MOVED TO @VURRSYS

"slumbers" by hiroshi fujiwara is a good contender for comfiest album cover ever

every time i see a fantasy series have a set magic system, i cant help but wonder how magic in their world is categorized so neatly. something as arcane and mysterious to us as magic has these rigid rules, while in our world even something that seems straightforward like "what is a fish" is a complete mess (i'm looking at you, animal taxonomy). thats why, in some of the little worlds which i create, i've invented a field of study called magic systematics.

what is magic systematics? basically, it's the study of how magic is categorized. its biggest inspirations are taxonomy and queer identity: taxonomy because the amount of drama that goes on in that field is wild, and queer identity because being queer made me realize strict categories are a man-made invention. whatever ancient magic users first discovered magic were like us and thought that magic could be put in boxes, but as the field of magic got bigger and more complex those boxes started to get more chaotic and nonsensical at times. i imagine it started with air, earth, fire, and water then snowballed from there.

i haven't had the time to fully flesh out this idea, but i think it's a really solid concept that i want to expand on further.

A Guide to Furbish (+Dictionary)

hi! if you're familiar with furbies you probably know the very short conlang (a sketch fictlang in particular) furbish! furbish is the language furbies speak before you "teach" them english by taking care of them. i will only be covering the '98 language, as the 2005 and 2010 language updates break some of the language rules the '98 version sets up, and I don't want to deal with that atm.

Phonology

Consonants

furbish has 9 consonants, with one digraph (wh) counting as a consonant for simplicity's sake. these consonants are /m/, /n/, /b/, /t/, /d/, /k/, /hw/ or /h/, /l/, and /w/.

Vowels

furbish has 6 vowels (including 2 dipthongs): (/i/), (/u/), (/eɪ/), (/o/), (/aɪ/), and (/ɑ/).

Syllables

syllables are made up of vowels and consonants, shown in this chart. There are a total of 35 syllables in furbish.

Morphology

to make a word, syllables are put together using dashes, though some words are syllables on their own. additionally, new words can be created by putting a dash in between two existing words; like "ay-ay-lee-koo" (listen), a compound of "ay-ay" (look) and "lee-koo" (sound).

Grammar/Syntax

furbish seems to work almost the same as english grammar-wise, with a few differences. like many languages, it follows the subject–verb–object word order. for example, "i love you" would be "kah may-may u-nye". verbs have no conjugations and there are no tenses in furbish, along with there being no distinction between a singular and plural noun. most adjectives and nouns in furbish also work as verbs, and a word/phrase equivalent of "to be" does not exist. verbs have no conjugation, and adverbs go in front of the verb. it has two final particles, "doo" as a way to express that a question is being asked (similar to "ka" in japanese) and "wah" as a way to express excitement. both can also be used as interjections.

Proposals (Non-Canon)

i have a few proposals to make furbish a fuller language. for starters, making more syllable combinations for coining new words. secondly, a furby alphabet. each letter would represent a furbish syllable. another thing is filler words. i believe "ah" would be a great filler word, as furbies tend to say it a lot while being played with. i also suggest "doo", which could work as the furbish speaker questioning what they should say. finally, i've come up with a canon name for furbish in furbish. "kah-lee-koo", a compound of "kah" (me) and "lee-koo" (sound). roughly translated it means "my sound".

Dictionary