#and how the r at the end of a vowel changes the sound?

[italiantea]

my international school background is doing me no favors here my biology teacher was indian my geography teacher was scottish my business teacher was from turkey i have no idea how to pronounce things anymore. why are you asking me how to say cot. who the fuck uses a cot

[physalian]

The Fantasy Language Translation Matrix

Whether you intend to write your own full-blown lexicon with different verb tenses and formal vs informal language, need unique words for spellwork, or just need new names for all your foreign places, behold… the Physalian patented Fantasy Language Translation Matrix.

(I kid. I have no idea if I’m the first to come up with this)

**Disclaimer!** After rolling out your fresh new vocab off the word assembly line, make sure you google it and that it doesn’t already exist and mean something you don’t intend.

Step 1: Pick your Derivative

You can make it sound completely foreign and like total gibberish, but I find it easier for you and other people to read if they have some real-world reference to compare it to, and so they have a clue for which pronunciation rules to rely on. For example: I did not know who René Descartes was my freshman year of high school. His last name was in my algebra book, and I, thinking he was Greek like so many other ancient mathematicians, pronounced his name as if he were Greek “Des-kart-ees.” I got made fun of.

Spare your readers the humiliation.

So say I want a vaguely… Russian/Latin/Italian influence. As opposed to French. Cool. That’s my starting point.

Step 2: Reorder the most common letters from English to your new language

In English, the average use of the standard alphabet by letter in order is this:

Ignore your vowels for a second. I don’t use charts like this on the regular, I use the Wheel of Fortune method and focus on RSTLNE, then go from there. I also want to make sure this isn’t a complete 1:1 ratio so it’s not super obvious I’m just juggling letters around, so I’ll knock out some “duplicate” letters and swap out singular letters for specific sounds.

The goal of this isn’t to stare at two existing language matrices and perfectly match them up, it’s to take the most common sounds and letters in English and make them new, common sounds in your new language, to sound more uniform and like you have a real etymology.

And I end up with this:

This might look a little confusing on how I got from A to Z so the basics:

All my vowels remain in the same place, they just get juggled around so I don’t end up with 8 consonants next to each other and word garbage

My “duplicate” letters are combined so I have more room for the new sounds, like c/k, f/ph/gh, h/wh, s/z. The new sounds then get the spare letters I had left over

Common english suffixes get reduced down so the pattern isn’t as obvious

If you want to include accent marks, this is your chance

I wanted to really emphasize the long “e” and long “i” sounds, so those got extra attention

Step 3: Translating

Oftentimes this is not perfect, or you end up with a word that just doesn’t fit the rest of your new vocabulary, because English is the bastard lovechild of German, Latin, Danish, and French.

I start with English, usually, but if the English word is too short or too long, I translate it first into another language, like Spanish, and go from there. Like “bus” vs “autobus”.

Using your matrix, go one by one. Let’s use a word like “letter”.

English: L-E-T-T-E-R

New: T-A-C-C-A-Z

Step 4: Polishing

So now I have my new word: “Taccaz”

Which is serviceable. I can throw an accent on either A or fiddle with the Z. I can start with “carta” instead and end up with “kizci”. The matrix is just a starting point. It’s designed to streamline the process when I’m otherwise feeling uncreative and in a rush, and it moves very quickly when I need to come up with full phrases and sentences that someone would actually say.

Step 5: Full sentences

This is only if you’re really digging deep and not coming up with the occasional fantasy curse word or new name for your fantasy land/realm/noun etc.

For this you’re going to need lots of tables. I based mine off romance languages because I know Spanish and romance languages make sense. This is where you decide how many pronouns, if any, you’re going to use, how the infinitive changes based on past, present, or future tense, how many nouns the word references, etc.

This is… a lot. Way more than you’d ever need for your manuscript. Ever. But I did it just for my own sake. Does it get long? Yes. Does it get tedious? Yes. The point here is to have little pre-manufactured word bytes you can plug and play with, with as little mental effort as possible so you can save it for the rest of your work.

I also came up with very common words already conjugated, like “to be” so I can just glance and type without having to remember to take “is” and go through the process over and over again.

Which means that I can take an entire sentence and translate it to my new language in about two minutes.

English: The payoff is worth it, this is so satisfying. New, roughly: Nu kioyb ela fyzip ne, iski ela valo nicenbalaev.

Of course, you can keep tinkering until you get something that’s easier on the eyes (I’ve been working with this language for years so I can read it pretty well), but not all languages are smooth and pretty and simple.

To be frank: Most readers will just gloss over this stuff anyway, but it shows that you put in the effort and it enhances the lore and the immersion when you do this. At least in the written medium. You can’t ignore it if this is meant to be in a screenplay.

Is this what a language professor would do or recommend? Probably not, I have no idea. Does it work? Yes. I have a fully functioning grammatical system where any input can give me a legible output.

To make this yourself, just change the order of the letters around, adjust your shortcuts, and come up with your own common sounds for those last two rows. The conjugation matrix is where you can really make it distinct, assuming you are basing yours off a romance language, which you don't have to.

—

And there you have it!

Don’t forget to vote in the dialogue poll before it closes!

[pastrydragon]

Accent, speech pattern and Voice headcanons for the Gotham Rogues.

Riddler

In casual settings, Eddie has a slight New Jersey accent and cusses with the frequency you would expect from that.

He almost always has perfect grammar and has a very impressive vocabulary.

But there are some situations where "Fuck" just does not have a suitable replacement.

When he's going against Batman, The Riddler adopts a more trans Atlantic accent since it goes with his gameshow aesthetic.

Also since a LOT of his schemes are publicly televised he doesn't want to cuss on camera or forget to project his voice.

So adopting a different accent helps his brain remember how to act on camera so he can always appear classy.

Edward's voice is a bit more high and nasally than average, but not to an annoying degree. It's not particularly unique either. So if he remembers so change his voice slightly then he can make a phone call to anywhere and they won't recognize him.

Emotional variations include his accent getting thicker when he's angry or exhausted.

Scarecrow

John has a very rural Georgian accent.

Scarecrow: The Master Of Fear has a rather dramatic way of speaking due to his love of classic literature and poetry.

His years in academia have also left him with a very intellectual and scientific vocabulary.

John speaks with a kind of intensity and eloquence that you'd expect on a stage rather than at the front of a classroom.

A smooth baritone only enhances the effect.

Had he not been a professor, he would have made a killing as a raidio star or television narrator.

John only breaks out Southernisms when he's embarrassed. "Well I never!" "Why I outta-" he also stammers when embarrassed. otherwise his speech patterns don't have noticeable emotional variation except the ones he puts there.

Mad Hatter

Jervis has a strong Bristol accent. Which is an English accent that strongly pronounces R's and tends to slap an L at the end of words that should end in a vowel.

The classic example is Opera'l instead of Opera.

His voice is naturally high and soft, often making him sound much more indulgent toward others than he's actually feeling.

Although he does quote the Alice books often, he does not quote longer passages exactly unless he's having an episode.

The rest of the time he'll change them to fit what's happening or merely reference them.

If he's feeling particularly lucid and cheery, you may not even hear mention of the books at all.

Stress will cause longer more accurate quotes and chip at his lucidity along the way.

His only other emotional variation comes out when he's feeling flirtatious.

Jervis's voice tends to get more breathy and cooing around people he likes. He also goes harder on his R's giving some words a purr like sound.

Harley Quinn

We all know and love our girl Harley's Brooklyn accent.

Honestly I can't make an improvement on the BTAS version so scroll down.

Poison Ivy

Pam has a Virginian accent. It's the kind of southern bell accent you'd associate with Blanche Devereux.

Pair that with a voice like a lounge singer and everything that comes out of her mouth sounds sexy.

Even when she doesn't want it to.

It's actually pretty annoying for her.

Unlike John she uses plenty of southernisms such as "I Reckon" "Over yonder" and of course the venom filled "Bless your heart."

Catwomen

The Miami accent is strong on this women, and it tells you exactly why she moved to Gotham.

You can't wear all black leather in the kind of weather Florida's got.

Miami heat isn't sweet to everyone.

Being a second generation Cuban immigrant, she speaks Spanish fluently and while she speaks both it and English seamlessly she has run into one glitch.

She will occasionally forget whether a turn of phrase was originally English or Spanish.

She called John a dancing skeleton once and no one has let it die. From Esqueleto rumbero- Literally: Dancing skeleton, Meaning: Very thin.

Her actual voice is a pretty standard alto. Like Ed, as long as she disguises her accent she can basically call wherever without being recognized.

Another rogue that hits their R's harder while flirting. But it's less a seductive purr and more an "Oh, I'm being HUNTED" kind of sound to hear.

Bane

Bane is directly from Venezuela and has the accent to match.

His English is phenomenal for someone who's only been speaking it a few years but it's not always perfect.

Whenever he doesn't know or forgets the word for something he'll describe it using other words until the other person figures it out for him.

For example, this interaction between him and Riddler: "I need the office knives." "... I'm sorry, what?" "The office knives, with the holes in the handle." "Hmmm, is the answer perhaps scissors?" "YES! I need the scissors!"

Edward is the grand champion of figuring out what Bane is saying if Catwomen or Music Meister isn't there to translate the word from Spanish.

Bane has a naturally loud and deep voice which can make him sound aggressive even when he's not trying to be. His size doesn't help.

But really he's a very calm and levelheaded person.

If he's actually angry, you'll know it from how quiet deliberate his speech becomes.

A quiet Bane is a dangerous Bane.

Joker

New York accent.

Drops occasional NY phrases but doesn’t mention anything culturally significant to New York unless someone else brings it up.

He doesn't remember what part of New York he's from but if asked he'll say Coney Island.

His jealousy over Eddie growing up in Wildwood is real.

Harley swears up and down he's from Staten Island and anyone familiar with the different New York accents would agree with her.

Joker has a pretty distinct reedy voice that all gothamites will recognize as soon as they hear it.

It gets even higher on the rare occasion he's scared or nervous.

Music Meister

SoCal (Southern California) accent.

This accent is also called Valley Girl.

He's originally from San Diego and spent his early twenties in LA so the accent is thick and locked in.

He moved to the east coast to attempt a Broadway career before turning to villainy and kind of regrets not moving back west first.

He's the first person to complain about cold weather and bad Mexican food when the chance pops up.

But he's gotten too fond of the other rogues to seriously consider leaving.

Even if the Scarecrow keeps smacking him with a newspaper every time he misuses the word "literally".

He automatically starts singing his words when he becomes frightened or incredibly nervous. Which made sense until he revealed he did that even before he got his powers.

Odd.

Killer Croc

Waylon has a thick cajun accent, that along with a naturally growly bass voice can make it difficult for others to understand him.

He prefers speaking French to English and will go out of his way to talk to people he thinks might speak his preferred language.

Jervis, Edward, Victor Fries and Joker speak with him in French when in a one on one conversation. 

Yes Joker speaks French, no he doesn’t remember why or how. He honestly didn’t even know he could until he met Waylon. 

Waylon is incredibly charming and personable once you figure out what he's saying, he's definitely the most well liked rogue among his peers next to Harley.

Emotional variants include getting even more growly when angry and speaking completely in French when distracted.

Penguin

A lot of people say he has an English accent, he doesn’t, never say this in front of him.

The man is WELSH, and he has ruined people’s lives over having his accent confused on particularly difficult days.

He takes great pride in his heritage and being accused of being “English” of all things is one of the quickest ways to sour his mood.

No offense to Mr. Tetch of course, it's the principle of the thing really.

He rarely speaks Welsh these days unless visiting extended family.

He does use the proverb “Deuparth gwaith yw ei ddechrau”(Two-thirds of work is starting), mostly to himself but he’ll use the proverb with others when appropriate.

Emotional variants include his voice getting squawk like when scared. He also laughs like a mad pelican.

Clayface

I forget who came up with this originally and I'm kicking myself for not remembering but I've adopted the head canon that Clayface was an "aging" K-pop/drama star that was on tour in the states when his manager coerced him into trying an experimental cosmetic treatment that turned him into Clayface.

So Clay has a very strong Korean accent and probably speaks the worst English out of all the rogues.

It's passable but he understandably just wasn't expecting to need it this much.

Despite his difficulties he still somehow gains control over the majority of his conversations and seems to exude likability.

He's trained for years to make his voice as soothing and pleasant as possible and he's not going to let being a mud monster ruin his hard work.

Until something triggers his traumatic memories and sends him into a frothing rage full of bubbling curses or a depressive meltdown where he becomes a pile of blubbering goo.

He's totally incomprehensible when he's having either kind of breakdown even to other Korean speakers, honestly HE doesn't even really know what he's saying.

Many of the rogues have hired him to put his acting skills to use in various schemes and Clayface is amazed at all the new voices he can do.

He's also been Music Meister's backup vocalist for a few of his schemes so you know he's legitimately good.

Bookworm

He has a rather general east coast accent.

Until he gets angry and starts cursing in Portuguese.

You'd never guess because he's an ashy fucker and his skin never sees the sun since he spends all his time reading inside, but the guy is mainly indigenous Brazilian.

You might be able to get a clue from his facial features if he wasn't wearing the world's thickest glasses and a hat.

He has near permanent "Library voice" so people often struggle to hear him above everything else that might be going on.

His voice is surprisingly sonorous and captivating when he can be well heard.

Since Arkham doesn't often get new books, fresh literature was fought over until Joker suggested "AudioBookworm" which is just Bookworm reading the new book aloud for everyone.

Until his little used voice gives out a bit at which point Scarecrow or Mad Hatter will step in until the end of the chapter.

Mr. Freeze

Victor has a moderate Icelandic accent.

Riddler and Joker have a competition going to see how many lines from Skyrim they can trick him into saying.

Victor figured it out immediately but plays dumb to this day in order to fuck with them.

He said "Hey, you. You're finally awake." to Edward after he woke up from a nap in the rec room once and Victor will treasure the face that nerd made forever.

Victor has a bit of a "resting bitch voice" he always sounds annoyed.

Unless he's talking to Nora, then he just sounds like a simp.

Not really a voice head canon but he gets hiccups very easily from laughing.

BONUS Nora

Nora is from Belarus so she often got mistaken for having a Russian accent.

But unlike Oswald she rarely cares enough to correct people much less get angry over it.

Nora speaks with great confidence and authority, even when she doesn't necessarily have either.

Her voice definitely broadcasts "Don't even fucking THINK about arguing with me."

The personality and accent get her the nickname "Ice queen" wherever she works.

Which is very unfair, she's a kind and compassionate women!

She's just also right and she should say it.

Nora's voice becomes utterly saccharine around Victor, they're absolutely obnoxious to listen to together.

[spoiledlbleach]

russian cyrillic alphabet for anyone who asked! it's gonna be hell of a ride but that's what you asked for kekw

So the cyrillic alphabet was based on the greek alphabet just like the latin alphabet and therefore theres a lot of greek letters in russian

disclaimer for reading rules (you can skip this part)

i need to mention that the russian letters denote sounds but in russian theres such a phonetical phenomenon called reduction and you can hear this as a part of russian accent in english when bed sound like bet, fog like foc, sob like sop etc (b, d, g & others at the end -> p, t, k). Also o, a, e vowels are pronounced differently in different parts of the word... And sadly for russian learners the stress on the words is flexible and changes bc of different reasons. And theres no way you can see stress marks on the words except if youre looking at them in the dictionary.. yeah. So if the pronunciation doesnt make sense thats why

There are 33 letters in russian alphabet. P.s. ['] means its a soft, palatalized sound, like british l in a word village

Аа - basic, its the 'ah' sound (Алфавит [ahl-fah-v'EEt] -> alphabet)

Бб - the capital letter looks like B without the head and the lowercase one looks like 6 for some. You were right when you thought that it looks like B because its the 'b' sound! (Буква [bOOk-va] -> letter, краб [crahp, no not crap] -> crab)

Вв - looks like B, right? that's a v. Imagine it like this emoji :B this silly lil guy looks like theyre saying vvvvv. (Вишня [v'EEsh-n'ya] -> cherry)

Гг - upside down L, its actually g, like a Бумеранг [boo-m'ee-rAHnk] -> boomerang. Another example, Гость [gohst']

Дд - that's a weird looking one, looks like a house and its Дом [dohm, not dom] in russian. Another example, друг [drook] -> друг

Ее - yeah. the pronunciation is yeah (Ель [yel'] -> spruce/christmas tree, деревня [d'ee-r'EHv- n'ya] -> village)

Ёё - the yeah brother! yo lmao (Ёж [yozh] -> hedgehog) its always stressed so no problems with that. btw if you ask me its the most hated letter. ppl dont put it where it should go and just leave e! wtf! its ё т-т)

Жж - looks like a bug and sounds like one. its zhhhh like in the word garage (Жук [zhook] -> bug, гараж [gah-rAHsh] -> garage, see the reduction there?)

Зз - ah yes the number 3. its the z sound actually (Змея [zm'ee-YA] -> snake, образ [OH-brahs] -> look, image, outfit)

Ии - backwords N is actually a vowel, its our ee sound! (Игра [EEg-rah] -> game)

Йй - и brother, the short и. its y- (Йогурт [yOH-gurt])

Кк - straight up k, always and ever, no example cuz its the same in every position and pretty straightforward

Лл - um... its an L.. idk how you should remember that... (Люстра [l'YOO-strah] -> chandelier]

Мм - an M (Медведь [m'eet-v'EHt'] -> bear)

Нн - you cannot laugh like that in russian, it would be not hahaha but nanana (Банан [bah-nAHn] -> banana]

Оо - oh (Облако [OH-blah-koh] -> cloud)

Пп - p sound (Папа [pAH-pah] -> papa, dad)

Рр - thats not p, its r (Русский алфавит [rOOsk'iy AHl-fah-v'eet] -> russian alphabet]

Сс - not c but s (Собака [cah-bAH-kah] -> dog)

Тт - T

Уу - not y but more like u/oo (Уже [oo-zhEH] -> already)

Фф - impaled o, almost like Q, yet it is ph/f (Фит [f'eet] = Fit)

Хх - never an x, its a h! xaxaxaxa

Цц - upside down п with a tail? erm alright its a ts (Цирк [tsyrk] -> circus)

Чч - upside down h, ch! (Что [shtoh] -> what, more like an exception; Человек [ch'eh-loh-v'EHk] -> person, human being, also чел is the way we say dude, also чувак [ch'oo-vAHk])

Шш - шшш quiet its a sh (Душ [doosh] -> shower]

Щщ - soft sh, sometimes transliterated as tsch or shch. jesus christ (Щека [sh'ee-kAH] -> cheek)

Ъъ - you cant pronounce that. its the glottal stop so you pronounce some sounds separately. like british water you would spell it with ъ in theory, waъer (Съел [s-yel] -> he have eaten; if there wasnt a ъ it would be pronounced [s'ehl] which mean he has sat down. different meaning)

Ыы - okay thats a tricky one. make this face 😬 and now make a sound. thats ы, ive marked it as y in the square brackets (Мы [my] -> we, us)

Ьь - cant pronounce that too. this one denotes the softness of the consonant sound

Ээ - ay without the y (=Эй)

Юю - you (Юбка [YOObkah] -> skirt)

Яя - ya, not backwards R (Яблоко [YAH-blah-koh] -> apple, Pommie ^_^)

Now try to write down your name or the name of a cc/npc/egg/other in russian ! you can leave them in the comments or in my ask box, id love to see you learning :D

some tips on transliterating:

ENGLISH w is generally у, can be в. q is к (qu is кв), j/g is дж, x is кс, h is г in the begging of the names/foreigh words like hannibal is ганнибал

SPANISH ñ is нь, pls google other cases

PORTUGUESE nh is нь, lh is ль, pls google other cases

general advice try transliterating like Fit -> Фит, so every letter/cluster of letters in the original language correlates with similar letter in russian. but in french portuguese and spanish you have to pay close attention to pronunciation, more than to the spelling cuz Ricardo will be Рикардо for spanish but Рикарду for portuguese etc etc

ok i hope you had fun with this long ass post ! ^_^

[disneythingsilike]

I just realized something (theory)

So, Deuces’s mom’s name is spelled ディラ in Japanese. In romanji is this “Dira”. I am seeing it being spelled as “Dilla”, “Della”, “Deila” and a few other ways. But I think there is a bit of a joke here that a lot of people are missing. Possibly.

In Japanese, when a foreign word is pronounced with the Japanese language’s available phonology (sound inventory, or available sounds possible/allowed in a language), it often has to lose some of it’s sounds. For example “hamburger” is pronounced as “han-bah-gah” ( ハンバーガー ) and drops the hard [r] sound completely. This is also the case for other foreign words; diner is said like “die-nah” (ダイナー) and Twitter “tsu-ee-tah” ( ツイッター).

[r] and [l] are kinda interchangeable in Japanese (I am waaaay over simplifying this i.e. this is not totally accurate, but this isn’t the focus), and also has a complete absence of the hard [r] sound in it’s phonology, which makes the “rrrrrr” sound like at the end of the words above, but also words like “gRowl” or “Remind”.

So here’s my theory!

ディラ (Dira) sounds similar to ディーラー (Diiraa or Di-ra-) The lines in between the vowels and consonants (which I have represented in the romanji by doubling the vowels) represent elongation of a vowel sound (meaning that you hold the sound out a little longer than normal. It doesn’t have to be super dramatic, but it can totally change the meaning of a word when spoken if you’re not careful). 

So what does ディーラー mean? Well, ディーラー is the Japanese spelling (which reflects the pronunciation of) the English word “dealer”. This usually refers to a car dealer in Japanese (as in a salesman or establishment where you can purchase are car). But there is another meaning for the word. Card dealer. Like, at a casino. Where they play games like Poker and Black Jack and such. Which use playing cards. The theme of Heartslabyul and The Kingdom of Roses. I think that, by taking out the elongations, this a subtle little joke in her name, like how the names of Ace, Deuce, Trey and Cater are all numbers and card suits.

[dedalvs]

Hello, I am loving Ts' Íts' àsh and how it’s spoken! I’d love to know if you plan on releasing a full breakdown/alphabet type thing because I would love to learn more about it and how to speak it! I’m already learning parts of it and implementing it into my daily speech to get better at speaking it, especially ashfa. Would love to learn more soon!

Best regards, Samuel

If you're talking about the orthography, I did that here. If you mean the sound system and the romanization, I can do that.

Ts'íts'àsh doesn't have a ton of consonants—very few, in fact. They are as follows (romanized form [IPA]: notes [if any]):

p [p]

b [b]

t [t]

d [d]

t' [t']: this is an ejective consonant

k [k]

k' [k']: this is also an ejective consonant

f [ɸ]: this is a bilabial sound

s [s]

sh [ʃ]

kh [x]

r [r/ɾ]: pronounced like a trill at the beginning or end of a word; otherwise pronounced like a flap

That's it! Nothing too complex. Then there are only four true monophthong vowels:

a [a]

i [i]

o [o]

u [u]

Now this is where things get complicated. Any of the four vowels above or any of the fricatives above can serve as a nucleus. This means you can have a word tkh, psh, or even ss. All of those are licit. You can also have any two vowels in a nucleus—including the fricatives. So while you can only have CVV, you can actually have words like tsá, kshí, or even pskh.

(Small aside: If one of these nucleic fricatives follows an ejective, the ejective marking moves to the right of all the consonants. So a word that begins with k' and then has a nucleus of fó is spelled and pronounced kf'ó.)

There are a number of rules for what happens when two vowels (with vowels including fricatives) come next to one another. The result is too complex to list out in text, so I'm afraid I have to do a table, and since Tumblr doesn't do tables, it has to be visual. Here it is:

So, green means the sequences of vowels are allowed to go together without anything changing. Yellow means the sequence is allowed, but some sort of phonological change occurs. Red means the sequence is disallowed. There is also a general prohibition against three of the same sound in a row, even if one is an onset and two are nuclei. Thus, while ss is licit, sss is forbidden. It is worth noting that several of these vowel-vowel sequences result in monophthongs. This is important for the phonology when it comes to tone assignment. The monophthong sequences are:

*aa > a

*ai > e

*ao/*au > o

*ou/*oo > u

This means that certain instances of the vowels [a], [o], and [u] are phonologically long, and the vowel [e] is also phonologically long (and also brings it up to a five vowel system!). Some other interesting notes:

Long high vowels broke, as in English (so *ii > ai and *uu > au).

The first element of opening diphthongs fortify into a fricative (so *iV sequences become shV and *uV/*oa sequences become fV/fa).

Any time s and sh come next to each other the result is ssh (i.e. [ʃʃ]).

The only consonant f can occur next to as a part of the nucleus is f.

Now, the tones are fairly simple. There are three tones:

High Tone [´]: The vowel is pronounced with high pitch—much the way a vowel is in English when it's stressed.

Low Tone [`]: The vowel is pronounced with low pitch—much the way a vowel is in English when it's unstressed (and also not in front of a stressed vowel).

Falling Tone [ˆ]: The pitch starts off high and falls before leaving the vowel—like when you see a kitty and go, "Awwwwwww!"

How tone is assigned is complex. Good news is if the nucleus is consonantal (just fricatives), there's no tone. Fricatives don't bear tone in Ts'íts'àsh.

The short story for tone is that tone in Ts'íts'àsh came from a combination of an older stress system and cues from onset and coda consonants. An older stressed syllable is called a blaze syllable, and an older unstressed syllable is called a smolder syllable. A smolder syllable will always have low tone unless it has a current or former coda voiceless stop. Then it will have high tone. A blaze syllable can have any tone, but the tone it's assigned depends on the surrounding consonants. Some rules:

If the blaze syllable is open, its tone will be high, unless it begins with a voiced consonant, in which case the tone will be low.

A syllable with one vowel that ends in a voiceless stop will have high tone.

Otherwise, a syllable with a voiced consonant onset will have low tone. The sole exception is a syllable beginning with a voiced consonant that has two vowels and a voiceless stop coda. That syllable will have low tone on the first vowel and high on the second (unless the VV sequence results in a monophthong, in which case the tone is high).

Sequences of two vowels generally have a high-low sequence. The same goes for phonologically long monophthongs.

Coda fricatives will drag tone down.

VV sequences in blaze syllables reduce to singletons in smolder syllables when syllable type shifts in a word (e.g. due to affixation).

And that's all there is to it! It might seem tough to pronounce some sequences we don't have in English, but once you let yourself go and lean into it, it's kind of fun! Jessie and I were both really pleased at how well it was carried off by the actors. They really did a great job!

Thanks for the ask!

[mewling-central]

Introduction to Collective Seraphic

Now that Seraphic's at a stable place, I think I'm gonna take some time to delve into the basics of how it operates. For this post I'll only be going into the language itself and not the writing system, as that's going to need a post of its own to elaborate on. I'll try to keep this as concise as possible, but I may make separate posts expanding on topics discussed in this one. So, without further ado, onto the infodump!

Background

Collective Seraphic (which I'll be referring to as "Seraphic") is an artlang that I've created for a comic that as of this post I have not began yet, but am still developing. The majority of the comic will take place on the Seraph Homeworld, an alien planet some 3,000 lightyears from Earth populated by the seraph species (pictured below):

Within the story, Seraphic acts as the lingua franca of the Seraph Homeworld and the many colonized planets under Seraph control. It's used in the government, and among speakers of differing languages. As such, this language was the first one that I knew I would need to make as it will play a vital role in both the storytelling and narrative structure.

Syntax

Seraphic is largely a fusional language, employing affixes to modify the semantic role and meaning of morphemes. Seraphic does not, in the traditional sense, have verbs, so the sentence structure is strictly subject-object (will expand upon later). Nouns decline for number and tense, and are grouped into seven noun classes. Adjectives agree with nouns in number, except if derived from nouns themselves, in which case they'll also agree in class. Seraphic is very head-initial; with demonstratives, numerals, possesives, adjectives, genitives, and relative clauses following the noun the modify; and prepositions preceeding the nouns they modify. Auxiliaries preceed procedurals (again, will expand upon later).

Phonology

Here is the phonological chart for Seraphic:

It has a syllable structure of (CC)V(CC). Plosives cannot exist word finally, clusters of consonants of the same manner are illegal, and vowel clusters are also not permitted. Syllabic consonants are grouped with vowels and behave much like them, carrying tone and stress, so they together are grouped and referred to as vocalics. Seraphic is a tonal language, employing the use of four tones: rising (á), falling (à), high (ā), and low (a). Low tones remained unmarked in both the Seraphic script and in romanization. Stress is syllable-independant. It will take either the ultimate, penultimate, or rarely the antepenultimate. Stress always falls on the syllable with a voiceless initial obstruent nearest to the end of the word. If none are available, it will fall on the syllable with an initial sonorant within the same parameters. Stress will never fall on a voiced obstruent. For clarity, I'll provide a key describing the pronunciation of the romanization.

Sounds that are similarly pronounced as they're read in American English:

m, n, p, b, t, d, k, g, f, v, s, z, y, w, l

Sounds that have special pronunciations:

ŋ, like the ng in English "sing"

p', like the ጴ in Amharic "ጴጥሮስ"

t', like the t' in Navajo "yá'át'ééh"

k', like the კ in Georgian "კაბა"

', like the the space within English "uh-oh"

c, like the sh in English "sharp"

j, like the s in English "measure"

x, like the gh in English "ugh"

ğ, like the γ in Greek "γάλα"

pf, like the pf in German "Pfirsiche"

ts, like the z in Italian "grazia"

tc, like the ch in English "chain"

kx, like the kh in Lakota "lakhóta"

r, like the rr in Spanish "perro", although occasionally like the r in Spanish "amarillo"

i, like the ee in English "meet"

į, like the ы in Russian "ты"

u, like the oo in English "boot"

e, like the é in French "beauté"

œ, like the a in English "Tina"

o, like the o in Classical Latin "sol"

a, like the a in English "bra" although this can change to be more forward or more backward.

Another letter that might trip people up is ł, which is meant to represent the high tone syllabic 'l'. Otherwise, syllabics are written the same as their pulmonic counterparts, with tone markers written when applicable.

Nouns

Nouns make up the bulk of the Seraphic lexicon. Every noun is grouped into one of seven classes:

Solar class: nouns related to seraphim or seraph-like beings, and seraph body parts. Prefix appears as zā-, zō-, zē-, s-, or ts-.

sēr = "person"

Astral class: nouns related to non-seraph animate lifeforms (their equivalent to "animals"). Prefix appears as ğr-, x, or kx-.

xuc = "cherub"

Vital class: nouns related to inanimate lifeforms (their equivalent to "plants"). Prefix appears as wā-, wō, w-, ū-, wē-, or wī-.

wējlux = "tree"

Terranean class: nouns related to landscapes, locations, and natural phenomena. Prefix appears as va-, vo-, vu-, f-, and pf-.

voxāl = "sun"

Metallic class: nouns related to inanimate objects, both natural and artificial. Prefix appears as ja-, jo-, c-, or tc-.

jağrú = "rock"

Lunar class: nouns related to abstract concepts, and terms related to time. Prefix appears as la-, lo-, le-, li-, y-, or l/ł-.

levren = "job"

Oceanic class: nouns related to general words, tangible concepts, numbers, all adjectives, and non-incorporated loanwords. Prefix appears as a/ā-, o/ō-, or aw-.

awuf = "group"

Adjectives do not agree in class, due to the fact that nouns originally are derived from adjectives, and noun classes acted as a way to differentiate between nouns and adjectives.

fa = "warm, hot"

jafa = "fire" (lit. "a hot thing")

When adjectives are used as predicatives, they decline into the oceanic class in order to take the procedurals (once more, will expand upon later).

Nouns also decline for four numbers: singular (one thing, usually unmarked), dual (two things, both things; suffixes as -ac, -oc, -œc, or -c), plural (things, many thing; suffixes as -n, -an, or -in), and collective (every thing, all things; suffixes as -āf/ōf, -áf/-óf, or -'ōf).

Seraphic doesn't use pronouns. Everything and everyone is referred to by name, including yourself. From our perspective, the Seraphic language constantly speaks in the third person. However, it can be repetitive to use the same name over and over again in a sentence, and sometimes you don't know the name of things, so they'll apply what I've called pro-forms. They consist of the demonstrative adjectives fl "this", sl "that", and xl "yon" declined into the Solar class and taking the place of the first, second, and third person respectively. For ease of reference, I'll provide the forms and their declensions below.

zāfl (I/me), zāflc (both of us), zāvlin (we/us), zāfláf (all of us)

zāsl (you), zāslc (both of you), zāzlin (you guys), zāsláf (all of you)

zōxl (they), zōxlc (both of them), zōğlin (many of them), zōxláf (all of them)

Seraphic makes no distinction in the gender of the speaker, in this regard. Although these resemble pronouns, they're not meant to be used as often as regular pronouns, and whenever possible it's much preferred that you refer to someone or something by name.

Adjectives and Prepositions

Adjectives are fairly straightforward. Adjectives follow the noun they modify (e.g. sēr tan "big person"), and agree with them in number (e.g. sēr tan "big person" vs sērn t'aŋon "big people"). Adjectives agree in the singular form with singular and collective nouns, and they agree in the plural form with dual and plural nouns.

There are three main types of adjectives: native adjectives (e.g. cna "good"), borrowed adjectives (e.g. anzn "nice"), and noun-derived adjectives (e.g. arfi/ofi "new"). Native and borrowed adjectives don't agree with noun classes, but noun-derived adjectives do. It originated from the animacy-based adjective agreement system in Proto-Seraphic, which has been lost in all other adjective instances. When you want to make a noun into an adjective you'll affix one of two prefixes to it: ar- (if agreeing with Solar, Astral, and Vital nouns) and o- (if agreeing with Terranean, Metallic, Lunar, and Oceanic nouns). There are specific rules on the forms each prefix takes based on the noun they're attached to:

"ār-" when preceeding high or falling vocalic syllables (e.g. sēr ārzājna "popular person")

"ar-" when preceeding low or rising vocalic syllables (e.g. wēn arfe "local fruit")

"ó-" when preceeding high or falling vocalic syllables (e.g. lalel ówē "grassy flavor")

"o-" when preceeding low or falling vocalic syllables (e.g. lesar olvulvren "economic problem")

"ōw-" when preceeding words that start with a vocalic (e.g. lnin ōwāsāvbas "momentary event")

Prepositions occur before the nouns they modify, and don't change form in any circumstance. There are currently 19 prepositions in the modern language, and they are usually connected to nouns via a hyphen (e.g. e-fe "at (the) place"):

cu = of; indicates possession

pr̄ = indicates the indirect object, equivalent to "to" in the phrase "The man sends the letter to me."

in/īn = as or like; indicates similarity or resemblance. Will either be low or high tone depending on the tone of the following syllable.

e/ē = at or on; indicates location.

tsa = near or for; indicates relative distance from a location or an action performed for the sake of the referent.

cni = without; indicates a lack of possession or company.

wa = in or inside of; indicates interior position.

tn = on top of, above, or before; indicates superior position or a prior instance in time.

pux = under, beneath, or after; indicates inferior position or a following instance in time.

pi = with, together with; indicates being in company of or making use of the referent.

fān = from or away from; indicates the motion of leaving the referent.

ku = out of; indicates motion from within the referent towards the exterior.

tun = into or through; indicates motion from outside the referent towards the interior.

xel = to or towards; indicates the motion of approaching the referent.

kxun = across; indicates motion from one location to another

pn̄ = around; indicates location surrounding the referrent.

cāza = between; indicates location in the middle of the referrent.

tē = after, behind; indicates posterior position.

fr = during; indicates a moment in time

Prepositions aren't combined in Collective Seraphic, but may be in certain instances in colloquial speech.

Procedurals

Okay, this is probably the most complicated part of Seraphic, so I'm going to need to get into things individually. First, I'll start with defining a procedural itself. Procedurals are the term I use for the prefixes used to describe the relationship or process of and between the agent noun and the patient noun. These are what act as the equivalent to "verbs" in earth languages. There are three in use:

Existential: used to denote a state of being or equivalence between agent and patient, or to the patient and itself. Equivalent to English "to be" (e.g. A is B, there is B). Usually prefixes as some variant of n-, m-, or ŋ-.

Actional: used to denote an action or process between the agent and patient, or with the patient and itself. Equivalent to English "to do" or "to act upon" (e.g. A acts upon B). Carries a connotation of agency and intent. Usually prefixes as some variant of re-, ra-, or r-.

Resultative: used to denote an occurence or change in state between agent and patient, or patient and itself. Equivalent to English "to become", "to happen", or "to change into" (e.g. A becomes B, B happens to A). Carries a connotation of passiveness or motion. Usually prefixes as some varient of ed- or ez-.

The procedural will change its form slightly depending on the class and declension pattern of the noun it modifies. It always affixes to the patient noun, demonstrating a relationship of an action and what is being acted upon. In this way, the patient can be clearly identified. In transitive or causative clauses, the word order is always S(P)O, with the agent acting as the subject and the patient as the object. In intransitive and passive clauses, the word order is always (P)S, with the patient acting as the subject and the agent demoted to the indirect object or omitted entirely.

Although seemingly limiting, using these three procedural, as well as prepositions, nouns, and adjectives, altogether can be used to make all sorts of verb equivalents that are called "procedural phrases". I'll demonstrate how to build a sentence now. First thing we need to know is the subject and object:

Sāx ... jafa (The child ... the fire)

Next, I'll add the actional procedural in the present tense to this.

Sāx rejafa (The child acts upon the fire)

By itself this is technically grammatically correct, but it doesn't really mean anything. It's too broad. So we add a prepositional phrase to specify exactly what action the child is taking towards the fire.

Sāx pi-sīman rejafa (The childs acts upon the fire with (their) eyes)

Now we know that the child is performing an action involving the use of their eyes. Now of course this could mean many different things in English, but in Seraphic the first thing that comes to mind would be fairly obvious: to see! Thus, "Sāx pi-sīman rejafa" would be the same as saying "The child sees the fire" in English! There are a lot of set phrases that equate to verbs, and remain consistent in their arrangement. Often differing phrases are a useful way to ascertain where someone is from or what their first language is.

Tense and Aspect

Seraphic has six main tenses: two pasts, two presents, and two futures. The two pasts consist of the recent past (happening recently) and the remote past (happening a long time ago), and they prefix and/or combine with the procedural.

Sāx pi-sīman ğrejafa (The child just saw the fire)

Sāx pi-sīman eğrejafa (The child saw the fire a while ago)

Similarly, the future tenses consist of the near future (will happen soon) and the distant future (will happen eventually).

Sāx pi-sīman drejafa (The child will soon see the fire)

Sāx pi-sīman izrejafa (The child will eventually see the fire)

The present tenses consist of a general present tense (happens) and the infinitive (to happen) which is used with auxiliaries and copulae and carries no presence in time.

Sāx pi-sīman rejafa (The child sees the fire)

Pi-sīman ezrejafa (To see a fire)

Whether someone considers an event to be nearer or farther in time from them is completely up to their discretion. There's no set timeframe for when to use the recent vs. remote past, it's all fairly subjective. However, whether you decide to use the recent or remote can really indicate whether you believe something to be in the distant past or future, or just a few moments ago or soon.

Seraphic also makes use of two copulae, the perfective -r and the imperfective -l, helping clitics that expand on the aspect of the procedural, i.e. how the procedural happens over time instead of when in time. The copulae are separate from the procedural, being placed directly before it and conjugating on their own similarly to the lexical procedural. When the copulae are in use, they are conjugated instead of the lexical procedural, while the lexical will be put into the infinitive. The exception to this is if the point in time is considered necessary to be stated for the sake of clarity or emphasis, in which case the lexical verb will also conjugate (though this isn't considered to be the default). The two copulae each conjugate to six tenses, and give 12 individual aspects in total. They are as follows, starting with the perfective:

āgxōnr - Pluperfect: indicates that the action happened at a point before some time in the past either specified or implied (e.g. āgxōnr nidsl "that has happened")

xōnr - Preterite: indicates that the action happened in the past with no reference to if it was completed recently or remotely. A general past (e.g. xōnr nidsl "that happened")

nar - Relative: indicates relative clauses, i.e. clauses that act to modify a noun similarly to an adjective. Equivalent to "that", "who", or "which" (e.g. lsl nar nidsl "the thing that happens")

ednr - Gnomic: indicates general truths, common knowledge, and aphorisms (e.g. ednr nezłsl "things happen")

t'enr - Future Simple: indicates the action will happen in the future with no regard to how near or far it is from the present (e.g. t'enr nidsl "that will happen")

āt'ēnr - Future Perfect: indicates that the action will happen before a time or event in the future (e.g. āt'ēnr nidsl "that will have happened")

And the imperfective:

ŋ̄xōzl - Discontinuous: indicates that an action was happening in the past, but is no longer happening in the present (e.g. ŋ̄xōzl nidsl "that used to happen")

xōzl - Habitual: indicates that an action is done often or out of habit (e.g. xōzl nidsl "that always happens")

īzl - Progressive: indicates that an action is happening at the very moment of conversation (e.g. īzl nidsl "that is happening")

nizl - Prospective: indicates that an action will be starting to, or is in the process of happening (e.g. nizl nidsl "that is about to happen")

t'ezl - Iterative: indicates that an action happens again, repeatedly, or more than one time based on context (e.g. t'ezl nidsl "that happens again" or "that happens again and again")

nt'ezl - Continuative: indicates that an action happens continuously and without end (e.g. nt'ezl nidsl "that still happens")

With both tense and aspects, this largely expands the capability of Seraphic in referring to time.

Moods

Seraphic makes use of seven modal particles to denote seven moods. They are always placed at the beginning of clauses, and no two modal particles can exist in the same clause. They are grouped into four categories: the declaritive (indicative and negative), the inferential (evidential and interrogative), the deontic (volitive and imperative), and the epistemic (subjunctive and conditional). They add extra clarity in the speakers mood or opinion concerning the clause they modify, and are as follows:

Indicative: base form of a clause. Indicates that the speaker is stating a fact or what exists, and is unmarked (e.g. idsl "that happens")

tu - Negative: indicates that the speaker is stating a fact that is untrue or what doesn't exist. Usually only appears in formal, official texts, as the first syllable of the procedural will chage tone to contrast as well and leaves the particle unneccesary in colloquial speech (e.g. tu īdsl "that doesn't happen")

cuc - Evidential: indicates that the speaker is stating a fact that they believe or understand to be true, regardless of having experienced it or not. (e.g. cuc idsl "apparently that happens") Direct evidentiality is denoted using a different method.

an/ān - Interrogative: indicates that the speaker is confirming whether a statement is or isn't true. Forms questions (e.g. an idsl? "does that happen?")

tcān - Volitive: indicates that the speaker desires for the statement to be true (e.g. tcān idsl "that wants to happen" or "that needs to happen" or "that should happen")

má - Imperative: indicates that the speaker is giving a command or suggestion, to themselves and/or to other referents. Functions additionally as a cohortative and a jussive (e.g. má idsl! "let that happen!")

tir - Subjunctive: indicates that the speaker believes the statement to be possible or likely (e.g. tir idsl "that could/would/might happen")

nun - Conditional: indicates that speaker believes the statement to be possible under specific circumstances or conditions (nun idsl "if/when that happens..."

Miscellaneous

That's about the basics of the Seraphic language outline. I'd like to eventually get into things like comparison, evidentiality, declension forms and the like, but those are all topics that definitely need their own individual posts. Real quick, I want to provide one more additional fact about Seraphic.

Seraphic uses base-16, meaning it groups numbers in sets of 16 instead of sets of 10 like we do. 1-16 would be written 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E, F, 10. 10 would be read as 16, and equally 20 would be 32. They're still counting the same amount of things, they're just dividing it up differently!

Anyways that's about it, I hope to share more about Seraphic soon, and when the comic gets released I hope you'll all be able to read it and pick out the many many lines of Seraphic I've poured into it!

ŋKowīci cu-stux 'ōf tsa-levp'ā cu-zāsláf pi-lizt'n ğōdjasa! (Thank you all so much for reading!)

[natequarter]

potential flaws of an english spelling reform:

the biggest problem is dialects. not only does english have a shit ton of dialects, it has multiple prestige dialects. this isn't necessarily a problem for reforming inconsistent consonants, but rather for those goddamn vowels

think about all those splits and mergers! mary-marry-merry. trap-bath. strut-foot. etc. you fundamentally cannot reform english without making it either a) dialectical b) wrong for 90%+ of speakers or c) a dysfunctional mess, which is pointless because english is already that

specific sound changes like yod coalescence and rhotic (or tapped) r can pose a big problem as well. even though we don't pronounce r in all dialects, we generally note it down: warm, car, etc. how do you reform spelling for both rhotic and non-rhotic accents? and yod coalescence. nobody ever brings this up, because rhotic r affects american english (and some british accents, though some have different r sounds entirely) and yod coalescence affects british english, and most youtubers making spelling reforms are american in my experience, but many english people don't pronounce, say, due/new/tune like americans do: /j/ comes in so that due is a homophone of jew in british english, which it may not be in american english. if you reform new to be spelt as noo, then that fails to reflect the pronunciation of new as /njuː/. but i digress

frankly, a lot of spelling reforms are just ugly. please stop

some parts of english do currently reflect the etymology of words. it's a lot harder to see the relationship between oblige and obligation if one is spelt eblàij and the other is spelt obligàshen

people really like getting rid of the letter c and using k/q instead. why? what do k and q do that c can't? get rid of the digraph qu, get rid of k, use c to represent /k/ and use s for /s/ and z for /z/. k and q are rubbish letters

bringing back or finding new letters isn't necessarily useful. yeah, sure, you can revive þ, but is there a need? we already have p/b/d, which all look very similar. adding the thorn in is just confusing, and the digraph th doesn't need a reform. it would be cool to differentiate voiceless and voiced dental fricatives, but a) ð is the superior letter, and b) th literally works fine. nobody is complaining about this except conlangers! th, ch, and sh are all valid digraphs; all you need to do to fix them is eliminate tch, make th/ch/sh have consistent sound values (e.g. spell chandelier as shandelier), and the problem is solved

overall, there is often a desire to eliminate or introduce letters perceived as 'useful' or 'useless,' but the letters people want to introduce might be confusing to people who are dyslexic or don't recognise it, or the letter people want to remove is... literally fine, and could easily be solved with an accent or two

nobody ever accounts for stress patterns. english has very inconsistent stress patterns, but we could fix this by sticking an accent over stressed letters like in spanish. let's say circumflexes, because circumflexes are cool. attâck. rêquisite. insîstent. ôrange. refûte. obviously these are random examples, but you can easily clear up the issue of stress in this way

some spellings reflect grammar, not pronunciation. this is a bit like the problem of etymology: we spell the endings -ing and -ed to make them regular. -ed isn't necessarily pronounced as it's spelt; it usually ends up sounding more like a /t/ or a /d/. but we spell it like that to make constructing the past tense easier. of course, you could always reform it to -t or -d. then you could have words like laughd, or screamd. but people don't tend to think about that

people need to be able to learn your system! any orthography which becomes transformed or, god forbid, a different script, is going to be impossible to implement. we have too much literature in our current spelling. it would be expensive and unpopular. any change must be something within our limits

ultimately, i think the only plausible spelling reforms are of english's consonants/stress patterns. vowels are just too variable, but we could probably standardise some of those godforsaken silent consonants, irregular stress patterns, or inconsistently spelt consonants without fracturing england as we know it or just scaring the shit out of our audience. reform isn't impossible. it just isn't operable in the way many people want.

[ilikecarsandlike4people]

how different can finnish accents be? eg. mika vs valtteri vs kimi's accents when speaking finnish

Oh thats actually very interesting! So, dialects in Finnish vary from town to town.

Mika is from Vantaa and Kimi is from Espoo, which are two towns next to each other, so their dialects are very similar, but since Valtteri is from Lahti (120 km away from Espoo), there are certain words that are completely different.

All of the three are from southern Finland so they use the word "Mä" when talking about themselves (Minä), instead of other variations, such as "Mie" that is common in Eastern Finland or "Mää" which is common in Western Finland.

Valtteri speaks fast, shortening his vowels, and ends his sentences often with "että". (Että is just "so"). Valtteri uses slang words a lot, such as "venttaa," "jeesaa," "merkkaa" (which are "wait," "helps" and "means"), instead of "odottaa," "auttaa," "tarkoittaa." Valtteri speaks in Lahti slang, which is a very particular Finnish dialect. Kimi has a very typical capital area accent. He speaks slow, and fuses his words. "Se on" turns into "S'on". He also says "tota" a lot which is just "um". He ends his words short, for example, "Huoltamon puolella" becomes "Huoltamo puolel". He speaks surprisingly straight written language, with the occasional slang term dropped in.

Mika has a very clear accent when he talks, adding soft emphasis to the "r" sounds to his speak, for example "perhe" turns into "pe-re-he". Mika sometimes adds words from "Stadin slangi" which is a Helsinki slang language compiled from Swedish, Russian and English words. He uses words such as "skidi" (kid) instead of "lapsi". (Kimi seldom uses Stadin slangi, but I've heard him drop certain words of it before) Mika speaks very clearly, taking pauses between his words. Since Mika is older, he uses older slang and dialect words.

The further East or West you go, the language changes completely. Mostly because in the West there is a lot of Swedish speaking Finns, and in the West, there is Russia.

[galacticsand]

Movelang #001 - Phonology and Sound System

Nophhurra, and hello again everyone! It's time for another post showing off my experimental conlang, Movelang! This time around, I'll be going over Movelang's sound system: the consonants and vowels used, along with a currently loosely-defined syllable structure, as well as allophony!

Admittedly, the Phonology has been one of the aspects of Movelang which has been altered several times over, and has gone through several iterations before reaching the point at which it exists in the present. Since the emphasis for this conlang was moreso on grammar than on the phonoaesthetic, I had largely loosely defined it at the start, with only a vague idea of what Movelang would sound like. At the start, I took a lot of inspiration from the Coptic Language, as well as several African and Caucasian Languages. Later on as I began being more deterministic about the phonetic inventory of the language, it did change from this original vision in several ways, but I ended up ultimately with something I really like!

(My charts tend to prioritize neatness over exactness, so if there's a sound somewhere that doesn't exactly describe it completely correctly, please don't fight me 😭)

Phonemically, the consonant inventory consists of 2 nasals, 15 plosives, 4 fricatives, 2 liquids, and 1 tap. The plosives are split three ways by mode of articulation, where 5 stops are unaspirated: /p t t͡ɕ k q/, 5 stops are aspirated: /pʰ tʰ t͡ɕʰ kʰ qʰ/, and 5 are voiced: /b d d͡ʑ g ɢ/. Each mode of articulations contains a labial, dento-alveolar, palatal, velar, and uvular stop respectively. This was a choice inspired by both Ancient Greek, as well as the Coptic and Caucasian influence I mentioned earlier, and in an earlier version of the phonology, the palatal affricates were instead alveolar affricates: /t͡s t͡sʰ d͡z/. Accompanying the stops are 4 fricatives that roughly match 4/5 of the same manners of articulation: /s ɕ x ħ/. These were selected mainly for that reason, that they lie in the same POA as their stop counterparts, but I decided to throw in an oddball for the fricative furthest towards the back of the mouth. Originally, this was /h/ phonemically, but I was intrigued by Maltese's presence of /ħ/ as the sole voiceless fricative closest to the back of the mouth, so I decided to do this for Movelang, and I do love how it sounds! I personally think /x/ and /ħ/ pair nicely with each other! The Approximants and Nasals then weren't that hard to reckon, I simply filled in the gaps in the chart respectively. When I got to my /l/ sound though, I decided to make this a little bit different as well, and follow the lead of Mongolian, and make it /ɮ/ instead. I also made the decision to omit /w/ or any similar sound, since I have a habit of using this sound a lot whenever I make new sound systems, as a bit of a monkey-wrench to try and make myself work with.

For Allophony, most of this deals with the pronunciation of consonants. There are 3 major rules that come into effect when pronouncing consonants in particular places within a word. First, the nasals, /m n/, devoice to /m̥ n̥/ whenever they are preceded by a syllable that has an aspirated plosive in the coda, any of /pʰ tʰ t͡ɕʰ kʰ qʰ/. Secondly, /ɮ/ may devoice to /ɬ/ when next to any voiceless sound: a voiceless plosive or fricative. Finally, the alveolar tap /ɾ/ becomes trilled /r/ when it is geminated. These rules as you'll notice mostly depend on a sound's locale within a syllable, which I'll explain in greater detail when discussing syllable structure...

As for the vowels, these are quite simple. Movelang consists of seven phonemic vowels, which compliment the front and the back of the mouth. Movelang contains no phonemic length, tone, nasality, or anything else that would affect vowel quality in this way, at least phonemically, and only has these 7 plain oral vowels. There are 3 front vowels: /ɛ e i/, all of which are unrounded, and 4 back vowels: /ɑ ɔ o u/, all of which are rounded, except for the open back vowel.

In terms of vowel allophony, nothing really major happens to vowels. The only major rule which takes place with vowels, is that /ɑ/ goes to /a/ when near a palatal sound.

Additionally, the syllable shape in Movelang is pretty straightforward, it's pretty much CVC, but with a few additional caveats. The main difference, is that /j/ cannot be a coda consonant, which is reflected by the use of D for the coda consonant in my syllable shape notation, and additionally, only 6 consonants can end a word: /m t k q s r/, which is reflected by the use of K for a word-final coda consonant.

In addition to these tactical features, hiatus is permitted in Movelang, meaning that the onset consonant in syllables is optional even word-internally, and when this happens, the parallel vowels flow together smoothly, rather than having some epenthetic consonant placed between them, like a glottal stop. Gemination also happens quite frequently in Movelang, especially in compounds, and it is under these circumstances when /j/ technically can appear in the coda of a syllable, but only as a part of a geminate /j:/.

=-=-=-=

Alright! Well, that's pretty much it for phonology, at this point I'm going to try and stick to this phonology and not impulsively change it again, but knowing me, I can't make any promises XD. I hope you all enjoyed this look at the sound system! I look forward to posting some lexical samples in the next post, with these sounds intact, where I'll be showing you Movelang's class system in action! More on that later of course... Until then, I look forward to it, and I hope you all enjoyed this post! If you all have any questions, feel free to leave me a comment, or an ask!

[clonehub]

how do we think clonelang sounds guys. what consonants do they have and what ones do they not have. what vowels do they have. how many letters do they have in their alphabets. how do the variants change--from rhotic to non rhotic to alveolar trill for /r/ (i am not an expert in this).

there's a whole world of possibilities. the hawai'ian language i believe has 12 letters and is not tonal. you can end up with some very long names and words bc of a need to repeat syllables i think. on the other hand, igbo has 36 letters and 3 tones. it's a dense (and conceptual) language. don't even get me started on verb suffixes. a lot can be conveyed in a very short number of syllables. chinese have 5 tones and can convey even more in less.

i think clonelang would be quite the dense language for efficiency purpose. i think it might sound clipped to people who aren't used to it, but it's got a roll/flow to it that's pleasing to the ear. it's not guttural or nasally.

[mindutme]

Tlette Tlursday #6

This is a bonus post just for the purpose of getting the numbers on the posts back in alignment.

I recently decided to reorganize the documentation of Tlette and just finished copying out the whole dictionary (155 entries so far) into a new format. As part of that reorganization, I now have a spreadsheet that tracks how many instances of each phoneme I have in both Tlette and its ancestor language, Kaleate. So I made some graphs! This post got a little long, so I’ll put all that below.

Above is a very approximate phoneme distribution for Kaleate. It’s based on 120 root words (the other 35 entries are all compounds or other derived forms). Green is for geminates (long vowels, and one case of long /l/): the first blue bar is how many there’d be if you count long /aː/ as one instance of /a/, and you’d add the green part if you count it as two.

In use, the distribution would be quite different; for one thing, there’d likely be more of /e/, /i/, /k/, /m/, and /r/ due to each of them appearing in at least one common suffix. Similarly, the most common words would skew things quite a lot. If you looked at phoneme distribution for English based on a dictionary, /ð/ would be very low down the list, but it’s much higher in a list based on actual texts, because of the word “the!” And of course there are only 120 roots so far; these patterns will likely change going forward.

Above is the equivalent chart for Tlette. There are a lot of differences, the most obvious being the larger number of phonemes! (You might be able to argue the phonemic status of some of them, though.) You’ll also notice that there are more geminates, and they’re all consonants now instead of vowels (see this post for why).

Another big difference is that /a/ has dropped two positions after being way out in the lead in Kaleate, as there is a sound change that deletes a lot of instances of that vowel. Pretty much any word that ends in a consonant in Tlette comes from a Kaleate word that ended in an /a/ that was lost.

Something that surprised me, though, is the order of the rest of the vowels. The previous second-place vowel, /e/, is now in first place, which makes sense, and /i/ stays in third. But /u/ is in fourth place in both charts, which is a little odd because /u/ in Kaleate mostly becomes /ɨ/ in Tlette, whereas Kaleate /o/ is the source of Tlette /u/. I’m not really sure why that happens, to be honest.

It’s not too surprising that the five diphthongs are among the rarest phonemes in the chart, given that they require specific phoneme sequences in Kaleate to appear. But in a chart of Tlette in use they’d be higher on the list, since they are all fairly common in plural forms.

Part of the purpose of these graphs is to get a better idea of where I’ve been taking the language so far in terms of its sounds, so I can make some adjustments if things feel a little off. For example, I had gotten the impression that there was way more /ɬ/ and /ʔ/ in the language than there actually seems to be, and since I do particularly like those sounds and want them to be characteristic of the sound of the language, I may increase their use a bit going forward. I also don’t want to unintentionally favor sounds I like or find more familiar when making new words, which could tend to make the language sound a bit boring over time as a certain set of sounds get more prominent.

It would be a little tricky but I may also collect up all of my Tlette example sentences so far to make a third graph, which might be more representative of the language in use!

[omegaremix]

25 Vinyl Records That Influenced My Vinyl Collecting Habits.

‘Top ten’ lists - they were so commonplace on social media before the pandemic that half of the people you knew participated in them. Your friends involuntarily posted lists of their top ten favorite albums, songs, movies, sports moments, video games, books, or whatever came to mind. Then they’d nominate you to do the same if you even cared. All of a sudden they stopped and for a few months everyone did tournament brackets. These days no one does either. Now, tag a band and see if they acknowledge you exist, solve a simple math problem where everyone with a Facebook diploma in mathematics are out to prove you wrong, or answer some useless questions to find out what your new gang initiation name is by removing your first and last letter and any surviving vowels.

But I don’t care about childish entry-level entertainment that everyone will forget about five minutes later. I’d watch Fox News for that. Longtime Ω+ followers know our ‘top tens’ are much more than that: they are playlists, mixtapes, end-of-year finds, and best-of decade results. That’s what I’m into. I’m into what’s important and that’s identifying with people. It’s not a contest or a be-all-end-all game of right-or-wrong. It’s all fully subjective. Without personal results, how special or unique would these lists be?

The last survey I was nominated to do was from WUSB’s Mister Edison, the station’s only cylinder aficionado in its’ 45-year history: top ten vinyl records that influenced your collecting habits. I did volunteer to do it and I was halfway there, then somehow along the way I deleted it. Now, here it is. But, instead of a top ten, we’ll do a top twenty-five because I’m compulsive and 10 is not a square number. All records shown here regardless of size, speed, color, or print run are those that have changed not only my record-collecting habits but also have shaped my musical tastes to an extent.

The record that started it all? KMFDM’s “Power” 12”. It was the very first vinyl record I bought with my own money, just mere months after purchasing most of its discography in one shot at my local record store. I ordered it from the TVT / Wax Trax mail order - my very first mail-order to be exact - numbered to 3,000 copies as a single-sided etched vinyl record in a clear plastic silk-screened jacket. That also came with Underworld’s “Rowla”. Shizuo’s High On Emotion e.p. was my third. Found at what was Port Jefferson’s Music Den, that’s a record I had to have at first sight because I knew it was extremely rare. Glad I made the right call because I never saw it again. Even though I didn’t have a turntable, I bought them anyway thinking I could hold on to them until I finally got my hands on one. Turned out my ma’ and dad had one: a wooden box smaller than the records it played. It literally had no sound and was deemed almost unplayable, so a close “friend” of mine gave me his father’s 1972 Panasonic and a copy of Autechre’s We Are R Y 12”. I was now in business.

From there, another one-time pressing of theirs, the “Keynell” e.p., introduced me to the panic of now-or-never buying. Booth & Brown collectors know how insanely rare their limited edition e.p.’s are and also how they and Warp divided up their Cichlisuite and Envane e.p.’s in two parts. And that was nothing to when Aphex Twin released not one, not two, but eleven e.p.’s as the Analord series through his Rephlex label. Ten regular platters and two versions of Analord 10: either you got the Aphex logo picture disc or, if you were really lucky (we mean that in a literal sense), one that came with the Analord binder which is fetching impossible prices right now. Some of them even came with the mythical Analogue Bubblebath 5. We’re just happy to have purchased all eleven editions for regular price when they first came out. Amazingly in that same year, I did my first-ever label run and purchased $300.00 worth of vinyl and disc releases from DHR.

The first hardcore record I got my hands on - Kill Your Idols’ This Is Just The Beginning - was also the very first music purchase I made at any show. Three years after one of my close friends introduced me to Sick Of It All and hardcore / punk in general, This Is Just The Beginning flung the doors wide open for crushing similar-styled tough-guy finds. Most Long Island record stores sold them when they came in, and places like Hicksville and Centereach’s Utopia (when they did sell them) offered many easy one / two / three-dollar bargain bin purchases of many 7” records, 45’s, and 12” LPS. The Howards & Checkerboard Charlie split is one example of that and one of many local acts I possess. Jemini The Gifted One’s “Funk Soul Sensation” is the only hip-hop record on the list. Ten years ago I re-discovered golden-era hip-hop and realized there was a treasure trove of white-label and 12” singles I never heard of from that time. Those hip-hop / rap singles can be found on the cheap in the same manner as those discount hardcore records. I’ll be on a life-time hunt for them as at this point I don’t have enough of them.

It’s no surprise to see that more than half of this list is made up of Seventies’ jazz / fusion records. If not for Lonnie Liston Smith & The Cosmic Echoes Astral Traveling, I would not have the size of vinyl library I have now. One of our former hip-hop dee-jays at the station played “Expansions”, “Aspirations”, and “Colors Of The Rainbow” and those three cuts literally changed my life. It opened up an avenue for me to re-discover who I was and revisit a certain era of time I missed out on. From that point on, it was all about that era’s sounds, sampling, and personal favorites. John Tropea’s A Short Trip To Space, Les McCann’s Music Lets Me Be, and Roy Ayers’ A Tear To A Smile - those three records define my final years at Stony Brook. Phil Upchurch’s 1979 solo outing, Stuff’s self-titled debut, Emily Remler’s Firefly, Steve Khan’s The Blue Man, Ramsey Lewis’ Tequila Mockingbird, Eric Gale’s Multiplication, and Ronnie Laws’ Pressure Sensitive tie me in and keep me connected to those years.

Karla Bonoff’s Restless Nights and Urbie Green’s The Fox influenced my collection in an amusing way. I had no idea who both artists were until I pulled them out of the bins. What had me purchase them? I bought Restless Nights and The Fox solely based on the year of release (1979 and 1976 respectively). One listen of each and I knew I made two right calls.

Remember when we posted our entry about our close friend Syke who rescued a pile of old records from being thrown out to the curb? Of the 500+ he found, he gave us 50 and we still have most of them. We selected Pete Shelley’s “Telephone Operator” as a reminder of that free giveaway.

I could list both volumes of the original Dirty Dancing motion picture soundtrack which my ma’ had, her only surviving childhood vinyl record of Disney’s Cinderella, or The Pac-Man Album 12″ picture disc written by Patrick McBride and Dana Walden. But those three mentions aren’t influential; just early Atari-youth memories. My first-ever childhood memories I still remember (not photographed) are also vinyl-related: J. Geils Band’s “Centerfold” and The Cars’ “Shake It Up”; the latter which I have in my possession and are the markers of all classic rock records I own around that era. (Think Dire Straits and Donald Fagan’s The Nightfly to name a few.)

Another Atari-youth moment I remember is The Chambers Brothers’ A New Time, A New Day. My dad cut out the album sleeve and used it as a paper holder in our garage. That very record made me think of whatever few platters I remember him having before he sold his entire vinyl library and our library of Atari 2600 games…for a paltry $50.00. “He needed the money” he told me; which is always a pathetic man’s answer to everything. Had he’d seen how enthusiastic I was into music collecting, he would’ve handed his entire collection to me. Roberta Flack’s Quiet Fire, Kiss’ Rock & Roll Over, and The Rolling Stones Sticky Fingers and Their Satanic Majesties Request were the four in his collection he parted with and I have three of them, not including The Chambers Brothers release. He tried to make it up to me, however, by bringing home two separate piles of records he rescued from the curb. One heap was full of polka records which I donated to WUSB’s resident polka lady before she died the same year. The other heap? Since you didn’t ask: loads of classic hippie rock records, showtunes, and celebrity albums. Jim Nabors on wax? Stop before I deactivate this account.

Finally, Boulders’ Rock & Roll Will Never Die. Look it up and you’ll see it’s a near total obscurity only confined to hipster circles who know what’s up. A five-track Wharf Records release picked up for less than $3.00 is the one 12" that may as well get me into the Discogs purchasing game for all rare releases (not found in stores) I’ve been looking for in the past seven years. I’ve played many of them on Omega WUSBand soon after bought a substantial chunk of their discographies in one shot (three Happy Meals / Free Love LP’s and three Black Marble discs, for example). As a nice side effect, it’ll be the the same for cassettes as well such as Believer/Law’s Matters Of Life And Death and JS Aurelius’ Machines Water The Plants Now - if the seller’s price is right, that is.

Notice how we went from KMFDM to Boulders? You can’t get any more disparate in styles and worlds between the two. The first purchases, public library finds, donations, record fairs, mail orders, samples, jazz-fusion and soul, hardcore and hip-hop buy-outs, record-store victory tours, and many other moments I might have missed…that’s 25 years of buying vinyl records spanning many different collecting eras and genres for me. That’s only one format, and also not counting acquiring music by other means such as radio and downloads which also shaped my collection. The bingo board jumble you see is only a tiny pinch of my musical tastes and not the whole story of my listening habits that’s usually broadcast on Omega WUSB or always posted here on Ω+.

After making this list, I’m reminded that I’m the most diverse person I know. I’m proud that my low-lying threshold for accepting and liking sound and concept allowed me to make that diversity into a science and have that mind-blowing knowledge I have of it. I’m as consistent, thorough, and far-reaching as I possibly can while hitting as many targets as possible. Would there be more bingo boards like this? Only if I make sure of it.

Phil Upchurch: self-titled

Lonnie Liston Smith: Astral Traveling

Karla Bonoff: Restless Nights

Steve Khan: The Blue Man

Chambers Brothers: A New Time, A New Day

Emily Remler: Firefly

Boulders: Rock And Roll Will Never Die

KMFDM: “Power”

John Tropea: A Short Trip To Space

Les McCann: Music Let’s Me Be

Shizuo: High On Emotion

J. Geils Band: “Centerfold”

Aphex Twin: Analord 10 picture disc

Jemini The Gifted One: “Funk Soul Sensation”

Roy Ayers: A Tear To A Smile

Ramsey Lewis: Tequila Mockingbird

Pete Shelley: “Telephone Operator”

Autechre: “Keynell”

Kill Your Idols: This Is Just The Beginning

The Cars: Shake It Up

Ronnie Laws: Pressure Sensitive

Stuff: Stuff

Eric Gale: Multiplication

Urbie Green: The Fox

Checkerboard Charlie b/w The Howards split

[saintsmith]

i probably ought to give a bit of a primer for tenuvo pronunciation. it's the same for all dialects, they just shape words and phrases a bit differently with the same sounds. gonna put a readmore bc this got a little longer than i anticipated.

consonants:

everything is basically the same as english, with a few small changes/caveats. "c" is never pronounced like "s" or "k," always being "ch" as in the english "chat" or "batch." "g" is always hard, like "goat." "h" by itself tends to be a bit throatier than in english, but there are some other uses for "h" i'll get to in a bit. there's a separate letter for "kh," which is like the "ch" in scottish "loch" or german "ach". there's also a separate letter (in the script tenvo use) for the "ng" sound, which usually comes at the end of syllables but can also come at the beginning. "q" never makes a "kw" sound, instead being a kind of "hard k," coming from the back of your throat, very much like the sound "q" makes in arabic. "r" is usually tapped, not like the english "r" but more like the spanish "r." "sh" has its own letter in the tenuvo script, pronounced like english "shy". "th" has its own letter, pronounced usually as the hard "bath," but dialectical variation sometimes allows for "this" (try saying both words; you'll find there is a difference!). "y" is always a consonant, pronounced as in english; most consonants have a special form for when "y" follows it. also, consonants can geminate (double), and technically this produces a unique sound compared to a single consonant, but it's rarely phonemic (as in, matters for telling between similar words) anymore.

aspirated consonants:

there are also "aspirated" consonants. ("kh" is technically one, but it's the only one that gets its own character. the rest are a combination of the normal consonant and the letter "h".) aspirated consonants are kind of breathier versions of the regular consonant, kind of the same as aspirated consonants in indian (as in the subcontinent) languages. just pronounce the consonant like it has an "h" right behind it (which it kind of does lol). aspirated consonants include: bh, dh, fh, gh, jh, kh (which has its own character), lh, mh, nh, ph (never pronounced like "f"!), qh (often very similar to kh tbh), rh, sh (as in s + h, not the "shy" sound), shh (this is sh + h, the "shy" sound), th (as in t + h, not the "bath" sound), thh (this is th + h, the "bath" sound), vh, wh, xh, yh (last two are very rare), and zh.

vowels:

so vowel length, while not always like.....actually length related, does matter in tenuvo! it's just a thing of the actual vowel sound being used mostly now. short "a" as in "cat," long "a" as in "father," short "e" as in "bed," long "e" as in "hey," short "i" as in "hit," long "i" as in "seat," "o" always as in "oh" (no length differences here), short "u" as in "cut," long "u" as in "boot." some diphthongs (all are technically "long" vowels): "au" as in "ow," "ai" as in "eye," "oi" as in "boy." (all diphthongs are rather archaic, but "aurena" uses one so yeah. there's also "oe" which is a long "cut" sound, but it's extremely archaic lol. never used anymore.) vowels preceded by a "u" develop a "w" sound, as in "Uodh" and "Uorh." if a vowel would be preceded by a long "i," the "i" is replaced by a "y."

small note on how vowel length is written: there's a few rules. typically a vowel followed by a single consonant (or none at all) is considered "long," but a vowel followed by a cluster of consonants (unless the first consonant is an "r"!) or a geminated consonant is considered "short." in some cases, though, you want to force a "long" sound even when the following consonant is geminated. to do this, you write in an "h" right between the vowel and the geminated consonant/consonant cluster.

however, as you may have noticed by how i've been writing most names, there's an alternate way of denoting vowel length: doubling the vowel for a long vowel. so for "shiaaj," for example, the "i" is short, making the "hit" sound, whereas the "aa" denotes a long "a," making the "father" sound. if it was written "shiaj," the "a" would make a "cat" sound. and, of course, the "i," being short, does not turn into a "y."

consonants as vowels:

"l," "m," "n," "ng," "r," "s," "sh," and "z," as well as their aspirated counterparts, can also be used as vowels! take, for example, the "r" at the end of "olsekr," "otr," and "utstr." that "r" at the end is a vowel! it's basically like putting a short "u" in front of the "r," but it's said so quickly that the "r" sounds like it's on its own, just floating there. the "s" in the middle of "utstr" is also serving as a vowel between those "t"s! that ends up sounding kind of like a "psst!" but with a "t" at the beginning instead of a "p." i've written some words with vowels that technically don't need them, mostly for ease of reading. for example, the southern peninsula of "gurduu" would be spelled in the tenuvo script as "grduu," with the short "u" implied and wrapped up in the "r." "olsekr" could also be spelled "olskr!"

i might be forgetting some other things, but i'll leave it here for now! i'll append this if i remember

[faolanrune]

Akian Language Part 1: Sounds and Grammar Bits

Akian is comprised of about half the sounds of English.

It has three vowels

A (ah, I (ee) and u (oo)

It contains the following consonants

K, R, P, T, W, J, Z, S, M, N, V, and L

Akian uses a hard J sound, not a soft one. It is pronounce like Jay.

The characters for the V and R sounds are the same, with the only difference being the two apostrophes to change it to a V sound, much like how Japanese changes their sounds.

N and the vowels are the only letters that appear on their own, everything else is connected to make sounds, resembling Japanese as a syllabary. Each character represents a sound.

For example, ja, ki, and lu.

There are also complex sounds. Sh, sk, tr, and kl.

X is also technically a letter, but it is only used as an ending suffix to house names, such as Novux or Runix. The (x) endings take on five sounds

Ax (ahx) ix (eex) ix (ihx) ux (oox) and ux (uhx) when shown with characters you can see the difference in how the I and u sounds are written depending on the one used.

The only end punctuation used is a small, hollow, square drawn at the end of a sentence, again similar to Japanese and their use of a hollow circle.

Spaces are shown using hyphens. Glottal stops are also quite common, only appearing between two vowels. This is marked by a solid dot at towards the top of the characters in between the vowels affected.

Adding a accent symbol on top of a sound shortens the stress put on the sound. These aren’t used very often, and when speaking the word it often rolls off in whatever stress or emotion is given unless it actually differentiates between two words.

[thorraborinn]

Really interested in the yr rune but I’m having trouble finding information on it that isn’t “death rune” garbage. Could you point me in the right direction?

Sure, that is one of the more difficult ones to find good info on because the Icelanders who did a lot of compiling of poetic material didn't totally understand it. The /ʀ/ sound that it wrote in early Old Norse was long gone, and by the 1700's /y/ was gone too. If I remember correctly, Grunnavíkur-Jón Ólafsson wrote that it came "from Ireland" -- participating in a long tradition of attributing things that are difficult to explain to people the audience won't know anything about. Several hundred years earlier, Ólafr hvítaskáld, author of the Third Grammatical Treatise, said it came from Hebrew (and although he was talking out of his ass there is a possibility that he was slightly less off than you'd imagine).

The best source concerning rune meanings is Inmaculada Senra Silva's "The Significance of the Rune Poems" available here: https://idus.us.es/handle/11441/15113. It's believed that while it's graphic shape and use in writing came from the *algiʀ/elhaʀ rune ᛉ/ᛦ, that it's name and meaning come from the *ī(h)waʀ rune ᛇ. So if you're interested in the history of the rune before Nordic-specific developments, you will want to read about that one in the Old English Rune Poem.

The word ýr literally means 'yew (tree/wood)' but it's actually somewhat rarely used that way in Old Icelandic. Generally ýr means 'bow,' though there is surely some selection bias because so much of Norse poetry is about battle. The Old English and Norwegian rune poems refer to a tree, but in Iceland (where yews didn't grow) the poem and kennings refer to a bow.

Old English Rune Poem (Halsall 1981):

The yew is a tree with rough bark, hard and firm in the earth, a keeper of flame, well-supported by its roots, a pleasure to have on one's land.

Old Norwegian Rune Poem (my translation based on editions in Senra Silva):

ᛦ is the tree (which is) greenest in winter; it is expected that, that which burns, scorches.

Icelandic Rune Poem (my translation):

ᛦ is a bent bow and unbrittle iron and arrow-thrower.

In Sweden its name had changed by the early modern period when evidence for the Swedish Rune Poem was being compiled. Senra Silva (p. 252) has stupämaþr ('fallen/sloped/stooped man') and oRmahr; Rune Hjarnø Rasmussen (edited from Stiernhielm) gives Aur madur (and translates 'rich man', from öre, money/currency); presumably this is all reinterpreted based on the visual similarity to the maðr 'man' rune ᛘ.

Here's a selection of dylgjur collected by Jón Ólafsson, with my quick, rough, sloppy translation:

bendur bogi 'bent bow'

fífu fleytir 'arrow-flinger'

Fenju angur 'Fenja's (giantess's) grief'

bogi spenntur 'tensed bow'

tvíbentur bogi 'twice-bent bow'

uppdreginn álmur 'drawn-up elm'

skotmáls ör 'projectile-range's arrow'

píla á streng 'arrow on a string'

bardaga gagn 'battle-gear'

fífu fax 'arrow's mane (fletching?)'

handa raun 'hands' trial'

firða armbrysti 'men's crossbow'

stutt fjör 'short life'

ævibann 'life-ban'

fár fugla 'birds' misfortune'

See also: "Runes, Yews and Magic" by Ralph Elliott.

If you're more interested in how it was used in writing, that's complicated and I'm not sure of anything written that breaks it down, but that's something I'll hopefully be working on eventually. The overly-simplified version is that it was used to write the r-like /ʀ/ sound that comes at the end of many Old Norse words until that sound was lost; it was also used to write a few vowels and ultimately settled at /y/, in accordance with the principle that runes should have a name that indicates their phonological value in writing.

Here's a selection of appearances (including Elder Futhark algiʀ/elhaʀ):

By sheer numbers, short twig ᛧ is probably most common. The two-sided arrow shape ᛨ is distinctively Icelandic.