Mystery language sketch

[Qwynegold]

This is just a sketch of a silly little idea I had the other day. Just for fun, I wanted to show it and ask what you think when you see it. Can you guess what this is? Can you guess how it's pronounced?

Ghi nialeusi calirfu vuvaó oro homini giu vaniha, píni harniu chinini durrini giu tuciáini niunvuní nevai, a urniulagi edó ur er fihnia.

Foioni goni niuciuni epirroni riniuni gavciuni u aleiguni ur gialragii a giuciuroni a, giofigioni hopo unifír giu niniór a horniaurniai, giuvur hopmonfinniu tucifunrigpurfu goni erroni hor goni ofcioni.

Fogi munniorri faurru goni giuciuroni a gavunfigiuni muciohghipigioni ur unifi Giuhghiciniaór, niar gianifarniaór iglerri giu niní, hogon, niuhnio, aiaopi, nugacaór, omarraór mogáfahi o giu heighaun ofci árgiogu, ociacur riniaorrig o nioniaig, monianiaór uhorrópahi, riniapaurfo o heighaun ofci horgianiaór.

Vurchipár maiaó erri vuvagi giu hava a tuciuní; Roú, niar vunleurní, ghi píni unihaniafi rhipmisi giug purré. Ug marlearro Vurniunighio anio hagópufcioni vico uhníenifavi devai a tuciáo; isocivi i nie huciaio hirono.

[Ares Land]

This is just a sketch of a silly little idea I had the other day. Just for fun, I wanted to show it and ask what you think when you see it. Can you guess what this is? Can you guess how it's pronounced?

Ghi nialeusi calirfu vuvaó oro homini giu vaniha, píni harniu chinini durrini giu tuciáini niunvuní nevai, a urniulagi edó ur er fihnia.

Foioni goni niuciuni epirroni riniuni gavciuni u aleiguni ur gialragii a giuciuroni a, giofigioni hopo unifír giu niniór a horniaurniai, giuvur hopmonfinniu tucifunrigpurfu goni erroni hor goni ofcioni.

Fogi munniorri faurru goni giuciuroni a gavunfigiuni muciohghipigioni ur unifi Giuhghiciniaór, niar gianifarniaór iglerri giu niní, hogon, niuhnio, aiaopi, nugacaór, omarraór mogáfahi o giu heighaun ofci árgiogu, ociacur riniaorrig o nioniaig, monianiaór uhorrópahi, riniapaurfo o heighaun ofci horgianiaór.

Vurchipár maiaó erri vuvagi giu hava a tuciuní; Roú, niar vunleurní, ghi píni unihaniafi rhipmisi giug purré. Ug marlearro Vurniunighio anio hagópufcioni vico uhníenifavi devai a tuciáo; isocivi i nie huciaio hirono.

Well, 'homini' kind of jumps at me and it looks sort of a Southern Italian dialect. But I don't think that works. I'd say the frequent i's mark palatized consonants? The orthography looks Gaelic anyway -- but I know next to nothing about that.

[Pabappa]

Acutes seem to appear in only final syllables, so I suppose they mark stress, and therefore this is much closer to Italian than to Gaelic.

[Qwynegold]

Well, 'homini' kind of jumps at me and it looks sort of a Southern Italian dialect.

Google Translate thinks this is Corsican. Unfortunately, homini is just a coincidence.

I'd say the frequent i's mark palatized consonants?

Yes. I'll give a hint: it's palatal something when modifying c, g and n, and when not modifying any consonant.

looks sort of a Southern Italian dialect.

this is much closer to Italian than to Gaelic.

You're both in the right direction, but not quite.

[Ares Land]

I'm going out on a limb here, but is there any relationship with Etruscan? (the consonant clusters and f's and v's are suggestive)

[Qwynegold]

I'm going out on a limb here, but is there any relationship with Etruscan? (the consonant clusters and f's and v's are suggestive)

Nope, now it's getting colder.

Oh, and we can call this language Hinia unimisog for now.

[Nortaneous]

A relative of Greek? (But then where's <g> from, seeing as how there's no <b d>?)

[bradrn]

Oh, and we can call this language Hinia unimisog for now.

Is this name meaningful in terms of identifying the language, or did you just choose it at random?

[Ares Land]

Hm. I tried figuring out the proper names (Giuhghiciniaór, Roú, Vurniunighio) but to no avail. Maybe there's some kind of inflection and agreement going on: ur unifi Giuhghiciniaór, niar gianifarniaór [...] nugacaór, omarraór
Goni and giu are quite common...

Besides, that, there's not much I can tell. Could we have the text you've translated? (I've tried a few common ones, but I wasn't convinced).

[Salmoneus]

It certainly looks Romance - Italian or Spanish. But of course that might just be because you're emulating romance, rather than because it is.

[Moose-tache]

"A sketch of a silly idea" suggests that this is not a finished conlang with inflectional paradigms and fully-fleshed out syntax. So I think we're barking up the wrong tree trying to parse these lines as sentences in a Romance conlang. My guess is that the text was generated by applying some cipher to an existing language, Romance or otherwise.

[missals]

It's a modern-day descendant of a non-Latin Italic variety (such as Oscan or Umbrian) written with an Italian-influenced orthography, and likely with a hefty amount of phonological, lexical, and morphosyntactic influence from Latin and its Italo-Romance descendants.

[Qwynegold]

A relative of Greek? (But then where's <g> from, seeing as how there's no <b d>?)

Actually there is D. In the word durrini in the first sentence.

[Qwynegold]

It certainly looks Romance - Italian or Spanish. But of course that might just be because you're emulating romance, rather than because it is.

Yes.

"A sketch of a silly idea" suggests that this is not a finished conlang with inflectional paradigms and fully-fleshed out syntax. So I think we're barking up the wrong tree trying to parse these lines as sentences in a Romance conlang. My guess is that the text was generated by applying some cipher to an existing language, Romance or otherwise.

Lol, sorry yes. Can you crack it?

[Moose-tache]

What's really throwing me is "a" both before and after commas.

[äreo]

Just popping in to say I'd love to see more of this. I started working on a medieval descendant of Etruscan some time last year, but the extent corpus of attested Etruscan is pretty scant considering how much literature was once written in it. I had to make inferences and borrow from Latin to fill in the gaps. Might still be worth picking up again.

Can we at least get a rough gloss of this text, or a translation?

[Qwynegold]

It's actually a cypher. So I'm wondering if anyone can crack it. I'll give a few hints:

More: show

ci = /tʃ(i)/
gi = /j(i)/
ni = /ɲ(i)/

[bradrn]

It's actually a cypher. So I'm wondering if anyone can crack it. I'll give a few hints:

More: show

ci = /tʃ(i)/
gi = /j(i)/
ni = /ɲ(i)/

When you say

More: show

‘gi = /j(i)/’,

are you sure you mean /j(i)/? /d͡ʒ(i)/ sounds more appropriate for that, so I’m wondering if that was intentional or just a typo.

(Also, are you using the term ‘cipher’ in a formal, cryptographic sense, or are you using it more loosely to encompass any type of encryption?)

[Qwynegold]

Yeah, it's really /j(i)/. And it's a cypher in the sense of letter substitution.

[Ares Land]

Ok, I Got it. Well, sort of.

More: show

It's a cipher of Spanish, rendered phonemically, and I can't speak Spanish so I can't be sure that my rules are valid.

My process

More: show

I started by applying s/gi/j/_, s/ci/c/_, s/ni/y/_. If it's a cypher the symboles are meaningless anyway.

I run the results through https://www.quipqiup.com/ which chokes on it, but at one point did produce something that looked like 'los senes umannos". OK, I cheated Hey, the text did look a whole lot like the Declaration of Human Rights !

So I'm pretty sure this part should be: todos los...

foioni goni niuciuni epirroni riniuni gavciuni u aleiguni ur gialragii a giuciuroni
>
So f=t
ni=ɲ=s
g=l

Using capitals for letters/phonemes (I'm not sure which you use at this point), I get:
ToioS LoS SucuS epirroS riSuS LavcuS u aleiLuS ur jalraji a jucuroS

so, i is a but also d... Hm. Definitely we're talking phonemes not letters. So i is j intervocally and j > d

ToDoS LoS SucuS epirroS riSuS LavcuS u aleiLuS ur DalraDi a DucuroS
That looks like todos los umanos, etc. etc.
So let's try:
rr>n
r > n
tʃ > r
u <> e
i <> a

TODOS LOS SERES UMANOS NASES LIvRES E IlUALES EN DIlNIDA I DERENOS

foioni goni niuciuni epirroni riniuni gavciuni u aleiguni ur gialragii a giuciuroni
TODOS LOS SERES UMANOS NASES LIvRES E IGUALES EN DIGNIDA I DERENOS
Not-quite-spanish.
I'm still bothered by NASES, DIGNIDA and DERENOS, but let's try the rest with these rules.

With a few tweaks to these rules, and assuming o is o, and v is v/b, I get something like

TODOS LOS SERES UMANOS NASES LIBRES E IGUALES EN DIGNIDA I DERENOS I, DOTADOS COMO ESTAN DE RASON I CONSIENSIA, DEBEN COMORTARSE FERTERNALMENTE LOS UNOS CON LOS OTROS.
Todos los seres humanos nacen libres e iguales en dignidad y derechos y, dotados como están de razón y conciencia, deben comportarse fraternalmente los unos con los otros.
TODA ERSONA TIENE LOS DERENOS I LIBERTADES ROCLAMADOS EN ESTA DECLARASION, SIN DISTINSION ALGUNA DE RAS, COLOR, SECSO, IDIOMA, RELIRION, OINION OLITICA O DE CUALIER OTR INDOLE, ORIREN NASIONAL O SOSIAL, OSISION ECONOMICA, NASIMIENTO O CUALIER OTR CONDISION.
Ah, got it. single r intervocally = tʃ

Tweaking a little, that is having ci > tʃi before a vowel and so forth, I get...
TODOS LOS SERES UMANOS NASES LIBRES E IGUALES EN DIGNIDA I DERECHOS I, DOTADOS COMO ESATAN DE RASON I CONSIENSIA, DEBEN COMPORTARSE FERATERNALMENTE LOS UNOS CON LOS OTROS.
TODA PERSONA TIENE LOS DERECHOS I LIBERTADES PEROCLAMADOS EN ESATA DECLARASION, SIN DISATINSION ALGUNA DE RAS, COLOR, SECSO, IDIOMA, RELIRION, OPINION POLITICA O DE CUALIER OTRA INDOLE, ORIREN NASIONAL O SOSIAL, POSISION ECONOMICA, NASIMIENTO O CUALIER OTRA CONDISION.
Ok. So some 'u's were there to break up consonant clusters, and I think I don't quite have the correct rule for ci, gi, ni, but close enough!

Still bothered by CUALIER, RELIRON, ORIREN...
Oh, got it. I had used c as a symbol but it was already used in the text. Just a bug then.
So c > j, and cualier was a bug likewise. (h=/k/, by the way).

I'm still bothered by nases. Ah well. I'll ive with that.
I used the SCA by the way, not quite the correct tool, but I know it well enough to do that kind of thing, and I can post my list of rules if you like.

The text:

More: show

Something something giant stork drink eight cups of soemthing and fifteen somethings of something in a taxi?

la sigueña jigante bebio ocho kopas de bisaki mas kinse jasas ienas de ferias serbesa rubia i ensegida uio en un taksi
todos los seres umanos nases libres e iguales en dignida i derechos i dotados komo esatan de rason i konsiensia deben komportarse feraternalmente los unos kon los otros

benjamin pidio una bebida de kibi i feres; noe sin berguensa la mas esakisita nampaña del mena el pinguino bensesalao iso kilometros bajo eksusatiba iubia i ferio; añoraba a su kerido kachoro
la sigueña jigante bebio ocho copas de bisaci, mas cinse jaras ienas de ferias serbes rubia, i ensegida uio en un tacsi.
Declaration of human rights:
toda persona tiene los derechos i libertades peroklamados en esata deklajasion sin disatinsion alguna de sasa kolor sekso idioma relijion opinion politika o de kualkier otra indole orijen nasional o sosial posision ekonomika nasimiento o kualkier otra kondision.

Benjamin asked for something and Noah without shame something something penguin kilometer?
benjamin pidio una bebida de kibi i feres; noe sin berguensa la mas esakisita nampaña del menu el pinguino bensesalao iso kilometros bajo eksusatiba iubia i ferio; añoraba a su kerido kachoro

I can't get really good results with Google Translate on the first and last parts, so my rules are probably still buggy. I'm pretty sure bensesalao=Venceslao, for instance.

Oh, and

More: show

Hinia unimisog = Quasi español