TL;DR — Talk. Learn. Discover. Repeat. #3
Hey yall,
I hope you’ve been well!
After taking a nice rest last week, I’m starting this one full of energy.
Updates
I caught up with a bunch of personal matters last week and found the time to study quite a bit of Manmino (more on that below 😉), play and study with some Genshin Impact in Korean, and even spent a few hours on German.
I’m also almost done writing the next deep dive into a lesser-known language. It’ll be out next Tuesday and will kick off a new region of the world for the Repeat with me (Lesser-Known Languages) section next month.
It’s been a difficult piece to right for a number of reasons. Not only was the language itself difficult to understand for me, but the country1 where it’s spoken has been in a complicated situation for almost my entire life. Summing it up without giving false information was a challenge.
On a different note, I was recently interviewed about my experience of learning English through TV shows back in the day. Chion Wolf asked some really good questions so listen in if you’re curious!2 You can listen in wherever you get your podcasts or here!
On yet another note, I’m stuck in France for a little while longer as I’m still waiting for my visa to Korea. It’s not the first time my visa takes longer than expected though so I’m getting used to it! 😅
Alright, let’s dive in!
🗣️Talk languages
If you hadn’t understood this month how much I had fallen in love with conlangs, I guess this might make it click for you: I’ve spent the past month watching videos about creating one’s own conlang and the process behind existing ones.
To sum up, I’d really like to make a conlang one day but not today as I’m already digging into Manmino (again, more about this further down 😉).
One of the reasons I want to talk about this with you today is that conlangs feel like a great introduction to the world of linguistics and the lingo that goes with it.
Since conlangs are created from scratch, they have to think about sentence order, phonology, grammar patterns, a vocabulary list that makes sense, and even a homogenous writing system sometimes.
Knowing what a morpheme or root word is or how adpositions work, for example, can make learning any language easier as you can recognize them faster after all.
It’s a never-ending rabbit hole but here’s a really well-made 8-part short video series on YouTube if you’re curious. I dare you to watch it all and not be in awe.
If you want to create your own conlang, there are tons of other resources you could use to help you get started too! These are the ones I loved most:
Vulgarlang can generate an entire language based on a few rules you set ahead. Yes, all automatically. Try it once at least and you’ll have your mind blown.
Awkwords generates words that’ll follow specific patterns you give them so your lexicon stays consistent.
Grapheion can help with creating a consistent writing system as you create generation after generation of characters just by keeping those you like.
Calligraphr can turn your script (or handwriting) into an actual font you could type in.
Just wow. 😍
✍️ Learn from my experiences
I’ve mentioned countless times Genshin Impact as one of the many ways I keep learning Korean and other languages even when I’m relaxing but I had never really shared how I did and what was available. Well, It’s finally done.
4 Simple and Fun Methods to Improve Your Language Playing Genshin Impact
As I wrote this piece, I realized more and more how much more into details I could potentially go but I tried to avoid going too deep for this first, let’s say, introduction to learning a language with Genshin Impact.
I plan on sharing more and more about learning through video games but here’s a nice tl;dr for those who don’t have the time to read it all.
Genshin Impact has a long, ever-expanding3 story quest, along with countless sidequests —
some of which you can repeat and experience different endings based on what you choose to say —, as well as a lore filled with information from books to read to character lines to practice repeating along.
I really invite you to read the whole piece on Medium though since there are screenshots that’ll make this more understandable!
🌎Discover new cultures
Happy Lunar New Year!
If you remember what we talked about in TL;DR #2, the Lunar New Year started this past Sunday, on the 22nd. This week, however, we’re turning to other “New Years!”
First, let’s talk about one which breaks preconceptions most people have of a New Year celebration.
Nyepi, the Balinese New Year, is celebrated on the first day of the lunar-based Saka calendar, usually in March (this year on March 22nd). Instead of having family gatherings or large celebrations, Nyepi is a day of reflection and rest during which everything except emergency wards is closed. Instead celebrations happen the day before with fire rituals in the city.
Muharram4, the Islamic New Year, is determined by the Islamic lunar calendar, known as the Hijri calendar. It will be in on July 19th this year.
Muharram celebrates Prophet Mohammed’s emigration from Mecca to Medina, known as Hijra. Celebrations vary across the world, but the most common way of celebrating Muharram is through mourning processions known as "Ashura processions" done on the tenth day. Some also fast on that day to express their devotion.
Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year typically falls in September or October (September 15th and 16th this year) and is celebrated on the first and second days of the Jewish month of Tishrei. It marks the beginning of the High Holy Days, a period of 10 days that concludes with Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.
Finally, here’s one more.
Ethiopian New Year, also known as Enkutatash, is celebrated on September 11 or 12th, which marks the end of the rainy season and the beginning of the new year in the Ethiopian calendar. The Ethiopian calendar is based on the Julian calendar and the timing of Enkutatash is determined by the timing of the end of the rainy season, which typically falls in September.
The celebration of Enkutatash is marked by traditional music and dance performances, as well as fireworks and parades. One of the most important traditions is the exchange of colorful and fragrant flowers, particularly yellow daisies, which are considered a symbol of the new year.
There are many more celebrations for the New Year. I’ll dig more into this next January but here’s a link mentioning 26 different celebrations!
🗺️Repeat with me (Lesser-Known Languages)
Manmino — The most fascinating Asian auxlang
We’re finishing this month’s tour of conlangs with one I wish I had found earlier: Manmino.
This auxlang was created to be a sort of “East-Asian Esperanto,” a language easy to learn for speakers of “East-Asian languages.” As a speaker of Japanese, Korean, and Mandarin, I can clearly see the inspiration found in words like gimya (tonight) or lyawli (to cook), but there are also very common words from Sanskrit, Indonesian, or even Thai and Burmese. One of the most common ones might be sap (from Sanskrit शब्द, śábda)5 which means “word, to talk” in Manmino.
Chances are you’ve never heard of this language until today unless you’ve searched for it. Manmino was released online about 9 months ago after 4 years of development and its Discord server only counts about 90 people.
And yet, its small community is active and its creator is always ready to respond. Proof is, half the sentences you’ll find below were created by myself and corrected later that day.
Manmino’s goal is to create a regional lingua franca to foster cooperation in East Asia.
In my research this month, I’ve seen tons of conlangs and many auxlangs online. Many had no video available but Manmino already has a Korean song translated and available online, coupled with explanations written about the language throughout the song. This felt like a great introduction to the language.
Apart from this, Manmino has most of its documentation available online here, including a few short lessons to get the gist of its basic structure.
In short, it’s an SOV (Subject-Object-Verb) language. There’s no gender nor plural for its nouns. The personal pronouns are a, ni and ka for “I, you, and he/she/it” and their plural form just needs “tat”: atat, nitat, katat.
Like the languages it’s inspired by, Manmino relies heavily on particles.
-na indicates the previous part is the topic (can be dropped if clear)
-lu indicates the previous part is the object (can be dropped if clear)
le (from the Chinese 了) indicates the past
kalu (from the first version of Manmino) indicates the future or prospective
ka (from the Japanese か) indicates a question
jung (from the Korean 중) indicates the progressive tense (ie. V~ing)
The list goes on.
Here are a few sentences so you get the gist even better:
Ni ha eno sata ka? — What Language do you speak? (you - what - language - know - [question particle])
Ni penan ka? — How are you? (You - well - [question particle])
Dan a sin gonggyong siden jak jung. — But I’m making a new public dictionary (but, - I - new - public/share - dictionary - to make - [Present progressive])
A beng cey la sikaw — I think I’m sick ( I - sick- to be - [quotative particle] - to think/believe)
Nitat gimnen yu hakka gamensya ka? — What are you thankful for this year? (You-pl - this-year - because - what - thank - [question particle])
Sala, ni-na ka sik ye. - No, you eat him6. (No, you-[topic part.] - he/him - to eat - [command part.])
A gimsi syumen wan, dan a but-neng. — I want to sleep now, but I can’t. (I - now - to sleep - to want to, - but - I - [negative part.]-to be able to)
Ka ji hengheng-na socek-lu kibit-kalu ya! — His older brother will write a book! (He/She - [possession part.] older brother-[topic part] book-[object part.] write-[future] - [emphasis/exclamation])
Ko mun bana ka? — Is this sentence correct? (This - sentence - yes/good - [question part.])
A-na ko muntat-lu suka-le ya! — I had fun making these sentences! (I-[topic part.] - this - sentence-[plural]-[object part] happiness-[past particle] - [emphasis/excitement])
Unfortunately, there isn’t much online to help learn it apart from the documentation and lessons mentioned above, but the Discord server is a treasure trove of sentences often with their translation available (but hidden so you can first try to guess the meaning).
There’s even a channel completely in Manmino where I just launched a conversation to push me to use the language!
In all honesty, it’s been a while since the last time I was so excited about a new language! I’m looking forward to learning more about it. 🤩
As we say in Manmino,
Gamensya!7
Thanks for reading this third edition of TL;DR! let me know your thoughts 🙃
Mathias, an average polyglot
Well, countries
And ready to hear ten thousand “like” in my speech..!
Every two weeks!
This is also the name of the month of Muharram, one of the four sacred months in the Islamic calendar.
And also found in the Thai ศัพท์ (sap), Burmese သဒ္ဒါ (sadda), Lao ສັປ (sap), or even sabda in Malay-Indonesian
This sentence is an order.
Thank you! (from the Sinitic 感恩謝)