Tengarsa: Phonology

[nyxelestia]

Consonants

Most come in pairs, there is one triad of them, and then a quartet of isolates. The pairs are unvoiced-voiced pairs. The isolates are often put together as an additional pair when paired-consonants can serve a grammatical function.

Pairs:

f , v
p , b
t , d
k , g
h , th
s , sh

Triad:

m , n , j
(m , n , ʤ)

Isolates:

r
l
y
w

The y and w are mostly present as wedges between strings of vowels and rarely make appearances as their own, separate consonants. On the rare occasions they do make appearances as their own independent consonants (particularly at the beginning of words), the w usually takes on a hw sounds (usually spelled wh in English). The y, mean while, will usually start to resemble more of a yj or yzh sound, or in IPA a slurring together of the y and a very soft ʒ.


The arrangement of consonants can streamline certain grammatical functions (i.e. the first consonant of adjectives often ‘switch off’ within a pair for different adjective strengths).

Vowels

There are short vowels, long ones, and diphthongs

Short:

a (æ)
aw (a)
e/eh (ɛ)
ih (ɪ)

Long:

i (iː)
o (o)
ai (aɪ)
u (uː)
ei (e)

Diphthongs:

ao (or aʊ)
ia (iæ)
ie (iɛ)
ea (ɛæ)
aie (aɪɛ)
ua (ua)
ue (uɛ)
ui (ui)


Vowel lengths are often used for grammatical purposes, especially in verbs.

Comments

[wrizzlebee.livejournal.com]

I once made a language, but it was just the same as my mother tongue, only other words for everything. But I learned it a bit and even wrote a crib in with these words (I didn't use it then, but just that I could have... ;)). So it is interesting for me to see someone else trying this, more professional than I did. :)

[nyxelestia.livejournal.com]

Heh, you may want to take a look at conlangs to see someone who actually knows what they're doing. ;) This is my third conlang (that I have records of, I made quite a few as a kid and just didn't write them down...well, didn't write their translations down, anyway) and I'm still learning stuff as I go.

[jissai1988.livejournal.com]

I...I want to learn this language. AFTER I finish learning Navi'i!

[nyxelestia.livejournal.com]

Glad to see you like it so much. ^+^ Any particular part of the language attract you? ;)

(Though just so you know you may change your mind later on when you get 10 noun cases and 3 numbers, and 16 verb classes :P)

If it makes you feel any better, my pronoun numbers were inspired by Na'vi. ^+^

[jissai1988.livejournal.com]

Oh pfft! That looks too fun to be any sort of a headache! Looks very similar to latin, actually o.o

As long as it doesnt have over 10 different vocal tones I'm willing to learn it.

Have you tried learning Piraha? There are a few different versions to it.
1) normal talk
2) when it's raining
3) humming
4) whistling

not only that but there are several hundred verb forms since you must attach at the end of the verbs how you came about the information.

[nyxelestia.livejournal.com]

Wait how's it similar to Latin? *total linguistics amateur*

I'm actually making a language somewhat like that. Mermish essentially have "underwater" and "overwater" - when the mermaids are communicating underwater, the language is different than when it's overwater or talking to non-mermaids who don't have the physiological capacity to make the sufficient sounds for underwater Mermish.

[jissai1988.livejournal.com]

In latin you attach ending to words depending on if it is the subject, with a predicate, direct object, indirect object, vocative, ect.

For instance, puella is nominative for "girl."
puellae is "of the girls."

however, puellae can also mean "girls."

Voco puellam. I call to the girl. -am being the ending for the direct object. : )

Puella is also the first case for nouns. It changes if it is of a different case, such as:

Gaium agricolae video.

I see Gaius in the fields. -um is the direct object ending for that case of nouns. in this case, masculine.

Entendes? ( Is so excited to be talking about languages! did I say that right in spanish? )

[jissai1988.livejournal.com]

Sorry I'm bothering you about all the language equivalences. I'm a foreign language nut. Learning a good 7 at the moment.

[nyxelestia.livejournal.com]

Haha, don't worry, I'm a bit of a language nut, myself. I'm learning Spanish, planning to learn Chinese, and this is the third language I'm making, the other two being Anyael and a language for mermaids. :P

[jissai1988.livejournal.com]

Spanish and then chinese? what level are you in spanish? I can only currently read Harry potter in the language.

My Mandarin is a lot better as is my Japanese.

Have you found yourself confusing your english with another language yet? Either conjugating an english verb wrong or saying something, like " that dog green" ?

Ive caught myself putting verbs in the backs of sentences or not conjugating them at all. Or using the literal japanese translation in english, such as:

you to the store go if and the food too expensive if, nevermind.

sounds better when you say it in japanese...

ni hui shuo hanyu ma?

one trick when learning how to write chinese: learn the stroke order.

ah look there i go babbling off again. eh...

[nyxelestia.livejournal.com]

I am a third-year-high-school level Spanish speaker, which in America basically means "infants are more fluent than I am" :P

For me my Spanglish confusion is mostly the natural type that comes from living in highly-Hispanic areas most of my life, so I tend to default on "hola" and "adios" over hi and goodbye, ect ect,

And, that Chinese one, I think I know that one! (..."do you speak Chinese?", right?)

And feel free to babble. (Do you have Yahoo or Google IM? We can chat, then)

[jissai1988.livejournal.com]

I forgot to ask what you mean by unvoiced. you mean the "unvoiced" as in korean? the opposite of the double pp? or the "u" on the end of the "masu" forms of verbs in japanese?

[nyxelestia.livejournal.com]

Unvoiced by IPA standards, which are basically the sounds themselves, i.e. if you say a 'g' sound you have to put your voice in it, not a 'k' sound - or, more accurately, when you whisper the sounds, the voiced ones start to sound like their unvoiced counterparts.