj doesn't hold the copyright, so you can still use it
When will you continue the Kloun-Series?
It's ongoing, but very time consuming. Each video requires lots of custom art, and I'm a full-time grad student with research, work, and lots of other stuff filling my schedule. On top of that, the next video will likely be about an hour long, so it will take a while
What's the most annoying thing that props up in a nat lang and a conlang to you?
Why is your 'persona' so unsettling? I.e being overall cartoonish but having hollow eyes and detailed hands. Is it a deliberate choice or is it just your style of drawing (presuming you designed it). My apologies if this came off as insulting, it's just a very fascinating design and rather endearing in how it is both generally appealing but also unsettling
No it's not insulting at all! I intended to go for a mildly unsettling vibe, and it sort of grew over time. The design stemmed from (a) wanting the face to be emotionally ambiguous to avoid using the same image in incorrect emotional contexts, and (b) wanting the hands to be separate layers so they could point at things all over the place. Because the hands were separate layers, I made jokes where there'd be three hands on the screen at once, and they sort of added to the creepiness, which I leaned into
your questions
How your cong lang, canlang, canglang(?) community look at programming languages especially on esoteric ones?
Not sure. That's a question for Ætérnal
Are you ok after the last video? I got a headache from watching it
The time has come. Aliens have contacted earth. What conlang would you make the official language for communication with these beings?
If we're communicating with aliens, I'd suggest using something similar to/based around formal logic. Realistically, I feel like any alien communication would have to be custom-made for the specific alien
Whistle phonemes?
Your so good at grammatical portions of conlangs. What are some pointers for making more interesting grammars in my languages?
Read a lot. Read about things you find interesting, read about how it occurs in natural languages, and read about how academics debate about it. Never just use one language as a source; reference multiple languages that do similar things. Read and experiment with the things you read
seriously is there something about arizona state that is just breeding conlang youtubers??? you, agma schwa and colin gorrie all have sizeable audiences on conlanging and i can’t tell if it’s a coincidence or the heat does something to your brain chemistry or what
What exactly is the content you're making
what is your birthday
Canada day
How many languages can you speak and what is your opinion on Wug?
How do you know so much about the specifics of language? / also, what made you make the video about seraphim speech?
I'm working on a grad degree in linguistics! I made the vide for Agma Schwa's cursed conlang circus contest
how do you learn advance linguistics???
i feel so dumb after watching the seraphim conlang showcase video
That video was specifically made to be confusing. Real linguistics is not like that. If you want a good starting place, you can check out Andrew Carnie's syntax videos
@@babelingua i see. thank you !! :D
Whose you’re stylist because that outfit is sleek. Also, does it come in size xxxxxs?
I am my own stylist! It comes in any size you want
When are the As droppong?
im new to the channel so i may have missed it somewhere, are you a fan of toki pona? to me it is the quintessential conlang, it does something no natural language would ever dream of, its also the only conlang i have the attention span to learn
I don't have very strong opinions about toki pona. It's cool and it meets its goal; it's just not the kind of conlang I'm personally interested in (and there's nothing wrong with that)
I noticed this video had a Wug. What modifications would you make to the word 'Wug' to refer to multiples of them?
wug
wugs
wugs
Are you prehaps a kloun?
How does it make you feel that there's a good chance that, for many of the people who watched your Seraphim video all the way through, the Linguistical explanation was just as incomprehensible as the language itself?
That’s the idea! Remember: I made it as an entry into a cursed conlang contest. The entire goal of the conlang is to be incomprehensible to linguists and conlangers. That anyone watched it all the way through genuinely shocked me.