What did you accomplish today? [2011–2019]

[zyma]

Worked on "Is he or isn't he?" for Kankonian.

Spoiler:

If you are asking "Is or isn't", "Should or shouldn't", etc., repeat the verb with "hing" in between and "os" (not) before the second iteration of the helping verb or copula:

Cliff as hing os as pleu?
Cliff PRS or? NEG PRS gay
Is or isn't Cliff gay?

Is lesas hing os lesas morgen Monta?
1sg should-PRS or? NEG should-PRS buy Monta
Should I or shouldn't I buy a Monta?

For a verb form that is expressed with a suffix (such as future tense with -os or present tense with -as), rather than a verb, use "ho" (to do) for the negative iteration, and place the negative iteration at the end of the sentence:

Ar tethesos ham *osoth hing os hoos?
2sg kill-FUT that moth or? NEG do-FUT
Are you or aren't you going to kill that moth?

Ar fuiras uhu ad gubilia hing os hoas?
2sg want-PRS go to toy_store or? NEG do-PRS
Do you or don't you want to go to the toy store?



BTW, anyone know the Leipzig gloss for "do" as a pro-verb?

Cool!

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "would this appeal to you?", but what you've written there does seem quite interesting; I'm particularly fond of the term "Diplomatic Ice Age".

If a culture would advertise itself with these headlines/sentences, would you like to know more or would you like to live in that culture's country for an extended period of time?

Based on just those few points, it sounds like a fairly nice place, in my opinion.

I have completed the descriptions of the various languages I have made.

It's not unfair to say that I have lost count.

Very impressive!

Ok, as I always rework my previous iterations I have a lot of the grammar stuff done but I'm stuck on the vowels. I have set my sights on a four vowel iteration but I can't decide on what kind of suprasegmental feature I want, or if I should have a couple more diphthongs. No more consonants I already have stress on some simple CV forms, marked by an accent.

ideas!

Spoiler:

What do yall think of this,

Code: Select all

b[B w] t[T] k[k] q[q] '[?] 
       d[d] g[g]
n[n]
l[l]  lh[K]
h[h]  tsch[tS]
a i o u  ia

h[h] is the main fricative. It is phonemic even in CVh[h] positions. So like everywhere.

lang~

In terms of diphthongs, I'd personally add either /ua/ or /uo/ (or possibly both), depending on how you want the vowels to pattern with one another, but that's just me. I second HoskhMatriarch's suggestion of pharyngealization/creaky voice being a suprasegmental feature on vowels.

I finally managed to write an ending to my steppe story:
viewtopic.php?f=24&t=4811

Spoiler:

In other news related to this game, I've spent some time detailing one particularly odd kind of weapon used in the Divine Plane: called the "Coilsword" or "Coilsledge", it's basically Kratos' weapons in God of War. A Coil-weapon is circular bracer that wraps the arm completely. Around it is coiled a decently long chain, the end of which has either a small blade or a weight (which can be blunt, spiked, or studded).

Coilweapons are almost nonexistent amongst mortal warriors, because they need Divinity just to function. Someone who can wield Divinity, however, can extend and retract the chain, turning it into a deadly weapon. Coilweapons are always wielded as pairs, and in the hands of a master they're flying weapons of pure death. They can become even deadlier when given chainblades to make Chaincoils. Many Coilblades also can augment unarmed punches by their owner as well due to the blades sticking out past the hand.

In the process of making these I realized that they are amazingly useful tools, not just weapons. They can be used to grasp star far away and bring it or pull on things that can't be physically reached, and they can be ghetto grappling hooks in a pinch. The chains allow you to trip up and sweep enemies off their feet--and since you can bring yourself to the blade, you can launch a blade into an enemy's chest and reel yourself in for a powerful punch/slash with your other hand. Hell, if the chain breaks they can still be wielded as awkward oversized daggers. And they're always ready, since they don't need to be sheathed. Coilsledges are pretty much rocket punches.

On the other hand, getting past a coilweapon means that its owner has to waste time retracting it while you're running up to smash them in the face, so I guess they're not super-broken during battle. Also the blades/sledges can't be too big.

I just really like whip weapons . Ivy of Soul Calibur fame's whip-sword is also an weapon type used in the Divine Plane. To balance it out, it's not as strong as a normal sword, but the ability to segment it and wrap it around stuff gives it useful utility. Yoyo's are also seen, though not as commonly. These yoyos however are nothing like the toys we know them as--yoyos meant for battle are huge serrated disks of spinning death larger than a hand and their string can slice through flesh like a cleaver through meat.

Spoiler:

The only planets nearby the Divine Plane are the living planets that are the Aspects. Um...

Thanks for giving me an idea for a Space Opera alternate history weapon, though!

Speaking of the metaphysics of the Divine Plane, I've worked a little more on Celestials. Celestials are the lower of the two kinds of beings spawned by the Aspects. The most important ones--and the only ones I've worked on as of now--are the most powerful, called Seraphs, and always distinguished by their 6 wings (three on each side). Seraphs control the Ascensions of both Hellspawn and Heavenborn. For the Hellspawn, they are their leaders and masters, the ones who tell them what to do (with great latitude, that is). For the Heavenborn, who were not meant to follow orders, they are distant mentors who sometimes show up to observe the heroes of their Patron.

Humans are actually the Seraphs of Samat, Aspect of Ingenuity, but our tainted natures make us so distant from our cousins that we're rarely considered the same beings. In any case, all Seraphs are extremely powerful--indeed, so powerful that they have trouble manifesting themselves in any corporeal way. They get around this by willingly fashioning themselves into massive buildings called demesnes. There they can forge bodies for themselves. So yeah, they're angels who fashion themselves into living architecture.

This "make oneself a piece of reality" thing is common to anything from the Aspects. The Aspectual Souls fashion themselves into the moons of the planets which the Aspects fashion themselves into. The Divine Plane, indeed, is simply one of the Aspectual Souls of Tanmatra, Aspect of Order. Celestials lower than the Seraphs shape themselves into smaller and smaller abodes. The lowest Celestials, which aren't even sentient, are highly important to craft magical artifacts with--the ethics of beating a Celestial of Battles into a sword are rarely debated.

The other ranks of Celestials I haven't fleshed out yet. The one right below Seraphs is definitely going to be "Devas/Asuras", and the one below that "Tenjin", though. These three classes form the Celestials who act like humans (though with a heavy focus in their relevant Aspect, to the point of appearing slightly crazy). Also I'm probably going to start calling the Aspectual Souls "Archangels".

The demenses of the Celestials will fit perfectly for that good ol' "ancient ruins and grand palaces/castles/etc." trope. Especially considering they're alive. Don't try killing one though, actually destroying a demense is damn near impossible.

Spoiler:

Yes, but only if they're an Ascended, at which point it is called an "Avatar". Each person has a unique avatar, though what kind of Ascended they are usually has some kind of influence. All Avatar forms possess the six wings of a Seraph, though they don't actually have to be manifest--they may show up as a pattern in armor/clothing.

For instance, the White Jade Empress' Avatar form turns her into an 7-foot-tall warrior carved from pure ice, her features soft yet carved from glacial rock. She constantly exudes an aura of freezing sky-blue flame that coalesces behind her to form a massive totem of a Frost Serpent. The light from this aura can be seen for miles and the actual Frost Serpent totem itself can stretch up to half a mile into the sky.

For another example, the infamous Hellspawn Medea, Scarlet Heron of Infernal Desire. Her Avatar form turns her entire body jet-black--not merely dark, but seemingly hewn from shadows themselves. There are almost no features--her entire body is as smooth as gemstone. Red pulsing veins run from her heart all over her body, ending in her hands which become shadowy claws. On her back lies a demented crimson mandala from which her six wings, which look like lithe bones (but are still hewn from shadowstuff) spawn. Wherever she steps, the entire ground blackens to pure shadow. Her arms and legs effuse onyx smoke that that coalesce to form a towering totem of her, naked except for a transparent sash, brazenly dancing like a perverse courtesan, her crimson eyes beckoning all who see her to lose themselves in self-destructive lust.

See, when Samat locked away our Seraph forms, the forms kind of got...twisted a little. And when you add in the influx of power that Ascension brings, the result is the immensely powerful Avatar form.

This all sounds so awesome, as usual!

[Keenir]

I do know that I need at some point to learn the ipa but I also know that in english the i when used in a word that ends in e makes the sound I am looking for. Not sure what the [i:] means but I do know that I do not want a [:] after my letter to further hinder the sorting ability in excel.

so don't use the paired triangles. there's an easier option: the double dots that we put when we want to write something like this: 4:20am.

[alynnidalar]

Started working on a translation of Contact (Redux) by Trocadero, the credits song from the recently-concluded thirteenth season of Red vs. Blue. I just can't stop listening to it, so I started translating it into Tirina.

It's more of a challenge than I expected because it's a very abstract song, and there's a lot of argument over what exactly the lyrics mean and who they're talking about. So rather than try to do an exact translation, I basically just took my interpretation of each piece and translated that instead. (I favor the interpretation that it's about Locus and Felix.)

A small preview:

Mernil natorale soa
Mernil satoda

Tal, pin, ul, sed
Tal, pin, ul, sed

Nadohiwupela?
Yes tokelpela?

Adi

English (original lyrics in parentheses)
One of us will fade soon (One of us will be forgotten)
One of us is a liar (The other will be wrong)

Two, one, ten, nine (Two, four, one, ten)
Two, one, ten, nine (Two, four, one, ten)

Am I making a sound? (Am I transmitting?)
Can you hear me? (Is anyone listening?)

Chaos (Contact)

It's my first song translation into Tirina that I've genuinely liked, and I didn't even have to cheat by making up new words or just rhyming verb suffixes. Now I've just got to hammer out the last two lines... they're giving me fits.

[Larryrl]

Found the true sound I needed for my sound I was wondering about. E-mailed a guy who knows the English ipa, and he said it was the AI sound I was after. So a quick find and repalce, got me back on track. Now I have got to finish expanding the word list the way I want it so I can add more words.

[Sḿtuval]

I was bored and we weren't really doing anything in class earlier today so I wrote this* on my phone. It's a very brief (and incomplete) explanation of some sets of irregular nouns.

*I made a few tweaks before posting it here, so it's not actually word-for-word.

Ythnandosian has a large amount of "short-a" nouns, which in other languages were mostly regularized. Short-a nouns are nouns inherited from Kauzasian which lost final /a/ in the root but retained it before suffixes beginning in a consonant or /i/.

Here are some examples:

on (c, 1st decl) "thing"

on, onai, on, ono, onar, oner, one, onès

mind (c, 2nd decl) "child"

mind, mindan, mindas, mindai, mindanyr, mindanre, mindu, mindav

eŋŋ (n, 3rd decl) "person"

eŋŋè, eŋŋak, eŋŋag, eŋŋo, eŋŋor, eŋŋ, eŋŋu, eŋŋav

This next example should be a short-a noun (having descended from /ko.a/) but isn't.

kuy (c, 1st decl) "apple"

kuy, kuyi, kuy, kuo, kuar, kuer, kue, kuès


Adjectives in LONG FORM are largely unaffected by this change due to the final /a/ often doubling as a gender suffix which was replaced by -y in contemporary Ythnandosian.

However, adjectives in SHORT FORM (which decline like first declension nouns) are affected in the absolutive plural

Here are some examples:

defer, deferai "stupid"
övi, öviai "happy"
savi, saviai "sad"

Here's another weird one:

rovyk (c, 3rd decl) light

rovè, rovyk, rovyg, rovo, rovor, rovyk, rovu, rovyv

>Wait, where'd the /k/ go?
The above word is an example of a "weak-k" noun, which drops the final /k/ when most suffixes are added.

>Why?
On their way to becoming Ythnandosian, some Kauzasian words often got rid of the second consonant in /β/-consonant clusters. The word "rovky" dropped final /ə/ (like many other words) first, leaving it with "rovk". This nasty /βk/ cluster isn't allowed in Ythnandosian, so /ə/ was inserted in between, giving "rovyk". However, that only happened in the base form since the /ə/ is weak. When the new suffixes were added, the /ə/ "collapsed under pressure", giving something like "rovkè". Then it just did what a lot of other inherited words did, and deleted the /k/, which ultimately returned "rovè".

In case you don't know (which is most likely the case):

c = common gender, n = neuter gender

noun forms are ordered in this order: ABS.SG, ABS.PL, ERG.SG, ERG.PL, DAT.SG, DAT.PL, GEN.SG, GEN.PL

1st decl suffixes: -∅, -i, -∅, -o, -ar, -er, -e, -ès
2nd: -∅, -n, -s, -i, -nyr, -nre, -u, -v
3rd: -è, -k, -g, -o, -or, -∅, -u, -v

The thing I wrote was mostly just for me but if anyone wants me to further explain something I will.

---

I've also been playing with Ythnandosian's phonology and orthography. Nothing substantial, though, so I'll wait until I have something good before posting it.

[loglorn]

And you've been more productive than me lately. Working out semantic drift is damn boring, but i need it in order to build actual lexicons and start writing threads on the other gigxkpoyan languages. I think i started interpreting it as a chore, and every time i had actual free time to work it out i felt in the beautiful wormhole of procrastination (it did lead me to some nice anime, but that's beyond the point). I probably can pull out another Tlapthuv post in my next blob of free time (friday), though.

[Sḿtuval]

and every time i had actual free time to work it out i felt in the beautiful wormhole of procrastination

Why all my threads are p much dead.

[Chagen]

Today in my Introduction to Linguistics class I got an urge to conlang. And thus, after months of doing nothing, I am picking up Pazmat again. I like to start off Pazmat stuff with making a verbal root and deriving from it, so I did that, and created these sets of words (A ">" before a word means it's derived from the on above it):

vad- "to go on an adventure, quest, embark on a journey"

vadarā "adventure, quest, journey"
>vadrī- "exciting, full of action/surprises, fun (> "like an adventure")"
>>vadrayyarā "excitement, intense action, suspense"
>vadrasā "little quest, mission (in a video game)"

vēdanā "adventurer, journeyman (poetic) pilgrim"
>vēdnī "adventurous, curious, inquisitive"
>>vēdnayyarā "curiosity, inquisitiveness, a desire to learn about the world"
>vēdnasā "apprentice, young adventurer (i.e the classic "young hero who must go on a quest to accomplish a goal" archetype)"
>>vēdnēs- "relating to apprentices, amateur"

vēday- "to send (s.one) on a quest, give a quest (video game term)"
>vēdēyanā "quest-giver, NPC who sends players in a game on a mission/quest"
>vēdayarā "trip/travel done on another's behalf, business trip"

vēdasā "little adventure, trip, travel (done for one's own sake)"
>vēdēs- "of or relating to commuting"

And a few others but I'll stop here.

I also am now working on compound roots, turning them into a full-fledged part of Pazmat's grammar and derivational infrastructure. For an example, combining the aforementioned vad- with ra- "to want" creates vadrayī "wanderlust, desire to see/do/get new things" (vadrayī is considered to be one of the fundamental differences between humans and other animals in traditional Paz philosophy); the related adjective form is vadrē-. For some other examples:

sep- "fight" + ḥes- "live" = seppesī "barracks" (adj. seppīs-)
vṛś- "darken" + ni "sky" = vṛśniyā "night sky" (adj. vṛśnau-/vṛśnaw-)

In the first you can see an example of the consonant assimilation that distinguishes compound roots. I'm not set on all the details however, though I do have some: assimilation happens between a homorganic stop-fricative cluster (i.e <pf tth qḥ> become <pp tt qq>, and also between stop-stop and stop-fricatives that are sufficiently far apart (<pt ps> will remain but <pq pḥ> will become <pp pp>. Voiced obstruents always dominate: <pb jk sg ppd> become <bb jj gg>; geminates retain their POA but voiceless ones will assimilate their voicing: <ddp> becomes <dd> but <ppd> becomes <bb>. Also /r/ sometimes assimilates: *urmac- > ummac.

These assimilation come from Proto-Pasuu where any medial cluster besides CR/CN was heavily discouraged. I might even make these the origin for geminate consonants in Pazmat!

Also, I'm going to work on verbalizers for nouns, which I wrote a few pages on way the hell back during my first Freshman semester. The marker is -ov: iśtarā "car" > iśtrov- "to drive a car"

[Keenir]

finally made myself sit down and upload some syllabary Riddles (and a riddle answer for the Translation folder's thread)

[Khemehekis]

See rule 3, grammatical category labels, last two sentences before example 5:

In many cases, either a category label or a word from the metalanguage is acceptable. Thus, both of the two glosses of (5) may be chosen, depending on the purpose of the gloss.

Oh, cool. I guess we have our answer then.

[Khemehekis]

Sentences may be repeated with a question word in place of a word or phrase that was not heard clearly. With singular nominals, adjectives, adverbs and prepositional phrases, these words are simply replaced by a question word:

Danny: Bidzhi e izhudia na is as lekht.
Seri: Hiel e izhudia na ar as lekht?
Danny: jack in headphones of 1sg PRS shot
Seri: what in headphones of 2sg PRS shot
Danny: The jack in my headphones is shot.
Seri: The what in your headphones is shot?

Stefani: Tetheset hales omoles gudum.
Kem: Tetheset hales hiel omoles?
Stefani: kill-IMPRTV all ant-PL red
Kem: kill-IMPRTV all which ant-PL
Stefani: Kill all the red ants.
Kem: Kill all the which ants?

Fima: Deir trayas euer shudorm we mui egrar we ad kreton zyuzos?
Dropa: Wir trayas euer ans ad kreton zyuzos?
Fima: 2pl have_to-PRS move stealthy -ly and assiduous -ly to barracks enemy
Dropa: 1pl have_to-PRS move how to barracks enemy
Fima: You must move stealthily and assiduously to the enemy barracks.
Dropa: We must move how to the enemy barracks?

Phum Sopho: Awaishor as e khod na ar.
Phetra: Awaishor as iri?
Dr. Sopho: crayon PRS in ear of 2sg
Phetra: crayon PRS where
Dr. Sopho: The crayon is in your ear.
Phetra: The crayon is where?

With plural or excerptal nominals, the plural or excerptal form of "hiel" (what) is used:

Kasa: Is betzithas kesetfashes ad havilu.
Zara: Ar betzithas hieles?
Kasa: 1sg love-PRS keep_in_place-AGT-PL to ponytail
Zara: 2sg love-PRS what-PL
Kasa: I love ponytail holders.
Zara: You love what?

Sia: Ar kuless an hamet teluat.
Manda: O kuless an hamet hielet?
Sia: 2sg need-PRS have this-EXCPT adaptor-EXCPT
Manda: one need-PRS have that-EXCPT what-EXCPT
Sia: You need one of these adaptors.
Manda: You need one of those what?

Multiple question words may be used in combination:

Paul: Irkomet karg khomluoi pai droph.
Lon: Irkomet hiel iri?
Paul: put-IMPRTV box fireproof into garage
Lon: put-IMPRTV what where
Paul: Put the fireproof safe in the garage.
Lon: Put the what where?

Tom: Is morgenen zankyu babitos ad yan.
Zhadiya: Ar morgenen anti hieles ad yan?
Tom: 1sg buy-PST ten-five sausage-PL for party
Zhadiya: 2sg buy-PST how_many what-PL for party
Tom: I bought fifteen sausages for the party.
Zhadiya: You bought how many what for the party?

With verbs, the word "hiel" is used, and it is conjugated for tense, voice and mood:

Dzhusinda: Is guisos leldintz ad klotzab.
Lou: Ar hielos leldintz ad klotzab?
Dzhusinda: 1sg feed-FUT taro to parrot
Lou: 2sg what-FUT taro to parrot
Dzhusinda: I will feed the taro to the parrot.
Lou: You will what the taro to the parrot?

Pam: Shalut dartzizen.
Tam: Shalut hielizen?
Pam: sugar steal-PSV-PST
Tam: sugar what-PSV-PST
Pam: The sugar was stolen.
Tam: The sugar was what?

Clay: Shateret ad kashes.
Donnie: Hielet ad kashes?
Clay: crabwalk-IMPRTV to bar-PL
Donnie: what-IMPRTV to bar-PL
Clay: Crabwalk to the bars.
Donnie: What to the bars?

If one is in shock, however, one may simply use "hiel" without a suffix:

Amira: Is kardass az is me tzeushen harbas na ar bulush goshaniya.
Samanda: Ar kardass az ar HIEL?
Amira: 1sg think-PRS that 1sg just flush-PST key-PL of 2sg down toilet
Samanda: 2sg think-PRS that 2sg what
Amira: I think I just flushed your keys down the toilet.
Samanda: You think you WHAT?

[Adarain]

I have handed in my Auxlang project. Never am I doing that again. Auxlangs aren't fun to make :/

Back to Semũr and [REDACTED]

[eldin raigmore]

….
I have made 6 regular tense endings that are simple like Esperanto. Example

root: trel
Eng: solve
Noun: trelu
Eng: solution
present tense: treles
Eng: solve
solves
solving

past tense: trelor
Eng: solved
future tense: treluf
Eng: will solve
Conditional tense (mood): trelad
Eng: would solve
infinitive tense(mood): treleva
Eng: to solve

By laying it out this way, not only can you easily conjugate any verb, you can reflect any mood which I have made into the tenses. As far as the verbals, I'm not sure what those are as I did not learn proper terms for stuff before as I am now. I have a verb root "ked" for am is are was were, and another "hur " for be being been.

….

hurad
would be
would be being
would have been
would have been being

hureva
to be

Good.

There are other common accidents for verbs (that is, things about verbs that in some languages the verbs may be inflected for).

In alphabetical order, the biggest ones are probably:

1. aspect (mostly, perfective or else imperfective)
2. modality or mode or mood (mostly, realis or else irrealis) (some languages have two of these, according to some grammarians; modality and mode, or modality and mood, or mode and mood)
3. polarity (mostly, affirmative or else negative)
4. tense (mostly, past or present or future; or, anterior or simultaneous or posterior)
5. voice (depends on the language; for instance, active and passive (and, in some languages, middle); or, direct and indirect; also, applicative and circumstantial)

There are also other, "more minor" ones; for instance,

• evidentiality
• pluractionality
• mirativity
• valency
• validationality

You don't have to know what these are right away; but, when you're talking about the "big five", the rest of us will have an easier time understanding if you're aware of what the terms usually mean when other people use them.
There are several places you could get such knowledge.
For a free on-line source, consider the SIL (Summer Institute of Linguistics) Glossary of Linguistic Terms, found at this link.
If you can borrow or buy a book, you might look at Thomas Payne's Describing Morphosyntax; a Guide for Field Linguists. Here is a Google search that turned up several hits for that book.
Between Google, and Wikipedia, and your local public and/or school library, you can get a seriously in-depth linguistic education in two years or less.
But you don't have to wait two years to start benefitting from learning. Learn some of it now, or soon, or at least get an idea of what you're going to learn soon.

This search turns up several hits which tell you much introductory material about verbals.
A verbal is a word derived from a verb that acts as some other part-of-speech, but still retains some of the characteristics of a verb.
(Verbals can be contrasted with "deverbals", which are other part-of-speech words derived from a verb that don't act at all like verbs.)

For instance, maybe a language has a way to form a kind of verbal nouns from verbs. Maybe these nouns don't have aspect, tense, modality, mode, mood, polarity, or voice. Maybe they don't agree with any participants of the verb. Maybe they can't have subjects. But maybe they can still take objects. It might make sense for a grammarian of such a language to call such verbal nouns "infinitives".

There are, in various languages, verbal nouns, and/or verbal adjectives, and/or verbal adverbs.

Derivation processes (which are a lot like inflection processes -- in some cases the only difference is that derivation changes the part-of-speech and inflection doesn't) may exist to form verbals from verbs, in some languages.
But there may, instead, be lexical or syntactic or lexico-syntactic means to form verbals from verbs.

This can happen for verb-accidents like tense, too. English, for instance, has a morphological past tense and a morphological present (or rather non-past) tense, but English's future tense is not morphological. Instead, the auxiliary word "shall" or "will" is preposed to the present (or non-past) form of the verb, to create the future tense.

It seems your language does have a morphological future tense?

---

I hope that helps you.
If it doesn't help, I hope that at least it doesn't discourage you.

[HoskhMatriarch]

I tried to make a romanization despite not having any words. Here's some gibberish that is really nothing like what I'll actually end up making (well, the word length is probably close):


<Zje hocclüppitż ḥohättzip ḳowjeddzäkkḷ hobmensjkṃükkidd hożjŋ̇gd zardfmequnnpell kepvgittṃp wäjoww.>
[t͡ʃe ʔɔxlʏpʰɪts hoʔætʰt͡sɪpʰ ʡ͡ʜowjɛtt͡sæk͡xl̩ ʔopmɛnʃk͡xmʏk͡xɪt ʔoʒŋ̩kt t͡saːˤtfmɛq͡χʊnpʰɛl k͡xep͡fkɪtʰm̩pʰ væjɔw]

Some of this is vaguely inspired by morphology I have, such as the <że> [ze] affix that frequently gets reduced to <ż> which is at the end of a word. I think this language just has a terrible etymological spelling system at this point, even if it's considerably more straightforward than English. I'm also not sure how I feel about using <h> for glottal stops, but they're probably going to be the most common consonant in the language once I start making words and we can't have apostrophes everywhere, especially not with umlauts or there'll be words like <'ö''> [ʔœʔ]. At least <höhh> looks better than <'ö''> even if it looks like it should be pronounced differently than [ʔœʔ]. Eh, whatever I do with romanizations, I can make the conscript look really nice (ligatures for everything here we come).

[Sḿtuval]

I've decided to litter Ythnandosian with etymological spellings that make little phonological sense.

Since almost no words (aside from loanwords) end in /a/ anyways, I've decided to add a silent final <a> to most nouns and adjectives which lost final /a/ due to sound change (and became the "weak-a" words I explained in my last post on this thread). All word-final <a>s are now silent, except in monosyllables and the pronoun iva. If a final <a> should be pronounced, then <â> is written instead.

>Why not use <ä> instead of <â>?
The diacritic used in the native script is called the tudega (but the Ythnandosian name is suẓeɣa). The tudega is used in other languages which use the same script. In all of those languages, the tudega is romanized as a circumflex (and in those languages it usually makes sense). No matter how the script phonologically represents the language, I will always use a consistent cross-linguistic romanization based on orthography.

I've also decided to make the genitive personal pronouns (which all end in <o>) be pronounced with final /u/ instead of /o/ (i.e. so /su/ my) since that's how they were pronounced in Kauzasian.

>But the Kauzasian thread says that most genitive personal pronouns end in <o> /o/...

The Kauzasian that's on that thread is really Late Kauzasian. Old Kauzasian wasn't much different than Late Kauzasian, but one of the important changes was shifting final /u/ in genitive personal pronouns to /o/. Ythnandosian tends to preserve a couple things from Old Kauzasian.

Another change (which for now only affects a couple words) is respelling <nd> in some words as <md>. All of these words also used to have a final /a/, so they get a silent <a> as well. For example, the word dend /dend/ house/home is now spelled demda. This is because it descended from the word ḍemna /ɖemna/. The nasals assimilated to /n:/ and were subsequently affected but the "/n:/ > /nd/ intervocalically" rule.

Finally, the letter <h> is now back in use. Before, it wasn't used in the alphabet at all due to all instances of /h/ becoming /g/. Now, it's used to represent /g/ in words which used to have /h/. For example, the word hund hunt (which came from haond) is pronounced /gund/.

>Why is the word for hunt in an a priori language hund?

No I didn't borrow from English. The original root in the proto-language was abānla /aβɑ:nla/, and it became hund through some really weird changes.

This isn't the complete list of changes; the language is still in the middle of this "reform", and I'm still trying to decide what to change or whether I should change it.

[HoskhMatriarch]

I've decided to litter Ythnandosian with etymological spellings that make little phonological sense.

Since almost no words (aside from loanwords) end in /a/ anyways, I've decided to add a silent final <a> to most nouns and adjectives which lost final /a/ due to sound change (and became the "weak-a" words I explained in my last post on this thread). All word-final <a>s are now silent, except in monosyllables and the pronoun iva. If a final <a> should be pronounced, then <â> is written instead.

>Why not use <ä> instead of <â>?
The diacritic used in the native script is called the tudega (but the Ythnandosian name is suẓeɣa). The tudega is used in other languages which use the same script. In all of those languages, the tudega is romanized as a circumflex (and in those languages it usually makes sense). No matter how the script phonologically represents the language, I will always use a consistent cross-linguistic romanization based on orthography.

I've also decided to make the genitive personal pronouns (which all end in <o>) be pronounced with final /u/ instead of /o/ (i.e. so /su/ my) since that's how they were pronounced in Kauzasian.

>But the Kauzasian thread says that most genitive personal pronouns end in <o> /o/...

The Kauzasian that's on that thread is really Late Kauzasian. Old Kauzasian wasn't much different than Late Kauzasian, but one of the important changes was shifting final /u/ in genitive personal pronouns to /o/. Ythnandosian tends to preserve a couple things from Old Kauzasian.

Another change (which for now only affects a couple words) is respelling <nd> in some words as <md>. All of these words also used to have a final /a/, so they get a silent <a> as well. For example, the word dend /dend/ house/home is now spelled demda. This is because it descended from the word ḍemna /ɖemna/. The nasals assimilated to /n:/ and were subsequently affected but the "/n:/ > /nd/ intervocalically" rule.

Finally, the letter <h> is now back in use. Before, it wasn't used in the alphabet at all due to all instances of /h/ becoming /g/. Now, it's used to represent /g/ in words which used to have /h/. For example, the word hund hunt (which came from haond) is pronounced /gund/.

>Why is the word for hunt in an a priori language hund?

No I didn't borrow from English. The original root in the proto-language was abānla /aβɑ:nla/, and it became hund through some really weird changes.

This isn't the complete list of changes; the language is still in the middle of this "reform", and I'm still trying to decide what to change or whether I should change it.

Yay, more cases of people wanting to make orthography interesting rather than logical, and for actual diachronic reasons rather than copying English or French reasons (which are both uninteresting and illogical).

[Keenir]

Yay, more cases of people wanting to make orthography interesting rather than logical, and for actual diachronic reasons rather than copying English or French reasons (which are both uninteresting and illogical).

I'm confused.

elsewhere, you say you're more interested in making things illogical, which is reinforced by your first comment here "rather than logical".....and then you dismiss English and French on the grounds that they "which are both uninteresting and illogical".

[alynnidalar]

I mentioned I was doing a song translation a few days ago... well, I completed it! Here's a Youtube link.

The song in question is Contact by Trocadero, from the soundtrack to the show Red vs. Blue. (actually, I translated from Contact (Redux), which has slightly different lyrics than the original, and the music is Contact (Final Transmission) because it's the only instrumental version of the song I had)

I've done a little singing/audio editing before, but not quite like this, so it was rather fun to figure out. I'm sure someone with actual experience would be horrified.

The translation itself was also pretty fun; as I mentioned before it's a very abstract song so I had to figure out what I thought the lyrics meant first, then translate that. I might resurrect my abandoned Tirina thread to go over the lyrics, but it's too late tonight for me to do it now.

[loglorn]

The original root in the proto-language was abānla /aβɑ:nla/, and it became hund through some really weird changes.

Let me guess:

Ydtobogantiaky langs don't seem to ever have initial stress, so that initial short a was unstressed and dropped out,

-> βɑ:nla

Devoicing and then lenition of initial β,

-> ɸɑ:nla -> hɑ:nla

Post-nasal fortition of that liquid into /d/

-> hɑ:nda

That final short a was probably unstressed too and was deleted

-> hɑ:nd

ɑ: -> ao (because you mentioned haond), and ao -> u (possibly with some steps in between) doesn't sound too far fetched

-> haond -> hund

And you said stuff about /h/ -> /g/ so:

-> /gund/

[Dormouse559]

Yay, more cases of people wanting to make orthography interesting rather than logical, and for actual diachronic reasons rather than copying English or French reasons (which are both uninteresting and illogical).

How exactly is what Sḿtuval described different from French and English?