Heláin

[Leilis]

I think I'll leave <tr> for now -- my lexicon is organised by Old Heláin roots so it makes sense to use the spelling that better reflects the OH here -- but will keep in mind that I might want to change it later.

[Leilis]

I'm editing my reference grammar to print (not publish, just put onto normal printer-paper in a binder for personal use) and can't decide when to use hyphens. Which seems better?

The suffixes -éid, -éin, -éis, -éiv (Old Heláin -idi*, -ini*, -ise*, -ive*) have -i- rather than -ei- in their stem.

If a verb begins with h-, an e-prefix is omitted; however, the h- itself is omitted when adding the inchoative prefix, which is an- before a vowel and otherwise a-.

An alternative frequentative suffix -enai is equivalent to -ena e/i.

OR

The suffixes éid, éin, éis, éiv (Old Heláin *idi, *ini, *ise, *ive) have i rather than ei in their stem.

If a verb begins with h, an e prefix is omitted; however, the h itself is omitted when adding the inchoative prefix, which is an before a vowel and otherwise a.

An alternative frequentative suffix enai is equivalent to ena e/i.

[bradrn]

The former (with the hyphens) is much easier to read.

[Travis B.]

The former (with the hyphens) is much easier to read.

Agreed.

[Leilis]

I'm leaving all the many hyphens in place.

I need to settle on a number for 5. For many years it was tangei, but all other plurals end in -a, so I altered it to tanga, forgetting that tanga already meant 'symbol, glyph' (< tag 'be arranged; mean'). I know some homonyms are naturalistic but I think this would just be confusing.

1-6 are seir twara cwara bressa (tanga?) vara. It's a base-six system except that 10 and 15 are 'twice five' and 'thrice five'. So it might work to derive a word for 'five' even though other numbers mostly aren't derived.

(edited to add:) I am acquainted with a very imaginative six-year-old who tells me sometimes about his imaginary world. I asked him what the word for 'five' in his land was, and he reported that it is seorlandas, 'in Old [Child's Name] Language, which was spoken in 1995.' Perhaps the Heláin for 'five' will be langa or landa.

[Leilis]

ancoráv, erannen arreaiye Abrames ellu talfinis il, tainiros: Abram, andár m’ una. tea son m’age fi medarre antalam’ adanne.

seu aián Abrame: Al Arir, ñunnus so mur fiem, anire undenire, u dendarren e setelinis Eliesare Damascuside cu?

u aián Abrame: ammu, ñunt so mur denithes unem; faiye tea cleritheon setelinis il con sedendréid.

faiye, erannen arreaiye tul, tainiros: unteá con medendréid, fiu dendár mepareilfenithe.

u fefennen tu er ecistes ellu, u aián e: fin e mur teiglad ellu iñ, uc incít melien, eciteisfe min i mur. uc aián e tul: dhu teá taldenithoran mec.

fiu tetalthennen Arre tur, u erancinten i tullu indi. (Gen. XV.1-6)

[rotting bones]

I liked reading this. Thanks for posting.

[Leilis]

I liked reading this. Thanks for posting.

Thanks for reading! (:

[/ˌnɐˈɾɛndɚduːd/]

I must admit that I have attempted understanding and reading the poems to myself, and I can say that it certainly is pleasing to the ear. good work!

[Leilis]

I must admit that I have attempted understanding and reading the poems to myself, and I can say that it certainly is pleasing to the ear. good work!

Thank you!

I've gotten busy with other writing and haven't done much on Heláin for a while. But I will come back to it sooner or later.

[Leilis]

A few weeks ago, I realised that trying to get my reference grammar and lexicon in good order and then print it and put it in a three-ring binder was not working. I already had an only-slightly-outdated print lexicon, so I printed everything else and have been pencilling notes into the neat stuff and rewriting the messy stuff. I've worked on details about the third person, comparatives, and numbers*; I've also written lexicon entries for pronouns, adverbs, conjunctions, etc., and updated and reprinted my lexicon today. I'll update and reprint grammar sections as they get hard to read. I also have two full 10-point-font pages of words and etymologies to change ... although maybe I should work on Proto-Heláin more first, so the etymologies will get better.

I keep having to remind myself that this is my conlang, so I can change anything I don't like. Accordingly I have gotten rid of an adverbial prefix that I've had for at least ten years, and I've removed the -e- from the reflexive case ending.

* some numbers (it's base-6):

1 seir
2 twara
3 cwara
4 bressa
5 ranga
6 vara
7 veriseia (6+1)
8 veritwara (6+2)
9 vericwara (6+3)
10 twaranga (2*5)
11 verranga (6+5)
12 vartha (dual < 6)

[Leilis]

More Proto-Heláin! Prehistoric expectations of girls have emerged: sera 'maiden' < PH *sær(i) 'useful, hardworking' < *sar 'work'; suda 'daughter' < PH *swo-øtʰa ‘flow-goat’ = ‘milkmaid’?

*****
(ø = unknown vanishing vowel)

*kwo- ‘cut, dig’
*kwyr > cir ‘be split’, cer ‘mourn’
*kwo-la? > cula ‘pit’
*kwo-na? > cuna ‘depth’

*kwos ‘organ’? > cus ‘sack’, cusen ‘heart’
*kwos-ri? > curi ‘market’
*kwys-øtʰa ‘organ-goat’? > cista ‘kid, lamb’

*kʰam ‘increase’ > ham ‘be built’
*skʰama > cama ‘life’, camma ‘36’

*pwætʰ > beth ‘human, people’
*øpwætʰa > veda ‘free’
*ɬæ[ri]-pwætʰ ‘war-people’ > OH *lleveth > leith ‘enemy’

*pwæl > bel ‘benefit’
*øpwæl > vel ‘be wanted’

*tʰa ‘wealth’ > tha ‘money’
*øtʰa > da ‘goat’
*øtʰar > dar ‘be rewarded’
*tʰa-om? > thoma ‘stump’
*stʰaom > toma ‘tree’
*øtʰaom > doma ‘box’
*øtʰaomr > dor ‘fear’
*tʰæ-tʰa ‘stand-wealth’ > theda ‘forest’
*swo-øtʰa ‘flow-goat’ = ‘milkmaid’? > suda ‘daughter’
*kwys-øtʰa ‘organ goat’? > cista ‘kid, lamb’

*sar > sar ‘work’
*sær(i) ‘useful’? > sera ‘maiden’
*sar-atʰa ‘work strong’ > sarda ‘elbow’

[Leilis]

I've made a page of Heláin script but can't find a good way to insert the image here. I think one can view it here on ConWorkShop without logging in.

It's still a bit messy (my s+plosive ligatures all failed). Vowels are shown first in superscript form over l, then as ligatures with h. The single-dot version of e or i is more common than the lunate versions; also, e or i tends to be omitted before a final consonant unless it's ambiguous.

The four-line block of text on the right is the first stanza of the hymn 'Teigla Sig':

teiglad sig e ’lv’ adhaid elfis il alle dette:
aistwín mur, allún mur, annuneru, ecra cwarin,
seim, ava, teler, siurr’ artalama; cleisaman mu,
iscamm mu seir iŋ eve, cussenad annimirtha.

sky be.glorified.IMP ABS.M whole-VOC praise-OBL.PL kind-OBL.F LOC.F god-ABS.M holy-ABS.M
dawn 2-VOC.M day 2-VOC.M sunset=evening-VOC.M fire-VOC.M three-MUL
shine.IMP sun-VOC.M first-VOC.M bright-VOC.M high=more purity.ABS.F=go.berserk.IMP 2-ABS.M
be.revived-PERF 2-ABS.M only-VOC.M now which-ABS.M heart.VOC.M=strong be.armed-PASS.PTCP-VOC.M

Let the whole sky, with praises according to [each] kind, glorify the holy god:
you dawn, you day, evening sunset, threefold fire,
shine, O sun, first, brightest by far; make yourself zealous in purity,
whom the One has now revived, O strong heart armed for war.

The script is meant to be written with a brush, so I tried the first line-and-a-bit with a brush pen; I think it will take more practice! The three lone words are the names Leil(i)s, Tersas (writer of the 'Sacred Laws'), and Cairod (a notable high priest in the 600s).

[Raphael]

I've made a page of Heláin script but can't find a good way to insert the image here. I think one can view it here on ConWorkShop without logging in.

To pick out one small, probably unimportant detail, I quite like the diacritics you use for the letters for ai and oi. It's interesting to see diacritics on somewhat Latin-like-looking letters that aren't standard accents or umlauts.

[Leilis]

Thanks! I went back and forth about how to stack ai / oi -- played with putting the i-dot inside the o, but I didn't like how much it looked like an eye. I've been tweaking the script for many years but it still doesn't feel quite cohesive or well-balanced to me. Might just be that I write slowly so it looks a little rough/awkward.

Also a/u on adjacent consonants starts to look cluttered; I wonder if a native Heláin-writer would write each vowel right before writing each consonant (stacks are VC, so a-over-d = ad) or write all the consonants in a word first, and then go back and add vowels the way (in cursive) we dot i and cross t once the rest of the word is done. If the latter, some vowels on adjacent consonants could be written as a single stroke, e.g. in line 2 word 3, allún, the a and u could be written like a long backwards tilde over the ll and n. Might look smoother.

(I forgot to say that a dot underneath a consonant doubles it, although what 'double' means varies -- n+n = nn but d+d = nd.)

[sasasha]

I've been tweaking the script for many years but it still doesn't feel quite cohesive or well-balanced to me.

I really like this script! (And the language is to die for; I love your poetry for it, too.)

Can I offer a couple of ideas aimed at helping you achieve even more cohesion and balance in the script?

At the moment in my opinion you are developing both a script and a hand. The hand has a particular aesthetic, with long up-right swashes on your ⟨t⟩, for instance, and the contrast between the upward and downward swashes.

The idea of the swashes is nice, and the aesthetic is, well, swashy. But you yourself say your examples look “messy”. (I’m not saying I exactly agree, but I’m trying to hone down on what I think you mean.) There’s quite a lot of interaction between aesthetic elements and core functional elements, leading to lines crossing each other and several different angles and curves vying for dominance in the same space. You might want this, but I suspect it may be lurking behind some of your feelings about cohesion and balance.

So, (1) could you boil the script down to even more fundamental elements? From this, you can develop different hands that all have their own individual aesthetic.

When I’m developing a script I try all different kinds of hands with their own aesthetics. Some work better for some scripts than others. Hands tend to work on clear aesthetic and/or mechanical principles: see Copperplate, for example. All stems point the same way, all loops and bows approximate the same dimensions, glyphs emphatically do not interact except by joining, spacing is very consistent. Or see Nastaliq: dimensions, sizes and vertical placement of (just the same Arabic) glyphs (as in any other Arabic hand) are controlled and combined in a specific scheme (measurable by dots and circles made by the brush) to create the distinctive ‒ and cohesive, and balanced ‒ words that we all immediately recognise.

The aesthetic elements may hit the eye first ‒ but actually, they have been designed carefully to be subservient to the fundamental elements, and not to take over themselves. That’s why there is a feeling of balance.

Idea (2) is: you seem to be doing what is very natural to Latin-script users to do ‒ preserving a fairly regular width for each letter. It’s worth challenging our bias and being aware this is by no means universal as an aesthetic principle: Arabic, Georgian (and Verdurian, actually!) are three scripts off the top of my head that allow some letters to be (or to sometimes be) significantly wider than others. I think experimenting with this might help with the Heláin script. For example: your standalone ⟨e⟩ sometimes interacts with other letters. Why not let it spread? You could maybe continue its curve up to the mid-line which the letters started from, creating a nice bow, and just let it sit as wide letters which command more space than others. Another letter that I think could benefit from being wider is ⟨-l⟩: at the moment the vowels don’t fit on top, which looks nice in isolation but starts to create spacing issues in words. Just an idea: but to me, your words want to breathe a bit more horizontally, which would also give more room for your (very cool) vowels.

I wonder if a native Heláin-writer would write each vowel right before writing each consonant (stacks are VC, so a-over-d = ad) or write all the consonants in a word first, and then go back and add vowels the way (in cursive) we dot i and cross t once the rest of the word is done. If the latter, some vowels on adjacent consonants could be written as a single stroke, e.g. in line 2 word 3, allún, the a and u could be written like a long backwards tilde over the ll and n. Might look smoother.

This is a really important and interesting question for you and something I would encourage you to experiment with!

(I forgot to say that a dot underneath a consonant doubles it, although what 'double' means varies -- n+n = nn but d+d = nd.)

I like this idea, and appreciate the way the script reflects the detailed thought you’ve put into phonotactics.

[bradrn]

I agree with everything sasasha said. (It’s similar to what I was going to say but he phrased it much better.)

[Leilis]

@sasasha thank you so much! That is all really helpful! I updated that page (here) with a stripped-down script, which looks (I think) pretty cool in its own way and a lot more balanced/cohesive/something.

The text is the same hymn-stanza, and the names Leil(i)s / Cairod / Tersas, followed by two estalla (mantras):

está tahwenn' allos
(let me) think on the words of the god

av e al sora, seu so
let the god shine upon us, even upon me

It still needs some work. Final stress uses the elision symbol (because final stress tends to come from the loss of a syllable) but the final stressed -á in está (second-to-last line of the page, first word) doesn't look good; I think I need a different variant of h to carry final stressed vowels. But on the whole I'm pretty happy with this.

[rotting bones]

Thanks for sharing the script. I'm a beginner, so all I'll say is that I like it.

ai

‍ঁ?

[bradrn]

ai

‍ঁ?

Yep, my first thought on seeing Raphael’s comment was also that it looked like a chandrabindu.

So, (1) could you boil the script down to even more fundamental elements? From this, you can develop different hands that all have their own individual aesthetic.

On reflection I’d like to add a qualifier to this, which is that the distinction between different scripts and different hands is not necessarily a clear one. For instance Balinese and Javanese scripts are generally distinguished, but formally they’re essentially two different styles of writing the same characters. (Though there are spelling differences too.) Similar comments apply to Telugu and Kannada. Even within Latin the distinction isn’t clear-cut — for a long time blackletter and antiqua scripts were considered different, such that in Germany they were taught separately, and a German or even English book would switch to an antiqua font/hand/script for words in Romance languages: e.g. viewtopic.php?t=1460. (Sorry if you can’t see the imgur pictures — I can send you copies if you want.)