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YAC: Widse -- a conlang based on Ygyde

From:Tristan <kesuari@...>
Date:Monday, January 27, 2003, 6:06
Well, I had the idea and I really couldn't resist...

Features of Wydse /wID@/ include:
    - A maggelic/etabnannic orthography.
    - A large collection of vowels, long and short, rounded and
unrounded, nasalised and not.
    - More diphthongs than you could shake a stick at
    - A smaller collection of approximates, including /j/, /w/, /H/ and
/v\/.
    - Lots of inflexions (most not yet created).
    - Interesting derivations.

Widse is spoken in an Australia that adopted Ygyde as its language,
presumably because so many immigrants came in with their own languages
that English speakers were out-numbered by non-English speakers and so
everyone had at least a passive knowledge of another language. Given
that it's spoken in Australia, some words have an Australianness about
them, e.g. jaug /Cou/, which means 'drought' and Lu Jaug /wo Cou/ (lit.
'The Drought') which means 'El Nino'.
('Jaug' derives from 'yjagu', absorption of water.) I'm sure South
Americans wouldn't think of El Nino as a drought...

As an example of its slightly less etabnannic orthography, I provide the
pronouns: (Note: & wourd normally be an ash/a-e ligature. The first row
is the orthography, the second the pronunciation.)
      1st             2nd            3rd
      Sing.   Pl      Sing.  Pl      Sing.                     Pl.
                                     m,that   f       n,this
Nom.  la      oila    le     oile    li       lo      lu       oilu
      la      Ha      le     9:      je       lo      wo       Ho
Gen.  aila    oola    aile   oole    aili     ailo    ailu     oolu
      e:l@    wi:     e:le   wie     ei       e:lo    eu       wo:
Dat.  lai     oilai   lei    oilei   lii      loi     lui      oilui
      le:     yle:    li:    yli:    j9y      ly      wy       H9
Acc.  iila    iola    iile   iole    iili     iilo    iilu     iolu
      @la     jol@    @le    j9:     r\i:     @lo     r\y      jou
Loc.  dsaila  dsoila  dsaile dsoile  dsaili   dsailo  dsailu   dsoilu
      je:l@   Dy:     je:    D9:     jei      je:lu   jou      v\y

At this stage, the language is looking like it's going to be a fairly
normal accusative language, though the focus will have a set of
inflexions of its own by virtue of the the 'e' preposition of Ygyde.
What'll happen to the inflexions, though, I don't know... maybe it'll
become a trigger language, maybe the focus will be unmarked for case...
If anyone's got some interesting ideas, I'm all ears.

But much is still to come. Including the Grand Master Plan. (And quite
likely a new name... When I named it Widse, I thought <y> was /y/, but
it seems to be /I/, so it'll probably be Gidse or Gside /jeDe/.)

Tristan.

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Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...>