The Language Diaries, Part 1 - Luamavan

[bloodyrosemccoy]

Samples

 

The Language Bird Demonstrates Grammar (With A Little Help From Its Friends)

Na Baj Jolimauevan Muzzin'ti'sik Ezziu (Nat Lete Je Dolsina'tian)

 

Na baj gua’ti oldu.

‘The bird is red.’

 

Na baja guam’tia oldua.

‘The birds were red.’

 

Na baj guafi’ti oldu.

‘The bird is not red.’

 

Gua'be baj oldu.

‘I am a red bird.’

 

Guafi'u baj oldu.

‘You are not a red bird.’

 

Guafi'ua baja oldua.

‘None of you are red birds.’

 

Na baja sola’tia soleru.

‘The birds sing a song.’

 

Na baja solazir’tia soleru.

‘The birds will sing a song.’

 

Other Sentences

 

Lirube’ben gua’ho ku?

‘How’s my accent?’

 

Ji dud’ben gua’ho onoriobu.

‘And my house is full of roses.’

 

Iskibuind kodo khom’ti jilu’tin guam’sik Eustace Clarence Scrubb, ji nomadfa ustom’ti’sik.

‘There once was a boy named Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.’

 

Is pov isin rold kuduk emlalm’ti.

‘In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.’

 

Summary

This is the first language I settled down to invent, in about ninth grade, before I knew that anyone else did this sort of thing.  It was made for the sprites in my stories as a sort of common language, influenced by two main protolanguages.  Its syntax is very Indo-European, a lot like English and Spanish, because it seemed like a good way to start a hobby I knew nothing about.  I figured I’d work my way toward ones less like my native language later.  It is meant to sound beautiful, so it has classic round vowels and all of my favorite consonants—a lot of K’s, B’s, L’s, and J’s, which I really like.  I find the roundness of it especially pleasing—the conlangs hailed as most euphonious, Tolkien’s, sound sort of anemic to me—not that they’re incomplete, probably they’re more complete than mine—but the sounds are skinny.  If that makes any sense.  Luamavan’s a good language to sing, and it has a lot of rhymes.  It’s my most complete, too—I have a bunch of songs and stories in it, and can do the most things with it.  It even has a protolanguage, though the infamous John Ronald’s etymologies could still eat this one for breakfast.  But I love it because it’s my first real one, and because it sounds so good.

Comments

[gondolinchick01.livejournal.com]

I love how it has a word for "hobbit." ^_^ Also all of the random apostrophes. Loads of fun for any language.

[gondolinchick01.livejournal.com]

Oh. Duh. I just realized that that is shamelessly ripped from the Westron word for "hobbit." Some Tolkien fangirl I am, huh?

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

'Shamelessly ripped,' does not apply to languages, although you could probably make a case for constructed ones. The luama (sprites) feel it's only polite to call people what they call themselves. This came some years later ~ remember I hadn't heard about Tolkien when I started this? I believe my first word for 'hobbit' in Luamavan was 'pijhot,' because yes, I was a hobbit-fancier since I read the book the first time. But then I thought it might be fun to hint that they might have some connections we don't know about, so I changed it.

Also, whaddaya MEAN 'random apostrophes'?! Sure, there's apostrophes, the bane of phoneticists everywhere but they are there for a very good reason. They are direct transliterations of punctuation. Random, indeed! ;)

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Oh, also, I'm glad you were interested. I like to be able to show off, but it's hard to do for this sort of hobby. I actually wondered if anyone would catch that little homage to John Ronald, and suspected that you of all people would.

Bonus points: Remember the four hobbits' actual Westron names?

[enigmania.livejournal.com]

So how do the apostrophes work? Do they just separate congugation?

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Yes; it's a bit redundant, but in order to conjugate in this language (formally, which is what I'm doing here), the bits after the apostrophes are the person and number performing the action ~ sola'be means 'I sing,' sola'u means 'you sing,' sola'ua means 'y'all sing,' etc.. Two apostrophized morphemes = subject and object. This can get messy, as it can be sola'u'ho 'you sing it (the song)' or sola'u'be 'you sing to me.' Tense marker suffixes don't take apostrophes. It's inspired largely by Spanish and its complicated conjugation system; I simplified it somewhat but kept the idea.

Also, the possessive includes apostrophes: baj'ben is 'my bird.'

I started adding the apostrophes to keep myself from getting confused, because this was my first language and I didn't know that apostrophes are frowned upon. I also had figured that sprites themselves would use some form to mark conjugations, so when I made a writing system I was sure to include it in their punctuation.

Thanks for your interest!

[enigmania.livejournal.com]

It's funny how the apostrophes get such a bum rap, though understandable given the "Let's make this sound more alien. Add z, q, x, and a bunch of random marks!" you run into now and again. But it's neat when they're put in for actual reasons, like glottal stops or omission or your punctuation marks.

(I'm a bit of a language construction dilettante, myself. Used to lurk around in rec.arts.sf.composition, which has some really interesting discussions. Even spent a while trying to learn lojban. So it's fun to read conlangs although I've never gotten very far in making my own)

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Never was much for the logical languages, but that's just a taste thing. You might be able to give me a hand with my Galactic Common conlang at some point ... I'm trying to work out a viable astrophysics jargon for it, but while I'm fascinated by theoretical physics I have the spatial intelligence of a moth by a lighthouse. My grasp of most of it is quite tenuous, but it's fun anyway ~ though it'd be helpful to have an expert consultant.

It's also always nice to meet someone interested in conlangs. You been to langmaker.com? 'S good for hours of entertainment, though the host has vanished and I fear the worst for him.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_wastrel/]

Fascinating. I don't have much free time these days, so my reading of this isn't as thorough as it could be otherwise, but I'm glad you're sharing it all the same. It brings fond memories of my old linguistics classes back when life was simpler and easier, and I tried inventing a language of clicks and hisses for a race of reptilian creatures (which were mostly on the side of good, for once) in the novel I was attempting to write at the time. :-)