Inkling Fan Language Sister Project: Octoling Language

[EclipseMT]

Basic conjunctions.

|ko|: For.
|to|: And.
|nu|: Nor.
|gi|: But.
|fu|: Or.
|yo|: Yet.
|ho|: So.

As for prepositions, I do not know whether to not incorporate them (like Japanese, where prepositions are virtually nonexistent as a part of speech) or to (like English or any Western language).

 

[EclipseMT]

New words:

|jikhu|: A reflexive pronoun (Ger. sich, Japanese jibun/自分, or English my/your/him/her/itself).
|sasu|: Causative helping verb. Follows an infinitive, e.g. |susasu| = "make it do..."
|deku|: Potential helping verb (like can in English or dekiru/できる in Japanese). Same usage rule as |sasu|.
|solu|: Volitional helping verb (Ger. sollen, Eng. should).
|wayu|: Equivalent helping verb to the English might. (Should I remove this and just have |deku| as can/might?)

 

[theFIZZYnator]

I had quite some time to kill on a car ride, so I wrote some ideas down as to the phonetics of the language. I'm just gonna dump the notes.

6 Vowels
i e a å/ɔ o u OR i e a o u ü OR i e ə a o u
Possibly 8 vowels: i e ə a å/ɔ o u ü

26 Consonants
b č d f g ğ h k l m n p q r s š t ŧ v w x y z ž þ ð
b tɕ d φ ɡ dʑ h k ɫ m n p tɫ ɾ s ɕ t ts β w x j z ʑ θ ð
(Let's cut this down)

Categorization A
kg pb td čğ mn h fv yw sz šž r ŧ lq þð x

Categorization B
kg pb.fv.w td.ŧ.čğ.þð sz.šž mn lq hx.r.y

ASCII workaround spelling
Čč = cz, ch, c*
Ğğ = gz, dg, g*
Šš = sz, sh, s*
Ŧŧ = tz, ts, t*
Žž = zh, z*
Þþ = th, t%
Ðð = dh, d%
Åå/Ɔɔ = ao, o*
Üü = ue, u*
Əə = y, e*

Inkling backwards compatibility
with ": l q v x þ ð = š č b h t d
with °: å/ɔ ü ə = o u e

24 or 32 -2 Vowel letters
i e ə a å/ɔ o u ü
in en ən an ån/ɔn on un ün
— ei əi ai åi/ɔi oi ui üi
iu eu əu au åu/ɔu ou — üu
ii and uu are not valid combinations

I also think that 50% - 80% of all Octoling vocabulary be cognates of Inkling.

 

[EclipseMT]

Romanized Orthography, and other things.

Pretty much the same as Inkling, but with these added provisions.

If we are to use /ə/, it would be romanized as ë.

/ɔ/ is å.
/x/ is kh or x.
|ts| can be ç for convenience.

/j/ can remain y due to e-diareses being used for the allocated letter, and j can be dʑ.

Also, I like the distinction between ʑ and dʑ.

So in total, here is the alphabet (romanized):
a b č d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s š t ç u v w x y z ž å ë ü.

OTHER EDIT: In simplified, here it is: a b ch d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s sh t ts u v w kh y z zh å ë ü (need to make appropriate replacements for the last three).

(Lenghthened vowels indicated by acute accents; geminate consonants are doubled)

EDIT: Lenghtened å is indicated with ä (If any other diacritic is more appropriate, please put suggestions).

What other provisions should I make?

EDIT: In terms of Inkling cognates, for the most part, mostly nouns and adjectives would be cognates. Verbs would have to be significantly reworked due to the conjugations (all infinitive verbs in Octoling end in -u and conjugate on the basis of the conjugation chart).

BTW, I kind of made the interrogative mood still *u becomes *a in lieu of *u becomes *ay.

 

[theFIZZYnator]

Romanized Orthography, and other things.

Pretty much the same as Inkling, but with these added provisions.

If we are to use /ə/, it would be romanized as ë.

/ɔ/ is å.
/x/ is kh or x.
|ts| can be ç for convenience.

/j/ can remain y due to e-diareses being used for the allocated letter, and j can be dʑ.

Also, I like the distinction between ʑ and dʑ.

So in total, here is the alphabet (romanized):
a b č d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s š t ç u v w x y z ž å ë ü.

OTHER EDIT: In simplified, here it is: a b ch d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s sh t ts u v w kh y z zh å ë ü (need to make appropriate replacements for the last three).

(Lenghthened vowels indicated by acute accents; geminate consonants are doubled)

EDIT: Lenghtened å is indicated with ä (If any other diacritic is more appropriate, please put suggestions).

What other provisions should I make?

EDIT: In terms of Inkling cognates, for the most part, mostly nouns and adjectives would be cognates. Verbs would have to be significantly reworked due to the conjugations (all infinitive verbs in Octoling end in -u and conjugate on the basis of the conjugation chart).

BTW, I kind of made the interrogative mood still *u becomes *a in lieu of *u becomes *ay.

I like the idea of using ë for ə.
I don't like using j for dʑ; I still feel ğ would be more appropriate.
I oppose ç for ts. It's almost always read "s", and ŧ is good enough.

Lengthened vowels should be doubled or use a macron (īēāōū, won't support åëü). Geminate consonants should be doubled as well.

 

[EclipseMT]

I oppose ç for ts. It's almost always read "s", and ŧ is good enough.

Lengthened vowels should be doubled or use a macron (īēāōū, won't support åëü). Geminate consonants should be doubled as well.

ç: My keyboard (that I was using at the time) couldn't type ŧ. I also do not have alt-codes memorized.

Also, the reason why I proposed acutes for lengthened vowels was because Hungarian did it, and in Hungarian, the o with diaereses was indicated with a double acute.

 

[theFIZZYnator]

ç: My keyboard (that I was using at the time) couldn't type ŧ. I also do not have alt-codes memorized.

Also, the reason why I proposed acutes for lengthened vowels was because Hungarian did it, and in Hungarian, the o with diaereses was indicated with a double acute.

The thing about using the acute accent for long vowels is that it conflicts with the (irregular) accent indicator, and that E̋ can't be produced without a combining double acute accent. I suggest the more renowned and intuitive macron, but since neither Ā̊ nor Ë̄ are Unicode-encoded, and Ǖ is only used in Pinyin, I suggested just doubling the vowel Finnish style.

Let's just agree to use c as |ts| when {ŧ} is not available, Esperanto-style.

 

[EclipseMT]

And, of course, the Octoling glyphs.

We'll need to vectorize them, and then I can start on the first draft of the PDF.

EDIT: Also, I would be rater keen on making interrogative mood *u become *a.

Gonna call it a night.

 

[theFIZZYnator]

And, of course, the Octoling glyphs.

Before we do that, we should decide on which of the extra vowels to incorporate in the language. If we decide to add all three, I'll have to invent more letters for "rhymes".
Basically the only major difference would be adding glyphs for l, q, and ǧ, and a set of extra vowels.

 

[EclipseMT]

Before we do that, we should decide on which of the extra vowels to incorporate in the language. If we decide to add all three, I'll have to invent more letters for "rhymes".
Basically the only major difference would be adding glyphs for l, q, and ǧ, and a set of extra vowels.

I honestly like all three vowels, but I don't get why we need Q.

 

[calthax]

Maybe some ideas for verbs?'

Dobo: to stay

Tebo: to go

Am I doing this the right way?

 

[EclipseMT]

Maybe some ideas for verbs?'

Dobo: to stay

Tebo: to go

Am I doing this the right way?

Made them |dobu| and |tebu|.

In Octoling, all verbs end in *u and conjugate accordingly.

I made "to move" |idobu|.

Not sure whether to make transitive-intransitive distinction.

 

[EclipseMT]

So my final basic infrastructure (in regards to grammar and syntax, along with a few example words) is summarized as follows (It really isn't so laconic).

The alphabet: 32 individual letters, romanized as 24 of the basic Latin set (all letters minus q and c) with five having diacritical marks, along with 3 additional diacritical vowels: A B Č D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S Š T Ŧ U V W X Y Z Ž Å Ë Ü

Phonology: Vowels
* The five basic values are pronounced virtually the same way as in languages like Japanese and Spanish.
* Å represents an intermediate sound between IPA [ɔ] and [ɑ].
* Ë represents IPA [ə].
* Like it does in German, Ü represents IPA [ʏ].

Phonology: Consonants
* Virtually the same as in English, but...
* R represents the alevolar tap [ɾ], the sound present in Japanese to represent said letter.
* L represents IPA [ɬ].
* Č represents the "ch" sound in English, but it is [t͡ɕ] rather than [tʃ]. This carries on to Š [ɕ] and Ž [ʑ]. Internally, this difference is negligible for non-native speakers, but one would be appreciated to acknowledge the distinction. Native speakers take kindly folk of Calamari region partially due to them pronouncing it closer to [t͡ɕ], unlike natives of Inkopolis, who pronounce it closer to [tʃ].
* Ŧ represents the "ts" sound [t͡s].

Grammar and Syntax: General
* Octoling has no grammatical gender, nor does it have a real grammatical number system (i.e. no distinction between singular and plural forms).
* Two cases in Octoling: Subject and object.
* Word order is arbitrary, but the conjugated verb always goes at the end of a sentence.

Grammar and Syntax: Verbs
* Prime difference: Verbs conjugate, unlike Inkling. All verbs have the ending *u in their infinitive form.
* Following conjugations are used in Octoling: Past, progressive, future, imperative, negative, interrogative, passive, conditional, and gerund. Example verbs: |yu| "to be" (conjugates irregularly), |su| "to do," |kanabu| "to make/get/be ready"
* In general:
** Past: *u becomes *eta.
** Progessive: *u becomes *ichu.
** Future: *u becomes *onu.
** Imperative: *u becomes *e.
** Negative: Append |nu| at the beginning of the verb.
** Interrogative: *u becomes *a. EDIT: Append |aya| at the beginning of a verb.
** Passive: *u becomes *aru.
** Conditional: *u becomes *eba.
** Gerund: *u becomes *oy.

That's all for this (not so) laconic list of features. Gonna get that PDF started as soon as characters are vectorized.

EDIT: Geminated consonants and lenghtened vowels are indicated with a double letter

 

[theFIZZYnator]

Nice, but I think the interrogative form should also be a prefix, because it conflicts with the past tense conjugation, and in turn so we can ask questions like "Did you get ready", or "Will you not be".

 

[EclipseMT]

Nice, but I think the interrogative form should also be a prefix, because it conflicts with the past tense conjugation, and in turn so we can ask questions like "Did you get ready", or "Will you not be".

|aya| before a verb? I made the system when I didn't consider |etu| as a verb.

EDIT: New system implemented. |etu| can be "to consider."

Ayaeteta? (NOTE: That actually sounds so nice).

 

[EclipseMT]

Another thing.
A word for "Foreigner."

Should it be a euphemism that came from a term meaning "Inkling" or not, like how "Gift" in German was a euphemism for poison, but originally meant a present back in the Middle Ages?

Or are the two terms seperate?

 

[theFIZZYnator]

The alphabet: 32 individual letters, romanized as 24 of the basic Latin set (all letters minus q and c) with five having diacritical marks, along with 3 additional diacritical vowels: A B Č D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S Š T Ŧ U V W X Y Z Ž Å Ë Ü

I think the letter G with caron (Ǧǧ) should replace J, and the standard C with no diacritic should replace T with stroke (Ŧŧ). I also don't know why you discarded Q (tɬ, voiceless alveolar lateral affricate).

Later I'll get to work on vectorizing Octoling Semisyllabary V2.

 

[EclipseMT]

I think the letter G with caron (Ǧǧ) should replace J, and the standard C with no diacritic should replace T with stroke (Ŧŧ). I also don't know why you discarded Q (tɬ, voiceless alveolar lateral affricate).

Later I'll get to work on vectorizing Octoling Semisyllabary V2.

I cannot really tell how tɬ sounds like. AFAIK, it sounds like ch.

 

[theFIZZYnator]

I cannot really tell how tɬ sounds like. AFAIK, it sounds like ch.

/ʃ/ is to /tʃ/ as /ɬ/ is to /tɬ/. Basically, it's the /tʃ/ sound articulated at the sides of the tongue like /ɬ/ rather than the tip like in /ʃ/.
Edit: I envision Octolings using Q to transcribe the annoyed clicking sound we write as "tsk" or "tch".

 

[EclipseMT]

Sample list of nouns.

* Olkku: Low-level trooper (i.e. basic Octarian).
* Tendou: a god.
* Dicuniy: Demon/devil
* Pyašu: Just any outright derogatory term you can think of.
* And a native term for Octolings.