Gomain (now 100% digraph-free!)

[Herr Dunkel]

Only 8 doesn't seem to make much sense for me (did that happen in any other language?),

Quite a few languages have h > ç / _j, and ç > ʃ seems quite likely.

Certain German dialects have ç > ʃ / i__

[Taernsietr]

I know of hj > ç (I think I do this in some English words), but as Jádyndár seemed very thorough in his changes, I wanted to know about hj > ʃ directly (i.e. no intermediate ç). Also, isn't ç more likely to turn into ɕ?

[Herr Dunkel]

I know of hj > ç (I think I do this in some English words), but as Jádyndár seemed very thorough in his changes, I wanted to know about hj > ʃ directly (i.e. no intermediate ç). Also, isn't ç more likely to turn into ɕ?

hj > ʃ happens in Slavic languages AFAIK
And, yes, ç does appear more likely to turn into ɕ, but it doesn't happen that way in L'Europe.

[Jadyndar]

I know of hj > ç (I think I do this in some English words), but as Jádyndár seemed very thorough in his changes, I wanted to know about hj > ʃ directly (i.e. no intermediate ç). Also, isn't ç more likely to turn into ɕ?

hj > ʃ happens in Slavic languages AFAIK
And, yes, ç does appear more likely to turn into ɕ, but it doesn't happen that way in L'Europe.

Yay, replies!

Good to know there might be some precedent for #8. I was actually considering using ç as an intermediate step for that change, in the event that hj > ʃ wasn't viable otherwise.

...19 seems to be quite unstable (personally, I'd have turned nasal+h_# into voiceless nasals :3).

Interesting point. I might simply make voiceless nasals allophones of those clusters in that position then. (i.e. /nh/ = [n̥], etc.)

Other than those two issues, though, it seems that there's nothing too far-fetched in what I've planned, if I'm understanding you all right. That leaves me with one question: For a timescale of ~1000 years, have I come up with a reasonable number of sound changes?

[Nortaneous]

And, yes, ç does appear more likely to turn into ɕ, but it doesn't happen that way in L'Europe.

Aren't there some dialects of German where standard /ç/ merged into /ʃ/?

[Acid Badger]

And, yes, ç does appear more likely to turn into ɕ, but it doesn't happen that way in L'Europe.

Aren't there some dialects of German where standard /ç/ merged into /ʃ/?

Yes. But AFAIK those dialects still distinguish /ʃ/ (<ch>) from /ʃʷ/ (<sch>)

[Herr Dunkel]

And, yes, ç does appear more likely to turn into ɕ, but it doesn't happen that way in L'Europe.

Aren't there some dialects of German where standard /ç/ merged into /ʃ/?

Yes. But AFAIK those dialects still distinguish /ʃ/ (<ch>) from /ʃʷ/ (<sch>)

I think there is one dialect in the Inter-Speyer-Benrather area (I believe those are called Central German languages, but I don't know) that had /x/ merged into /ʃ/, but only after /i/ and /y/.

[Nortaneous]

...oh, right, standard [ç]...

[Skomakar'n]

Beautiful PDF and beautiful script. It's hard for people to get me hooked, but I'm reading this PDF with excitement!

I have to ask, though, why is /dZ/ ‹jh›? It feels odd to use a digraph with ‹j› when you don't even use ‹j›. It's a fairly common letter alone to use for /dZ/ (I'm currently writing in a language that does ;p) anyway.

[Élerhe]

I've also prepared a new sample text in the Pékrif. You've probably seen part of this sample before, in my sig, but here's a larger version of it, artistified with the help of Inkscape:

I love the script, but do wonder if the circles are a little to perfect to be written so by hand. Perhaps elongating them a bit into ovals could be an alternative for handwritten texts

As for whether you have enough sound changes for thousand years, it does rather depend on the language and how conservative it is. Soanish and Fench have taken about the some time to derive from Vulgar Latin, but look how different they are (and the relative complicatedness/simplicity of the sound changes) while I was once told that the differences between modern Greek and Classical is comparable to that between Elizabethan and Modern English (although that may have been the way they are spelt - so don't hold me to that ^^).

[Herr Dunkel]

while I was once told that the differences between modern Greek and Classical is comparable to that between Elizabethan and Modern English (although that may have been the way they are spelt - so don't hold me to that ^^).

It's more comparable to the difference between Old-Norse and Middle English, I'd say. Half the vowels are mashed, the other half stirred and blended and served cold.

[Jadyndar]

Beautiful PDF and beautiful script. It's hard for people to get me hooked, but I'm reading this PDF with excitement!

I have to ask, though, why is /dZ/ ‹jh›? It feels odd to use a digraph with ‹j› when you don't even use ‹j›. It's a fairly common letter alone to use for /dZ/ (I'm currently writing in a language that does ;p) anyway.

Thank you! I actually do use ‹j› for another phoneme - for /j/ of all things. I used to use ‹j› for /dZ/, but then I decided I wanted to get rid of the vowel digraphs I had been using until then (/œ/ was ‹oe› and /ʏ/ was ‹ue›), so I switched them to the current ‹ø y›, forcing me to change old ‹y› to ‹j›.

I love the script, but do wonder if the circles are a little to perfect to be written so by hand. Perhaps elongating them a bit into ovals could be an alternative for handwritten texts

As for whether you have enough sound changes for thousand years, it does rather depend on the language and how conservative it is. Soanish and Fench have taken about the some time to derive from Vulgar Latin, but look how different they are (and the relative complicatedness/simplicity of the sound changes) while I was once told that the differences between modern Greek and Classical is comparable to that between Elizabethan and Modern English (although that may have been the way they are spelt - so don't hold me to that ^^).

Good points. The "circles" are in fact ellipses; they're just not extremely skinny. The Pékrif used to have truly circular letters - they looked a lot worse IMO.

As for the number of sound changes - well, I guess I'll finally have to just run some more words through them and compare the output to the modern words in order to decide if they're different enough for my taste. Thank you (and all the rest of you) for your advice on that!

[Jadyndar]

Double-post to announce the completion of my first longish text in both the Pékrif and romainzation, the biblical Letter to the Romans, available in PDF form here. Enjoy!

[Nortaneous]

Why does everything have an acute?

[Jadyndar]

Those are the tense vowels (and syllabic r). Check out the grammar to see what they actually represent.

[Nortaneous]

...Er, it's generally good practice to use the diacritic on the series that's less common.

edit: Also, how (if at all) do you distinguish in the romanization between, say, /kr̥/ and /xr/, or /ʃw sw̥/? Or are all such clusters impossible?

[Jadyndar]

...Er, it's generally good practice to use the diacritic on the series that's less common.

So I've been told, yes. I've chosen otherwise for historical reasons (tense vowels coming from earlier long vowels) as well as matching the native script (although I adjusted the script to match the romanization, not vice versa).

edit: Also, how (if at all) do you distinguish in the romanization between, say, /kr̥/ and /xr/, or /ʃw sw̥/? Or are all such clusters impossible?

Voiceless liquids only follow voiceless obstruents as allophones of the voiced liquids. The voiceless liquids and /w̥/ come from earlier /sC/ clusters, which never followed any obstruents, so the issue you asked about never comes up.

Edit: If you want to compare my current Gomain orthography with one that better follows "good practice", this is the same text as in my previous post, but with diacritic-less tense vowels (except when irregularly stressed) and diaeresized lax vowels.

[Jadyndar]

I just finished recording new sound samples of Gomain; you can listen to (and read) them here.

I've also decided to see whether you all think the new Gomain romanization (mentioned in the edit to the preceding post) looks better than the old one. To compare, you can look at my text of Romans with acutes on tense vowels (the old romanization) alongside a version with diaereses on lax vowels (the new romanization). Please let me know what you think! (edit: I, for one, think the new romanization looks much cleaner than the old one, now that the letters aren't floating in a sea of acute accents.)

[Bristel]

I think the new romanization looks much better.

EDIT: also, wow, you had the patience to translate 27 verses of Romans?

[Nortaneous]

I definitely prefer the new version. (If the historical reasons are that important a motivator for the acutes, you could use breves for the lax vowels.)

[Jadyndar]

EDIT: also, wow, you had the patience to translate 27 verses of Romans?

I translated all 16 chapters of the book, for that matter. Unless you're referring to a particular verse?

I definitely prefer the new version. (If the historical reasons are that important a motivator for the acutes, you could use breves for the lax vowels.)

Good point.

With the orthography question settled, I've finished updating the reference grammar and all the online samples. I haven't updated the dictionary yet, however, because I'm completely redoing it as a database! I decided it was time to overhaul the online dictionary after looking at Sko's recently-published Vanga dictionary (which BTW is awesome). Since I'm a newb when it comes to PHP, and since it'll take a while to add all 3000+ Gomain words to the new database, it'll be a while before the new dictionary is public.

[Haplogy]

The Pégrif looks really sexy

[Jadyndar]

The Pégrif looks really sexy

Thanks!

After a lengthy period away from here, I'm back with new Gomain goodies! First off, I've completely overhauled the prepositions. One of the critiques I received at the CBB (and which was voiced in the Conlangery podcast's review of Gomain) was that Gomain had way too many basic prepositions - around 50. I took this complaint as an opportunity to try out a couple of preposition-related morphosyntax ideas I had been wanting to experiment with. The end results were a set of eight basic prepositions (as well as a few compound ones to replace some of the old basic prepositions) with meanings determined by the case of their complement; prepositions can now govern any of the accusative, dative and instrumental (with most basic prepositions governing all three). In addition, prepositions now inflect when their complement is a pronoun. A full description of the new system is in the latest version of the Gomain Reference Grammar.

Besides that, I just finished a new set of cursive connecting forms of Pekrïf letters. I was dissatisfied with the little kinks that would appear when a letter ending on, say, an up-stroke was followed by a letter beginning with another up-stroke. So, after working out how I would implement the new letterforms in my Pekrïf font, I spent several nights designing the roughly 300 new forms in Illustrator, adding them to the font, writing new OpenType rules to implement them automatically, and testing/fixing those rules to get everything working properly. I haven't put together a table showing all the new letterforms (which would be massive), but I've updated my translation of the letter to the Romans so that it now uses the new forms (as well as the revamped prepositions). For comparison purposes, the previous version of Romans is still online.

So that's what I've been up to in my absence. I'd love to see your thoughts on the new preposition system and Pekrïf letterforms. Like 'em? Hate 'em? Is the preposition system naturalistic enough? Is it easy enough to make sense of? Do the new letterforms improve the look of the text? Do they make it look too cluttered? Maybe both in different places?

[Durakken]

I've made a set of new ligatures for the Pékrif:



The pairs of letters that each ligature is made from are on the left, followed by the isolated and contextual forms to the right (and finally the romanizations of the ligatures on the far right).
What do you all think? Realistic? Plausible? Wacky?

I'm also still open to comments on anything else, so if you have something to say, please share it! Thanks!

I Think these are not exactly "right" in form.
The "Zh" part of the word or whatever has a connecting piece that hang downs straight. Naturally and most practically when someone writes it they would simply connect the two pieces that are hanging down with out any loop. I don't know of any cursive style letter that connects by looping from the last letter when the last letter doesn't have a loop. I might be wrong about this but I don't see how that makes any practical sense.

[Jadyndar]

I don't know of any cursive style letter that connects by looping from the last letter when the last letter doesn't have a loop.

I do: the lam-alif ligature in Arabic. Neither of its component letters is written with a loop in any other context. While I didn't have lam-alif specifically in mind when I created those ligatures (which I mainly intended as a space-saving device), I think it serves as enough of a support for my choice in ligature construction. In addition, it turns out that the final "tail" of the first letter in my ligatures isn't completely vertical; if you look closely, you can see that it forms a sort of very narrow backwards S. So, while I haven't worked out the history of the Pekrïf yet, it's possible that this slight bend is the remnant of an earlier loop.

Thanks for bringing that up. Any comments on what's in my last post?

Edit: I decided to take the vowels out of the CV prepositions, because using them before a noun frequently resulted in two adjacent identical vowels. All prepositions now end with (or consist entirely of) a consonant. I also decided to make the letters uz and üd not connect to following letters, partly to make isolated and initial letterforms more common; those are now the only two vowel letters that don't connect. In addition, I created a version of mek with a lower and wider final swash to allow certain letters to be placed closer to it, reducing empty space within words. The Gomain reference grammar and my translation of Romans from above have been updated with all these changes. I have more changes coming soon. Feedback on these latest changes is most welcome, especially regarding aesthetics. Are my changes making the Pekrïf look better or worse overall, and in what specific ways?

Edit 2: More changes, all of them to the Pekrïf. I added a swash version of pekh for the same reasons as the swash version of mek, and I fixed the kerning for when certain letters are to the right of the new versions of uz and üd. My translation of Romans is, again, updated, and so is the shorter Pekrïf Intro PDF. Please let me know what you think of how the texts look with all these changes! Any specific comments on anything else would be appreciated as well. Thanks!