Kǎngasega seth Llǒthang: A Dialect of Solresol

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ajh
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Kǎngasega seth Llǒthang: A Dialect of Solresol

Post by ajh »

I've been beating my head against the wall working on this adaptation of Solresol because even I think it's too lazy to just appropriate an already existing conlang wholesale for my own use, even though it seems like there's only about two dozen people on the planet who know it exists. It was originally intended as a universal language, but my version is firmly in the realm of art languages, and therefore naturalism is not a goal.

Why Solresol? Because it fits perfectly with what I'm intending to use it for. "Kǎngasega seth Llǒthang" literally means Speech of Doom, so so for brevity my dialect will be referred to as S.D.

Posting what I have so far to try to work out some creative knots I've run into. Advice is appreciated.

Phonology:

Vowels - /a ɛ/ and the diphthong /oʊ/ (The diphthong /oʊ/ is the only one in S.D.)

Romanization - a e o

Consonants - /k g r ɹ n ŋ v f ʒ ʃ z s θ ð/ (I'm thinking of getting rid of /ð/ because I always slip into the voiceless form anyway, but I've included it for completeness sake)

Romanization - k g rr r n ng v f ll sh z s th thh (Romanization for /ð/ is awkward, but I didn't want to use a diacritic to avoid confusion)

Syllables & Phonotactics:

The seven syllables of my Solresol dialect have two pronunciations each: ka/ga | rre/re | na/nga | ve/fe | llo/sho | ze/se | tha/thha

Syllable structure is C, CV or VC. A stand-alone consonant can only occur at the end of a multi-syllabic word.

The first (Primary) syllable is always used when the syllable is itself a word (e.g. , or when it is the first syllable of a longer word. The second (Secondary) is used in the latter positions of multi-syllabic words. This helps emphasize word boundaries.

In general, the final vowel sound in a multi-syllabic is dropped. The final vowel sound is included when one of two conditions are met: when tone (indicates word class) or an apostrophe (indicates plurality) falls on the final syllable, or when a word ends with two consonants, e.g. the word "morning" in Solresol is "lalafa", which in S.D. would otherwise be "ezf".

Notice how "lala-" in Solresol became "ez-" in S.D. I don't like the way these repeated syllables sound, so consecutive syllables act sort of like a digraph and are always pronounced as one reversed syllable. Since "lala-" appeared at the beginning of the word, the primary syllable "ze" was used for the reversal. This holds true when the repeated syllable is one of the secondary syllables.

Grammar:

This is the place that's giving me the most trouble. Some aspects of Solresol's grammar I kept, others I changed. Advice and corrections are much appreciated.

Basic word order is Subject-Verb-Object: "He likes coffee", "She picked the apples", etc.

Adjectives follow the noun they describe: "The giant tree" becomes "The tree giant".

There are no articles (a/an, the): "A large shadow appeared" becomes "Large shadow appeared", "The bug crawled away" becomes "Bug crawled away", etc. This is one of two grammatical choices I took from Russian, which means I probably did it wrong.

To Be: This is the other grammatical choice I made that was inspired by Russian. Verb forms for "to be" are non-existent in the present tense, but exist in the past and future tenses.

"He was cold" becomes "kaf ák vereng zeath", literally "He [simple past particle] [to be] cold".
"He is cold" becomes "kaf zeath", or literally "He cold".
"He will be cold" becomes "kaf éz vereng zeath", literally "He [simple future particle] [to be] cold".

*kaf is a general third person pronoun, so could mean he, she, it, etc.

Tone plays a role in several things, including indicating aspect in tense and indicating word class for words that fit into multiple categories. In general S.D. is spoken in a mid-tone (˧), and when rising or falling tones end speech reverts back to this mid-tone.

Tense is marked with particles that precede the verb they modify. These particles are reversed primary syllables with tone to mark the aspect This is carried over from Solresol, although the number of aspects is greatly reduced.

Simple Past is marked with the particle ák. The acute indicates a rising tone. E.g. "He read the book" becomes "kaf ák zegaf zegas"
Past Continuous is marked with the particle àk. The grave indicates falling tone. E.g. "She was reading" becomes "kaf àk vereng zegaf"

S.D. is by default written in the present tense, which is not marked by a particle. Context determines whether it the aspect is simple, progressive, etc. E.g. "kaf llothhag" could mean "He runs" or "He is running".

Simple Future is marked with the particle éz. Again, the acute indicates rising tone. E.g. "It will rain" becomes "kaf éz athga"
Future Continuous is marked with the particle èz. Again, the grave indicates falling tone. E.g. "They will be singing" becomes "kaf èz vereng llorengaf"

Word class is indicated by a falling/rising tone (indicated by a caron) placed on one of three syllables in a word. This is only done for words that fit into multiple word classes. If a word is inherently a noun for example, tone is not needed. This is yet another trait I cribbed straight from Solresol.

E.g. Prefer - nagaf

Verb: Prefer - nagaf - no tone
Noun/substantive: Preference - nǎgaf - tone on first syllable
Adjective: Preferable - nagǎf - tone on the penultimate syllable
Adverb: Preferably - nagafě - tone on final syllable, final vowel sound no longer dropped.

Plurality is indicated by lengthening the final vowel in a word. Its duration should be about twice as long as a normal vowel. This is indicated by an apostrophe preceding the final syllable of a word. E.g. "Evils" becomes "llǒ'nga". Note the caron to change the adjective evil into a noun.


That's all I have so far. Again, advice and corrections are very much appreciated. Below are all the resources I've been able to find about Solresol for your reference.

http://www.ifost.org.au/~gregb/solresol/sorsoeng.htm

http://solresol.blogspot.com/2012/07/le ... ammar.html

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... n_US#gid=0

http://web.uvic.ca/ling/resources/ipa/c ... IPAlab.htm
High Borogravian, to Vanglemesht, Sumtri and even Black Oroogu, the language with no nouns and only one adjective, which is obscene.
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shanoxilt
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Re: Kǎngasega seth Llǒthang: A Dialect of Solresol

Post by shanoxilt »

Be sure to check out Sidosi.org and Reddit.com/r/Solresol for more information on musical languages.
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