French for Conlangers - 9 Interesting Features

Welcome to Pencil on Parchment!
In this video, we approach the French language from the view of an aspiring conlanger. If you want to add new linguistic features into your language you're in the right place! Whether you're into conlanging or worldbuilding, this video is for you. Thanks for watching! Remember to put your lore on parchment and make some unique conlangs!
Written Version of this Video:
parchmentlore.com/french-for-...
My Website:
parchmentlore.com
Chapters:
0:00 Introduction
0:35 Phonology
1:14 Tense, Aspect, and Mood Overview
1:34 French Moods
2:14 French Aspects
2:53 Special Notes about French Aspects
3:28 French Non-finite Forms
4:10 Noun Gender
4:47 Double Negative
5:22 Dedicated Indefinite Pronoun
5:46 Questions in French
6:08 Base-20 System
6:34 Partitive Number
6:56 French Liaison
7:26 Conclusion
#french #conlang #linguistics

[@joeyuzwa891]

French speaker here. There IS actually a present progressive construction. It’s Subject + être (present tense conj.) + en train de + verb (infinitive). It’s just used more sparingly than the present progressive is in English.

[@ParchmentLore]

I see, thank you! I think I was confused by learning that "I am eating" = "I eat" (Je mange)... But I guess it was taught that way so that you don't overuse the construction! Thanks for the help!

[@ryalloric1088]

2:26 Just a nitpick, but both of those sentences would usually just be "j'ai créé". The passé simple is archaic, and pretty much exclusively used in storytelling, so the passé composé fulfills both roles.

[@ParchmentLore]

Thank you! From the research for this video, I knew that the passé simple was more literary, but I guess I didn't realize how much! From a Spanish learning background, I guess I figured the two languages would be more similar in that regard! I have a beginner's knowledge of French (I definitely want to learn more!), so I appreciate the clarification! Thanks for the comment, and thanks for watching!

[@ymin1195]

Man, even if the pronunciation is weird from time to time, it is mostly acceptable. So, as a French native speaker, you have my respect 👌🏻 However, we could discuss the notion of "aspect" as all of them fused with tenses and, therefore, are no longer a real thing in French

[@sam_9228]

I just want to add a few helpful (and kind) notes: 1:54 Espérer que is *not* followed by the subjunctive. It should be « J'espère que vous créez (or créerez) des langues construites ». For a sentence with the subjunctive, you could say « Je veux que vous créiez des langues construites ». 2:28 As others have said, the past definite and perfect in modern French have the same meaning. 3:05 French does have a way to express ongoing actions by using the construction « être en train de » BUT it is used to literally mean "in the middle of doing something" and is not always used. 5:09 The french partitive is not used after a negation such as « Je ne crée pas *de* langues construites ». The use of « pas » in the French language as a second negation marker is believed to have come about due to the Jespersen's cycle of negation. Fun fact, this also happened in english and that's why we use the word "not" (naught). 5:44 Gender agreement with On is very interesting because there is a divide. Some grammarians don't think there should be an agreement while others think there should be an agreement of gender. I personally make it agree because I feel like it removes some ambiguity from what it signifies (example: On est allé(s)). 5:58 Quelle*s* langues... 6:03 Quand est-ce que vous crée*z* (it needs to be conjugated to the vous form) I hope this helps!

[@ParchmentLore]

Thank you so much for taking the time to make those notes! Those definitely help! (Both to expand my knowledge of French, and at some point in the future I want to remake these "Languages for Conlangers" videos, so I'll be sure to incorporate all of those notes next time!) On the first one, I think I was a bit contaminated with the Spanish "Espero que...", which does use the subjunctive! It's tricky to figure out what triggers it between Romance languages, as it's not always the same! On the third note, funny enough, I recently made a short about "not" and Jespersen's Cycle, so great minds really do think alike! I didn't know about "être train de", thanks for teaching me something new! Thanks again, I really appreciate it! Thanks for watching!

[@sam_9228]

@@ParchmentLore Definitely! I love language videos like these and I really like French. I'm also a native Spanish speaker so I understand what you mean for the first one :)

[@ParchmentLore]

Oh wow! Preaching to the choir then, lol! I love linguistics videos, too! Part of the inspiration for the channel! I wish I had more time to study French, it's such an amazing language... Thanks again for the fixes! :)

[@abarette_]

not me watching this even though I'm French 😭 As one comment said at 2:26 I made would also be J'ai créé in that case. Créer is not the best verb you could have picked given its highly homophonic conjugations. Overall I would have spent more time on Negation and Liaison given how complicated while essential they are. No mention of Enchainement is also questionable

[@nathanrichards6511]

I find your videos delightfully entertaining and educational, keep up the good work!

[@ParchmentLore]

Thank you so much! I really appreciate the support! I'm definitely looking at making more of these kinds of "___ for Conlangers" videos and/or redoing some of the older ones! Thanks for the comment and thanks for watching!

[@cedriko1662]

6:53 Although in Spanish we also use the "de" with the same use sometimes, in French I find it very confusing somehow

[@ParchmentLore]

Interesting! I didn't know Spanish had any partitive constructions with de"! I'm sure it's definitely confusing when the Spanish and French "de" are spelled the same, sort of sound the same, but have different uses! Thanks for commenting and watching the video!

[@watersnake1462]

5:46 I'd like to add that there's 3 ways to form a question in french. The one you explained is used in spoken french along with a simpler version. This version is simply an affirmative sentence pronounce with a sorta rising tone (correct me on that coz idk how to explain it) e.g. Tu vas bien ? (How are you?) Usually when we use an interrogative word with this form, it goes at the end of the sentence e.g. Tu veux manger quoi ? ( What do you wanna eat?) Then, there is the form that is basically how English forms its questions with the inversion of the verb and the subject. Que veux-tu manger ? (What do you want to eat?) This form is formal and not commonly used in daily conversations. It's used in writing (as in mail/books/etc, formal stuff in general) and when adressing someone in formal way although the "est-ce que" questions fill up this role too. There's like a ladder of formality with the question types : Inversion subject-verb : formal "Est-ce que" : casual Affirmative sentences used as questions : familiar Hope this helps hehe

[@ParchmentLore]

Ah, I see! I forgot the "rising tone" way to make a question in French! I guess it's the same in English where you could phrase "You are well." as a question when you add a rising tone, like "You're well?" That's interesting that the interrogative word goes at the end of the sentence! I guess it makes sense though, because you could say "You want to eat what?" as a question in English, too! I appreciate the ladder of formality! I knew that there were different forms of asking questions, but I didn't know which ones were more casual or formal! Thanks for the help, I really appreciate it! Thanks for the comment, and thanks for watching! :)

[@watersnake1462]

@ParchmentLore ig English and French are pretty close on that matter hehe Well I'm glad it was helpful ! Keep doing great videos hehe

[@ParchmentLore]

@@watersnake1462 Definitely! Thank you!

[@crispitysmuggity]

tysm for this video! french is my favorite conlang :3

[@ParchmentLore]

Definitely! I'm looking at making more of this type of videos, so glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for the comment, and thanks for watching!

[@Gabriel-sn6yg]

An interesting feature of french verb moods, the conditional can mark a weaker eventuality than indicative. "Il aurait créé une langue construite" would mean "he might have created a conlang" or "he allegedly created a conlang". I don't know if it work in Parisian french thought

[@ParchmentLore]

Wow! That's super interesting! It seems like in the future it might start to become some sort of indirect evidentiality? I know in Turkish indirect evidentiality evolved through a perfective meaning, so something like: "He has created a conlang" => "Allegedly he created a conlang" I didn't know that a conditional mood could do the same thing! Thanks for sharing, and thanks for watching!

[@lekoicy]

okay wait what. I was in the process of making a French Welsh mix conlang. I was making brezhoneg 2. how did you know (being silly)

[@ParchmentLore]

Ha! What a coincidence! That sounds like an awesome, unique idea! Does it have consonant mutations? That mixed with liaison would pose some pretty challenging sandhi rules! Breton is a super interesting language, I don't believe I've ever seen a conlang modeled after it! Best of luck with creating your conlang! Thanks for watching!

[@lekoicy]

@@ParchmentLore I mean I don't think I *could* make a Welsh-based conlang without the mutations, those are kinda the coolest part of Welsh to me. I didn't actually think about the liaison part though (could be cool though to have that and the mutations interact)

[@ParchmentLore]

That's true! I don't think anyone could make a "Celtic-inspired Language" without consonant mutations and personal prepositions lol! Those are the coolest parts of the languages!

[@volvagianintendo6465]

I happen to be making a naturalistic polysynthetic fusional and agglutinative talish speech provisionally named Flumiqué which copies the French phonotactics, phonetic kit, grammar and ekes more grammatic aspects; but has its own wordstock and ekes the phonemes /q/ and /ɮ/.

[@ParchmentLore]

That's awesome! What a unique idea for a conlang! Love the new phonemes! The uvular plosive has got to be one of my favorite sounds, it's so fun to pronounce! Also, I really like the voiced alveolar lateral fricative, not enough of those in conlangs that I've seen! A fusional language sounds like quite the project, too! I find those to be the most difficult languages to construct... Best of luck in making your conlang!

[@volvagianintendo6465]

This talish speech of mine is meant to be spoken at first in the far past (about 15000 years ago) by a culture of Eulemur Sapiens Multicolor at the Madagascarish Northern Half, but about 1000 years later, it has been used as the Democratic Madagascarish Empire's main speech of chaffing and cultural trade. The Eulemur Sapiens Multicolor is only one of the many sophont lemur kinds in my alternative history of Madagascar. Here is a foreword to such an alternative evolutionary history: docs.google.com/document/d/1QxioF_Z0yxj3HfxqoZXxXZWB-vfAvEqNAq8SfSdSk8w/edit?usp=drivesdk

[@volvagianintendo6465]

Lastly, such speech of mine also has 4 genders, 18 aspects, 5 tenses, evidentiality, clusivity, 34 cases, and 6 grammatical numbers, and its deeds must be inflected to all those grammatical categories.

[@volvagianintendo6465]

@@ParchmentLore, yeah, I can relate with thy love for those sounds I eked!

[@ParchmentLore]

Wow! This is sooo cool! That's some awesome worldbuilding! I think lemurs are a really cool animal, so that's awesome that you made such a unique language, culture, and alternative history for them! Thanks for sharing! Best of luck with your conlanging and worldbuilding endeavors, it's really turning out great so far!

[@TreeeeeeeeeeeeeLIVE]

5:46 although the French that I use is not Parisian French (more like a mixture between Quebecois, North African, and Metropolitan French), I feel like its important to mention that inversion of the pronoun and verb is much more common in questions than the "est-ce que" construction, which tends to be used mostly by second language speakers or especially young children. ie. "Quelle langues aimez-vous?" would be more prevalent than "Quelle langues est-ce que vous aimez?"

[@ParchmentLore]

I see, thank you! Well, as a second language speaker of French, I didn't know that the inversion is more common than "est-ce que"! I wonder why a lot of books/courses put more emphasis on "est-ce que"? I guess I thought that the inversion was too formal or something! Thanks for the help, and thanks for watching!

[@watersnake1462]

I would disagree on that 😅 at least in France, it's more common to hear "est-ce que" rather than the inversion of subject and verb. And even more common is no inversion at all and just rising the voice at the end of the sentence.

[@haditawbe9617]

Absolutely great work! Looking forward to watching more videos on other languages :)

[@ParchmentLore]

Thank you so much! I've definitely grown in audio-editing and video-making skills since this video, so I'd be excited to pick the series back up again! I appreciate the support, thank you! Thanks for watching!

[@Onk599]

just found this channel omg :O

[@ParchmentLore]

Ha! Thank you! I'm glad you found the channel, and I hope you enjoyed the video! I'm looking forward to making more content like it in the future! Thanks for the support, and thanks for watching!

[@anderji]

Im sorry but a conlang in french is "une conlang" but with french accent.

[@Gabriel-sn6yg]

I always used idéolangue...

[@ParchmentLore]

Ah, I see, thank you! I saw that as one of the definitions, but wasn't sure if it was actually a French word or what... I know a little French, but as you can probably understand those kinds of words aren't in my vocabulary lol! Thanks for the comment, and thanks for watching! :)

[@watersnake1462]

Une conlang ? T'es québécois ? Perso je dis "un conlang"

[@Gabriel-sn6yg]

@@watersnake1462 Oui, mais je prend le terme idéolangue du forum l'atelier, où se trouve également des Français de France...

[@watersnake1462]

@@Gabriel-sn6yg ah mais idéolangue c'est très bien, j'avais jamais entendu ça. Je parlais plutôt du fait que l'autre personne l'utilise au féminin 😅 en France on a plutôt tendance à mettre les anglicisme au masculin