Arka: an a priori conlang with 14,000 words from Japan

[Gojera]

So, "c" is an alveolar trill? Whereas "r" is an alveolar approximent as in American English?

If you're writing for a popular audience, most English speakers call the alveolar trill a "rolled r".

[finlay]

oh... man... i would so prefer if you didn't use <c> for that purpose. also, it is incredibly confusing that you a) use an example from Italian to explain what the sound is (I don't know Italian, so I can't say for certain that that's a trilled R or a tapped R) and b) use an example from Italian which uses <c>. Like seriously, consider using an R with an accent on it or something; C just doesn't work for this purpose. Many languages that have the distinction (albanian, spanish) use <r> for the tap and <rr> for the trill.

... we kind of frown upon pronunciation guides that use any sort of "h as in happy" sorts of pronunciation guides here, it is true. At least provide IPA as well as that.

[faiuwle]

Granted, this doesn't exactly seem to be targeted at people with a lot of background linguistics knowledge. Maybe there could be a separate page with a simple chart showing the native characters, the romanized orthography, and the IPA, side-by-side? And I agree that <c> should really not be used to represent /r/.

[Author of Arka]

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[Ollock]

X and c is difficult to understand. X is pronounced like sh ([ʃ]) in shop and c is pronounced like rr in the Italian word burro (butter).<br>
So, c is an alveolar trill whereas r is an alveolar approximent (rolled r) as in American English. I mean c is [r] while r is [ɻ].<br>
Arka has l and r like English does.<br>

Two things: 1) "rolled r" is a folk linguistic term for the alveolar trill. 2) This forum does not allow HTML.

How about the other letters...? Y ([j]) is like y in yes. J ([ʒ]) is like j in jelly. H ([h]) is like h in happy. W ([w]) is like w in wise...<br>

The j in jelly is actually /dʒ/.

I understood how c is not appropriate for trill, but we have used this letter as trill for more than 10 years. So, I am afraid we cannot use rr to represent trill.

Hmm, well if other people have already learned it that way, I suppose you have to stick with it.

I have a question, by the way.
Not a few Japanese readers like the anime pictures of the characters.
But I wonder Western people are OK with them. Are the anime pictures OK with you?

Many Westerners love anime, and only a few will complain. If you present the language with anime-styled illustrations in Japanese, by all means carry them over. Honestly, I rarely see illustrations in a conlang description.

[cybrxkhan]

I have a question, by the way.
Not a few Japanese readers like the anime pictures of the characters.
But I wonder Western people are OK with them. Are the anime pictures OK with you?

In the West a lot of people hate anime-style things. But a lot of them like it, and a lot of them are OK with it. So I don't think it really matters as much. I think most conlangers, and your audience, are more concerned with the substance of the content anyways.

[finlay]

I have translated some articles; if you correct my unnatural English, I will be very pleased.

gladly (but bear in mind that I don't understand much japanese, so I will only correct your English as it is given to me... ie, I won't necessarily keep with the meaning of the Japanese very well)

First Guide[4]
http://constructed-language.org/arka/e_ ... vveiz.html
You canwill be able to understand what Arka language[1] and Kaldia world[2] are in ten minutes by watching this video.
There are two girls in thisthe video. They are goddesses of death. They are the characters from an Arka novel called Yumeoli (DreamWeavers).
The left girl on the left is named[3] Shiki and the right girl on the right is named[3] Yuki.

[1]"Arka" or "the Arka language"
[2]"Kaldia" or "the world of Kaldia"
[3]"is named" is fine, but "is called" or just "is" might be better.
[4]This seems unnatural but I can't think how to change it. You could maybe use a title like "Welcome" or "Guide for Beginners".

First Course[5] of Arka

You can study Arka here.
Please work your way down the list inon the left. Above all, you need toshould read Lein's lesson first.
If you do not want a difficult[6] course, then you need toshould read Lein's lesson.

If you want to understand what Arka is, then you need toshould read Overview.

If you want a listening and speaking course, then you need toshould read Listening.

If you want to understand Arka deeplyon a philosophical level, then you need toshould read Studies, though it is verycan be difficult to figure out its articles.

If you click Lein's lesson 1, you shallyou will/you'll go to Greetings, not Introduction.

If you do not understandare unsure how to study Arka, then you need toshould read How to Study.

If you are interested in conworlds and fantasies rather than conlangs, then you need toshould read Fantasy Theory.

If you doubt that people can create a conlang in keeping with linguistics, then you need toshould read How to create a conlang in keeping with linguistics.

If you doubt that Arka was made in keeping with linguistics, then you need toshould read an Arka's consideration of cognitive linguistics.

If you want to know the history of the conworld, then you need toshould read Ilmus (chronological table).

http://constructed-language.org/arka/e_study_kit.html

[5]I'm not sure how best to phrase this. You could also use a title involving beginners somehow, or you could use a title like "Lesson 1", although this isn't a lesson.
[6]"If you want an easier course" and "If you want a beginners' course" would be better here.

Greetings


Welcome to Lein's lesson!
Hello, I'm Shion, the student. I'm 17 years old and in the second year of high school.



Soonoyun! My name is Lein. I'll teach ArkaI'll be your teacher. I'm a high school student in Arbazard.
I'm not supposed to speak English, but the author made me speak it



Well, what is the first word you said first? Uh... soonoyun?
And where is Arbazard? I can't find it in the world atlas.



Soonoyun means hello. It can mean good morning, good afternoon or good evening. Isn't it useful, is it?
Arbazard is a country in Atolas. Atolas is a, the planet where I live. Arka is spoken in this country.



Arka isn't a language in theof Earth, is it?
Now I understand why I haven't seen such characters.






These letters are called the lunar letters (hacm). These are the capital letters.
They have 20 consonants and 5 vowels, so there are 25 letters in lunar letters.



They're too difficult to remember!
Maybe I can remember E and F, but...



To tell you the truth, we seldom use capital letters, so all you have to do is to remember the following small letters.




OK, maybe I can remember these letters because their strokes are simple and some of the letters are similar to those of the alphabet.
The lunar letters are letters in another world, but the number of simple letter shapes areis small, so some lunar letters are similar to those of the alphabet[7], I think.



You can read more about the relationship between the lunar letters and the alphabet here.
ThisThe article on fonts is a bit difficult.



The small letters seem easier, but I can't remember them right now.
OK, I'll transcribe them to the alphabet. I'll use transcribed letters till I get used to lunar letters.




X and c is difficult to understand. X is pronounced like sh in shop and c is pronounced like r in the Italian word cantare.
Arka has l and r like English does.[8]
How about the other letters...? Y is like y in yes. J is like j in jelly. H is like h in happy. W is like w in wise...



You need to get used tolearn the transcribed lunar letters at first. Tx is pronounced like ch in church and ts is pronounced like ts in cats.
The Lunar letters are made to write Arka, so you can write Arka more efficiently by using them. Get used toLearn the letters one by one.
They have many symmetric shapes; I would often take tes for ket when I was little. But I believe you'll be able to distinguish between tes and ket like you do between d and bof the alphabet.



It seems I have to get used tolearn them in a step-by-step fashion by writing themwith myby hand.
Anyway, I have to get used tolearn the transcribed lunar letters. X is like sh in shop. C is like r in cantare.
That's all for now.


These girls are the heroines of a book named "Book of Shion". Nias Avelantis drew the pictures including Alia and Arsye who shall comewill be introduced later. We thank him for his great work.

http://constructed-language.org/arka/e_ ... ve1_2.html

[7]"the alphabet" is fine, but I think I'd prefer "the Roman alphabet" (or "the Latin alphabet"), because it's not the only alphabet on Earth! Also, I disagree with the argument that alphabets will necessarily have similar letter shapes – the three major alphabets on Earth (Roman, Cyrillic and Greek) only have similar letter shapes because they come from the same source, and even then, the minuscule Greek letters are very different from the Roman ones. Korean Hangul is a good example of an alphabet which looks nothing like the roman alphabet, and then you've got other kinds of scripts, few of which look quite like the Roman alphabet. That said, I think your alphabet does look cool, even though some of the letters are rotations of the others (I would forget almost instantly which is supposed to be which!)
[8]I can understand why this might be useful to a Japanese speaker, but to an English speaker it seems like you're just saying something obvious. That said, anyone who reads this will know it comes from a Japanese author, and will probably know that you don't have R/L in japanese, so it's probably worth keeping in. As for your transcriptions of the sounds, note again that rolled R is another term for trilled R – and the alveolar approximant is [ɹ] rather than [ɻ], which is retroflex (nitpicking, though, it's not too important)

[Gojera]

Some of that is nitpicking, or not actually wrong The English text was not written by a native speaker, but it was mostly OK, clear, and comprehensible. And I'm glad the author is making this information available in English. 大丈夫よ。がんばって!

I don't love anime, but the anime characters are fine. It's good to have some illustrations of the characters, I think. It enlivens the conversation and makes the characters more memorable. Taking out the illustrations would make it more boring and less readable.

"c" for /r/ is weird, but it's not too hard to adapt ("rr" would have been much better). The only precedent I can think of for "c" as a rhotic is the Shavian Alphabet or Quikscript.

It seems like a phonemic distinction between an alveolar trill and approximant would be fairly rare, cross-linguistically.

[Gojera]

[7]"the alphabet" is fine, but I think I'd prefer "the Roman alphabet" (or "the Latin alphabet"), because it's not the only alphabet on Earth!

Yes, the discussion of alphabets was a little confusing, because it conflates three separate concepts: the Lunar alphabet, the Latin alphabet, and the romanization of Arka.

The lunar letters are an alphabet, and the Latin alphabet has letters, so it's confusing to talk about "the lunar letters" and "the alphabet" without specifying "Latin alphabet".
lunar letters: the Lunar alphabet, the Lunar script, or the Arka script.
alphabet: the Latin alphabet

Here's how I'd revise some text on Greeting:

These letters are called lunar letters (hacm). These are capital letters.
They have 20 consonants and 5 vowels, so there are 25 letters in lunar letters.

These characters are the capital letters of the Lunar alphabet. There are 20 consonants and 5 vowels, so there are 25 letters in the Lunar alphabet.

(What does hacm mean exactly? Is it the name of the Lunar alphabet, just the capital letters, or letters generally?)

To tell the truth, we seldom use capital letters, so all you have to do is to memorize the following small letters.

lower-case letters.

OK, maybe I can memorize these letters because their strokes are simple and some of the letters are similar to those of the alphabet.
Lunar letters are letters in another world, but the number of simple letter shapes are small, so some lunar letters are similar to those of the alphabet, I think.

OK, maybe I can remember these letters because their strokes are simple, and some of the letters are similar to those of the Latin alphabet.
The Lunar alphabet is from another world, but there are only a few simple letter shapes, and some of the letters of the Lunar alphabet are similar to those of the Latin alphabet, I think.

You can read more about the relationship between lunar letters and the alphabet here.

...about the romanization of Arka? ...about the correspondence between the Lunar alphabet and the Latin alphabet? ...about using the Latin alphabet to write Arka?

Dead link =/

The small letters seem easier, but I can't memorize them right now.
OK, I'll transcribe them to the alphabet. I'll use transcribed letters till I get used to lunar letters.

The lower-case letters are easier, but I'll have to memorize them later. Right now, I'll just transcribe Arka into the Latin alphabet. I'll practice with romanized Arka until I get used to the Lunar alphabet.

X and c is difficult to understand. X is pronounced like sh ([ʃ]) in shop and c is pronounced like rr in the Italian word burro (butter).
So, c is an alveolar trill whereas r is an alveolar approximent (rolled r) as in American English. I mean c is [r] while r is [ɻ].
Arka has l and r like English does.
How about the other letters...? Y ([j]) is like y in yes. J ([ʒ]) is like j in jelly. H ([h]) is like h in happy. W ([w]) is like w in wise...

Most of the letters of romanized Arka are familiar. But the pronunciation of "x" and "c" are strange. "x" is pronounced [ʃ] (like "sh" in "shop"), and "c" is a rolled R (pronounced like "rr" in the Italian word "burro").
So, "c" represents an alveolar trill, whereas "r" is an alveolar approximant (rolled r) as in American English. That is, "c" is [r] while "r" is [ɹ].

(Maybe the Spanish word "burro", "donkey", would be a good example? It's also an English word. And possibly more speakers of American English are familiar with Spanish pronunciation and accents than Italian pronunciation. Or maybe I'm wrong!)

You need to get used to transcribed lunar letters at first. ...Lunar letters were made to write Arka, so you can write Arka more efficiently by using them. ...I would often take tes for ket when I was little. But I believe you'll distinguish between tes and ket like you do between d and b of the alphabet.

While you're getting used to the Lunar alphabet, you should use romanized Arka. ...The Lunar alphabet was made specifically for Arka, so you can write Arka more efficiently with it. ...I would often mistake "tes" for "ket" when I was little. But I think in time you'll come to distinguish them, just as you distinguish "d" and "b" of the Latin alphabet.

Anyway, I have to get used to the transcribed lunar letters. X is like sh in shop. C is like rr in the Italian word burro (butter).

Anyway, I'll practice using the romanization.

[Jipí]

<c> for [r] is indeed a little weird, since it's commonly used for [k], [s], [ʧ], or [ʦ].

As for OKness with anime, I've never paid much attention to it, so I've never really got into it as a genre either. There's many people who watch anime, though.

As for representation of the sounds, I did it on my page like this:



I thought that a table which indicates both the IPA character as well as an example word in English might be the best of both worlds. This only works because my conlang doesn't have consonants uncommon to English. It's a bit more difficult for vowels, however, because English diphthongizes some of them (or does other weird things to them dialectically) while my conlang doesn't, though most English speakers probably aren't even aware that they do.

[Gojera]

Some questions!

Soonoyun means hello.
...Doova (see you later) !

In the romanization of Arka, what does doubling the vowel mean? Is it pronounced like in Japanese, or a long vowel in a different language? Is Arka mora-timed or syllable-timed?

"soonoyun"はソーノユンって言う？
"doova"はドーヴァみたい？

It's probably too difficult a question for such an introductory lesson But probably many a naive English speaker will see "doova" and think /du:va/ instead of /do:va/.

EDIT
The Japanese version has "soonoyun" as 「そーのゆん. So the vowel length is doubled, as in Japanese.

[Gojera]

I love that chart, guitarplayer.

[Jipí]

Trying to make orthographies unambiguous for English speakers: Bad idea IMHO. Thanks for the chart-loving

[Gojera]

Sure. Don't design the orthography for linguistically-naive Americans. But explain it to them somewhere.

The lessons have some pointers on avoiding common pitfalls, like distinguishing between l and r or between rhotic consonants. "Doova"/"duva" is probably a similar pitfall for an English-speaking audience, it's worth pointing out.

[Author of Arka]

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[Nortaneous]

I don't see any problem with <c> for /r/. It's a bit odd, but the intent seems to be to romanize it without using any digraphs or diacritics, and <c> looks like <r>, making it probably the best letter for that purpose besides <r>, which is already taken.

[Bryan]

I understood how c is not appropriate for trill, but we have used this letter as trill for more than 10 years. So, I am afraid we cannot use rr to represent trill.

I can understand that, but really, <c> has been used for NOT /r/ for much more than ten years... something like 2000+ years... The way the letter has always been used by the whole of mankind right up until this day from more than 200 years ago should probably take precedence over how you've been using it for ten years.

It's your language, do what you want! But you are really causing a headache for yourself.

Incidentally, my main artlang has two rhotics, one tapped and one trilled. They are represented as <r> and <rr> respectively.

[EDIT]
Nort, <c> looks like <r> now?? I can think of several letters in the Roman, Greek, and Cyrillic alphabets which look more like it...

[Soap]

Cute drawings. I wasnt interested enough to click into the grammar until I heard that there was manga.

[Nortaneous]

Nort, <c> looks like <r> now?? I can think of several letters in the Roman, Greek, and Cyrillic alphabets which look more like it...

...Er, yes? Clip off the top of the upstroke and add a tail at the bottom.

[Jipí]

Myeah, c halfway resembles ɽ, which is of course a modified version of r.

[Ollock]

I understood how c is not appropriate for trill, but we have used this letter as trill for more than 10 years. So, I am afraid we cannot use rr to represent trill.

I can understand that, but really, <c> has been used for NOT /r/ for much more than ten years... something like 2000+ years... The way the letter has always been used by the whole of mankind right up until this day from more than 200 years ago should probably take precedence over how you've been using it for ten years.

It's your language, do what you want! But you are really causing a headache for yourself.

Incidentally, my main artlang has two rhotics, one tapped and one trilled. They are represented as <r> and <rr> respectively.

That's not entirely fair. If people have already started learning the language with <c> for /r/ then it might be confusing to change that now. If this language were started today I would very strongly be on your side -- but sometimes once you establish something it's kind of hard to roll back. You're asking someone to change the spellings for thousands of words right at this minute -- after he's had the existing system ingrained in his head for ten years. It's hard enough for me to revise spellings that are only a year old.

[Author of Arka]

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[Author of Arka]

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[Author of Arka]

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[Bristel]

I like the presentation of the conlang through an anime styled conversation.

How many words have been added to the lexicon recently? How often are words added?