![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenicseasYes, I've already started working on a new conlang. In fact, I started on Friday. I haven't been able to get very far, but I do have a phonology and a little bit of grammar.
One of the first decisions I made was to have the phonology be sonorant-heavy. From there, I decided that there would be a full "set" of palatal consonants. That led to all consonants being able to be palatalized, which then led to all back vowels having corresponding front versions.
Here is the current consonant inventory. Consonants in parentheses are exclusively palatalized versions of other consonants: [c], [ç], and [ʎ] are the palatal versions of /k/, /h/, and /l/.
There are no voiced stops solely because it didn't fit the aesthetic I had in mind for the conlang. As for the orthography, the only consonants that don't match their IPA values are /ɲ/, /ŋ/, /ɕ/, /x/, and /j/, which are written <ñ>, <ng>, <sh>, <h>, and <y>, respectively.
For vowels, I didn't really know what I wanted except for /i/, /e/, and /a/. I then expanded that to include /o/ and /u/, but still didn't know how to make the vowel inventory unique. It didn't necessarily need to be unique, but I didn't exactly want to go with the "standard" vowel phonology. That seemed a bit boring.
I decided that back vowels would front when the following syllable contained a front vowel. Now there were five front vowels and three back vowels. Then, because that wasn't enough, I decided to add vowel length. The current vowel inventory is shown below.
The vowels /y/, /ø/, and /a/ are written <ü>, <ö>, and <ä>. Long vowels are indicated with an acute accent. For the "regular" vowels, this produces <á>, <é>, <í>, <ó>, and <ú>. I was a little confused as to what to do with <ü>, <ö>, and <ä>, until I did some research and found out that double acute accents exist – Hungarian uses them, among other languages. So the long versions of <ü>, <ö>, and <ä> are <ű>, <ő> and <a̋>.
That's about it for the phonology at the moment. I haven't really decided on the stress system or if I want any diphthongs to exist.
For grammar, I've just started working on nouns. I knew from the beginning that I wanted at least two unique noun classes – I decided on animate and inanimate – but not much else. What would nouns be declined for? Are those declensions suffixes or postpositions? What kind of agreement do they have with other parts of speech?
I decided that this language wouldn't be agglutinative. Most of my conlangs are, because it makes things nice, orderly, and easy to remember. But I wanted this conlang to look like a language with a long literary history – my initial inspirations were Tocharian and Sanskrit – so I decided it would be fusional in morphology.
This isn't a very big deal at the moment, since nouns are only declined for case (nominative, genitive, accusative, dative, and vocative) and number (singular and plural). Animacy isn't distinguished on nouns; it will be instead shown on some other part of speech – I haven't yet decided if it will be articles, prepositions, adjectives, or something else.
Since words can end in either vowels or certain consonants, I made different declensions for vowel-final nouns and consonant-final nouns. There are two examples below.
Declension of süriññe "temple" (vowel-final declension):
Declension of pekweñ "book" (consonant-final declension):
Süriññe and pekweñ are actually the only two words I've created. I don't even have a name for this conlang yet!
I may or may not make more update posts on this conlang. If I do, I doubt it'll be on any sort of regular schedule.
One of the first decisions I made was to have the phonology be sonorant-heavy. From there, I decided that there would be a full "set" of palatal consonants. That led to all consonants being able to be palatalized, which then led to all back vowels having corresponding front versions.
Here is the current consonant inventory. Consonants in parentheses are exclusively palatalized versions of other consonants: [c], [ç], and [ʎ] are the palatal versions of /k/, /h/, and /l/.
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | |
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ |
| Stop | p | t | (c) | k |
| Affricate | ts | tɕ | ||
| Fricative | s | ɕ (ç) | x | |
| Approximant | w | l ɹ | j (ʎ) |
There are no voiced stops solely because it didn't fit the aesthetic I had in mind for the conlang. As for the orthography, the only consonants that don't match their IPA values are /ɲ/, /ŋ/, /ɕ/, /x/, and /j/, which are written <ñ>, <ng>, <sh>, <h>, and <y>, respectively.
For vowels, I didn't really know what I wanted except for /i/, /e/, and /a/. I then expanded that to include /o/ and /u/, but still didn't know how to make the vowel inventory unique. It didn't necessarily need to be unique, but I didn't exactly want to go with the "standard" vowel phonology. That seemed a bit boring.
I decided that back vowels would front when the following syllable contained a front vowel. Now there were five front vowels and three back vowels. Then, because that wasn't enough, I decided to add vowel length. The current vowel inventory is shown below.
| Front | Back | |
| Close | i iː y yː | u uː |
| Mid | e eː ø øː | o oː |
| Open | a aː | ɑ ɑː |
The vowels /y/, /ø/, and /a/ are written <ü>, <ö>, and <ä>. Long vowels are indicated with an acute accent. For the "regular" vowels, this produces <á>, <é>, <í>, <ó>, and <ú>. I was a little confused as to what to do with <ü>, <ö>, and <ä>, until I did some research and found out that double acute accents exist – Hungarian uses them, among other languages. So the long versions of <ü>, <ö>, and <ä> are <ű>, <ő> and <a̋>.
That's about it for the phonology at the moment. I haven't really decided on the stress system or if I want any diphthongs to exist.
For grammar, I've just started working on nouns. I knew from the beginning that I wanted at least two unique noun classes – I decided on animate and inanimate – but not much else. What would nouns be declined for? Are those declensions suffixes or postpositions? What kind of agreement do they have with other parts of speech?
I decided that this language wouldn't be agglutinative. Most of my conlangs are, because it makes things nice, orderly, and easy to remember. But I wanted this conlang to look like a language with a long literary history – my initial inspirations were Tocharian and Sanskrit – so I decided it would be fusional in morphology.
This isn't a very big deal at the moment, since nouns are only declined for case (nominative, genitive, accusative, dative, and vocative) and number (singular and plural). Animacy isn't distinguished on nouns; it will be instead shown on some other part of speech – I haven't yet decided if it will be articles, prepositions, adjectives, or something else.
Since words can end in either vowels or certain consonants, I made different declensions for vowel-final nouns and consonant-final nouns. There are two examples below.
Declension of süriññe "temple" (vowel-final declension):
| Singular | Plural | |
| Nominative | süriññe | süriññel |
| Genitive | süriññes | süriññem |
| Accusative | süriññele | süriññen |
| Dative | süriññeha | süriññer |
| Vocative | süriñña̋ | süriññő |
Declension of pekweñ "book" (consonant-final declension):
| Singular | Plural | |
| Nominative | pekweñ | pekweññe |
| Genitive | pekweñña | pekweñaru |
| Accusative | pekweññé | pekweñelu |
| Dative | pekweññi | pekweñäye |
| Vocative | pekweñám | pekweñámu |
Süriññe and pekweñ are actually the only two words I've created. I don't even have a name for this conlang yet!
I may or may not make more update posts on this conlang. If I do, I doubt it'll be on any sort of regular schedule.
Tags:
