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Thursday, December 27, 2012

Amerysk Pronunciation

Amerysk Pronunciation

From 'Snaekk and Skryf Amerysk' by Paal Filssunu, describing a conlang, Amerysk, constructed by Paal Filssunu for the use of Odinists/Asatruar/Norse Pagans.

Letters in the Amerysk language are not put in alphabetical order as in most European tongues, but are arranged in the pattern of the older Northern Futhark.
There are officially 26 letters in this futhark, also known as 'staves' (staefas). There are some forms in the 'runic' form of stave writing which combine similar sounds and do not stand out as the Roman alphabet's series of clustered phonetics.

VOWELSAmerysk uses eight main vowels: A, E, I, O, U, Y, AE, Ø
These vowels possess single phonetic pronunciations. In the course of speaking some natural vowel lengthenings occur. These are either shown in the ( )'s for proper pronunciation, or they use lengthened written vowel forms: A becomes AA, E becomes EI, EY or Y and so forth.

PRONUNCIATION:
A is pronounced as in Tall (ah) O is pronounced as in Off, Hot (aw)
E
is pronounced as in Set (eh) U is pronounced as OO in Book (uh)
I
is pronounced as in It, Stick (ih) Y is pronounced as EE in Green (ee)
AE
is pronouced as A in Sack, Laugh Ø is pronounced as EW--- similar to German ö and Danish ø

EXAMPLES:Stagga
(stahgg-ah) stag Thurk (thuhrk) through
Swefan (swehf-ahn) to sleep Ys (eess) ice
Swift (swihft) fast, swift Wraeth (rath) wrath
Worm (wawrm) reptile, serpent (bew) village, town

The basic sounds of the vowels don't change, unlike some languages which assign up to four different sounds to a letter, or stave.
LENGTHENED VOWELS

AA (aw)
as used in Waald (forest) AW (ahw) as used in Blaw! (Blow!)
AAW (aw) as used in Laaw (low) UW (ooh) as used in Bluw (blue)
EI, EY (ay) as used in Ey (island) AEW (ae+oo) as used in Maew (seagull)
and personal name Sweyn
IW (yew)
as used in Tiw (Tyr) ØW (ew) as used in Fløwan (to flow)


CONSONANTS:Amerysk uses sixteen consonants--- also, there are several consonants sounds produced by clustering. All consonants will be shown in the examples below:

MAIN CONSONANTS: As used in the English alphabet order---
B, D, F, G, H, J, K, L, M, N, P, R, S, T, W, and X

Note: C, Q, V, and Z are not used as standard letters unless they are needed in the spelling of names, or words fron languages using these letters (Caledon, Quinn, Viking, Zeus and so forth.)
Of these above mentioned consonants, the following are pronounced very much as in English, and require no special learning:
B, D, F, H, K, L, M, N, P, R, S, T, W, and X

G
is given two pronunciations according to its place in a word:
as G in the word gød (gewd) 'good', used initially, it is pronounced hard--- but when used in the middle or at the end of a word--- such as fugl (foo-khil) 'bird' or graeg (grakh) 'gray'. The G is spoken as a German 'CH' sound (KH).
GG is always pronounced hard as in Egg.
J is always pronounced as Y: Ja (yah) 'yes'.
NG is always pronounced as 'ING' in wing--- never pronounce it like the English NG in 'FING-GER' (finger).
TH is pronounced two ways--- as the hard [voiced] TH in THIS and as the soft [unvoiced] TH in THIN. TH requires memorization, and throughout this series for pronunciation purposes,
TH= hard sound TH=soft sound
KJ/TJ are normally pronounced as CH in CHEERS
SJ/SKJ
are pronouced as SH

This information, from the book 'Snaekk and Skryf Amerysk' by Paal Filssunu, is provided with all  respect to the acheivements and rights of Amerysk creator Paal-Eirik Filsunu. I have also published this info on a web site The Ameryske Tunga. (I am putting it up here to prevent the information from being lost if the web site goes down.)

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Word-Building in Universalglot

As in Esperanto, suffixes are used to build words in Universalglot. The feminine suffix is -in. Here are some examples of its use:

queen = rexin
man = man
woman = manin
boy = maniet
girl = manietin
virile = manli
feminine = maninli

There was no plural form for nouns. So 'manin' could mean 'woman' or 'women'.

Though many Universalglot words were of Latin/Romance language origin there were also others that were of Germanic origin, from languages like English or German. Here are some Universalglot words of Germanic origin:

Send = sende
Yes = jes
Dog = hund
House = haus
Hand = hand
Help = help
Warm = varm
Winter = vinter
Wound = vund
Will = vil

Verbs had the following endings:
infinitive: -en
present tense: -e
past tense: -ed
future tense: -rai
conditional: -rais

Source: Listserv/Auxlang Pirro's Universal Glot by Leo J. Moser

Facebook Page: Universalglot - Jean Pirro

Kial Mi Amas Universalglot/Why I love Universalglot

En libro pri Esperanto, mi legis pri aliaj konstruitaj lingvoj. Unu el ili estas Universalglot. Mi legas ti chiu:

In a book about Esperanto, I read about other constructed languages. One of them is Universalglot. I read this: 

Men senior, I sende evos un gramatik e un verb-bibel de un nuov glot nomed universal glot. In futur, I scriptrai evos semper in dit glot. I pregate evos responden ad me in dit self glot.

Bela lingvo! Beautiful language!

Esperanto traduko: ”Mia sinjoro, mi sendas al vi gramatikon kaj vortaron de nova lingvo nomata universala lingvo. En estonteco mi skribados al vi ĉiam en ĉi tiu lingvo. Mi petas vin respondi al mi en la sama lingvo.”

English translation: 

"Sir, I send you a grammar and dictionary of a new language called universal language (universal glot). In the future I will write to you always in this language. I ask you to respond to me in the same language."
 

Facebook page Universalglot: Jean Pirro

Monday, December 24, 2012

Universalglot: 1868 International Language

Universalglot is an international auxiliary language published by French linguist Jean Pirro in 1868--- predating both Volapük and Esperanto. Pirro gave the language 7000 basic words and numerous prefixes allowing a considerable vocabulary.

Pirro's book is now no longer in print and is not, the last time I checked, available online. There is only a web page (in Universalglot?) called Le glot universal which describes the language at: http://www.datapacrat.com/True/LANG/SOLRESOL/Comparot/ug%20main.html

This is a pity since the language is easily comprehensible to those familiar with the major European languages.

Here is a 'konversatsion' in Universalglot, from the Wikipedia article on Universalglot:

Ben dai, Meni senior, i ese inkanted reinkontra evos, i habe vide evos in London, e ditdai nos finde enos in Skotland, dikt me ex ke land vos ese.

Un ex enos ese ruser e du ese italier e el quatli ese deutsch; ma nos pote toti parlen insamel, den nos parle el universal glot.