New CBB

So, I stumbled across this a while ago, while reading a book about the history of conlangs, and I thought I would give it a try (well, give it a serious try, I had dabbled a bit before).

I figured that instead of trying to build my language from the ground up, I would establish a couple ground rules, and then just start translating a text and learn the damn thing. So, here it is.

Gandyal



I figured that I would start with the Babel passage from Genesis because... well it's fun.

Anyway, basic rules:
All consonants are voiced, and the basic feel is ripped from the vocalise I do at the beginning of every voice lesson. I wanted it to be a very musical language.

Pronunciation
a: a
e: ɛ
é: e
i: i
o: o
ò: ɔ
u: [u]
Glides:
y: glide [j]
w: glide [w]

B: b
D: d
G: g
J: d͡ʒ
L: l
M: m
N: n
R: flipped
Rr: rolled
S: z
V: v
Z: ʒ


Articles
Definite


Indefinite



Nouns:
Brick: n. Bazad
City: f. Banerr
Earth: f. Vandyerr (va- whole, andy-place rr-feminine)
East/Morning: m. Sandyerr
Heaven/sky: m. Vaél
Mortar: n. Dozad
Name: f. ganderr
Person: n. gandad
Speaking/speech: m. Gandyal (pl. Gandinal)
Stone: n. Zad
Tar: n. Glyod
Top: m. Andyél (and- place
Tower: m. Baél
Vily: f. Surface (wideness).
Word: f. ganerr
World (people): Collective pl. Da Vagandan (all people)


Declension


Adjectives
Beginning/rising: sal- sarr- sad-
Far: nol, norr, nod
Whole/all: val- varr- vad-
Same: sul- surr- sud-
Wide: vil- virr- vid-Verbs

Bari: to build
Ban: to do*
Banerri: to settle/build
Noban: scatter (make far
Dundri: to go
Gandi: to speak
Mendi: to use
Nairi: to stretch
Neyi: to have the intention to (verb)
Nomi: to eat.
Sayi: to happen, to begin (intrans), to come to be
Vunairi: to reach [into] intrans, takes acc. (vu- into)
Zari: burn/cook

Conjugation, regular
Active, Indicative


irregular




I am not exactly sure what i meant by this. I will have to figure it out.
Indirect
Pronoun-verb obj

1st sing: du-
2nd sing: dé-
3rd sing: da-
1st pl: dun-
2nd pl: dén-
3rd pl: dan-

Relative
Nom -ga, gan
Gen
Dat
Acc, -go, gon
Abl
Conjunctions
And: mel
Allora, so, now then, (introducing a sentence): Gaya

Prepositions
In: vu
For/as: on


Adverbs
Jungaya: otherwise (lit. Or indeed)


Any thoughts for a rank beginner?

Okay, sorry this is illegible. I will try to fix the formatting. Also, I think that I might get rid of the Ablative case. Most of my grammar is Greek/Latin based (since that is what I have studied [along with Italian, French, and German]) but the ablative seems excessive.

Hello.

It's a good start, but if you are looking for help as a beginner, you should head over to the Beginner's section where you can get a little more help. Also, one very helpful thing, and something that all conlangers should probably start with, is learning IPA so you can show us the exact sounds you want.

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♀♥♀
Dotjen
Kotanese

I do have a good knowledge of IPA (part of my training as a singer), I just don't know how to type it. I think I will head over to the beginners section. Thanks.

Great. There are many methods to typing it out. I tend to just use the character map that it built in to all PCs.

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Dotjen
Kotanese

There are a variety of ways to input IPA on computers.
If you plan on using it frequently (and we hope you do and continue to post here) then I'd suggest getting a custom keyboard layout. Another way with probably the least about of set up is to use this or something similar.

If you want to make your declensions a little neater, I'd suggest making a table. You can either do this using the 'code' tag.



Or like this:

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Ikasmu ati'uki nai uraiur.
Hinai nimuśim naimi nai sasamiur urukani. Śi'ama nai huhumiur na ni'amuśim nai sasamiur.
Pumaki nimuśim śima'a na ami nimuśim ara'a. Hini nihrasum i'aku tumra urukani na nihrasum sanik hraspir.

I strongly recommend using the IPA and standard linguistic terminology.

Your vowel system doesn't seem too Englishy, although I'm not sure why you used the acute accent for one vowel and the grave accent for another.

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"Wait for the starvation of glaciers, chicken hamburger Noel Weber Arthur."

= | = | =

Could be stylistic choice.

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Dotjen
Kotanese

Thanks. I tried to clean it up a bit.

The reason that the é and ò exist is because (borrowing from one or another of the languages I have studied) the acute closes a vowel, whereas the grave opens it. The 'default' forms of those vowels in this language are as they are without diacritical marks. Since they are much more common, the marks went away, and only the ones denoting a change from the norm have remained.

Cool, nice addition of IPA. One minor thing, phonetic pronunciation goes between slashes /ɑ/, phonemics in brackets [ɐ] and grephemes in angled brackets <a>

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Dotjen
Kotanese

Okay, when I do my homework and figure out what this means, I will fix it. [/grinning]

Phonetics go in the slashes, so that's where your IPA goes. Don't worry about the phonemics, that's an after thought. And the orthography, the way you write the words using Latin or whatever other alphabet goes in the angled brackets.

So the sounds go /hi:ɹ/, the writing goes <here>.

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Dotjen
Kotanese

Thanks.

Er, hold up.

Phonemic (i.e., broad) transcription goes between /slashes/.

Phonetic (i.e., narrow) transcription goes between [brackets].

Orthographic transcription, as you say, goes between <angle brackets>.

It sounds like you have it right (given that phonemics, the stuff between slashes, is what you typically do first, and the phonetics, the stuff between brackets, comes later), you're just mixing up the terms for phonetic (which means a narrow, mechanical analysis) and phonemic (which means a broad, phonological analysis)?

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任何事物的发展都是物极必反，否极泰来。

Oops. What he said.

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Dotjen
Kotanese

I'm a little fuzzy.

So phonemes are the actual sounds, and phonetics is how they are pronounced (for lack of a better term). Would allophony be phonetics?

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___________________ I am the Great Rabbit. Fear me, O Crabs!

Yes

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Dotjen
Kotanese

Sort of...but that's a kind of odd way to put it.

You can think of it this way:

Phones (phonetics) are concrete, while phonemes (phonemics) are abstract.

Phones are what you say, phonemes are what you hear.

A phone can be described objectively in terms of what speakers are doing mechanically to produce the sound.

Phonemes cannot be described objectively, because they only make sense in the context of a particular language's sound system. So, the English /p/ phoneme is by no means the same thing as the Mandarin /p/ phoneme, but [pʰ] refers to the same sound whether you're talking about English, Mandarin, or any other language.

The reason a phonemic transcription is called "broad" and a phonetic transcription is called "narrow" is because phonetic transcriptions must include way more detail than phonemic transcriptions do, because they have to describe the fine details of everything the speaker is doing when they pronounce something. Phonemic transcriptions, on the other hand, only have to mark whatever constitute distinctive features in the language's phonology.


Note for yeps: Once again, don't worry about this stuff at the moment unless you find it really interesting. Designing the allophony/phonetic system of your language is a more advanced step that you can totally put off until later.

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任何事物的发展都是物极必反，否极泰来。

A phone is also a device that allows one to talk to another over great distance...

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Dotjen
Kotanese

True, but you should not typically store that type of phone in brackets. Or slashes, for that matter.

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任何事物的发展都是物极必反，否极泰来。