Language Template Format Overhaul

Content Addition · Articles & templates · Created by beetlebot124
accepted
Language Conlang New-Content Grammar Linguistic Formatting
Currently, the headings and sections of the language template don't reflect very well how linguists or conlangers think about how their language will function. It has sections that overlap in content or simply completely override each other, and is missing important sections and headings. For instance, "Sentence Structure" and "Adjetive Order" both fall under "Syntax". "phonology" falls under "phonetics".   I suggest a different structure, one that is more inclusive and concise. I'm not a trained linguist or professional conlanger but I just wanted to offer other suggestions in order to give the pages more space for what could realistically be considered when conlanging. These are just some ideas in order to demonstrate how extensive the articles could be in contrast to their current vague, overlapping, and lacking contents.   Phonology--what sounds does the language use? How do they categorize sounds? What phonemes merge phones? Is the language tonal, or have phonemic stress? writing system--what type or writing system does the language use? Is it borrowed from another language? What is the typical medium on which they write? How does this influence the style?   Nouns: Grammatical number--how does the language express quantities? Does it have a singular vs plural distinction? Or a three way distinction, like singular, dual, and plural? Is plurality reflected on the noun, the verb, or modifiers? Noun class--does the language group nouns? How many groups are there? Is it based on gender, like masculine feminine and plural, or on other physical qualities? Definiteness--Is there definite and indefinite words, particles, or conjugations? Do words like "the" and "an" exist?   Verbs: Tense--If the language has tense, how do verbs show what place in time they take place? Present/Future vs Past? Near past vs distant past? How are these tenses marked? Aspect--What ways to verbs relate to the flow of time? Does it have perfective aspect, like "have wrote", or progressive, like "is writing"? Is the aspect marked with or separately from tense? Mood--Does the language mark grammatical mood, such as conditional moods, like "if" or "would", imperative mood, like commands, subjunctive mood, like possibilities, and interrogative moods, like questions? How are they marked? Polarity--How do verbs become negated? What words are used for negativity in different situations? Do the verbs change internally? Do double negatives negate or amplify each other? Subject Agreement--Does the verb change to match the subject? What features are agreed on--like number, class or gender, or person? How is this agreement marked? Transitivity--how do verbs that take objects differ from verbs that don't? Can some verbs take or not take?   Syntax: Sentence Order--Does the subject come at the beginning of the sentence or the end? Do verbs come before objects or after? Is word order fixed or flexible? Does changing a clause's word order have semantic meaning, like in making a question in English? Constituents--Do adjectives come before or after nouns? Do prepositions come before or after nouns? Is the language head-marking or dependent marking? Is it head-initial or head final? Modifiers-- Do adjectives come from nouns or verbs? Do they follow or precede their nouns, or do they do both in various situations? Does the language use articles, like "the", or determiners, like "these" and "those"? Interrogative Clauses--How does the language express questions? With word order or particles or verb marking?   Semantics: Grammatical phenomena--what other grammatic features does the language have? Evidentiality? Volition? Formality? Honorifics?   Vocabulary: lexical morphemes--what small parts make up bigger words? How do compounds form? Is there a suffix for "language" like "-ish", or for someone from somewhere, like "-ian"? Borrowing--what languages does the language borrow from? What kinds of words get borrowed, from what languages, and why? Where do words for science come from? What languages have dominated this one and given it many loan words? Color terms--what colors does the language have or need? Where do they come from? Numbers--how high can the language count, if it has numbers at all? Is it base-ten, base-twenty, or another base? How does it combine words to form higher numbers? Kinship Terms--how do members of families talk about each other? Do they have gendered words, do words change based on the gender of one or of both members? Does age matter? Are words different for you dad's parents and your mom's parents? Is there different words for older brothers and younger brothers? Slang--how severe are curse words? how strongly inappropriate are slang words in formal settings? where do slang words come from? to insult someone in the most severe way, what do you insult about them?

The Team's Response

Thanks for the suggestion! We'll take a look at the template and see how we can improve it without affecting articles that have already been created with it.
Current score

17/300 Votes · +2703 points

Votes Cast

  • +1

    by Blossom Tree Art
    on 2024-11-05 22:51
  • +1

    by Amancham
    on 2024-11-01 17:28
    While this sounds pretty amazing, The Big G has made a valid point. Such a drastic change could break existing articles, so maybe it would have to be a new, extended language template?
  • +300

    by WoR StoryTeller
    on 2024-10-30 18:46
  • +100

    by A Mischievous Velociraptor
    on 2024-10-21 15:31
  • +1

    by MrGunn
    on 2024-10-19 04:34
    Re-doing the language template, no, adding the above ok.
  • -100

    by The Big G
    on 2024-10-19 00:14
    I'm voting against this not because I don't like the idea, but because it's a logistical nightmare. Making such drastic changes to this template would break every existing language article that uses any of the prompt fields.
  • +300

    by Kalilinai
    on 2024-10-18 17:12
  • +100

    by WeStanNikolai
    on 2024-10-18 12:01
  • +100

    by A Uncontrollable Ooze
    on 2024-10-18 10:50
    I think the thing I wish the language template had the most, personally, is a notes field in the dictionary entries - I remember at one point someone asked for a way to note conjugations which was too complicated given that languages conjugate differently (or not at all), and that made sense... but I think having a notes field (or an extras field or whatever one wants to call it) would accommodate that. Either way I do think the language template could use a little sprucing up maybe.
  • +300

    by World Smithy
    on 2024-10-17 17:51
  • +100

    by Gaëlle S.
    on 2024-10-17 13:45
    I agree that the template needs some shaping but I hope it will be done in accordance with linguistics. For example, it's true that phonetics and phonology are connected but they're not the same from what I research. Maybe I'm wrong but I think phonetics is the study of how the sound is produced (articulation, breath), transmitted and perceived by the human ear while phonology deals with the sound patterns and structure of speech sounds (syllabe, phonèmes, intonation). It's as if phonetics was the vocab of sounds and phonology was the grammar. The thing is most people wouldn't know which is which and as it is now, the template lacks a few explanations about what to put under which part.
  • +100

    by A Uncontrollable Mimic
    on 2024-10-17 11:49
  • +300

    by kaixabu
    on 2024-10-17 10:34
  • +100

    by Maz_Cat
    on 2024-10-16 16:55
  • +100

    by DesNordlund
    on 2024-10-16 15:55
  • +300

    by Ratha
    on 2024-10-16 12:02
  • +300

    by Rilameth
    on 2024-10-16 10:35
  • +300

    by beetlebot124
    on 2024-10-16 02:13