the amíu writing system

[pauraque_bk]

For those who don't know, my Other Hobby is creating model languages. You LotR fans will know exactly what I mean. This is a tiny snippet of my current project, a non-human language called Amíu.

Cut because it has many little pictures which look something like this:



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The native Amíu writing system is written from right to left. Characters descend from a bar written above; characters in a word share a bar, as in the Devanagari syllabic alphabet.

The system is generally morphophonemic. Despite the fact that the grammar of the language is quite fusional, there is a symbol (or a symbol plus a determinative) for each morpheme of the language, in all its possible phonetic realizations.

layl "fire"
laalin "lightning" (fire bringer)
laalenin "thunderhead" (lightning bringer)

The character represents the "cosmic bringer" inflection, which adds a suffix -in and lowers the main vowel of the morpheme it's applied to.  This system is difficult on beginning readers, who can't sound out unknown words in more complex or irregular inflections.  However, it does make the inflected morpheme immediately recognizable to the experienced reader.

English spelling has a few morphophonemic features.  For example, in "cats", "dogs", and "horses", the plural morpheme is spelled the same way each time, but pronounced [s], [z], and [Iz], respectively.

A given character may have several completely different pronunciations, depending on how it is used.  For example, the characters for sensory organs are also called into service to indicate the sensory evidentials on verbs. The character is pronounced /wúan/ when it's the noun "eye", and /Rá/ when it's the visual evidential verb suffix.

Determinatives

Amíu writing uses a large number of pictograms, but as anyone who's played Pictionary knows, not all words are easy to draw.  In such cases, writers use a character that is phonetically similar to the intended word, followed by a determinative that gives the reader a clue to its meaning.

The character by itself is /jung/ "dragon".  The character by itself is /líeR/ "mouth".  Put them together and you get .  /jung/ is the phonetic.  "Mouth" is the determinative.  So it's a word that sounds like /jung/ and has to do with the mouth.  It must be /jyn/ "story".

The phonetic + determinative compound is treated as a unit, and can take further inflections. /jyn/ "story" plus , animate bringer, makes /jane/ "storyteller".

The meanings of the determinatives may not be obvious, especially to a non-native speaker.  For example, the character /aan/ "nose", in addition to determining words having to do with smell, also determines emotional states.  In the compound character , the phonetic is /ngúam/ "deer", and the determinative is /aan/ "nose".  The meaning is /ngíém/ "anger".

This system is facilitated by the limited phonology of the language; there are plenty of rhymes and near-homophones to work with.

Plurals

To write plurals, characters may simply be written twice, or the bar above may be doubled.

wúan "eye"
Rúanm "eyes"
Rúanm "eyes"

In more complex words, the two forms may distinguish between two different words.

laalin "lightning" (fire bringer)
Laaliin "bolts of lightning"
Laalnin "lightning bolt that sets several fires"
LaalninN "lightning bolts that set several fires"

And a little fannish bonus

laong "death"
laungú "Death Eater"
"Death Eaters"

*

[EDIT: Oh, and I updated my site with nicely formatted versions of some of the many challenge fics I posted in December.]

[EDIT2: Even in my own language, I can't spell.]

Comments

[iamsab.livejournal.com]

I. Am suitably impressed. Beautiful.

[pauraque]

Rúw nom (thank you). :)

[dphearson.livejournal.com]

Yes. Elegant.

In the writing of this language, I assume that the direction of reading would be from right to left? Or would it be righ to left, up and down?

[pauraque]

It's horizontal lines from right to left and top to bottom. I wrote these particular examples backwards and flopped them after scanning, because it turned out to be very difficult to write in the correct direction with a calligraphy pen.

[isiscolo.livejournal.com]

Nifty-keen, and pretty besides.

[pauraque]

Rúw nom é! / Thanks!

[sedesdraconis.livejournal.com]

Groovy. Got enough for an entry in the ConScript Directory? So far it contains only (mostly) phonemic systems, it'd be great to get a morphophonemic.

[pauraque]

No, I'm still building a pool of characters. About how many would constitute a basic set for your page?

[sedesdraconis.livejournal.com]

Hard to say, it's really a case-by-case kind of a judgment, and besides, I haven't had to make it yet, as I said, all previous submissions have been alphabets, abjads, syllabaries, etc., so they've been basically complete.

In the submission guidelines, I wrote:
"logographic scripts should have a reasonably large set of basic glyphs"

Which is pretty vague. Really, it's your call, you know your script best. I doubt I'd feel compelled to veto anything you were content with.

[bethbethbeth.livejournal.com]

Lovely. Of course, now I want to start using this language for myself, and yet? Spanish, French, and Latin still pose problems for me. *g*

[pauraque]

Heh, reserve judgement until you see the verb system. It's more regular than the Romance languages, but it's very... uh, different. :)

[bethbethbeth.livejournal.com]

Is there a separate verb for "reading slash?"

*g*

[pauraque]

No, but there should be. :)

[dancing-moon.livejournal.com]

Very pretty. What an interesting hobby ^_^

But I get nightmares of me being forced to write your pretty squiggles... I can barely manage readable latin letters, this would just become one long line of ~~~~~~~~ after a while...

[pauraque]

You should see how it comes out when I'm not writing carefully, with the nice pen. ~~~ indeed. *g*

[http://users.livejournal.com/_hannelore/]

Very lovely script, I can imagine children (of whatever species) writing it. Seems it would take a fair bit of dexterity and skill.

[pauraque]

*nods* What's interesting is that some complex scripts stay that way _because_ they're complex, so that literacy becomes quite meaningful and valuable. That's the case with Chinese, and was certainly true for Ancient Egyptian.

[idlerat.livejournal.com]

Wow! So pretty! Lola says so too.

Can I have a "death eater" icon? *endearing smile*

Lola wants an icon too, but maybe something else. Do you have one that says 'historian'?

[pauraque]

That's "death eater". (Did you want a transliteration on these? I figure if you want a translation, you can add that yourself pretty easily.)

Hi Lola! I don't know if the Lúen would distinguish between "storyteller" and "historian", but try this:



jyn oijo "I have heard stories"

This is actually a cool example, because it uses the "mouth" character as a determinative in /jyn/, and then as the quotative evidential in /oijo/.

And while I was at it:



mái awéLio "idle rat"

Also a good example! Tricksy relative clause...

Or if that's a bit much:



mái "rat"

[lolaraincoat.livejournal.com]

Holy cow! thank you!

[idlerat.livejournal.com]

Ooo! Oo oo. Thank you!

[whimemsz.livejournal.com]

Very nice, eo! I love it!

How exactly are the underlined vowels pronounced? And what about the capital letters?

Can you give a sneak peek at the verbs, maybe? ;)

[pauraque]

Thanks. The underlined vowels are low-pitched; the capital letters are retroflex. The accents indicate tense vowels.

As for the verbs, I plan to do a post on them, since I like them quite a lot. It's a closed system, just a handful of verbs. Here's a little preview, using an example from one of the icons above:

mái awéLio "idle rat"

a.wé.L.i.o

a-
restrictive relative clause

0-
zero morph: "1st person" actor (may or may not refer to the speaker; in this case the antecedent is /mái/ "rat")

wé
"do" (intentional)

-L-
negative

-i
no target (like an indirect object)

-o
actor-head relative clause (with a-, forms a perifix)

So it's really "rat who chooses not to act".

[theseventhsun.livejournal.com]

This is quite fascinating. I've always liked languages, but never been that good at them (except my native one, of course). I wonder how many words you have for this language? And does this work into some story you're writing? Something this cool really does deserve to be attached to a people or culture of it's own.

Out of curiosity, would you mind if I secured your e-mail adress or AIM? I wanted to ask you about something, if you're willing. My own e-mail is Maryuou@hotmail.com, and my AIM is Doomska, if you were willing to talk and didn't want to broadcast your contact information.

[pauraque]

I've got a couple hundred morphemes so far. The number's always going up. :) There is a culture to go with the language, though it's not for a specific story.

My email is on my LJ profile, actually. It's eo @ morosophy . com

[theseventhsun.livejournal.com]

Is there a word for trout? I think there's some law written somewhere about you can't call something a language unless it has a word for trout.


Huh. Must of missed that. 'k, thanks.

[asphodeline.livejournal.com]

very interesting and visually very attractive. For some odd reason I have always wanted to write right to left, seems more natural.
*curious now* do you have a time turner or more hours in your day than the average human - are you human????!! When *do* you fit this all in?

p.s. Am eating another batch of *uncle eo's famous brownie cake thing*

[pauraque]

I have a job where I get a lot of chances to play on the internet, and I don't go to bed until 3am. A Time Turner would really help, though. :D

[asphodeline.livejournal.com]

that was a bit spooky, just trying to access pauraque and jumped in here!
Nice job.... at my work just logging onto the system is an accomplishment!

[pauraque]

that was a bit spooky, just trying to access pauraque and jumped in here!

Many browsers have an automatic URL completer, so if this was the last post you looked at, that makes sense.

[chresimos.livejournal.com]

*sits back as language stuff washes right over top of head*

Pretty squiggly things! ^_^

[chresimos.livejournal.com]

Ahem. In an attempt to redeem myself, I shall say that I have only just now got the name of your website. Morosophy! Hahaha. :D

[pauraque]

I can't take credit for Morosophy, that was something the co-owner of the domain came up with. I'm not that clever. :)