Lenoran--plus fun contests.

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Solarius
roman
roman
Posts: 1173
Joined: 30 Aug 2010 01:23

Lenoran--plus fun contests.

Post by Solarius »

I have a day and a half without anything to do and most of my friends are out of town so I might as well speedlang.

My method for this is to define a phonology plus some vague aesthetic objectives, and then translate some short texts to develop the morphology and syntax. Y'all'll get to guess what the text translated is and get a shiny prize! Without further ado, here's the phoneme inventory:

/i e a o u ɨ ə r/<i e a o u y ä r>
/p b t t͡s k s z x ɣ~ʕ m n r l j w/<p b t c k s z h g m n r l j v>

Diphthongs are hella legal, hiatus is utterly prohibited.
There's an Inuktitut-esque opposition between voiceless obstruents/voiced obstruents/nasals in the formation of clusters. Clusters must be homorganic in this regard, or they must be sequences of C+<r j v>. This can get a little screwed up in the morphology though.

Voiceless Obstruents: <p t c k s h>
Voiced "Obstruents": <b l g z>
Nasals: <m n>

Blagona, cr'ca.
go-1p.PL.HORT 1p.SG=2p.SG.FEM

Lravanug mnäkrstigig noku inär.
night-beginning when-PASS-put-3p.F sky.FEM LOC-3p.FEM

Aminäa ogoatr bza brgä in gäb.
CAUS-sleep-NMLZ client-GEN lie-3p.SG.NOM table.MASC LOC-3p.MAS like

Blagona, cr'ca, tkäkon tkesen tägrcä lon.
go-1p.PL.HORT 1p.SG=2p.SG.FEM specific sparse city.street.MASC through-3p.MASC

Hobäbobä sinblar kavi.
muttering going.back.MASC-GEN be

Lränä lravr bgrbas jutinar,
wideawake night-GEN cheap hotel.FEM-GEN

Juak jitbzär, juak nä'l kavi,
bark restaurant.FEM-GEN bark 3p.MASC=DAT be

I'm leaving off here because I realized the syntactic structure I want for relative clauses would mess up the flow of the language.

So, a few notes:
1. The syntactic structure is SVO, but largely left branching outside of that, with some flexibility. Probably shifted out of SOV pretty recently. Since this is poetic language, there's very odd syntax.
2. The phonotactics do rough things to the appearance of this language. I may either let up on the words with syllabic /r/, but it's vaguely inspired by BCS, so maybe not.
3. Pervasive M-F distinction. Seems to be mostly marked on postpositions.
4. Adjectives and Genitives don't seem to differ; both are marked with -r.
5. These are the inflectional affixes created so far:

Code: Select all

1. -gona 1p.PL Hortative
2. m- when (not sure of the technical term for this)
3. nä- Passive
4. -ig 3p.FEM, for verbs
5. -är 3p.FEM, for postpositions
6. a- Causative
7. -äa Nominalizer
8. -r Genitive/"Ezafe"
First person to guess the English passage gets to make up a word!!
Clio
sinic
sinic
Posts: 228
Joined: 27 Dec 2012 23:45

Re: Lenoran--plus fun contests.

Post by Clio »

First of all, just want to say how cool the postpositions and their gender and person marking are. The last two lines are especially beautiful in translation for their extreme brevity--the genitives are a bit confusing in a cool way.

As for the passage translated, it's T. S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," although the last line of the translation seems to be missing a mention of oyster-shells. It's a very nice read, in Lenoran just as in English!
Niûro nCora
Getic: longum Getico murmur in ore fuit
scratchpad
Solarius
roman
roman
Posts: 1173
Joined: 30 Aug 2010 01:23

Re: Lenoran--plus fun contests.

Post by Solarius »

Clio wrote:First of all, just want to say how cool the postpositions and their gender and person marking are. The last two lines are especially beautiful in translation for their extreme brevity--the genitives are a bit confusing in a cool way.

As for the passage translated, it's T. S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," although the last line of the translation seems to be missing a mention of oyster-shells. It's a very nice read, in Lenoran just as in English!
Correct! I didn't include the mention of oyster shells because of cultural differences--Lenorans along their country's northern coast tend to use oyster shells as decor in restaurants and kitchens, often painting them or covering them in sparkles. This would have led to an odd connotation in that line.
Solarius
roman
roman
Posts: 1173
Joined: 30 Aug 2010 01:23

Re: Lenoran--plus fun contests.

Post by Solarius »

Yo mäkaig.
sun.MASC shine-NEG-PFV

Linä naz, ä kreamigtgona.
wetness be, so play-NEG-PFV-1p.PL.NOM

Ä kegona ablat hjanär tuloig.
so sit-1p.PL.NOM house.FEM in-FEM all.day

Cr keigni Sally zägär.
1p.SG sit-PFV-1p.SG Sally COM-FEM

Gan keiggona lva in.
1p.PL sit-PFV-1p.PL two LOC-MASC

Ä srsigni Sally ma inär srs "Lzini srs ga'l kavi."
so communicate-PFV-1p.SG mouth.FEM INSTR-FEM QUOT want-1p.SG REL 1p.PL=DAT be

Linäjaup ljägäar leg kavi,
wetness-COLL go-NMLZ-GEN outside be

Halaup temäa ptalo zägär kavi,
cold-COLL strike-NMLZ ball.FEM be

Ä keiggona ablat hjanär tuloig.
so sit-PFV-1p.PL house.FEM in-FEM all.day

Zbuamiggona pe mi.
do-NEG-PFV-1p.PL NEG thing

Ä peizbuiggoro kegro! kegro! kegraup
!
so be.physically.able-do-PFV-1p.PL.NOM.3p.FEM.ACC sit-NMLZ.FEM sit-NMLZ.FEM sit-NMLZ.FEM-COLL

Tkyamigtka pe mi! pe mi! pe maup!
please-NEG-PFV-3p.MASC.NOM.1p.PL NEG thing NEG thing NEG thing-COLL

Ä väv...
so but

Srsigig bo!
communicate-PFV-3p.MASC.NOM.3p.MASC.ACC thump.FEM

Bogzi pätäkoktä!
thump-DIST CAUS1-be.afraid-3p.MASC.NOM.1p.PL.ACC

Gan gilaiggona!
1p.PL see-PFV-1p.PL.NOM

Ä gilaiggona trai inär!
so see-PFV-1p.PL mat.FEM on-FEM

Gan gilaiggona!
1p.PL see-PFV-1p.PL.NOM

Gilaiggona!
see-PFV-1p.PL.NOM

Njav kse inär!
cat.FEM hat.FEM LOC-FEM

I think yall should be able to let this one out of the bag.

Some notes:
-We have our negator: -a(m), as well as our perfective marker, -ig.
-There's not a single root for "say," rather srs means to communicate and then you add in another body part to indicate how. srs also is used to set off quotatives and relative clauses.
-kavi seems to always come at the end of the sentence, and although it doesn't take agreement pro-drop still applies.
-CAUS1 and CAUS2 are two kinds of causatives, which imply physical coercion vs. non-physical control.
-There's no lexical difference between "to see" and "to look." The difference can be implied by not pro-dropping, or by adverbs if you have to be clear.
shimobaatar
korean
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Posts: 10373
Joined: 12 Jul 2013 23:09
Location: UTC-04:00

Re: Lenoran--plus fun contests.

Post by shimobaatar »

Solarius wrote:/i e a o u ɨ ə r/<i e a o u y ä r>
/p b t t͡s k s z x ɣ~ʕ m n r l j w/<p b t c k s z h g m n r l j v>
I love the aesthetic and structure of this language so far! Sorry I'm a bit late responding here.

Orthographically, what does the apostrophe represent in words like "cr'ca" and "nä'l"?
Solarius wrote:Njav kse inär!
cat.FEM hat.FEM LOC-FEM

I think yall should be able to let this one out of the bag.
Green Eggs and Ham? [:P]
Solarius
roman
roman
Posts: 1173
Joined: 30 Aug 2010 01:23

Re: Lenoran--plus fun contests.

Post by Solarius »

Thanks! You're soooo close with the guess...
shimobaatar
korean
korean
Posts: 10373
Joined: 12 Jul 2013 23:09
Location: UTC-04:00

Re: Lenoran--plus fun contests.

Post by shimobaatar »

Solarius wrote:You're soooo close with the guess...
Heh, I was just joking. It's The Cat in the Hat, right?
Davush
greek
greek
Posts: 672
Joined: 10 Jan 2015 14:10

Re: Lenoran--plus fun contests.

Post by Davush »

Just stopping by to say I really like the aesthetic of this language. It kind of reminds me of Tibetan mixed with Georgian or something.
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