Re: Cein and Aelya

Aidan Grey wrote:

Gah! My job this summer is much harder than I expected.
I'm too tired to do anything at all when I get home.
This is why replies in this thread might be a little
late. Like this.

> > And I'm guessing it's Aelya that's your number one.
> > :)
>   Of course! Actually, I'm not entirely sure I can
> tell which is in 1st and which is second - let's say
> they're tied. Now, if I leave Aelya out (being biased
> and such), Cein is #1 right before Tokana.
Oh, before Tokana!? I couldn't say which are my faves
since I like them all, but if I had to, Tokana is high
up, probably because of its phonology and its activeness.

And Aelya of course. That goes without saying.

>   I think what I'm going to have to do is go through
> and figure out what mutations any given word would've
> caused, and then decide why it dropped. The ones that
> don't have really good reasons for dropping would
> remain.
Sounds like a good idea. Myself, I just added the conjuntion
_a_ 'and' to the list of particles that cause soft mut.

>  Frex, ne 'by means of, with' < Q. -nen would cause
> soft mutation (voicing and nasalization). But because
> the -n is in there for both singular and plural, it
> will probably remain.
>   ne beith 'with a hammer'. <Q. petil > A. peith
>
>  Se 'into, on' < Q. -sse(n) would cause soft mutation
> in the plural only, and in the singular would cause
> lenition (fricativization). It would drop because of
> confusion/conflation with the the mutation by numbers,
> and would probably end up with only lenition.
>   se thae 'into a house' (tae < OI)
>
>   Na 'to' < Q. -nna(r) wouldn't cause any mutation -
> it might've started out causing soft mutation in the
> singular, but no mutation in the plural, and
> confusion/analogy would have lost it.
>   na taur 'to a forest'
>
>   This seems like it might work. Try to get rid of
> them, and see which one's keep coming back.
Very nice idea! You are going at this much more
thoroughly than me. I should do like you do above. It
makes it more realistic and much more detailed.

> > Aha. So you have _anta_ >> _and_, but _anda_ >>
> > _ann_?
> > I'm leaning against _anta_ >> _an(h)_, but I'm still
> > not sure.
>
>  Right. Anta > anda, and then both words lost final
> short vowel, leaving _and_ for both, which becomes
> _ann_. I'm pretty sure that I'll be replacing the noun
> 'gift' from this conflation with a loan.
Yes. I've noticed that my fears are beginning to set in.
I though (after having only 100 words) that the homonymy
wouldn't be too bad after all, but now that I've reached
200 words, I see that it will be. For example:

ann    '1. gate, 2. gift, 3. intelligent, 4. iron, 5. long'
car    '1. building, 2. fist, 3. head'

I think the homonyms _le_ 'thou' and _le_ 'look!' make
an interesting couple. It almost looks like they're
related somehow.

_Sen_ 'at, in, on' and _sen_ 'this' are an interesting
pair as well.

The solution I've come up with is the same as yours,
borrowing from Sindarin and other languages around them.

>    Well, then, in honor of our mutual enjoyment of our
> langs, henceforth, anydh is Aelya for "mutual
> excitement over an artistic (intellectual) project"!
> Ex of use: N' anydh olymh. /na,niD o:l@v/
>            Is app.  with-us(inc)
> Or would you prefer a different definition?
No no. That's excellent. I added it right away. It's
spelled _anydd_ in Cein, tho.

> > I like the Nordic way of having a long vowel when followed
> > by a single consonant and a long consonant (and short vowel)
> > when the consonant is double/geminate.
>   So do I! I love diacritics, but I decided that would
> be too difficult, so I'm doing my best to avoid them.
> My only problem at the moment is how to indicate long
> final vowels (only occur in monosyllables). Maybe you
> have some insight on how to do that? I suppose I could
> just write doubled vowels (e.g. noo /no:/) but I don't
> really like it, aesthetically. I though about using a
> final -h for a while (noh /no:/) but I'm not sure I
> like that either...
Hmm... In Swedish, this isn't marked at all, but all
final vowels are long, with some exceptions like "ha!"
which means the same in English, so this isn't really
a problem. I suppose you could make it just a lexical
feature you had to learn for each word, but this might
be hard for you to remember without any marking, and
we're back to square one.

Cein doesn't have any long vowels at all, but I'm thinking
of introducing them to avoid homonyms. Then I would mark
them with a circumflex, but like you, I like having no
diacritics.

>     Mutations are still SOOOOO up in the air, I kinda
> just guessed and placed them wherever. Still a lot to
> figure out, so I'm playing with various ideas until I
> hit on one I like. A more likely declension:
>
>            nom           gen
> sing       cal           celh
>                          < Q. cal-hi < Q. cala
> sg+art     i gal         i gelh
> plural     cala          caelh /keK/
>            < Q. calar    < calar-hi > calerh > caelh
> Pl+art     na cala       na caelh
> dual       caul          caul
> du+art     na caul       na caul
> part       cell          caell /kel:/
>            < cala-li     < calar-li > calalli
>            > calli       > calel > caell
>            > cell
>
>   I hope that comes out readable. I left out all
> mutation except for the one I _know_ happens, the soft
> after the sg art. Also, I don't know the IPA for the
> proper vowel in caell. It's a little more front than
> /e/, and a teensy bit rounded.
*More* front than /e/? Is your tongue sticking out
of your mouth when you say it? :)  My guess at pronouncing
{ae} would be [&] as in 'cat' or [ej]. A rounded [e] is
[2] but that seems unlikely to end up in Aelya. I'd rather
expect the opposite to happen.

>   Umlaut only shows up in words that derive from Q.
> plurals in -i. -a is more common, resulting from -ar.
> Umlaut also shows up in the partitive and genitive ( >
> -li and -hi respectively).
Hmm. I haven't really thought about having different plurals
from -i and -r plurals in Q. I thought the i-plural took
over all plurals, but this is certainly worth looking into.

>   Note to that the genitive above is more of an
> adjectival formation. Particle (o and va) are used to
> denote possession.
I wrote a short bit on possession in Cein the other day.
I'll post it as a separate mail.

> >         SG       PL       PART      DUAL
> > DEF     i gen    i chen   i gein    i gewn
> >        [I dZEn] [i xEn]  [I dZEjn] [I dZEwn]
> >
> > INDEF   cen      chen     cein      cewn
> >        [tSEn]   [xEn]    [tSEjn]   [tSEwn]
>   I really like the palatization you've got going.
> Palatization only causes umlaut in Aelya.
Well, it does in Cein too. The palatalization of {c}
and {g} comes from something else, I don't know what.

> > But what would I do with words like _ffein_ 'white
> > cloud'? Keep _ffein_ in PART, but have _ffewn_ in DUAL?
> or PART _ffeinn_ < fanya-li > fenli > fendi > feind?
> Dual coould be _ffewn_, or, since clouds aren't
> a natural pair, maybe use Q. -t, giving C. _ffeinad_?
Does Quenya make a difference between the dual as a natural
pair and dual which isn't? I didn't know that.

PART _ffeinn_ is clever. I'll keep that. The dual will
be w-insertion/u-umlaut as in _ffein_ -> _ffewn_.
I don't see any clashes there, since afaik _ew_ is very
rare in Cein words. The only example so far is _ew_
'small bird'. In these cases the dual is _-ad_, giving
_ewad_ 'two small birds'.

The ei-words ending in -n will get an extra n added in
the partitive as in _ceinn_ 'some speeches'.

Ei-words ending in another consonant as in _cobeidd_
'toilet' will get an {l} inserted between ei and C -->
_cobeildd_ 'some toilets'.

Y-words like _lly_ 'time' adds an -l to the nominative
stem --> _llyl_ 'some times, some occasions'

Ui-words in the partitive (ex. _nuir_ 'man') get the
suffix _-el_ added --> _nuirel_ 'some men'.

So an example declination with all the possible vowels
would look like this:

SG        PL         DL        PT        ENGLISH
------------------------------------------------
malf      falf       maulf     mailf     'throne'
od        hod        owd       oid       'war'
nur       ddur       nuwr      nuir      'land'
llinn     linn       lliwnn    llynn     'song'
ni        ddi        niw       ny        'woman'
lly       ly         llyw      llyl      'time, occasion'
elen      helen      elewn     elein     'star'
nuir      dduir      nuwr      nuirel    'man'
cein      chein      cewn      ceinn     'speech'
cobeidd   chobeidd   cobewdd   cobeildd  'toilet'
ew        hew        ewad      ei        'small bird'

Any comments or suggestions?

> What happens to long I in the GMP?
It becomes short.

> I would think
> that _ffym_ or _ffim_ (depending) would be more
> likely. What a cool irregular noun you'd end up with!
Yes! See _llinn_ and _lly_ in the table above.

> > Just like _ni_ [nI] 'woman' would end up _ny_ <<
> > _nii_ [ni] in the PART, but _niw_ in the DL. And
> > _llug_ [KUg] 'dragon' would be _lluig_ in DL and
> > _lluwg_ [Ku:g] in PART.
>    Looks excellent to me. Except, I think you mean
> _lluig_ in *PART* and _lluwg_ in *DUAL*.
Yes, of course.

> > I've practically removed all cases in Cein.
> > Everyting is taken care of by word order and
> > prepositions.
>
>  I'm very close to reaching that point myself -
> almost. If I had three cases (nom, gen, and something
> else) that would be nice. Possibly an oblique case for
> with prepositions. Or maybe just an archaic case, only
> used in Middle Aelya and certain formulaic phrases.
Mmm. Yummy. That would make Aelya even more realistic
with a diachronic perspective visible in some phrases.

> > If only Tolkien had been on this list as well.
> > Imagine having him in this discussion, too! I
> > imagine him having faced the same problems with
> > Sindarin, and having to make the same decisions as
> > we do with Aelya and Cein.
>  I can appreciate his flip-flops on a lot of features
> now, that's for sure! I think Aelya has had at least
> 15 different case systems...
Hehe. :) I decided from the beginning that Cein wouldn't
have a case system.

> > well, it's nice enough to see the similarities and
> > yet the small (and sometimes big) but very
> > interesting differences between Aelya and Cein.
>  I agree! It would be neat to have our own Ill
> Bethisad, if you're not too stuck on the Feanorian
> origin of Cein. I'd be the Quenya that moved to
> Ireland and then what is *here's* US. I have no idea
> what you'd want to do with Cein.
Well, I'm not too into conculturing. I like having a
short background (as I did with Seimi), but then work
mainly on the conlang. I think I want to keep the Cenos
(or the Chen) in Middle-earth. Mainly. But I don't see
why Cein couldn't be used in an _ilyf_ 'universe' of our
own as well. :)

> At any rate, i have a
> bunch of interesting ideas for how Quenya would show
> up, if you'd like to hear.
Of course!

> > PS. Is there a website on Aelya somewhere out there?
> > I've searched for one, but just got some sporadic
> > info on Aelya by Clinton Moreland-Stringham. Was
> > that you before changing to Aidan Grey or what? I'm
> > a bit confused.
>  Yep, that was me before the name change.
Aha. I remembered it was something like that but I
wasn't sure.

> And that
> page is ancient and icky. I've learned Flash and
> Dreamweaver since, and have plans for a good webpage,
> but there's still some stuff to work out with Aelya
> first. So no current page at the moment.
Okay. I'm looking forward to seeing the page when it's
up. And like you, there are still some stuff to work
out with Cein, so I don't have anything on the web yet
either.

||| daniel

--
<> Mad llammgalf! <> daniel.andreasson@telia.com <>
<>     Ond llamm! <> www.geocities.com/conlangus <>