[Multilingual Monday] Conlang : Nōsō
Nōsō is a language spoken in Ursitania, AKA The Bearlands, or as it's known in Nōsō, Nōfozzhërek. It is a vertical writing system that is written in columns from right to left. It is a language that has been growing since I started creating it for a story back in 1999, back when it was an unwieldy syllabary. My attempt was to make a writing system that was simultaneously phonetic and ideographic, which in itself was no small feat at all. What I mean to say, is that each "letter" represented a mere sound (as opposed to a syllable in Japanese or Chinese), and that sound would always be the same, yet have some sort of meaning tied to it, and would combine with other letters to make full words and full meanings. At first I was aiming for no homophones (a headache in languages like Japanese and Chinese), yet I've come to accept that this is an impossibility, but creating a whole system whose base words are made by combining "sound-letters" to make fuller meanings is not, despite it seeming as such so many times in the past.
Many languages have influenced Nōsō, and the first one is obviously Chinese, where you have elements that combine together and, at times, make a symbolic picture of certain items or concepts ...
The character for "big", which is symbolized by a larger figure next to a figure trying to measure up on a box.
Now each of these elements has a sound to it -- the "stick figure" is pronounced "n" and the "box" is "ō". Each has very "loose" meanings attached to them ("n" = person, body; "ō" = system, base, stand). In this case the character is pronounced "nnō", or just "nō" at the beginning of a word. This is in the minority of characters, but they still exist and are pronounced as one "reads" off each element of said character.
However, the writing system has much more in common with Korean, as can be seen in, for example, the name of the language Nōsō. Each element, like Korean, makes up a syllabic "block", and the vowel dictates in which direction the surrounding characters are "squished". Like Korean, each syllable is CV or CVC; that being said, you can also have solely C and V syllable blocks as well (usually as postpositions).
This word is pronounced "nnōsō" -- its second character is read as "sō", and you can see the same vowel in letter #2 as you can in #1. In this case, the "built-up" meaning of the elements is to be interpreted, and most characters and words in Nōsō are built this way. "S" has associated meanings of "mouth", "tongue", "speak", etc. Thus, a "speaking base" -- a language.
You might, by this point in time, be thinking : "Big language? What the fuck?" This is also something borrowed from Asian languages -- much as 中語, "Middle language", refers to the language of 中国 as a shorter term, Nōsō, "Big language", is short for, "Bear Country Language", or as the characters read, "Big Fire-Like Power-Thing Land".
I have borrowed some concepts from Hindi, rhe most ovcious of which is combining consonant clusters in to a single "super-consonant". In this case, each consonant is made up of two elements ...
The consonant S -- speak, tongue, talk, etc.
The consonant T -- part, cut, split, etc.
The consonant D -- give, offer, hand over, transfer, and also "male" (the person who "gives" in conception).
Basically : Part 1 + Part 2 = Full Consonant. These consonants can combine in a number of ways; if Part 1 is small enough (a surrounding frame or a hook like Part 1 of our consonant D), then you can do part 1 and then "smash in" the next letter in the consonant cluster. For example, we'll combine "D" and "ʒ" ...
ʒ = support, aid, help, etc. D + ʒ = Dʒ, giving the associated meaning "protect" (giving help to someone else).
However, with all other characters, you'll add Part 1 of the first letter of the cluster and Part 2 of the other. See us combining S and T ...
We've seen the meanings for S and T -- together they'll be "speak parts" -- this superconsonant will have something to do with words, speech, etc.
Putting it all together, we'll see one of the more graphically complex words in Nōsō, mist, the word in Nōsō for "word".
M + I + S + T. S and T will combine into a cluster, giving the word on the right.
Of course, this writing system is only flexible as someone's ability to imagine and make conceptual leaps. Currently I'm having a serious problem with scientific terms, names of birds and animals, and the like. I mean, you really need to synthesize here to come up with something that's even somewhat pleasing to the ear and close enough in concept with its combination of characters. Of course, this language is going to have to import words from SOME other place -- maybe I can talk with another conlanger about leeching words that I can import. ^_-
IN A FUTURE CONLANG EDITION OF MULTILINGUAL MONDAY : Actual grammar from Nōsō, which leeches concepts from Japanese, Hebrew, Swedish, and German!
... yeah, this has occupied my mind and my time for five years now. Does this make me crazy?
And yeah, it's not a REAL language, but damn it, I can still include it in the column as it has something to do with linguistics, so there. Nyah!