Here's an overview of some general linguistic concepts. If you've forgotten the difference between a noun and an adjective, or if you're not sure what I mean by "voiced th", this is the page you'll want to peruse. his page isn't quite finished and I'll be adding to it until it is (constantly?), feel free to point out anything I've left out. The most obvious feature of any language is it's Vocabulary, or it's words. Words come in several different sorts, which are universal in all languages (most of you probably know this already, so feel free to skip this section. It's just a review of grammar school English) Nouns are "person, place or thing" words; some examples are England, cat, beauty, religion, colour and Bobby Verbs are "action words"; examples: run, think, exist and discombobulate Adjectives are words which describe nouns; examples: yellow, silly, silken and Icelandic Adverbs describe verbs, some languages make no distinction between adverbs and adjectives, but most English adverbs are distinct from adjectives. Examples: morbidly, upside-down, joyously and phrases such as "with pleasure" or "in a sing-song tone" Articles are words which tell something about the definiteness of the noun; in English the articles are the and a/an. Some languages have many more articles than English and some have no articles at all. Conjunctions connect two (or more) words or ideas. Examples: but, and, if, yet and or Prepositions describe the relation between two or more concepts. Examples: on, near, with, during and from Exclamations, or interjections, are stand-alone shouts or interuptions such as ouch!, huzzah!, gah! or wow! Every language has it's own phonology (the spoken sounds in the language), alphabet (the letters, but you already know that) and orthography (the way these sounds are represented by the alphabet; spelling and punctuation). My created languages all employ the Latin Alphabet to make things easier n English-speaking eyes (invented alphabets aren't out of the question, but I don't make them myself). Some technical terms used to refer different phonological things: Consonants are sounds created by friction caused by a stoppage or restriction of the airflow when the sound is pronounced. K, P, V, H and TH are consonant sounds. Consonant sounds come in two sorts, Voiced and Unvoiced . The best way to explain this is to demonstrate it: pronounce an English S sound and note that the sound comes solely from the air hissing between your tongue and teeth. Now pronounce a Z sound, notice that you are actually making the same sound as the S, but you are "voicing" it, the sound comes from your vocal cords and the hissing air. S is unvoiced and Z is voiced. Some other unvoiced/voiced pairs are T/D, F/V, K/G. P/B. English voiced and unvoiced TH are spelled identically, the voiced sound appears in the word "this" and the unvoiced in "thing". Vowels are "open" sounds pronounced with no friction; in English, the vowels are A, E, I, O and U Diphthongs are clusters of vowels pronounced as one sound, some English diphthongs are ou, ai, ee and oo A Syllable is a distinct cluster of sounds pronounced in one "beat". a syllable consists of a vowel and it's accompanying consonants (if any); the word "cat" is of one syllable and "hippopotamus" is of five (hip-po-pot-a-mus). Generally, each vowel or diphthong in a word represents one syllable Grammar is (arguably) the most interesting and (incontrovertibly) the most distinct aspect of any Language, natural or created. Grammar is the rules for the structure of a language; the order in which the words appear in a sentence, and how to determine the meaning of a sentence from the order and form of the words. Each of my created languages has a written grammar available for those interested few to read. If you would like more information on grammar in general or on English grammar specifically, I recommend you google for something other than wikipedia. Here're a few grammatical terms you should be familiar with: Conjugate: a conjugation of a verb is all it's derived forms. The conjugation of the English verb "to be" is as follows. I am, we are, thou art/you (singular) are, you (plural) are, he/she/it is, they are. Decline/ Noun Declension: A declension is the derived forms of a noun. English doesn't really have declensions, but most readers familiar with a non-English Indo-European language will be familiar with declensions. The Latin noun declension is used as a model for practically all languages and includes the following forms: nominative (the subject of the sentence), accusative (the direct object), genitive (or possessive, the "of" case), dative ("where", "for whom", "by means of" or "for what reason". the "adjectival case") , ablative ("adverbal case") A transliteration is converting the letters from one language into the letters of another, spelling Japanese, Greek or Russian words with English letters is a transliteration. Because all my languages are designed with the English alphabet, there isn't much transliteration on this site at all. To translate is to take something written in one language and write it in another, using the grammar, word order and vocabulary of the language you're translating into. When you read the Jules Verne's books in English, you are reading a translation into English from French. A gloss is similar to a translation but does not change the grammar or word order. A gloss gives the meaning of each word in the order it appears in the original text. As an example, here are the first few lines of Beowulf in the original Old English: Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum, þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon, hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon. Here is a gloss of those lines: Lo! we of spear-danes' in year-days, folk-kings glory have heard how the Aethelings power accomplished And a translation: LO, we have heard of the glory of the Spear-Dane's Folk-kings in days of yore, of the Aethelings' deeds of power. |