Re: Ng'and'ana

Elliott Belser wrote:
>
>Alright you orrible men, you asked for it, you got it.  This is the
>first of two posts about Ng'and'ana.  First off, the letters.
>Ng'and'ana is alphabetic and a phonetic language, so don't worry
>there.  I don't have a font so I'll deal with transliteration...
>incedentally I CAN write in Ng'and'ana lettering.  Who here knows how
>I can make a font?
>
>Right then.  I do not know how to classify letter sounds, so help me
>with that... I'll use the 'like the (letter) in (word)' form.  The
>basic vowels are:
>
>ae (pronouced like the 'ay' in 'way')
>a (pronounced like the 'a' in 'father')
>e (like the 'e' in 'left')
>i (like the 'ee' in 'see')
>o (like the 'o' in 'know')
>u (like the 'oo' in 'food')
>y (like the 'i' in 'sigh'), sometimes spelled 'ay'
If the goal of this spelling scheme is readability, I'd suggest using only
"ay" for the "i in sigh" sound, and changing "o" to "ou" (or "ow"). That way
the diphthongs are easier to spot (all'd be spelt with digraphs), and the
system becomes more "international", that is, the uses of the vowel
characters become more similar to the uses in non-English languages.

If the goal i aesthetical effect, then please ignore my suggestions!

>The consonants, like in Hebrew, can sometimes be modified by a dot.
>In this language this dot is called an 'Adam,' or 'crystallizer'
>(Hard: Adam'u  To harden: Adam'as  Crystals: Adam) and they make
>sounds guttural (the only sound word I know).  The Ng'and'ana sounds
>are pretty much the same as English ones, and where there are
>exceptions I note them.  The letters and what they turn into are
>below.
In what circumstances does this turning occur?

>(This > turns to that.)
>
>V       >       B
>K       >       Q  (Like the 'Ch' in Chanuka)
>D       >       T
>F       >       P
>G       >       NG  (Like the Ng in Ring, but is it's own letter.)
>H  (Must be used at the end of a word that would have a vowel end.)
>L
>M       >       N
>R       >       RH (Rolled R - the infamous 'kitty purr' as Terran
>linguists have it.)
Is rolled R the same as a trilled one? And what does the unturned "R"
denote?

>S       >       Z (Sometimes pronounced J)
There doesn't seem to be much of a system in these turnings. V and F turn to
the corresponding stops, K to the corresponding fricative and G to the
corresponding nasal, D simply unvoices and M shifts to alveolar/dental
position! Is there any rationale for this seemingly random changes?

>Also, ideals in a word are seperated by a 'sfir' ('breath,' sfir'u
>'inspired') that look like and are represented by an apostrophe.
>It's a glottal stop in linguistic terms, the difference between 'uh'
>and 'oh.'
>
>So this is an Ng'and'ana sentence:  Am'galahad ben'a Eliout.
>Em'ben'a lom gloz'adi.  (My name is Elliott.  I am a linguist.)
Lemme guess - _ben'a_ means "am/are/is", _em'_ is a first person singular
marker (corresponds to the English pronoun "I") and _am'_ is a first person
sg possessive? Then _galahad_ means "name", _gloz'adi_ means "linguist"
(more than a chance resemblance to _glossa_="word"?), while _lom_ would seem
to be an indefinite article. Is this reasonably close to the truth?

>
>Incedentally, Ng is 'a sharing,' and Anda is 'the soul.'  The racial
>name Ng'anda means 'ones of shared soul.'  Ana is just a gender
>marking a word as a language, so Ng'and'ana is 'the language of those
>who share souls.'
>
>Grammar is next...
Is this your first conlang? If so, it does seem rather more innovative than
my early attempts.

                                               Andreas


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