Moving forward, but stepping backwards first

Deep down I must love complexity. I knew my Illunse plurals were way too complicated.

The good news is that I've figured out what to do about it, how to make my nominative case plurals for nouns simpler. Not simple, but simpler. I've come up with some rules to follow, and irregular nouns won't be allowed. My rules pretty much amount to accepting grammatical gender.

What this means for this blog, though, is revisions. Lots of them. I'll be making numerous small changes. This will affect somewhere between a third and half of my existing nouns, singular forms as well as plurals. Even words I did recently.

Old English and Latin are inflected languages. They are not like Modern English. I want my Illunse grammar to be similar to that of Old English and Latin, but hopefully much more straightforward.

What if I get stuck?

This may seem odd, getting stuck when making a constructed language, but occasionally I get confounded with words. I play with Latin and Old English, but I don't know the languages. There are rules to building Illunse words, such as that I'm limited in the letters that I can use. Sometimes I can't seem to mix the Latin and the Old English words in any allowable way that I like. When that happens, I usually try another word, and come back to the skipped word later.

I prefer for my Illunse words to vaguely resemble the modern English word or synonym of it. Of course, that is not always possible. Some Illunse words look somewhat like the Latin words, especially when the Latin word -- or a derived Spanish or French word -- is familiar to me.

Lately I seem to be working with ancient terms, such as walled towns and castles. Someday I'll want to define a word, but won't find it in archaic languages of Old English and Latin. Then I'll be truly stuck. Perhaps, I could try using Middle English for Old English. I actually do have a Middle English dictionary. But for Latin, what do I use, Italian? When I get stuck, I'll figure something out.

Next word building project - things in a town

My next Illunse word building project is going to be things in a town. As I'm using Old English and Latin words to construct my words, these will be words describing things found in a very backward, historical town. Basic terms. Don't expect to see words for shopping mall, traffic light, movie theater or car dealership.

I already have several words that fit this category. My word for house is hud. My word for church is clecia.

Following this project, I’ll likely take on interrogatives, question words, which I think will be complicated due to grammar.

Say what?

I don't really know how to pronounce all these constructed words in Illunse. There, I've admitted it. Although I arrogantly think that words should be pronounced one way or another, I've never established any rules.

Perhaps I should have figured out phonetics first, and not concentrated on word spelling. A linguist might have done that, but I'm an amateur. I'm learning things as I go. I'm still new at this language construction stuff.

In Latin each of the five vowels, A E I O U, can be pronounced two ways. These are differentiated by a macron or horizontal line over the letter in the Latin textbook I have. In Old English each of these vowels has an accented and an unaccented version. This means that, at worst, there are four possible ways to pronounce a vowel. Guess I need to research the possibilities.

(Postscript - I actually do know how to pronounce words in Fennas, my other constructed language)

Things to do this summer

This summer I need to sit down and do some writing. No excuses. I've mentioned to several people that I've been writing, perhaps because I'd like to believe that I’m accomplishing something, when actually I haven't written any fiction in months.

The fragment that I wrote back in January was a bit of a mess, and somewhat discouraging. But in hindsight, it was a learning experience. I should continue writing. Try writing something else. They say writers generally write hundreds of thousands of words of garbage before they write anything truly good. I'm still working through my quota of garbage.

Words from the home to adjectives

This month’s theme for words was things in a home. Thanks for voting for this, Kendra! Admittedly, some of the words were parts of a house’s structure. The thirteen Illunse words I constructed were home, house, door, window, bed, table, chair, pillow, kitchen, mirror, roof, oven, and room. These are all fairly basic terms so that I could find definitive words for them in Old English and Latin. I ran up against ancient, pre-medieval technology. Homes were way different back then. Surprisingly, Tolkien didn’t define words for some of these things in Quenya and Sindarin.

At New Year’s, I resolved to figure out how to make plurals in the nominative case by the end of February 2010. I didn’t do it. This will require much more time. I need to study more Latin and Old English grammar, which makes my head hurt even thinking about it.

Next month, in March, my theme for words will be adjectives, description words. The suggestion Mariska, my fellow conlanger, voted for. I could always use a few more adjectives in Illunse.

Door, in J.R.R. Tolkien's words

I couldn't find a Quenya word for door. Although I did find a word for threshold. In Quneya, fenda means threshold.

The Sindarin words for door are fen or fend (door, threshold) and annon (great door, gate).

I could make an Illunse word for threshold (doorstep, doorsill, doorway, entrance). There are definitive words in Latin and Old English that I could use. But threshold is a more uncommon term, a more literary, bookish word. I'll save the word threshold for later.

As far as my writing, last month I wrote 2,867 words of fiction. My goal was 3,000 words. So not bad. This month I have have no set writing goal. I hope to edit January's piece, which has some inconsistancies. Perhaps next month I'll set another goal.

What's next

I've decided what sort of words I'll be constructing next!

In February I'm going to make words for . . . things in a home. Kendrabelle's suggestion. Words like room, window, rug, and bed. As I'm constructing words from Latin and Old English, two ancient languages, the things in a home won't include any modern inventions, just basic stuff.

Then in March, I'm going to make adjectives. Mariska's suggestion. I could definitely use words for such as big, small, good, and tall. Not counting colors, I only have a handful of describing words.

Thank you Kendrabelle and Mariska for your comments! I appreciate knowing I have some readers.

I better get back to my writing. I resolved to write 3,000 words of my novel by the end of this month. So far I've written just over 2,000 words. Bye!

Where to from here?

What sort of words should I construct for Illunse, and look up in Tolkien's languages of Quenya and Sindarin?

1. places in a town (house, street, castle, walls)
2. things in a home (door, window, rug, bed)
3. equipment of a warrior (sword, dagger, armor, spear)
4. trees and plants (oak, maple, wheat, flower)
5. interrogatives (where, what, when, who)
6. pronouns (he, she, this, that)
7. parts of the body (head, heart, hand, foot)
8. adjectives (big, small, good, evil)

If any of you readers out there have a preference, let me know. This is your chance to influence the direction of this blog. I'll pick what to do, where to go next, a week from now.

There are currently 142 words, according to the blog's count, in the fantasy language of Illunse, the language which is spoken in the land Illun. I have a list of words, but I can't write simple sentence or form any plurals.

I resolved to look at what to do about those plurals in February. If you haven't guessed by now, plurals in Illunse won't be made by adding a suffix of -s or -es, as in English.

I'll continue constructing words in Illunse, and looking up those words in Tolkien's languages of Quenya and Sindarin. Though probably I won't be posting quite as often. I think I've posted nearly every day this month!