The Phonetics that I Forgot

I forgot one thing, and intentionally left out another. The thing that I forgot is a fairly small matter, but is very important to pronunciation: stress. The thing that I left out intentionally is a bit larger, but will probably not be important for much time to come: derivational phonetic simplifications.

            Stress in fĺuðét is fairly simple. It comes on the end of the word unless the vowel of that syllable is an é, then the stress comes on the first vowel before it that that is not an é. If all of the vowels in the word are é’s, then stress comes on the last syllable. So veću, "walk" is stressed: ve-ĆU, and fĺuðét is stressed: fĺ-U-ðét, because its last syllable’s vowel is an é, and the syllable before that is a u, which can have stress. And one more thing that I forgot: é cannot end a word without a consonant after it.

           

Fĺuðét derives words from other words by attaching affixes, which leads to odd series of consonants that do not always fit in one’s mouth. Because of this there are certain rules that one can follow to simplify the sounds of unwieldy mixtures.

A couple of preliminary rules:

1. The preceding sound always modifies the following sound, and not vice versa.

2. If three or more sounds come together, then first expand semi-vowels into regular vowels, then if there are still groups of three or more consonants, then keep only the first and last sound of each group, and simplify them.

The sounds are simplified according to the following set of rules:

1. Stop + Stop:

a. Initial p > unvoice following sound and remove p except before ć or j where j is unvoiced and the initial t (t + ś = ć) is replaced with p.

b. Initial b > voice following sound and remove b except with ć or j where the ć is voiced and the initial d (d + ź = j) is replaced with b.

c. Initial t > remove initial t.

d. Initial d > voice following sound and remove initial d.

e. Initial ć > unvoice following sound and remove initial t before t.

f. Initial j > voice following sound and remove initial d before d.

Stop + Fricative:

a. Initial p > align inital p to following sound’s voicing and remove f or v.

b. Initial b > remove f or v.

c. Initial t > unvoice following sound and turn f into wh.

d. Initial d > voice following sound and turn v into w.

e. Initial ć > align ć to following sound’s voicing and turn f into wh and v into w.

f. Initial j > turn f into wh and v into w and remove initial d (d + ź = j) before t or d.

Fricative + Stop:

a. Initial f > align initial f to following sound’s voicing and remove initial f before p and b.

b. Initial v > voice following sound and remove initial v before p or b.

c. Initial þ > align initial þ to following sound’s voicing and remove t, d, ć, and j.

d. Initial ð > voice following sound and remove d, and j.

e. Initial ś > align to following sound’s voicing.

f. Initial ź > voice following sound.

Fricative + Fricative:

a. Initial f > remove f

b. Initial v > voice following sound and remove initial v.

c. Initial þ > align þ to following sound’s voicing, turn f into wh, and turn v into w, and remove initial þ before ś or ź.

d. Initial ð > voice following sound, turn v into w, and remove initial ð before ź.

e. Initial ś > align ś to following sound’s voicing and turn f into wh, and turn v into w.

f. Initial ź > voice following sound and turn v into w.

Fĺuðét Intro and Phonetics

WARNING: You will not be able to read certain things (the fĺuðét alphabet parts) without downloading and installing this font: Runic-Fuludhet-Short.ttf, or refer to the alphabet at right, and below.
Fĺuðét is a language that I started that has little or no relation to the world (Dunta) that I am creating, but instead is a language that I am making to entertain myself in the realm of constructed languages while I continue work on the history of my world. I may also post on the history in the background, since that is what this blog is for.

Fĺuðét is a language with SOV word order, an adverb based tense, mood, and aspect system, and a conculture, but no world except our own. It started out being a language that I would not put down on paper, or record in any other way so as to force myself to learn it, but I never got past the phrase: éþ vechu se (“I am walking”). The phonetics, the Romanization, and most of the grammar have thoroughly changed since then, but that sentence is still similar: fiéþ veću þeþe. My no-recording plan did not build the language very large, and it’s pretty hard to learn a language with only three words, so I eventually gave up and put it down on paper, and then a word document, and now a blog.

            Fĺuðét has one peculiarity that may challenge common thought on phonetics: the use of l and r as vowels. I have seen very little on the idea that l and r are vowels. I found only one forum where someone brought it up (see that here), and even the IPA does not realize l and r for their full potential. Even so, I do use l and r as vowels. I use the sounds full (IPA: /əl/), and fur (IPA: /ɛr/) respectively for l and r. I write them ĺ, and ŕ in vowel form for the Romanization (you might not be able to see it, but they have acute accents on top of them).

            All of the vowels in fĺuðét are shown together in the following table:

Romanization	IPA	English Example	Fĺuðét Alphabet
o	/o/	so (like French)	o
u	/u/	rude	u
ŕ	/ɛr/	sure	Ŕ
ĺ	/əl/	gull	Ĺ
i	/i/	machine	I
e	/e/	make (no i glide)	E
é	/ɛ/	wet	é

            The consonants in fĺuðét are all almost all in English, except for the wh (which I suppose is in some dialects of English), and the bilabial fricatives. Fĺuðét (or the speakers of (whoever they may be)) treat ć and j as plosives in most cases rather than affricates. It will mostly only matter in the derivational phonetic simplifications, which are yet to come.

            All of the consonants of are shown in the following table (unvoiced, voiced):

	Bilabial			Alveolar			Post-Alveolar
	Roman	IPA	Fĺuðét	Roman	IPA	Fĺuðét	Roman	IPA	Fĺuðét
Plosive	p, b	p, b	p b	t, d	t, d	t d
Affricate							ć, j	ʧ, ʤ	ć j
Fricative	f, v	φ, β	f v	þ, ð	θ, ð	þ ð	ś, ź	ʃ, ʒ	ś ź
Semi-Vowel	wh, w	ʍ, w	w w	l	l	l	r	r	r

            NOTE: The      is not a part of the fĺuðét letter, but is rather the symbol used to show spaces.

 Fĺuðét Alphabet

Sile Degod Sa

     In other words "Religion in Dega."

     Since I keep saying it's either going to be a long time until I post on Dega or more recently I probably won't post at all I thought I might as well put up the rest of the creation story in Dega.

Rom - Dolate arari isan duntod te lin dolate okoda ko isisa ko odoni.

Zor - Dolatase riz odolati zanad ko serad ko ikuzad te, ta teduse ogor odoni.

Min - Zunatase aradani ogor Duntod zu donod kit ki kulatase ogor arari.

Det - Kulatase ozoni ko eseri dortod zu zor ri ki kidatase ogor dortod zu zor isi ri ko kulate kikuzi raterod ri.

Dast - Natede ozoni eta kit kulate ogor enakala.

Gol - Keate ozoni “kidasus olo kulotatod etes ri ko kulasus olo kikuzod gu zu nase ete kulo enakala” eserod da.

Tul - Kidate eseri zu tede ogor lilo ozoni re.

Kat - Late ozoni lilinzani ekaŋ rum keate ozoni “magasus olo rarozi do zu nase ete kulo god etel ri.” eserod da.

Sut - Ta sedate eseri “natede ozoni isiz” rum zumate eseri isisa kulo arari meg kulo tatod ozonos ri rum natede ozoni ilo.

Kur - Zumate eseri okoda sizo isisa meg.

Kit - Zumate ozoni adana kulo isisa meg, ta gagate isu ozoni “nase adana sizi” zu ted adana leze isisod re, ta natede adan isiz, ko manenate isu ogor ozoni.

Rotak - Rum natede ikuzi eku, ko natede okoda idira, ko natede zona lelig sera re.

Note: things that one thinks and knows are written in quotation marks like speech.

I am also going to put up my complete dictionary on the dictionary page and the grammar in a new grammar page. So if there is a word that you do not recognize you should be able to find in there.

Ara

     Ra means name.
     The Okoda do not give names the same way most people do on Earth. Here most often, if not all of the time names are given to a child at some point in their life whether it be when they're just born or when they're ten, but they have a set name all of their life that everyone calls them. The Okoda mostly rely on what are essentially nicknames. Everyone who knows a person has their own name for them. Most often the name is something that describes the named person in some way or is related to the conditions that they first met. Names also must have the prefix tem- appended to them which comes directly from the gerundive of "to be." So someone who makes languages--which I imagine you who are reading this probably do--might be called temzumotat-e/-u meg degod - tem- = name (being), -zumo- = to build, -tat- = gerund(ive), -e/-u = gender; meg = with the purpose of/for; deg- = language, -od = ablative.

      This has been a relatively short post, because this language is now definitely going to change alot, and not only the pronunciation, the grammar is going to move away from these very Latin-like (latinoid?) nouns, but I think most of the rest is fine and can be tweaked to fit its parent language. 

     I may start posting what I have with Zhor and Úlán Nésiv instead of Dega, so I'm not just wasting my time with something that is bound to greatly change.

Midway Update

     I have been doing lots of things that are all intertwined and liable to change, and so, have not been able to post any finished material, and still it is not done, so I thought I would instead write what I have done so far and what I plan to do.

    

     I have been making history, though I can't say I've been making history on this world, I've been making plenty on Dunta. More is yet to come and much will probably be changed, but I will show what I have so far. I have the stages in a series of maps run by flash player below. The dates below the different maps are very approximate and correspond to the development of Dunta in relation to Earth. The territories start in the middle eastern portion of the "L" shaped continent. The light blue is currently referred to as the "okoda"; the red as the "okoda rebels" the yellow as the "wu/shem lulis"; the light green as the "wu/shem lulis rebels" (the "u" raises in pitch) the pink as the "soŋi nrsuvu" (the final "u" is not pronounced); and the northern territories in the savanna as the "sav tribe(s)."

(Earlier times will be posted shortly, but the main idea is that some sort of being comes from space and become take the shape of the natives on the central continent (who are the same as the okoda) and give them new tools and technology, but do not explain how it works, and they give them certain knowledge about astronomy specifically that the sun is more important to okoda-life than the moon which contradicts their religion (which is the ancestor of the okoda religion). Some people believe the new beings, but others stick to the traditional form of the religion.
     (When the beings leave the natives are left with tools, but no knowledge of how to repair them or make new ones, so they use them how they can until they break. The most important one was the boat which was used to inhabit neighboring islands and travel to the western continent where they enslaved the natives there (the okoda) and set up plantations to support the growing population. Two plantations that were farther away from the ocean and the main river were overcome by the slaves before the religion was thoroughly put upon them and after the language had started, and they fled to the mountains from the central continents. Soon after the plantations were set up civil war broke out between the moon followers and the sun followers on the central continent, which forced the sun followers to leave the plantations as they had taken up on the eastern side of the central continent and the work needed to get there from the western continent outweighed the food.
     (Soon after the war had started a deadly disease erupted. It came from the food brought from the western continent and traveled mainly through the water so almost all of those downstream died. The war ended as there was not enough resources on either side left to fight, and if an army was sent to attack it would probably die from the water. Eventually the natives were forced to flee to the mountains and high places and were without their tools as they had all broken and were forced to relearn what they had forgotten. When the okoda began to inhabit the central continent they had already become immune to the disease as they had lived with the disease all of it's life. The central continent natives left them alone, because the okoda had strange tools and could drink the water and were thought to be the space beings who were no longer trusted.)
3000 BC.) The okoda do not like the wu/shem lulis because they worship the sun spirits and they eat herbivores. Their religion is completely backwards to the okoda’s. The okoda wage war against the wu/shem lulis to end the outrageous effort against the moon. The wu/shem lulis flee north away from the attacking force, but the okoda take the wu/shem lulis’s former territory. The okoda’s government is under a new ruler who is unkind and relentless to the common citizen especially those of the lower classes and the military. Many of these people revolt against the ruler and attack him, but the military that did not leave, forces them away north.

2000 BC.) The okoda rebels join the wu/shem lulis as an effort against the unforgiving moon spirit who rules the okoda. Many wu/shem lulis do not trust the okoda rebels and separate from the wu/shem lulis.

1000 BC.) The wu/shem lulis and the military of the okoda rebels attack the okoda. The wu/shem lulis run into great hunger (with all efforts being put into making weapons and the occasional raids from the soŋi nrsuvu which have become quite common with most of the defenses attacking the okoda) and are forced to stop most of the way through. After the battle the okoda rebels were trusted even less by everybody and were treated very poorly. The wu/shem lulis rebels start feeling around in the northern savanna and learning from the natives there. The okoda explore the continent to the east.

500 BC.) As the wu/shem lulis’s economy is just growing back again the soŋi nrsuvu and the wu/shem lulis rebels attack them. As they are being attacked the okoda rebels that are in the military sabotage the wu/shem lulis military and attack from within. This all leads to the end of the wu/shem lulis, but the wu/shem lulis rebels are expanding into the northern savanna and converting many tribes to their religion and ways. Those tribes that did not convert are forced into the mountains were they started a new tribe on the other side. The wu/shem lulis rebels also sent boats south to the southern savanna and started a new city there.

1 AD.) The soŋi nrsuvu, unaware that the wu/shem lulis rebel’s empire has grown so greatly attack them from the south. This leads to a counter attack from the wu/shem lulis rebels which wipes the soŋi nrsuvu off the map (the southern city did not know what was going on until the very end, so they played very little part in this war).

500 AD.) The okoda invade the wu/shem lulis rebels.

1000 AD.) The sav tribe invades the wu/shem lulis. The okoda and the sav tribes together force the wu/shem lulis into the northern steppe and take their former territory.

1500 AD.) The sav tribe makes truces with both the okoda and the wu/shem lulis. The okoda inhabit all of the rainforest and savanna on the central continent. The okoda on the western continent fight for independence from the central continent okoda and win the war.


     That is the beginning of the history which helps me to explain the next idea: Dega's family tree. First I have a tree of the speakers of the languages:

People

/——————\

Savanna           R-Forest

/———|————\           /————\

Norths  South1    Ocean1     Mts.        Forest

/———\                                                /———\

      North      South2                                Ocean2      Land

I decided to fill as many of these in with the grammars if not the vocabulary of the languages I have already started (in bold):

Úlan Nésiv*

/——————\

Savanna              Sazh**

/———|————\           /————\

Ghumlezh South1    Ocean1  Kési***      Dega

/———\                                                /———\

      North      South2                                Ocean2      Chami

*The new name for Úlan Sel. I also want to note that I assigned a new set of characters the rest of the vowels that I use other than Dega:  é - bed, í - bid, ú - good, ó - bud, á - bad.

**I think it is going to be an Úlan Nésiv creole of some sort, but I don't know what language, or even language family it will be creoled with.

***Kési is a new language that I made up fairly recently. It uses a syllabary and has the peculiarity that if the last vowel is the same as the second to last vowel then it is not pronounced (I might of made it up, but I think Mayan may do this as well.) It also has another peculiarity that it only has 22 verbs which would make it a perfect candidate for coming out of Sazh since it only has 4 verbs.

     That leaves me with 6 languages that need to be edited together, and another 6 languages that need to be made, so it may be yet another long while before I post again.

Fourth sentence translation of "The Creation of Humans, Herbivores, and Carnivores":

Four -   Ate    sun-spirits and moon-spirits day divided-by two during and   slept     they    day divided-by two other during.

Det - Kulatase     azani     ko        eseri    dortod       zu           zor      ri     ki   kidatase ogor dortod       zu               zor     isi       ri.

NEW WORDS:

zani - N. sun spirit

seri - N. moon spirit

si - Adj. same/-/other

kido - V. to sleep

Koda

     Koda of course means person or human, but things have changed a lot from past posts and they are (and probably will be) continuing to do so; the most recent change to make Dunta a little more interesting is that "koda" does not mean "human" rather it is more of "person", or "sapient being that lives on planet Dunta." This is because the okoda are not human. The okoda are different. 

     LIMBS: They tend to have 6 limbs: two arms which are called "usuna" and two legs which are called "ukusi." On each hand and foot they have six digits which are called "itini"; the toes and fingers are not normally distinguished, but if necessary one can say "digit of hand" for finger: "tini sunosos" ("sunosa" is hand) or "digit of foot" for toe: "tini kusosos" ("kusosa" is foot). Both foot and hand use the infix "-os-" (definitely related to the genitive suffix) which comes right before the case ending. It is used to indicate that something  is a part of another thing; a hand is a part of an arm, and a foot is a part of a leg.

     SENSES: The okoda's sense of sight (donota (From the genitive of to see: dono, which is then from light: dona)) is not as powerful as the humans'; it can sense color and shape and distinguish between two objects, but it does not sense distance and depth very well since their eyes (etera* (plural: tetera)) are closer together than human's, but this is made up for with their sense of sound (negota (from genitive of to hear: nego)) which is very strong and can sense distance reasonably well of things that are not too far away. Their sense of touch (zemita (from genitive of to hurt: zemit))is the same as humans'. Their sense of smell (nasa (from to smell: naso which is from nas)) is pretty much just good vs. bad, ripe vs. rotten, et cetera, but their sense of taste (keyonaza (from speech of mouth: keyotata nazos)) on the other hand can tell all sorts of stuff; it makes things taste better or worse depending respectively whether the substance is needed or not needed, where the substance can be many things like nutrients, sugars, carbohydrates, et cetera.
    


Third sentence translation of "The Creation of Humans, Herbivores, and Carnivores":
Three - Moved   spirits themselves Dunta  to   light  by-means-of and      ate     they plants.
Min -  Zunatase oradani    ogor     Duntod zu donod       kit           ki   kulatase ogor   arari.


NEW WORDS:
zemit - V.T. to hurt/attack V.I. to be in pain/hurt
zemita - N. sense of touch
zuno - V. to do/move/work
dono - V. to see
donota - N. sight
tini - N. digit/finger/toe
suna - N. arm
nego - V. to hear
negota - N. sense of sound
naza - N. mouth

nas - Adj. disgusting/rotten/soft/-/ripe/delicious/tasty/-/unripe/hard/firm

naso - V. to smell

nasa - N. sense of smell
keonaza - N. sense of taste
kusi - N. leg
ki - Conj. and (goes between sentences)
kit - Post. by means of/by way of/via/by
etera - N. eye
-os- - Infix. used to indictate a part of something (put in word right before declension suffix)

zumotata kalos

     Zumotata kalos is the making of food which is used to refer to agriculture or growing food. Zumo is to build/make/create and as has been said before kala is food.
     The Okoda mainly originated in the rainforest and their agriculture reflects that. They used the anamini for the manual labor that they could not do themselves, but they did not fully domesticate the anamini as they would not survive without the nest and could not be domesticated in the nest. Because of this, the farming Okoda families generally build homes near anamini nests. When the anamini run out of food in the area they migrate to a new location and the family follows them; this makes for a very good shifting agriculture which is necessary in the rainforest.

     The Okoda do not domesticate animals for another reason too. By their religion the Okoda believe that they are not to eat diurnal (live by day) herbivores as was explained in the last post, and the domestication of carnivores is entirely inefficient, so the Okoda hunt for all of their meat which is always carnivores or nocturnal herbivores, and they hunt not only to feed themselves, but to protect the moon spirits.

     As the Okoda expanded they followed the anamini into the savannas. The Okoda were very dependent on the Okoda back in the forest for food at first, but began to switch roles with the anamini and followed their lead for food instead of feeding them as they had done before to keep them around longer.

     The Okoda were originally very self sufficient, but as they started expanding their was more need for varied types of work. The other types of work were originally controlled by the growing government. Farming families would trade food to the government who would then give part of that to the people who did the work the farmers wanted. The food the government kept would then be used to pay the other workers for work they did for each other or to support them when they had no work.

     I have done more work with my map and now you can see where the Okoda live and the two nations who share the continent with them.

 This map shows the territories as well as the rivers, the mountains, and the climate.

This map shows the territories along with the mountains and the rivers, but does not show the climate to make it easier to see the countries. The red country is the Ulan Potsa. (Sorry it's not very visible.)

This map shows winds in black and currents in orange (for warm) and white (for cold) and the rivers and mountains and also has the climates which are easier to see in this picture.

Second sentence translation of "The Creation of Humans, Herbivores, and Carnivores":
Two - Lived   also  beings   sun  and moon and lonely-moon on, but were  they spirits.
Zor - Dolatase riz  odolati* zanad ko serad  ko      ikuzad      te   ta teduse ogor odoni.

*The beings on Dunta most often have three sexes (including the Okoda). One of these three sexes is seen as the best and the spirits are believed to be this sex. The gender in language that is used to represent the sex is the -i declension. That is why the ending was switched from -a to -i (see below for the definition).

NEW WORDS:
zumo - V. to build/make/create
zana - N. sun
doni - N. spirit (from light: dona)
dona - N. light
dolata - N. being
ta - Conj. but
sera - N. moon
riz - Adv./Conj. also
gor - Pron. he/she/it/they (It can be a pronoun for anything. It represents the last used subject. It can be declined using gor as the nom/acc)
ikuza - N. lonely moon (from alone: iku)

Phonetic Thought:
     I'm probably not the first to think of this, but r and l are really very related to o (goat), u (rude), i (machine), e (grey). The thing that's special about these four letters is that they all have corresponding semi-vowels: o,u - w; i,e - y. They easiest way to find this relationship is to say the vowel and then a different one right after it (i.e. io, eo, ui, oi); the semi-vowel will magically appear in between. That's all well and good, but aren't r and l consonants? What could they have to do with those four vowels? r and l both represent two sounds: the r in run and the l in like, and the r in fur and the l in full. Any person who has tried to make a language with r and l and a very strict vowel system will probably have found a troubling time when figuring out what vowel to put in front of these two sounds as it always sounds so different. That's because it becomes a diphthong; r and l are vowels in fur and full. In run and like they are semi-vowels which can be found the same way as y and w (uri, uli).
     It seems interesting that languages would still think of r and l as pure consonants in writing even though it is fairly obvious that they are not.
     My knowledge of language is very limited by the romance languages; if anyone knows of a language, or has made a language that gives these two letters their full credit please tell me about it, I would love to know.