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[Myrkky100]

Not that any of that matters, of course. My suggestion for the "gender"-style thing's name is Noun Class/Noun Classification.

I think noun class is the correct term.

(Exemple, dwarf just mean "a dwarf", but "dwarf-i" means a baby child, "dwarfé" a female dwarf, etc...well, it's just an idea, i think we could discuss that later)

I wonder if we should discuss what effect the nounclass will have right now. I mean, we should have some idea before we decide how many we should have. I just read the thread through properly and found support for double adjectives to mean “very”, bolting the adjectives directly to the nouns, indicating the case (should the language have them) with suffixes... If on top of this the development starts to lean towards a very synthetic structure of word formation (i.e. new words are created by combining from the vocabulary we already have), my fear is that “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” starts to look like a short and simple word in no time.

I think that the next topic to debate will be the formation of the words and will last all december. I have plenty of ideas, and I think you will have, too.

Word formation topic seconded.

[Inarius]

my fear is that “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” starts to look like a short and simple word in no time.

I agree. But let's build it step after step. First, genders. I would be good that more people vote. Let's call it "noun class" as it is the good word for it.

Proposition A

    noun class 1 : All intelligent things. Dwarves, goblins, elves, humans. Perhaps FB, Titans, and semi MB ? They are edible, intelligent,  but they are "special" and sometimes are objects of cult.
    noun class 2 : All living non intelligent things, and things important for Dwarves. Magma, other animals. Perhaps artifacts ? or Booze ?
    noun class 3 : All non-living things. Wood (including trees), water, walls, ore, everything else, actually.

Proposition B :

    noun class 1: Things for ultimate worship. (Gods, Books, artifacts, ...)
    noun class 2 : Things to fear and respect, casual worship. (Magma, ...)
    noun class 3 : Intelligent things for industry but not for worship. (Dwarfs, ...)
    noun class 4: Non intelligent things, not for worship. (Trees, sheep, ...)
    noun class 5: Non-living things, not for worship. (Stone, Rain, ...)

Proposition C :

    noun class 1:  animate hostile things (mainly, many creatures)
    noun class 2 : animate friendly things (dwarves, elves most of the times, human, some creatures)
    noun class 3 : inanimate hostile things (magma perhaps, undead or not, not a lot of things actually)
    noun class 4: inanimate friendly things (soil, ore, walls, moutains rivers and trees, etc.)

[dwarfhoplite]

The meaning of "gender" is still a bit of a mystery to me.

I support the idea about animate/inanimate pronouns with friendly/hostile variations.

[Owlbread]

The meaning of "gender" is still a bit of a mystery to me.

I support the idea about animate/inanimate pronouns with friendly/hostile variations.

Gender is a dubious word in this case. I support the use of the expression "Noun Class".

[Inarius]

That's corrected. As two people asked for it, I also add the "animate/inanimate + hostile/friendly" proposition.

[AutomataKittay]

That's corrected. As two people asked for it, I also add the "animate/inanimate + hostile/friendly" proposition.

Yeah, I think it's also the most primitive way things can be identified currently. Does it moves? Does it want to hurt us? I'd not classify undeads under inanimate, because they moves and clearly have intent. Though to be fair, they could just as easily be inanimate for want of living

Traps could be considered hostile inanimate, so can be magma and poisons. Really a lot of stuffs could be, since it does harm, but have no awareness/intent.

There could be better way to systemize things, but those binaries are very easy to 'get' and rather suitable with how creatures in-world reacts.

[Nonsequitorian]

Hey this is still here. Cool. I wish I could hand it to someone else. I'm kinda buisy with life, so yeah.

[King Mir]

The meaning of "gender" is still a bit of a mystery to me.

I support the idea about animate/inanimate pronouns with friendly/hostile variations.

Gender is a dubious word in this case. I support the use of the expression "Noun Class".

Technically it'd be a pronoun class.

[Owlbread]

The meaning of "gender" is still a bit of a mystery to me.

I support the idea about animate/inanimate pronouns with friendly/hostile variations.

Gender is a dubious word in this case. I support the use of the expression "Noun Class".

Technically it'd be a pronoun class.

Yes, that is true. I presumed we were talking about nouns as a whole belonging to a certain gender, but I suppose it would only really be represented in the form of the pronouns that would go with them. Or would it?

[Inarius]

Well, as nothing happens here anymore, I suggest we move on the next topic.

Proposition A : scale_e , Inarius, Myrkky100, LHLF
Proposition B : teloft
Proposition C : dwarfhoplite, AutomataKittay

Proposition A will be used.

I propose that the next topic should be word formation
For now, words are, well it's quite a mess.
Today , some words which are quite near in their sense (example, age and ageless, crescent and crest, crush and crusher, king and kingdom, lance and lancer etc...etc...) should be SOMETIMES quite near in their form, which is absolutely not the case for now. Of course, it's not because the forms are near in ENGLISH that the forms in dwarf should be the same. But at least, sometimes.
Let's study, with the use of google languages, the words immortal and immortality (currently kudar and azoth in Dwarf).

   immortal   immortality
Albanian     i pavdekshëm   pavdekësi
German       unsterblich   Unsterblichkeit
Arabian    خالد             خلود
Basque   hilezkorra   hilezkortasuna
Croatian   besmrtan   besmrtnost
Spanish      inmortal   inmortalidad
Finnish       kuolematon   kuolemattomuus
Romanian    nemuritor   nemurire
Turkish        ölümsüz   ölümsüzlük
Welsh         anfarwol   anfarwoldeb
Japanese     不滅           不死
Chinese       不朽           不朽
Kannada   ಅಮರ            ಅಮರತ್ವ
Hebrew   אלמותי     חיי נצח

As you see, MOST of the time, in very different languages, the two expressions are very similar, if not identical. There are a lot of examples in the dwarf dictionnary like this.
As proposition 1 I propose that words which have the same or quite the same signification should be made with more or less the same construction. We should, for example propose some common etymology for words which have the same origin. Let's think about it. What is linked with what ? Couldn't be imagine that the words about magma or fire linked with forge ? Or the "trade" word linked with "trader", or "caravan" ? Etc...


Now about Adjectives, verbs, nouns.
For now we have a quite big dictionnary of something like 2200 words (i have extracted them from the files to an excel file). There are, in my opinion, nearly 10 or 20% to change with the 1st proposition, if you agree with that.

But they are only nouns, and sometimes adjectives. If we are about to create a language, there are also verbs and adjectives (and more other things but one thing at a time).

 Let's discuss about verbs and adjectives formation ! I propose that first everybody discuss about that, then we will formalize proposition and then vote !

[SealyStar]

   immortal   immortality
albanian     i pavdekshëm   pavdekësi
german       unsterblich   Unsterblichkeit
arabian    خالد             خلود
basque   hilezkorra   hilezkortasuna
croate   besmrtan   besmrtnost
espagnol   inmortal   inmortalidad
finnish       kuolematon   kuolemattomuus
romanian    nemuritor   nemurire
turkish        ölümsüz   ölümsüzlük
welsh         anfarwol   anfarwoldeb
japanese     不滅           不死
chinese       不朽           不朽
kannada   ಅಮರ            ಅಮರತ್ವ
hébreu   אלמותי     חיי נצח

I agree that it's only logical and natural that adjectives and related nouns be similar... duh.

But... Off-topic, it appears that you wrote this in French (I think it's French) and translated it, It should be "Croatian", "Spanish" ("Español" would be the spelling in Spanish), and "Hebrew", and all the language names should be capitalized. I don't know why those weren't translated, weird.

[Inarius]

Yeah, sorry for that. I did this quite late, and i forgot to translate the language names.

[Myrkky100]

Just a couple of things that popped into mind after reading Inarius’ post on word formation:

I think it might well be possible to just run with the nouns we have and add an affixed to indicate adjectives and verbs derived from the noun. That might sometimes prove a bit tricky with some verbs but I think once we have enough to write basic dwarven on the forums, glitches will ironed out with use. (Which is why I also think we don’t need to go into bloats like swearing and other colorful language here.)

As to Prop 1, I support it but I think it could be qualified further. If we go really synthetic, the number of word roots can actually be really small:

Trade
Trade+Dwarf = Trader
Trade+Group = Caravan
Trade+Place = Depot
Trade + Thing = Trade good
Trade + Book = Inventory
Trade + Book + [verb indicator] = Bookkeeper

Binaries could also be used: Light = No + Dark (the undermountain dark being default to dwarves); Hostile = No + Friend; Water = No + Booze (could actually also mean “Blood”).

I’d imagine that a smaller number of word roots could make learning easier and would also facilitate innovation, as making up new words from old ones when need arises would be a natural part of the language. But a balance needs to be struck between that and phrases becoming ridiculously long and complex.

[Nonsequitorian]

Just popping back in for a moment. I don't believe that the dwarves speak Newspeak. I like the idea of using trade+dwarf as trader and trade+group/place as caravan/depot, but after that things just get a little too much. Trade + Book could also be a book that teaches you about the ways of trading (I.E. Dwarven Econ Textbook). It gets a little too German for my tastes if you expand it more than you need to.

Binaries I feel are not a good idea for dwarves. They'd work with elves, because I see those commie tree lovers elves speaking Newspeak, but not with good ol' dwarves. It doesn't make sense to say that anything out of the normal for a dwarve is a sort of a condition on the normal (no + dark = light, no being a condition on the dark - the lack of it). DF has so much variety, that something normal in one fort may never occur in another,  and why would they in the latter fort ever say continually that what they do isn't the normal?

I'd rather say that we make words sort of coming off of a certain, more specific root. For example, the word for enemy is something that would translate like "goblin-like," even if they're not goblins. Or water could be "little booze" (the opposite of the russians, where voda is water and vodka is the diminutive of water)

[dwarfhoplite]

I like the root idea but I guess it would require changing a lot of words in order to make it logical.
Kind of reminds me of French where potato is said 'apple of the ground'.

Since DF categorizes items in separate categories (stockpiles etc), maybe the roots could be taken according to those categories. Adjectives could be used to specify the item.

like:
warhammer = blunt + weapon
gold     =yellow + metal

or something like that. This method will produce monstrous words though.