zompist bboard

If anyone's interested, I've been working on a Germanic language, Øynduyska, and am now gradually uploading a description to my blog. The intention isn't for it to be a thoroughly-developed language, but to at least be a solidly if briefly described one.

So far, you can read a brief introduction, the first part of the phonology/orthography, and the second part of the phonology/orthography. More, of couse, to follow.

All feedback gratefully received!

And, perhaps of greater interest, there are now nouns.

So far, I really like what I see! Always nice to see a Germlang. After reading your intro, I think you accomplish what you meant to. It does remind me a lot of OE....especially the nominal system, with a Norse-like orthography. Not so much a descendant to OE but more like a sister or correlate language.

The orthography is utterly baffling (and that is meant as a compliment). I've always felt it was quite fitting for Germlangs to have orthographies which are more natural, difficult, and etymological. I only skimmed the phonology and orthography so I must admit that I didn't give it much study but I like the system. It feels like a mixture of Dutch and Faroese... my only question is what is up with <bh>? Where does that come from etymologically? Personally, I don't like the aesthetic of <bh> or <dh> so maybe I'm overreacting. Also, if you explained it in your phonology sections, I apologize. Again, I only skimmed it.

This really makes me want to revisit Halelannish. Great work!

Pronouns, articles, demonstratives, adjectives now up.

Spanick: thank you! Glad it pleases so far. <bh> is because many instance of /v/ come from earlier /b/. <v> itself wasn't used because of the location at the periphery of Europe - <v> and <w> weren't introduced until much later, and when <v> was introduced it was primarily to disambiguate f/v. Since there was hardly ever a confusion medially (where non-geminate /f/ is rare) or finally (where <f> was always /f/), <v> was primarily used only initially.
It helps that there were some Irish monks around early on...

(Just for keping track - my comments are at Sal's blog).

That's really cool, Sal. The orthography is - well - challenging, but it gives the language character. Speaking as a creator of several Germlangs, I'm looking forward to seeing what you do with the verbs.

One thing, though. At the start of the section on vowels is this:

three salient environments – open, closed, pre-geminate, and unstressed.

I make it four...

alice wrote:That's really cool, Sal. The orthography is - well - challenging, but it gives the language character.

Challenging as in ugly, or challenging as in confusing?

One thing, though. At the start of the section on vowels is this:

three salient environments – open, closed, pre-geminate, and unstressed.

I make it four...

[/quote]
Thanks!

[quote="Salmoneus"]Challenging as in ugly, or challenging as in confusing?[quote]

Confusing. It's not easy having to flip back and forward to another age to work out how to pronounce something, especially when there are so many rules. Maybe you could provide a phonemic transcription alongside each word?

I agree with that sentiment. While it's totally awesome to have a realisticly obtuse orthography, a proper phonemic romanisation is, IMO, absolutely necessary.

I didn't want to bog everything down with phonemic transcriptions that probably wouldn't really interest anyone. Besides, I thought the orthography was mostly pretty intuitive... apparently not!

A typo I caught in passing in the nouns section:
Some common, formal or poetic nouns show predictable verb changes in the genitives:

I don't mind the orthography myself - it's more realistic anyway. And besides, it's easier than English or Swedish in that respect! a
Having the occasional transcription in IPA is fine.

Thanks.

The first part of what may be a rather long discussion of verbs is now up. This installment discusses verbal morphology in both strong and weak verbs.

Discussing the use of the aorist and preterite tenses. Also, the compound past and the double past.

We're really getting to the juicy bits now. The phonemic transcriptions are very handy.

Three more (and final!) past tenses: perfect, imperfect and experiential.

And now, progressives.

As the posts keep coming in, I'm starting to pick up the orthography fairly well. I really like what I'm seeing. It seems very natural. It would be interesting to know why/how these various nuanced tense/aspects developed.

Very Ænglisc, almost Faroesey. Nice.

Thank you.


Spanick: broadly, these constructions began as colloquial or restricted expressions, following patterns common throughout Germanic languages. They came to replace the plain tenses in many circumstances (and positional auxiliaries came to replace the copula in non-essential situations) but because this is a relatively recent development they have not yet been levelled into simpler and more universal constructions, and their use is asymmetrical (some constructions have just 'stand', some have 'stand' and 'lie', and some have all three of 'stand', 'lie' and 'sit'), probably reflecting different periods of grammaticalisation.

Almost at the end of the verbs now...

(...and then we'll do a bit of syntax)

But for now: Predication!

Two updates for you...

First, the last content on verbs per se: passives, impersonals, and subjunctives

Second, a pair of handy summary verbal tables for the periphrastic forms: see? handy!

Some syntax. Basic word order, adverbs, object fronting, and separable verbs.

i just realize that on the page for pronouns, you haven't actually made a table and listed the pronouns. Is that located somewhere else?

So I haven't posted since, apparently, 2012, but I wanted to come back on and say how much I'm enjoying Øynduyska. I've been trying to get the beginnings of a Norse-descended conlang sorted out in my head for some time so it's good to see a Germanic conlang by someone who really knows their stuff.

(Hi everyone btw. Sorry I haven't been around much. I have three kids now.)