Unnamed Language

Evening L. Aspen · **Joined:** December 2nd, 2009, 11:01 pm **Posts:** 1461

I am currently working to construct a language for my elf-like, mountain-dwelling race. I'm (sort of) following the Language Construction Kit that Neil linked to.
Here's what I have so far. Any comments or ideas would be greatly appreciated.

:

Quote:

Vowels:
a - short /a/ as in "father". Open sound ("ah") as in the Scandinavian name "Hans"
e - short /e/ as in "bed" when at beginning or middle of word. /ee/ as in "sleep" when last letter in word. Often written é when last letter.
i - always a long /e/ sound as in "sleep". No short /i/.
o - somewhere between long and short /o/. Pronounced like the /o/ in "over", but with similar stress as the short /a/ (This one is hard to explain...)
u - pronounced "oo" as in "too". No short /u/.
á - long /a/ pronounced "ay" as in "bay".
í - long /i/ as in "die".
ú - long /u/ pronounced "yoo".

Consonants:
b - as in "band"
c - always hard (as in "cake"). No soft /c/ as in "cent".
d - as in "dog".
f - as in "fourth". Soft sound, never pronounced like /v/.
g - always soft /g/ as in "goat"; never like /j/ in "jam".
h - as in "hand".
j - always hard sound as in "joy".
k - pronounced like the /ch/ in "chalk".
kh - pronounced like the /ch/ in the German name "Bach".
l - as in "lamb".
m - as in "mop".
n - as in "never".
p - as in "people"
q - /cw/ sound as in "queen". Never requires a /u/.
r - as in "ran". Always trilled/rolled slightly.
s - soft /s/ as in "sore".
sh - pronounced like the /sh/ in "show".
t - "team".
th - /th/ sound as in "think", never pronounced as the /th/ in "these".
v - as in "volley".
w - as in "well".
y - as in "yell". Never used as a vowel.
z - as in "zoo". (Not sure if I will keep this sound in the language...)

Letter Combinations Forbidden:
(these are just a few, more to come.

) bc, sz, scsh, gj/jg, fc, fh, pq.

Basic Grammar:
All I have so far is that adjectival pronouns always come after their noun. (For instance "My mother cooks" would be written "Mother my cooks". Hope this makes sense...)

I'm pretty sure that I will rely on sentence structure to indicate tenses and all that jazz, so I will soon be making a list of pronouns and some verbs.

~ Elsa

PrincessoftheKing · **Posted:** January 7th, 2010, 12:34 pm

That looks great!

It's definitely better than what I have... :roll:

But what you said about adjectival pronouns definitely makes sense!
Why do you need to have forbidden letter combinations? It just seems like some of them are obvious, but that might just be me!

Arias Mimetes · **Posted:** January 7th, 2010, 1:08 pm

Cool

And your notes actually make sense

Mine are a jumbled up mess that I'm not sure if anyone can read but me :P

Evening L. Aspen · **Joined:** December 2nd, 2009, 11:01 pm **Posts:** 1461

PrincessoftheKing wrote:

That looks great!

It's definitely better than what I have... :roll:

But what you said about adjectival pronouns definitely makes sense!
Why do you need to have forbidden letter combinations? It just seems like some of them are obvious, but that might just be me!

Thanks. I'm pretty proud of it myself.

About the forbidden letter combinations: The reason that I have a list of these is so that I don't use those combinations when I compose words. I know that some of those are kind of obvious and that's because I just listed the ones that I hated while I composed the list of sounds.

I'll get into more detail with this if I need it, later.

Sapphira: Thanks. I had to get my notes in order so that my parents and sisters could read them.

PrincessoftheKing · **Posted:** January 7th, 2010, 1:38 pm

Okay, I can see how that would be useful.

Evening L. Aspen · **Joined:** December 2nd, 2009, 11:01 pm **Posts:** 1461

I am considering adding /y/ as a vowel. I would have it replace a short i. It would only be pronounced "ih" when it comes after a /w/ or something, as in the name Cirwyn. I have an appointment with my mother to talk about this language, so I will run this by her.

Whythawye · **Posted:** March 19th, 2010, 12:07 pm

Inesdar wrote:

Th should be a letter in the english language. It drives me crazy that it isn't.

Alright, use 'x,' or 'q.' Both are extraneous.

Seer of Endor · **Joined:** February 16th, 2010, 10:36 pm **Posts:** 2603

Inesdar wrote:

Th should be a letter in the english language. It drives me crazy that it isn't.

Actually there were originally two different letters in Old English for the "th" sound: Þ/þ = THin and Ð/ð = THat. Somewhere along the way, they both got dropped and "th" was used as the replacement.

Whythawye · **Posted:** March 20th, 2010, 4:54 am

Inesdar wrote:

Q is extraneous?

Yes. 'x' is /ks/ and 'q' is /kw/. Two consonant sounds jammed into one letter. It is alright to have those types of letters, but they are extraneous. The reason is that we got our alphabet from a different language. Haha.

Whythawye · **Posted:** March 20th, 2010, 8:49 am

Inesdar wrote:

I vote C for being extraneous, it's two sounds can be made by either K or S

That one as well. Of course, 'e' has a lot of weight for such a little letter.

Evening L. Aspen · **Joined:** December 2nd, 2009, 11:01 pm **Posts:** 1461

Thank you all for your comments and compliments on my unnamed language. Since I am no longer working on this language and don't plan to continue developing it in the near future, I will now lock and archive this thread.

Thanks again,
~ Evening

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