kengr

So I just made a food experiment that turned out... okay. Basically, a YouTube video about various casseroles from around the US gave me the idea to toss a bunch of things in the slow cooker to try to make a slow cooker casserole. I put in hamburger, diced potatoes I had laying around, diced daikon radish I had in the fridge, a whole diced onion, two cans of cream of mushroom soup, a few handfuls of rice, a few handfuls of orange lentils, and some water. Oh, and some garlic powder. And a couple of those flavor packets from the beef flavored ramen noodle things, because the cream of mushroom soup was that low sodium crap the food boxes give out. I put it all in the slow cooker, mixed it up until it was as homogeneous as I could get it, then put it on high for four hours. It finished about twenty or so minutes ago and I tried it.

Thoughts:

1. A bit bland, but edible. Kind of became a chunky mush, but I kinda like the texture, sort of like chunky mashed potatoes. Not enough cream of mushroom soup; a big can might work better. Could use some other seasonings, too. Maybe chopped garlic, not sure what else.

2. I can say this for it, too: it was hearty. One medium bowl of that and a banana had me full.

3. I think if I make it again, I'll use beef broth instead of water. Probably more rice and/or lentils as well. Maybe use larger veggie chunks.

4. Could definitely use some fresh mushrooms, but I didn't have any. I was just tossing together things I had that sounded like they'd go together okay. (Carrots could be a good addition, too.)

5. Cheese. For sure I will try it with cheese later if I make it again. (Probably not the whole batch, though.) Which, since it turned out as well as it did with such little seasoning, maybe with much more seasoning it'll be amazing?

6. Cooking the hamburger in a skillet first might help the texture.

I also tried frying some into patties with taco seasoning added and an egg binder. Did not work out so well; patties fell apart too easily. Ironically, I think the egg was to blame; it made them too wet, they lost some of their stickiness. But big enough chunks fried up well enough that yeah, it was an improvement. Couldn't finish it because again, it is very hearty.

Verdict: It may be a bit bland but it's still edible. Might be worth trying again, with some modifications.

So I've got another new conlang that I've just started literally today because I laid down to go to sleep and my brain was like "Nope, you get this instead." I started with just a few simple rules. I don't really have a plan for this, I'm just seeing what comes experimenting with it. So far, I've figured out some things about the culture it would come from that are interesting, given the logic of how words are constructed.

The rules so far:

1. Nouns start with N (sometimes)
2. Adjectives with B
3. Verbs with T
4. Plural words have the prefix Ka
5. Addition of prefix Ko makes possessive.
6. Addition of prefix Ka is a stronger form of possession, mostly related to Identity and things that are part of you that cannot or should not be removed. (body parts, souls, but also names)
7. Very basic ideas have simple words (kinda, sorta; the definitions of 'basic' here are not standard) and more complex words are made by sticking those together like Legos. (Something I do a lot with these conlangs.)
8. While English uses SVO word order (Subject Verb Object, like in "Sam ate apples.") this language, which has no name so far, uses OVS: Object Verb Subject. So "Sam ate apples" becomes "Apples ate Sam." I have done this before, too.
9. So far the adverb aspect is a bit weird, because some word parts that would be adverbs in English are, well, just part of the word. IE, you don't say "I move toward you," you say "(you) ("move" base word + "toward" modifier") (I)." In the actual language, that is nek tazee nak'az. Though this example is not great because I don't like the logic of the word for "toward," which is that it means "intentional inward movement." It doesn't quite fit the meaning of "toward." I mean it's great for if you're talking about something moving toward yourself, but... oooh. Multiple words for toward, depending on directionality and who or what is moving towards who/what!
It's even weirder, given how many different words they have for movement already. (See "C" in the list below.)
10. Oh yeah. For some reason, I've decided there aren't any capital letters. Yet.

Things I've figured out so far:

A. If I did it / can do it right, you can tell at a glance if a word is an adjective, verb, or (sometimes) a noun depending on the letter a word starts with. Nouns are trickier because nouns so far tend to be descriptive, apart from some very basic ones. Like the word for "sound" basically means "inherent movement of air." ("Inherent movement" means that, by definition, whatever you're talking about has movement of some kind as an inherent part of its identity, like planets, the sun, rivers, and sound.) So it's a noun made from a noun and a verb. And the verb part comes before the noun.
      Taking things a step further, their word for "word" is basically "sound of/from the mind." The word for "name" is the same, but with the appropriate possessive prefix, changing the meaning to "my sound-from-the-mind." Or broken down even further, "my 'inherent movement of the air, from the mind.'" (Their word for name, for now, is thus ka'taymum. [kaa tame uhm] The apostophes are just there to make the meaning and pronunciation easier to parse.)

B. There are two different words for 'flesh,' differentiating animal flesh from plant flesh. This culture also thinks of themselves as intelligent, ensouled animals, therefore they use the word for "animal flesh" when talking about their own bodies. Their word for "person," nams'oom, means "animal flesh with soul." In-universe because they assume all animals have minds, but really I just thought namsum'oom sounded weird and clunky. I kinda want them to have something in their language that shows they think all animals have souls and minds, while still differentiating their own kind of soul or mind slightly due to complexity or something, but I haven't worked out how to do that yet.

C. They have different word parts for movement differentiating inherent movement, intentional movement, accidental movement, and intentional movement that is malicious. Not really sure what this says about them, but it says something.

D. Their language's pronouns are: I. Combined "I/me," II. Combined "they/them," III. Combined "we/our," IV. A singular "you" and V. A plural "you." | To make a pronoun possessive, add the appropriate prefix ("temporary possessive" or "identity-inherent possessive." See rules list at the top.) This is just "so far."

EDIT: Changing the logic of the word for sound to something else. Not sure what yet. I like the idea of it meaning "intentional movement of mind," but there are other ways of interpreting that, like "any action you do intentionally" and/or "telekinesis."

Also having Thoughts about words that describe size. With words for wide, narrow, long, short, big, and small... do I even need words like fat, skinny, thin, and scrawny? Are these not just synonyms for the others I already have? Are there any good reasons to include words like them? Can a fat person not just be described as 'wide'? A skinny person as 'narrow'? I mean I guess "fat" as it means the stuff in your body would be an important distinction to make, I guess, if only for its use as something in your diet. Hmm... it's just, I'm trying to determine how many size descriptors a language really needs, and not just translating things willy nilly.

After all, I'm building potential word parts by this metric:

measurements: (vowel)+B
pronouns: (vowel)+K
elements: (vowel)+M
flesh: (vowel)+MS
directions: (vowel)+T OR (vowel)+z

movements: T+(vowel)
Nouns: N+(?)
Adjectives: B+(?)

Work in progress of course. But between that and cutting out C, Q, and probably X, that leaves 18 consonants to use with various vowel combos for the (vowel)+(consonant) thing. Only vowel sounds so far are A, E, I, O, U (uh), and OO. (ish) And 8 x 6 is 108. Since I've got 17 consonants for (consonant)+(vowel), plus Ka and Ko, that's 102 words/word parts. 102 + 108 = 210 possible non-compound words. Add S to the ends of the vowel+consonant pairs, and that's another 108 words, for a total of 318 non-compound words. I mean... I guess Toki Pona only has like 137 words in total, but still...

And that's before any kind of testing to see if some words are too hard to say or sound too similar to another word.