owl: Namarie in tengwar (tengwar)
only a sinner saved by grace ([personal profile] owl) wrote2005-07-14 10:03 pm
Entry tags:

My baby conlang

I found this in an old notebook. By the state of my handwriting I must have been about 12-14.


My CXS guesses at what I then meant are in {} brackets

Rules of Pronuniation [sic]

a as in fat {probably [&], though it could be [a]}
ay as in play (added: ei) {[e]+[i], in light of the addition}
á as in paw {Almost certainly [Q], though a non-zero possibility of being [O] or even [A]}
aa as in cake {[e]}

e as in met {[E]}

i as in in {[I]}
í as in meet {[i]}
ii as in mine (added: ai) {Again, a dipthong, [a]+[i]}

o as in go {[o], or possibly dipthong [e]+[U], depending on whether I meant English or Romance o}
ó as in on {Almost certainly [O], though if á was [O] then this would have to be [Q]}

u as in good {[u]}
ú as in up {[V]. I'm surprised that I had no [U]}

c is always hard
ch is as in loch [x]
s is pronounced as sh before i and e {[S], of course. Shamelessly swiped from Irish.}
bh and mh are pronounced v {mh could have been a nasalised [B], but probably not.}
ph is f


It looks like Irish with a bolt-on vowel system. Sadly, I wasn't using the fada with any sort of consistency. It's interesting to see the early appearance of my favourite dipthongs, ai and ei.


Oní -Hello
Inó -Goodbye
Ya -Yes
Nen -no
Ays -Please
Se -thank you
Nam -man
Namap -woman
Iignó -boy
-girl
U -I
Ii -you
-he
ás -she
-it
Uan -we
Iian -you (pl)
Cáan -they
em -be
emh -was
emhel -will be
cas -do
case -did
casel -will do

In my sister's hand is added reth -you're and roor -your, which is then struck out by me, I assume. Ii em added must be 'you are'.



I note that plurals seem to form with -an, and to my amusement, I started with the irregular verbs. Nam for man, how creative.

It didn't seem to have a name, and it certainly has no current descendants. But it's fun to see how early I started.