IELang

Reply-To:
I had a close-call this week - one disc died and another hiccoughed -
and one of them contained a conlang!  Fortunately that was the disc that
had a disc error and not the disc that asked to be initialised.  I spent
an evening putting all the good stuff on my harddrive and decided I
would back it up by telling the list about it.

So here's a bit about it.  The language is Indo-European - based on the
fabled language list I found in a copy of the American Heritage
Dictionary which I copied out years ago, unfortunately it wasn't my
dictionary and I've never seen that edition since, a'll diawl!  I
decided to use that language list in a religion in a conculture I
started working on a few years ago and started hunting around for
material on PIE grammar when I could find it.

I'll start with some information on its alphabet.  For reasons I have
since forgotten I decided that Vokhomos (the language) should be written
in an Aramaic font - unfortunate really since I don't have the software
for writting right to left, never mind!  So I'll dedicate the rest of
this post to the letters and their values in Vokhomos and invite
feedback.

The name Vokhomos comes from the verb form meaning 'we speak', but it is
declined as a masculine noun.

Alaf  /a/
Bet  /b/
Bet with seyame  /v/
Gamal  /g/
Dalat  /d/
He  /a/ (used as the feminine ending)
Waw  /v/, /o/, /u/, /au/
Zayn  /dZ/
Het  /x/
Tet  /ts/
Yud  /y/, /e/, /i/, /ai/
Kaf  /k/  (used if the next letter in the stem is Yud)
Lamad  /l/
Mim  /m/
Nun  /n/
Semkat  /s/
E  /0/  (marks vowel length, I'll explain below)
Pe  /p/
Pe with seyame  /f/
Tsade  /tS/
Qof  /k/  (used if the next letter in the stem is not Yud)
Resh  /r/
Shin  /S/
Taw  /t/

Seyame is two dots over the letter.  /f/ and /x/ are not initial sounds, and
/v/ is only if it is spelt Waw.  Seyame is also written over the initial
letter of a plural noun.  'The World's Writing Systems' got thoroughly
done over when I was thinking about this alphabet.

Other vowels:
Key: (A)laf, (E), (Y)ud, (W)aw
(Reading left to right, as normal for latin letters)
AA long /a/
EY long /e/
AY long /i/
EW long /o/
AW long /u/
WY mid front round vowel derived from PIE *eu
EWY mid front round vowel derived from PIE *e:u

If WY is not stressed in a word it is written W.  A dot is sometimes
written a letter where the vowel is as WY can also be /ve/ or /vi/.  I
often find it better to go have a lie down rather than try and read what
I've written.

Suggestions to relieve confusion, or enhance pseudo-historicity welcome.

- andrew.
--
Andrew Smith, Intheologus                       hobbit@earthlight.co.nz

            "Death is an evil; the gods have so judged it;
                  had it been good, they would die."
                                        - Sappho of Lesbos.