Re: Whatever happened to Aelya?

Christian Thalmann ascelle:
>Does Taalennin have a similar typographical appearance as Aelya?
     Except for the digraph 'aa', it uses an identical orthographic scheme.
Basically:

     Vowels: a, o, u, e, i, y /@/
     Diph: aa, ao, au, ae, ai, oe, ea, ei
     Cons: p, t, c, b, d, g, f/ph, th, ch/h, v/bh, dh, gh, n, m, l, lh, r,
rh, s, sh, y /j/

>Good point.  I was going for succinctness in Obrenje and, judging in
>retrospect, made too many words too short, thereby depriving the lang
>of many well-sounding longer words while stuffing meaning into some
>rather ugly but phonologically compliant words.  =P
>
>Things like this are what drive me to start a new language, and do
>everything right this time.  ;-)
    One thing I've found helpful too is to have inspiring languages in the
same style as the new lang. That way, finding new vocab can sometimes be
simply a matter of looking a synonym up in the dictionary. For example, the
Taalennin verb 'gather, collect, save for later use' |laus|  is the Irish
word sa/bhail backwards.
    I've also found that forcing vocabulary is the surest way to get
something that you later despise. it's much better to find vocab slowly.
Reading language texts, dictionaries, and such, or words with foreign
language jargon, makes the process go much faster. For example, as I learn
words in Old Irish, I find interesting tidbits that make it into Taalennin,
like the word for now, which will be derived from the word for rest
(because M. Ir. anois < O. Ir. indossa < the article + accusative(?) of
foss, rest).
    I feel it's better to devise roots/basic vocab slowly, and then apply
derivational processes or compounding to create more vocab, rather than
coming up with words for complex things off the top of my head.

>Sounds familiar.  Obrenje has a transliteration scheme that uses only
>standard Latin characters.  Its one-on-one correspondence to native
>script characters (Cirnaja) is useful, but produces atrocities like
>|nokkce| "it goes" or |kwaq| "duck", although they don't sound as
>vile as they look (/"nOk.ks=/, /kwaN/).
    Part of this is some strange conlanger need to have one-for-one
orthographies, which are exceedingly rare in natlangs. C doesn't represent
/S/ in any natlang i know of, for example, so it's use for such is strange.
Same for q and /N/. Supposing that the "discoverers" of the lang spoke
English or some other lang using the roman alphabet, it's much more likely
that /S/ would be represented by sh or hacek-s, and /N/ is almost always,
without exception, represented in roman orthography as 'ng'.
    A good idea in this regard is to try to spell the words in your mother
tongue - make oue/tresses. Oue/tresse is my term for a word in one language
spelled using another language's orthography. Irish Cua/idheat for english
quiet, for example. This will give you a good idea of how the orthography
should be developed.
    I would write your words above as nokkse, or even nokxe, and quang or
cuang.


>For my new lang, I've vowed to use more digraphs and especially
>diphthongs.  For example, I'm going to represent the phonemes
>/e: E: o: aI oI y: oU aU u@ i@ e@/ by
>|ei ea oa ae oe ue ou ao uo ia eo|.  I like those visual images.  =)
    Looks good to me too. But I like lots of vowels! makes for a euphonic
lang, IMHO.

> >    - It really helps to have a model for syntax and grammar. Something to
> > sort of follow, because otherwise the lang becomes cluttered with all kinds
> > of cool and interesting, but stylistically opposing, features. Having a
> > model, or a natlang origin, helps prevent a common Conlanger tendency to
> > put in everything.
>
>Hmmm... I was going to use an unconventional grammar using "vectors"
>(inflecting auxiliary verbs) before each (uninflected) full verb.
>That might cause some problems.  Unfortunately, I only know languages
>of the central European region well, which limits my resources for
>that kind of plagia... err... inspiration.  =P
     Well, you know English, which does something similar - he has seen vs.
you have seen vs. he is doing vs. you are doing. The auxiliary is
conjugated, and a set form of the main verb is used (the past participle
here). Actually, Taalennin does something similar.

    It has negative, interrogative, relative, etc. verbs, which are used
with the verbal noun of the verb.

   Ennan lausi. I don't save (neg verb)
   Hen lausi. Do I save? (int verb)
   Aehnen lausi. Don't I save? (int+neg)
   Aan o lausie. I am saving (lit. I am at saving)

> >    Let me know if there's anything else you want to know about Aelya, and
> > I'll see if I can find or remember what it did... Searching the archives
> > for Daniel Andreasson's Cein will prove fruitful too.
>
>OK, I'll have a look.  Has there never been an online sketch of Aelya
>grammar and phonology?
    No, I never got that far. I only ever had a mythological origin sketch
on the web. A search of the archives should reveal the zillions of phases
that Aelya went through before it gelled and then died. If you really want
some info (or even want to take it over) I can track down/recreate my
notes, eventually. I may have more than I thought on my computer -
including the original Sound change files...maybe. I'll look, if you'd like
them.

    Aidan

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