Rangyayo - an East Asian language of the elixir of life

Substantial postings about constructed languages and constructed worlds in general. Good place to mention your own or evaluate someone else's. Put quick questions in C&C Quickies instead.
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Re: Rangyayo (now with 2 audio samples on Youtube!)

Post by Left »

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Last edited by Left on Fri Dec 05, 2014 2:22 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Rangyayo (now with 2 audio samples on Youtube!)

Post by desmond »

SHiNKiROU wrote:After reading the word list, I found there are no words with dz.
Overall, Rangyayo made sense to me in the shortest period of time, and it's simple enough to introduce people to Japanese and Korean.
Actually, /dz/ is spelt as <j>. As I would like to make the Mackenzie romanisation for Rangyayo somehow parallel to the Hepburn romanisation for Japanese, the spelling of the Mackenzie romanisation is not 100% regular and try to follow the English spelling convention. Please see the tables below for more details.

Romanisation

There are a number of methods of rendering Rangyan in Roman letters. The Mackenzie method of romanisation makkhenzhi-sik romaji (막컨씨式로마字; /mak̚.kʰɛn.ʑi.sɪk̚ ɾɔ.ma.dʑi/), designed for English speakers, is a de facto standard widely used inside and outside Rangya.

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[b]Desmond[/b] - [url=http://conlang.wikia.com/Rangyayo][b]Rangyayo[/b][/url], spoken on the islands of elixir of life

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Re: Rangyayo (now with 2 audio samples on Youtube!)

Post by desmond »

The Article 1 of Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Rangyayo. (Part 1 of 2)

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The Article 1 of Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Rangyayo. (Part 2 of 2)

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[b]Desmond[/b] - [url=http://conlang.wikia.com/Rangyayo][b]Rangyayo[/b][/url], spoken on the islands of elixir of life

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Re: Rangyayo (now with 2 audio samples on Youtube!)

Post by Bristel »

Your examples are beautifully presented. I like it a lot.

I suppose it would be easy to learn with some knowledge of Chinese, Japanese and Korean?
[bɹ̠ˤʷɪs.təɫ]
Nōn quālibet inīquā cupiditāte illectus hoc agō
Yo te pongo en tu lugar...
Taisc mach Daró

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Re: Rangyayo (now with 2 audio samples on Youtube!)

Post by desmond »

Bristel wrote:Your examples are beautifully presented. I like it a lot.

I suppose it would be easy to learn with some knowledge of Chinese, Japanese and Korean?
Thank you. Yes, Rangyayo would be easier to learn with some knowledge in these areas:

For writing and reading,
1. Chinese characters (mostly the Japanese simplified version with some traditional ones used in Hong Kong and Taiwan)
2. Korean hangul (not 100% as some of the pronunciations have been modified for Rangyayo)

For speaking and listening,
1. Chinese words (there are many Sino-derived words in Rangyayo)
2. English words (most of the borrowed words in Rangyayo are from English)
3. Japanese and Korean grammar (sharing many similarities)
[b]Desmond[/b] - [url=http://conlang.wikia.com/Rangyayo][b]Rangyayo[/b][/url], spoken on the islands of elixir of life

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Re: Rangyayo (now with 2 audio samples on Youtube!)

Post by desmond »

This is the cover of the Kingdom of Rangya passport.

The first line is 琅野王国 "Kingdom of Rangya" printed in Rangyan. And the second line is 関通는牒 "Passport". Notice that both two lines should be read from right to left as it retains the traditional writing direction in East Asian scripts. The national emblem of Rangya is "the Auspicious Clouds" which is printed in the centre. The English name of the kingdom and the word "Passport" are printed at the bottom, together with the biometric passport symbol.

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[b]Desmond[/b] - [url=http://conlang.wikia.com/Rangyayo][b]Rangyayo[/b][/url], spoken on the islands of elixir of life

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Re: Rangyayo (now with 2 audio samples on Youtube!)

Post by Jipí »

That passport looks awesome and all, but I think the light source is coming from 180° the wrong side, so the print looks like coming out instead of being inlaid, which is usually the case for cover works of that type, I think.

EDIT:

I found a dictionary on my shelf has that. Look closely:

Image

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Re: Rangyayo (now with 2 audio samples on Youtube!)

Post by desmond »

Guitarplayer wrote:That passport looks awesome and all, but I think the light source is coming from 180° the wrong side, so the print looks like coming out instead of being inlaid, which is usually the case for cover works of that type, I think.

EDIT:

I found a dictionary on my shelf has that. Look closely:
Thank you. I will also take a closer look to my passports to get some ideas :)
[b]Desmond[/b] - [url=http://conlang.wikia.com/Rangyayo][b]Rangyayo[/b][/url], spoken on the islands of elixir of life

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Re: Rangyayo (now with 2 audio samples on Youtube!)

Post by Sortsdam »

Desmond this all looks really cool! Again, I love the Yenmun and Hanji mix.

I am curious, I read (I think on your Conlang Wiki page) that Rangyayo at one point had vowel harmony; does it still apply in any way, like to suffixes or inflections? I would be interested in seeing a demo of Rangyayo vowel harmony from you.

Also, keep it up with these excellent graphics, they really spice up your language and make it seem all the more real; you know, more than just a grammar online. I also look forward to reading more about Rangya itself on the wiki you started.

Keep up the good work

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Re: Rangyayo (now with 2 audio samples on Youtube!)

Post by desmond »

Sortsdam wrote:Desmond this all looks really cool! Again, I love the Yenmun and Hanji mix.

I am curious, I read (I think on your Conlang Wiki page) that Rangyayo at one point had vowel harmony; does it still apply in any way, like to suffixes or inflections? I would be interested in seeing a demo of Rangyayo vowel harmony from you.

Also, keep it up with these excellent graphics, they really spice up your language and make it seem all the more real; you know, more than just a grammar online. I also look forward to reading more about Rangya itself on the wiki you started.

Keep up the good work
Thank you. I really love the hybrid writing system of Japanese therefore I made this Yenmun and Hanji mix myself. :)

For vowel harmony, below is the section I wrote on my Conlang Wiki page,
Traditionally, the Rangyan language has had strong vowel harmony; that is, in pre-modern Rangyan, not only did the inflectional and derivational affixes change in accordance to the main root vowel, but native words also adhered to vowel harmony. However, this rule is no longer observed strictly in modern Rangyan. In modern Rangyan, it is only applied in certain cases such as onomatopoeia and interjections.

There are three classes of vowels in Rangyan: positive (a,o), negative (e,u) and neutral (i,ü) . The vowel classes loosely follow the vowel heights. Exchanging positive vowels with negative vowels usually creates different nuances of meaning, with positive vowels sounding fast, hot, dry, hard, solid, focused or aggressive, and negative vowels sounding slow, cold, wet, soft, insubstantial, diffuse or tranquil.
Therefore in modern Rangyan, vowel harmony is only observed in certain native words, onomatopoeia and interjections, but no longer in inflectional and derivational affixes.

P.S. The real reason behind is that it looks very messy for me if each suffix has more than one form. I personally dislike that. :)

Here is a table of selected native words that practise vowel harmony. You can see the meanings implied by positive (yang) and negative (yin) vowels in these words.

Image

For the Kingdom of Rangya, I really wish that I can have more time to elaborate more on that.
[b]Desmond[/b] - [url=http://conlang.wikia.com/Rangyayo][b]Rangyayo[/b][/url], spoken on the islands of elixir of life

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Re: Rangyayo (now with 2 audio samples on Youtube!)

Post by Left »

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Last edited by Left on Fri Dec 05, 2014 2:23 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Rangyayo (now with 2 audio samples on Youtube!)

Post by Sortsdam »

Desmond, very interesting with the vowel harmony table! I can see what you mean by "stronger" words with positive vowels and vice versa. Keep working on it!

(tell us when you have a dictionary up too :D)

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Re: Rangyayo (now with 2 audio samples on Youtube!)

Post by Nortaneous »

What's <c> in that table?

Also, this lang is rad as fuck, in case I haven't said that already.
Siöö jandeng raiglin zåbei tandiüłåd;
nää džunnfin kukuch vklaivei sivei tåd.
Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei.

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Re: Rangyayo (now with 2 audio samples on Youtube!)

Post by desmond »

Sortsdam wrote:Desmond, very interesting with the vowel harmony table! I can see what you mean by "stronger" words with positive vowels and vice versa. Keep working on it!

(tell us when you have a dictionary up too :D)
Thank you! I have been trying to stick with the "vowel harmony rules" in order to make Rangyan native words in a consistent way. As you may know, I have put together a wordlist on Conlang Wikia. I know it's far from "complete" but it's still a quite lengthy list. Please bear with me at this stage. Vocabulary building is not easy lol...

In the meantime, you may also check out this phrasebook of Rangyayo, which covers the topics from daily greetings to travelling around in Rangya. :)
Last edited by desmond on Sat Mar 10, 2012 7:58 am, edited 2 times in total.
[b]Desmond[/b] - [url=http://conlang.wikia.com/Rangyayo][b]Rangyayo[/b][/url], spoken on the islands of elixir of life

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Re: Rangyayo (now with 2 audio samples on Youtube!)

Post by desmond »

Nortaneous wrote:What's <c> in that table?

Also, this lang is rad as fuck, in case I haven't said that already.
Thank you for the compliment!
<c> stands for /ts/, in addition, <ch> for /tsʰ/ and <j> for /dz/
[b]Desmond[/b] - [url=http://conlang.wikia.com/Rangyayo][b]Rangyayo[/b][/url], spoken on the islands of elixir of life

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Re: Rangyayo (now with 2 audio samples on Youtube!)

Post by Bristel »

Given a sufficient translation of your works, you could introduce this on the asian conlanging boards.
[bɹ̠ˤʷɪs.təɫ]
Nōn quālibet inīquā cupiditāte illectus hoc agō
Yo te pongo en tu lugar...
Taisc mach Daró

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Re: Rangyayo (now with 2 audio samples on Youtube!)

Post by desmond »

Sortsdam and Asahi, I've managed to write more information about Kingdom of Rangya :) Here it goes.

Politics

Rangya is a unitary state under a constitutional monarchy where the power of the King is very limited. As a ceremonial figurehead, the monarch himself is symbolic rather than political, and is defined by the constitution as "the symbol of the state and of the unity of the people". Power is held chiefly by the Prime Minister of Rangya and other elected members of the parliament, while sovereignty is vested in the Rangyan people. Thenbong Kijang (天奉紀奘) is the current King of Rangya; Thenbong Kenghong (天奉経弘), Crown Prince of Rangya, stands as next in line to the throne.

Geography
Administrative divisions

Due to the small physical size of Rangya, the city-state only consists of six counties (hwen 県), each headed by an elected mayor (hwensang 県相) and with county councils as local administrations. Each county is further divided into districts (khyu 区).

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Economy
Transport
Rangya is a small city-state with a high population density, therefore, there is a need to restrict the number of private cars on the road. Since a law passed in May 1981 in order to discourage private car ownership, annual licensing fees were increased by 250% and cars have been subjected to a first-time registration tax which, based on the size and efficiency of the car, varies from 135% to 175% of its market value. Car prices are generally significantly higher in Rangya when compared to other developed countries and thus only 9 in 100 residents own a car.

Rangya has a highly developed and sophisticated transport network. Over 80% of the daily journeys in Rangya are on public transport, making it one of the highest rates in the world. Payment can be made using the Chenmak card (chenmakkhat 阡陌칻), a stored value system introduced by the Rangya Railway Corporation (RRC; rangya thetdo tsyusik khiyep 琅野鉄道株式企業), which is widely accepted on railways, buses and ferries, and accepted like cash at other outlets. The RRC runs the public train system with 208 stations which serves 1.2 million people a day. The Rangya Tramway Corporation (rangya denchya tsyusik khiyep 琅野電車株式企業) runs the public tram system which covers Dotsin county in Rangya. Four franchised companies operate the public bus services. There are six taxi companies in Rangya that together put out 12,000 taxis on the road. Taxi fares are relatively inexpensive compared to many other developed countries.

Energy
As of 2010, 68.5% of energy in Rangya is produced from natural gas, 20.5% from crude oil, 9.1% from wind power, and 1.9% from solar power.

Rangya produced all of its consumed natural gas and crude oil in 2010 from its offshore drilling. The Renewable Energy Transition Plan launched by the Rangyan government in November 2008 aims at 40% of renewable in electricity generation by 2025.

Demographics
As of 2010, the population of Rangya is 2.32 million, of whom 2.17 million (93.5%) are citizens while the rest are permanent residents (4.1%) or foreign workers (2.4%). The resident population does not take into account the 5 million transient visitors who visit Rangya annually.

In 2010, the total fertility rate was 1.9 children per woman, slightly below the 2.1 needed to replace the population. The average life expectancy in Rangya is 79.12 years for males and 84.74 years for females as of 2010, making it one of the highest life expectancies in the world.

Ethnic groups
In 2010, the government census reports that 89.2% of residents were ethnic Rangyan; and 2.2% of Chinese, 2.1% of Korean, 1.6% of Japanese, 1.9% Caucasian descent or expatriates. There were an estimate of 55,800 foreign domestic helpers from Indonesia and the Philippines working in Rangya.

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Languages

Both Rangyan and English are the official languages of Rangya. Nearly 90 percent of the 2.3 million population speaks Rangyan as their first language, and that makes Rangyan the national language of Rangya. There are up to 105,000 speakers of the Rangyan language outside Rangya. Large groups of Rangyan-speaking expatriates are found in China (around 42,000 speakers), the United States (around 20,000 speakers), Japan (around 16,000), South Korea (around 8,000), Australia (3,000), Canada (2,000) and Hong Kong (2,000). It is estimated that there are around 15,000 people scattered across the world who are able to speak Rangyan because of job requirements (for example, salespersons or businessmen with Rangyan contacts), marriages to Rangyans or out of pure interest in the language.

The genealogical classification of Rangyan is debated. Some linguists place it in the Altaic language family; others consider it to be a language isolate. Rangyan is an agglutinative and SOV-ordered language distinguished by a system of honorifics reflecting the hierarchical nature of Rangyan society, with verb forms and particular vocabulary indicating the relative status of speaker and listener. Rangyan writing uses hanji (Chinese characters) and yenmun (Korean hangul), as well as the Latin alphabet and Arabic numerals. Like Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese, Rangyan has borrowed much vocabulary from the Chinese or created vocabulary on Chinese models.

Besides Rangyan and English, the five recognised regional languages (Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Tagalog and Indonesian) are spoken among the ethnic groups in Rangya as well.
Last edited by desmond on Fri Mar 09, 2012 1:44 pm, edited 3 times in total.
[b]Desmond[/b] - [url=http://conlang.wikia.com/Rangyayo][b]Rangyayo[/b][/url], spoken on the islands of elixir of life

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Re: Rangyayo (now with 2 audio samples on Youtube!)

Post by jmcd »

Is there a map of Rangya in relation to other countries at all?

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Re: Rangyayo (now with 2 audio samples on Youtube!)

Post by desmond »

Bristel wrote:Given a sufficient translation of your works, you could introduce this on the asian conlanging boards.
Do you mean introducing Rangyayo on conlangery forums in Asia? I did before actually, on a conlangery forum and Weibo group (twitter-like microblogging) in China. And I've translated my Rangyayo wikia page from English into Chinese and posted it on the Chinese version of Conlang Wikia.

I kinda want to introduce Rangyayo on Japanese and Korean conlangery forums as well but apparently my language proficiencies are not good enough for this task. :(

And a Polish conlanger introduced Rangyayo on the Polish conlangery forum before.
Last edited by desmond on Mon Mar 12, 2012 8:36 am, edited 2 times in total.
[b]Desmond[/b] - [url=http://conlang.wikia.com/Rangyayo][b]Rangyayo[/b][/url], spoken on the islands of elixir of life

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Re: Rangyayo (now with 2 audio samples on Youtube!)

Post by desmond »

jmcd wrote:Is there a map of Rangya in relation to other countries at all?
This is the map showing the location of Rangya in Asia.

Image
[b]Desmond[/b] - [url=http://conlang.wikia.com/Rangyayo][b]Rangyayo[/b][/url], spoken on the islands of elixir of life

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Re: Rangyayo (now with 2 audio samples on Youtube!)

Post by jmcd »

And 2.3 million people? Any idea how they didn't get annexed by Japan like real-life Ryukyu in more or less the same place and with a similar population?

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Re: Rangyayo (now with 2 audio samples on Youtube!)

Post by desmond »

jmcd wrote:And 2.3 million people? Any idea how they didn't get annexed by Japan like real-life Ryukyu in more or less the same place and with a similar population?
That's a very tricky question. I'll try to reason it with a new plausible history.

* In 1544, both Taiwan and Rangya were discovered by Portugal.
* Portugal, and later Spain and Dutch were allowed to set up trading posts in Rangya.
* Western settlements in Rangya helped keep early Japanese invasion away. (Japan invaded Ryukyu in 1609 but failed to invade Korea during 1592-1598)
* Portuguese and Spanish traders were driven away by the Dutch forces
* Dutch influence in Rangya was getting larger and larger, and eventually Rangya became a colony of the Dutch Empire.
* The Rangya royals were kept as puppet rulers to ease the resistance in Rangya. (like Sultans in British Malaya?)
* Japan didn't invade Dutch Rangya until Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895) because of Rangaku ("Dutch Learning") during 1641-1853
* "Dutch Learning" and by extension "Western learning", is a body of knowledge developed by Japan through its contacts with the Dutch, which allowed Japan to keep abreast of Western technology and medicine in the period when the country was closed to foreigners, 1641–1853, because of the policy of national isolation.
* The Japanese invasion and subsequent occupation during World War II ended Dutch rule, and encouraged the previously suppressed Rangyan independence movement
* Like Burma and the Philippines, Rangya was granted formal independence by the Japanese in 1943. Rangyan representatives were sent to the Greater East Asia Conference in Tokyo in November 1943.
* Rangyan monarchy was restored in the form of constitutional monarchy after gaining independence in 1946.

An alternative solution would be:

* China (in both Ming and Qing dynasties) tried harder to protect Rangya from getting annexed by Japan until China lost in Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895) because the fall of Rangya could be a bigger threat to China as Rangya is closer to China than Ryukyu to China in distance.
* Rangya was occupied by the Japanese until end of World War II and gained independence in 1946.

Which option is better / more feasible? :) Any opinions and/or advices from you people, on how to 1. prevent Rangya from becoming part of Japan forever and 2. keep / restore the monarchy of Rangya after World War II?
[b]Desmond[/b] - [url=http://conlang.wikia.com/Rangyayo][b]Rangyayo[/b][/url], spoken on the islands of elixir of life

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Re: Rangyayo (now with info on Rangya & samples on Youtube!)

Post by finlay »

琅野 – so, "jade fields"?

almost sounds like "elysian fields" or something. :P

I only noticed this because I recently learnt the kanji 野 as part of names such as 中野, 上野 and 武蔵野 in Tokyo. :P

Do you have a designated reading of the characters in Chinese/Korean/Japanese? It seems to come out as rouya in Japanese as far as I can tell...

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Re: Rangyayo (now with info on Rangya & samples on Youtube!)

Post by jmcd »

The former seems more feasible. The latter seems more likely to lead to a Taiwan-like situation. And the former's more detailed.

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Re: Rangyayo (now with info on Rangya & samples on Youtube!)

Post by Sortsdam »

Yes Desmond the first solution is the best I must also say.

By the way, when you do come up with an up-close map of Rangya, I will go apeshit. :D I'm trying to do this for my con-country right now as well.

Edit: I also thought I would mention, I very much like the location of Rangya, but I think it would be more realistic and able to maintain its independence if it were just a bit further east of the Ryukyu Islands, and possibly slighly larger in size (than what I assume it to be). This type of change in location could mean

1. The Sinitic mythological beliefs about Rangya would be more exotic, given its location further out in the Pacific
2. The country would better maintain its independence if not surrounded by Japan on one side and China on the other (unless of course it was a vassal state, in which case its proximity to China would help it retain independence from Japan, but as mentioned above this might lead to a Taiwan type situation)
3. It would have developed a more unique identity from China and Japan, keeping its language and customs (think Taiwan vs. Palau)

You could have a chain of small islands running from near Ryukyu further out; the largest islands would be further from Ryukyu; the early native settlers could have island-hopped via China > Taiwan > Ryukyu > Rangya or Korea > Japan > Ryukyu > Rangya. Such a scenario (especially the latter) also makes a case for Rangyayo's possible Altaic origins

Anyway, this is just my suggestions. Surely you know your concountry the best, so do what you think is right. :)

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