Pseudo-Palindromic Language is Fun!

[nsequeira119]

I found out about palindromes when I was young and have been fascinated by them ever since. Obviously, true palindromes are extremely rare, requiring perfect linguistic precision to pull off. They might be one of the hardest forms of language out there to master- harder than haikus or sonnets. But the idea of symmetrical language stood out to me. I came up with a sort of fake language I call "pseudo-palindromic". Pseudo-palindromic language involves making words symmetrical in terms of consonants and vowels. That is, reading a word backwards and forwards, the order of consonants and vowels is the same. As an example, here's how this exact paragraph looks in pseudo-palindromic:

I fonud otu abotu palindromes wehen I was yonug nad haev been fascianted by tehem veer sinec. Boviosyl, tuer palindromes are exteremly raer, requrigin perfcet linguistic peircsion oto pulul fof. Teyh mgiht ebe one ofo teh hardset froms ofo lanuegag otu heter oto master- harder tahan haikuos oro sonsnet. But teh iodea ofo symmetircal lanuegag tosod otu oto eme. I caem upu witih a sorot ofo faek lanuegag I calal "pseuosd-palindromic". pseuosd-palindromic lanuegag nivoloves makgin wrods symmetircal ini trems ofo consonontas nad vowles. Tahat isi, redagin a worod backwsrad nad fordswar, het roder ofo consonontas nad vowles isi het saem. Asa ana xamepel, here's how tihis cexat pagraphar lokos ini pseuosd-palindromic:

As you can see, making each word have the same number of vowels and consonants forwards and backwards can be tricky, and involve a lot of scrambling. These are the basic rules:

1. Any word that is already pseudo-palindromic should be left alone.
2. Any word that cannot be made pseudo-palindromic with only its letters can have one letter added or replaced ("This," for instance, becomes "Tihis".)
3. Y can function as both a vowel or a consonant, offering extra flexibility.
4. You don't need to be consistent with how you scramble words. (For instance, "the" becomes both "teh" and "het" in the example above.)

I don't know why, exactly, but since I came up with this form of language at a very early age, I tend to be able to visualize signs, labels, etc. in pseudo-palindromic pretty easily. I may have given myself mild dyslexia, but rearranging letters is just too much fun.

It's not really a code, and has very little practical application, because it's not all that hard to read. I guess it would be the most comparable to pig latin in that it just kind of makes words look weird- when you read a paragraph in pseudo-palindromic, you get the feeling that something is slightly off. It takes a lot more thought than pig latin, though. Kind of a puzzle more than a code. As far as I'm aware, I'm the only one to have ever thought of this, so you saw it here first- but really, this is the sort of thing only someone with too much time on their hands would ever consider. When I look up "pseudo-palindromic," it says that a pseudo-palindrome is a phrase that's almost a palindrome, but nobody seems to have considered consonant/vowel symmetry. I think it looks nice to have words be more orderly.

Anyway, this thread is for breakthroughs in this exciting new conlang of mine. Post your findings.

 

[LostintheCycle]

I think tis better performed for normal Anglo speech. I fixed your rules for you; use uno primarily, also your third one, but not any else.

 

[LostintheCycle]

Dammit, I did Spanish.. I did not mean only Anglo root vocab!

 

[nsequeira119]

I think tis better performed for normal Anglo speech. I fixed your rules for you; use uno primarily, also your third one, but not any else.

I'm not sure what you consider normal Anglo speech. This works for any language with the standard Latin alphabet, and I assume you could also do it pretty well with Cyrillic. Rule #2 is necessary because some words can't be made pseudo without adding or removing a letter. It's all about the consonant-to-vowel ratio. A word with three consonants and one vowel doesn't work, you need to either add a vowel or remove a consonant. It's impossible otherwise (believe me, I've tried).

Rule #4 is there because you don't really need consistency- unless anyone ever develops a full Pseudo dictionary with standardized spellings, which is highly unlikely. Rearranging words differently is part of the fun, realizing how many different ways Pseudo-palindromes can be achieved. You can challenge yourself to turn a word palindromic with the least amount of moves, or the most amount of moves, etc. It also makes reading it back weirder, to realize that the same word can look completely different.

 

[LostintheCycle]

I'm not sure what you consider normal Anglo speech. This works for any language with the standard Latin alphabet, and I assume you could also do it pretty well with Cyrillic. Rule #2 is necessary because some words can't be made pseudo without adding or removing a letter. It's all about the consonant-to-vowel ratio. A word with three consonants and one vowel doesn't work, you need to either add a vowel or remove a consonant. It's impossible otherwise (believe me, I've tried).

Rule #4 is there because you don't really need consistency- unless anyone ever develops a full Pseudo dictionary with standardized spellings, which is highly unlikely. Rearranging words differently is part of the fun, realizing how many different ways Pseudo-palindromes can be achieved. You can challenge yourself to turn a word palindromic with the least amount of moves, or the most amount of moves, etc. It also makes reading it back weirder, to realize that the same word can look completely different.

I was trying to write sentences similarly to what you described, but without mangling the letters. Basically just writing sentences but only using words that are palindromes, which you could say is a pseudo-palindrome game. Read my two posts again!

 

[nsequeira119]

I was trying to write sentences similarly to what you described, but without mangling the letters. Basically just writing sentences but only using words that are palindromes, which you could say is a pseudo-palindrome game. Read my two posts again!

Nah, mangling the letters up is the whole point. I don't know if it would be easy to write multiple sentences with words that are all pseudo-palindromic- especially considering that most two-letter words (if, we, it, go, etc.) are impossible to use. I guess that does make for a fun challenge, writing entirely in sentences that are naturally pseudo, because there are a lot of words that are pseudo-palindromic- "palindromic" itself is one of them- but it's probably as difficult as creating an actual palindrome.

If you can do that, though, then props to you I guess. Literary challenges like that are always fun, where you test the boundaries of what's possible with any given language- my favorite example is the novel "Gadsby," by Ernest Wright, where he deliberately avoids using the letter E, which is the most commonly used in the alphabet. It's amazing how he gets around it. Highly recommend giving it a read, it's very inspiring.

Anyhoo, if you can come up with any fully pseudo-palindromic sentences, post 'em below.