Conlang Critic: Kēlen

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  • เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 มิ.ย. 2024
  • my review of Kēlen, the language without verbs.
    / hbmmaster
    / hbmmaster
    / janmisali
    conlangcritic.bandcamp.com
    seximal.net
    www.terjemar.net/kelen/kelen.php
    kelen.conlang.org/archives/cat...

ความคิดเห็น • 825

  • @joelhaggis5054
    @joelhaggis5054 4 ปีที่แล้ว +3396

    Whenever Misali does the vowel inventory I imagine him walking slowly across a bed of hot coals.

    • @chufflangs
      @chufflangs 3 ปีที่แล้ว +105

      I absolutely hate it

    • @wyntyrr
      @wyntyrr 3 ปีที่แล้ว +20

      @Joel Haggis LOL

    • @IdaeChop
      @IdaeChop 3 ปีที่แล้ว +179

      iihhh
      uuhh
      eeeEeEh
      oOoOoh
      AAAAAAAAAAA

    • @viktorocasio582
      @viktorocasio582 3 ปีที่แล้ว +86

      @@IdaeChop The 5 vowel system

    • @jaynelee8612
      @jaynelee8612 3 ปีที่แล้ว +17

      a:

  • @parmaxolotl
    @parmaxolotl 4 ปีที่แล้ว +4357

    When it's 2:30am but your conlang doesn't have a word for "sleep" yet

    • @gabrielcollstefoni7765
      @gabrielcollstefoni7765 4 ปีที่แล้ว +10

      /kʷ i.´θin/ night
      /ba.'kʷi.da.ny/ any mean of transport

    • @approximateCognition
      @approximateCognition 4 ปีที่แล้ว +19

      In L'takut it would "Shnurpuk"
      Tèkl'r tèishnurpat
      =
      You should sleep

    • @servantofaeie1569
      @servantofaeie1569 4 ปีที่แล้ว +20

      in Tivinkiji it is lisata
      Qiki la lisata qumununi sin qumununi 3:00 qakati maki pakasa min qiki.
      I stayed up last night till 3:00 making my own language.
      Literally: I no sleep past night before 3:00 action create language of me.
      (I really did)

    • @MushVPeets
      @MushVPeets 4 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      Liriu, a'nezh! (Sleep, dammit!)

    • @lukesmith8896
      @lukesmith8896 4 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      Finally... Je peux dors...

  • @TruckTheDuck
    @TruckTheDuck 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2563

    “This caused SECONDS of confusion “ - me, about everything, always

    • @IcedTheLocalClown
      @IcedTheLocalClown 3 ปีที่แล้ว +23

      @Alexnader Hamiltun we are still have SECONDS of confusion

    • @aa01blue38
      @aa01blue38 3 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      @@IcedTheLocalClown dang must be a lotta seconds

    • @TheRojo387
      @TheRojo387 3 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      Thorn actually makes more sense than theta for the "th" sound in "thin" and "thong".

    • @alexscriabin
      @alexscriabin 3 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      @@TheRojo387 afaict, θ vs δ is more unambiguous than þ vs ð.

    • @Designed1
      @Designed1 4 หลายเดือนก่อน

      @@TheRojo387 thorn does make sense for the voiceless dental fricative but eth representing the voiced dental fricative makes absolutely no sense. /δ/ would be much better suited for representing that sound

  • @longschlongsilver7628
    @longschlongsilver7628 3 ปีที่แล้ว +1459

    It's like Egyptian. Everyone wrote in hieratic, but everyone remembers hieroglyphics, which were just used for ceremonial use.

    • @ts4gv
      @ts4gv 2 ปีที่แล้ว +97

      never knew that. makes a lot of sense. thanks

    • @mattybrunolucaszeneresalas9072
      @mattybrunolucaszeneresalas9072 2 ปีที่แล้ว +26

      @@ts4gv yes demotic was the common written form later

    • @VivBrodock
      @VivBrodock ปีที่แล้ว +35

      Or you know... calligraphy, a thing a lot of natural languages have.
      Certainly a unique calligraphy but still that at it's core

    • @TankEngine_12
      @TankEngine_12 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      Funnily enough we were going over ancient Egypt today in class and in my head I thought of this conlang

    • @tieflingcorpse9817
      @tieflingcorpse9817 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      feel like in modern society we dont really have that kind of thing anymore. sure we have calligraphy but barely anyone uses it anymore other than making satisfying youtube videos

  • @Somnerwalks
    @Somnerwalks 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1832

    Dude wtf I've never heard of a conlang and no experience in language but I'm enjoying this video

    • @lfocoap4950ajf8
      @lfocoap4950ajf8 3 ปีที่แล้ว +50

      Sat's World Studios why not

    • @LILProductions
      @LILProductions 3 ปีที่แล้ว +30

      @Sat's World Studios dude it’s not even the _freaking_ word

    • @jameeztherandomguy5418
      @jameeztherandomguy5418 3 ปีที่แล้ว +11

      @Sat's World Studios *fucking

    • @LILProductions
      @LILProductions 3 ปีที่แล้ว +6

      @@jameeztherandomguy5418 ʘoʘ

    • @khasanbekmalzagov6240
      @khasanbekmalzagov6240 3 ปีที่แล้ว +23

      Thats how everybody ends up staying... stay here with us... with us... with us... with us... STAY

  • @d3ada5tronaut
    @d3ada5tronaut 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1764

    wow a conlang you actually liked? impressive. I could hear the enthusiasm in your voice

    • @spinnis
      @spinnis 4 ปีที่แล้ว +143

      It's like when Gordon Ramsay actually praises someone...

    • @celticconlanger6401
      @celticconlanger6401 4 ปีที่แล้ว +70

      It's a rare occurrence. I know of only two he actually likes , Toki Pona being the other one....

    • @palatasikuntheyoutubecomme2046
      @palatasikuntheyoutubecomme2046 3 ปีที่แล้ว +41

      Na'vi be like:
      Viossa be like:
      Sindarin be like:
      Dothraki be like:
      Yeah it's uncommon but not *rare* ya know

    • @d3ada5tronaut
      @d3ada5tronaut 3 ปีที่แล้ว +12

      @@palatasikuntheyoutubecomme2046 I never said it was rare. what are you talking about?

    • @thewanderingmistnull2451
      @thewanderingmistnull2451 3 ปีที่แล้ว +36

      @@celticconlanger6401 You fool, you forgot kay(f)bop(t), the most superior of all conlangs.

  • @orchidman3421
    @orchidman3421 4 ปีที่แล้ว +547

    imagine learning the ceremonial system in a school setting, like the way the us treats cursive writing.

    • @creativewanderer9577
      @creativewanderer9577 3 ปีที่แล้ว +6

      Omg

    • @festerdam4548
      @festerdam4548 3 ปีที่แล้ว +60

      I'm confused about people disliking being forced to learn cursive. The first thing I learned to write in was cursive. It's the way I write the most when writing personal notes or texts longer than 2 simple sentences, since it is a very fast manner of doing so. Since people often have trouble reading my handwriting I sometimes have to imitate print (at around 2,5 seconds per letter).

    • @creativewanderer9577
      @creativewanderer9577 3 ปีที่แล้ว +34

      @@festerdam4548 I mean I liked it when we were learning it, but I find it takes me longer to write legible notes with cursive, and I don't do it well in the first place. I also find it harder to read if it's not very clear

    • @festerdam4548
      @festerdam4548 3 ปีที่แล้ว +31

      @@creativewanderer9577 Since it's much less likely to have to raise the writing utensil, it should increase the speed. I'm not speaking about marriage invitation cursive (fancy), but rather cursive that's used day-to-day for note taking or longer texts (practical). My handwriting is pretty bad, though, so for short and important messages, print is very useful ("Have fever. Don't wait for me.")
      Edit: Didn't read the legible part. Yeah if you are aiming for legibility, print is your friend, but I don't use it for long texts because I take so much longer to write with it.

    • @castafiorept7309
      @castafiorept7309 2 ปีที่แล้ว +21

      @@festerdam4548 I imagine some dissatisfaction is from legibility. People can already have terrible handwriting in normal script, and with cursive's almost nonexistent use in formally typed and printed media, most people are naturally not nearly familiar with cursive script as both a writing, but greatly a reading script, as they are with standard Roman letters. From a young age kids are exposed almost completely to standard script, and I imagine most are fine using what they would favor something they see more often and is completely standardized in every other form of media to be exposed to.

  • @kronosbot5
    @kronosbot5 4 ปีที่แล้ว +571

    *See's thumbnail on feed.*
    Why is this one written entirely in pretzels?

    • @otaku_gamerita
      @otaku_gamerita 3 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      ahah

    • @Lord_Drakostar
      @Lord_Drakostar 3 ปีที่แล้ว +11

      My favourite language is *Pretzel.* Come to think of it, that sounds like an Aztec branch-off.

    • @Lord_Drakostar
      @Lord_Drakostar 3 ปีที่แล้ว +7

      @AHYAN BIN Hey, do you hear that sound?

    • @Nibiri3304
      @Nibiri3304 3 ปีที่แล้ว +6

      @@Lord_Drakostar the sound of the joke flying over their head?

    • @oc2thorpe
      @oc2thorpe 2 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      @@Nibiri3304 yeah like “wooosh.” what an idiotic sound.

  • @unintentionallydramatic
    @unintentionallydramatic 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1291

    Since nineteen.
    Eighty.
    Hot.
    Damn.

    • @snowl_fennox
      @snowl_fennox 4 ปีที่แล้ว +78

      Ashakari Singh literally my thought 😳😳
      I mean, I’ve been working on my first conlang for about 14-16yrs and I thought *that* was a long time 🤯

    • @dandanthedandan7558
      @dandanthedandan7558 4 ปีที่แล้ว +68

      I literally started working on a conlang and left the project on hold after a little less than a month

    • @nebulium6641
      @nebulium6641 4 ปีที่แล้ว +31

      @@dandanthedandan7558 i barely get a week most of the time

    • @ajinkyatarodekar9099
      @ajinkyatarodekar9099 4 ปีที่แล้ว +9

      Holy moley. I never expected an Indian here.

    • @cloud__zero
      @cloud__zero 4 ปีที่แล้ว +9

      my oldest still-worked on language is from late 2017 but I’ve been conlanging since like 2015-16

  • @maddiedoesntkno
    @maddiedoesntkno 2 ปีที่แล้ว +105

    As a weaver I’m super taken with the decorative kēlen writing system. Lovely. It’s so easy to work into a pattern-you could weave a name or title (or even endearments for courting/wedding gifts-imagine!) into garments. This absolutely sets my mind alight.

  • @juliangoulette7600
    @juliangoulette7600 4 ปีที่แล้ว +614

    Lojbanic Family: "We don't have verbs!"
    Kelen: "You're all lying to me!"

    • @UnshavenStatue
      @UnshavenStatue 4 ปีที่แล้ว +100

      People who don't know Lojban: "whoa, lojban says it doesnt have verbs!"
      People who know Lojban: "wtf are you smoking, the entire language is built around verbs"

    • @MrDarkPage
      @MrDarkPage 4 ปีที่แล้ว +43

      @@UnshavenStatue .u'i everything is a verbs therefore nothing is a verb

    • @frechjo
      @frechjo 4 ปีที่แล้ว +13

      @Joe
      Esperanto has some constructed dialects or derived languages. Ido is definitively in Esperanto's family, as well as that simplified/teaching version for Asians which I can't recall it's name. There are also some fictional dialects used in literature. So yes, Esperanto is already a family of languages.
      About dialects arising naturally among native speakers, I don't think there's much of it (unless you count as a dialect the variations that could exist inside a family or a very reduced group).
      There's not much of a geographical isolation, most Esperantists try to follow the grammar and vocabulary standards, and there's some aversion to the formation of dialects among the community.
      There are a few aspects you could consider "dialectal", like common mistakes by influence of the speakers native language, or adherence to reform proposals (like iĉismo, ĝiismo or riismo), but they're minor imo.

    • @notnotkavi
      @notnotkavi 4 ปีที่แล้ว +11

      Uh more like "Yall are giving me lies!"

    • @yeetyeet-jb6nc
      @yeetyeet-jb6nc 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      hehe i'll make a language that has vrebens which are definetly not verbs

  • @jinclay4354
    @jinclay4354 4 ปีที่แล้ว +53

    There was a writer called Jorge Luis Borges. He wrote a story about a guy that found in a mysterious encyclopedia which told about two different peoples who spoke one a language without verbs, while the other spoke a language without adjectives. He tries in quite some detail to express the intuition of those languages.
    I remember once I was talking with a friend about making a language without adjectives or verbs. We got excited and started eliminating other things too. In the end we had wiped every structure and left only colors, hahaha.

    • @cedriko1662
      @cedriko1662 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

      It would be funny to naturally find or hear a fictional language that had none adjectives nor verbs

  • @timh.6872
    @timh.6872 4 ปีที่แล้ว +504

    This is definitely my experience bias talking, but that relational relabeling of verbs reminds me a _lot_ of how some programming languages work. Declaration, assignment, ownership, and change are roughly a set of fundamental "actions" that can happen in higher level languages, everything else is a noun constructed by composing other nouns and relations. I wonder if that's part of why it's so hard for us to learn to work with computers. Most of us are used to languages with lots of verbs, so we emulate that by thinking in imperatives, when in fact it may be better to think in relations...

    • @maddymakesgames
      @maddymakesgames 4 ปีที่แล้ว +21

      Same, looking at the relations reminded me a lot of asm with how simple each individual word is but they can be combined to make higher level concepts that end up making practically limitless possibilities

    • @frechjo
      @frechjo 4 ปีที่แล้ว +12

      Have you tried Factor, in which everything can be thought of as a verb? Or Joy, or Forth, Cat, Kitten, concatenative languages in general. Even numbers can be seen as a verb that puts itself on the stack.

    • @ulilulable
      @ulilulable 4 ปีที่แล้ว +12

      We should all just speak in something like Prolog. Just state enough relations, and let the verbs and sentences come as a logical consequence. ;)

    • @timh.6872
      @timh.6872 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      @@frechjo I actually wrote a forth-like lisp for fun my freshman year of college. Recursion didn't work because it was dynamically scoped (or I just did the scoping wrong?). It's a neat idea, but I think 'all verb' languages are even harder to work with than 'all noun' languages, and that's reflected in popularity.

    • @Kolmaryn
      @Kolmaryn 4 ปีที่แล้ว +12

      Perhaps this language would be easier for programmers to learn? It seems very logic-based; if you know about coding, the relational system might seem to make more sense than the average person would find.

  • @siralbatoris
    @siralbatoris 4 ปีที่แล้ว +538

    Wow, a language Critic actually likes! This was actually a really neat language, a cool video, and probably my favorite so far. Keep up the good work!

    • @edsidfug207
      @edsidfug207 4 ปีที่แล้ว +21

      He prefers Jan Misali

    • @erentoraman2663
      @erentoraman2663 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      He also liked lingua franca nova

    • @gkky-xx4mc
      @gkky-xx4mc 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      And then we go right back to Romance IALs

    • @nutritionalyeast7978
      @nutritionalyeast7978 4 ปีที่แล้ว +12

      I'm assuming jan Misali likes most of the languages and just sounds critical cos that's the point of the videos lol

    • @BogusmanTheSwagman
      @BogusmanTheSwagman 4 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      you forget about Toki Pona. He loved that conlang.

  • @moonlightning8269
    @moonlightning8269 4 ปีที่แล้ว +47

    I’ve never found an artlang that wasn’t attached to a work of fiction that I actually really wanted to learn, until now. I love this actually

  • @ZKtheMAN
    @ZKtheMAN 4 ปีที่แล้ว +262

    Oh, sick, a midnight snack.
    And _wow,_ that ceremonial script is *mad cool.*

  • @anfa2789
    @anfa2789 4 ปีที่แล้ว +85

    Since my name is Kaylan (pronounced like in the video) and I gotta say sentences out of context made me laugh my ass off xD
    "When I first heard the concept of "Kaylan", I was immediately skeptical" lmao
    Glad YT recommended your channel to me in general anywho!!

    • @Sylviaon
      @Sylviaon 19 ชั่วโมงที่ผ่านมา

      My name is sylvia, imagine how i felt

  • @drsuqi
    @drsuqi 4 ปีที่แล้ว +199

    jan misali: * mentions toki pona *
    Me: Guess I'll wait for Anthony McCarthy then.

    • @lunkel8108
      @lunkel8108 4 ปีที่แล้ว +34

      You know he wants that bibliography

    • @zionj104
      @zionj104 4 ปีที่แล้ว +31

      And thanks to him, now there actually are new radio shows released in toki pona every week

    • @rana4410
      @rana4410 4 ปีที่แล้ว +7

      Wait there are? Where do I find these?

    • @thesunwillneverset
      @thesunwillneverset 2 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      @@lunkel8108 Now up to 2 official books thanks to the dictionary :)

    • @jangamecuber
      @jangamecuber 2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      @@zionj104 Link please. I need this

  • @SnoFitzroy
    @SnoFitzroy 4 ปีที่แล้ว +115

    "To cause to become" as a replacement for lots of verbs is something I wish English had. Imagine how sophisticated this would sound! Instead of "the fan cools the room," or "the dog eats his food," equivalents would be "the fan causes the temperature to go down," or "the food causes the dog to be sustained"
    Edit: "TO GIVE WORDS???" OH MY GOD THIS CONLANG IS AMAZING

  • @memyselfandisaacmusic7819
    @memyselfandisaacmusic7819 4 ปีที่แล้ว +68

    This actually raised a really interesting thought for me, which I have 0 time to follow up. Would it be possible to have a truly "verbless" language by implying the verb by sentence structure alone, and thus violate this linguistic constant?
    If you consider what the verbs/relationals in Kelen do, you could combine them into a single relational, and then ellipt it entirely and use suffixes to imply it.
    For example, let's say you had three suffixes, "oo" referring to the initial object, "oa" to the new object, and "as" referring to the subject/causer. To say "a painter painted the house red", you'd say "houseoo red-houseoa painteras". To say I am tall, you could say "tall-Ioa" and to say I've become tall (grown), you'd say "Ioo tall-Ioa".
    Then to give (se) would translate similarly. "Ali gave Bob a present" would become "Ali's-presentoo Bob'spresentoa Alias" (though I imagine the Alias would be ellipted due to being implied, much as Korean often ellipts it's subjects) . To say "Bob took Ali's present", you could use "Ali's-presentoo Bob's-presentoa Bobas".
    Finally, other information could be imparted by adverbs at the end of the sentence. While the other parts of the sentence could be in any order, so long as adjective came before noun, this would always have to be at the end. For example, to say "Bob angrily *stole* Ali's present", you'd use "Ali's-presentoo Bob's-presentoa Bobas illegally angrily"
    I'd imagine that time wouldn't be implied by tense, but by explicit reference (e.g. yesterday, last-hour, etc.), much like Kiribati. Place could probably be similar (e.g. at-home, at-school), though the "at" particle would likely be ellipted in informal speech.
    Finally, I'd imagine that the formality of speech would imply whether you kept the suffixes on nouns ("oo", "oa", "as"), and even if you required the nouns at all if it's implied by previous speech. For example "I eat an apple. I eat a banana." would be "appleoo eaten-appleoa Ias. Bananaoo eaten-bananaoa Ias" in formal speech, and "eaten-apple Ias. Eaten-banana." In informal speech.
    What do you think? Feel free to steal the idea and run with it, just lmk what you come up with!

  • @spinnis
    @spinnis 4 ปีที่แล้ว +216

    I think it could be possible to have a lang COMPLETELY without verbs, by for example specifying the state of something before and after a verb happens. Instead, of "they give me the thing" its something like "their thing -> my thing". If you are thinking that the "->" is a verb, what if all sentences are assumed to be linked in this way through just punctuation (so it becomes "their thing. my thing", and if they aren't, then a prefix is added to the first word of the next sentence? Can a period really be a verb? I don't think so.
    Also, I disagree that you said hangman is completely unrelated to anything else on the channel. Hangman is the most commonly played language related game!

    • @storystimmler
      @storystimmler 3 ปีที่แล้ว +35

      Yeah, you're right, I think you could create completely verbless language just by stating the object's state before and after and having everything else be implied. It's technically verbless.
      I wonder, though, if there are verbs that can't be worked around like this. Let's see . . . I think it's possible with most common verbs. 'Say' works ("words in my mouth-->words in their ears" or something like that), 'walk' could be '"I here" (the 'am' can be implied like in Russian)-->"I there"'. But what about verbs like 'think'? "No thoughts in head"-->"thoughts in head"? (And again, you can say that something exists without using a verb. Instead of doing it the English way and saying 'There IS a whatever', You just say, 'There whatever'.) There are probably verbs that can only be communicated using verbs, instead of this before-after-state system, although I guess languages evolve and are devious enough that you could probably find a clever way to communicate even those verbs without verbs.

    • @monophone903
      @monophone903 3 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      Are you that swedish man on the toki pona server? If so then toki!

    • @Liggliluff
      @Liggliluff 3 ปีที่แล้ว +9

      zero copula: Она дома "She at home", does not have a verb. Your language can be an SO language, there's simply no V. "A time ago, their thing, my thing" = they gave me their thing to me a while ago. "I book" could imply reading because that's what you do with books, but then the tricky part is how you would specify that you made that book. "I book-creation" would just make the noun "creation" into a verb, like how English use "book" as a noun and a verb. Technically then "I book" does mean "I'm reading" since "book" here is a verb. I'm really curious if you can make it without verbs.

    • @artembaguinski9946
      @artembaguinski9946 3 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      @@Liggliluff 11 books by me. 12 books by me.

    • @artembaguinski9946
      @artembaguinski9946 3 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      More to verbs than only action. Also tense, mood, all that. Adverbs useful: yesterday no knowledge of this conlag by me . Today knowledge of this conlang by me. Too much redundancy though. At least success in verbless communication of my ideas.

  • @venividivivi
    @venividivivi 4 ปีที่แล้ว +250

    Why must you do this to me quarantine has already destroyed my sleep schedule enough

  • @MrLegendofLP
    @MrLegendofLP 4 ปีที่แล้ว +15

    Songs in Kelen must be really interesting to write and perform considering how important length is to the meaning of words. I've never in my life been interested in language but for some reason your videos are hooking me.

  • @succadick2424
    @succadick2424 4 ปีที่แล้ว +50

    I'm so stoked for hangman analysis

  • @Painocus
    @Painocus 4 ปีที่แล้ว +94

    The ceremonial alphabet vaguely remind me of Geometric Kufic Arabic.

    • @Rotem_S
      @Rotem_S 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      Wow that calligraphy looks amazing! this is like taking it and adding more celtic knots to the mix

  • @John_Weiss
    @John_Weiss 4 ปีที่แล้ว +33

    There is a way to make Kēlen [or any language] more "verbless":
    1) Dispense with the copula altogether. Several real-world languages already do that.
    2) For the other meaning of the verb, "to be", you can use an adjective like, "identical" or "similar."
    3) To replace the construction, "There is …," one could use an adverb, such as, "here." Or an adjective like, "real," or, "present." Or the noun for "the present" or for "today." Or for that matter, it could use all of these, each in a different context that doesn't seem consistent to non-native speakers, but totally makes sense in the world-view of the culture of the language's speakers.
    4) The verb, "to have": Easy. Use the genetive case. Again, maybe add in adjectives/adverbs as required by context.
    5) Tenses: Again, easy. Just use the appropriate time-word. Or encode tense in direction and use the appropriate direction [e.g. "forward" for the past-tense; or "east" for the past-tense].
    6) A few particles indicating how nouns are connected together, instead of using verbs to make that connection. For example:
    6a) A particle that means, "the next two nouns are conceptually connected."
    What that connection is depends on context.
    6b) A particle used on 2 or more phrases, preceding each phrase, which has the meaning, "these phrases have a relationship."
    We have a similar construction to this in English: "either … or …" and “neither … nor … "
    6c) A particle that is put in between items that are part of a sequence. Think of it as the spoken-equivalent of a comma.
    Again: These particles must not be a mere replacement for a bunch of verbs. A specific combination of nouns, adjectives, and adverbs are the replacement for each verb. The particles would just increase the way you can make combinations.

    • @jenovahhelson5941
      @jenovahhelson5941 ปีที่แล้ว

      Converbs?

    • @John_Weiss
      @John_Weiss ปีที่แล้ว

      @@jenovahhelson5941 I … don't think so. That would still be a kind of verb.
      What I was postulating was using a combination of nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and grammar to replace verbs entirely.
      It would result in a rather alien way of thinking.
      The converse - using verbs as nouns, adjectives, and/or adverbs - actually happens regularly in human language.

  • @shledzguohn
    @shledzguohn 4 ปีที่แล้ว +54

    in so early the captions haven't shown up yet

  • @xwtek3505
    @xwtek3505 3 ปีที่แล้ว +12

    Kelen: this is language without verbs
    Jan Misali: This can't be a good thing
    Kelen: Shows its heavily researched details.

  • @damanke
    @damanke 4 ปีที่แล้ว +8

    wow that Ceremonial alphabet is awesome, i have not seen nothing simmilar, and recently i started with the desing of a conscript that looks like that interlace and it will be for a language with a huge amount of verbs

  • @Theo-oh3jk
    @Theo-oh3jk 3 ปีที่แล้ว +10

    Kelen reminds me of Basque. It's just taken the lexical information out of the verbs, and then stripped them down to a closed set. The small closed set of verbs take person, tense, mood etc., while the lexical information is handled by nouns and word order. The "relationals" are just relabelled verbs.

  • @Matt-no7gg
    @Matt-no7gg 3 ปีที่แล้ว +19

    Came for the Hangman, stayed for the conlangs. I'm currently in the middle of a conlang rabbit hole and I'm not sure how to feel about that

  • @ribhuhooja3137
    @ribhuhooja3137 4 ปีที่แล้ว +55

    Hangman: *executing* in April

  • @GameTornado01
    @GameTornado01 4 ปีที่แล้ว +310

    April 2020
    World: ends
    Jan Misali: So... hangman is actually a pretty weird game

    • @xwtek3505
      @xwtek3505 3 ปีที่แล้ว +6

      hotel: trivago

    • @QQQ_789
      @QQQ_789 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      It's 2022 and i comfirm were already dead

  • @tommasomonduzzi2618
    @tommasomonduzzi2618 4 ปีที่แล้ว +19

    Eminem: Im the fastest rapper in the world.
    Jan Misali: hold my proto-uralo-altaic

  • @minaminari5834
    @minaminari5834 4 ปีที่แล้ว +31

    anyone else want conlang critic to review their language but is afraid of being torn to shreds?

    • @dulunis
      @dulunis 8 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

      Have you watched the last episode (Poliespo)? I'm sure your cloŋ is better than that!

  • @SeaSon7ary
    @SeaSon7ary 4 ปีที่แล้ว +39

    Was having lessons on Zoom. Sees new video. Mutes Zoom and clicks video.

  • @Tiedyeban
    @Tiedyeban 4 ปีที่แล้ว +18

    Wow this is like the first conlang you’ve reviewed that was actually good

  • @abrahamruiz6049
    @abrahamruiz6049 4 ปีที่แล้ว +5

    Videos nobody asked for, on topics nobody cares about, completely unrelated with anything else on the channel are my favorite kind of youtube content

  • @racoon_in_ankhmorpork
    @racoon_in_ankhmorpork ปีที่แล้ว +4

    I’m doing an important school project on conlangs, have had an interest in them for a long time, and have even tried my hand at constructing my own. And yet, there are still so many things you can do with them that I find new and quite surprising! Kēlen’s ceremonial writing system and the relationals to substitute verbs were both really creative and unlike most conlangs I have any knowledge of. I think it’s part of the reason I like conlangs so much-it never ceases to amaze me how creative one can get with them, and language really is an expression of culture and identity, which means there are near-infinite options of what you can come up with. Really, the sky is the limit! I’m glad to have found this video; thanks for making such interesting content :))

  • @jacefairis1289
    @jacefairis1289 3 ปีที่แล้ว +10

    I think it's closer to being verbless than one might think; the relationals do the same *job* as verbs, and are translated as verbs when you translate the words into a Human language, but they don't really act like a verb. It conveys all actions by way of things in relation to other things, with no unique words for doing anything!

  • @usualunusualkid7149
    @usualunusualkid7149 3 ปีที่แล้ว +4

    Imagine a knot theory paper written in ceremonial interlace alphabet.
    Nuts.

  • @derpyllama1885
    @derpyllama1885 4 ปีที่แล้ว +15

    anlāsi everyone,
    I love this episode, this conlang and specifically the artistic possibilities the braiding patterns have.
    Thank you for making this video.
    Also, greetings from the Netherlands

  • @vanderkarl3927
    @vanderkarl3927 3 ปีที่แล้ว +9

    I actually really liked how the passage at the end sounded, which is great because that can't be said about the vast majority of conlangs reviewed on this channel lol

  • @kennydarmawan13
    @kennydarmawan13 4 ปีที่แล้ว +4

    After so long, after so long...
    It's finally here. It's finally here!
    Thank you, jan misali.

  • @shieldgenerator7
    @shieldgenerator7 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

    its weird, i thought i found your channel for the first time just now, but scrolling through your videos, i realize ive watched quite a few of them already

  • @purpleninja102
    @purpleninja102 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    I did it, I've now watched all your conlanging videos!
    I actually really really like this language. I feel like i want to learn it, but i need to learn a lot more about linguistics first i suspect.
    I'd love to play with the lace alphabet also, but i need to do a lot of staring at it (and probably learn the language) before i start with that.
    Most of all, i really like the way the language *feels* to listen to. Something about the phonology is comforting to me.
    The familiar consonants that i can recognize remind me of the gibberish spoken by Ori's narrator. The elongated vowels also help that feeling.
    Meanwhile the unfamiliar palatals, velars, and especially the trill re-ground the language when spoken.
    It sounds soothing to listen to! I want to drift asleep near a campfire, listening to a Kēleñi person recount their folktales.
    I really hope Sylvia does decide to write a piece of literature with this language in it, I'd be extremely interested. Even more so in a reading of said literature!
    As for you, I can't wait to hear what you have to say about an IAL that *_I_* can recognize is calling itself "language of earth."

  • @robertclement1107
    @robertclement1107 4 ปีที่แล้ว +3

    The orthography is indeed aesthetically pleasing. I do wonder now if it's possible to go completely without verbs. It's incredible how far you can get with 4 words indicating the actions. Excellent presentation of an excellent conlang.

  • @tompov227
    @tompov227 4 ปีที่แล้ว

    i waited so long for this episode bc i love Kelen. Im glad it got positive reviews. Very excited for the hangman video

  • @hoarsehorse3720
    @hoarsehorse3720 4 ปีที่แล้ว +4

    Hey man great video it's always nice watching a video on a conlang you're passionate about. I have a question tho, why did you stop including the number of the episode on the title? I miss that tbh

  • @rubbedibubb5017
    @rubbedibubb5017 4 ปีที่แล้ว +85

    Yey an episode about a language that actually doesn’t have verbs (kinda), unlike lojban which just calls it brivla and thinks that’s enough to trick people into thinking that it doesn’t have verbs.

    • @UnshavenStatue
      @UnshavenStatue 4 ปีที่แล้ว +14

      I think the lojban designers would be the first to tell you that brivla are verbs. No one who is familiar with its grammar would ever claim otherwise.
      (However, many folks find that, when discussing lojban grammar, it is convenient and maximally communicative to use lojban words to describe lojban grammatical categories. Such usage should never be interpreted to mean that English academic words don't apply. Anyone who knows lojban knows that brivla are verbs. [Even though they also serve as nouns, which is unusual but certainly not groundbreaking.])

    • @gernottiefenbrunner172
      @gernottiefenbrunner172 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      I mean, give, cause, be, and have, are commonly available meanings of syllables that compose into verbs in some real languages, so kelen really just defines those built verbs to not be verbs.

    • @xwtek3505
      @xwtek3505 3 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      It does have a verb. It's just that verb constitutes a closed and tiny wordclass, which is not that strange for a natlang.

  • @bananatreelabs1137
    @bananatreelabs1137 4 ปีที่แล้ว +84

    Do you like the laced writing system more than sitelen sitelen? sitelen sitelen li pona lukin mute a.

    • @zionj104
      @zionj104 4 ปีที่แล้ว +10

      the laced writing system looks more simple than sitelen sitelen

    • @bananatreelabs1137
      @bananatreelabs1137 4 ปีที่แล้ว +11

      It may be simpler to write, but I’m my experience sitelen sitelen is very simple to read. I like to think about it as a similar writing idea to Japanese. I know that in some ways it is very different from Japanese, but just like Japanese it has a character system that represents words; glyphs in sitelen sitelen and kanji in Japanese. Also just like Japanese, it also has a syllabary, which I like to think is similar to Hiragana/Katakana. In sitelen sitelen, the syllabary is used for names. This comparison can only go so far through. sitelen sitelen has around 120 complex glyphs, and Japanese has thousands of characters. Japanese also has two syllabaries to use in different circumstances while sitelen sitelen only has one for names.
      Honestly though I need to learn some of the laced script, as I’m biased towards sitelen sitelen as that is what I know. And it might be fun.

    • @jakenadalachgile1836
      @jakenadalachgile1836 4 ปีที่แล้ว +6

      I like the script but it bothers me that it breaks the fundamental rule of interlace (in Celtic and La Tène art anyway) in that the strands aren't all continuous.

    • @Woodledude
      @Woodledude 4 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      @@jakenadalachgile1836 I think that's actually a clever way to help differentiate background from writing - The stuff that isn't continuous is easier to set aside on your mind, to a degree, to help you focus on the important stuff. It would be nicer if the system was designed to have everything interlace, still, I do agree - But there are advantages.

    • @jakenadalachgile1836
      @jakenadalachgile1836 4 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      @@Woodledude the words themselves arent continuous either - look at the thumbnail for this video

  • @Liggliluff
    @Liggliluff 4 ปีที่แล้ว +80

    So Kēlen does have verbs, but only 4 verbs. I think it should be appreciated for what it is, not for what it isn't.

    • @stutavagrippa8690
      @stutavagrippa8690 4 ปีที่แล้ว +7

      Liggliluff 4 likes for every verb in Kēlen.

    • @RazvanMaioru
      @RazvanMaioru 4 ปีที่แล้ว +18

      While i'm not sure if their "to be" can count as not-a-verb-in-disguise, "to have" definitely doesn't need to count as a verb, like in Irish. Instead it's a preposition, i.e. "[thing] is *at me*" vs "*I have* [thing]". You still need to be as a verb for tha particular example, but there's probably some way around that too.

    • @storystimmler
      @storystimmler 3 ปีที่แล้ว +8

      I mean, they're link-verbs, which is a little different, and as mentioned below, some of them don't have to be verbs at all, so it's much closer to being verbless than you'd think.

  • @joycelinlgbtq
    @joycelinlgbtq 4 ปีที่แล้ว +28

    Cute fraud.
    I love the music that went with the hangman announcement.

  • @mata218
    @mata218 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    I didn't know what a conlang was last week and now I'm hooked on watching videos about them.

  • @Milark
    @Milark 4 ปีที่แล้ว

    pretty hyped for the hangman video. You always manage to make shit like that super interesting.

  • @tieflingcorpse9817
    @tieflingcorpse9817 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    i love that creating a language is somehow both so easy that a highschooler or middleschooler can do it but at the same time so hard that it can take decades for an adult to do it

  • @davidstokes6406
    @davidstokes6406 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    Years ago, I was in a conlang translation relay, and Sylvia went right before me. I got the text in Kēlen along with her notes on the language. Which made for an interesting challenge since my language puts a lot of grammatical weight on verbs. But, yeah, I like what she's done, and need to go back and see how its been updated since then.

  • @gamerx07gaming28
    @gamerx07gaming28 4 ปีที่แล้ว

    I don't think I've ever seen an episode of conlang critic the day it was uploaded and I was here after 5 minutes. maybe I should put notifications on instead of checking back every couple months. Now, everyone have a good night's sleep after this new episode, stay safe and in your house and all that, binge the whole series again to entertain yourselves or something

  • @scrubdaddy6357
    @scrubdaddy6357 4 ปีที่แล้ว

    I didn't see this yesterday but this was uploaded on my birthday.
    Gotta be honest, this was the best present I got.

  • @Arkylie
    @Arkylie ปีที่แล้ว +2

    I'm so glad that another conlang uses knotting as a form of communication, even if it's just ceremonial.
    While I never got far enough to make an actual language with it, I had the idea for my gnomes writing via knotted rope, which could thus be read underground in the dark. This is the same conlang concept where I envisioned an extensive set of positional words, so that, for example, using words as simple as "front" or "beside," you could indicate "reach into the hole and feel the wall closest to you, to the left and a little up" -- thus allowing the gnomes to quickly locate objects and scurry back to the safety of their burrows ^_^

  • @eac-ox2ly
    @eac-ox2ly 3 ปีที่แล้ว +4

    Damn, the ceremonial writing system is truly beautiful.

  • @LeoStaley
    @LeoStaley 4 ปีที่แล้ว

    Amazing! I actually sat down and tried to come up with the most fundamental verbs, and came up with something like this; being, having, and doing.

  • @frogman1
    @frogman1 3 ปีที่แล้ว

    i dont know much about conlangs but you make it very easy for people like me to understand and appreciate this language and its pros and cons!

  • @blockedblock5203
    @blockedblock5203 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    This video showed up in my recommendations and the thumbnail was interesting so I decided to watch!
    I have no idea what any of this means but the dude sounds excited about it so that's cool.

  • @hughmungus99
    @hughmungus99 4 ปีที่แล้ว

    I have waited for this episode for a long time

  • @pikgears
    @pikgears 4 ปีที่แล้ว +6

    Kelen sounds like a last name, and every time you say "kelen's this" or "kelen's that" my brain interprets it as someone named kelen doing these things

    • @anfa2789
      @anfa2789 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      It's my first name so this video was hilarious for me 😂

    • @pikgears
      @pikgears 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@anfa2789 Yeah I'm sure that was weird

  • @TailsDollIncorporeider
    @TailsDollIncorporeider 4 ปีที่แล้ว +11

    I love how it sounds!!
    I'd describe it as a ponteduro (hard eatable ball of caramel popcorn): Sweet and hard, but it melts a bit in your mouth

  • @3bugsinatrenchcoat
    @3bugsinatrenchcoat ปีที่แล้ว +1

    i have no idea why this was recommended to me but i enjoyed it so. good job

  • @teucer915
    @teucer915 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    This is such an elegant design. I love it.

  • @antoniobarbalau1107
    @antoniobarbalau1107 2 ปีที่แล้ว

    God this is so in depth. That's a lot of work. Thank you ♥️

  • @p3kittyopa07
    @p3kittyopa07 4 ปีที่แล้ว

    oh boy I've been waiting for the lingwa de planeta episode this is going to be excited for me I've been waiting for this :)

  • @KnzoVortex
    @KnzoVortex 4 ปีที่แล้ว +37

    I never thought the day would come, I am undeserving of this position...
    *I have become the 69th like of a conlang critic video*

    • @gamerx07gaming28
      @gamerx07gaming28 4 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      I'm proud of you, go get a cookie and go to bed

    • @KnzoVortex
      @KnzoVortex 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      @@gamerx07gaming28 Thank you, kind sir. I will do so. goodnight to you!

    • @thekid9279
      @thekid9279 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      L E G E N D A R Y

    • @lextatertotsfromhell7673
      @lextatertotsfromhell7673 4 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      I was number 690

    • @KnzoVortex
      @KnzoVortex 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      @@lextatertotsfromhell7673 I'm proud of you, go get a cookie and eat some lunch.

  • @nathandestaart
    @nathandestaart 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    Can you cover D'ni? As an added bonus, they have their own numeral system. It's a base 25, where the numbers up to 25 are base 5. Thought you might like that.
    I haven't conlanged in a very very long time. Love the series!

  • @Elster.Chapman
    @Elster.Chapman 4 ปีที่แล้ว +6

    Me at 12:30 AM: notices new conlang critic before I’m about to go to bed. Me: “Well, I guess I have to watch it now”

  • @frechjo
    @frechjo 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Yay, I know I asked for Kēnlen more that once, happy it's finally here!

  • @Flowtail
    @Flowtail 4 ปีที่แล้ว

    I’m genuinely hype for the hangman video, even more so than the inexplicable brian david gilbert video you posted

  • @anayomieda
    @anayomieda 4 ปีที่แล้ว

    This is the first Conlang vid i've seen and welp welp welp +1 sub and time to binge watch, loved it!
    Also if you haven't, would you take a look at the Hymmnos language and their songs? That'd be awesome!

  • @the_major
    @the_major 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Wow! That writing system is amazing! All the points to Griffyndor!

  • @ThePavelkomin
    @ThePavelkomin 4 ปีที่แล้ว +4

    Actually me during the announcement
    * new video *
    Oh sounds cool
    * a video nobody asked for *
    OH MY GOD
    * on a topic nobody cares about *
    YES YES YES
    * my weirdest idea for a video essay since w *
    THIS WILL BE GREAT
    * jan Misali presents: hangman is a weird game *
    OH MY GOD THIS IS SO AMAZING I CAN'T WAIT (melts with joy)

  • @AvalancheTRA
    @AvalancheTRA 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    very excited for the hangman video essay

  • @car-keys
    @car-keys 4 ปีที่แล้ว +4

    i am extremely excited for the hangman video

  • @johnallegood4469
    @johnallegood4469 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    I love the use of the Northwind and the Sun as text for translation

  • @seeker.8785
    @seeker.8785 3 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Not really my thing. But I love the way you make videos. You deserve to have a virtuous and loving audience, I'm just not a part of it. Thank you.

  • @terensedaman4608
    @terensedaman4608 3 ปีที่แล้ว +5

    That actually sounds like some sort of Elvish language... I love it!

  • @yesid17
    @yesid17 4 ปีที่แล้ว

    wow that's a fantastic conlang thank you for showcasing it

  • @ostov-larion
    @ostov-larion 3 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    What a beautiful language Toki Pona is! It's just a thrill to listen to him! Can I full songs from end of the video?

  • @sector_dgaming3936
    @sector_dgaming3936 5 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

    I just got an upload notification for this video, dispote it being from 3 years ago

  • @eldabys
    @eldabys 4 ปีที่แล้ว

    very enthused that this far in there are still languages that you like.

  • @insectoid_creature
    @insectoid_creature 4 ปีที่แล้ว

    i have no idea what you're talking about but i love it

  • @benismann
    @benismann 3 ปีที่แล้ว

    13:50
    Oh that's why I'm here. It's so strange and surreal looking at u announcing the thing that boomed as a video (and probably did a lot for your channel too)

  • @minotaur470
    @minotaur470 ปีที่แล้ว

    I love the way Kelen sounds. It reminds me of the first time I heard someone singing in Portuguese for some reason

  • @Alex-fc8xn
    @Alex-fc8xn 11 หลายเดือนก่อน

    "so right now im just padding out the script so they're not going by too fast for you to see them" much appreciated, thank you. Gave me the chance to pause and read the ones that looked interesting

  • @iarag
    @iarag 3 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    The fact that I have no idea what he's talking about but I'm still watching this at 1:30am says something about myself that I'm not ready to analyze

  • @Flowtail
    @Flowtail 3 ปีที่แล้ว

    Man the hype i felt for the hangman video in those long ago days is almost nostalgic now

  • @Bebeu4300
    @Bebeu4300 3 ปีที่แล้ว

    Kēlen is a really interesting language with some interesting features. I really like the braided ceremonial way to write it. Another interesting thing I really like about it is the fact that it uses þ, a letter originating from Old Norse and Old English. Icelandic is the only language to still have the letter. I may or may not like it because I'm from one of the Nordic countries myself.

  • @vraisairs9201
    @vraisairs9201 4 ปีที่แล้ว

    this is my first Conlang Critic.... My brain melted out my ears

  • @NoverMaC
    @NoverMaC 4 ปีที่แล้ว +9

    Huh, this language is actually really cool

  • @aaronodonoghue1791
    @aaronodonoghue1791 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    I'd like to find out exactly how the ceremonial alphabet works.
    Also, one of my conlangs, called Qanda (after your "Q and A" video, which had the spaces removed to become "Qanda", and fooled me into thinking there was a language called "Qanda" going to be reviewed, and inspired me to make one myself) is written vertically in hexagons, where each hexagon contains up to one consonant, up to one vowel, and also encodes capitalization.
    There are 6 radii from each corner of the hexagon to the centre, 5 of these are used to encode consonant sounds in different combinations, and the 6th is used for capitalization (capital if it's there, small if it's not). If all 6 are absent, there is no consonant (either a vowel-initial syllable, a glottal stop, or a pause).
    For vowels, there are 3 markers that can be combined to make any of the 7 vowels (or if all are absent, that indicates no vowel): a vertical line from top-left corner to bottom-left corner, a circle in the middle, and a vertical line from top-right to bottom-right
    If the hexagon is completely empty, that indicates a space (and completely empty apart from radius 6 is a glottal stop, as there's no such thing as a capital space).
    There are 7 vowel phonemes (8 possible combos, but 1 is a blank, leaving 7) and 33 consonant phonemes (31 from the radii, as there are 2^5 = 32 possible combos, one of these is a blank, leaving 31, add in the glottal stop for 32, and there is also one rare phoneme written with two hexes, the voiceless alveolar lateral affricate, romanized as "tx" (the voiceless alveolar lateral fricative, which is already fairly rare in Qanda is "x")
    When I have some more development done on it (and my other conlangs), how do I submit it to you?

    • @xp_studios7804
      @xp_studios7804 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      I saw orange a and I thought you were Anthony McCarthy

    • @Anonymous-df8it
      @Anonymous-df8it 2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      @@xp_studios7804 Plot twist: He is

  • @hannahw3761
    @hannahw3761 4 ปีที่แล้ว

    30 seconds ago I had no idea what conlang or half of the words in this comment section were. Now I still don’t know what half of the words you are saying are, and have never been more excited to binge watch a channel’s videos.

  • @e.featherfire1999
    @e.featherfire1999 4 ปีที่แล้ว

    Really nice one, the ceremonial calligraphy fits the overly-complicated-but-intriguing-and-misterious quite well.
    The Orokin calligraphy is quite nice aswell, but it lacks a pronunciation guide. Hope you may see it in your spare time.