more amiu - little rowboat
Jan. 24th, 2004 09:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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lolaraincoat's request:
nello "little rowboat"
The written form is transparent: It's a boat with an oar on the water, and a small circle to represent the "little" inflection.
n as in no
e as in pet
l as in look -- it's geminated here, pronounced like a double consonant in Italian
o like the vowel in caught (in those dialects which distinguish caught from cot)
The whole word should be said in a low, even tone.
I took this opportunity to settle some things about the way the size inflections work, since they were a bit vague before. This is a good example, because it demonstrates one of the main features of Amíu inflection: Regular vowel mutation.
There are twelve vowels in Amíu, six tense and six lax (for the purposes of vowel mutation, anyway -- if you count the low-pitched vowels, there are twenty-four altogether).
Tense series:
Lax series:
The "little" inflection does two things:
1) Adds a suffix (-final consonant + first vowel if the word ends in a consonant, or -j + first vowel if the word ends in a vowel). So in nol "rowboat", the suffix is -lo.
2) Moves the first vowel closer to the front of the mouth. Pitch and tenseness stay the same. The movement is one "notch" over, thuswise:
So in nol "rowboat", o becomes e, giving us nello "little rowboat".
Vowel shifts like this are common throughout Amíu inflection, moving forward, back, up, or down. The "big" inflection is just like the "little" one, except that it shifts the first vowel back instead of forward, giving us nullo "big rowboat".
The u in nullo is pronounced as in "put".
Next up, "linguist" forellen_fremedon. Any questions, anything you'd like to see written, explained, or iconized, just let me know.
[Edited because I can't count.]
lolaraincoat's request:nello "little rowboat"
The written form is transparent: It's a boat with an oar on the water, and a small circle to represent the "little" inflection.
n as in no
e as in pet
l as in look -- it's geminated here, pronounced like a double consonant in Italian
o like the vowel in caught (in those dialects which distinguish caught from cot)
The whole word should be said in a low, even tone.
I took this opportunity to settle some things about the way the size inflections work, since they were a bit vague before. This is a good example, because it demonstrates one of the main features of Amíu inflection: Regular vowel mutation.
There are twelve vowels in Amíu, six tense and six lax (for the purposes of vowel mutation, anyway -- if you count the low-pitched vowels, there are twenty-four altogether).
Tense series:
|
|
|||||
| high | ú | ý | í | |||
| ó | é | |||||
| low | á | |||||
Lax series:
|
|
|||||
| high | u | y | i | |||
| o | e | |||||
| low | a | |||||
The "little" inflection does two things:
1) Adds a suffix (-final consonant + first vowel if the word ends in a consonant, or -j + first vowel if the word ends in a vowel). So in nol "rowboat", the suffix is -lo.
2) Moves the first vowel closer to the front of the mouth. Pitch and tenseness stay the same. The movement is one "notch" over, thuswise:
So in nol "rowboat", o becomes e, giving us nello "little rowboat".
Vowel shifts like this are common throughout Amíu inflection, moving forward, back, up, or down. The "big" inflection is just like the "little" one, except that it shifts the first vowel back instead of forward, giving us nullo "big rowboat".
The u in nullo is pronounced as in "put".
Next up, "linguist" for
ellen_fremedon. Any questions, anything you'd like to see written, explained, or iconized, just let me know.[Edited because I can't count.]
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no subject
Date: 2004-01-25 05:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-25 10:13 pm (UTC)Yes, a great deal of it is pictographic, though sometimes the pictures are so stylized that it's difficult to tell what they are. In
The third element,
The bar above the word is just something for the pictures to dangle from -- it has no meaning.
And hey, a lunulet is more or less a "little moon", right?
A pictogram of a crescent moon with the "little" inflection again. The two short lines indicate a bright object. The word is émájá "little moon".
Re:
Date: 2004-01-29 09:32 am (UTC)I haven't had email for a few days. I just discovered this. Lovely!
Ah, now that you point out the pictures, they're easy to see. Have you already written about this, somewhere? I'd like to read more about it. ^^
Thank you, dear!
Re:
Date: 2004-01-29 12:52 pm (UTC)I've just been writing about this language in bits and pieces on my LJ, so far. I'm adding each post to memories, so you can see what I've already posted here.
Oooooooh! Pretty!
Date: 2004-01-25 09:01 am (UTC)Re: Oooooooh! Pretty!
Date: 2004-01-25 04:07 pm (UTC)I like this one too -- the other ones I wrote very carefully, but this one I just scribbled in the course of figuring it out, and it happened to come out looking cool.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-26 12:23 am (UTC)If I can make a request, I'd love to see how the name of my web page, "Tracing Mansions" would look in your alphabet! If you'd like to see the expression in context before you start, go to my web page (linked from my LJ) and click on the link to the Akhmatova poem. (/am to lazy to go look up the link myself *g*)
And by the way, my vote for the story commentary thing is that you do "Oil" or "Void Sale", if you're not too firmly in HP mode these days. :)
no subject
Date: 2004-01-26 01:43 am (UTC)"Tracing Mansions"
Hm, this should take some thought. I read the poem, and it's a great image, I just have to think about how to articulate it.
And by the way, my vote for the story commentary thing is that you do "Oil" or "Void Sale", if you're not too firmly in HP mode these days. :)
I was thinking I'd do one HP commentary and one XF commentary, to be fair to the outnumbered XF people on my list. :)
no subject
Date: 2004-01-26 11:41 pm (UTC)And, just because I can, my name in Serela, or close as I can get with Classical Serela's phonetic and morphological constraints:
(<-)"Etênte Wilêle" or "Etênte Kethrynêse Wilêle" (->) if I'm feeling presumptous.
I was thinking about doing yours, but I'd need more information. Prefered name, for one, and father's name for a complete name (and/or significant other if applicable).
no subject
Date: 2004-01-27 12:38 am (UTC)Yes, you're quite right. It's always neat to see someone else write in your script. :)
I was thinking about doing yours, but I'd need more information. Prefered name, for one, and father's name for a complete name (and/or significant other if applicable).
I like to be called Eo or Eodrakken. My father's name is Joe or Joseph (yes, I'm a 'junior').
I've always liked the way Sêrela looks. Would this be right for 'Eo' /i1jo3/?:
no subject
Date: 2004-01-27 10:07 am (UTC)Yeah, nice. Only thing is, the first vowel should be at more like 45° and the strokes closer together:
Since I only know anything about Classical Written Serela, not about any of the vernaculars, I tend to only write formal things in it. And formal, Classical names follow the nominal morphology, so here's what I came up with, I1jalw4 Sho1sê3tê3se2: