LCC12 Conlang Relay

This year, we are hosting three rings in the relay:

• Prose Ring: A text rendered in a conlang with a searchable Romanized font. Participants in this ring will translate the text and render a (roughly) equivalent text in their own conlang. (Ring master: Jan van Steenbergen)
• Conculture Ring: A text rendered in a conlang with a searchable Romanized font, organized with conculture-specific conventions/proper nouns/concepts. Participants in this ring will translate the text and render a (roughly) equivalent text in their own conlang, which will conform to the conventions of their own conculture. (Ring master & relay master: Joey Windsor)
• Conscript Ring: A text rendered in a non-standard (potentially non-searchable) orthography. Participants in this ring will translate the text and render a (roughly) equivalent text in their own conlang using their unique conscript. (Ring master: Daniel Swanson)

Rules of the Relay (all rings)

1. You will have at least three days (72 hours) for prose & poetry rings—at least four days (96 hours) for the conscript ring—with the text & grammar you receive (henceforth, torch) to decipher the previous conlanger’s text, translate it into your own conlang, create a new torch, and pass it to the next conlanger.
2. Your translation must make sense within the conculture the torch is rendered in. Animals or objects can be anthropomorphized with the ability to speak, and the text can use fantasy elements. However, both every sentence and the text as a whole must be interpretable, not a gibberish mesh of words or sentences that don’t make sense together. If your interpretation of the torch you received doesn’t make sense as something an adult (in your conworld, if you have one) would say, change the meaning so that it does, rather than making an overly precise translation.
3. You should (and are encouraged to) alter the text to make sense within your conculture. For example, if the text makes reference to faster-than-light travel but your conculture is set in medieval times, this may be altered to “outrunning the fastest horse ever seen”. If your conculture is completely aquatic, maybe horses don’t exist and you need to change ‘horse’ to ‘shark’. If the torch refers to a specific deity, use an equivalent deity in your conworld; if your conworld doesn’t have deities, perhaps a hero from your conworld’s legends. If the text uses social structures that your conworld doesn’t, change them to fit. Use whatever makes sense within your conculture.
   • Conculture Ring: Part of the fun of this ring is that we expect certain elements to necessarily change so that they become consistent with the culture your language is set in;  this includes proper nouns, foods, existing technologies, etc. Elements that we expect to change have been intentionally included. Where you intentionally change an element of the text, put that section in angled brackets (<…>) and include a footnote explaining the cultural significance of the section. For example, if you receive the Torch in Joey’s conlang Dal’a, and there is a reference to something happening on <Bedaqor>1  (1. Lit ‘Beda’s Hand’: The second day of the Dal’a week, which consists of 6 days), you should alter the text to correspond to your own conculture and leave a footnote for the next conlanger about what your new replacement text refers to. See an example of a previous conculture relay here: https://www.temenia.org/Conculture_Relay_1/
4. If you can’t complete your torch by your deadline, you must email lccrelay@nullconlang.org as soon as possible. If space exists at the end of the relay, we will try to offer to move your position in the relay to the end of the schedule (though this option is not guaranteed). Because subsequent conlangers in the schedule are anticipating very specific times with the torch, we cannot allow the torch to be passed late.
5. If you complete your torch early, please give the next conlanger the gift of time and pass it early. Doing so will not change their deadline to finish, they’ll just have extra time (and maybe finish early too).

1. a smooth translation rendered in your conlang,
2. a grammar & dictionary of your conlang sufficient to allow a translation, and
3. any additional notes needed to complete translation (e.g., concultural notes).

1. the torch documents sent to the next conlanger, and
2. a smooth English translation of your text.

• an interlinear of your text,
• an audio (and/or visual) recording of you reciting the text,
• a rendering in your conscript (if you have one, even for the culture or prose ring),
• any notes on how you did your translation, what you added to or changed about your conlang, and any adaptations you made (see rule 3) that you wish to have preserved,
• any other materials as you see fit.

Conscript Ring