Welcome to Gaia! ::

Phone-etics!

There are a pretty big number of phonemes used, which makes it easier to make a larger amount of distinguishable single syllable words, and as few homophones as possible. Basically all the sounds are stolen from Sanskrit and Hindi, except for a few, like θ and æ. It is written in a modified version of the Hindi Devanagari script, but since it would be too much of a pain to do that on here, and also since IPA is really annoying (because I'd have to spend forever copying and pasting), I'm just gonna make up a quick system to represent the sounds with letters I can type using my generic keyboard. I'll put the IPA this first time around though.

First, I will put the phoneme as I will represent it in these lessons. Then, the IPA, and last a description. The description is based on generic American English, so probably won't work for the British quite as well. Its been a problem before.

Try not to confuse my funky romanization system with English. I don't think its that hard, but I feel like other people might not get it. When I write stuff in it, I will surround it with slashes, ex: /blah/ , to distinguish it from the
surrounding text.




Retroflex and Dental Consonants

-In this language, there are no alveolar consonants as in English, they are all retroflex or dental. English alveolar consonants are made by tapping the tongue on the alveolar ridge, the hard little spot almost right behind your front teeth. I'm bad at describing it, look it up. Just make a T sound, and you'll know the part I mean. For this conlang, if a consonant is dental, it is made by putting the tip of the tongue behind your front teeth, the same position that you would make the 'th' sound in. For retroflex consonants, the sound is made by putting the tongue on the hard palate a bit further back than the alveolar ridge. Almost where it is when you make a R sound, but further back. Just look it up, I can't describe well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retroflex_consonant
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dental_consonant



Aspiration

Aspiration is the release of air that comes with some consonants. Say the word 'top' slowly. Notice that after the t, there is a little moment where all you are doing is releasing air. That is the aspiration. When I say a consonant is unaspirated, that means that you should not do that as much as possible. When I say that a consonant is aspirated, you should release even more air than usual, even if it is a consonant that would never be aspirated in English, like 'j' or 'g'. So, either more or less air should come out than English. All or none.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspiration_(phonetics)






Consonants

t - t̪ - a dental unaspirated t sound, not alveolar like in English.
th - t̪ʰ - aspirated dental t
d - d - dental unaspirated d
dh - d̪ʱ - dental aspirated d
t. - ʈ - retroflex unaspirated t
t.h - ʈʰ - retroflex aspirated t
d. - ɖ - retroflex unaspirated d
d.h - ɖʱ - retrofles aspirated d
D - ð - like the 'th' of 'the'
p - p - same as English, but unaspirated
b - b - same as English, but unaspirated
ph - pʰ - aspirated p
bh - bʱ - aspirated b
z - z - same as English
J - ʒ - like the 's' of 'pleasure'
c - tʃ - like the 'ch' of 'chair', unaspirated
ch - tʃʰ - same as above, but aspirated
j - dʒ - same as English
jh - dʒʰ - same as above, but stronger aspiration
k - k - like the 'c' of 'cat', unaspirated
kh - kʰ - aspirated version of above
g - g - like the 'g' of 'get', unaspirated
gh - aspirated version of above
n. - ɳ - retroflex 'n'
N - ŋ - like the 'ng' of 'hanger'
m - same as English
r. - ɽ - the Japanese, or non-trilled Spanish R
r.h - ɽʱ - aspirated version of above
[rr] - Spanish trilled R
l. - retroflex version of English l
l.h - aspirated version of above
v - same as English
x - x - like the 'ch' of 'loch' or 'Bach'
H - h - same as English, but may occur at the end of a word, as in Indonesian, Malaysian, Hindi, Urdu...

Semivowels

These are phonemes that can act as consonants or vowels. They can be used as the initial or final consonants of a root word, or may be combined into diphthongs as the other vowels can. However, a diphthong using a semivowel is not allowed if that same semivowel is being used as an initial or final consonant of the root word in a way that would make the semivowel be right next to itself. For example, the syllable /naDrrip/ is not allowed, however /naDgrip/ would be. Also, only one semivowel is allowed per diphthong.

T - θ - like the 'th' of 'thing'
l - l - same as English L, but dental
lh - aspirated version of above
r - r - same as English
f - same as English
n - n - dental /n/'
s - s - same as English
S - ʃ - like the 'sh' of 'she'

y - same as English
w - same as English - exception: these 2 may not be used as consonants.

Vowels

a - ə - the 'schwa' sound, like the 'a' of 'alive'
e - e - the 'e' of 'get'
A - ɑ - like the 'a' of 'call'
[ae] - æ - the 'a' of 'cat'
u - ʊ - like the 'oo' of 'look'
U - u - like the 'oo' of 'cool'
o - o - like the 'o' of 'note, NOT at dipthong, (not oʊ)
O - ɔ - like the 'o' of 'not'
i - i - like the 'i' of 'it'
I - iː - like the 'ee' of 'meet'


~Thats all of them~


Further notes ~ I'll get better descriptions of these things up eventually...

When 'H' comes at the end of a word, it is pronounced. Its kind of like a sigh, just air comes out, but nothing else. It is pure aspiration, with no consonant.

-All vowels are pure.

-The diphthongs are simply one vowel said right next to another quickly, no blending.

-'i' or 'u' can never come at the end of the word.

-Remember to always pronounce H at the beginning of a word, don't get lazy and leave it out.

Vocabulary

This section will be a list of the root words alone, from which all other words are developed.

t

tmI - person

th

t.

t.h

T

p

par. - big
pit - drink
pUr - old
pur - bad
pIn - illness
prS - trouble(ed)

ph

s

S

c

ch

chot. - small
chA - go

k

krt - "do"

kh

khUp - beautiful

khA - food, eat

n

nAr - anger(ry)

r

r.

r.h

[rr]

l

lh

f

H

a

ach - good, nice

e

A

A - come

[AE]

U

o

O

I

Writing System

This writing system is based completely off of Devanagari, http://www.omniglot.com/writing/devanagari.htm , the writing system of Hindi and Sanskrit, the languages that the vocabulary of this conlang is derived from, and also of Nepali and other languages past and present of the indian subcontinent. I'm using it mostly because, I think its pretty.


The original Devanagari is an abugida type writing system, which means that each letter in it is made up of a consonant which is always followed by an inherent vowel, in the case of Devanagari, 'ə'. A result of this is that special diacritics are needed to change that inherent vowel, and awkward combinations of characters are needed to write multiple consonants in a row. I have tried to get rid of some of those obnoxious points in my version of it.

Consonants:

त - t
थ - th
द - d
ध - dh
ट - t.
ठ - t.h
ड - d.
ढ - d.h
ध़ - D
प - p
ब - b
फ - ph
भ - bh
ज़ - z
च - c
छ - ch
ज - j
झ - jh
क - k
ख - kh
ग - g
घ - gh
ऩ - n.
ण - N
म - m
ड़ - r.
ढ़ - r.h
ऱ - [rr]
ल़ - l.
ऴ - l.h
व - v
ख़ - x
ह - H

Semivowels

थ़ - T
ल - l
ळ - lh
र - r
फ़ - f
न - n
स - s
श - S
य - y
व़ - w

Vowels

अ, ः - a
ए, े - e
आ, ा - A
ऐ, ै - [ae]
उ, ु - u
ऊ, ू - U
ओ, ो - o
औ, ौ - O
इ, ि - i
ई, ी - I


~

Everything is written from left to right as in English.

One long connecting top bar links all letters in a word together.

The period is represented by a single vertical line( l ), paragraph divisions by two vertical lines. ( ll ) Comma is the same, in place of "___", '___' is used.

Notice that for the vowels, I put 2 symbols. This is because, in the original Devanagari writing system, on order to change the inherent vowel into another, they would use those symbols attached to the original letter to change the vowel. This is the second version that I have listed there. (The dotted circle represents the original letter so that you can see where the thing can be placed.)

Ex: त - ta, ता - ta, ती - tii, तू - tuu

In my revised Devanagari, the inherent vowel is removed, but I kept these alternate vowel forms, because they save space and they are pretty. The first form of the vowel I have listed there is the form used when it comes at the beginning of a word or after another vowel.

I don't want to spend a million years describing this, so I'll do this.

ध़ः कव़िक बरैव़न फ़ौकस जःमपद ओव़वर ध़ः लेईज़ई दऔग l - (in my bizzare system) Da kwik br[ae]wn fOks jampd owvr Da leIzI dOg - The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.

Analyze that, and you should be able to figure it out. If not, ask and I shall tell.

(You can download this font here http://www.kikiat.com/hindi/index.html . It is a standard Devanagari font. To put dots under characters there that they don't have on that panel, put this ़ after the character you want to have the dot. For many sounds that aren't in Hindi, I added dots to already existing characters, and you'll need that little thing to be able to do that. You can also use that font for writing in Hindi, Nepali, Sanskrit, or whatever.)

Saying that Stuff is other Stuff

Lets take the sentence, "Food is good". In पजबोड़, this would translate literally to "Good, food."

खा - /khA/ - food
अछ - /ach/ - good, nice

Ex: अछ, खाने l - /ach, khAne./ - (lit.)"Good, food the." Food is good. (General Statement.)

This is the basic way to make a statement that something is something. Where in English you say (X is Y), in पजबोड़ you would say (Y, X)

- About ने - /ne/. This a final particle indicating the generic mood. Where in English, when you make a nonspecific statement, it can be interpreted as an inherent generalization. "Cats are fuzzy", "Bacon is tasty", "Elephants are big." This /ne/ particle indicates that you are making an generalization about "whatever" in general, food in this case. In this language, the mood must always be explicitly stated. This is unlike English, where the mood is pretty much always left to be implied context.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_mood


There is also no need to pluralize the subject like in English.

/ne/ is always combined with the word it follows. Since in the first example, /khA/ ends with a vowel, there is no sandhi needed. But if it was not a vowel, there would be.

Ex:

छोट - /chot./ - small
चिड़ - /cir./ - bird
बुर - /bur/ - bad
बःच - /bac/ - child

छोट, जिल़ऩे l - /chot. , cil.n.e/ - Birds are small.

/r./ changes to /l./ and since /l./ is a retroflex consonant, /n/ also must be. So, /cir./ + /ne/ = /chil.n.e/

बुर, बःचमे l - /bur, bajme/ - Children are bad.

Standard sandhi rules apply.

/bac/ + /ne/ = /bajme/


And that is how you make a general statement that "something is something".

हाँ, हिन्दी फाफ़ी अच्छा है l लेकिन, why did you post that in here?

I posted it because you mentioned you were borrowing some parts from Hindi 3nodding


Would you like me to delete my post so you can have more posts in a row?