Silvish

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Re: Silvish

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Ælfwine wrote: 26 Jul 2018 02:23Trust me, you aren't the only one struggling here. Pelsodian has changed many forms, from an originally agglutinative Turkish inspired romlang to something more realistically in line with Romance dialectology as of the same date. And the more I read (I just bought a book on Vegliote Dalmatian and Rhetoromance), the more I want to change things!
Same here! I can't read about Romance languages without tweaking Silvish afterward.
Ælfwine wrote:The new developments in Silvish are interesting. They remind me somewhat of Ligurian, tbh.
That's interesting because Silvish owes a couple big features to Ligurian: ablaut and the preponderance of /ŋ/ (even if it's often realized other ways). But in terms of my everyday influences these past months, I've hardly looked at it. It's been various dialects of Arpitan for me.
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Re: Silvish

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The nouns are gradually working themselves out in my head. And I thought of an interesting set that demonstrate the overlapping genders. You have:
  • Masculine noble: li fizicou “(male) physicist”
  • Feminine noble: le fizica “(female) physicist”
  • Masculine common: lou fizicou “physique”
  • Feminine common: la fizica “physics”
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Re: Silvish

Post by Ælfwine »

Pluj interesant!

Very interesting!
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Re: Silvish

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The form I want Silvia to take is reaching critical mass. I'm not sure what structure to talk about it in, so I'll just start with an alternate-timeline Wikipedia page.
Silvia, officially known as the Prince-Archbishopric of Silvia, is a country located in the Western Alps. It is bordered by France to the west and Italy to the east. Its capital city is Moûtiers. The Silvish government is structured as a parliamentary democracy under an elective, sacerdotal monarchy. The head of state is the prince-archbishop. Silvia's combination of religious and secular power dates back to 996, when the king of Burgundy granted the County of Tarentaise to the Archbishop of Tarentaise. The country has known periods of independence, with the current one beginning in 1860.

The country is named for its most famous leader and patron saint, Silvius[*], also known as Siclewig, who presided over the area in the 12th century. Silvius laid the groundwork for Silvia's expansion to its modern borders and is credited with establishing many aspects of the national character, like a commitment to charity.

[* St. Silvius corresponds to our universe's Peter of Tarentaise (not to be confused with the first Peter of Tarentaise, who was also an archbishop of Tarentaise, or the Peter of Tarentaise who became Pope Innocent V).]
And here's a tentative map of Silvia's modern borders. The dotted line represents the real-life border of France and Italy.
Spoiler:
Image
The details of how Silvia managed to survive to the modern day are still pretty handwavy, but a lot less than they used to be. The archbishop-counts of Tarentaise really existed and were for a time sovereign. The main problem is the House of Savoy, which absorbs everything it touches. [>:|] It didn't unite Italy by minding other states' authority. I hope with more research I can come up with a fully plausible history, but I'm also just fascinated with the idiosyncrasies of this version of the country, so that's not a requirement for me.
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Re: Silvish

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Here is the coat of arms of the Archdiocese of Silvia:

Spoiler:
Image
I blazon it as: Gules, two keys in saltire or interlacing a wheel of twelve spokes argent.

The keys are the Keys of St. Peter, the patron of the episcopal see in Moûtiers. The 12-spoked wheel is believed to represent the passage of time. Two details, though not part of the official blazon, are traditionally included in depictions of the coat of arms. First, the blades of the keys normally contain the letter T, standing for "Tarentaise," the original name of the archdiocese. Second, the spokes of the wheel are placed in groups of three; this gives visual space for the keys to pass between the spokes, but it also creates the image of a cross.

As far as I know, the real-life Archdiocese of Tarentaise would have had a coat of arms, but the archdiocese no longer exists, and a deteriorating carving is the only evidence of the arms I've managed to find. So I came up with my own based on other symbols I found associated with the archbishops. Also, this version of the arms is adapted from a mock-up I made on Draw Shield.
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Re: Silvish

Post by All4Ɇn »

Wow that's a really cool looking map you have there! Do you have any population estimates for Silvia? Both for the country in general and maybe potentially for some cities?
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Re: Silvish

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Why, thank you. [:)] This new idea motivated me to finally get my cartography game together.

In our timeline, there are roughly 110,000 people living within those borders, which cover a bit less than 2,500 km². The biggest city by far is Albertville, with 19,000 people. The next largest cities are Bourg-Saint-Maurice and Ugine, each with about 7,000 people. Then my would-be capital Moûtiers has about 3,500 people.

I'll obviously change at least some of these numbers as I work out Silvia's history. For example, Albertville is a fusion of two historical towns; it's not unlikely that I'll ultimately put one in Silvia and the other in France. And I'm sure being a national capital would bump up Moûtiers' population.
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Re: Silvish

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I've settled on something I like for the coat of arms of the country of Silvia, as opposed to the archdiocese. It's significantly younger than the diocesan arms, for one because the archdiocese existed before the County of Tarentaise was combined with it, and for two because the archbishops didn't at first make a strong distinction between their spiritual and temporal powers.

Spoiler:
Image
I blazon it as follows:

Quarterly: First and fourth sable, a bend chequy gules and argent of two tiers; second gules, a cross argent; third or; over all an escutcheon gules, two keys in saltire or interlacing a wheel of twelve spokes argent.

To unpack the symbolism:

The arms is divided into four quarters, the top left and bottom right quarters showing a red and white checkered diagonal strip over a black field. This is the Cistercian bend, a reference to two figures of Silvish history who belonged to the Cistercian religious order: St. Bernard, after whom the Little St. Bernard Pass is named; and St. Silvius, after whom the country is named.

The top right quarter, a white cross on a red field, is the coat of arms of the House of Savoy. Relations between Silvia and Savoy were always delicate at best because the latter regularly challenged the archbishops' power. But there is no denying the deep interconnection of the two states. For example, the archbishops often interceded as arbitrators in Savoy's other territorial disputes. And more than a few Savoyard sons have served as archbishop.

The bottom left quarter, a gold field, is the arms of Pope Alexander III, who expanded the authority of the archbishop-counts to the borders that would become modern Silvia.

The archdiocesan coat of arms is placed over top of all of these.
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Re: Silvish

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I need your opinions on some flag ideas for Silvia. Which do you like better? What would you change?

The first design is meant to evoke the coat of arms, shown in my previous post. I've experimented with a lot of embellishments, but I'll just keep it simple for now. The second design is an attempt to look for other imagery; it represents the river valleys that define Silvish geography. The red border calls back to the many red elements in the coat of arms.


Image


Image
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Re: Silvish

Post by WeepingElf »

I definitely like the first flag better. It's good. The second is outright bad. And I also like that coat-of-arms!
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Re: Silvish

Post by All4Ɇn »

I really like both of them! The first one is definitely better as the flag for the country however. I think the second wold look great maybe for a city or province or something?
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Re: Silvish

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WeepingElf wrote: 09 Feb 2019 15:51I definitely like the first flag better. It's good. […] And I also like that coat-of-arms!
Yay! Thank you.

WeepingElf wrote:The second is outright bad.
Oh no! [xD] Do you see a path to redemption? What do you think could improve?

All4Ɇn wrote: 09 Feb 2019 17:08 I really like both of them! The first one is definitely better as the flag for the country however. I think the second wold look great maybe for a city or province or something?
Great to hear! It's funny that you should mention cities because while I came up with the river concept on my own, I only added the wavy edges after seeing the flag of Andorra's capital city.
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Re: Silvish

Post by Jackk »

I could see the second flag being fun with a slightly-diagonal set of green-blue-green bars instead of waves. [:D]
terram impūram incolāmus
hamteu un mont sug
let us live in a dirty world
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Re: Silvish

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Jackk wrote: 09 Feb 2019 20:20 I could see the second flag being fun with a slightly-diagonal set of green-blue-green bars instead of waves. [:D]
Hmm, something like this? I can't find examples of slightly diagonal bars on flags, so the proportions might need tweaking.

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Re: Silvish

Post by Ælfwine »

Dormouse559 wrote: 28 Jan 2019 04:41 The form I want Silvia to take is reaching critical mass. I'm not sure what structure to talk about it in, so I'll just start with an alternate-timeline Wikipedia page.
Silvia, officially known as the Prince-Archbishopric of Silvia, is a country located in the Western Alps. It is bordered by France to the west and Italy to the east. Its capital city is Moûtiers. The Silvish government is structured as a parliamentary democracy under an elective, sacerdotal monarchy. The head of state is the prince-archbishop. Silvia's combination of religious and secular power dates back to 996, when the king of Burgundy granted the County of Tarentaise to the Archbishop of Tarentaise. The country has known periods of independence, with the current one beginning in 1860.

The country is named for its most famous leader and patron saint, Silvius[*], also known as Siclewig, who presided over the area in the 12th century. Silvius laid the groundwork for Silvia's expansion to its modern borders and is credited with establishing many aspects of the national character, like a commitment to charity.

[* St. Silvius corresponds to our universe's Peter of Tarentaise (not to be confused with the first Peter of Tarentaise, who was also an archbishop of Tarentaise, or the Peter of Tarentaise who became Pope Innocent V).]
And here's a tentative map of Silvia's modern borders. The dotted line represents the real-life border of France and Italy.
Spoiler:
Image
The details of how Silvia managed to survive to the modern day are still pretty handwavy, but a lot less than they used to be. The archbishop-counts of Tarentaise really existed and were for a time sovereign. The main problem is the House of Savoy, which absorbs everything it touches. [>:|] It didn't unite Italy by minding other states' authority. I hope with more research I can come up with a fully plausible history, but I'm also just fascinated with the idiosyncrasies of this version of the country, so that's not a requirement for me.
Have you thought about making a latex pdf file for Silvish? I think it might be worthy of those.
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Re: Silvish

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Ælfwine wrote: 10 Feb 2019 03:20Have you thought about making a latex pdf file for Silvish? I think it might be worthy of those.
No, I hadn't thought about it. Maybe I'll look into LaTeX at some point. But no doubt I'd be just as unreliable updating a pdf as I am with this thread. [:$]
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Re: Silvish

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Dormouse559 wrote: 10 Feb 2019 21:24
Ælfwine wrote: 10 Feb 2019 03:20Have you thought about making a latex pdf file for Silvish? I think it might be worthy of those.
No, I hadn't thought about it. Maybe I'll look into LaTeX at some point. But no doubt I'd be just as unreliable updating a pdf as I am with this thread. [:$]
Not necessarily, a pdf can be a great way to showcase a conlang. The problem with this thread is that comments and other stuff make it difficult to properly find and update the material you've presented. Plus the forum is fairly limited in what it can do in terms of creating tables and the like. I've somewhat held off from presenting much on the forum for that reason.
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Re: Silvish

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I'm having difficulties figuring out how I want to mark stress in Silvish. The orthography is supposed to be largely French-influenced (the idea being that Silvish speakers who are only literate in French will find it easier to pick up the written form) but for stress, I took a more Italian route. So right now, the main tenets of the system are:

1) Only ultimate stress is marked.
2) Ultimate stress is unmarked if the ult ends in a consonant or long vowel.
3) Ultimate stress is unmarked if the ult contains the monographs <o> or <u>, or the digraph <eu>.

And the stress marker is either an acute accent or a grave accent, following Italian practice. I rather like this system and find it pretty intuitive personally. However, it isn't so user-friendly from the viewpoint of someone who speaks French, where stress is non-contrastive and almost always falls on the ult. It'd be a lot more useful to mark non-ultimate stress.

There's a ready model I could use for that — Arpitan. The Graphie de Conflans, one of the most common orthographies, has only one principle:

1) Only non-ultimate stress is marked. This is done by underlining the stressed vowel.

I might add an acute accent on final stressed <e>, to make sure Francophones don't read it as silent E. That's super straightforward, and I think the underlines looks both attractive and distinctive. But I worry about compatibility and how well they work behind the scenes. Underlining easily gets erased when you copy-paste, and the markup for it is difficult to read.

A hybrid could work like this:

1) Non-ultimate stress is marked. This is done with Italian acute/grave accents.
2) Ultimate stress is marked on <e> with an acute accent.

While this assists French speakers and avoids the practicality issues of underlines, it clashes with other diacritics. Note that a long vowel is marked with a circumflex. When a long vowel appears in the ult, it must be stressed, so in my current system there's no need to mark it further. But a long vowel in the penultimate syllable could be either stressed or unstressed, and under the hybrid system, that means doubling up diacritics. I'm not a huge fan of that, and I doubt it's well supported.

A connected possibility is to mark all stress. That would make sense because stress is one of the main indicators of boundaries for those phonological "chains" I'm working on. And all of the strategies I've listed above leave some chain endings unmarked. However, that still doesn't answer the question of what to mark stress with.


I put an example sentence in the different styles I listed above. You can find it in the spoiler. Which style do you like best? Do you have a more elegant idea?

Spoiler:
Current
La rrêzoù par chà s' ajissi d' responsâbletê d' intrettyé trê clê insi que de problêmi lojistic dyun lê neuv uzî qui pourouye gravaman accablé la hwin-a lojistica.

Conflans-Style
La rrêzou par cha s' ajissi d' responsâbletê d' intrettyé trê clê insi que de problêmi lojistic dyun lê neuv uzî qui pourouye gravaman accablé la hwin-a lojistica.

Hybrid
La rrêzou par cha s' ajìssi d' responsâbletê d' intrettyé trê clê ìnsi que de problềmi lojistic dyun lê neuv uzî qui pouroùye gravaman accablé la hwìn-a lojistìca.

All Stress - Underline
La rrêzou par cha s' ajissi d' responsâbletê d' intrettyé trê clê insi que de problêmi lojistic dyun lê neuv uzî qui pourouye gravaman accablé la hwin-a lojistica.

All Stress - Accents
La rrêzoù par chà s' ajìssi d' responsâbletề d' intrettyé trề clề ìnsi que de problềmi lojistìc dyùn lê neuv uzî̀ qui pouroùye gravamàn accablé la hwìn-a lojistìca.
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Re: Silvish

Post by cedh »

Can you give a few example words with unstressed long vowels in the penult? Maybe you can find a rule for when these occur...
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Re: Silvish

Post by Dormouse559 »

Sorry for the delay. So much real life going on these days.

Long vowels can occur in any open syllable except for an unstressed ult. There aren't really any other patterns in their distribution. [:S] Not that I can divine, anyway.

Some examples like you asked for, cedh. An unstressed penult of any kind must be followed by stress, which is why the examples look the way they do:
/beːˈte/ /beːˈteː/
/kʁuːˈʑy/ /kʁuːˈʑyː/ /kʁuːˈʑaŋ/
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