Weeks Nine and Ten

Hello everyone! I hope you are all having a great week!

In these past two weeks, I have been working on figuring out my syntax. This portion of language creation has been the most difficult so far. I’ve run in to lots of problems with the rules of my grammar and have been struggling with trying to properly translate my poetry into my language while making sure the grammar structure is correct. However, I have worked out the bugs and have successfully translated some of my poetry! I’ve finally figured out how to properly translate my sentences into the correct grammar structure for my language. Now I just have to finish translating the rest of my poetry. Below, you will find an example sentence in my language from one of my poems titled (in English), The Night You Died In My Arms: 

Moi  tsu-an  ren-le  malna  ko   moi  tor    k’ol

In      my     arms   died    you  in   that    night

In this sentence, you can see the Object-Verb-Subject (OVS) sentence order. The linguistic rules of my language are as follows: 

Sentence—> Verb Phrase + Noun Phrase

Verb Phrase—> (Preposiontal Phrase) (Noun Phrase) Verb

Noun Phrase—> Determiner + Noun

Within a sentence in my language, prepositional phrases can be either in the front of the sentence or at the end as they are interchangeable. For example, in the sentence above, the phrases, “In my arms” and “on that night” are the prepositional phrases. I write: In my arms died you in that night. But I could also write: In that night died you in my arms and the phrasing would still be correct. 

In terms of my species, I have decided on what to call them. In their language, they are called the Iridrath. The word is composed of two parts: Irid and Rath. The word rath means “person,” while the word Irid essentially means “soul.” Irid has a deeper, spiritual meaning to the culture I have created and refers more specifically to a deep connection they believe the soul has to the rest of the universe. In English, I’m not sure if we would call them: The Iridrath, Iridians, or Iridrathians. I have yet to determine that. As always, thank you for reading and have a great week!

Week Eight

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful week. 

We are winding down to the last month of our research projects. This week, I worked mostly on perfecting my grammar structure. I have decided that my grammar structure is going to be: Went to the park did I. This would employ a structure that has a sentence order of: Object then Verb then Subject. This isn’t found in any human languages, to my knowledge, but I am working on researching that. Because I am not familiar with this grammar structure, I’ve found it to be rather confusing in constructing sentences, but I’m working on diagramming sentences in my poetry to give me an easier time identifying sentence parts. This should make translating my work a little easier. 

I also began reading Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delaney and it is truly excellent so far! It is relevant to my project as it exemplifies some very interesting linguistic theories, such as the Sapir-Whorf Theory. This theory tries to explain how a speakers language can affect their thoughts and views on the world. The novel uses this theory as a central point in the construction of an alien language that belongs to invaders. I would most absolutely recommend it to any sci-fi and/or language lovers. I hope you all have a great week and thanks for reading!

Week Seven

Hello everyone! I hope you have had a great week.

This week, I wrote my first poem in my language! I came up with the type of poem on my own. It is an eight line poem that begins with an eight syllable line and ends with a one syllable line. I am working out the grammar bugs in it, but I really like it as it is right now. It is a fairly simple poem, however, it was very difficult to write! I am trying a method of poetry writing where I am thinking of particular sounds and phrases in my language that I think sound aesthetically pleasing. Once I have written them down, I assign these sounds and words meaning and fix/edit anything in the selected sounds that I don’t like or that don’t fit. It has worked well for this first poem, so I may continue this method for the rest of them. My other method is writing the poems in English and translating them into my language, which I am still working on.

This week, I worked mainly on the syntax of my language. This has been the most difficult part so far. I was having a very hard time figuring out the rules to my grammar structure, however, I spoke to my advisor and he helped me figure out what it is that I needed. For simple sentences, the typical “formula” is: Sentence——> Noun Phrase + Verb Phrase. Within each phrase, there is a set of rules as well. Noun phrases may consist of optional adjectives and prepositional phrases. Verb phrases can contain their own noun phrases. Once I was able to figure out what went into a sentence, I was able to determine what sort of sentence structure I want in my own language. I am considering having a sentence structure that will either look like: 

a) Went to the park I did. OR

b) Went to the park did I.

I also worked on finding more hiatus words in the Gaelic poetry. So far I have found quite a few! I wish there were translations of the poems in the book, however, there are none. My advisor has provided translations for the hiatus words I am finding, which is wonderful. I hope that you all have a wonderful week and thank you for reading!

Week Five

Hello everyone! I hope you have enjoyed your week. 

This week, I have mostly been researching the history and background of Gaelic poetry. I found that Gaelic poetry is separated into two eras: The Classic and Modern eras. In the classic era,  which begins sometime around 800 A.D. and ends around 1730, poets were educated aristocrats that received a great amount of training in Gaelic language, phonetics, meter and history. The literary style was far more archaic than the vernacular of that current time, gearing it towards the more educated members of society. However, this began to change after shifts in government occurred and, possibly, because of contact with non-Gaelic speakers. The classic era bled into the beginning of the modern era, which was sometime around 1600 and was most prosperous between 1640 and 1830. In the modern era, poetry was less of a profession for educated aristocrats and started to represent every class in society. Poetry was written in layman terms and the poetic rules began to change. 

I met with the group researching Gaelic and found out that I have been scanning the poetry correctly and have indeed been finding words with hiatus. Hiatus words are, as a reminder, words that, to an English speaker, may sound like they have two syllables, but in fact have one syllable, according to a native Gaelic speaker. Hiatus words typically have a vowel, followed by a consonant (usually /b/, /d/, /g/, /m/, or /t/), followed by an /h/, and then another vowel. An example would be the word latha meaning, “day.”

I have started to struggle a bit with my own language. I’ve moved on to creating morphemes (words) and have found it to be rather difficult. There are so many possibilities and combinations I can make with all the vowels/consonants/sounds I have selected. It is a bit overwhelming. I also have to take syntax (grammar) into account while I am creating these words. I have come up with a complicated pronoun system which is not yet complete. I will elaborate on that next time. I am truly enjoying this process, though. It gives me a lot of joy to be able to work on creating a world of my own and I am so happy to have all of the support and help from my advisors at the school and at the U of A. I hope you all have a great week and, as always, thank you for reading!

Week Four

Hello everyone! I hope you have all enjoyed your week!

Week four of my project is over already. This week, I selected the consonants I want to use in my language! With the help of my advisor and a helpful website I discovered, I have found a variety of sounds used in languages worldwide. I have decided to use some sounds I have learned after taking Mandarin Chinese for the years I have been at BASIS. The particular sound I am interested is the /ts/ sound (written as the letter /c/) found in words such as cài (dish) and cóng (from). This sound is part of a group of sounds called affricate consonants. These sounds are related to fricatives, which are sounds that are pronounced when an air stream passes through a narrow passage without being stopped at any point in the oral cavity (such as /s/ and /z/). Affricate consonants are sounds that begin as a stop but have a fricative release (such as the /ts/ sound in Mandarin). In addition to affricate consonants, I have also decided on using ejective consonants found in the Navajo language and in Georgian. These sounds are voiceless consonants (sounds produced without the vibration of the glottis, all sounds produced via whispering are voiceless) produced while simultaneously closing off the glottis. This produces a sort of pop or click when pronouncing these consonants. In case you are interested in listening to any of these sounds or any other consonants in languages around the world, here is the link to the website I found: http://web.uvic.ca/ling/resources/ipa/charts/IPAlab/IPAlab.htm

In terms of Gaelic, I have begun scanning the poetry and locating words with hiatus. I have a meeting later this week to discuss what we have found. I have also been working on my own poetry and have written three pieces, which I plan to translate into my created language. This coming week, I hope to decide on my root morphemes and begin constructing a syntax. I hope you all have a wonderful week and, as always, thanks for reading!

Consonants in my language

Week Three

Hello again! I hope you are all having a great week!

March already! It feels like its was New Years just yesterday. The first day of March marks the end of week three of my project. This week, I worked on perfecting my vowels and have begun determining what consonants I am going to use. I’ve been using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) chart to help me determine what sort of sounds I want in my language. So far, I want my language to be able to be spoken by humans, so I am most likely not going to pick very many inhuman noises (i.e. bird calls, dolphin clicks, whale songs, etc…); however, animal calls are not out of the realm of possibility (which I will discuss later). I have been using an excellent website that shows a variety of different sounds in other languages. I have become fond of many sounds in Hindi, Russian, and the clicking sounds of Xhosa. I will provide the link to the site, should any of you be interested in listening to the specific phonemes (sounds) or words of other languages: http://phonetics.ucla.edu/index/sounds.html. 

  In addition to picking sounds in my language, I have also begun creating and perfecting my culture. They are most definitely superhuman and are going to be featured in a sci-fi/fantasy novel series I am working on writing. I am considering making them telepathic and perhaps giving them some avian qualities. After watching a hummingbird documentary in my macro-biology class this year, I was inspired to give my culture colorful feathers, much like hummingbirds. I may even give them wings. With this in mind, I researched the anatomy of birds vocals and discovered that, unlike humans, they do not have larynxes. Instead, they have syrinxes, which are located at the base of the trachea and replace the vocal chords of a mammal. Bird calls are produced through the vibration of the syrinx caused by airflow. I would love it if my language could possibly implement bird calls (I will not implement many bird calls, for I want a majority of the language to be able to be spoken by humans). I might give my species both a syrinx and a larynx. 

This week, I attended the Linguistics 150 class at the U of A and learned a great deal about morphemes (smallest unit of meaning in a language). Morphemes are not always words, for they may carry meaning but cannot stand alone as words themselves. These morphemes are called bound morphemes. Some, however, are able to act as words and these are called free morphemes. I also attended a meeting with the team working on Gaelic poetry. I have not made much progress on finding Gaelic words with hiatus, but I hope to do a great deal of work on that this week. I hope you all enjoy this first week of March! Thanks for reading!

English IPA Chart

Vowels/Phonetic Possibilities

                                             

Culture Ideas

Week Two

Hello all! I hope you have had a wonderful week!

This marks the end of week two of my research project. This week, I received instructions on what it is that I will be doing for my internship. I will be helping a graduate student identify the syllables and hiatus’ in words in Gaelic poetry in hopes that this will give us an insight into how Gaelic speakers determine how many syllables are in a word. In English, we have seemingly clear rules as to where we break up words into their different syllables (however, there are some exceptions). In Gaelic, there are a variety of words that non-Gaelic speakers would, for example, say have two syllables, whereas a Gaelic speaker would argue that, although it is pronounced as if there were two syllables, there is in fact only one syllable. Why is this? Why is it that the pronunciation makes the word sound as if there are two syllables when, if you ask a Gaelic speaker, it is actually only one syllable? Why are the rules for syllables in English different than the rules in Gaelic? Are these Gaelic words this way for poetic reasons? 

In my independent research, I am studying the basics of language construction, specifically vowels, monophthongs, and diphthongs. I am currently working on selecting vowels for the language I am creating and am editing the basics of the culture I have created. My advisor and I spoke about possibilities for my culture and their relation to language. Are these creatures humanoid? How would their physiology change their vocabulary? Are they able to make inhuman sounds that contribute to their language? Would telepathy change their vocabulary? I am considering all of these factors in the process of developing my culture and language. The possibilities are endless and I am very excited to be working on this. I hope you all have a wonderful week! Thank you for reading!