Celtic/Tolkien influenced conlangs (was Re: Nindic Nominal Morphology)

Hallo!

On Thu, 21 Oct 2004 08:45:58 -0000,
Christian Thalmann <cinga@...> wrote:

> --- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Elliott Lash <erelion12@Y...> wrote:
>
> > I'm glad that you enjoyed some aspects, even though
> > the overall asthetic wasn't to your liking :)
>
> It's not that I don't like the aesthetics (I do, to a
> certain degree); IMHO it's just not very imaginative...
> Countless Tolkien fans have done the same.
I must confess guilty here, too: Albic is strongly influenced by
Tolkien's languages (it started out as an attempt to design a
Sindarin-derived language for modern-day Tolkienian Elves,
but then the project took a different direction), and of the
(yet only VERY sketchy) modern descendants of Old Albic,
one will be similar to Welsh and another to Irish, especially
in terms of phonology (initial mutations, etc.) but also grammar
(all Albic languages are VSO, have definite but no indefinite
articles, etc.).  However, all the Albic languages also have
features found neither in Celtic nor in Tolkien's Elvish
(e.g., fluid-S argument marking with degrees of volition,
Suffixaufnahme), and I have a rationale for the similarities
between Albic and Insular Celtic, namely the British Isles
linguistic area which consists of Insular Celtic, Albic and Pictic.
(See http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lostlangs/message/72 for more
on that linguistic area.)

>       I guess
> all conlangs have parts plagiarized from real languages
> (just think of all the romlangs! mine included...);
Very true.

>       the
> spelling is just a particularly conspicuous thing to
> borrow.  Maybe it's just that I particularly like making
> up typographical flavor for a conlang.  ;-)
I don't intend to copy Celtic spellings for my Albic languages,
not even for the Welsh-like or the Irish-like one.  The Old Albic
transliteration (which is the only one fixed yet; the language
also has its own, featural script) is vaguely inspired by Celtic
spellings, however, with |c| always pronouced [k], and digraphs
|ph|, |th|, |ch| for the spirants /f/, /T/, /x/.  (The letter |ø|
for the mid front rounded vowel is of course nicked from Scandinavian.)
This orthography will also be that of Modern Low Elvish (the
"Welsh-like" among the Albic languages); the intrafictional rationale
is that it is the usual orthography used by the scholars studying
the language.

Greetings,

Jörg.