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

[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! ;)