stsq'tstx!

[liquid crystal]

Hey, folks. As you may or may not know, I am pe2k's resident language guru. To examplify my guru-osity, I'll amaze you with the title.

Stsq'tstx

No, I did not bang my head on the keyboard, it is an actual word. It means something like "that's my animal fat over there" in a Native-Canadian language of only like, 6 speekers called Nuxálk. But don't ask me how to pronounce it. If you can't pronounce the next word, you'll have no chance of uttering this tongue-contorter.

Gvprckvni

Believe it or not, this is a word too. In Georgian (my personal favourite language), a language famous for its overwhelming consonant clusters, it means "you peel us". Yeah, definitely a phrase you'd use daily. Of course, if you can't pronounce the one below this, you're doomed if you want to pronounce the ultimate king in consonant clusters...

Strč Prst Skrz Krk

This is a Czech tongue twister that looks as if it has no vowels, but guess what! Rs and Ls can be used as vowels in Czech, and some other languages. It means "Stick a finger down your throat". This isn't too hard to pronounce...

So yeah, on this thread, I'll give some other freaky language facts (like that king I was talking about...), bore you to death's edge with my rants on the IPA, English Spelling, Language Diversity, and more, and share some of my current made-up languages.

Buh-Bye!

[liquid crystal]

lol, I guess I'll finally update this >.>"

Note: I'll be referencing the IPA (http://www.omniglot.com/writing/ipa.htm). Not that I expect a whole buncha folks replying to this thread... lol.

In case you didn't know this (and it's very unlikely that you do) I plaster any and all white space with random words, doodles, cross hatching, etc. Currently, I'm in this Cyrillic phase. I'm quite fluent in writing Cyrillic (not so much in teh reading department. Russian has all these weird rules about its orthography. Kinda like English! >.>"), but I'm rather anoyed it has doesn't have letters for [θ] or [ð]. But, I guess I shouldn't be complaining. There're barely any languages that use either.

I just love the hard sign! It's quite adaptable, I think. It has a rather supid function in Russian, just signifying that the preceding letter shouldn't be palatalized. What ever. "Ъ" could be used for [?], since, well, the glottal stop is rather "hard". I've been using some digraphs with is too: "къ" for [q] and "хъ" for [χ] or even [ħ].

The soft sign is fine the way it is, I think. For some reason, when ever I "doodle", I palatalize labials! "Мь" and "пь" are kinda funny to hear.

[liquid crystal]

I've been working on my conlangs:

English: he walks to school because he doesn't have a car.

Dutch-Inspired: hepp valkt ty scul vijan hepp gav nit 'n kar.
Pronunciation- /hEp va:lkt ty: Su:l vi:ja:n hEp xa:v ni:t @n ka:r/
Translation- he walk-HAB to school because he has not a car

Irish-Inspired: blalachsae chaigh shiulta boigheuich, ndiois-gcabnae car.
Pro- /bla'laxsa xai 'çulta boijuç njoS gab'na kar/
Trn- walk-HAB he school-to(LEN) because ((he)) does-haveNEG car

Turkish-Inspired: hoy ütkömdlö bajtok hoy ıhunautonë.
/hoi ytkœmdlœ baStok hoi @hunautonơ/
he walk-to-school because he is-his-car-NEG

Georgian-Inspired: xha vč'ek'mdliži fašt'eki xha axhnautone.
/χa vtS'ek'mdliZi faSt'Eki χa aχna.utone:/
he walk-to-school because he is-his-car-NEG

Chinese-Inspired: shrh4-ga1 bi2 se5 che6-su2 ge1-souk1 ga1 hi2-nh1 mh4-jei6-wrh1.
/Sr ga: bi sE tSE su ge so:k ga hi.n m.dZe:wr/*
he-NOM walk to place-learn because ((he)) NOM has-NEG metal-transport-wheel

Mohawk/Ubykh-Inspired: tw?ag'wetħamħatlh?a ridwaki tw?akxlha?ahutotlh?avi
/t^w'aG^wet^?\am^?\atK'a rid^waki t^w'akxKa?ahutotK'avi/
HAB-walk-to-school-he [is-the-effect-of] HAB-own-car-he-NEG

Russian-Inspired: зе к дяк мнахтой ружае зе у мовиль тхъё-нэт.
/zE gd^jak mnaxtoi ryZaije zE u movil^j txjo nEt/
he to school walk-HAB because he a car has-NEG


Yeah, if you didn't understand that, well, I'm not sure I do >.>"

[liquid crystal]

God, I'm bored.

I like the Greek alphabet now. Very white.

But it's strange there're like, 19 letters/digraphs that say [i]. No [S], though. lol, "sikago". Or voiced stops. The fricatives are pretty, though. [G] is very purple. But I like all velars.


AAAHHH!!! Sentences toooooo short! Very choppy. I mean, "God, the style of my writing today is unusually choppy and robot-like, which is odd, because I usually write books".

Ukh.

Okay, English spelling! I don't see why people are so pissy about it. Sure, there are some anomalies, but I can see the logic of it. But, if I was all-powerful, I'd slightly tweak it... But if I write a text out, it just looks too un-English. As you are, English, as you are. For now.... *maniacal laugh*

Current favourite word: Shark
Current least favourite word: Blast
Favourite foreign word: Vita, the (Modern) Greek word for the second letter of the (Greek) alphabet.
Favourite made up sylable(s): tslha
If-I-had-3-wishes-I'd-wish-to-speak: Russian
Random Synesthesia: Bowl>>>Black, Deep, Dipping, Valley
Fav Letter: C (when [ts])
Least Fav Letter: C (when [k] or [s])
Fav Di/Tri/Tetragraph: sc (when [S] (Old English))

[liquid crystal]

This page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writing_system) has the coolest map. Very interesting, very interesting.

Got a nothah wun:

Phonemes:
p b t d t_m d_m c~tS J\~dZ k g ?
f v s z s_m z_m C~S j\~Z x G h
m n n_m J N
w r l r\ l_m j L

i 1 u
e @ o
E O
a

Yay laminal consonants! Laminal/Apical distiction is cool. Go, Basque!
/r\/ (I guess techically /r\_m/) is a substitute for /r_m/, which is imposible to pronounce. Just like just about every other language that has them, palatal consonants can turn post-alveolar (technically alveolo-palatal, I guess).

Orthography:
papap babab tatat dadad tçatçatçe dgadgadge txatxatxe djadjadje cacac gagag ttattatt
fafaf vavav sasas zazaz çaçaçe geageage xaxaxe jajaje kakak gkagkagke hahah
mamam nanan nçançançe gnagnagne -annanne
uauau rarar lalal rçarçarçe lçalçalçe iaiai gliagliagle

ittittie uittuittuie uttuttoue
ettette ettette ottotto
èttèttè òttòttò
attatta

Strange-looking, but efficient (mostly). Inspired by some of the more obscure Romance Languages. Ç can act kinda like H. Final I and U *could* indicate palatalization and labialization like in Romanian, but are silent. Stress that doesn't follow the main pattern (usually penultimate) is marked with an accute accent, like in Spanish. Unstressed E is the schwa. Vowel+U/I (or vice versa) is a diphthong.

Ciao! Txau!

[liquid crystal]

Ngalaeos

My best excuse for a language so far. Irish-influenced, vocabulary adapted from English. Here's the good ol' Declaration of Human Rights:

I nDeochnata agus rRot moran siumach denenin paraigh agus echeanat. Vata rhoisin agus ncacsionac ghionada taigh agus i tSapaeriach-an-mrocht, soghot thaigh hEc-sata taigh.

Translation: In ECL-dignity and ECL-rights(noun) born humanPLU all free and equal. With LENreason and LENconscience endowed they and in ECLspirit-of-brotherhood, towards LENthey LENact-should they.

[liquid crystal]

I'm sure all my fans missed me the last month.

Anywho, you can say good bye to Ngalaeos. I decided it was to much of a fancy English cipher. I'm toying with a new conlang, one with four (!) latteral fricatives. In the early development of it (so far unnamed) it looked sorta like Welsh. I added phonemic vowel contrast and an alphabet that I might post some time. Unfortunately, I don't really have much inspiration reguarding what it should sound like. I'm toying between Finnish and, like, Inuktitut. Hopefully more new soon. Happy Chrismahanukwanzakah!

[PainKiller]

I Love This Stuff

[liquid crystal]

I Love This Stuff

Why thank you. But... Really?

[liquid crystal]

I just discovered the awesomest rhotic consonant! Seriously, I was just minding my own business, talking to my self as usual, and I accidentally articulated an ejective rhotic trill! Um, [r'], I guess.

Awesome. I need to, like, design a conlang just around that.

BTW, the second awesomest rhotic would be, of course, the Czech fricative-trill "Ř".

[liquid crystal]

Yes, I'm ranting again.

I think it's weird how language-phobic some people are. There's a girl in my school named Estefania, and most substitutes/people-who-anounce-stuff-on-the-intercom won't even atempt pronouncing it, even though Spanish is one of the easiest languages to read.

OR, in the case of [x], people over-pronounce it, turning [bax] to something like [baχçxħ]. God forbid someone encounter a sound not found in his native language. I taught myself to pronounce the entire IPA, so I have no sympathy for you. :susp:

Also, dictionary symbols almost give me physical pain. Even worse than the rediculously annoying and erroneous macrons and italicizes ths are the pronounciation guide in texbooks that are too lazy to look in the character map to find an E with a breve and resort to idiodic digraphs. VOMIT!! Oh, and I read somewhere the state of Nevada is righting "Nevăda" on its licence plates to avoid the horrible mispronunciation [n@'va:d@]. DOUBLE VOMIT!!!

I'm totally saying "neVAAAda" from now on. With an accentuated AAAAAAAHH.

[Vampire]

Yes, I'm ranting again.

I think it's weird how language-phobic some people are. There's a girl in my school named Estefania, and most substitutes/people-who-anounce-stuff-on-the-intercom won't even atempt pronouncing it, even though Spanish is one of the easiest languages to read.

OR, in the case of [x], people over-pronounce it, turning [bax] to something like [baχçxħ]. God forbid someone encounter a sound not found in his native language. I taught myself to pronounce the entire IPA, so I have no sympathy for you. :susp:

Also, dictionary symbols almost give me physical pain. Even worse than the rediculously annoying and erroneous macrons and italicizes ths are the pronounciation guide in texbooks that are too lazy to look in the character map to find an E with a breve and resort to idiodic digraphs. VOMIT!! Oh, and I read somewhere the state of Nevada is righting "Nevăda" on its licence plates to avoid the horrible mispronunciation [n@'va:d@]. DOUBLE VOMIT!!!

I'm totally saying "neVAAAda" from now on. With an accentuated AAAAAAAHH.
OOOOO liquid crystal, have you read the rules, have you even heard of them?

[liquid crystal]

Please don't spam, thank you.

THE MYSTERIOUS GLOTTAL STOP: an Enigma of Orthography

Besides, say, [?\] and epiglottals, the glottal stop is, in my oppinion, on of the most annoying phone(me)s to put into an alphabet.

The most common way is to just use an apostrophe, which I think is ghetto. Some people use Q or X, which is really strange. Quirky, but efficient. The glottal stop character is, in fact, a glorified apostrophe and is a lot cooler. Some say it looks too much like a question mark, but I think that's like saying the exclamation mark looks too much like a miniscule L. In Cyrrilic there's a special character used in Caucasian languages called a palochka. It's basically a vertical line. That's kinda ghetto, too. So, I propose a new letter for the glottal stop! *trumpets*

ʔƨ

Yes, the capital is just the IPA character, but it needed a lower-case friend. After many hours (lol) of pondering, I figured the best'd be the tone character from Zhuang that looks like a backwards S.

^.^

[liquid crystal]

I've been thinking about making another conlang. I created a phonology in Algebra class. :cool:

p p' t t' k k'
m n
T S x X\
r_r_0 r r'
K l tK'
v\ D j G ?\

i u E O a

I'm thinking of making vowel length phonemic. I was going to do it in consonants, but I created a history of the stranger sounds and they just didn't fit in the "modern" pronunciation. The voiced fricatives are more like approximants, so I put them in a seperate column. ([j] evolved from [j\]) I guess you could put the lower diacritic under them.

God, X-SAMPA is ugly. I used appostrophes for ejectives; palatalization is a ghetto use for them. The first symbol on the trill row is a voiceless Ř. The last is an ejective trill.

I'll post the evolution soon maybe.

[liquid crystal]

Georgian isn't the only language whose word for father is mama, apparently. In Pitjantjatjara, an Australian Aboriginal language, "mama" means both father and paternal uncle. Weird. The word for mother is also the word for materal aunt, btw.