# Lupine language info



## Ireth (Aug 31, 2012)

Here's what I have so far. I'll be adding to it as things develop.

Letters / Sounds

A Ã C D E Ã‰ F G H I Ã K L N O Ã“ R S T Ãž Ã U Ãš V W Y Z

-acute accent denotes a long vowel; short vowels are as in English
-Ãž/Ã¾ equals a hard th, Ã/Ã° equals a soft th
-no labials (B, M, P) in the language, issues with lips due to canine facial structure
-heavy on approximates (F, V and W sounds) in lieu of labials

Verb Tenses

Sample: ahÃº- sing / mourn[1]

I sing: ahÃºsa
You sing: ahÃºte
He sings: ahÃºkÃ³[2]
She sings: ahÃºlÃº
It sings: ahÃºdi

We sing: ahÃºsha
You (pl.) sing: ahÃºÃ¾e
They (m.) sing: ahÃºchÃ³[3]
They (f.) sing: ahÃºrÃº
They (n.) sing: ahÃºÃ°i

singer: ahÃºyas
singing: ahÃºfel
to sing: ahÃºn

I / you / he / she sang: ahÃºsag / ahÃºteg / ahÃºkÃ³g / ahÃºlÃºg
We / you / they (m.) / they (f.) sang: ahÃºshag / ahÃºÃ¾eg / ahÃºchÃ³g / ahÃºrÃºg
I / you / he / she has/have sung: ahÃºsas / ahÃºtet / ahÃºkÃ³c / ahÃºlÃºl
I will sing: ahÃºnisa

vÃ¡d- hunt

I hunt: vÃ¡das
You hunt: vÃ¡det
He hunts: vÃ¡doc
She hunts: vÃ¡dul
It hunts: vÃ¡did

We hunt: vÃ¡dash
You (pl.) hunt: vÃ¡deÃ¾
They (m.) hunt: vÃ¡doch
They (f.) hunt: vÃ¡dur
They (n.) hunt: vÃ¡diÃ°

hunter: vÃ¡das
hunting: vÃ¡dwel[4]
to hunt: vÃ¡dun

I / you / he / she hunted: vÃ¡sag / vÃ¡teg / vÃ¡kog / vÃ¡lug
We / you / they (m.) / they (f.) hunted: vÃ¡shag / vÃ¡Ã¾eg / vÃ¡chog / vÃ¡rug

I / you / he / she has/have hunted: vÃ¡sas / vÃ¡tet / vÃ¡koc / vÃ¡lul
I / you / he / she will hunt: vÃ¡dinas / vÃ¡dinet / vÃ¡dinoc / vÃ¡dinul

[1]: AhÃº means both "sing" and "mourn" because it is an onomatopoeic verb related to howling, which wolves do both in joy and in sorrow.
[2]: O and U are always long at the end of a word.
[3]: Ch is pronounced as in English "church", not German "Bach".
[4]: F changes to W when it follows a consonant.


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## Galbatroth (Sep 1, 2012)

Awesome! Your language is very well thought out, as far as I can tell.


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## ascanius (Sep 1, 2012)

You only have one infinitive ending of -un right?  also F and V are labial approximates, not just approximates, they are Labial so not quite sure what you mean with 'no labials'.  Maybe no labial nasals and plosives but what you have thus far definitely has labials. 

 Also, "they (m.) / they (f.) sang: ahÃºshag / ahÃºÃ¾eg / ahÃºchÃ³g / ahÃºrÃºg,"  was your intention to distinguish between masculine and famine 3rd person plurals.  If that is the case you need at least one more ending.  

Can I ask whether <h> is aspirated or not, or whether any of the consonants are aspirated? 

It may be a good idea to figure out which phone (sound) combinations are prohibited.  Engilish prohibits v+l for instance, these are phonological constraints.  Having phonological constraints can go a long way in developing the morphology of the language.  

One more question, your long vowels, do you mean English long where it changes the vowel or more like Latin where the vowel is held for a greater length like a musical note? 

Have you though about tense, aspect, and mood for the verbs?  You have a lot that you can include in the verb alone besides person and number.  You can include tense; past, present, and future or you could even have one tense if you want.  same goes with aspect and mood.  

As a side note I suggest using IPA to distinguish each sound, it's more exact.  for instance Italian r and English r are different, we may write them the same but when it comes to pronunciation they are different.  Using IPA Italian r --> /r/ (which is a coronal trill) while English --> /ɽ/ ( a retroflex tap or flap) they are in-fact two distinct sounds. using IPA will help distinguish between such similarities.  IPA sounds can be found here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPA_pulmonic_consonant_chart_with_audio.

I assume you have not gotten to nouns, pronouns, and the rest yet?  You have a lot of possibilities to play with and aside from the things mentioned above I think your off to a good start.  Have you worked out any sample sentences yet, those will go a long way in determining the feel of the language.  best of luck.
ps. If you have any questions or need any help let me know.


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## ascanius (Sep 1, 2012)

This is just to give you and idea of how I organized the phones of my language.
Consonants are as follows.
Nasal: <m>=/m/ <n>=/n/ <ń>=/ɲ/
plosive: <p>=/p/ <b>=/b/ <t>=/t/ <d>=/d/ <k>=/k/ <g>=/g/
Fricatives: <f>=/f/ <v>=/v/ <th>=/ɵ/ <c>=/s/ <s>=/ʃ/
Approximate: <y>=/j/
Trill: <r>=/r/
Tap: <r>=/ɾ/
Lateral approximates: <l>=/l/,/ɭ/
Vowels: <i>=/i/ <ĭ>=/ɪ/ <e>=/e/ <a>=/a/ <o>=/o/ <ŏ>=/ɔ/ <u>=/u/
Dipthongs: <ie>=/ie/ <iu>=/iju/ <ŏe>=/ɔe/ <ĭŏ>=/ɪɔ/ <ae>=/ai/

Phonemes: Consonants: <m>=/m/ <n>=/n/ <ng>=/ɲ/ <p>=/p/ <b>=/b/ <t>=/t/ <d>=/d/ <g>=/g/ <qu>=/kw/ <k>=/k/ <f>=/f/ <v>=/v/ <th>=/ɵ/ <sh>=/ʃ/ <c>=/s/ <y>=/j/ <l>=/ɭ/ <w>=/w/ <r>=/ɾ/
Vowels: <i>=/i/ <ĭ>=/ɪ/ <e>=/e/ <a>=/a/ <o>=/o/ <ŏ>=/ɔ/ <u>=/u/
Dipthongs: <ie>=/ie/ <iu>=/iju/ <ŏe>=/ɔe/ <ĭŏ>=/ɪɔ/ <ae>=/ai/

complimentary Allophones: <r>=[ɾ] next to a consonant, [r] between vowels or at the beginning or end of a sentence. <k>= [k] anywhere excluding instances of [kʰ] at the beginning of a word only.
free allophones: <f>= [f] and [fʰ] before /a/(usually). <l>=/ɭ/ favored but /l/ can all occur save for instances of <ll>

Phonological constraints:
Nasals; + plosives, Fricatives, approximate, trill, Tap, lateral approximates. Exception: <md>(rare); <mv>, <nv>; <ml>, <nl>.
plosives;+ Nasal, Fricatives, approximate, trill, tap, lateral approximates. Exceptions: <tv>, <thv>; <pr>, <br>, <tr>, <dr>; <pl>, <bl>, <tl>, <dl>,
Fricatives; +Nasal, plosives, approximate, trill, Tap, lateral approximates. Exceptions: <vr>; <fl>, <vl>
trill; +Fricatives, plosives. exceptions: <rth>=/rɵ/, <vth>=/vɵ/
lateral approximates; +plosives, Fricatives. Exceptions: <lp>, <lt>, <ld>, <lb>; <lv> <lc>

an example.
Ta Bŏli-rn ŏ inalqu-lve full-aln latr-ia.
The boy-NOM.msg a rose-ACC.fsg her-PN.Intimate.3fsg give-PRS.3
The boy a rose to her gives.


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## Ireth (Sep 1, 2012)

ascanius said:


> Maybe no labial nasals and plosives but what you have thus far definitely has labials.



Yes, that's what I meant. ^^;



ascanius said:


> Also, "they (m.) / they (f.) sang: ahÃºshag / ahÃºÃ¾eg / ahÃºchÃ³g / ahÃºrÃºg,"  was your intention to distinguish between masculine and famine 3rd person plurals.  If that is the case you need at least one more ending.



I do see I neglected to include the neutral form in there as well.



ascanius said:


> Can I ask whether <h> is aspirated or not, or whether any of the consonants are aspirated?



Not entirely sure what you mean. I'll have to do some research about that.



ascanius said:


> It may be a good idea to figure out which phone (sound) combinations are prohibited.  Engilish prohibits v+l for instance, these are phonological constraints.  Having phonological constraints can go a long way in developing the morphology of the language.



Very true. I'll work on that.



ascanius said:


> One more question, your long vowels, do you mean English long where it changes the vowel or more like Latin where the vowel is held for a greater length like a musical note?



They are like English long vowels.



ascanius said:


> Have you though about tense, aspect, and mood for the verbs?  You have a lot that you can include in the verb alone besides person and number.  You can include tense; past, present, and future or you could even have one tense if you want.  same goes with aspect and mood.



I covered a little bit of tense already with the "sang / has sung / will sing" and "hunted / has hunted / will hunt" bits. I'm going to develop the others eventually. As for aspect and mood, that could be fun to play with.



ascanius said:


> As a side note I suggest using IPA to distinguish each sound, it's more exact.  for instance Italian r and English r are different, we may write them the same but when it comes to pronunciation they are different.  Using IPA Italian r --> /r/ (which is a coronal trill) while English --> /ɽ/ ( a retroflex tap or flap) they are in-fact two distinct sounds. using IPA will help distinguish between such similarities.  IPA sounds can be found here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPA_pulmonic_consonant_chart_with_audio.



IPA confuses me, honestly.



ascanius said:


> I assume you have not gotten to nouns, pronouns, and the rest yet?  You have a lot of possibilities to play with and aside from the things mentioned above I think your off to a good start.  Have you worked out any sample sentences yet, those will go a long way in determining the feel of the language.  best of luck.
> ps. If you have any questions or need any help let me know.



No, I haven't yet gotten around to nouns and other parts of the language. All in good time.  I'll definitely let you know if I need help.


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## Ireth (Sep 7, 2012)

*Some Preliminary Noun Ideas*

These are among the first nouns I've come up with:

siris — wind
hÃºwÃº — owl
tiwit — little bird (e.g. sparrow)
carac — carrion-bird (crow, raven)
gorog — bear

I've intentionally made them sort of onomatopoeic, but the palindromic nature of most of them wasn't deliberate. I can see how limiting it would be to stick with for every other noun I come up with. I've also discovered how much I like labial nasals and plosives to give a certain shape and feel to words and names, and I'm regretting omitting them from this language. Other sounds just don't work as well. Still working on all the necessary grammatical things too, but that'll come with time.


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## FistfulOfSeptims (Sep 9, 2012)

This reminds me a bit of the First Tongue from the Werewolf the Forsaken RPG.
The construction is very primal and native sounding.
I like it. Excellent work.


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## Ireth (Sep 9, 2012)

FistfulOfSeptims said:


> This reminds me a bit of the First Tongue from the Werewolf the Forsaken RPG.
> The construction is very primal and native sounding.
> I like it. Excellent work.



I've never heard of that RPG. Thanks, I'm glad you like it!


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## Jabrosky (Sep 9, 2012)

Exactly how do you plan to use this constructed language in your story?


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## Ireth (Sep 9, 2012)

Jabrosky said:


> Exactly how do you plan to use this constructed language in your story?



Not for very much, just a few scattered phrases here and there to add a bit of color to the world. But I thought it'd be better to have some kind of consistent construction rather than jumbling a bunch of random sounds together to make a sentence. I don't plan on having huge passages of text in wolf-language like Tolkien did with his elvish.


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## thedarknessrising (Sep 19, 2012)

Ireth said:


> These are among the first nouns I've come up with:
> 
> siris – wind
> hÃºwÃº – owl
> ...



I see that the words for your animals vaguely sound like the type of call they have.


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## Ireth (Sep 19, 2012)

thedarknessrising said:


> I see that the words for your animals vaguely sound like the type of call they have.



Yup. That was on purpose. I like onomatopoeia. ^^


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## thedarknessrising (Sep 19, 2012)

You should look up the song Onomotopoeia by Todd Rundgren. It's quite hilarious.


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## ascanius (Sep 29, 2012)

sorry Ireth, for the latency of this response, that is.  However what is your sentence structure?  SOV; subject object verb... or?  Also, are you declining your nouns?  Within the framework of your -fix's (that is pr-fixes and suf-fixes) do your noun endings distinguish between nominative, accusative, genitive, and, ect cases? or are you going with a more ergative system?


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## Ireth (Sep 29, 2012)

ascanius said:


> sorry Ireth, for the latency of this response, that is.  However what is your sentence structure?  SOV; subject object verb... or?  Also, are you declining your nouns?  Within the framework of your -fix's (that is pr-fixes and suf-fixes) do your noun endings distinguish between nominative, accusative, genitive, and, ect cases? or are you going with a more ergative system?



I'm still trying to work out all of that, so I can't give you a definite answer yet. ^^;


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## ascanius (Sep 29, 2012)

What is your noun structure?  what about verbs?


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## Ireth (Sep 29, 2012)

ascanius said:


> What is your noun structure?  what about verbs?



Re: nouns, see my above post. Re: verbs, see my first post for my current examples of that.


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