Re: Zetowvu / Ezotwuv (new conlang)

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

(Sorry about that first e-mail that got sent off before I'd finished
writing it.)

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 (five 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:

i         1         M u
                  U
 e        @\          o
           @
  E                 V O
   {
    a               A Q

Front vowels are _only_ unrounded.  Back vowels are phonemically rounded,
but also have allophonic unrounded counterparts which occur in a presently
unknown distribution.

CONSONANTS
w
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 13 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.  :)

The vowels are fairly straight-forward:
/i/  = <i>
/u/  = <u>
/e/  = <e>
/@\/ =  ?
/o/  = <o>
/a/  = <ae>
/Q/  = <a>

The consonants get a bit trickier.  Four are simple:  /r\/ = <r>, /l/ =
<l>, /n/ = <n>, and /w/ = <w>.  The other nine consonants are digraphs,
composed of one of the simples plus a modifying letter.  The modifiers are:
<z> extra long, <s> long, <v> short, <x> voiceless, <t> nasalized, <d>
breathy, <q> retroflex, <y> palatal, <g> velar.

Let's decompose the language name, Zetowvu/Ezotwuv, both pronounced
/e::o~wu_X/*.

<e> + <z> = /e::/
<o> + <t> = /o~/
<w>       = /w/
<u> + <v> = /u_X/*

* Is there any IPA symbol for short?  I only saw long, half-long (which I
assume is 1.5x normal length, where short is less than normal length), and
extra-short (which might be what I'm looking for after all).

One romanization method puts the modifying letters before the modified
letter, as in "Zetowvu"; the second method puts them after, as in
"Ezotwuv".  The second is easier for me to read, but I like the look of the
first better.  But they get to coexist, so it's okay.  :)

Now, would you expect a language like this to be isolating, agglutinating,
or fusional?  I'm leaning toward highly isolating, but I'd like some more
informed opinions first.  :)

I got curious how they might pronounce my name, Arthaey ["Ar\Tei], seeing
as they have no dentals or fricatives.  Perhaps something like Saryle/Asrlye:

<a> + <s> = /A:/
<r>       = /r\/
<l> + <y> = /L/
<e>       = /e/

This is, of course, assuming I'm pronounced /L/ correctly.  To me, it
sounds like the most restricted of the consonants, not counting the nasals,
which can't be used in this case since the sound doesn't occur at the end
of the word.


--
Arthaey, Asrlye, and Saryle  ;)


PS - Does anyone have a better ASCII representation of the vowels?  Here's
mine:

i y       1 }       M u
    I Y   I\ U\   U
 e 2      @\ 8      7 o
           @
  E 9     3 3\      V O
   {       6
    a &             A Q

Replies