Re: Old Nindic to Classical Modern Nindic

Hallo!

On Thu, 30 Sep 2004 10:21:08 -0700,
Elliott Lash <erelion12@...> wrote:

> --- Jörg Rhiemeier <joerg_rhiemeier@...> wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> > Old Albic:
> >
> > Tirea im serim chvar banesi Nabomas adolas Aramaras.
> >
> > Tirea             im           serim       chvar
> > banesi
> > look.at-3PL:P-IMP the.C-PL-OBJ star-PL-OBJ because
> > beautiful-be-3PL:P
>
> > Nabomas adolas    Aramaras
> > sky-LOC above-LOC world-LOC-LOC
>
> How would you pronounce this? A Silindion speaker
> would say:
>
>  /tirea im sErim kvar banEsi nabomas adolas aramaras/
>
> very straightforward, is it close?
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/.

> 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.

>  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/.

> 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.

>       This
> seems like the phenomenon of "suffixaufnahme" which
> everyone around here mentions, with what is it
> agreeing?
It is indeed suffixaufnahme.  And what it is agreeing with is the
case of the preposition.  This sounds weird, but the preposition
is actually a *noun* _adol_, `the space above' which requires an
argument in the locative case: _adol Aramas_ means `the space
above the world'.  Now put it all in the locative case, and
one gets _adolas Aramaras_ `above the world'.  The allative case,
for example, would be _adolana Aramarana_ `to above the world',
and so on.  This system was inspired by Northeast Caucasian
languages which do similar tricks, only with postpositions
(which are considered case endings by some, resulting in enormous
case counts).

Indeed, if I had really been consequent, the forms would have
been even weirder; the last three worlds would then be

Nabomas adolaras      Aramararas
sky-LOC above-LOC-LOC world-LOC-LOC-LOC

The difference here is that `above the world' is a locative
attribute to _Nabomas_ `in the sky', while in the first version
`above the world' is an adverbial phrase side by side with
_Nabomas_.  Both are grammatical.

>
> > > Word Analyis:
> > > [snipped]
> >
> > I enjoyed reading once again about how one of your
> > beautiful languages
> > work.
>
> Once again, thanks. I'm trying to get something about
> it on the web, but I'm not sure how to do it at the
> moment.
I'm looking forward to it.

> > > Modern Nindic
> > > Ebeiddo elwyd mwyn eith nyber,
> > > e tharchilad obos Enyrdd.
> > >
> > > /Ebe:Do Elwid mwin e:T niber
> > > E TarxIlad obOs EnirD/
> >
> > Nice; the sound and the spelling closely reminds me
> > of Welsh.
>
> 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/?

> > > Word Analysis:
> > > [snipped]
> >
> > This is all very well-crafted; every minute bit of
> > your language
> > has a plausible history, and everything makes sense.
> >  One could
> > really believe these changes to actually have
> > happened.
>
> I've been working on the language for around 4 years,
> I dont know if I'd say that every part is well worked
> out yet, but I've done a whole lot that I'm satisfied
> with. I try to reasonn through every grammatical
> change that goes on in as much detail as possible,
> keeping my eyes open for possible analogy ideas.
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.

> > I can only repeat myself by saying that you are a
> > true master.
>
> Wow :) thanks. I've been looking at your Old Albic
> site a bit, and I really like it as well.
Thanks!  It pleases me that you like it.

>        I think my
> languages tend to be mostly Indo-European in
> feel...Albic tries to do something different, it
> seems. I admire that, but haven't really gotten very
> far with non-I.Eoid languages, myself.
Actually, I think that Albic is more IE-oid than many languages
I have seen here, though it has some elements that are decidedly
different from IE, e.g. fluid-S case marking, suffixaufnahme,
conjugation of verbs for subject _and_ object.  These elements
are partly inspired by various Caucasian languages, party my own
inventions (I already had suffixaufnahme in at least one language
I designed back in the late 1980s when I was a college boy,
without ever having heard of the term nor knowing of any natlang
doing that).  But it seems to me that there are traces of some
of these "non-IE" features in Proto-Indo-European, and Albic
is meant to be a sister group of IE.

Greetings,

Jörg.

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