Merry Christmas!

I just want to say Merry Christmas - in Emnonian: Mundeja ejut bebat Xristot muma se. Literally, this means may your celebration of Jesus' birth be happy. I have yet to go C.S. Lewis and incorporate Jesus into Gultz, so for now there isn't a common word for Christmas. Meanwhile, here's a link to my translation of the Christmas story.

Though it's been said, many times, many ways, Merry Christmas to you!

Decline of Definiteness

Why haven't you seen any Matlang posts? Blame the fact that Ιἐσούς Χρίστος' birthday is a bigger and busier holiday than His death/resurrection (which is probably more important).

Three days ago, the conlanging blog posted stuff about Google Ngram Viewer. Looking at it, I noticed that it showed the scale of percentage. I wondered what would be the most, and searched for the and a. No surprise that instead of being in the 0.000000s like constructed language, the and a were in the 1s.

I noticed a strict statistic. the has been steadily declining since 1850 (from 6% to currently 4.5%), while a has maintained 1.5%. Why is this?

The answer: I'm not a scholar, so I have no idea. Anyone who knows this can comment, and they will receive $0 plus a free review of any constructed language/world if they give me a link.

By the way, I originally decided to call this post the decline of definiteness, but to fit the mood changed it. Sorry for any inconvenience.

Efharistó!

Matlang, Day 6

I just realized I've posted every other day. I actually wrote this earlier, I just set it to post later.

At the bottom is an .sc file of the sound changes. It's for Mark Rosenfelder's Sound Change Applier, I should write a review of it one of these days :).

Anyways, this a declension of ferō to bear:

   Matlang      Latin        Greek
ferō   feromes ferō ferimus ferō   feromen
fereri ferete  fers fertis  fereis ferete
fereti feront  fert ferunt  ferei  ferousi

This is assuming Matlang is descended from PIE. But it isn't; it's descended from Pre-Matlang. Which means we can supply changes to Pre-Matlang:

  Pre-Matlang       Matlang
*ferō   *feromes   ferō  feromes
*fereis *feretis → ferīs feretis
*fereit *ferount   ferīt ferount


But wait. Wasn't the entire point of Pre-Matlang to have agglunative endings which wear away into inflections in Matlang? And wasn't this whole project supposed to be based off of Material Logic? This means we can scrap the verbs and start over...with nouns. Until next time...

--

C=mnpbftdþkgxqGQsrlywRL
V=eaoiuëäöêâôîû
S=tdþ
K=kgx
W=qGQ
H=fþx
P=ptk
D=bdg
Y=kgxqGQy
F=ie
B=uo
Ä=ëäö
N=pbkgs
*Labiovelars
W/S/_F
W/S/u_
W/S/_u
q/k/B_
q/k/_B
G/1/n_
Q/1/n_
G/w/_
Q/w/_
n1/nG/_
*Aspirates
H/D/V_V
þ/b/u_
þ/b/r_
þ/b/_r
þ/b/_l
*s
s/r/V_V
s/1/_P
s/h/#_
1/s/_P
*Liquids
y//V_V
*Beschwaed vowels
Ä//_#
Ä/a/_
*Beiotaed vowels
ei/ê/_Y
ei/î/_
ôi/ê/_
âi/ê/_
*Syllabics
R/ra/N_
L/la/N_
R/ra/#_
L/la/#_
R/or/_
L/ol/_
*spelling
f/ph/_
þ/th/_
x/ch/_
q/1u/_V
q/que/_
1/q/_u
g/1u/_V
g/gue/_
1/g/_u

Matlang, Day 5

Sorry if the last post was weird; blame Blogger. Now that we have a full inventory, it's time to work on sound changes.

Though we will keep the basic inventory the same, we will use some sound changes which we will apply to endings. All are based off of changes from PIE to Latin or Greek:

1. Morphing of Labiovelars:
1. kw, gw, kwh → t, d, th / _(i,e)
2. kw, gw, kwh → k, g, gh / (u)_(u)
3. kw → k / (o,u)_(o,u)
4. gw, gwh → w / [-n]_
2. Morphing of Aspirates:
1. ph, th, kh → b, d, g / V_V
2. th → b / (u,r)_(r,l)
3. gwh → gw / _
3. Morphing of s
1. s → r / V_V
2. s → h / #_[-plosive -voice]
4. Morphing of Liquids:
1. y → 0 / V_V
5. Morphing of -ə:
1. Və → 0 / _#
2. Və → a / _
6. Morphing of -i:
1. ei → ē / _([+dorsal -w])
2. ei → ī / _
3. ōi, āi → ē / _
7. Morphing of Syllabic Liquids
1. ṟ, ḻ → ra, la / (p,b,k,g,s,#)_
2. ṟ, ḻ → or, ol / _

Matlang, Day 3

In our continuing saga of creating languages, I am going to work on syllabic consonants and suprasegmentals.

Pre-Matlang: Syllabic Consonants
Gr La PM
a  em *em
mā mā *mā
am em *am
a  en *en
nā nā *nā
an en *an
la ol *ḻ
lā lā *lā
al el *al 
ra or *ṟ
rā rā *rā
ar el *ar


So in Pre-Matlang, the only syllabic consonants are *ḻ and *ṟ.

Matlang, Day 2

Today, I'll be doing those lovely airflows modified by your tongue's location. That's right, vowels!

Pre-Matlang Vowels
These are the basic sound correspondences:

Gr La PM
e  e  *e
a  a  *a
o  o  *o
e     *eə
a  a  *aə
o     *oə
ē  ē  *ē
ā  ā  *ā
ō  ō  *ō
i  i  *i
ī  ī  *ī
ī  īa *ei
ū  oe *oi
ai ae *ai
āi ī  *āi
āi ō  *ōi
u  u  *u
ū  ū  *ū
eu ū  *eu
ou ū  *ou
au au *au

So this is our system:
Monophthongs: /a e i o u a: e: i: o: u:/
-i Diphthongs: /ei ai oi a:i o:i/
-u Diphthongs: /eu ou au/
-ə Diphthongs: /eə aə oə/

Matlang, Day 1

Today, I'm announcing the start of an engelang project I'm going to call Matlang until I come up with a native name. Its goal is to create a language with a phonology and lexicon of PIE, Latin, and Greek; and a morphosyntax based on the principles of traditional Material Logic. Since I envision Matlang being inflectional, I will create first Pre-Matlang (based off PIE) with agglutination and a PIEish phonology. I will refrain from lexicon, because that takes too long.

Okay, here we go...

Today I'll do
Pre-Matlang Consonants
Nasals: /m n/
Plosives: /p b pʰ t d tʰ k g kʰ kʷ gʷ kʷʰ/

Oral continuants: /s r l j w/


Differences in PIE and Pre-Matlang:

• I've gotten rid of the palatovelars, because both Latin and Greek merge them with velars.
• I devoiced the aspirated plosives, as they both became unvoiced in Latin and Greek.