Cein and Aelya

 Hey Daniel,

    I really want to say thanks - your work with Cein
has really gotten Aelya moving. I can't help but think
of the two langs as siblings, like Irish and Scots
Gaelic (okay, technically, one's a parent of the
other, but you see what I mean). Cein is still in my
top five (actually, it's in the top 2 faves!).
    I do have a couple of questions for you - how do
you decide when you should have a mutation or not? I
keep ending up with a mutation for everything, and I
really don't want that! I'm about to decide that
plurals always have a soft mutation (t>d, frex), and
leave it at that, even though I want a spirant
mutation as well.
    How does initial /K/ {ll} arise in Cein?

    An interesting comparison between Aelya and Cein:

    Cein ann, an = Aelya ann (oblique stem in and-)
       Nasals cause voicing of following unvoiced
stops, and final -nd > nn.
       I'm toying with the idea od spirantization of
voiced stops after nasals as well, which would give
ann, anydh, but I'm thinking no at the moment. Since
there are so many meanings glommed onto this one word,
I think differentiation would've happened, and some of
the meanings will be taken over by Irish, Welsh,
Sindarin, or Norwegian loans.

    Cein ew 'little bird' = Aelya eun 'bird'
       The change in meaning (and the final -n) is due
to similarity with Irish e/n 'bird'. The meanings of
Quenya swapped in Aelya, and 'little bird' is
indicated by pilydh (oblique pild-). P- comes from
confusion in mutations: filydh was understood as
philydh from mutation of pilydh.

    As to article, Aelya has a plural article _na_.

    Here's a sample declension:

    cal 'lamp'

             sg         pl         part       dual
    nom    i gal       na cala     cell       na caul
         /@ ga:l/     /n@ ka:la/  /kel/      /n@ kawl/
    gen    i calle     na gale     cello      na caule
         /@ kal:@/    /n@ ga:le/  /kel:o/    /n@
kawl@/

    Part = partitive, from Q -li
    Dual = u-affection from -u
    Gen = from Old Aelya -hi > -e (who knows where it
came from)

    Note that this is very preliminary - like I
mentioned, I haven't decided on a stable spot for
mutations, and I think I want one or two more cases to
remain - maybe.

   I'm interested to hear your thoughts...

  Aidan

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