Another of these projects. I am still "working" on my version of the language (as in, it is still under construction), though it's probably more complex than anyone would care for... Anyway, I guess I'll post some of my key ideas here. They're already elsewhere in the forums, but I'll put them up again for consistency.
a = /ä/
â = /a/
å = /ɑ/
ä = /æ/
e = /ɛ/
ê = /e/
ë = /ø/
i = /ɪ/
î = /i/
ï = /ɨ/
o = /ɔ/
ô = /o/
ö = /ʌ/
u = /ʊ/
û = /u/
th = /θ/
sh = /ʃ/
ng = /ŋ/
k = /k/
c = /c/
All others pronounced how they are in English.
Not sure what to do with the acutes and graves. Maybe just pitch variants (if you want to be lazy), but I had thought they might act to palatalize consonants as with Russian soft vowels: so, acute palatalizes the following consonant, and grave palatalizes the preceding consonant (or adds a /j/ to the front of a word if there is no preceding consonant).
Vowels are key in Dwarvish (an idea derived from the fact that Dwarvish has more distinct vowel orthographs than any of the other languages. There are several types of sounds per vowel "category": basic (no diacritic), long (circumflex), and "half-vowels" (diaresis), seen respectively as normal, strong, and weak forms of the same sound. There are also the rising and falling forms (a subset of the basic type), and a special "deep A" (å) which is now considered as part of the A-system, although it has roots as an O-system vowel.
The relationships between vowels would be the basis for much of the syntax (case markings, plurals, conjugations, etc). I conceived of Dwarvish being, largely though not exclusively, an ablauting language - changing interior vowels according to some kind of vowel harmony, as in English sing/sang/sung - as opposed to an affixing or particle-based language (sorry to you analytic folks out there!). This harmony would be based on a diagram of all the vowels are their relationships to each other:
I also came up with some rules for stress, though I'm not 100% positive on how well they'd sound:
1: In monosyllabic words, the syllable is always stressed (obviously):
od “limb” = OD [ˈɔd]
sôd “mist” = SÔD [ˈsod]
The rest of these rules apply only to polysyllabic words:
2: If a word has only basic vowels (no accents)…
…if the first letter is a vowel, then the first syllable is stressed:
aval “love” = AV-al [ˈäv-äl]
urist “dagger” = UR-ist [ˈʊr-ɪst]
…if the first letter is a consonant, then stress is applied to the second syllable:
tovon “dwarf” = tov-ON [tɔv-ˈɔn]
kulet “abbey” = kul-ET [kʊl-ˈɛt]
3: If a word has one accented vowel (except for half-vowels), stress is applied to the syllable with that vowel:
urîst “daggers” = ur-ÎST [ʊr-ˈist]
ngárak “beetle” = NGÁ-rak [ˈŋä-räk]
4: Long vowels are always stressed:
tovôn “dwarves” = tov-ÔN [tɔv-ˈon]
åmât “hip” = åm-ÂT [ɑm-ˈat]
5: Half-vowels are always unstressed. If a word has no other accented vowels, the first syllable which does not contain a half-vowel receives the stress:
öntak “arm” = ön-TAK [ʌn-ˈtäk]
degël “galley” = DEG-ël [ˈdɛg-øl]
gäzotris “slothful” = gäz-OT-ris [gæz-ˈɔt-rɪs]
If a word has another accented character, the stress is applied there (as usual):
tölún “saint” = töl-ÚN [tʌl-ˈʊn]
úlïthod “scrubber” = ÚL-ïth-od [ˈʊl-ɨθ-ɔd]
Remember that å is not a half-vowel:
astås “rogue” = ast-ÅS [äst-ˈɑs]
6: If no other rules apply, stress is applied to the first syllable:
lòråm “cathedral” = LÒR-åm [ˈlɔr-ɑm]
úzalìs “warder” = ÚZ-al-ìs [ˈʊz-äl-ɪs]
Other than that, and some rudimentary case/gender/conjugation stuff, the biggest thing I came up with was sentence structure. I though Dwarves might use various structures for different verb voices (active, passive, and imperative), perhaps in concert with some articles or case endings for subject/object:
Active:
Subject – Verb – Object
Obur guth måmgoz.
The hero kills the dragon.
Passive:
Object – Subject – Verb
Måmgoz obur guth.
It is the dragon that the hero kills (more literal).
The dragon is killed by the hero.
Often, the subject (agent) is not known. In these cases the Subject position is occupied by a particle îk, which can be translated as “someone, something” but is usually left untranslated.
Urist îk zot!
Urist was stabbed (by someone)!
Imperative:
Verb – Object (– Subject)
Guth måmgoz (obur)!
Kill the dragon!
Kill the dragon, hero!
I have also been actively adding new words to the Dwarvish lexicon, because 2,000 is not enough (especially when that 2000 contains so few of the most commonly used English words, especially verbs and important things like PRONOUNS).
My sig text is an example of the language as it stands. It reads: "Do not raise your arms against us; or, by Armok, we will make you bleed."
Åvath is
vath "raise" with a negative prefix.
öntâk is the plural of
öntak "arm," as a strong noun it pluralizes by lengthening its stem vowel.
tu than is a genitive phrase, with
than being you (plural or formal) and
tu being "of"; so, "your (plural)."
tar is the future of
tor, "to make." Basic tense (present-past-future) is marked by shifting the stem vowel clockwise (for future)
or counterclockwise (past) along the dotted lines. So a verb in "o" shifts to "a" when in future tense.
sut is technically an infinitive; Dwarvish employs an aorist for both simple infinitives and present tense.
There's more than that in my files, but a lot of it is placeholder: things like verbals and gerunds and participles, and even less fun stuff like relative clauses, which will probably just end up looking like English 'cos it's easy.
Oh, also I made an alphabet and
accompanying font (it's an earlier form, I'll need to update it).
Author
Topic: Dwarven Linguistics Core Project (Read 37943 times)