|
|
| Does it sound (look) too much like Mandarin Chinese? |
| Not really. The romanization does look a bit like PinYin though. |
|
25% |
[ 1 ] |
| Yeah, you need to make some significant changes to differentiate. |
|
25% |
[ 1 ] |
| YES! You fiending copycat! How dare you claim this as your own orignal creation!? |
|
0% |
[ 0 ] |
| Uh, I don't know anything/much about Mandarin Chinese. |
|
0% |
[ 0 ] |
| Who cares! It still looks wicked cool. |
|
50% |
[ 2 ] |
| Ching chang poll whore nang nang. |
|
0% |
[ 0 ] |
|
| Total Votes : 4 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Sat Sep 15, 2007 9:46 pm
Some of you may have read my "Conlang Using Invented Hanzi/Kanji System?" thread back on the main board. Well, I wasn't gonna go through with it at first, but now I think I'll be able to!
Yay!
Shìnmìtsēi
Etymology of the Name
The name, Shìnmìtsēi means "language of Shin Country." The "tsēi" suffix is kind of like the English "ish" or "ese" suffix meaning 'language.' There's a separate suffix ("shān") for "ish/ese/ian" that means "person from the country of ___". The "mì" means "country." If you want to say "Chinese language" you would say "Zhōngmìtsēi," taking the Zhōng from Mandarin Chinese itself. English is "Yìngmìtsēi" and works for all variants of English, not necessarily "the language of England." XD
A Whole New Writing System
For those wondering, YES, I will be making up my own lists of characters, completely independent of real Chinese characters. Yes this will be time consuming, but the hardest part will be keeping the characters from looking too similar, or looking so different that they look like a few don't belong. I already have the numbers 0 through 10 and a few basic ones meaning "I/me" and "to be" but I will have to make up a lot of simpler characters before I go making complex characters -- Or I will have to do a lot of careful retconning.
Special Roman Characters
This conlang may use any of the following accented vowels (may change later):
aeiou with grave, acute, breve, macron
àáăā
èéĕē
ì í ĭ ī
òóŏō
ùúŭū
Safe to post!
Feel free to off suggestions, ask questions, provide constructive criticism, or even attempt to say something in Shìnmìtsēi! It's always helpful to see how the language works in the context of someone else's mind. mrgreen
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Sep 15, 2007 10:19 pm
CHAPTER 1 -- PHONOLOGY AND TONES
PART 1 -- PHONOLOGY
INITIALS (May Start A Syllable)
b p m n
s z f v
k g h t d
sh zh ch ts dz j
l r
(w) (y)
~Any vowel may start a syllable, but this is not very common.
~If the syllable starts with I or U but has no other vowels, you add a Y or W in front of it.
~If the syllable starts with I or U but has another vowel after it, you change the I to Y or the U to W.
SIMPLE FINALS (May End A Syllable)
s/z f/v n/m ng r/l
a e i o u ae
~ae is pronounced like "uh" and is not a dipthong.
~S changes to Z, F changes to V, and N changes to M when the current syllable is followed by a syllable with a voiced initial consonant.
~R may follow A/I/AE, but changes to L after E/O/U (and vice-versa).
~Except for R/L, just write S/F/N because you don't always know which syllable will follow. You must remember to make the change as you speak.
COMPOUND FINALS (May End A Syllable or Be a Whole Syllable)
Written:
1. ao aei aou ei
2. ie io ia iu iei ioi iai iui iae iaou
3. ue uo ua ui uei uoi uai uae uaou
4. -s -f -n -ng -r
Pronounced:
1. aoh', ai, ow, ey
2. yeh, yoh, yah, yoo, yay, yoy, yai, yooi, yuh, yow
3. weh, woh, wah, wee, way, woy, why, wuh, wow
4. n/a
~The "ao" diphthong is cut short. You pronounce "ah" then "oh" but stop before you get to the "oo" at the end. The "aou" triphthong starts just like the "ao" but you follow through and round the lips.
~Consonant final changes for following voiced consonants still apply
~Any of the first 3 lines may have any one from the 4 tacked on to the end.
~May add more later if I run out of combinations....
PART 2 -- TONES
For now, the language uses the same tone system as Mandarin Chinese, but I use a slightly different order.
1 Descending
2 Ascending
3 Mid-to-Low-Rising
4 High Constant
Tone 1 - Descending
Accent Mark: Grave
Start with your voice up high, almost falsetto for some folks. Then just bring the pitch down as you say the syllable.
Tone 2 - Ascending
Accent Mark: Acute /
Start fairly low, then bring your voice up as you say the syllable. You will probably sound like you're asking a single-word question.
Tone 3 - Mid-to-Low-Rising
Accent Mark: Breve (or Caron) V
Start in the middle range of pitch, then drop as low as possible, then bring it back up all the way. Syllables with this tone may seem to take longer to say than others because you have to change pitch direction.
Tone 4 - High Constant
Accent Mark: Macron -
Start with your voice high, like Tone 1, but don't drop pitch! Keep the pitch high and smooth and stretch the vowel sound forward a bit.
~Other tones I'm considering are:
Low Constant (Low as possible, like a girl imitating a big guy's voice)
Mid-to-High-Falling (Kind of like "really" when you say "oh REally!")
~When writing, you can use the accented vowels, numbers following the syllables, or / V - following the syllables.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Sep 15, 2007 10:29 pm
CHAPTER 2 -- THE WRITING SYSTEM
PART 1 -- ROMANIZATION
My basic writing system imitates what I know of PinYin, only simplified and adjusted for this conlang. YES, what you see IS what the syllable sounds like. Because I've got more important things to complicate my life with and clutter my brain with, I'm not gonna have some crazy phonetics like Mandarin Chinese has. The letters you see always represent the same sounds, except for "ae" which is the "uh" sound.
The letters v, x, and q are not used. The letter C is only used in "ch."
PART 2 -- THE CHARACTERS
I will write everything in romanized form, with pictures for characters here and there. Since I can't possibly make a font containing every single character and force you to install it, this is the only other option. If I get far enough, I will compile a list of NUMBERED characters, so I can refer to "character number such-and-such" and you can download the list and see for yourself which individual character I mean, without me having to cut out the character and upload it and blah-blah-blah.
In essence, this writing system mimics Chinese Hanzi, but is a completely new system with different shapes and characters all independent of Chinese. You don't need to know a single Hanzi/Kanji to learn Shìnmìtsēi, but being familiar with the way the Chinese writing system works will be helpful.
Examples coming soon.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Sep 15, 2007 10:59 pm
CHAPTER 3 -- BASIC GRAMMAR
PART 1 -- SENTENCE STRUCTURE AND WORD ORDER
Generally Subject-Verb-Object with a few exceptions. Questions are formed with terminal question particles, as are exclamations.
For example: "sàr shuèi puó kèizhaòu." (I) (to be) (for) (10 + 9)
... means "I'm nineteen (years old)." Similar to English, you don't have to specify 'years' because it's assumed via context.
PART 2 -- WITHIN THE SENTENCE
In general, adverbs will precede verbs as adjectives precede nouns. Prepositions will precede the adjectives (if any) preceding the nouns. The exclamation particle and question particle will be at the end of the sentence.
PART 3 -- COUNTING AND TIME
In order to specify "there are XX stars in the sky above" or something similar, you must include a counter word for clarification. There are only 10 simple counter words, with fairly generic and broad application. Each counter should follow the number specifying the quantity, and precede the noun being counted.
Counter Words:
- "a number of animals"
- "a number of plants"
- "a number of people"
- "a quantity of parts (incomplete things)"
- "a number of containers"
- "a number of units (inches, centimeters, miles)"
- "a number of vehicles"
- "a number of abstract things (ideas, concepts, actions)"
- "a number of tiny things (invisible to naked eye)"
- "a number of anything (default/misc)"
To express time, you must use special temporal counters which sometimes double as nouns. There are only 11 temporal counters, making a total of 21 necessary counter words.
Temporal Counter Words:
- extremely short periods of time
nán - seconds
tán - minutes
guăn - hours
- nonspecific periods of time (moments? whiles?)
nāi - days
ní - weeks
tí - months
guăi - years
- dynasties
- extremely long periods of time (eons? often figurative)
If you want to say "I was in class for three hours and twenty minutes, and then it took FOREVER to drive home" you would need the counters for Hours, Minutes, and Long Periods of Time. (Example coming once I get more vocabulary)
Another example: "The movie is 2 hours long."
chīngpài sá puó shá guăn. (to live/picture)(to move)(for)(2)(hour)
Lit. "movie moves for 2 hour"
PART 4 -- MORPHOLOGY AND CREATING NEW WORDS
OK, this isn't grammar, but I doubt the Vocabulary post will be able to hold this plus all the vocab. XD
Coming soon!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Sep 15, 2007 11:10 pm
CHAPTER 4 -- VOCABULARY
PART 1 -- SINGLE CHARACTER WORDS
chī - small, little
chīng - to live, be lively
chuĕi - five
dàs - moon, night
duóng - mother
faŏus - upper, older (as in "grand" father)
fì - six
guăi - year
guăn - hour
guān - three
kāng - eight
kèi - ten
mì - country, land
ná - seven
nāi - sun, day
nán - second (time)
ní - week
nŏu - you
pàeng - father
pài - picture, image
pàn - foot
pĕng - to walk, go somewhere
puó - for (a duration of time)
sá - to move (in place)
sàr - I, me
sì - one
shá - two
shān - person
shuèi - to be (copula)
sōu - to move (place to place)
taòu - four
tán - minute (time)
tí - month (4 weeks)
tsēi - language
zhaòu - nine
PART 2 -- COMPOUND WORDS
chīngpài - movie, animated film
faŏusduóng - grandmother
faŏuspàeng - grandfather
Shìnmì - Shinme (a fictional country)
Shìnmìtsēi - Shinese (this conlang you're reading about)
Yìngmì - England
Yìngmìtsēi - English language
Zhōngmì - China
Zhōngmìtsēi - Chinese language (any variation)
More coming soon!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Sep 15, 2007 11:12 pm
CHAPTER 5 -- EXAMPLES AND TRANSLATIONS
Ho snap! Nothing yet!
If I get enough vocab, after I do it in Anzer Pex, I'll try to translate the Raven King's Prophecy into Shìnmìtsēi as well. XD
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Sep 15, 2007 11:18 pm
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Sep 15, 2007 11:25 pm
DEVRESER
Hm. That looks like a Spanish verb meaning "to devress."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Sep 15, 2007 11:27 pm
AND ONE MORE.
For good luck.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2007 10:29 am
Nya nya, my conlang has more tones that yours! xp xp
But anyhow, this is very remeniscint of Mandarin to me. I think it would be much cooler if you were able to sorda implement stuff from some of the other sino-tibetan languages. Mandarin is like, the most boing of them all. But your're grammar might be totally distinct, you haven't shown yet. So I dunno. But I do wanna see how you're invented Hanzi-esque system works out.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2007 1:33 pm
I don't like tones... At all. I'm just using some basic ones because leaving them out would be like having a Romance language without verb conjugations. I will probably add one extra tone (the 1-1 Low Constant), and leave it at that so it's not so similar to Mandarin. Also, that's the only other tone I can easily tell apart, myself.
If you haven't noticed, I tend to like boring languages XD
My grammar will not be very distinct, and will probably still be a lot like Mandarin -- SVO is just so easy.
The big deal for this conlang will be the characters. How many other conlangs will have a couple thousand (what I'm shooting for) invented characters for the writing system?
Of course, if I actually manage to crank out 2,000 characters, I could just as easily go back through and create another conlang using those same characters (much like Mandarin and Cantonese use the same characters, but are entirely different languages, really).
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 10:30 pm
If you even manage to crank out 2000 characters that'll be amazing! I like it alot. You just better hope the Chinese don't see this otherwise they might kill you for stealing their language..... mrgreen
I like how it has alot of Chinese influence in it and is still unique and not a direct clone of Chinese.....but like I said if you did clone their language and did some wonky switch-aroos here and there they'd kill you... mrgreen
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reply
