Lady’s Gitweb - Wiki/blob - Sources/Page/Languages/Ifadaetels.djot

   1 # Ifadätels
   2
   3 **WARNING: Players in the _Great Labyrinth_ game should not read this
   4 page.**
   5
   6 Ifadätels [if.'ɑd.æt.els] is a constructed language being developed by
   7 [][@:Rinna] for use in one of faese role-playing games.
   8 It is intended for use as a language used by some sort of mysterious
   9 beings in the titular labyrinth of that, mostly evidenced in
  10 inscriptions and other ancient texts.
  11
  12 It is very much a work-in-progress.
  13
  14 ## Phonology
  15
  16 ### Phonemic inventory
  17
  18 Ifadätels uses the following vowels (notated using the
  19 [International Phonetic
  20 Alphabet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet){title="Wikipedia
  21 on the International Phonetic Alphabet"}):
  22
  23 |        | front | central | back |
  24 |--------|-------|---------|------|
  25 | high   |   i   |         |  u   |
  26 | middle |   e   |         |      |
  27 | low    |   æ   |         |  ɑ   |
  28
  29 and these consonants :
  30
  31 |             | bilabial | labio-dental | dental | alveolar | post-alvelolar |
  32 |-------------|----------|--------------|--------|----------|----------------|
  33 | stop        | p      b |              | t    d |          |                |
  34 | nasal       | m        |              |        |        n |                |
  35 | fricative   |          |              |        | s      z | ʃ            ʒ |
  36 | approximant |          | f          v |        |          |       ɹ        |
  37 | lateral     |          |              |        |    l     |                |
  38
  39 ### Phonotactics
  40
  41 Phonemes other than /l/ and /ɹ/ are categorized into one of two
  42 classes: the I-class and the A-class.
  43 The I-class includes /n/, voiceless consonants, and front vowels.
  44 The A-class includes /m/, voiced consonants, and back vowels.
  45 The vowel /e/ is special and may function as either class.
  46 Liquid consonants have a special role and are not considered to belong
  47 to either class.
  48
  49 A syllable consists of a vowel followed by a consonant of the same
  50 class as the vowel.
  51 The syllable is said to have the same class as its vowel and
  52 consonant.
  53 For example, /æp/ is an I-class syllable, while /ev/ is an A-class
  54 syllable.
  55 An I-class syllable _may_ include either /l/ between the vowel and
  56 consonant or /ɹ/ after the consonant, but not both.
  57 An A-class syllable _may_ include either /ɹ/ between the vowel and
  58 consonant or /l/ after the consonant, but not both.
  59
  60 ## Orthography
  61
  62 Ifadätels is romanized using the following rules:
  63
  64 * /æ/ is written ä,
  65 * /ɑ/ is written a,
  66 * /ɹ/ is written r,
  67 * /ʃ/ is written š (with a caron) or sh (when technical limitations
  68   interfere),
  69 * /ʒ/ is written ž or zh,
  70 * and other phonemes are written with the same character as in IPA.
  71
  72 [][@:Rinna] hopes to eventually develop a native writing system for
  73 Ifadätels, but has not yet done so.
  74
  75 ## Morphology
  76
  77 ### Class alternation and syllabic structure of words
  78
  79 In general, a word may begin with either class of syllable and
  80 alternates classes.
  81 Syllables containing liquids in either position are special, and must
  82 instead be of the same class as the preceding syllable.
  83 Loan words and certain other words may deviate from these rules, but
  84 unsurprisingly they often undergo regularization (either through the
  85 addition of a liquid or modification of a syllable to a similar
  86 syllable of the alternate class).
  87
  88 A word may not begin with a syllable that contains a liquid and cannot
  89 end with a syllable that ends with a liquid.
  90
  91 Root content words typically have an odd number of syllables (prior to
  92 any inflection or other derivation), while function words typically
  93 have either one syllable or an even number of syllables.
  94
  95 ### Stress
  96
  97 The primary stress within a word falls on the last syllable of a
  98 different class than the final syllable of a word. For words whose
  99 syllables all share a class, the penultimate syllable is stressed.
 100
 101 ### Inflection of nouns
 102
 103 At one point, Ifadätels heavily declined nouns, but by the time of the
 104 texts surviving in the Labyrinth, all but pluralization and the
 105 genitive case were lost.
 106
 107 Non-genitive nouns are pluralized by duplicating the initial syllable
 108 at the end, adding the appropriate liquid between the vowel and
 109 consonant if necessary for class alternation.
 110
 111 For example, «änitrum» (enclosed space, room, forest clearing, etc.)
 112 has the plural «änitrumän», while «ezetum» (individual person) has the
 113 plural «ezetumerz» (the "r" is necessary to allow a second consecutive
 114 A-class syllable).
 115
 116 The genitive case is marked in the singular with the suffix «-iš» or
 117 «-už» according to the final syllable of the noun.
 118 Genitive plurals use the suffix «-emliš» or «-enriž», a borrowing from
 119 another now-extinct language.
 120
 121 <!-- TODO(rinna) maybe add an archaic native genitive plural form that
 122 can be found in some surviving texts -->
 123
 124 ## A very partial lexicon
 125
 126 Each word is labelled with its part of speech, an English gloss, and
 127 optionally additional notes.
 128
 129 The repository for the wiki also contains a record-jar-format lexicon
 130 next to the source for this page.
 131 That lexicon is currently approximately equally partial but will
 132 probably get more things added to it than the one here.
 133
 134 * _änitrum_ • noun • enclosed space • a room in a building, a clearing
 135   in a forest, or an area marked out by lines drawn on the ground are
 136   all änitrumän
 137 * _ezetum_ • noun • individual person • primarily refers to a legally
 138   independent person under an archaic legal system