Conlang Critic: Sambahsa

welcome back to Conlang Critic Season Three! this time it's an international auxiliary language called Sambahsa.

primary sources:

[abyssalboy]

Plot Twist: all the people in the "am i gregnant" video used Sambahsa's verb system.

[amoledzeppelin]

Aim of other conlangs: be equally easy for anyone to learn.
Aim of Sambahsa: be equally hard for anyone to learn.

[greydumois]

"The Indo-European language family is the most significant language family in the world by any metric that measure significance with the things that Indo-European languages have the most of..."


I live for this kind of dry ass commentary I love it.

[havesomecarrots]

"haçtag" is the most underrated joke in this video

[legoshaakti]

7:18 He wasn’t kidding when he mentioned the shibboleth. “Then said they unto him, Say now Shibboleth: and he said Sibboleth: for he could not frame to pronounce it right.” — Judges 12:6, King James Bible

[blacksheep]

this is, in my opinion. probably your best video. from the hilarious verb sections to your excellent pronunciation on the sample section despite sambahsa’s overly challenging phonology, there isn’t anything i would change. fantastic work.

[tauheximus]

i turned the phonotactics section into a copypasta so you don't have to:

Like a lot of auxlangs, Sambahsa's phonotactics are left undesigned, which is something I'm pretty tired of seeing. That's how you get words like "scii" in Esperanto, words that plenty of people will have a hard time articulating. And yet, after looking at Sambahsa, I can't help but think I might have been too harsh on auxlangs that do this. After all, at least none of them have anything remotely as bad as "rjienrlwey". Hey, Oliver! Hey! Dr. Oliver! Listen! W-what is this? It's like-- okay, so I'm looking at this word here, right? And I just can't help but wonder, like, ignoring the etymology entirely, just looking at it purely as a sequence as phonological segments intended to be pronounced as a single unit, what the heck is this, Dr. Oliver?

Hey everyone, it's me: jan Misali, the person who wrote this video and also is currently speaking. I know what some of you are probably thinking because I read the comments. You're thinking "so what if you think some of these words are hard to pronounce? That doesn't mean that nobody can pronounce them." And you're right! I'm sure there do exist people who are able to say "rjienrlwey" without any problems, and that's why I'm inviting you, the viewer, to take the #RjienrlweyChallenge! All you need to do is record audio of yourself saying the word "rjienrlwey" out loud, and just remember, this is a global international auxilary language, so its target audience is everyone!

[elemenopi]

HE'S BACK AGAIN
AND ABOUT TIME TOO
AND THIS TIME
HE'S IN THE MOOD

[joannasthings]

i love how in the “rjiənrlwey challenge” hashtag is spelled “haçtag”

[AntLee]

I was so happy he used Yani (from Arabic يعني) for "that means"; it's such a useful and elegant word!

[mithradates]

Hey, it's Dave MacLeod from 25 seconds in. Very nice to see Sambahsa make an episode as it is very well deserved. Outside of the structure of the language itself, Olivier is an absolute machine when it comes to creating content for the language - there's more out there to read in Sambahsa than just about any of the major IALs, including major novels like Demian by Hermann Hesse. Also cool to see a mention of De Wahl. Olivier has mentioned before that he would have stayed with Occidental (which was created by De Wahl) if he didn't end up creating his own. And despite being an Occidentalist myself (still only a dabbler in Sambahsa), I'm glad that he branched off into it - Sambahsa brings something new to a world that until then seemed to have tried just about any and all possible approaches.

[maiku]

Conlang Critic, the "fewer but better" formula is working. This video is a gem. I give you credit for pushing as far as you did through the reference grammar. I didn't get as far. Sambahsa is amusing because it's so... crazy (as an IAL candidate). I suppose it's interesting if you want a challenge. Too bad it was packaged as an IAL. Anyway, keep up the good work.

[inkyscrolls]

13:00 Just zooming in on the word 'stressed' was the most amusing part of this episode.

[FinetalPies]

I swear you just keep getting funnier, or maybe it is me who is becoming more immersed in the world of conlangs that I find the humor more easily.

But I'm pretty sure it's just you being funnier. Great job!

[arthurchrzanowski]

I’ve watched the languages I know nothing about; now it’s time to wait for Sindarin.

[ZTO]

I didn't think something could scare me this Halloween. Meanwhile an hour into Halloween and those verbs may give me a nightmare

[GadolElohai]

This episode is by far the most hilarious and maybe even the best written episode of Conlang Critic. You had me literally rofling the whole way through. Even just remembering this video sends me into a fit of laughter. Thank you for bringing such a unique conlang into the spotlight.

[iamwhatitoture]

Normal people on halloween: get killed by monsters or serial killers
me: gets killed by the verb section of this video


Also I think the buildup made it like 10 times better

[mi]

Every time you review an international auxiliary language, it makes me want to create one of my own.

[AntitheticalSTRINGS]

love seeing a mandarin-sourced word that i actually recognize around 16:08.... shudder when i hear how it's apparently supposed to be actually pronounced (in sambahsa). i dont know why so many IALs seem so concerned with preserving how words are written in their source languages instead of how those words are pronounced... once you get used to a language's orthography it makes words less, rather than more recognizable. it's as if they're punishing you for getting better at their language