https://preview.redd.it/f1aaxdghv9ah1.png?width=352&format=png&auto=webp&s=a8c7a4e6b7d38c684e7088ce75033c1c83738d37

Non-traumagenic systems are not ableist for simply existing. And I hate seeing people say that non-traumagenic systems are roleplaying. It's so insulting. We're mixed origin ourselves, and are medically recognized as having DID. To say that we're just roleplaying simply because we have partially endogenic origins is disgusting.

If someone says they're a system, they're a system. They are not roleplaying.

I know this is a bit of a controversial opinion, but it’s been something I’ve noticed and it’s been bothering me for a long time.

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Technically, a lot of conlangs could be accidental relexes. So many conlangers have gotten excited about what they thought was a novel feature only to find that a ton of natlags already use it. It’s not that far of a stretch to assume that people accidentally copy syntax and grammar structures in ways that could be considered relexes on a fairly frequent basis.

Honestly, I feel like the whole “relexes are lazy/bad” attitude hurts the conlang community. Maybe the point was to create a language that follows English’s grammar and syntax and maybe they have pages of notes explaining why the conlang developed that way. Maybe it ended up resembling English by accident because the creator doesn’t speak English natively and didn’t realize the features and structures they were adding were giving it that affect.

Not to mention I’ve seen one conlang where the creator admitted to copying most of the syntax and grammar from Spanish and that it was basically a relex, but it got a lot of positive feedback. If conlang communities are going to get upset about one type of relex, it seems hypocritical for the community to then turn around and praise another type.

Just because something is a “relex” doesn’t mean that it isn’t still detailed and thoughtfully designed.

Like, I can understand wanting to encourage people to step away from their own natlangs, but what if that's exactly what someone is doing? If someone who doesn’t speak English decides they want to explore English features and it ends up looking like a relex (or even someone who does speak English but is still interested in exploring it at a grammatical and syntactic level) shares their conlang looking for feedback or just wanting to establish community, but the community response is just to dismiss it with “this is just a relex” type of comments, then all that’s gonna happen is alienation and discouragement.

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Edit: I'm not saying people can't base conlangs off an existing language's grammar to explore that grammar. I'm saying that the judgement of what is deemed to be a relex is often (from what I've personally seen) based solely on "This is too Englishy" or similarly superficial criteria. I've seen multiple cases where people dismiss new projects, before there's even time to properly understand the depth of the project, without even pausing to ask any questions. They just skip straight to judgement.

I feel like by being so quick to judge things and by being so dismissive like this, it's causing the conlang community to feel unwelcoming. It gives an atmosphere of being very clique-y and difficult to enter, even if you're already established in the community and simply want to discuss a new project. I feel like it would be better to withhold judgement about relex status until after the conlanger's intentions were established.

kethsovi [kɛθ.so.vi]

to burn something

Keshal kethsovimozu ēoraketh.

quickly to=burn=something-PST-SUB.it.4 newspaper

>The newspaper burned quickly.

Morphology:

• keth — heat, fire, home
• -sovi — turns nouns into verbs/adjectives

uveshliāīthatha [u.vɛʃ.li.aː.iː.θa.θa]

to gently grasp, grab, grip someone [unexpectedly]

Namakal zuruveshliāīthathamoyozur keemoyozur aeōnamarkurikankanaralihan ōnethne.

suddenly OBJ.it.4-to=unexpectedly=gently=grab=someone-PST.rperf-SUB.he.4 to=be=far=from-PST.rperf-SUB.he.4 street-LOC child-ABS1

>He pulled the child away from the road suddenly.

Morphology:

• uvesh — haste, impatience; mistake
• lila — to be small (used as a diminutive when prefixed unto another root)
• āīthatha — to grasp, grab, grip someone

Cultural Notes:

There are some very specific words that describe holding, grabbing, and hugging people, the distinctions arising from how community- and socially-oriented the Kethari are. For them, it's just as important to know the specifics of how intense vs. gentle the action is, whether it was expected or not, and a few other factors, as it is to know that the action happened.

eekanara [ɛ.ɛ.kan.a.ra]

to be (of) poor quality, cheap

Ē, eekanaraāmarsae i heluaeōnamarkurisine.

AFFIRM to=be=of=poor=quality-to=become-PRES.ind-SUB.it.1 this airplane-ABS1

>Yeah, this plane’s trashed.

Morphology:

• eekan — ash
• -ara — a suffix that is used to refer to a process, action, flow, philosophical concept

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The example sentence is a quote from K-pop Demon Hunters because I wanted to have some fun with it today

First off: If you disagree about PDs being co neurodivergent, then please just disagree silently. I‘m not looking to get involved in another debate

Second: this is kinda a vent, so I’m not sure if it should be tagged as off-topic or not? Since it involves so much misunderstanding of how PDs work, that’s what I tagged it with

- - -

So, a while back I came across a post where someone had shared an infographic that depicting neurodivergence as an umbrella, listing various different things underneath it, including NPD and BPD. This person was upset and basically saying that only conditions that someone is bo with can be considered ND, as neurodivergence refers to differences in learning, development, and communication.

I left a comment saying how the coiner of ND had made a statement that yes, personality disorders (along with various others) all fall under the umbrella.

Mods of that subreddit ended up removing their pos, but they apparently didn’t get the memo because they kept responding to people, including me where they stated their learning, development, communication criteria.

I left a comment explaining how personality disorders do in fact impact development and communication (just not early formation development), and included an example of how my own PD causes direct communication challenges (being unable to fill out a form I need to do for a doctor appointment I’ve needed to schedule for over a year).

This person then asked what PD could possibly cause that situation, and I responded with saying I have AVPD. They said back that that’s cluster c, not cluster b. That’s when I saw they’d replied to someone else where they basically insinuated that cluster b PDs — but especially NPD and ASPD — were ticking time bombs of violence and that PDs are disabilities because they don’t negatively impact the person who has them. It felt like they were not only trying to imply that the clusters mark completely different disorder categories rather than just symptom presentation grouping, but also that PDs shouldn’t even be a diagnosis because according to them we’re all just jerks.

Seeing them separate cluster b and c PDs like that was frustrating in its own way because people frequently have multiple PDs, and NPD/AVPD is one of the more common ones I’ve seen people report. They don’t seem to understand how PDs even work.

Not to mention that people with cluster b PDs are literally just people who have a particular disorder. I’ve met multiple people with NPD and a few with ASPD and all of them have been really great people. Anyways.

I responded back by saying that both were PDs so I wasn’t sure what their point was. They responded that AVPD actually could kind of be considered ND because it was so similar to RSD in ADHD. After a few more messages where I once again stated that neurodivergent was coined as a sociopolitical term and not a clinical one, so their constant “show me professionals and clinical papers that say these things are ND” wasn’t even an accurate place to be coming from, I reached a point where I realized I had started getting passive aggressive from how frustrated I was getting and asked them to stop responding. Instead, they sent me one last reply saying “Then block me“ before I granted their request

aekan [a.ɛ.kan]

concrete

Ngiayamone nelikarasamone aekanlihan alakaravingo nethika.

to=do=something-PAST.ind-SUB.they.3 OBJ.it.3-to=scrape=against=something-PAST.ind-SUB.they.3 concrete-LOC knee-ABS2 they.3-POSS

>They scrapped their knee on the concrete.

Morphology:

• aesa — to be modern
• kan — rock, hardened lava

Related words:

• aekahelketh — modern house
• aekethhelthuashi — plaster wall
• aenamar — clock, watch

Send us a number from 1-192 and we’ll give you some fun facts about that member!

I know it's just an auditory hallucination but I can't block it out and it sounds exactly like the same tune I use for phone reminders and so I keep checking and it's not there and I feel like I'm going to scream

uvehashē [u.vɛ.ha.ʃɛː]

anger, fury

Shi ēlasahazu ōsayasovisavu uvehashē

NEG.4 to=allow-PRES.imp-SUB.it.4 to=rule=over-PRES-SUB.you.4 anger

>Do not be ruled by anger.

Cultural Notes:

This emotion is regarded negatively by the Kethari, marked by both the inclusion of *hash-* (a prefix that is used to refer to negative or unwanted contexts and circumstances) and *uve-,* which is used in a lot of words referring to impulsivity or a lack of proper thought.

Related words:

• uvek — cowardice
• uvehashēmoashoīmari — rabid animal
• uvesh — haste, impatience; mistake

I'm tired of syskids/littles always being pushed into corners and told to stay there like the kid table vs. adult table at holidays. Some places don't even allow us in at all! Especially on Discord.

If everyone's always talking about how syskids aren't the same thing as singlet kids, then why can't we be given a choice about whether we can interact in a given space or not? Or have the rest of the system decide with us? Why are we just automatically shoved away and assumed to be happy with "But look! You have your very own channel! Yes, it only has you and the three other systems in the server and it means you'll never get a chance to meet anyone else or socialize, but you have your very own channel!! 🥰"

And if you want to be in the main chat, you have to not proxy or use an anon proxy and try to mask as older if you even can.

There's one server we're in that used to let us exist anywhere in server we wanted. But then one person complained about not wanting to be around kids and we were restricted to a private thread. Some of us don't even know how to manage their age policy, because some of us are older but act younger, and others struggle with knowing their age or rapidly switch ages. Some are even two ages at the same time! Trying to make us conform to an external model doesn't work.

Let us and our systems choose. Stop putting us in the time out corner.

-- a very frustrated syskid

(I'm not entirely sure if I'm doing this right, but let's go)

In Kethariye Orasaketh, the word keth means "fire, heat, home," and helana ("volcano") is directly derived from hela ("shelter, safety"). Everything in the language is based on this cultural conception of warmth and geothermic spaces as being home.

The word āsari ("great, powerful, respected") is directly derived from āsar, which refers to komatiite lava, which is the hottest lava type and is extremely rare (in our universe, this lava type is regarded as being extinct). Even though most of the Kethari now live in the desert, āsari is still used to denote high respect and praise, despite there being no lava in the environment.

Beauty is also directly tied to lava, with the words for "beautiful" (asami) and "flower" (asava) being directly derived from asan, "lava, magma."

Because beauty is tied to lava, which is both life-giving and destructive, the Kethari conceptualize beauty in a much different way. Flowers themselves are regarded as fierce eruptions/expressions of life, despite being delicate. For the Kethari, beauty is best personified as a mother rising up to defend her children. Someone who cares for others in the community, or who shows bravery in the face of danger, or someone who has strong mental fortitude can all be described as beautiful. There also is no distinction between "beautiful" and "handsome" like there is in English; everyone is simply "beautiful."

Additionally, the Kethari don't really have much of a pantheon, but of the deities they do believe in, the most important and beloved is Āsaravi, whose name can be very loosely translated as "Lovely Flower." She is the goddess of motherhood, love, beauty, life, strength, fire, volcanic and geothermic land, and war. She is said to watch over and protect children who have lost their parents, and is regarded as the Great Mother. She is inherently tied to home and safety as a result of being associated with fire and volcanoes.

I came across a video that called out a DID YouTuber for faking DID, and I knew it would make me mad but I clicked on it anyway, so here’s me counter arguing all the points that were made

1. ”No system would have coordinated outfits for each alter and change with switches.” Some systems do! Some systems very much change outfits based on who’s fronting, or have members do their hair or makeup in a different way because of differing preferences. It’s not actually that strange.

2. “Nonhuman alters only exist as the direct result of severe childhood trauma and are extremely rare. They can’t form at any other time!” Our many, many nonhumans who have all emerged at various points in our life all from different causes would care to disagree.

3. “This system is stealing fictional characters for their system!” So I guess we’re now just ignoring the clinical studies that discuss fictives. Cool.

4. “Fusion doesn’t work like that!” Fusion is different for everyone. We had two entire sidesystems fuse together Into one sidesystem. For us it happened completely internally, but if those members had been in front, there very well could’ve been outward expression. And the fact that the video was targeting when two members who were really close realized they were fusing and couldn’t fight it and so made a video to say goodbye, that just feels like a doubly low blow.

5. “Switching doesn’t happen that fast.” It most certainly can. I also find it interesting that the vide only focused on the quick switches and not any of the longer ones, of which there are just as many. Being a bit selective in your “evidence“.

6. “The fact that they put little notes on the screen (like “listening to so-and-so“) in editing is a clear sign that they’re faking.” So adding helpful “this is what was going on here” notes is actually rude and disrespectful??

7. “Having different accents is a clear sign of faking.” No it is. Lots of systems experience it.

8. “No one would actually be able to tell they had DID; it’s a covert disorder!” Overt presentations exist too.

9. “This alter is clearly a racist stereotype because they said the alter was black!” They said the alter had a dark skin tone when describing innerworld appearance. Also, even if they did appear black internally, that doesn’t mean they or the system is racist; you can’t control the internal race you form with anymore than you can control your source. But again: they never even said this member was black.

There’s so much more I could add, but I feel like this is a good indication of how awful the video was.

I've been trying to find information on how natlangs adapt to a whistled format, but haven't found anything that explains the mechanics of it. All I ever see is "the language maps the sounds of the language onto pitch, length, etc.", with no examples ever.

Does anyone know of any resources, or can anyone provide some advice for how I can adapt the following phonology into a whistled format? Do I need to modify the phonology any to help make it easier when adapting to whistling? I'm concerned that the number of sounds + clusters might make adapting the language make complicated than it needs to be.

	Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Post-Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	m		n			ŋ
Plosive	p b		t d			k g	ʔ
Affricate			ʦ ʣ	ʧ ʤ	(ʨ) (ʥ)
Fricative	f v	θ ð	s z	ʃ ʒ	(ɕ) (ʑ)		h
Approximate			ɹ		j	w
Lateral Approx.			l

- Aspiration: /pʰ, tʰ, kʰ/

- The palatal sounds are realizations of the post-alveolar sounds before /ɛ, a, ʌ/

Vowels:

Front: i e ɛ a
Back: u o

Syllable Structure: (C)(C)(S)V(C)(C)

S = /j, w, ɹ, l/

Onset Clusters

·        Approx. + approx.:            /jɹ/

·        Nasal + nasal:                    /mn, ŋn/

·        Nasal + glide:                    /mɹ, nɹ, ŋɹ/

·        Fricative + fricative:           /hv, hθ, hs, hʃ/

·        Fricative + glide:                /vɹ, θɹ, hɹ/

·        Sib. Fricative + fricative:     /zv, ʃf, ʃθ, ʒv, ʒθ/

·        Sib. Fricative + glide:          /sɹ, zɹ, ʃɹ, ʒɹ/

·        Stop + nasal:                      /dn, km, kn, kŋ, ɡn/

·        Stop + fricative:                  /dv, kv, kθ, ɡv/

·        Stop + glide:                       /bɹ, pɹ, tɹ, dɹ, kɹ, ɡɹ/

·        Stop + lateral:                     /tl, dl, kl, ɡl/

Coda Clusters

·        Glide + stop:                       /ld, lk, ɹd, ɹk/

·        Glide + nasal:                      /lm, ln, lŋ, ɹn/

·        Nasal + stop:                       /md, nd, nk, ŋk/

·        Nasal + fricative:                  /mz, ŋz, ŋθ/

·        Sib. Fricative + fricative:      /ʃθ, ʒθ/

·        Stop + fricative:                   /kθ, kʃ/

hekora [hɛ.kor.a]*

hot spring

Easirasaa hekorane!

OBJ.it.1-to=love-PRES.ind-SUB.me.1 hot=spring-ABS1

>"I love hot springs!"

Cultural Notes:

The Kethari treat hot springs like casual social hangout spots, or something like a spa. For Ketharu, a trip to a hot spring is similar to humans going to the lake or a beach.

Related words:

• hekorami — hot spring iguana (an iguana species that lives around hot springs, feeding off the mineral-rich algae)

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*By the way, I forgot to mention this, but I'm using /r/ instead of /ɹ/ for ease of typing. The proper pronunciation is [ɹ]

Kethariye Orasaketh is a conlang structured around seven speech levels encoding emotional closeness vs. distance and including a dedicated de-escalation register.

It is spoken by the Kethari, who are a horned humanoid species adapted to extreme geothermal and desert environments in an alternate Earth setting. They were given the exonym of "demon" by humans, who drew mythological comparison based on Kethari appearance and homeland.

Phonology

The language is intentionally minimalist and "soft," designed to contrast with the harsher imagery that "demon" typically evokes, and to produce a flowing, lava-like effect.

As a result, the phonology is extremely restricted compared to English, only consisting of /m, n, ŋ, k, v, θ, s, z, ʃ, x, h, ɹ, l, w, j/.

/k/ shows up as /k̚/ in the coda position, and in certain dialects as /ɡ/ when in a medial position in the word.

Only /m, n, ŋ, k̚, v, θ, ʃ, z, ɹ, l/ can be a coda, and even then many of these are restricted by other factors.

Vowels are distinguished between long and short (indicated by a macron over long vowels in the orthography), with /i, iː, ɛ, ɛː, a, aː, u, uː, o, oː/

The syllabic structure is primarily (C)V, with some cases of VC and certain cases of CVC.

Speech Levels

The speech levels were the first thing I created after setting up the phonology. They were loosely based after Korean and Japanese honorifics, but with more of a focus on how emotionally close the relationship between the speaker and the listener was, rather than strictly being a set of honorifics.

All pronouns, object agreement, and subject agreement have forms for each of the seven speech levels, and many emotionally important concepts (such as those surrounding family, societal values, and important environmental features of their homeland) have different word forms for different levels.

Levels 1-3

There are the lowest, most emotionally close speech levels.

The first level is the most intimate, reserved almost exclusively for familial bonds or for those who are from the same clan. The second is primarily used among friends, and the third among acquaintances.

These levels have the least amount of marking, with words often taking reduced or shortened forms, diminutive markers, and with less pressure altogether. The third level may lengthen the TMA vowel and/or the particle ā [aː] to show respect, but it functions more as a step in between Levels 3 and 4.

Levels 4-6

The fourth level is considered the "base" level, and is the one primarily used for talking to strangers. The next level is for members of society who you greatly respect, and the next is now primarily considered a ceremonial speech level.

Higher speech levels are also adopted when a situation becomes tense or uncertain, and a number of features start to show up in these levels:

- blurring between "I/me" and "we/us" (creating a gradual shift away from individual framing)

- TMA vowel lengthening

- inclusion of respect/honorific particles

- honorific prefixes that are inserted around TMA, object marking, and nominal number marking

Level 7

The seventh is reserved exclusively for de-escalation purposes. It's designed to help promote conflict resolution and to force both parties to remain calm so that arguments don't spiral out of control. It doesn't always work, but it helps.

Either party may initiate it once they feel it is necessary or warranted. Refusal to follow this lead and adjust to this register on the other’s part is seen as stubbornness or aggression.

All of the previously mentioned features are also used here, but are expanded on, and the blurring between "I/me" and "we/us" becomes a strict "we/us." Unlike Levels 4–6, which allow ambiguity between singular and plural, Level 7 removes the first-person singular entirely, forcing all statements to be framed collectively.

There is a form of Level 7 that's regarded as an unofficial Level 8, which basically takes Level 7 and throws all the respect and then some into the utterance, and it's used in cases when regular Level 7 speech isn't enough and the situation has become directly threatening.

However, given that the language originated as just being what is now Level 4 speech and expanding from there, it's possible that it could end up becoming more standardized over time.

Examples:

Level 3

"I don't want to fight."

Ā an hashkhararasazna.

3 NEG.3 to=fight-PRES.subj-I.3

Level 4

"I don't want to fight." / "We don't need to fight."

Lā shi hashkhararasazyuth.

4 NEG.4 to=fight-PRES.subj-I/we.4

Level 7

"We don't need to fight."

Mōōr hael hashkhararasazhuth.

7 NEG.7 to=fight-PRES.subj-we.7

Morphology

Words are frequently built from compounds, which gives the language a sort of poetic feel. The word for "poetry" itself is built from compounding:

asan "lava" + orasaketh "speech, language", with orasaketh being built from orasa "river, flow, current" + keth (heat, fire, home)

Asan (or the derived prefix a-) is often added to words to indicate a beauty or even affection, so asanorasaketh can be roughly literally translated to "beautiful speech."

Cultural History

The Kethari first made contact with humans several thousands of years ago. Initially, relations between the two societies were good, but over time, humans became afraid of the Kethari and began persecuting them, almost driving the Kethari to extinction. As a result, the Kethari carry a great deal of cultural and generational trauma, which has further influenced their language, especially in terms of lexicon and the connotations of certain words.

The neutral term for a non-Kethari person is ithar. As humans began to get more and more dangerous for the Kethari, they began to name them as hashthar, which was constructed from the prefix hash-, which is used to refer to threat, or unwanted circumstances, and thar ("person").

Hash- itself comes from the word hasho, meaning "death, suffocation, asphyxiation," and is used in a number of other words to indicate danger.

---

I'm interested to hear what others think about this language and the features I've shared!

Unless I'm remembering wrong, it used to be "beginner/casual", "intermediate", and "advanced". The Word of the Day posts I've started for one of my conlangs would fit best under the Intermediate flair I think, but it's not there, so I've been using the "conlang" flair, but that doesn't feel like the right one since it's not the whole conlang

I'm just confused why it doesn't exist anymore

khalhevani [xal.hɛ.va.ni]

superheated steam

Zuhavasazu khalhevanine khalnaath.

OBJ.it.4-to=have-PRES.ind-SUB-it.4 superheated=steam-ABS1 geyser-PL-ERG

>"Geysers have superheated steam."

Morphology:

• khalna — geyser
• hevani — cloud, steam, smoke

Cultural Notes:

The Kethari don't get burned nearly as easily as humans, even able to be submerged in lava for a short time without damage. They enjoy khalhevani in winter in much the same way that humans do when playing in sprinklers in summer, with the heated steam helping to warm them up.

ōano [o:.a.no]

group of lines in a poem; verse, stanza

Lā zuesasashzu asanorasakethlihan i ōanoath vāra kā?

4 OBJ.it.4-to=be-PRES.stat.SUB.it.4 poem-LOC this stanza-PL-ERG how=much.formal QST.formal

>"How many stanzas are in this poem?"

Creation Notes:

This word doesn't have the same kind of morphology or cultural detail that yesterday's word had, so I'm mostly going to share how I came to create this word.

A while back, I began playing around with Kethari poetry and how it might be represented within Kethariye Orasaketh. Syllable count was pretty much immediately ruled out given how long words can be, so I began thinking of things in terms of the number of words in a line, the number of lines in a stanza, and the number of stanzas within a poem.

As I was investigating different poetic forms to get inspiration for how to structure Kethari poetry, I realized that it would be easier to talk about the poetry if I had words for things such as "quatrain", "cinquain", etc. Thus, I decided to create ōano, which I built off of orai, the word for "water", as several words for language all stem from this root. I built the contrast between oano (a single line) and ōano (a group of lines) by lengthening the first vowel.

Related words:

• oano — verse, a single line of poetry
• kavaōano — quatrain

(I have no idea if this is the right flair or not)

hanoruorasaketh [ha.no.ru.o.ra.sa.kɛθ]

the weight of words/language

Zuīnūanalasahavu hanoruorasakethha.

OBJ.it-to=remember-PRES.imp-SUB.you. weight=of=words-DAT

>"Remember the weight of words."

A warning parents give children to remind them of the harm they can inflict if they speak carelessly.

Morphology:

• hanoru — burden, weight, hindrance
• orasaketh — speech, language

Cultural Notes:

This specifically refers to how easily words can be used to destroy someone.

Kethari culture is built on community and caring for each other, so a lot of care and thought is put into how words and actions alike affect others. Misuse of language causes harm to the entire community, not just to a single individual.

Related words:

• hamokhanoruorasaketh —
  • 1. V: to kill, wear down the heart; emotionally abuse, verbally abuse
  • 2. N: emotional abuse, verbal abuse
• hanoruon — tense/oppressive silence
• mukekhēhanorusaya — the responsibility society has to bear the burdens of those in need