Consonant clusters July 2, 2008
Posted by project920 in Phonetics.add a comment
Initials consonant clusters:
-k: sk,
-l : bl, fl, gl, kl, pl, sl, vl, zl
-m: şm, sm,
-p: sp, şp,
-r : br, dr, fr, gr, kr, nr, pr, sr, tr, zr
-s: ks,
-ş: kş, tş,
-t: st, şt,
Assume that C1+C2 represents a medial consonant cluster. Then, a medial consonant cluster is any string of two consonant sounds except for those who fufill at least one of these criteria:
C1 = C2
C1 is h, ħ, or x
C1 is the unvoiced variant of C2
C1 = {p t k f ñ ż} ∩ C2 = {j x z ż}
Both are in the set {c s j z}
Final Clusters: Only clusters ending with k, p, ş, and t may be used at the end of words.
Consonants June 25, 2008
Posted by project920 in Uncategorized.add a comment
The consonant inventory consists of 22 letters from the Latin alphabet and one letter from the Cyrillic alphabet. They are:
b, c, ç, d, f, g, h, j, ĵ, k, l, m, n, ñ, p, r, s, t, v, x, z, ż, ь
All letters are equivalent to their phonetic values in English, with the following exceptions:
c – /ts/ in most cases; when preceded by a weak vowel it becomes /s/
ç – /tʃ/ as in “chair”
ħ – /x / as in “Johann Sebastian Bach”
j – palatal approximant, /j/ – pronounced as English “y”
ĵ – post-alveolar affricate /dʒ/ – prounounced as English “j”
ñ – palatal nasal /ɲ/ – as in Spanish “Español,” but becomes a velar nasal /ŋ/ at the end of words.
ş – /ʃ/
x – /ʕ/ – voiceless pharyngeal fricative
ż – /ʒ/ or /ʐ/
ь – no independent sound, but lengthens the vowel preceding it, much like the Turkish ğ
Vowel sounds June 21, 2008
Posted by project920 in Uncategorized.add a comment
Before you can make words in any spoken language, you must have sounds. This should be logical, otherwise a language can’t be spoken. And to go along with those sounds, you must use letters or some other way of representing them, otherwise you can’t read a language. This post will describe the sounds found in Project920′s language, and how they are represented.
First, the vowels:
a - Open front unrounded, /a/ – similar to as in Spanish, or in English ‘father’
ǝ – Near-open front unrounded, /æ/ – as in English ‘cat’
e – Mid front unrounded, /e/ – As in Spanish ‘bebé’
i – Close front unrounded, /i/ – as in English “free“
ı -Close back unrounded, /ɯ/ - no English equivalent. The tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction, far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction, and the lips are open.
o – Close mid-back rounded, /o/ – as en English ‘pot’
ö – Open mid-front rounded, /œ/ - as en German ‘Hölle’ (Hell)
u – Close back rounded, /u/ – as in Spanish ‘tu‘
ü – Close front rounded, /y/ – as in German ‘blüte’ (blossom)
Stress
Vowels may be stressed. When stressed, they are marked with the acute accent (e.g. á) if not umlauted, and with the circumflex accent (e.g. ô) if umlauted. The letter ı recieves the circumflex (î) when stressed, and the dotted i recieves the acute accent. For typography reasons, the stressed ǝ is indicated by ‘ǝ.
‘Vowel Weakening’
The grave accent ‘weakens’ vowels. This may typically occur at the end of a word, when or in the beginning of a word. A weak vowel is always unstressed. Three vowels may be weakened. This is indicated by the grave accent:
à – Close-mid back unrounded, /ɤ/ – Similar to Mandarin Chinese ’hē’ ( 喝, to drink), or e in English ‘the‘.
ì – Near-close near-front unrounded, /ɪ/ – Similar to English ‘pit’.
ù – Near-close near-back, /ʊ/ – Similar to English ‘book’.
Bonvenetu! Welcome! June 20, 2008
Posted by project920 in Uncategorized.add a comment
The Background to this site: About two years ago, I was contacted by a group of researchers looking for someone to assist them in studying language acquiring processes. I was rather busy at the time, but they were offering me some good money, so I took on the job. To this effect, I created an a priori list of about 500 common words, using an algorithm involving random numbers, and which incorporated Turkish and Spanish phonology. At this point, my “language” had no grammar to speak of, no etymology, nor anything that makes a language coherent. It was merely a sort of cypher, substituting a set of unknown sounds for a set of known sounds.
A week ago, after reading about the art of conlanging, it finally dawned on me to formalize this into a new language, and to perhaps see how it will evolve over time. For this rather whimsical pursuit, my original list has since then been scrapped, and I will be starting from scratch. For those dreading what I’m doing, please rest assured I have no intention of making this widespread as that atrocity now known as Esperanto. This is merely an exercise in linguistics and the application of linguistic principles, to be viewed as an example by students. Having said that, if you feel so inclined as to learn what I am about to set forth here, by all means avail yourself to whatever information I provide, give me questions, and I will reply and attempt my best to answer you!
Best wishes,
Davut.
