Ηιμι ιστ ιετθτ εϊν γρωθες Μαιδχεν

[pne]

Στελλα άτ μιρ εύτε γεσαγτ, δαθθ Ϝιϝιεν ιρ γεσαγτ αίττε, δαθθ Ηιμι ιετθτ δαφυιρ βερεϊτ ιστ, αλλεϊνε γελασσεν τθυ ϝερδεν.

Αβ μοργεν κανν ιχ σει αλσω μοργενς αβσετθεν, υνδ Στελλα ϝιρδ σει ερστ υμ άλβ εϊνς αβώλεν - δατθϝισκεν ϝιρδ σει αλλεϊνε μιτ δην ανδερεν Κινδερν βλεϊβεν. Σει ιστ αλσω ιετθτ εινγεϝωιντ.

Ϝας φυιρ εϊν γρωθερ Σκριττ φυιρ υνσερ κλεϊνες Μαιδχεν!

Ιχ βιν, ηρλιχ γεσαγτ, ρεχτ φρω, δαθθ ες μιτ Ηιμι σω σκνελλ γιγγ.

Υνδ Στελλα άτ ιετθτ μοργενς μηρ Τθεϊτ, υμ τθυμ Βεϊσπειλ δαθ Αύς σαυβερ τθυ μαχχεν. Ανδερερσεϊτς υιβερληγτ σει, οβ σει νιχτ ιμ Κινδεργαρτεν τθυ αρβεϊτεν ανφαιγγτ. Ϝενν ες δορτ ναιμλιχχ εϊν παρ μηρ Κινδερ σινδ, ϝερδεν σει ιημανδεν βραυχεν, δερ δας Εσσεν σερϝειρτ (ιν τθϝεϊ Σκιχτεν: Κριππε υνδ Ηλεμενταρ), ίντερήρ αβϝαισκτ υσϝ. Υνδ φυιρ Στελλα ϝαιρε δας αυχ δει Γεληγενεΐτ, ιν ιρεμ ερλερντεν Βερυφ τθυ αρβεϊτεν.

Μαλ σκαυεν, ϝας δαραυς ϝιρδ.

Comments

[sedesdraconis.livejournal.com]

hah. neat. I don't know enough Δευτσκ to get much of it, but I get some.

"Στελλα άτ μιρ", "Μαιδχεν", "Ιχ βιν" are the easy parts :p I think i get "γεσαγτ", i had to squint, and then notice the pattern, to realize those weren't 'ϒ's.

That looks like it works noticeably better than Εγγλισκ.

[sedesdraconis.livejournal.com]

Oh! I just read the title, "Ηιμι"! I think i understand the title, but "ιετθτ" isn't scanning for me.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

"jetzt". Pretty idiosyncratic, if you ask me; I think I might've gone with γετστ, perhaps ιετζτ.

[pne.livejournal.com]

My idea was for symmetry in the various affricate pairs: German has /pf/ and /ts/ and (at least in southern parts) /kx/, so it seemed natural to me to use πφ τθ κχ, respectively, for those.

From that followed the idea to use the θ~σ distinction to approximate ß~s, with θ always being [s] and σ being [s] or [z] depending on the position. So you would have Βυθεν "penitences (dat.)" and Βυσεν "bosom" (and Βυσσεν "busses (dat.)").

There may or may not be a correlation between θ = German historic z and σ = German historic s; I don't know enough about OHG/MHG to say.

I'm not yet particularly consistent about the orthography, though - especially the use of single vs. double consonants to denote long vs. short vowel sounds. I keep forgetting especially with χ, which "should" be double after a short vowel in words such as ιχχ but where I tend to forget since German only has "single" ch - since there's no double version of that in German, so "Lache" is ambiguous between "type of laughter" and "puddle". On the other hand, I decided σκ would also be ambiguous the way sch is in German, since it's a digraph.

[pne.livejournal.com]

BTW, as for υ for /u/ (rather than ου), that was also for symmetry -- /ε ε: œ ø ʏ y/ turn into αι αι οι ωι υι υι, and so υ is free for /u/. (The disadvantage of this is that äu becomes the trigraph αιυ.

Initially, I considered using alpha-with-iota-subscript + upsilon, but that ended up being the only non-monotonic-Greek letter in the orthography, once I had used tonos for /h/ rather than rough breathing, so I scrapped it. (Well, I suppose digamma is not monotonic either, in the sense that it's not in iso-8859-7, but it's in the basic Greek Unicode block.)

[pne.livejournal.com]

That looks like it works noticeably better than Εγγλισκ.

Indeed. In fact, I was surprised how well it would work -- at first, I thought that German's phonology is too different, but after playing around with Greek orthography for a German-sounding conlang, I realised that it would work fairly well for German, too.

About as well as the standard German orthography, IMO, once you've got used to the idiosyncratic spelling. (For example, vowel length is represented in the orthography in some cases - either with different vowel letters or with single/double consonants as hints - but not all.)

And yes, I don't know how one could get that to work with English. But then, English orthography is not very obviously phonemic! If one went with something along the lines of English's current orthography, it might work, but it would be even more idiosyncract to someone who expects the Greek letters to have either Ancient Greek or Modern Greek sounds, and not have, say, ουγ be pronounced /of/ or /aw/.

[sedesdraconis.livejournal.com]

Speaking of greek, I seem to have use the root "mhlea-" in an invented taxon of animals sometime ago. I now have no idea what I was thinking, do you recognize the root? Or it could just be a typo :-/

[pne.livejournal.com]

It reminds me of μήλον "apple", but that wouldn't give a root ending in -ea-.

[sedesdraconis.livejournal.com]

Hmm, "apple" would actually make a certain kind of sense. If I can't find any other clues as to what I was thinking, I'll assume it was meant to be apple. Thanks!