Viossa

Viossa is a colllang created by members of /r/conlangs with a unique creation process. The language was originally spoken and written on Skype, but has since moved to a Discord server.

Rules

The three ground rules of the project are:

1. Use of English is strictly restricted to meta discussion. No word or phrase may be translated directly or indirectly into English or vice versa, and no grammar may be described in English. This is to simulate a circumstance where the contributors truly didn't share a language, and to allow semantic shifts.
2. If a phrase is understood by everyone, it is perfect Viossa, even if it was unusually constructed. If no-one understands a phrase, it is by definition not Viossa, even if it used a lot of Viossa grammar and vocabulary.
3. There are no prescriptions or standards. Because of this, a lot of semantic and phonetic shifts happen, and each contributor has their personal dialect and orthography. Despite this, the contributors do fight the urge to use a copula.

Allowed words

As an exception to rule 1, the following four words are allowed to be translated, and are taught to newcomers:

1. akkurat (often abbreviated to ak, akk, or akku) — yes
2. nai — no
3. ka — what
4. fšto (also spelled fshto or frsto) — understand

It should be noted that all of these words have additional meanings, which are not allowed to be translated.

The name of the language is sometimes considered a fifth allowed word.

History

Viossa history is generally divided into 3 eras:

Creation

Viossa originally came into existence on Christmas Eve 2014. Rather than deliberately being designed, it was formed by people trying to communicate while each only being allowed to speak one language, which must not be English. The words from these source languages were incorporated into Viossa, similar to a pidgin. Each member had a different source language. After the first few days of the project, the community started to encourage new members to choose a non-Indo-European source language if possible. Communication during the holidays of 2014 was mostly via video calls (in a Skype group called Klaani Kamaha Kotobafuviossa), allowing gestures and pointing to objects. Later, text conversations were used as well (in a separate group called Viossa tekstiklaani), with voice and video calls becoming increasingly rare.

Source languages during the first year included the natlangs Ainu, Albanian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Irish, Japanese, Latin, Mandarin, Northern Sami, Norwegian, Old English, Portuguese, Russian, Scots, Spanish, Swedish, Swiss German, and Xhosa, the conlangs Tardalli and Wanya, and possibly more.

First anniversary

The language continues to evolve by people trying to communicate while only being allowed to speak one language besides Viossa. Starting with the language's first anniversary on Christmas Eve 2015, the first rule was interpreted less strictly and an AMA was held on Reddit which included some translations. Using Viossa to explain words is still preferred by most members. Over the course of 2016, the community moved from Skype to Discord.

Conlang Critic video

On September 1, 2020, YouTuber jan Misali released Conlang Critic: Viossa, resulting in a spike of interest in the project and major changes to both the community structure and the language itself, though dialects from all eras are still mutually intelligible. People who first learned Viossa before this date are now called demislaijin (or gammeljin if around since before the first anniversary), and those who joined the community later are known as zamisalijin. In December 2020, the Viossa Discord server went fully public.