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noviceconlangersSince I tend to call my peoples by geographical descriptors until I come up with a name in their language. These people are hereby designated the island people.
I actually own the book version of The Language Construction Kit and it has an initial chapter about creating a simple naming language, For Island lingo this may be the place to start.
Wikipedia has an article on Proto-Polynesian which is quite useful and while I don't know want to completely ape polynesian I think the idea of a very simple phonology is intriguing.
And so:
And I think I'll go for just three vowels - a,i and u but these will exist in short and long versions (like the inuit vowels). Yes, that really is eleven consonants and either three or six vowels depending on how you count them.
And where mountain/sea people language is fusional I'll make this language agglutinating and possibly ergative-absolutive. It's a different language family from mountain/sea people's language so I want it to have a very different feel.
I haven't even thought about phonotactics yet except that I want it to be not over-burdened with syllables.
Edit: Forgot Grammatical Gender/Noun Classes.
1. Animate Things which can be eaten (humans, 'younger siblings', food animals, fish, edible plants etc)
2. Animate Things which cannot be eaten (gods, 'elder siblings' and unpalatable, taboo, toxic or inedible animals/fish/plants etc)
3. Inanimate Things
Thoughts?
I actually own the book version of The Language Construction Kit and it has an initial chapter about creating a simple naming language, For Island lingo this may be the place to start.
Wikipedia has an article on Proto-Polynesian which is quite useful and while I don't know want to completely ape polynesian I think the idea of a very simple phonology is intriguing.
And so:
| LABIAL | LAB-DENT | DENT | ALV | PAL | VELAR | GLOTTAL | |
| STOP | p | t | k | ||||
| FRICATIVE | f | s | h | ||||
| TRILL | r | ||||||
| APPROXIMATE | w | l | |||||
| NASAL | m | n |
And I think I'll go for just three vowels - a,i and u but these will exist in short and long versions (like the inuit vowels). Yes, that really is eleven consonants and either three or six vowels depending on how you count them.
And where mountain/sea people language is fusional I'll make this language agglutinating and possibly ergative-absolutive. It's a different language family from mountain/sea people's language so I want it to have a very different feel.
I haven't even thought about phonotactics yet except that I want it to be not over-burdened with syllables.
Edit: Forgot Grammatical Gender/Noun Classes.
1. Animate Things which can be eaten (humans, 'younger siblings', food animals, fish, edible plants etc)
2. Animate Things which cannot be eaten (gods, 'elder siblings' and unpalatable, taboo, toxic or inedible animals/fish/plants etc)
3. Inanimate Things
Thoughts?
