Don't eat me! -also, Chudihr

[Jackk]

Hi, I'm a long-time lurker both here and on the ZBB, trying to work up the courage to post.

I have mainly picked up linguistic topics through osmosis, but I'd hope that I am sufficiently adept by now.

I have listened to the Conlangery podcast since Episode 1, and it's been really helpful in introducing concepts and offering tips on how to improve areas.
[hr][/hr]
Onto my conlang:
Currently, I am working on just one conlang, Chudihr /xudiʀ/ [χuðeʀ].

Chudihr is the language spoken in the southern plains of Erasich, the sub-continent located at roughly 40-60 degrees south of the equator on the world of Şurke.
A full PDF can be found here.

Some quotes:
"Adjectives are, for all intents and purposes, simply a type of verb. This makes predicate adjectives easy, such as em kuder laichke “Teeth are white”. By the way, it’s a coincidence that that previous sentence sounds so oddly German."

"Chudihr uses a place-value decimal system. This replaced the earlier additive system just 400 years ago, and the 10 glyphs were independently invented by a man subsequently exiy exiled for heresy."

"latom nui buohr ke bahrismeonehruifo ido.
You could conlang after you've drunk your milk."

[Solarius]

Maybe put it on Google Docs?

[Jackk]

Sure!

Documentation for Chudihr

[thaen]

Looks good. However, I only got to the locative verbs. I will look at the rest later, perhaps.

[Xing]

Some brief comments after looking through it:

1) I like the allophone between [θ] and . How did it develop?

2) How are the cases used? It says you have nominative, accusative, dative and genitive, but how exactly are they used? Are they used in the same way as in, for example, German?

3) Why do the pronouns have the two extra cases they have? It would be natural from pronouns to have a comitative case (since pronouns often will refer to humans or aninate beings). But what about the locative case? If two cases should be "reserved" for personal pronouns only, the two most plausible candidates IMO would be the comitative and the dative (since those two denote companionship and recipient - two roles that are typically reserved for humans or rational beings).

4) The use of SOV as the usual word-order seems a little surprising given that the language is said to be "mostly head initial".

/X

[Jackk]

Some brief comments after looking through it:

1) I like the allophone between [θ] and . How did it develop?

/X

1) The allophony rose because the /s/ was already dental, and there were slight areal effects.

[Jackk]

2) How are the cases used? It says you have nominative, accusative, dative and genitive, but how exactly are they used? Are they used in the same way as in, for example, German?

3) Why do the pronouns have the two extra cases they have? It would be natural from pronouns to have a comitative case (since pronouns often will refer to humans or aninate beings). But what about the locative case? If two cases should be "reserved" for personal pronouns only, the two most plausible candidates IMO would be the comitative and the dative (since those two denote companionship and recipient - two roles that are typically reserved for humans or rational beings).

4) The use of SOV as the usual word-order seems a little surprising given that the language is said to be "mostly head initial".

2) Nominative is used for the subject of a sentence and when a noun is standalone.
Accusative is used for most direct objects of transitive verbs and in adpositional phrases to encode motion.
Dative is used for indirect objects, with adpositional phrases to encode position, and for the direct object of some transitive verbs.
Genitive is used to mark the possessor of something, or the whole of a part (the branch of a tree).

3) Just as English still retains accusative forms of many of its pronouns, Chudihr pronouns have kept these two cases, partly due to usefulness, and partly because in regular nouns the locative merged with the dative. The pronouns were sufficiently irregular and common that this distinction remained.

4) This is partly an aesthetic choice, and partly to make some part of the language more interesting. This was done when I was feeling obscure about how bland my conlang seemed. Needless to say I am now over that.

[Solarius]

Sure!

Documentation for Chudihr

Thanks!

[Solarius]

This looks excellent! I love the phonology: Lots of Approximates and labialized velars both occur, but don't often do so together due to sprachbunds and such, so it's nice to see 'em here.

[Jackk]

Thanks for all the comments! Should I post what I've got on the writing system?

[Solarius]

Thanks for all the comments! Should I post what I've got on the writing system?

Definitely!

[Jackk]

The Writing System

Chudihr has a system similar to Hebrew, in that it is an abjad which uses diacritics to mark its vowels{citation needed}.
The consonants
The vowels
The Punctuation and Mathematical symbols

Note the diacritits for /e/ and /o/ are originally variants of the ones for /i/ and /u/, respectively.

And here's an example sentence, complete with glossing and non-literal translation.

Enjoy! :-)

[Xing]

Is vowel marking obligatory?

Are there matres lectionis? (=can semivowel or other consonant letters be used for vowels?)

What is the writing direction? (left-to-right or right-to-left?)

[Jackk]

I also have a lexicon:
Chudihr - English Dictionary
> 300 words! :)

[Jackk]

Is vowel marking obligatory? In most modern situations, vowels are always marked, but in older literature, it isn't uncommon to see diacritic-less writing. Also, hurried handwriting may leave the vowels out.

Are there matres lectionis? (=can semivowel or other consonant letters be used for vowels?) This is often done in (the new and scarce) business of printing, where it is hard to print the vowels. the symbols for /ʀ/, /j/, and /w/ are used for /a/, /i/, and /u/, respectively. /e/ and /o/, due to convention, are left unmarked.*

What is the writing direction? (left-to-right or right-to-left?) Chudihr writing is written left-to-right, top-to-bottom.

*Actually your question inspired me to include this. Thanks!

[Kuhron]

I would love to steal this idea of locative verbs. I tire of multiple spatial prepositions and/or Finnish-like case systems.

I'm liking this language!

[Jackk]

Thanks!
Go ahead and steal them - I took the idea from The Language Construction Kit, myself.