Introducing another project of mine

Ok, so I've begun yet another project, this one looks promising (although, I've
said that before, and come up empty handed). It has sort of an Eastern European
feel, which I really love.

To start off, I translated a bit of a poem that I had written in March or so:

They walked the (high) road,
where nightly walk the sleeping.
They traveled the dark ways
where laughter’s seldom seen.
(Steady) through the shifting hills,
their night mares rode on.
They were wanderers in a dreamland.

Translated:
prdizhláctjut ctaj z prováje,
kcut cto zirlúptic prdizhláctjak z brkašíntje
vikmášut ctom kráçljom vzhudélom,
kcut je vízhik glakhtíva  šízëglav.
ctom zhuj cvurášom  kzhúštëjom,
dju khvotjù brkašínti palçikáctjut
bišút vikmódu šnje niçkóje gmargízhe

Orthography of certain consonants
r.  "syllabic r"  (written simply as CrC)
zh = /3/
c = /tS/
j =  /j/
š = /S/
ç = /ts/
kh = /X/
ë = /@/

Vowels:
a [a]
e [E]
i [I]
o [)] (? i think, it's an open vowel)
u [U] (as in foot)

In certain positions, these vowels are altered by various phonetic rules. I'll
mention the few that I've noticed so far:

1) before /r/ [I] > /i-/ (i-barred)
example: "zirluptic" [zIrlUptItS] > /zi-rlUptItS/

2) unstressed [)] > /U/
example: "provaje" [pr)vajE] > /prUBajI/

3) medial [v] > /B/
(same example)

4) unstressed and final [E] > /I/
(same example)

5) unstressed [a] > /æ/ or /E/
example: "prdizhlactjak"
 [prdI3latStjak] > /prdi3latStjæk/

6) unstressed [a] before the accent and between unvoiced consonants, becomes /E./
(that is, unvoiced /E/
example: "brkašintje" [brkaSIntjE] > /brkE.SI~ntjI/

7) and finally, [I] before nasals becomes slightly nasalized
(same example)

This is getting long enough, I'm send along the poem (in the conlang) with a
glossary right now in another email.

Elliott

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