Hengese

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Shemtov
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Hengese

Post by Shemtov »

I'm probably going to do something with this phonology once I complete the Anerite descriptive Grammar. I don't have much of a backstory yet, but here's the Phonology:
m n ɲ ŋ <m n nh ng>
p b t d k g <p b t d k g>
ɸ s ɕ x h <f s sh kh h>
tɕ <ch>
r <r>
β̞ ɻ j w <v r y w>
l <l>

Vowels:
i ɯ ə ɛ ʌ a <i u ea e o a>

Diphtongs:
ai <ai>
Tones (using [a] to represent the orthog):
˥ ˧ ˩ ˧˩ ˧˥ ˥˧˦ ˩˧˨ <ä a ā à á ǎ â>

Phonotactics:
(C)(C)V(C)
The second consonant can only be [r j w l]
The final-permitted consonants are [m n ŋ p t k ɻ j w]
[ɻ] can ONLY occur as a final- perhaps I'll make it the word final allophone of [r].

Example words:
èt- one
lya-Supreme G-d
püt- angel
nóm-food
ngang- eye
nhá -cat
krāi- king
chwûk-intoxicating bevarage
Last edited by Shemtov on 23 Sep 2013 06:36, edited 2 times in total.
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Click
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Re: Sinitic/SE Asian inspired Phonology

Post by Click »

Where are the rounded vowels?
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Re: Sinitic/SE Asian inspired Phonology

Post by AureusFulgens »

Click wrote:Where are the rounded vowels?
Do all languages have to have rounded vowels? It doesn't seem too implausible to leave them out. Is there a universal against that or something?

I know Rosenfelder's Elkaril has none, but then again it's not intended to be a human language, so it may be a bad example.
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Re: Sinitic/SE Asian inspired Phonology

Post by Click »

Some languages have vertical vowel systems, which do not have any phonemic rounded vowels, but as far as I know they always appear as allophones. Wichita is a case of its own, with a phonetically non-vertical vowel system, but /e/ and maybe /i/ still become rounded next to /w/.

Anyway, there is no Sintic/SE Asian phonology with no rounded vowels unless you count weird two-vowel analyses of Mandarin.
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Re: Sinitic/SE Asian inspired Phonology

Post by Shemtov »

Click wrote: Anyway, there is no Sintic/SE Asian phonology with no rounded vowels unless you count weird two-vowel analyses of Mandarin.
Sintic/SE Asian langs mainly inspired the phonotactics and tones......I decided to have some fun with the vowels.
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Re: Sinitic/SE Asian inspired Phonology

Post by kanejam »

I don't think it's too bad, maybe have rounded allophones around labials? Or else just round one of /ɯ ʌ/ if you're too worried.
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Re: Sinitic/SE Asian inspired Phonology

Post by Click »

Or even better, make back vowels compressed /ɯᵝ/ /ʌᵝ/ and round them fully, say, next to labials and /w/.
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Re: Sinitic/SE Asian inspired Phonology

Post by kanejam »

nóm-food
Lol if this was intentional then I totally missed it!
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Re: Sinitic/SE Asian inspired Phonology

Post by CarpeMors »

Shemtov wrote: m n ɲ ŋ <m n nh ng>
p b t d k g <p b t d k g>
ɸ s ɕ x h <f s sh kh h>
tɕ <ch>
r <r>
β̞ ɻ j w <v r y w>
l <l>

Vowels:
i ɯ ə ɛ ʌ a <i u ea e o a>

Diphtongs:
ai <ai>
Tones (using [a] to represent the orthog):
˥ ˧ ˩ ˧˩ ˧˥ ˥˧˦ ˩˧˨ <ä a ā à á ǎ â>

Phonotactics:
(C)(C)V(C)
The second consonant can only be [r j w l]
The final-permitted consonants are [m n ŋ p t k ɻ j w]
[ɻ] can ONLY occur as a final- perhaps I'll make it the word final allophone of [r].
Ok. First of all, by most phonetic conventions, and certainly, the IPA, symbols denoting phonemes should be placed in slant brackets:
e.g., /m n ɲ ŋ/ <m n nh ng>. Secondly, Your phonemic inventory isn't like that of Mandarin. It kind of reminds me a bit of Vietnamese, but certainly not Mandarin. You do have one of my favorite tones, an arching, or 'rise-fall' tonal contour. Mandarin, or any language of China certainly doesn't have this. As far as I know, only Khmer has an arching tone.
Example words:
èt- one
lya-Supreme G-d
büt- angel
nóm-food
ngang- eye
nhá -cat
krāi- king
chwûk-intoxicating bevarage
LMFAO at 'nóm'. Good times good times. :0)

Anyway, if I had to attempt to place the geographic region of your language, as established here, then I'd have to say it reminds me of Polish. Languages like Mandarin have an odd set of phonemes for historical reasons. They have a series of retroflex affricates, post-alveolar/pre-palatal affricates, and have no voicing distinctions. Don't let the pinyin fool you, it's not as bad as English orthography, but it is close.PS: I'm taking a Mandarin course now, and my Native Mandarin speaking professor actually voices certain sounds, I can actually hear the buzz of his vocal cords, which I hadn't heard in the classroom. Anyway, good attempt. I enjoyed reading it.
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Re: Sinitic/SE Asian inspired Phonology

Post by Shemtov »

CarpeMors wrote:
Shemtov wrote: Secondly, Your phonemic inventory isn't like that of Mandarin. It kind of reminds me a bit of Vietnamese, but certainly not Mandarin. You do have one of my favorite tones, an arching, or 'rise-fall' tonal contour. Mandarin, or any language of China certainly doesn't have this. As far as I know, only Khmer has an arching tone.

Anyway, if I had to attempt to place the geographic region of your language, as established here, then I'd have to say it reminds me of Polish. Languages like Mandarin have an odd set of phonemes for historical reasons. They have a series of retroflex affricates, post-alveolar/pre-palatal affricates, and have no voicing distinctions. Don't let the pinyin fool you, it's not as bad as English orthography, but it is close.PS: I'm taking a Mandarin course now, and my Native Mandarin speaking professor actually voices certain sounds, I can actually hear the buzz of his vocal cords, which I hadn't heard in the classroom. Anyway, good attempt. I enjoyed reading it.
I actually wasn't trying to go for Mandarin.......my main influence (for the consonant inventory and phonotactics, anyway) is Thai. Other then lacking a Unvoiced Aspirated/Unvoiced Unaspirated distinction (which, I decided historically existed, but the unaspirated ones merged with the Voiced stops) , my phonology is very similar to Thai.
Note that I said that it was also inspired by SE Asian languages-probably more so then Sinitic. I was more saying that it's inspired by the MSEA Sprachbund in general, which includes both Sinitic languages and South East Asian ones. I have no idea why you would think I was specifically going for Mandarin, which I know about because I am learning it.
Also, isn't Khmer non-tonal?
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Re: Sinitic/SE Asian inspired Phonology

Post by Shemtov »

The writing system is an abugida. The letter forms are taken from both the Thai script and the Old Malay Jawi script.
Here are the consonants, each with an inherent schwa and mid tone, with their sounds and names:
Image

The vowel signs are written underneath the consonants. Here they are, under the void consonant:
Image

The tone signs are written above the consonants. Here they are with the void consonant and the vowel <a>:
Image
Here is an example:
Image

It says:
"Sâr Büt krāi nhéa"
Sâr Büt king great
"The Great King Sâr Büt"
He was the one who commissioned the script.
Last edited by Shemtov on 18 Sep 2013 04:26, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: Sinitic/SE Asian inspired Phonology

Post by Shemtov »

kanejam wrote:I don't think it's too bad, maybe have rounded allophones around labials? Or else just round one of /ɯ ʌ/ if you're too worried.
Yeah, I'll round /ʌ/ to ɔ
Many children make up, or begin to make up, imaginary languages. I have been at it since I could write.
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Re: Sinitic/SE Asian inspired Phonology

Post by Shemtov »

Time for Backstory:
The Kingdom of Heng is in the southern portion of what is in the real world the Thai Malaysian peninsula.
The language itself was considered to be an Isolate, however in the past ten years it has become accepted that it is decended from a sister language of proto-austroasiatic, Thus forming the Hengo-Austroasiatic phylum. It also had influence from the Tai and Austronesian families. Under influence from The SE Asian Sprachbund, it underwent tonogenesis.


Cardinal Numbers 1-10:
èt

möm
pyûng
ryom
ryěw
pít

chyung
lëak
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Re: Sinitic/SE Asian inspired Phonology

Post by Shemtov »

Fixed some mistakes in the script post.
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Re: Sinitic/SE Asian inspired Phonology

Post by ✫✯♛Adnaan♛✯✫ »

How would you form diphthongs besides ai ? (if you were to write another language which has multiple diphthongs), in the Indian side of brahmic script the vowel diacritic and a separate character are used to form diphthongs, do you have a diacritic which silences the inherent vowel or are going to extend your abugida to include this ?, how are consonant clusters written (that's if you have them in your language) e.g. chwûk and lya.
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Re: Sinitic/SE Asian inspired Phonology

Post by Shemtov »

✫✯♛Adnaan♛✯✫ wrote:How would you form diphthongs besides ai ? (if you were to write another language which has multiple diphthongs), in the Indian side of brahmic script the vowel diacritic and a separate character are used to form diphthongs, do you have a diacritic which silences the inherent vowel.
It would probably be written as a vowel sequence. For example, if it was a diphthong [au] the [a] would be marked under the consonant, and then the void consonant would be after it, marked with the and the tone.
However, the Hengese will usually adapt foreign words to their phonology, unless it would offend foreigners.
So, they'd probably pronounce my name as "Shèm top" [ɕɛm˧˩ tɔp] or "Shèm to vea" [ɕɛm˧˩ tɔ β̞ə]
✫✯♛Adnaan♛✯✫ wrote: do you have a diacritic which silences the inherent vowel or are going to extend your abugida to include this ?.

Last one in the vowel diacritic chart.
Sorry, I now realize I wasn't totally clear.
✫✯♛Adnaan♛✯✫ wrote:how are consonant clusters written (that's if you have them in your language) e.g. chwûk and lya.

I'll use the word "krāi" as an example, as it's in the example I posted:
The "k" letter takes the silencer (called the "súk"), and the vowel and tone is marked on the "r" letter.
This is the only use of the súk, as the inherent vowel is automatically cancelled word-finally.
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Re: Hengese

Post by Shemtov »

Syntax:
Canonical word order is SVO.
Adjectives are all stative verbs, so come after the noun, and adverbs also come after the verb they modify.
Here's an example from a Hengese poem written in honor of their script:

Nhi prèt ni blïng nhéa:/ kǐ kai ür nù mak fai drèa/ nù ai lěat rya
I know this fact great they create PST it magnificent and perfect it POS benefit COP
pléa
Eternal

"I know this great fact:/ They created it [to be] magnificent and perfect/ its benefits are eternal"
Many children make up, or begin to make up, imaginary languages. I have been at it since I could write.
-JRR Tolkien
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