Re: Brainstorming a Fantasy Language

At 19:39 06/06/00 -0500, you wrote:
>This recent discussion on Gender and classification got me thinking, and I
>thought I'd throw some of my rough ideas out here and see what percolated.
>
>In developing my fantasy world, I've been thinking about my version of the
>faerie races and what/how they would communicate (they're essentially
>earth-bound souls who clothe themselves in magic rather than flesh). Since
>they are creatures of magic, I want their language to reflect that -- in
>fact, their language, as interpreted by humans, will be the language *of*
>magic.
>
>Since I want something of a pseudo-Celtic/Druidic feel, I've already decided
>on magic being a balance of forces, especially the four classical Elements
>(Earth, Fire, Air, Water), with Spirit thrown in as well. And it occurred to
>me that these five Forces of Magic could also be the five Genders used in
>the Faerie language. And perhaps they're also used in verb conjugation.
>
>So my definitions for each Gender are:
>
>Earth = Static, or Stable. Nouns. Things in the physical world. Passive,
>rather than active.
>
>Air = Active, Chaos, Verbs. Things in motion. Use these two to define
>Verb/Noun deviations and physical world.
>
>Fire = Destruction/reduction. Violent emotion. Use to describe decreasing
>quantity, negative comparison/connotations, etc.
>
>Water = Creative. Positive comparisons, pleasant connotations. Use these two
>for adjectivial deviations and emotions.
>
>Spirit = Abstract/Mental/Conceptual.
>
I like it, nice connotations. It gives way to a nice gender system (more a
class system I think) which seems rather natural to me.

>Now, before I got serious about conlanging, what I used to do was make a few
>words for each language to give myself an idea of how I wanted the language
>to sound and look, and the Faerie (I called them Vianor) were no exception
>-- I have maybe 30 names or so that are supposed to represent their speech.
>Like Tolkien's Quenya, the words have a lot of front sounds, a lot of
>labials and nasals and approximates. One thing I noticed today was that all
>of the words I had that were supposed to have a negative connotations had
>fricatives, while none of the positives did (with one already obvious
>exception). So I've decided that fricatives are *extremely* unpleasant to
>the Vianor, and that the "v" in Vianor is actually a plosive <b>. Also, I
>noticed far more voiced consonants than unvoiced, so I'm going against
>natlang convention and plan to reverse the frequency.
>
They are not humans anyway, so I think you can do whatever you want. Maybe
they have more difficulties than us to stop their vocal chords vibrating
(do they have vocal chords anyway? :) ).

>The consonant structure therefore goes something like this:
>
>Stops(S)   Nasals/Approximates(N)  Fricatives(F)
>b  p            n   m                v  f
>d  t            l   y                s  z
>g  k            r   w                h  x
>
>What the significance of grouping them like this I've yet to determine.
>
>The vowels (same five as in Spanish), meanwhile, are linked to the Genders:
>
>Fire = i
>Water = u
>Earth = o
>Air = e
>Spirit = a
>Base = @
>
>So, a root -- that is, an overall group of concepts -- would be formed as:
>
>C@C
>
>And then words built off that root would be based on which vowel you use.
>
>E.g.: n@r = being
>    nor = creature
>    ner = to live
>    nur = immortal
>    nir = mortal
>    nar = soul
>
Very, very nice. Influenced by Semitic?

>Affixes could then be applied to further modify these:
>
>a-nor (spirit/mind+creature) = thinking creature, sentient being
>
>be-anor (modifier indicating action + thinking creature) = First People
>
>Or something like that. I think I would have a bit more spiritual
>significance to that be- prefix, but what yet I can't decide.
>
Why? a prefix ba- would have this spiritual signifiance. Or did you give it
already another meaning?

>Meanwhile, verbs will be conjugated in tenses based not necessarily in past,
>present, and future but rather beginning, ongoing, and ending. I think their
>sense of time, being virtually immortal, is askew and therefore the past,
>present and future are all one tense to them... I may tie this in with the
>three divisions of the stops: all d/t consonants are ongoing, all the b/p
>are beginning, all the g/k are ending.
>
Well, that's just conjugation on aspect instead of tense, quite natural in
natural languages, so it would be even more natural for immortal people
(yet I'm thinking that immortal people do not really have a sense of
"ending", as they cannot end themselves. "Ending" could be quite foreign to
them and could apply only to things other then themselves).

>Anyway, this is just a rough idea. What do you think, sirs?
>
I like it very much. Why cannot I come with such nice ideas? :((

                                                Christophe Grandsire
                                                |Sela Jemufan Atlinan C.G.

"Reality is just another point of view."

homepage : http://rainbow.conlang.org
(ou : http://www.bde.espci.fr/homepages/Christophe.Grandsire/index.html)