New CBB

The lowering is only in the phonetic bits because I'm trying to be as narrow as possibly with the transcription. When I'm using broad phonemic transcription I'd just use /e/ and /o/ (which I basically didn't because the romanisation is near enough phonemic that putting a broad transcription in as well would have felt superfluous, aside from in the list of vowel phonemes at the top).

/i/ and /u/ are close enough to the cardinal vowels to not warrant any diacritics in narrow transcription (I think), although they're ever so slightly more central that the corresponding cardinal vowels.

Thanks for the comments!

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It looks good. I'll read it more carefully later and may think of something else to ask or say.

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I am not responsible for the accuracy of my sources; they're responsible for their own mistakes, if any, and also responsible for defending their own statements if you disagree with them.

There seems to be an allophonic(?) change h -> p in these forms. What's it? I didn't quickly find it in your notes. Does <pm> stand for a prestopped nasal?

What's the frequency of the prefixes like 'su-'? How often do you say 'all the men' not just 'the men'?

The change seems to be a result of this rule:

"A syllable final plosive is debuccalised" (from "Allophonic rules" section of the OP)

The underlying form would be /mimurap/, realised as [mimurah].

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You can tell the same lie a thousand times,
But it never gets any more true,
So close your eyes once more and once more believe
That they all still believe in you.
Just one time.

Handy! The lang must be good, I love sandhi.
I guessed it's something like that, but didn't just find it.

Sorry to have taken a while in replying. As far as this is concerned, I'm actually still tweaking the morphology around a bit, and some of those prefixes might well end up as clitics.



Essentially yes, although the [p] in <mimurapmi> is actually down to the stop assimilating to the point of articulation of the following sound (the /m/ in that example). The final sound in <murah> is actually underspecified for place. (Also worth bearing in mind is that I'm using <h> for a glottal stop in syllable final position, so <mimurah> is [ˌmimuˈʁaʔ].

(What's in the OP has actually be superseded by a few re-evaluations of the phonology. I should probably add a link to the latest version there.)

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I've updated the grammar document for the modifications to syllable-final consonant allophony, and posted a link to it in the first post.

I think I might try to come up with a description of the diachronic phonology now, given I've had that worked out for a while, but haven't posted it anywhere.

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As mentioned elsewhere, I've been writing myself a little Kantaranyan myth to test out my morphosyntactic ideas (well, I actually wrote it in English first and am translating it into Kantaranyan). I've decided to post this in bits so it isn't too long. Here's the first one:

Tareev mimayakomi:
Mayap ma yavi tuken asalan ula amar kavi avahe mentu meylan tareer. Tareey sunet avahe nula tako meremi, nuki mev meylanxetxa kala kaviya Muronta, kiet nala imet nita sunet nula yavma ixin hamir. In tareey saysarku im mev mara akay xaliqe mivarravmi akamur, in yev merekami sunet nula xinti kivar en tonter hani. In tareev mikavmi tampo in takokuta sunet nula mere aqekor.

And now broken up into parts and glossed and translated:


Tareev mimayakomi
[ˌtäʁ̞e̞ˈje̞wmiˌmäjäˈkʷo̞mi]
Taree-r mi-maya-ko-mi
Bird-PL 3.AN.POSS-tell-NMLZ-PL.POSS
The birds, their story

Mayap ma yavi tuken asalan ula amar kavi avahe mentu meylan tareer.
[mäˈʝäp̚mä ˈʝäwitʷuˈke̞nˌnäsäˈlänˈnʷujäʔäˈmaʁ̞ˈkäwijäˈβähiˈme̞ntʷuˌme̞jˈlänˌtäʁ̞e̞ˈje̞ə̯]
Maya-t ma yavi tuken a-salan ula-∅ ama-r kavi a-vahe mentu meylan-∅ taree-r
Tell-IPFV.PASS CONJ when earth 3.INAN.POSS-skin walk-IPFV.DIRECT human-PL time 3.INAN.POSS-face world rule-IPFV.DIRECT bird-PL
It is said that before the time when humans walked on the surface of the earth, the world was ruled by birds.

Tareey sunet avahe nula tako meremi,
[ˌtäʁ̞e̞ˈje̞jsʷuˈne̞t̚täˈβähiˈnʷujäˈtäkʷumiˈʁe̞mi]
Taree-r sunet a-vahe nu-la-∅ tako-∅ mere-mi
Bird-PL everything 3.INAN.POSS-head past/through-go-IPFV.DIRECT value-IPFV.DIRECT beautiful-NMLZ
The birds above all else valued beauty,

Nuki mev meylanxetxa kala kaviya Muronta,
[ˈnuk̟iˈme̞wˌme̞jˌlän̠ˈʃe̞t̠̚ʃäˈkäjäkäˈβijämʷuˈʁʷo̞ntä]
Nuki mer meylanxet-xa-∅ ka-la kav<iy>a muronta
So 3.AN.PL king-be-IPFV.DIRECT to-go-IPFV.DIRECT choose<PFV.DIRECT> muronta,
So they choose the Muronta-bird to be their king,

Kiet nala imet nita sunet nula yavma ixin hamir.
[k̟iˈje̞t̚ˈnäjäʔiˈme̞t̚ˈnitäsʷuˈne̞t̚ˈnʷujäˈʝäwmäʔiˈʃiɴhäˈmiə̯]
Kiet na-la-∅ imet nita-∅ sunet nu-la-∅ yavma-∅ ixin-∅ hami-r
That from-go-IPFV.DIRECT 3.AN.SG wear-IPFV.DIRECT everything past/through-go-IPFV.DIRECT be.bright-IPFV.DIRECT be.blue/green-IPFV.DIRECT feather-PL
Because he wore the brightest blue-green feathers.

In tareey saysarku
[ˈʔinˌtäʁ̞e̞ˈje̞jˌsäjˈsäʁ̞kʷu]
In taree-r sar<sar>ku-∅
And bird-PL be.well<ITER>-IPFV.DIRECT
And the bird’s prospered

Im mev mara akay xaliqe mivarravmi akamur,
[ˈʔimˈme̞wˈmäʁ̞äʔäˈkäjsäˈliqe̞miˌβäʁˈʁäwmiˌjäkäˈmʷuə̯]
In mer mara a-kan-r xaliq-i mi-varra-r-mi a-kamu-r
And 3.AN.PL forest 3.INAN.POSS-tree-PL build-PFV.DIRECT 3.AN.POSS-city-PL-PL.POSS 3.INAN.POSS-shape-PL.POSS
And they built the trees of the forest into their cities,

In yev merekami sunet nula xinti kivar en tonter hani.
[ˈʔiɲˈʝe̞wˌme̞ʁ̞e̞ˈkämisʷuˈne̞t̚ˈnʷujäˈʃintik̟iˈβäʁˌʁe̞nˌtʷo̞nˈte̞ə̯ˈhäni]
In yer mere-kam-i sunet nu-la-∅ xinti-∅ kiva-r in tonte-r hani-∅
And 3.INAN.PL be.beautiful-cause-PFV.DIRECT all past/through-go-IPFV.DIRECT be.fine-IPFV.DIRECT flower-PL and gem-PL use-IPFV.DIRECT
And they decorated them with the finest flowers and gems.

In tareev mikavmi tampo
[ˈʔinˌtäʁ̞e̞ˈje̞wmiˈkäwmiˈtämpʷu]
In taree-r mi-kan-r-mi tampo-∅
And bird-PL 3.AN.POSS-tree-PL-PL.POSS dwell.in-IPFV.DIRECT
And the birds lived in their trees

In takokuta sunet nula mere aqekor.
[ˈʔinˌtäkʷuˈkʷutäsʷuˈne̞t̚ˈnʷujäˈme̞ʁ̞e̞ˌjäk̟iˈkʷo̞ə̯]
In tako-kuta-∅ sunet nu-la-∅ mere-∅ aqe-ko-r
And together-place-ipfv.direct all past/through-go-ipfv.direct be.beautiful-ipfv.direct sing-nmlz-pl
And composed the most beautiful songs.

I've made a couple of phonological tweaks as well: namely, consonants have lip rounding before rounded vowels, [j] is inserted as a hiatus breaker after /e/ or /i/, and /w/ after /o/ or /u/, so that [ʔ] only serves to fill in the onset of vowel-initial syllables at the beginning of a breath group or after /a/.

More to come when I get round to it.

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Nice!

You could put that to the Translation section.

Glad you like it

I've decided to have a go at translating it into Russian as well, so I might post it there when I'm done with that.

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Very interesting conlang indeed.

I have a few questions regarding the translation :



"So" is translated with a conjunction, but "because" is not: any reason fo that?



What is the relation between "mivarrami akamur" (= "their cities' shapes"?) with the beginning of the sentence? I may be mistaken, but shouldn't there be a verb or preposition somewhere to translate "into"?



Here the inanimate pronoun refers to the trees, but there is no animate pronoun for the birds, and no valency-decreasing particle either. So it seems there is no subject (I assume the language is not pro-drop, is it?)

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Nothing more interesting than that I could think of a good way of expressing "because" as a phrase, but not "so", so "so" gets to have its own word



Kantaranyan doesn't actually have proper adpositions: it tends to use relational nouns instead. In this case, "akamur" essentially acts as the postposition (so it's literally something like 'they built the trees of the forest into the shape of their cities').



"In yev merekami sunet nula xinti kivar en tonter hani." is coordinated with the previous clause ("Im mev mara akay xaliqe mivarravmi akamur,"), and so they two verbs can be considered to have the same subject unless a new one is introduced. Hence the subject of merekami is the "mer" earlier (i.e. the 'they' referring to the birds). (Not unlike the English "[...] they built the trees [...] into their cities and decorated them [...]"

Thanks for the questions!

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Ok, thank you.
Somehow I would have expected "into the shape of their cities" "mivarravmi akamurka", with the lative suffix (or another one maybe).

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Ah, right. I've actually scrapped those suffixes, but haven't gotten around to typing up the new version of the morphology yet...

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Think I might have just come up with a script I like for this language!

Here's the extract from the myth about the birds I posted earlier in the script:



(Spoilered because it's quite big. Quality's not brilliant, unfortunately.)

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