Conlang Orthography

[bloodyrosemccoy]

I have begun referring to random meaningless apostrophes in fantasy and sci-fi stories as "prepostrophes."

On another note, maybe the more conscientious spec fic conlangers may want to start representing glottal stops with hyphens instead. I know I connect the sound to hyphens far more readily. Howbout you?

Comments

[van.livejournal.com]

I used an apostrophe once in the country name Japre'achi so that they'd say it Jah-pre-achy instead of jah-preachy. Do you have a better suggestion in that case? Japre-achi just seems weird for some reason. Probably because I'm used to prepostrophes...

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

*grin* That is a fair explanation. Now, I'd parse an apostrophe-less Japreachi as ja-pre-a-chi (I'm assuming the ch is like it is in English? And the i is like the one in "machine"?), myself--I've gotten into the habit of going with classic vowels for fantasy languages by default. Bu twith a largely English-speaking audience, I'm not sure--you could be right.

If anything, you can always just say it's a glottal stop if people bitch about it. (And if you find that it's not really a glottal stop but more of a glide, you could go with Japreyachi--or just say that the language USED to have a glottal stop which is still represented in writing. There--you've got some worlbuilding right there. ;) )

[van.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I kind of like Japreyachi, actually! And I like the idea that, at least in that particular novel, the different countries/cultures would have different words/spellings for it. You should live in California so we could hang out and world build together and write stories. Yes.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I get invited to live in California a LOT. Maybe someday--that'd be fun!

And I'm glad I could help.

[gwalla.livejournal.com]

You could always use a diæresis to show hiatus, like in "naïve" or "noël". English and French both do this (though it's fallen out of fashion in English). Tolkien also used it in his languages for that purpose, as well as on final E so English-speakers wouldn't assume it was silent (I'm stealing that idea for Ilion).

[westrider.livejournal.com]

That's pretty much the only place I've used apostrophes when fooling around with conlangs myself.

I actually had a couple of places where it ended up between doubled consonants as well as I recall, so in my system, the German Nachttisch (Night Table) would have been written Nacht'tisch, clearing up any possible confusion for those coming upon it for the first time as to whether or not to run the 't's together.

[beccastareyes]

Some ways to Romanize Japanese do that, mostly with ns (which are the only consonants that can end a syllable).