Dondrings! NyanChan. I saw you writing "KA-WA-III" somewhere, and immediately liked. So when I browsed through Makereti's "The Old-time Maori", I found the word "Kawai" (line of descent) and thought that to be a little to much of a coincident. Is Japanese and Maori related? What's your take on that? Dondrings!

So far I know Kawaii means something like cute or sweet in Japanese and it is used like when theres a cute manga figure or so.

At langmaker.com they typically use the biblical tale of the Tower of Babel - appropriate subject matter, especially since it involves several different modes of communication (storytelling, variant sentence structures, dialogue, and other lingual nuances I'm too tired to further describe).

Here's one from my first "real" artificial language (artlang), Sulekhï:

Speculations:

From what I know of Maori (which isn't a hell of a lot), the Maori people came to New Zealand in about 1200 AD, believed to have originated somewhere in China and to have travelled via the Pacific islands. There are many similarities between Maori tradition and language and that of the indigenous Hawaiians. (Both have carved figures called "tiki" and both mythographies have a semi divine folk hero, Maui.)

There are similar words in Japanese and Maori -- but the meanings are not similar. Like, "kai" is a shellfish in Japanese and food in Maori. "Mimi" in Japanese means ear, and in Maori it is a piddle. And the sound of the languages are very similar - although to my ear there are times when Maori sounds more like Pacific Island language or perhaps Indonesian. I speak neither of those so it's difficult to tell - There is a posibility that they are related, albeit very distantly. More closely related languages tend to have more similar meanings for same-sounding words.

Both also sound very syllabic, although Maori has no writing system of its own so it's difficult to tell if that connection exists or if it merely coincidence. Although, Maori culture apparently has strong similarities with the Ainu people of Hokkaido. (Ainu language is very tenuously related or possibly even unrelated to Japanese.)

Kudos, jedi. You are absolutely correct. (Kawaii means "cute" or, more literally, loveable.)

In kanji it is written like:

Ka = Possibility. Wai = Love (same symbol as "ai" -- love)... and "i" at the end makes an adjective.

I have only recently started to develop this language, so the grammar's a bit sketchy and I don't have an alphabet yet.  

Nutyo nafrit efena Julia um efe hushyo Lengwana pon, "Teppery".

   They call me Julia and this is my language, Teppery.

Ziryo minuyo Kityo Raghna spoolunna hapu ober.

    The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

Pon kyna Dezyo moll daddell jumyo Watepyo shu nutem Kantreewa ellapna.

      Now is the time for all good people to come to the aid of their country.

Nayeyo shu Collajna fo moll Berubunwa vomwa, Kainsyo shu Jupittana fo tag estunily vom.

   Girls go to college to get more knowledge, boys go to Jupiter to get more stupider. (It's not grammatically correct in my language, either.)

Jellayo swoom Zwayna kipikkayo bikna. Fallityo dishbanbanyo pon lapu Beksyo ser krakkomna grallitna Chirisna shew la Ahrowa.  

   Sparkling cumulus clouds fill the sky. The dark, yellow-orange leaves are falling like small, broken birds shot down by an arrow.

Blue sky, actually, in that last sentence. "Bik" means blue. Man, I wish there was an edit button.

I have tried inventing my own languages, but never really had the time to think of the details (grammar, syntax, etc.)

Tim

Learning and studying foreign languages is one of my special interests.

Tim

Hey everybody, I like inventing languages, I'm an Aspie that just can't stop learning languages:

I have my own fantasy world: Munde Àyn (Pronounced: Meunde ' Eye - n)
Languages atm: Kanùsskan

Sample Text:

What is your name? My name is LoftyD!
Anò càhèhì hwìnò? Mìla càhèhì hwìnò LoftyD!

I have it as a forum text based RPG. http://loftyd.freehostia.com/phpBB2, make sure you join the usergroup "Munde Àyn RPG Center". You can then fill out profile fields exclusive to that group.

go to http://www.langmaker.com, and sign up (its wikipedia based).
IF you are a member already, tell me ya username!

Mines TSK_Ben

I've always done this but I have never been successful. One time I got to 500 words that I memorised and grammar that I knew.

I wonder why Autistics seem to enjoy doing this? Maybe we should brainstorm some important characteristics of artificial languages devised by and for Autistics so that we can create them more easily.

For a start I say they should be more literal and have strict grammar rules (for example: you can't rearrange words in a sentence and have them still make sense) and remove unnecessary words in sentences.

What about lojban, anyone? I haven't really looked at it.

I invented a whistling language a while ago - it probably doesn't qualify 100% as its own language, as it uses english phonemes...