Re: Old Nindic to Classical Modern Nindic

Hallo!

On Tue, 5 Oct 2004 22:41:17 -0400,
Elliott Lash <erelion12@...> wrote:

> >Very close; it is (phonetically):
> >
> >  ['tIrEa Im 'sErIm xwar 'banEsI na'bOmas a'dOlas ara'maras]
> >
> >(the primes indicate stressed syllables)
> >
> >(phonemically:)
> >
> >  /tira im serim xwar banesi nabomas adolas aramaras/
> >
> >I.e. the spelling is quite straightforward, except that _v_ is /w/
> >(and _j_ is /j/), and the digraphs _ph_, _th_, _ch_ are /f/, /T/
> >and /x/.
>
> I assume that /tira/ is a typo.
It is.  Must be /tirea/, of course.

> >> What's the ...um..base form of <im> It looks a lot
> >> like Nindic, Silindion <i> "the"
> >
> >The agentive stem of the common gender animate article is
> >_a_ in the singular, _u_ in the dual and _i_ in the plural;
> >the ending -m forms the objective stem, which is also the
> >objective case.  BTW, in an earlier version of the language
> >I had an indeclinable article _i_, which was inspired by Tolkien's
> >Elvish, but I changed that.
>
> I still have this Tolkien inspired article, and I dont plan on changing. I
> like the sound of it :)
Actually, it wasn't an easy decision to change from _i_ to the article
I have now, and sometimes I feel like regretting or even reversing it.

> >>  How do you separate the morphemes of <tirea>
> >> It looks somewhat like Silindion  <tiliello "to see">
> >
> >The morphemic structure is tir-i-a, wherein tir- is the stem,
> >-i- a 3rd person plural object marker, and -a the imperative ending.
> >The whole word is _tirea_ rather than **tiria because an /i/
> >umlauts to /e/ before /a/.
>
> Hm...the opposite of Silindion then:
>
>  tilessa "see them!"
>   til-e=ssa
>   see-IMP=them
Our verb roots for `see' are very similar.  Probably once again
Tolkien - my root *tir- is directly borrowed from him.

> >> I'd suppose that -as is the locative suffix. But then
> >> how do you show the double locative on Aramaras?
> >
> >The form is _Aram-as-as_ `world-LOC-LOC' wherein the first /s/
> >undergoes rhotacism in intervocalic position.
>
> I should have guessed, this seems obvious now that I look at it again.
>
> [---snip---]
>
> excellent, I like the way that your suffixaufnahme works. I've tried it
> before, but it tends to be messy for me. Hence the mostly indeclinable
> nature of adjuncts and modifiers in Silindion and Nindic.
In fact, I sometimes get myself entangled with it.  Suffixaufnahme
often leads to awkward, complex forms.  In fact, it is not mandatory,
at least not when the normal order (i.e., the modifier follows the
modified) is used.

> >> This was the general aim of Nindic, or at least
> >> Northern Nindic, which this is the Classical Modern
> >> representative of. Southern Nindic is more Gaelic.
> >
> >Is there also a "P-" versus "Q-" distinction, i.e. a Northern
> >Nindic sound change /kw/ > /p/?
>
> Well...actually no. /kw/ remained /kw/ in Northern but became /k/ in
> Southern. I didn't want to go too far Celtic like. However, /kw/ became /p/
> in Silindion, so I do have that sound change.
>
> North Nindic: cweir "crow"
>
> South Nindic: cair "crow"
>
> Silindion: passe "crow"
>
> < Silinestic *kwaSaj
>
> OR:
>
> N. Nindic:  cwew "red"  (Hinession: quoeu "purplish red, purple" /kw2/)
> S. Nindic:  cí "red"
> Silindion:  piva "red"
> < Silinestic *kwiwa
Interesting.  In an earlier stage when I still called my conlang
family "Quendic", I toyed with a "P-Quendic" vs. "Q-Quendic"
distinction, as there is in Tolkien's Elvish (Sindarin has the
*kw > p change), but I dropped it again, particularly because
I like the sound of /kw/.

> Irregularly (through analogy) *kw became /k/ in Northern Nindic as well as
> Southern.
>
> N. Nindic:  cechi "to heal" (< Old Nindic cwechi)  (analogy with forms
> like: cochor "he heals" in which *kw > k is regular before /o/)
>
> S. Nindic occuisc "to heal"  /okkuSk'/
>           oi-se-cosc "he heals me" /ES@kosk/
>
> Silindion: poskello "to heal"
> < Silinestic *kwossk-
I see from these etymologies that you have invested quite much thought
into the history of your langauges.  I plan to do something similar
with Albic, but I am still standing close to the beginning.
Old Albic is a language quite close to Proto-Albic, and I am planning
to evolve several daughter languages from its dialects.  I am also
working into the other direction; Albic is a sister group of
Indo-European, and I am working on the reconstruction of
Proto-Indo-Albic and maybe I'll later add more Indo-Albic languages
which are neither IE nor Albic.

I also have an ongoing e-mail conversation with Rob Haden, who
works on a language related to Indo-Albic.

> >Albic now has been under work for about four and a half years,
> >starting with the "Nur-ellen" language you perhaps remember.
> >While it started as a descendant of Sindarin, it soon went
> >into its very own direction, and became more and more independent
> >from Tolkien's languages; today, only a handful of vocabulary
> >items and a few grammatical similarities are testimony of the
> >Tolkienian origin of the project.  Now, the language becomes
> >more and more stable.  There haven't been major changes to the
> >grammar for a year or so beyond some additions of matters
> >formerly uncharted, and I don't expect any major changes any more:
> >the grammar is quite mature, and I am content with it.
> >What now remains to be done is more vocabulary, and filling
> >remaining minor holes in the grammar.
>
>
> Well, then we have another thing in common, inspiration by Tolkien.
Yes.

> Some word roots in Silinestic are Tolkienesque...but, mostly it's very I.E.
> like. And like you I have minor holes to fill mostly, nothing too big.
>
> I look forward to talking more about Albic and Silindion/Nindic with you.
So do I.

Greetings,

Jörg.