Zetowvu / Ezotwuv (new conlang)

Alternate Subject Line: "You Evil People, See the Damage You've Caused!"

Emaelivpar Andreas Johansson:
>What I'm speaking about is not having only created one language for a
>particular species (which I'm myself guilty of in at least two of my
>constructed worlds), but asuming that all members of a non-human race
>necessarily speak the same language.
<whimper> No no no no, why must you Conlang people keep forcing me to
create new languages and cultures?  Why won't you just leave my poor,
simple little world alone?  </whimper>  :)

I used to blindly have just two languages on my world, my conlang for the
non-humans, and Terran (aka English) for everyone else.  Now...  on my
planet, Cresaea (which may be respelled "Creseia" if my sister can stomach it):

 - I still have the majority of Cres(ae|ei)ans speaking Asha'ille

 - I have a slowly-being-reconstructed Sarenshille (aka Old Asha'ille)

 - I have the Kegharn speaking Gharchove, a sister language to Sarenshille

 - I need the mother language to Gharchove and Sarenshille

 - I plan on making some sort of creole to be used in a geographically
isolated, large, coastal city well-known for its racial integration of the
various species and subspecies of the planet.

 - And now to the topic of this e-mail:  I'm working on a tree-dwelling
species, evolutionarily related to the Cres(ae|ei)ans, but smaller.  They
speak a totally unrelated language, the first I've had on the planet not
related to my main conlang, Asha'ille.  This is All Your (Collective)
Fault.  <scowl>  But it's worse than that -- Not only is this language
unrelated, it's totally different from anything I've worked with before.
Allow me to elaborate (and feedback would be most welcome):

I think their language contains only vowels, dipthongs, glides, and
liquids, and the occasional word-final nasal. Vowel length (three or four
levels), nasalization, and breathiness are all phonemic.  Vowel rounding is
purely allophonic, and exists only for back vowels -- yes, that means no
front rounded vowels, even as allophones.  Sorry, front-rounded-vowel
lovers.  :P  Relative pitch alternates every other syllable, but is not
phonemic.

I decided to work on phonology for this language first.  As such, the only
"word" I have is the name for the language itself, "Zetowvu" or "Ezotwuv",
depending on which romanization you use.

VOWELS
/i/  = [i 1]
/u/  = [u M U]
/e/  = [e E]
/@\/ = [@\ @]
/o/  = [o V]
/a/  = [a {]
/Q/  = [Q A O]

This gives me a pretty symmetric vowel distribution:1q1qFront vowels are
_only_ unrounded.  Back vowels are phonemically rounded, but also have
allophonic unrounded counterparts which occur in a presently unknown
distribution.

CONSONANTS
r\  r\`  j
l   l`   L   M\
n   n`   J   N   m

Nasals can _only_ occur in word-final positions.  All together, this gives
me 7 vowels and 12 consonants.

ORTHOGRAPHY
A limit I placed on romanization of this language is that I want the words
to appear pronounceable to an English speaker, even if said apparent
pronunciation would be 95% incorrect.  I'm aiming for some very systematic
etabnannery here.  :)

I got curious how they might pronounce my name, Arthaey ["ArTei], seeing as
they have no dentals or fricatives.


--
AA

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