Languages of Elyria

[Humabout]

Thanks.  Eventually, I'll mash out some minor changes that occur when making a root into a word, such as adding a gender affix and occassionally shifting one consonant to a closely related one.  That should make some of the compounding a little less obvious but make it all still feel related.

On another note, here's the pronunciation guide:

Vowels
i – feet
ï – fit
u – boot
ü – book
e – egg
ä - up
ë – bet
a - father

Consonants
b – ball
č – chase
d – dog
ď – judge
đ – the
f – ford
g – garrison
h – hop
j – yes
k – carrot
ǩ – no English equivalent; Bach
ł – bulk
l – land
m – marsh
n – nod
ň – onion
ŋ – sing
p – peat
r – rime
š – shape
s – snow
t – tether
ŧ – three
v – vermin
ž – vision
z – zoo

I wonder how transliterating that into a more English-looking script would apear.  It'd definitely lose its Eastern European look, but would it end up just looking like gibberish?

[Humabout]

And... Some more words!

[spoiler]

Ocean - raliźe
Sea - jaźe
Strait - rutamïr
Bay - riǩmïr
Lake - jimïr
Glacially-carved Lake - vüŋmïr
Pond - łïmïr
Island - źeji
Iceberg - źelektaina
Reef - druślütäl
Rime - vailek
Hail - bähułek
Thunderstorm - zvüdvet
Hailstorm - bähłegvet
Snowstorm - ždavet
Blizzard - jaždavet
"Perfect Storm" - jazvüdvet
Rain - bauźe
(Rain) Shower - łïbauźe
Glacier - leǩŧaina
Ford - razruta
Bridge - täzruta
[/spoiler]

As you can see, seafaring will be a major part of life, and it's really stormy with harsh winters.  I need some more roots before I can dig into habitations.  I'll probably do some flora and fauna, too, since that'll help with naming.  Eventually need some state verbs, too, I guess.  The list keeps getting longer...

[Xeviat]

Are you just picking words? Do you have a list of syllables, or some other tool so that the words sound "the same"?

[arkham618]

I wonder how transliterating that into a more English-looking script would apear.  It'd definitely lose its Eastern European look, but would it end up just looking like gibberish?

How about a Polish-influenced orthography:

ï > í
ü > ú
ä > á
ë > é

č > cz
ď > dz
đ > d'
ǩ > ch
ň > nj
ŋ > ng
š > sz
ŧ > t'
ž > rz

So čëňüǩ (just a random word I made up) becomes czénjúch; kaďä (ditto) becomes kadzá; đižëš, d'irzesz; etc.

And a spoken sample?

[Humabout]

Are you just picking words? Do you have a list of syllables, or some other tool so that the words sound "the same"?

I've got a list of phonotactic constraints that reduce the syllable structure to (C)(j, R, L, L)V(C).  Plug that through an excel spreadsheet to randomly generate syllables, and voila!  All of the words in my last post are composites of the roots I posted initially, however.  I've used the convention of shifting the voicedness of the final consonant of a syllable to match that of the first consonant of the following syllable, wherever that is an issue.  Frex, the kv > gv in bäh-łek-vet > bäh-łeg-vet.

Also, I've been fricative-izing syllable-final stops followed by fricatives, or de-fricativing fricatives that follow stops, such as in leǩŧaina and źelektaina, respectively.  I may eventually standardize this one way or the other, but natural languages always seem to have exceptions to any rule.  A few inconsistencies just makes it feel more real.

How about a Polish-influenced orthography:

It definitely looks more appealing and less czech (where I got most of those diacritics), but I don't know.  I might mix it with some more russian looking stuff.  I know I don't like using J for a Y sound.

[O Senhor Leetz]

I'm going to be the Devil's advocate here, so don't take this the wrong way, but there is one big problem with your language for Elyria - it uses Latin or Slavic/Cyrillic/Germanic/etc letters. I don't know an awful lot about Elyria, but I'm going to assume that the modern Western phonetic set was developed there.

I know you're trying to avoid just writing strange-sounding in words in English, which is in a way a good thing, but all the strange (to those of us that don't speak Polish or Cyrillic or one of the Slavic or Germanic or Scandinavian languages) letters just it make it really confusing.

If you're really serious about developing a con-lang for Elyria - which I applaud, as I was a linguistics minor in undergrad - go all the way and develop your own alphabet or set of characters, which you can then "translate" with more a simple, phonetic English.

Once again, I'm just being the Devil's advocate here. I really do applaud you though for having the balls to go for a con-lang, which is likely the most difficult thing someone can do when they are developing a setting. My hat is off to you sir.

[Humabout]

Thank you for the applause and suggestion.  I can totally understand what you're getting at.  My reasoning for not doing just that immediately is mostly because this is initially intended to create names for places in the world.  For that, I really only need a shorthand for the sound that I can easily type and read, and hopefully, transliterate into something that other English speakers can read.  For flavor's sake, a unique orthography would add tons to be certain, and I'll put that on my to-do list.  But for now, I need names for fjords, cliffs, caves, cities, straits, etc.

Of course, once I get all of that hashed out, along with enough syntax and grammar to cobble together place names, I'll tackle the orthography and make a really spiffy looking map, and eventually, other extra-spiffy handouts.

With regard to a simple phonetic English, that's sort of my goal, but some of the phonems don't have standard english representations.  Even if I use Ch, Sh, and Th, there's nothing to represent the S in "vision," the TH in "then," or the N in "onion."  And there's no good example of an unvoiced velar fricative or dark L in english; those would require their own symbols.  I'd love some suggestions for them, however.  My other stumbling block is where two syllables meet, such as wrods like athok, which looks like ath-ok, but might be at-hok.  What opions are there to avoid such ambiguity?  This was my reasoning in giving each phonem its own symbol, and just using diacritics to expand my symbol library.  Of course, all of these reasons are just arguments for a unique orthography, as you've suggested....

[Xeviat]

I'm sure you know how many consonants are paired, voiced and unvoiced, like T and D. Thus, if th makes one sound, then dh would be the voiced sound. The s in "vision" could then be zh (it sounds like a voiced sh to me), "then" is "dhen", and the N in "onion" is more like ny (which is how I always hear the ñ in the spanish language). Japanese does things like Nya (using lower case to symbolize the subscript "ya" they do for this condensed sound).

But using "h"s like that would also require a pronunciation guideline.

[arkham618]

Thank you for the applause and suggestion.  I can totally understand what you're getting at.  My reasoning for not doing just that immediately is mostly because this is initially intended to create names for places in the world.  For that, I really only need a shorthand for the sound that I can easily type and read, and hopefully, transliterate into something that other English speakers can read.  For flavor's sake, a unique orthography would add tons to be certain, and I'll put that on my to-do list.  But for now, I need names for fjords, cliffs, caves, cities, straits, etc.

Of course, once I get all of that hashed out, along with enough syntax and grammar to cobble together place names, I'll tackle the orthography and make a really spiffy looking map, and eventually, other extra-spiffy handouts.

With regard to a simple phonetic English, that's sort of my goal, but some of the phonems don't have standard english representations.  Even if I use Ch, Sh, and Th, there's nothing to represent the S in "vision," the TH in "then," or the N in "onion."  And there's no good example of an unvoiced velar fricative or dark L in english; those would require their own symbols.  I'd love some suggestions for them, however.  My other stumbling block is where two syllables meet, such as wrods like athok, which looks like ath-ok, but might be at-hok.  What opions are there to avoid such ambiguity?  This was my reasoning in giving each phonem its own symbol, and just using diacritics to expand my symbol library.  Of course, all of these reasons are just arguments for a unique orthography, as you've suggested....

Japanese romaji utilizes an apostrophe to resolve ambiguous syllables (or, more precisely, moras). For example, the name Jun'ichirō is parsed ju-n-i-chi-ro-u, and not ju-ni-chi-ro-u. So one might have ket'ha and ketha, mad'ha and madha, nis'ha and nisha, etc.

[Humabout]

I have a personal thing against using apostrophes for anything other than contractions.  It's probably my distaste for so many bad attempts at exotic-looking fantasy names, but I really, really don't want to go there.  Really, all of this reinforces Senior LEetz' point that this conlang needs its own orthography, but for now, I'll just keep using the one I have for my own sake.  When I get some time, I'll post more words and maybe some beginnings of a syntax.

[sparkletwist]

I personally hate pointless apostrophes too, but, the problem for me is that they don't have a purpose. They're just arbitrarily inserted to make the name look more "exotic." If the apostrophe is being used to mark a syllable break, or show a glottal stop, or an epenthetic vowel, or something, then it's actually there for a reason, not just "to make the word look weirder." You can actually explain to someone why it's there and what it does.

I don't know if that makes you feel any better about them, though. :P

[Humabout]

Ha! I get what you're saying, for sure, but I'm still uneasy jamming them into a slavic-looking/sounding language.  It might prove necessary, or I might just say the heck with it and leave it like English - god only knows how you actually pronounce the words.  For now, though, I'll just use my shorthand (it's short for me; I made keyboard hotkeys for all of those symbols in Word).

More words!

[spoiler]
Fire - huŋ
Hot/To Heat - dri
Home - fiǩ
Town/Settlement - źair
Path/Walk - daul
Mill - tauǩiŋ
Wind - đu
Rock - kair
Stone - łeśe
Gold - fët
Silver - čïrüž
Tin - jaiź
Copper - fauďün
Iron - ňivük
Farm - gumin
Market/Trading/Meet - taul
Bear - seź
Owl - sirü
Dear - süźdrä
Wolf - vloźla
Boar - kïžňä
Jay - čëś
Seal - maukan
Oak - haz
Aspen - faułta
Spruce - trëšä
Pine - rïmǩjëv
Mine - mïjëtäz
Water Mill - źëtauǩiŋ
Windmill - đutauǩiŋ
Orchard - sežgumin
Mill Town - tauǩ
Walled Town - riǩtäz
Castle - śüriǩ
[/spoiler]

[arkham618]

Ha! I get what you're saying, for sure, but I'm still uneasy jamming them into a slavic-looking/sounding language.  It might prove necessary, or I might just say the heck with it and leave it like English - god only knows how you actually pronounce the words.  For now, though, I'll just use my shorthand (it's short for me; I made keyboard hotkeys for all of those symbols in Word).

More words!

[spoiler]
Fire - huŋ
Hot/To Heat - dri
Home - fiǩ
Town/Settlement - źair
Path/Walk - daul
Mill - tauǩiŋ
Wind - đu
Rock - kair
Stone - łeśe
Gold - fët
Silver - čïrüž
Tin - jaiź
Copper - fauďün
Iron - ňivük
Farm - gumin
Market/Trading/Meet - taul
Bear - seź
Owl - sirü
Dear - süźdrä
Wolf - vloźla
Boar - kïžňä
Jay - čëś
Seal - maukan
Oak - haz
Aspen - faułta
Spruce - trëšä
Pine - rïmǩjëv
Mine - mïjëtäz
Water Mill - źëtauǩiŋ
Windmill - đutauǩiŋ
Orchard - sežgumin
Mill Town - tauǩ
Walled Town - riǩtäz
Castle - śüriǩ
[/spoiler]

Are concatenated vowels like au and ai diphthongs, and if so, how are they pronounced?

[Humabout]

AI and AU are the two diphthongs, actually, and they're pronounced "eye" and "Ow!" respectively.

Next on the to-do list are some common affixes and a bunch of adjectives and adverbs.  I think that'll round out the initial lexicon and provide enough variation to name anything important on the map and give a wealth of names for people, as well.  Then I can make a proper map, finally.

[Humabout]

Changes in orthography!  (I will likely keep the original orthography for my own purposes, which mostly involve tracking roots and affixes)

The previous roman transliteration remains unchanged except where noted below:

č > ch
ď > j
đ > dh
j > y
ǩ > kh
ł > ll
ň > ny
ŋ > ng*
š > sh
ś > ts
ŧ > th
ž > zh
ź > dz
*Ns preceding velar stops are pronounced as Ŋs.  This is not written out.

Where one syllable ends with  C, D, K, T, or Z and the following begins with an H so that it appears that there is no way to visually distinguish between "...T-H..." and "...TH...," it's up to the speaker to simply know which way it is pronounced.