Monday, 18 February 2013

My books

I'm back from a visit to Wellington.  A pleasant weekend away, I got to see jousting, mediaeval re-enactment, and metal weapons combat.  What fun!

Also I got to raid second-hand book stores for new material for my eclectic language project.  Three new Teach Yourself books added to my collection.

The first two are TY Welsh and TY Beginner's Hindi.  These are later publications from the Hodder&Stoughton period of this franchise.  I'm pleased with finding them.  I have an earlier TY Welsh from the English Universities Press period so I was glad to find a more modern version.  I didn't have a good Hindi title in this series so Beginner's Hindi was a good find.  Perhaps one day I will find more good introductions to this language.

As these are later titles they don't list the irregularities or highlighted words in the contents that I want to use and incorporate into my eclectic language.  I will add them to the stack of books I want to work through and see if they add any new material in my write-up of my own grammar.

The third book I found was irresistable! TY Hausa from 1973!  The patron saints of invented languages have been looking after me this weekend!  It's an interesting language with glottalised and non-glottalised stops, and tense-marking in pronouns!  I like the latin orthography, a very attractive language.

Following the rules of incorporation into my eclectic language I have three new extracts to note for my grammar creation of an eclectic tongue: 1. some new notes on the verb 'to be'; 2. the future aspect of the verb 'to go'; and 3. notes on the relaters sai and da.

I was also tempted by a modern edition TY Swahili.  I resisted as I felt I had made enough dents into my budget.  Perhaps it will still be there in a future visit.

Sunday, 20 January 2013

Conlang Card Exchange 2012e

Ní âre premye babik Yeu ve shapâmet premyeron nenon.
Ossí premyeron nenon wo' a?
Ossí ya dacha pidya údna binnya bina ve milt pena woha.
Ossí pena shapâma premye babik Yeu ve dúde latette nilimwege.
Daka kembí sha.
make.IMP you together
May you do likewise.

The final line of the Conlang Card Exchange is an admonition.  Daka is an imperative, 'make!', 'do!'  The pronoun modifies it to a jussive, 'may you do!', and sha is a useful adverb that adds emphasis, 'very', 'the same', 'just'.

I think one of the reasons for conlanging is putting things together, quite literally, like models. One of the early names for the Secret Vice on the internet was Model Languages.  What I think we are modelling, ultimately, is the universe.  Language shapes perception of the world we live in.  So go play and show what you come up with!

Fiat lingua!

Saturday, 19 January 2013

Conlang Card Exchange 2012d

Ní âre premye babik Yeu ve shapâmet premyeron nenon.
Ossí premyeron nenon wo' a?
Ossí ya dacha pidya údna binnya bina ve milt pena woha.
Ossí pena shapâma premye babik Yeu ve dúde latette nilimwege
CONJ in command.INF first grandfather Y. NONPRESENT gave order in.world.DAT
And in speaking First Grandfather Yeu gave order to the world.

Sorry to take so long over this.  One last line which I hope to post tomorrow.

Friday, 11 January 2013

Conlang Card Exchange 2012c

Ní âre premye babik Yeu ve shapâmet premyeron nenon. 
Ossí premyeron nenon wo' a? 
Ossí ya dacha pidya údna binnya bina ve milt pena woha.
CONJ COM do.INF ask.INF one.NEUTER:PL thousand.ADJ:NEUTER:PL thousand.NEUTER:PL NON:PRESENT come:to.3PRES in be.INF
And with the asking of the (first) question a thousand thousand things came into being.

It seems to be an appropriate line to end this chiasma.  I return to completing this translation after the interruption of the holidays.  I would have returned to it earlier except that I pushed my way through making notes from Describing Morphosyntax by Thomas Payne.  The next challenge I have set myself is to create a coherent language out of my notes.  I hope you remain with me as I rally and compile my thoughts.