Conlang Year: Week 2
Conlang year continues! Once again, see here for the source for the prompts.
Day 8: Describe (or design) native fauna
Just like yesterday, we're looking to the real world tropics and subtropics here. Because I'm fond of megafauna, there's probably a prevalence of large animals more similar to that of Africa than to that of North America - you've got large creatures like elephants, hippos, and crocodiles, alongside things that went extinct in the Pleistocene like Glyptodon, Elasmotherium, and shoveltusks.
Birds occupy a distinct place in the greater Jewelsea - the greatest of them are more fey than animal, prone to interfering with humanity. Corvids and parrots are able to carry on conversations with people; humans often struggle to figure out where the sapient birds draw the line between birds that are considered to be people and birds that are considered to be animals. They will viciously punish any transgression against those they consider worthy of respect.
Day 9: Summarize your speakers and their world
I think that what I've written here largely speaks for itself. I have dozens of Field Notes sites notebooks filled mostly with content about the world of the Jewelsea and the associated game I'm working on and I've nearly completing collating all those notes by topic in digital format.
Day 10: Choose “series” of consonants to incorporate
A big part of the inspiration for Thek is ancient Persia and Mesopotamia, so I've started by looking over the phoneme libraries for languages like Akkadian, Aramaic, and Old Persian. I certainly don't feel restricted by those, though, and I've also included some sounds that are simply fun to play with.
Day 11: Decide if you want a voicing distinction
Yes, there's absolutely a voicing distinction in Thekkish. I've including eight pairs of consonants distinguished by voicing - realizing that θ and ð were different sounds was one of the things that triggered my amateur interest in linguistics in the first place.
Day 12: Research other consonant articulations
I think we're going to keep sounds like tʃ, dʒ, and dz out of the language for the time being in the interest of keeping it to the 22 consonants I selected on Day 10. I could easily see them develop as we move through the year, but I'm keeping it a bit simpler for myself as a beginner to start out with.
I also do not plan to have aspiration or other non-pulmonic consonants in the language. I'm not great at making the distinction myself and I'd like to be able to pronounce this thing!
Day 13: Choose monophthongs
I'm going to start with a six vowel system here, using y, ɪ, ɛ, a, ʌ, and u. Despite the guidance given about "opposite rounding" today on the website, I just enjoy the y sound, so it's going in.
Day 14: Choose diphthongs (if any)
I think I'm going to add in aɪ and ɛɪ here. They're sounds that I find pleasant and I kept the vowel inventory pretty restrained so I don't feel bad about adding a little bit of complexity here.