OpenGeofiction
Hey there,
I will try to keep this short ;) As you’ve might noticed I used a more or less made up language for my country Kojo from the very beginning. The language has been and is still developing, but I would say that I managed so far to keep the language used on the map and in the wiki relatively consistent.
Now, of course I want to make the language also plausible from a geographical and historic point of view. I tried to lay out my basic idea about the origin of Kojolese in the following wiki articles, and would really appreciate it if some of you could quickly glance over the passages and then tell me what you think about the general concepts. I’m already aware that many details will have to be bent to make it work, but probably there are also some major mistakes in it that I haven’t come across yet.
Kojoshi and its history Slightly more extensive history
Some details I think I need to coordinate with the community as a whole are:
*how can I explain the existence of Pyilser (basically Armenian, although I don’t really know anything about the RW language ) as the common language in the area before the 1620’s?
*Belphenia and Hoppon seem to be fitting countries as sources for Japanese (Nihonish?) speakers during the great wave in the 1620’s, but I’m not sure if it’s possible to harmonise our countries’ history in that regard?
*I’m aware that there aren’t any countries with a language based on Chinese on the continent (yet), so do I have to consider to reattribute these words to other language groups? I don’t think reattributing the vocab would be too bad, since the influence isn’t too obvious.
*I think I need Korean and Chinese (or similar languages respectively) as a main influence on the phonological system; especially Korean. I know that Kojolese doesn’t sound anything like real Korean, but the difference between Armenian and Kojolese can’t be explained by just adding some Japanese to it…
*I’m not planning on increasing the influence of English (Wiwaxia) and French (Ataraxia) much more; I want to focus especially the Ataraxian influence to a mostly cultural level :)
I hope to have some kind of discussion here abou the above mentioned points; if you have anything else, like stuff considering creole languages that I don’t know about, please tell me! Cheers~ :D
Discussion
Comment from Ūdilugbulgidħū on 8 December 2015 at 20:25
Firstly, I have to say that this sounds very complicated. If you have one language, it makes sense to try and fit in with other countries which speak the same language. If you have elements of lots of languages this may be impossibly difficult. The differences - and similarities - between languages are only explained by history. My suggestion would be to try to make it less complicated, by removing the mention of all other languages, especially rw languages, in the development of Kojolese. Is it recognisably any one of the languages that you made it from? I don’t have any Armenian or Chinese, so to me it basically just sounds ‘exotic’, and very believably foreign The only problem you might have is if it was similar to one of its source languages and another (future) country started using that language. But I suppose it would then be as much up to that country to explain its language. After all, we all have to explain why our countries speak the language they do and why we use this alphabet etc. Btw the language article is great, it is quite inspiring to see someone explaining the ins and outs of a language in OGF. I don’t think it is much work to make it totally believable. A final suggestion would be to add some totally made-up elements to kojolese, which might smooth out the similarities it could have to other languages.
Comment from Portopolis on 8 December 2015 at 21:18
I would love if Kojo, Belphenia and Hoppon could have a shared history, e.g That is much less work for someone who almost ignores the wiki for my nation. Also I would like to get working on my plan to collaborate a lot more with my neighbors and those who share the peninsula with me.
Comment from Rasmus Rasmusson on 8 December 2015 at 21:24
Armenian is an Indo-European language and therefore (very roughly) as closely related to English as e.g. Russian or Greek. Japanese isn’t. It is of course possible to create a hybrid, but then it would be very complicated to base an entire language family on it.
Secondly, it is not necessary per se that related languages sound alike. Sound shifts and other developments can create a lot of differences between languages that have descended from the same ancestor. If you want a Korean-like language, Koreans don’t have to be anle to understand it :)
Comment from Rasmus Rasmusson on 8 December 2015 at 21:30
Or actually, it may not be difficult to create a common ancestor of an Armenian-Japanese hybrid, but developing a substantial offspring may take some time, so you’ll need some fellow participants that would like to participate in such a project :)
Comment from Leowezy on 9 December 2015 at 12:34
@Ūdilugbulgidħū (what a name ;D!) Maybe you’re right, I guess I could still take some inspiration from RW languages without implementing them into the OGF-timeline. I do try to have many unique features in my language, and I think I haven’t been to clingy with RW languages so far.
@Portopolis I’ve notices that there isn’t much history written yet about these two countries, maybe we can work together and think about a migration wave in the 1620’s from these Nihonish speaking countries to Kojo :) It would have to be quite a large amount of people while at the same time most public order in Kojo collapses, but I’m sure we can find a way.
@Rasmus Rasmussion I don’t have the ambition to create a whole language family; I think the best way would probably be to say that the ancient Kojolese, Pyilser, used the armenian alphabet and a very distinct, native grammar. I used Armenian only for some very basic root words, and the biggest reason was to have some kind of “Fill-language” for the time before 1620.
So, to conclude; I will eradicate the mention of Chinese and Korean with regards to Kojolese, declare Pyilser to be an isolated language despite being surrounded by mostly indo-germanic speaking countries, that just happend to use the armenian alphabet, and when there was a large influx of nihonish in the 1620’s that lead to the developtment of modern Kojolese :)
Comment from Portopolis on 9 December 2015 at 19:46
What’s the population of Kojo, Hoppon is kind of like Japan with 3-4 mega cities (10 million+, will take me some time to build), but has an isolationist streak and is dense only in the peninsula leading to the country being very sparse int he borderlands. Also only real difference between Hoppon and modern day Japan is it is only dense in one area and it is a little more isolated than Japan, as the border is so sparse that their are millions of foreigners in the border area and thsoe areas are basically extensions of Ataraxia and Wiwaxia etc..
Comment from Leowezy on 9 December 2015 at 20:16
Kojo has about 37 million inhabitans; I’ve envisioned this kind of migration to have taken place sometime in the 17th century. Maybe there was a famine in your country, or maybe Kojo lost a huge part of it’s population in some kind of inner conflict and slaves were bought abroad and brought into the country? Just some ideas.
Comment from Portopolis on 10 December 2015 at 20:33
My country has been isolationist and considers itself superior to other countries, so chances are they won’t be slaves without getting conquered. What about royal families getting married causing the royal family languages to intertwine (This could also make it easier in case we want to develop a modern language family that connects from Belphenia(Nihonish)-Hoppon(Nihonish with a few outside influences)-Kojo (Kojolese), and eventually trickle down to the populace. This prompts a large migration from Hoppon to Kojo?
Comment from Leowezy on 11 December 2015 at 10:39
That sounds great! I would even propose that there won’t be any large migration of Hopponese to Kojo, besides maybe a large number of servants related to the queen. If we suggest that the languages only mingled in a very small subset of people, and then spread later (as the “more elegant” since royal alternative to the former language) I could explain many quirky unnormalities much easier :)