Re: New Survey: Celtic Conlangs (and other lunatic pursuits)

 > PART I. FOR CELTIC CONLANGERS:

 > Have you based your conlang(s) wholly or partially on a Celtic language?

No, which is probably surprising given what a great interest I have in
Celtic languages. During the last five years, in fact, I tried to make a
Celtic-based conlang a few times, but they never got passed the "sketch"
stage. I was never happy with what I came up with.

 > What is your name and what do you call your conlang(s)?

Name: Thomas Leigh
Languages: Choba, Osë (cedilla under the s), Jafo, Tešawa, Rozhendi

 > When did you start it/them?

Choba: 1983; Osë; 1985; Jafo: 1987-8; Tešawa: 1990; Rozhendi: 1991

 > Are you still working with it/them or have you abandoned it or them?

Save for adding the occasional new item of vocabulary, I haven't worked
on Choba, Osë, Jafo or Tešawa for the better part of a decade. I have a
sort of uneasy relationship with them. They no longer have much
aesthetic or linguistic appeal to me, now that I am older and my
interests and tastes have changed. Part of me is happy to just put them
behind me as old projects that satisfied what needs and interests I had
at the time, and move on with new projects which reflect my current
needs and interests. Yet I have a strong emotional attachment to all
four — they are a part of me — and another part of me cannot bear to get
rid of them, and wants to keep working on them even though they don't
"do anything" for me anymore.

Rozhendi is my great frustration. I've been working on it on and off for
almost 12 years, and have virtually nothing to show for it. It is the
only one of my languages that ever started off as a spoken language
rather than a written language — I started with words rather than
grammar or other structural details, and I started with the sound of the
words rather than their written form. It was also the only one of my
languages that ever began to acquire a conculture to go with it. But
while I came up with various parts that worked nicely, the whole never
gelled. I don't even know how many revisions the language has gone
through, all I know is that none of them worked. It's the one I would
love to devote all my time and energy too, if it didn't leave me
frustrated all the time!

 > What Celtic features have you borrowed? What is the structure of your
language? Be specific.

Choba and Osë have some words derived from Celtic languages, but that's
all. Jafo and Tešawa might as well, but I don't remember at this point.
Two Celtic features present in Rozhendi are conjugated prepositions and
an inflected impersonal form of the verb in each tense in lieu of a
passive voice. Celtic languages are also likely to be a primary source
for vocabulary for Rozhendi as well.

 > What features of Celtic languages (or a particular Celtic language)
initially inspired or intrigued you?

Two of my favoritve features common to all living Celtic languages are
conjugated prepositions and the impersonal verb forms, which made it
into Rozhendi.

 > For example, Tolkien, as he described it in "Welsh and English" was
impressed by the beauty of a Welsh inscription he saw on a building:
Adeiladwyd 1887 ('built 1887'). He loved words like wybren, so much more
"mellifluous" than our borrowed word "sky." He was likewise enthralled
by Finnish and Hebrew. So he deliberately set out to make his Elvish
languages beautiful. Was this a draw for you as well in choosing Celtic
as a model?

Not really. I could find words in any language that I think are
beautiful or ugly. Also, where my languages are concerned, Celtic is one
of many sources, rather than a model.

 > (I understand that T's Elvish languages are not exclusively "Celtic.")

The only one I see Celtic influence in is Sindarin, whose phonology and
system of initial consonant mutations are very similar to those of Welsh.

 > On the other hand, perhaps the Celtic structures, their VSO, their
paraphrastics, their initial mutations, their spelling conventions,
their general strangeness caught your fancy, not necessarily their
"beauty" or "romance." Comment?

I do like a number of "Celtic structures", as you put it, a lot
(conjugated prepositions, impersonal verb forms, etc.) Spelling
conventions differ greatly among the various Celtic languages; one could
have an attraction to the spelling conventions of a particular language,
but there's no such thing  as "Celtic spelling conventions". I certainly
don't think there is any "general strangeness" to Celtic languages;
they're no "stranger" than any other language. And the "romance" thing
that so many people (usually people who know little or nothing about any
Celtic language) lay on the Celtic languages just annoys me.

 > How many of you are also scholars of Celtic languages?

Yes; I have my MA in Gaelic Studies from the University of Aberdeen,
Scotland. I have looked at all the modern Celtic languages to varying
degrees (ranging from "dabbling" to years of serious study) as well as
some older stages of certain ones (Old, Middle, and Early Modern Gaelic,
Middle Welsh).

 > Scholars of other languages?

I have studied many other languages, both formally (i.e. in classes) and
on my own as a hobby. I don't know if that qualifies me as a scholar in
other people's eyes, though I certainly like to think of myself as such.

 > How were you introduced to them [Celtic languages]?

Books.

 > PART II: INSPIRATION BY TOLKIEN (tangential to the questions on
inspiration by Celtic languages):

 > How many of you were inspired to invent a language because of your
exposure to Tolkien?

No. I remember thinking that it was really cool that Tolkien invented
languages like me and put them in his books, but he didn't inspire me to
start conlanging.

 > How many of you based your conlang on one of Tolkien's languages, or
your conculture in Middle Earth?

No.

 > How many of you have a constructed world, and, if so, does it include
some of the races we associate with Celtic or Scandinavian mythology?
(Elves, Dwarves, medieval societies of humans, Faeries or Fays? Selkies?
Wizards?)

I've always felt an attraction to this sort of thing, and fantasy/sci-fi
has always been my preferred genre of leisure reading, but I've never
created one of my own.

 > How many of you were inspired to examine Welsh, Hebrew, or Finnish
because of your examination of Tolkien?

No.

 > How many of you were inspired to invent a conlang or a conculture
because of some influence OTHER than Tolkien?

I can't point to any particular event or inspiration that led me to
start creating languages. I just did it.

 > How many of you were inspired to invent a language because you engage
in Role-Playing Games?

No.

 > How many of you were inspired to invent a language because you heard
of this listserv?

I started conlanging long before email and the internet became
commonplace. I only discovered them at university in the mid-90's, and I
was delighted and thrilled to find out how many other conlangers were
out there.

 > How many of you are members of the Mythopoeic Society, or the Society
for Creative Anachronism, or other High Fantasy Groups?

No.

 > PART III: NON-CELTIC CONLANGERS:

 > In the discussions I've witnessed on Conlang in almost five years,
I've observed that many conlangers have deliberately avoided
"Tolkienesque" languages, and even Indo-European languages as models for
conlangs, and especially the "Celtic." Why?

Beats me! I love the Celtic languages, and Indo-European languages in
general. I'm not a huge fan of Tolkien's languages, though. What I find
impressive about his work is the sheer scope and detail of it, rather
than the individual languages themselves.

 > in this question I'm eager to see some eschewal of or at least
indifference towards the Tolkien, the "Celtic," and/or even the
Indo-European model.

Why?

 > So what is unappealing about the Indo-European model for conlanging?
Or Tolkien's Elvish?

Absolutely nothing!

 > How did you start conlanging? What was your initial inspiration?

I remember opening up a notebook during a lunchbreak or free period of
some sort (it was in school), and writing the title "Cho-ba Made Easy",
and then several "lessons" in the Cho-ba language. I cannot remember any
particular inspiration which led me to do it; I just did it.

 > Did you know about Tolkien's inventions? Read the books, the
appendices? etc. Or not?

Yes, I read Hobbit and LOTR (I did a book report on the latter in 6th
grade). And I did love the language bits, the alphabets, etc.

 > What language types have you modeled your language(s) after?

The lexicon of all my languages is a mixture of a priori words and words
borrowed/adapted/mutated from other languages.
In terms of structure, they're all different. One of the first "Teach
Yourself" books I ever bought was "Teach Yourself Modern Persian" by
John Mace, and so there is some Persian influence on Choba structure
(SOV word order, the accusative particle -ra, etc). I was very impressed
with the structure of Esperanto (a distinct ending for each part of
speech, the system of correlatives, etc.) when I discovered it and that
informed my conlanging for years afterwards. Osë was originally the
result of "Esperanto-izing" Choba, though it quickly developed a
distinct chatacter of its own. Jafo was conceived as "Asian-like" (as I
though of it at the time: fairly simple phonology, lots of CVCV words,
etc.) and Tešawa as "Eastern-European-like" (which ended up meaning
"using languages spoken in Eastern Europe as sources for vocabulary"; I
was still stuck on the "totally regular grammar" thing).

 > What features of these languages or language types appeal to you?

I've always liked (and still do) the structure of Esperanto,
particularly the one distinct ending for each part of speech, the
correlatives, and the wordbuilding affix system. I've always liked SOV
word order too, for some reason.

 > Some of you, and I'm thinking in particular of a conversation I had
with And Rosta, are not interested in producing a language that is
"mellifluous"--that "mellifluousness" is a thing to be avoided in your
conlang and especially as it is associated with Tolkien's Elvish or
copiers of Elvish. Is this so? Why?

"Mellifluousness" is not something I ever aimed for in Choba, Osë, Jafo
or Tešawa, and indeed did not achieve (according to my own aesthetic
tastes, anyway). Though some of the more recent reworkings in Choba
vocabulary have made it perhaps a bit more mellifluous than it once was.
Mellifluousness (mellifluosity?) is a very important consideration for
Rozhendi, however, as one of the design goals was to make a language
that sounds beautiful to me. But I find the notion that it is something
to be deliberately avoided quite absurd.

 > For how many of you, though, is beauty and/or efficiency a factor in
your language? Or elegance? How would you define these terms?

I have never designed with efficiency in mind, though if something turns
out feeling "unwieldy" to me for some reason, I'm liable to go back and
rework things. Beauty and elegance were never a factor for Choba, Osë,
Jafo or Tešawa — indeed I find them all not particularly beautiful or
elegant now — but they are important for Rozhendi. In fact, I think a
lot of the trouble I've been having trying to develop Rozhendi is due to
that fact.

 > For how many of you is the "exotic" a desired feature of your
invented language?

Not for me. If other people find some feature or other of one of my
languages to be "exotic", fine, but I've never made anything with the
intent that it "be exotic".

 > How many of you invent a non-human language?

No. Never been an interest for me.

 > Do you prefer inventing an a posteriori language or an a priori
language? In other words, how many of you invent a language wherein you
base it closely on a natural language (Arabic, Tagalog) or a combination
of languages, and how many others of you invent a language from, well,
scratch? (if that can be done.)

I used to really like creating a priori languages — Choba, Osë, and Jafo
(and to an extent Tešawa) all started out a priori — but over time I
started borrowing/adapting words and specific grammatical features more
and more from existing languages. Perhaps interestingly, those conlangs
I like the most (e.g. Talossan, Jameld) are a posteriori. Rozhendi, or
what exists of it at the moment at any rate, is a mixture of a priori
and a posteriori; whatever I like and want to throw into see if it
works, I do.

 > How many of you invent a language based on a particular type
(Ergative, Accusative, Trigger, etc.)?

All of my languages have been accusative languages, but not because I
explicitly decided that's what I was going to do; it's just what I know
and what's comfortable.

 > To what degree is difficulty and irregularity of language important
to you in your conlang? what natural language eccentricities (or
efficiencies) do you like and try to reproduce?

I've never designed a language intentionally to be difficult; if
anything, the opposite. I want to be able to use them easily.
Irregularities were never a part of my early conlanging, perhaps due to
Esperanto influence; I no longer eschew them, but I do not seek them
out, either. It's more "what happens, happens". If it's regular, fine;
if it's irregular, fine.

 > To what degree is accessibility, efficiency, and regularity important
to your conlang? What natural language "faults" are you correcting?

My older languages (Choba et al.) were very grammatically regular. I
don't care about that so much anymore.

 > How many of you invent logical languages?

No.

 > How many of you invent IALs?

I toyed with the usual Esperanto-clone IAL ideas when I was a teenager,
and thankfully got it out of my system. :)

 > How many of you have invented non-Tolkienesque or non European
concultures and what are they like?

None of my languages before Rozhendi ever had a conculture. Rozhendi
will, I expect, but I've never actively developed it; rather I have
vague notions or feelings about certain things. Not enough to work out
any comparisons yet.

 > How many of you started out by pulling words out of the air,
originally? How many of you have chosen a more methodic form of
vocabulary building? I.e., how have you gone about setting up the
framework for your words and your grammar? (I started out pulling words
out of the air.)

As I recall, Choba originally started with me pulling words out of the
air, although later on I sat down and worked out the grammar and then
started pulling more words out of the air. Osë, Jafo, and Tešawa all
started with grammatical sketches, and then once those were done I
started pulling words out of the air. This has always been my usual
method of language-building. With Rozhendi I went back to pulling words
out of the air first, and what grammar there is so far seems to be being
made to fit the words, rather than the other way round. Every time I
tried with Rozhendi to work out grammar first and vocab second, it
hasn't worked.

 > PART IV: THE LUNATIC SURVEY REVISITED (because we are all "fous du
langage," according to Yaguello and other French critics.

 > Why do you conlang?

It's just part of me. I can't not conlang. I can't imagine not
conlanging. I can't explain it any better than that. I suppose it's like
asking a painter why they paint, or asking a writer why they write. It's
just inside and has to come out.

 > ho will speak it? Read it?

Me. Of course, if anybody else was interested enough in one of my
creations to want to learn it I would be flattered and thrilled, but it
would be icing on the cake. I'll always do it for me, regardless.

 > What's the point? What's the beauty? what's the intellectual draw?

I see it more as an art form, a form of personal and artistic
expression, than anything else. As I said before, it's like painting,
storytelling, songwriting, playing an instrument, etc. There are just
some people who have this stuff inside them and it needs to come out. It
is also enjoyable intellectual stimulation, and I think it's a natural
"by-product" or "side effect" of loving languages abd being fascinated
by them.

 > To what would you compare a conlang? Is it a miniature? Is it a
model? Is it a tapestry? Is it an act of obsession and madness? <G> Or
is it a communicable language?

Any, all, and none of the above. :)

 > If it is a communicable language, to whom do you speak it?

In theory, anybody who wants me to and who will speak back. In practice,
nobody but myself. So far.

 > To what extent is the opacity or "alterity" of your language
something that pleases you? In other words, the sounds and the script
have, even for you, a quality of being foreign, and this delights.
Comment? (I know that when I make maps of cities, and imagine myself in
them, they delight me because they are both familiar and foreign at the
same time.)

It pleases me, but it was never a priority or a design goal.

 > This is a difficult question: how is it that a word sounds "right" to
you? We recently discussed this. To what extent are you finding righter,
better words for the world in your conlang? (Perhaps unanswerable).

I would say that each of my languages "feels" a certain way, has a
distinct character of its own - I don't know that I could describe them,
but I feel them - and that comes into play when creating new vocabulary.
Some words just aren't Choba words, or Osë words, etc., while others
are. That's as far as I go in that regard.

 > How many of you are fictive map-makers, designers of fictive floor
plans, fictive yachts, fictive star-ships, world-builders,
calligraphers, cartoonists, etc.? (These pursuits have been associated
with conlanging. I 've done most of them.)

I love maps and always have, but I've never been any good at drawing
them. Ditto with spaceships. I also love calligraphy and have always
wanted to learn to do it, but all my attempts have ended hideously, so I
don't do that either even though part of me aches to. When I was in my
teens, especially, and early twenties, I did draw a lot of cartoons,
often in my conlangs, but I haven't done that for a while.

 > How many of you have a special script in your conlang?

Tešawa has a special script of its own, in addition to the Roman
alphabet. Rozhendi was always  intended to have a special alphabet of
its own too, but I've gone through several, invented by both myself and
others, and I haven't yet found one that really feels right for it. So
currently Rozhendi has three or four alphabets and no alphabet at the
same time! I've ended up using a "romanization" when jotting down vocab
items and grammar notes, and I expect that will end up being the norm
for web pages and the like in Rozhendi, as well as a "hip" way to write
the language amongst younger speakers, though I expect older, more
"traditional" generations would frown upon it.

 > If you use Roman script, how recognizably "phonetic" is your writing
system? In other words, do you use unconventional letters to represent
sounds? Why?

All are very phonetic in the sense of a strict correspondence between
letters and pronunciation (no silent letters, no letters which can be
pronounced several different ways depending on the word, etc.). I don't
think any of my languages have anything particularly unusual or
unconventional; perhaps the most unusual is that in Osë the letter "x"
represents /ts/. I have always had a great love affair with accents and
diacritics, so all of my languages incorporate some of one sort or
another, but I don't think I've done anything peculiar in that regard
either. For example in Osë, /aj/, /aw/ and /@/ are all represented by
the letter "a" with various diacritics. Pretty straightforward stuff, I
think. No Q-dieresis or x-cedilla or anything like that.

 > This is a question Heather asked, but I also asked it four years ago:
how many of you write in your language? What do you write?

Oh yes. I've always used my languages. Sadly, virtually all "literature"
in all my languages was lost when I moved from Scotland back to the U.S.
in 1998. I must have thrown stuff out or lost a box or something. Mostly
prose - journal entries or other such "historical records",
notes/reminders/instructions to myself, comics, that sort of everyday
thing. I did write a bit of bad poetry in both Choba and Osë, as well as
some bad pop songs in Choba; I'm not particularly fussed about the loss
of those. :)

 > How many of you sing in your language and have invented songs for
that purpose?

I don't sing much in any language! :) Although as I said I did compose 5
or 6 rather lousy pop songs in Choba (lyrics only, never got around to
the music). I once wrote an "anthem" for Jafo which went something along
the lines of "Jafo is our language / It's very nice / If you don't like
it / Shove it up your ass" or something like that. Thankfully, that's
lost too. ;-)

 > How many of you started conlanging when you were a teenager and have
stuck to the same language over many years? Why?

Yes; all 5 of my languages were begun when between the ages of 12-20.
For some reason, each one of those really became a part of me that I
could never give up (as opposed to the countless other sketches that
never made it) so I've stuck with them my whole life, if intermittently.

 > How many of you change conlangs regularly, developing structures for
many languages but not sticking with any one for very long? Why?

That's me too; I've sketched out I don't know how many, but I only kept
going with 5 of them. The rest just didn't work somehow. I have always
alternated, though; I'll work on one for a while, then another one for a
while, then nothing for a while, etc.

 > For how many of you does your language function as a spiritual
instrument? This is a deeply personal question--let me give you an
example. When I first started inventing "Tayonian" in my early teens,
what I wrote were spells and prayers. They had a talismanic quality.
Does that ring a bell for anybody?

No. While I do consider myself a spiritual person, I've never practiced
any particular religion or spiritual path, and so I've never had a need
of that sort for my language to fill.

 > For how many of you was your language at least at one stage of its
making meant to fool others, or to write secret diaries? (Me, waving my
hand).

No. Although I have occasionally used my languages to write journal
entries and things of the sort, it was always for the purpose of
practicing or developing the language, not making the contents "secret".

 > How many of you can speak your language, at least to yourself and
your pet? child? spouse? <G> To what extent?

I used to be able to speak some simple, everyday Choba and Osë, back
when I was writing a lot in them. Although I never had anyone to talk to
but myself. The usual thing that happens is that I end up memorising all
the grammatical inflections and such, but looking up/inventing the words
as I need them. I've rarely gotten as far as memorising vocab as well.
Though Rozhendi is the one I *really* want to be able to speak and write
"fluently" (if there is such a thing for an eternal work in progress)
when I get it developed enough.

 > How many of you have put up websites where your language can be
showcased? If so, what is the website address?

Working on it! I've always been a paper-and-pen conlanger. I've started
typing up the contents of my many notebooks and folders and scraps of
paper, but I've only scratched the surface. What I have so far is at
http://thomasleigh.tripod.com/conlang.html, and more will come over the
next however many years it takes me to type it all up. While I do really
want to have everything I've done online, I hate sitting and typing for
hours, and I find it really difficult to get motivated.

 > How many of you have made soundbytes of your language so the rest of
us can hear it? If so, give the site.

I have plans to do this and have bought the necessary equipment (mic,
etc.), but I haven't recorded anything yet. When I do, it will appear on
the same web page mentioned above.

 > How many of you are comfortable talking to your boss, your
professors, your family members about this pursuit?

I will when asked, but for whatever reason I don't feel really
comfortable unless the person I'm talking to also conlangs. Odd, isn't
it? I guess it's that whole "they don't *really* get it, even if they
appreciate what it means to me" thing. I suppose the negative responses,
of which I've gotten my share, have also contributed to a general
retiscence to share unless I know for sure the other person has a
positive attitude and an open mind about it, which is most likely if
they also do it.

 > How many of you have received condescending or other negative
responses to your disclosure? (I have.) Or even been called "pathological"?

Oh yes, I have received condescending and negative responses. I've been
laughed at, called "weird", etc. I've also gotten quite a few "baffled"
resonses (or non-responses), as if conlanging is something that's just
so alien that they can't quite wrap their mind about the idea. Never
been called "pathological", though — that's a new one.

 > If this attitude is changing, to what do you attribute the change?
(On New Year's Eve, a delightful, elderly gentleman could not understand
why I would be interested in this pursuit. What purpose could it serve?)

I think the internet has played a large part by bringing conlangers
together, and making the activity more public. Also pop culture
phenomena like Star Trek and LOTR have has perhaps exposed people to
conlanging/conlangs who may have been initially drawn to them by some
other aspect (general interest in scifi/fantasy, action films, fans of
particular actors, etc.)

 > For how many of you is the damning statement "better to learn real
languages than invent private ones" a criticism you have encountered?
What would be your response to such a remark?

I can't recall having gotten that particular response, but depending on
the situation I expect my answer would be one or both of the following:
1. "Would you discourage somebody from writing a song due to how many
other songs already exist? Would you discourage someone from taking a
photograph because so many others already exist? Inventing languages is
the same thing: an art form in which certain people express themselves.
What's wrong with that?"
2. "I *do* learn real languages too, and I expect I speak more than you."

 > PART V: GENERAL DEMOGRAPHICS:

 > What is your age (optional--and can be general: 30-40, for instance).

31 (32 next month).

 > What is your profession or your station in life (i.e., if you are a
student, what is your MAJOR; if a middle or high-school student, what is
your intended major)?

I always intended to have a profession involving languages (translating,
interpreting, etc.) and/or music (pop star, composer, etc.) but I've
ended up maintaining web pages for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
instead (and a variety of "office" jobs before that), with "side gigs"
of teaching beginner's Scottish Gaelic classes when time and public
interest allows, and performing Gaelic traditional songs mixed with
modern pop accompaniment with my wife (I compose the music and play
keyboards and percussion, she sings) at Highland Games and Celtic festivals.

 > What is your gender?

Male.

 > What is your nationality and your native language?

American, English.

 > What natural languages do you speak or have studied?

Studied, in more or less chronological order: French, Latin, Russian,
Danish, Esperanto, Modern Greek, Turkish, Czech, Scottish Gaelic, Manx
Gaelic, Anglo-Saxon, Volapük, Middle Welsh, Talossan, Persian, Cornish,
Catalan, Portuguese. Of those, the ones I still remember enough of to
hold any sort of somewhat coherent (if basic) conversation in would be
French, Esperanto, Czech, Scottish Gaelic, Talossan and Portuguese. To
my very great shame, I am nowhere near fluent in anything other than
English.

 > How many of you have chosen a profession in linguistics because of
your interest in inventing languages? Or plan a profession in linguistics?

No. At one point I was giving serious consideration in pursuing a PhD in
Linguistics, but because of my love of languages in general, not my
interest in conlanging. But doing a PhD in anything is completely
unfeasible in terms of both money and time for the forseeable future, so
that's unlikely to happen.

 > What have you learned from conlanging?

Wow, I don't know. I think my conlanging has come more out of things
I've learned, than the other way round.

 > What texts on language and linguistics have you consulted to help
invent your language?

I have a large collection of language books (grammars, dictionaries,
etc.) which I peruse for fun and leisure, and features of certain
languages have naturally found their way into my conlangs, but I haven't
ever consulted anything expressly for help or guidance in creating a
particular conlang.

 > Do you know of anyone who has not connected with the Internet or the
List who has invented a language?

Yes.

 > (I'm firmly convinced that "conlanging" has been a private pursuit
for many people long before the list started, but that the list has
increased its visibility as an art).

I wholeheartedly agree with you!

 > Can you give me a short sample of your language with interlinear
description and translation?

The first line of  "The North Wind and The Sun":

1. Choba:

O Tuashni Blesha kësh o Kolë teruzagë no sha pa löp jofaro shikabgë,
shanda chë banavitë ken chë kafo terka baltëgëshäni kägë.

O Tuash-ni Blesha kësh o Kolë teruza-gë no sha pa löp jofa-ro shikab-gë,
shanda chë bana-vitë ken chë kafo terka baltë-gë-shä-ni kä-gë.

the north-ADJ. wind and the sun argue-PAST about who of they strong-COMP
be-PAST, when a AGENT-travel in a warm coat wrap-PAST-PASS.-ADJ. come-PAST.

The North Wind and the Sun were arguing about which of them was
stronger, when a traveler came, wrapped in a warm coat.

2. Osë (non Latin-1 diacritics omitted):

O Norvagusak kës o Sölak zefagë pë vest i lo igë lor jofa, venç ventagë
çë  çestavonak balnageva bi çë kafa polçak.

O Norv-a-gus-ak kës o Söl-ak zefa-gë pë vest i lo i-gë lor jof-a, venç
venta-gë çë çest-a-von-ak baln-a-gev-a bi çë kaf-a polç-ak.

the north-(BUFFER)-wind-NOM.SG. and the sun-NOM.SG. argue-PAST about who
of they be-PAST more strong-ADJ, when come-PAST a
travel-(BUFFER)-AGENT-NOM.SG. wrap-(BUFFER)-PAST.PASS.PARTIC.-ADJ. in a
warm-ADJ coat-NOM.SG.

3. Jafo:

O Múnagula ana o Gaxa kwa qaduma dua bax fera pa fo hei li moi fotu,
panda voxayán vinu li, han cu balixa pei kalda palto.

O Múna-gula ana o Gaxa kwa qaduma dua bax fera pa fo hei li moi fotu,
panda voxa-y-án vinu li, han cu balixa li pei kalda palto.

the north-wind and the sun IMPERFECT argue about what one of they be
PAST more strong, when travel-(BUFFER)-AGENT come PAST, PASSIVE
PARTICIPLE wrap PAST in warm coat.

4. Tešawa (non Latin-1 diacritics omitted):

I Norvawi Gula on i Sol ciqovad do ci a sé elet kreviori, pan veniva u
šestaméa balianoteš ki u qalmi palta.

I Norv-awi Gula on i Sol ciqo-vad do ci a sé el-et krev-iori, pan
veni-va u šesta-méa balia-noteš ki u qalmi palta.

the north-ADJ wind-NOUN.NOM.SG. and the sun argue-IMPERFECT about who of
they be-PAST strong-COMP., when come-PAST a travel-AGENT
wrap-PAST.PASS.PARTIC. in a warm coat.

I don't have enough Rozhendi yet to translate this sentence. Two little
samples: Quélye ("hello/goodbye"), Ayth ëo thë? ("How are you?")

 > Would you object to my mentioning your conlang/and or your name in my
talk? I will be discreet about some of the more personal questions you
answered.

Not at all. Please feel free.

Thomas