2020-05-08 12:13:35 +00:00
|
|
|
|
---
|
|
|
|
|
|
title: "ReConLangMo 2: Phonology & Writing"
|
|
|
|
|
|
date: 2020-05-08
|
|
|
|
|
|
series: reconlangmo
|
|
|
|
|
|
tags:
|
|
|
|
|
|
- conlang
|
|
|
|
|
|
- lewa
|
|
|
|
|
|
---
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Continuing from [the last post][rclm1], one of the next steps in this process is
|
|
|
|
|
|
to outline the phonology and basic phonotactics of L'ewa. A language's phonology
|
|
|
|
|
|
is the set of sounds that are allowed to be in words. The phonotactics of a
|
|
|
|
|
|
language help people understand where the boundaries between syllables are. I
|
|
|
|
|
|
will then describe my plans for the L'ewa orthography and how L'ewa is
|
|
|
|
|
|
romanized. This is a response to the prompt made [here][rclm2prompt].
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
[rclm1]: https://christine.website/blog/reconlangmo-1-name-ctx-history-2020-05-05
|
|
|
|
|
|
[rclm2prompt]: https://www.reddit.com/r/conlangs/comments/gfp3hw/reconlangmo_2_phonology_writing/
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
## Phonology
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I am taking inspiration from Lojban, Esperanto, Mandarin Chinese and English to
|
|
|
|
|
|
design the phonology of L'ewa. All of the phonology will be defined using the
|
|
|
|
|
|
[International Phonetic Alphabet][ipa]. If you want to figure out how to
|
|
|
|
|
|
pronounce these sounds, a lazy trick is to google them. Wikipedia will have a
|
|
|
|
|
|
perfectly good example to use as a reference. There are two kinds of sounds in
|
|
|
|
|
|
L'ewa, consonants and vowels.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
[ipa]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
### Consonants
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
2020-05-19 00:19:02 +00:00
|
|
|
|
*Consonant inventory*: /d f g h j k l m n p q s t w ʃ ʒ ʔ ʙ̥/
|
2020-05-08 12:13:35 +00:00
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Manner/Place | Bilabial | Alveolar | Palato-alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Labio-velar | Uvular | Glottal |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|---------------------|----------|----------|-----------------|---------|-------|-------------|--------|---------|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Nasal | m | n | | | | | | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Stop | p | t d | | | k g | | q | ʔ |
|
2020-05-19 00:19:02 +00:00
|
|
|
|
| Fricative | f | s | ʃ ʒ | | | | | h |
|
2020-05-08 12:13:35 +00:00
|
|
|
|
| Approximant | | | | j | | w | | |
|
2020-05-19 00:19:02 +00:00
|
|
|
|
| Trill | ʙ̥ | r | | | | | | |
|
2020-05-08 12:13:35 +00:00
|
|
|
|
| Lateral approximant | | l | | | | | | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The weirdest consonant is /ʙ̥/, which is a voiceless bilabial trill, or blowing
|
|
|
|
|
|
air through your lips without making sound. This is intended to imitate a noise
|
|
|
|
|
|
an orca would make.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
### Vowels
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
*Vowel inventory*: /a ɛ i o u/
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
*Diphthongs*: au, oi, ua, ue, uo, ai, ɛi
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| | Front | Back |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|----------|-------|------|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| High | i | u |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| High-mid | | o |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Low-mid | ɛ | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Low | a | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
## Phonotactics
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I plan to have two main kinds of words in L'ewa. I plan to have content and
|
|
|
|
|
|
particle words. The content words will refer to things, properties, or actions
|
|
|
|
|
|
(such as `tool`, `red`, `run`) and the particle words will change how the
|
|
|
|
|
|
grammar of a sentence works (such as `the` or prepositions).
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The main kind of content word is a root word, and they will be in the following
|
|
|
|
|
|
forms:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
- CVCCV (/ʒa.sko/)
|
|
|
|
|
|
- CCVCV (/lʔ.ɛwa/)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Particles will mostly fall into the following forms:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
- V (/a/)
|
|
|
|
|
|
- VV (/ai/)
|
|
|
|
|
|
- CV (/ba/)
|
|
|
|
|
|
- CVV (/bai/)
|
2020-05-15 21:19:50 +00:00
|
|
|
|
- CV'V (/baʔ.i)
|
2020-05-08 12:13:35 +00:00
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Proper names _should_ end with consonants, but there is no hard requirement.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
L'ewa is a stressed language, with stress on the second-to-last (penultimate)
|
2020-05-11 22:08:53 +00:00
|
|
|
|
syllable. For example, the word "[z]asko" would be pronounced "[Z]Asko".
|
2020-05-08 12:13:35 +00:00
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Syllables end on stop consonants if one is present in a consonant cluster. Two
|
|
|
|
|
|
stop consonants cannot follow eachother in a row.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
## Writing
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I haven't completely fleshed this part out yet, but I want the writing system of
|
|
|
|
|
|
L'ewa to be an [abugida][abugida]. This is a kind of written script that has the
|
|
|
|
|
|
consonants make the larger shapes but the vowels are small diacritics over the
|
|
|
|
|
|
consonants. If the word creation process is done right, you can actually omit
|
|
|
|
|
|
the vowels entirely if they are not relevant.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
[abugida]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abugida
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I plan to have this script be written by hand with pencils/pen and typed into
|
|
|
|
|
|
computers, just like English. This script will also be a left-to-right script
|
|
|
|
|
|
like English.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
## Romanisation
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
L'ewa's romanization is intentionally simple. Most of the IPA letters keep their
|
|
|
|
|
|
letters, but the ones that do not match to Latin letters are listed below:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Pronunciation | Spelling |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|---------------|----------|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| /j/ | *y* |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| /ɛ/ | *e* |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| /ʃ/ | *x* |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| /ʒ/ | *z* |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| /ʔ/ | *'* |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| /ʙ̥/ | *b* |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
This is designed to make every letter typeable on a standard US keyboard, as
|
|
|
|
|
|
well as mapping as many letters as possible on the home row of a QWERTY
|
|
|
|
|
|
keyboard.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
---
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I am still working on the tooling for word creation and the like. I plan to use
|
|
|
|
|
|
the [Swaedish lists][swaedish] (this site is having certificate issues at the
|
|
|
|
|
|
time of writing this post) to help guide the creation of a base vocabulary. I
|
|
|
|
|
|
will go into more detail in the future.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
[swaedish]: https://cals.info/word/list/
|
