Skaran

[yangfiretiger121]

I created a sandbox roleplay setting that mixes elements of swords and sorcery into a Star Trek-/Star Wars-type sci-fi setting named the Skaran Empire.

Skaran alphabet, pronunciation, phonetics, and stress (everything but stress is under revision within this topic)
The start of a dictionary (old alphabet but words are still mostly valid)

How the Empire started/description of the founding species (Sargons)
Hωmώ piskáriυs, more properly H. sapiens piskáriυs, is an offshoot of H. s. sapiens (mankind) that diverged from its parent species several centuries ago after 800 or so Greek and Roman citizens, many of whom were members of Salákia’s cult, took the legends about the lost continent of Pandωra to heart and decided to try finding it in 107 BCE. While everyone expected Salákia to protect her cult members from death on their dives, very few expected her to protect the others who’d come along despite her being known as the calm aspect of the sea, at the time. Those Romans found Pandora on 1 Sώláriυs, then Δύniυs, 106 BCE and kept the find among themselves out of fear that they’d be put to death if it got out. Therefore, they, and their descendants, have referred to the years prior to that date as ante annυm Pandωrai (AAP) (before the year of Pandωra) and the ones after the date as annω Pandωrai (AP) (in the year of Pandωra) ever since, making that date the beginning of AP 1.

By the end of Ωktώber AP 3, Salákia sectioned off an area consisting of 2 square miles (5.18 sq. kilometers) extending north, south, and west from the coastal point at which one explorer made the discovery where the people could live safely and explore more without having to dive anymore. Exploration of that area continued for another five years or so before they even had to rely on Salákia’s protection again. By the end of AP 25, Salákia had expanded her protection from the initial area to the entire continent.

As you can see, their language, Skaran, is a mix of ancient Greek and Classical Latin. The declension tables I have ready are below formatted as case (singular ending(s); plural ending(s)). There's not a table for IV declension (υ-stem) nouns, even though it'll, probably, end up echoing Latin's (u-stem table because I haven't decided about it yet. Also, Skaran only has two "genders" (common and neuter) because the Sargons evolved to be intersex. The other things I need help with are the missing adjective declension tables and the verb conjugation tables.

I declension nouns (-a, -a+cons., -á, -á+cons, -é, -é+cons)
Nom./Voc. (unchanged; -ai)
Acc. (-am; -ás)
Gen. (-ai; -árυm)
Dat. (-ai; -ís)
Abl. (-á; -ís)
Loc. (-ai; -ís)

II declension nouns/adjectives (-ω, -ω+cons, -ώ, -ώ+cons)
Nom. (unchanged; -ωi)
Voc. (-e; -ωi)
Acc. (-ωn; -ωυs)
Gen. (-ωυ; -ωn)
Dat. (-ω; -ωis)
Abl. (-ω; -ís)
Loc. (nouns only) (-ai; -ís)

III declension nouns (-e, -e+cons, -i, -i+cons, -í, -í+cons
Nom./Voc. (—, -s, or a/b w/ dif stem; -és)
Acc. (-im; -ís)
Gen. (-is; -iυm)
Dat./Abl./Loc. (-í; -ibυs)

V declension nouns (consonant-stem)
Nom./Voc. (—, -s, or a/b w/ dif stem; -és (c.), -a (nt.))
Acc. (-em; -és (c.), -a (nt.))
Gen. (-is; -ωm)
Dat. (-i; -ibυs)
Abl. (-e; -ibυs)
Loc. (-i; -sυ)

I declension adjectives (-a (c.), -υm (nt.)
Nom./Voc. (unchanged; -ai, -a)
Acc. (-am, unchanged; -as, -a)
Gen. (-ai, -i; -árυm, ώrυm)
Dat. (-ai, -ω; -ís)
Abl. (-á, -ω; -ís)

III declension adjectives (-is (c.), -e (nt.)
Nom./Voc. (unchanged; -és, -ia)
Acc. (-em, unchanged; -és, -ia)
Gen. (unchanged; -iυm)
Dat./Abl. (-í; -ibυs)

[mèþru]

Welcome to the ZBB! Have some pickles and tea! (It's a board tradition for welcoming new members)


I see you are not big on realism, so I don't know what feedback I can give you.

[Frislander]

I see you are not big on realism, so I don't know what feedback I can give you.

I'm not sure either, though there's clearly a basis on natlangs and on actual human beings from the planet earth, so there's at least something to be said. It's definitely very much Latin/Greek-heavy, which is a shame because it appears to me to be just a bit unoriginal and samey, if I'm honest.

So let's break this down.

I created a sandbox roleplay setting that mixes elements of swords and sorcery into a Star Trek-/Star Wars-type sci-fi setting named the Skaran Empire.

Skaran alphabet, pronunciation, phonetics, and stress

I'm slightly bemused by the weird choice of orthography. I mean, I can get my head round it because I know the Greek alphabet, but it does seem rather a random and arbitrary mix. Why would Romans and Greeks mix them like this rather than go for one over the other.

...after 800 or so Greek and Roman citizens, many of whom were members of Salákia’s cult, took the legends about the lost continent of Pandωra to heart and decided to try finding it in 107 BCE. While everyone expected Salákia to protect her cult members from death on their dives, very few expected her to protect the others who’d come along despite her being known as the calm aspect of the sea, at the time. Those Romans found Pandora on 1 Sώláriυs, then Δύniυs, 106 BCE and kept the find among themselves out of fear that they’d be put to death if it got out. Therefore, they, and their descendants, have referred to the years prior to that date as ante annυm Pandωrai (AAP) (before the year of Pandωra) and the ones after the date as annω Pandωrai (AP) (in the year of Pandωra) ever since, making that date the beginning of AP 1.

OK, so these are Romans and Greeks that have by hook or by crook been transported to another planet or something, OK.

Hωmώ piskáriυs, more properly H. sapiens piskáriυs, is an offshoot of H. s. sapiens (mankind) that diverged from its parent species several centuries ago...

...the Sargons evolved to be intersex.

What? These are actual human beings we're talking about here, and you just said that they had only a few centuries to evolve into this subspecies? And to somehow lose the biological sex differentiation which has persisted for hundreds of millions of years? No, I'm not buying it.

As you can see, their language, Skaran, is a mix of ancient Greek and Classical Latin.

First, neat idea: a mix of two speaker populations leads to a certain intermixing of languages. Second though, what with what you've given us, how has this system survived like this over the several centuries you've specified? There's a reason no Romance language outside or Romania that preserves case in its nouns, and even Romanian only keeps 2 at most. There's no way the system you have there is not going to be simplified to some extent, even if the Greek influence helps to preserve a couple more cases. The Ablative and Locative in particular are doomed, and you can't claim Greek influence to help you with that one because Greek lacked them even in the Classical language (and note that the form of Greek we'd be talking about with this language will be Koiné, not Classical Greek). I wouldn't count on the survival of the Vocative either.

I don't want to be mean; all I want at the end of the day is for you to make good conlangs, and every conlanger must start somewhere.

[mèþru]

These are Classical Latin speakers isolated from the rest of the world. No reason for that makes losing cases required.

[yangfiretiger121]

On the alphabet:
1. They went back to pronouncing c as /g/ because k was doing a fine job on its own (gamma for c);
2. they adore shorthand (theta for th, xi for ks, chi for ch, psi for ps, and sigma for Italian's sh sound (possibly not the best));
3. they wanted a j-equivalent (capital delta may not have been the best choice; lower case mu seemed like the best option at the time);
4. they didn't want two different character sets for o (omicron/omega) so omega absorbed omicron and the Latin o;
5. they removed q because they saw it as a special-use-only k; and
6. they wanted a w-equivalent and the Romans already pronounced u as /w/ (addition of upsilon)

On evolution:
They've had a bare minimum of 2706 years to evolve based upon my statement about the empire mixing fantasy with sci-fi. They have Star Trek- or Star Wars-level tech. Their evolution may have been aided by their matron deity, Salákia. After all, they wouldn't have been able to reproduce with sea creatures, likely dying out as a result.

On the cases:
Ablative and locative are holdovers from Classical Latin, not Greek, and have fallen by the waste side, except for a few nouns and adjectives in of each declension. Vocative, on the other hand, is just starting its way out the door.

The idea is for the language to have started out with, and retain, a heavy Latin bent because the mix of first generation Sargons was 80% Roman to 20% Greek. Originally, the six declensions were a-stem (I), ω-stem (II), e-stem (III), i-stem (IV), υ-stem (V), and consonant-stem (VI). However, I moved é stems into I declension and i stems into III declension to mix the parent languages more effectively. I'm strongly considering dismissing υ stems to reduce the number of declensions to four.

[Frislander]

On the alphabet:
1. They went back to pronouncing c as /g/ because k was doing a fine job on its own (gamma for c);
2. they adore shorthand (theta for th, xi for ks, chi for ch, psi for ps, and sigma for Italian's sh sound (possibly not the best));
3. they wanted a j-equivalent (capital delta may not have been the best choice; lower case mu seemed like the best option at the time);
4. they didn't want two different character sets for o (omicron/omega) so omega absorbed omicron and the Latin o;
5. they removed q because they saw it as a special-use-only k; and
6. they wanted a w-equivalent and the Romans already pronounced u as /w/ (addition of upsilon)

1. Why would they do this? You say later that the original population is 80% Roman, so why would all those Romans switch pronunciation to the minority Greek version? I don't even think that most native speakers would know of the connection: such etymological awareness is specialist knowledge, and I'm not even sure anyone at the time knew the two letters were directly related. And why would they switch when they already have a perfectly serviceable letter <g> in the Latin alphabet.
2. OK, so they borrowed letters for the odd new sound and for some sound combinations, OK.
3. Mu? Why mu? Nobody, linguist or not, would use a character representing /m/ to represent /j/. There's just no phonetic basis for it. If you hadn't already used it I'd suggest using gamma for the purpose.
4. What do you mean by this?
5. and 6. probably should be addressed together. Now you're otherwise playing pretty conservative on Classical Latin. The issue with <qu> is that it did represent a separate phoneme in Classical Latin, which is why it has its own letter in the first place. On the other hand /u/ and /w/ were written the same way (with <v>), which would appear to indicate that at least in the early stage the consonantal and vocalic variants were allophones. And by this point in history Koiné Greek upsilon was pronounced as /y/, not /u/: is you want a different way to write /u/ borrowed from Greek then you'd use <ου>.

Now all this can be excused by saying the goddess fiddled around and commanded her worshippers to write this way, though that is a bit of a cop-out. If not though, I can't see a way to explain this.

The main problem with these changes is that they seem to be rather arbitrarily imposed rather than worked through and improvised by actual people speaking the language. When confronted with a writing system which is inadequate for representing the sounds of their language, sometimes people improvise and innovate, other times they don't do a damn thing, and sometimes they actually succeed in making things worse (just take a look at the history of English for a prime example). The thing which gets me about this is that you're basically going off Classical Latin without much alteration, and yet you see fit to make these radical changes.

An important principle to remember with these things is that the written form of a language is always more conservative than the spoken form of a language. This isn't something I've just cooked up on the fly, this is how it works with every written language on earth. By extension people won't change their orthography unless they have to. Attempts at centralised spelling reform (i.e. anything more systematic than common scribal practice) was not a thing before the early modern period.

Again, you have that goddess of yours you could use to invoke changes (I mean you're using her to mangle the biology, the orthography is probably a doddle).

I also struggle to understand how mixing the two orthographies like this helps your aesthetic either.

On evolution:
They've had a bare minimum of 2706 years to evolve based upon my statement about the empire mixing fantasy with sci-fi. They have Star Trek- or Star Wars-level tech. Their evolution may have been aided by their matron deity, Salákia. After all, they wouldn't have been able to reproduce with sea creatures, likely dying out as a result.

Right, so you're goddess does some messing around, and there's techonology which can help the process, OK, so there's a reason. Btw, could you clarify whether the language being described here is meant to be spoken after the 2706 years? (which raises even more questions on top of the ones I already have).

These are Classical Latin speakers isolated from the rest of the world. No reason for that makes losing cases required.

But given the trends seen throughout the Indo-European family we can at least expect the Ablative and Locative to not survive long from Classical Latin either, since they syncretise with the Dative in most declensions in Latin, and Greek loses them entirely.

Ablative and locative are holdovers from Classical Latin, not Greek, and have fallen by the waste side, except for a few nouns and adjectives in of each declension. Vocative, on the other hand, is just starting its way out the door.

OK, I can accept them as relics in a few places, that's perfectly fine, language do that all the time, like maybe you have a certain idiom which uses the ablative as a partitive or something.

[mèþru]

Slavic retained a lot of cases. Also, radical biological changes don't happen in 2 millennia, but you can't expect a language that close to its parent after 2000 years. Not even Semitic languages, and their root structure means that sound changes that do a lot of change are often reversed by analogy.

[Pole, the]

but you can't expect a language that close to its parent after 2000 years.

«insert the standard joke about Finnish not having changed in the last 5000 years here»

[yangfiretiger121]

1., 3., and 6. Originally, the discovery happened in 206 BCE, at which point <c> was still pronounced as /g/. I just forgot to modernize the sound in my head when I made the alphabet. Thus, gamma taking c's spot, which necessitated use of the Delta/μu combo for <j>. Had I known ancient Greek's pronunciation evolution, upsilon would have ended up as <j>. Would the long u have been <óυ> or <oύ>;
4. they saw omicron/Latin <o> (<O, Ó, o, ó>) and omega (<Ω, Ώ, ω, and ώ>) as two distinct character sets the represent different qualities (long, short) of the same vowel (<o>). Thus, they merged omicron and the Latin <o> into omega;
5. what was <qu>'s phoneme?

My current alphabet is as follows: <A, a> (alfa), <B, b> (beta), <D, d> (delta),<E, e> (epsilon), <F, f>, <G, g> (gamma), <H, h>, <Θ, θ> (theta), <I, i> (iota), <Υ, γ> (yada), <K, k> (kappa), <L, l> (lamda), <M, m> (mu), <N, n> (nu),
<P, p> (pi), <R, r> (rho), <S, s> (sigma), <T, t> (tau), <U, υ> (upsilon), <W, w> (waw), <Ξ, ξ> (ksí), <Z, z> (zeta), <Χ, χ> (chí), <Ψ, ψ> (psí), <Σ, σ> (shí), <Ω, ω> (omega)

I find it a bit strange that this place displays lower case gamma correctly but not lower case xi, favoring <x> for the latter.

On the language evolving:
1. <B> was added from Italian and runs in concert with <dw>, whereas <b> replaced <du> in Latin (duonus—>bonus);
2. the disappearances of theta and chí as the /t^h, k^h/ aspirants. Likewise, <φ> (phí) disappeared completely upon merger with /f/;
3. yada was inserted as the <j>-equivalent, eventually, to avoid confusion of non-native speakers wondering which <i>'s should be <j>'s;
4. the eventual split of <v> into <u> and <w> for reason of confusion avoidance, as above; and
5. the addition of shí for Italian's /sh/ (fasce).

[Frislander]

1., 3., and 6. Originally, the discovery happened in 206 BCE, at which point <c> was still pronounced as /g/. I just forgot to modernize the sound in my head when I made the alphabet. Thus, gamma taking c's spot, which necessitated use of the Delta/μu combo for <j>.

Err... No. The Latin alphabet was a direct borrowing from Etruscan, which did not have phonemic voiced stops. So both gamma and kappa were borrowed for unvoiced /k/. When the Romans borrowed the Etruscan alphabet to write Latin they borrowed the historical gamma character <C> to represent the unvoiced /k/ and added the stroke to get <G> to represent the voiced /g/. At no point in the history of Latin did <C> ever represent /g/.

Had I known ancient Greek's pronunciation evolution, upsilon would have ended up as <j>.

Just to be clear, in IPA /y/ is the <ü> vowel of German, not the palatal glide often represented by English <y>, which is /j/. And again, we'd be going off Koiné not ancient Greek here. If you want to borrow a Greek vowel character for the glide /j/ you'd be better off with iota.

Would the long u have been <óυ> or <oύ>;

Probably the first.

4. they saw omicron/Latin <o> (<O, Ó, o, ó>) and omega (<Ω, Ώ, ω, and ώ>) as two distinct character sets the represent different qualities (long, short) of the same vowel (<o>). Thus, they merged omicron and the Latin <o> into omega;

Or they go for omicron instead, which makes more sense to me because that is the character which both writing systems have in common.

5. what was <qu>'s phoneme?

/kʷ/, for which you have <kw> on the wiki-article. (Note: /ᶣ/ is not labialisation, it's labial-palatalisation, which you can't mean here: the correct diacritic for plain labialisation is a superscript /ʷ/).

My current alphabet is as follows: <A, a> (alfa), <B, b> (beta), <D, d> (delta),<E, e> (epsilon), <F, f>, <G, g> (gamma), <H, h>, <Θ, θ> (theta), <I, i> (iota), <Υ, γ> (yada), <K, k> (kappa), <L, l> (lamda), <M, m> (mu), <N, n> (nu),
<P, p> (pi), <R, r> (rho), <S, s> (sigma), <T, t> (tau), <U, υ> (upsilon), <W, w> (waw), <Ξ, ξ> (ksí), <Z, z> (zeta), <Χ, χ> (chí), <Ψ, ψ> (psí), <Σ, σ> (shí), <Ω, ω> (omega)

OK, this looks better, though I don't know how Classical Latin speakers would see the need to create <W> as a letter: that comes centuries after the fall of Rome.

I find it a bit strange that this place displays lower case gamma correctly but not lower case xi, favoring <x> for the latter.

That's a common problem both here and on the CBB.

[yangfiretiger121]

Point on the history of <c, g, k>. Though, <c> still overlaps with /k, s/ and would have been removed for that reason anyways.

I took two years of German in high school. <Ü> elaborates into <ue> and is pronounced similar to moot, making it equivalent to Classical Latin's lúna. That leaves two options for <u>; <U, Ú, υ, ύ> and <Oυ, Óυ, oυ, óυ>. So, yes, I chose the wrong letter <y> to spell yada, but some people may be tempted to pronounce jada as "ja-da" or "jay-da" with hard <j>'s. The iota-yada separation happened after a few hundred years of exposure to English. Thus, with both parent tongues having <i>, it seemed more natural to leave it as a vowel and add something (capital upsilon/lower case gamma) as the glide /j/, more for visual similarity to <y> than historical pronunciation. At about the same time, <w> bled over as well. Of course, the final alphabet may end up with <Υ, υ> (ipsilon) and <I, i> (iota) as /i/ and /j/, respectively.

They preferred the non-sequential nature of the Greek omega at the end of the alphabet. Thus, rather than move omicron to the end, they chose omega.

[Frislander]

I took two years of German in high school. <Ü> elaborates into <ue> and is pronounced similar to moot, making it equivalent to Classical Latin's lúna.

That's poorly taught German there. This is the sound it actually represents: there's a sound recording an all. The second paragraph actually talks about the point about Greek.

That leaves two options for <u>; <U, Ú, υ, ύ> and <Oυ, Óυ, oυ, óυ>.

Just a thing about bracketing: <> is orthography and // is for phonemes.

So, yes, I chose the wrong letter <y> to spell yada

No you didn't, this is an English language board, using "yada" as an English name for that character is fine

but some people may be tempted to pronounce jada as "ja-da" or "jay-da" with hard <j>'s

That's the affricate /d͡ʒ/, by the way.

They preferred the non-sequential nature of the Greek omega at the end of the alphabet. Thus, rather than move omicron to the end, they chose omega.

How is the order of letters in the alphabet even a factor? And how does "non-sequential" even mean anything given that the order of letters is arbitrary?

[yangfiretiger121]

Great points. They use the Greek tonos to mark long vowels.

Here's another updated alphabet: <A, α> (alfa), <B, b> (beta), <G, g> (gamma), <D, d> (delta),<E, ε> (epsilon), <F, f> (digamma), <H, h> (hά), <Θ, θ> (theta), <Υ, υ> (ipsilon), <Ι, ι> (yota), <K, k> (kappa), <L, l> (lamda), <M, m> (mu), <N, n> (nu), <O, o> (omicron), <P, p> (pi), <R, r> (rho), <S, s> (sigma), <T, t> (tau), <Ου, oυ> (upsilon), <V, v> (waw), <Ξ, ξ> (ksύ), <Z, z> (zeta), <Χ, χ> (chύ), <Ψ, ψ> (psύ)

Phonetic transcription thereof: {a} <ά>: {aː}, {b}, {g}, <gw>: {gʷ}, {d}, <dw>: {dʷ}, {ε}, <έ>: {eː}, {f}, {h}, {th}, {ɪ}, <ύ>: {ɪː}, {j}, {k}, <kw>: {kʷ}, {l}, {m}, {n}, {ɔ}, <ό>: {ɔː}, {p}, {r} (flap) or {ʀ} (trill), {s}, <sw>: {sʷ}, {t}, {ʊ}, <όυ>: {ʊː}, {w}, {ks}, {z}, {tʃ}, {ps}

Phonemic evolution
1. <V> for /u, w/ until alphabet's finalization —> <oυ> for /u/ and <v> for /w/;
2. <Ι> for /i, iː, j/ before lengthy exposure to Italian —> <ι> for /i, j/ and <Υ, υ> for /iː/; and
3. <Ι> for /i, j/ before lengthy exposure to German —> <Υ, υ> for /i/, <Ύ, ύ> for /iː/, and <ι> for /j/.

Possible changes
1. morphing <v> into <w> to align with /w/ because there's not supposed to be a /v/ in Skaran;
2. shifting <Υ, υ> to upsilon and <Ι, ι> to ipsilon, thereby—potentially—merging /i, iː, j/ again. <Ου> would return to its original function of /uː/; and
3. <Q> or another character for /kʷ/

If I shift yota to ipsilon but don't merge /i, iː/ and /j/ into one character, what are some decent options for /j/? Here are the consonants I haven't used in modern Skaran at this point: (Greek) <Γ, γ>, <Δ, δ>, <Λ, λ>, <Π, π>, <Σ, σ, ς>, and <Φ, φ> (Coptic, more exposure than direct use) <Ϣ, ϣ>, <Ϥ, ϥ>, <Ϧ, ϧ>, <Ϩ, ϩ>, <Ϫ, ϫ>, <Ϭ, ϭ>, and <Ϯ, ϯ>. By the way, they would have only used two of sigma's characters, not all three.

I know we've been hashing out the alphabet for the past several posts, but part of me would like to preserve the V declension noun ablative plural ending, which stands as -sόυ. Is this advisable? If so, what would be a good place for it?

[yangfiretiger121]

Here's the final alphabet: <A, α> (alfa), <B, b> (beta), <G, g> (gamma), <D, d> (delta),<E, ε> (epsilon), <F, f> (digamma), <H, h> (hαυ), <Θ, θ> (theta), <Ι, ι> (yota), <K, k> (kappa), <L, l> (lamda), <M, m> (mu), <N, n> (nu), <O, o> (omicron), <P, p> (pi), <Q, q> (kwί) <R, r> (rho), <S, s> (sigma), <T, t> (tau), <Υ, υ> (upsilon), <Ξ, ξ> (ksί), <Z, z> (zeta), <Χ, χ> (chί), <Ψ, ψ> (psί)

Special characters: <ά>, <έ>, <ί>, <ό>, <ύ>, <ϋ>

Phonemic/phonetic transcriptions thereof: /a/ ({a}-[ã])-/aː/ ({aː}-[ãː])), /b/ ({b}), /g/ ({g}), /d/ ({d}), <dw>: /dʷ/ ({dʷ}), /e/ ({ε}-{ε̃})-/eː/ ({εː}-{ε̃ː}), /f/ ({f}), /h/ ({h}), /θ/ ({θ}), /i/ ({ɪ}-{ɪ̃})-/iː/ ({ɪː}-{ɪ̃ː})-/j/ ({j}), /k/ ({k}),
/l/ ({l}), /m/ ({m}), /n/ ({n}), /o/ ({ɔ}-{ɔ̃})-/oː/ ({ɔː}-{ɔ̃ː}), /p/ ({p}), /kʷ/ ({kʷ}), /r/ ({r} (flap) or {ʀ} (trill)), /s/ ({s}), /t/ ({t}), /u/ ({ʊ}-{ʊ̃})-/uː/ ({ʊː}-{ʊ̃ː})-/y/ ({y}-{ỹ})-/w/ ({w}), /ks/ ({ks}), /z/ ({z}), /tʃ/ ({tʃ}), /ps/ ({ps})

Digraph/diphthong phonemics/phonetics: <αι>: /ai̯/ ({aɪ̯}), <αυ>: /au̯/ {aʊ̯}, <gυ>: /gʷ/ {gʷ}, <dυ>: /dʷ/ {dʷ}, <oι>: /oi̯/ {ɔɪ̯}, <sυ>: /sʷ/ {sʷ}

Nasal vowels, which are indicated above by vowels having a tilde over them, occur either after <m, n> (native capacity) or before a wold-final <m> (always long).

Evolution
1. Theta: Ancient /tʰ/ ({tʰ}) —> Modern: /θ/ ({θ});
2. monophthonization of Greek <oυ> into Skaran <ύ>;
3. Upsilon: Greek /y/ ({y})-/yː/ ({yː}) —> Skaran: /u/ ({ʊ})-/uː/ ({ʊː})-/y/ ({y})-/w/ ({w});
4. dropping of ancient phi (/pʰ/ ({pʰ}) upon merger with /f/ ({f}); and
5. Chί: Ancient /kʰ/ ({kʰ}) —> Modern: /tʃ/ ({tʃ})

Was <υ>'s name pronounced up-sil-on (<υ>), oop-sil-on (<ύ>), or ewp-sil-on (<ϋ>)?

[yangfiretiger121]

I'm trying to figure out how to say "empress" in Skaran. I favor it starting with <ϋ> (/y/) for some reason.

[mèþru]

To derive grammar and lexicon you should apply regular sound changes rather than just making random words.

[yangfiretiger121]

Grammatically, Skaran is an exact copy of Latin. Strangely enough for a group that was mostly Romans, they chose Greek-inspired terms for their military, save gregária—or soldier. As for sound shifts, the language is meant to have been very stable since conception. The only rank I have named is Qétütitas (kway-tew-ti-tas)—or Warrant Officer. It's not uncommon for them to have borrowed and/or repurpose words from the parent languages. For example,they borrowed pars directly from Latin. Although, I believe they use it for bay. Please note that this post was written on an iPhone so I couldn't get the Greek vowels.

[yangfiretiger121]

After much consideration, I've decided to switch Skaran's alphabet to a version of the Koiné Greek alphabet that uses <η> as a consonant, includes the archaic letters koppa—renamed kwí—and digamma to avoid unnecessary character mismatches, and restores vowel length by incorporating all vowel sounds from both parent languages.

<Α, α>, <Β, β>, <Γ, γ>, <Δ, δ>, <Ε, ε>, <Ζ, ζ>, <Η, η>, <Θ, θ>, <Ι, ι>, <Κ, κ>, <Λ, λ>, <Μ, μ>, <Ν, ν>, <Ξ, ξ>, <Ο, ο>, <Π, π>, <Ϙ, ϙ>, <Ρ, ρ>, <Σ, σ>, <Τ, τ>, <Υ, υ>, <Ϝ, ϝ>, <Φ, φ>, <Χ, χ>, <Ψ, ψ>

Special characters: <ά>, <έ>, <ί>, <ϊ>, <ό>, <ύ>, <ῡ>

Considering the vast majority of the original group spoke Latin, would having gamma-upsilon, delta-upsilon, and sigma-upsilon digraphs somewhere along the line be acceptable?