The languages of Atla

[WeepingElf]

Hallo conlangers!

This post is about which languages (in addition to those of the real world) there are in Atla, my own version of the real world in which my "Elves" and my main conlangs exist. The "Elves" are at the core of Atla (the name Atla is from Old Albic and just means 'world'), and the following languages definitely belong there:

1. Hesperic - the language of the Bell Beaker culture and its descendants, including the Albic languages of the "Elves". This is an early divergent branch of Indo-European, even more archaic than Anatolian, and the most advanced of my projects.

2. Razaric - the languages of Neolithic Britain and their descendants, the languages of the "Dwarves". There are a few Razaric loanwords in Albic, and a number of Albic loanwords in Razaric. The Razaric languages show some signs of being related in some way to Basque, though no sound correspondences can be established. So far, Proto-Razaric is under construction.

3. Krelian - the languages of Neolithic Central Europe (Linear Pottery culture) and descendants. Possibly related to Kartvelian; contributed some loanwords to Hesperic. This language family is hardly worked out yet, though some ideas about its phonology and morphology already exist.

4. Two "ordinary" IE languages spoken by immigrants into the Commonwealth of the Elves: Gellich and Belgich. Gellich is an early form of Gaulish (maybe still "Q-Celtic", if the Q>P shift is a shibboleth of the La Tène culture), while Belgich is Ancient Belgian, a "Para-Celtic" IE language from the area around the Rhine delta. Not worked out yet.

But what else? There are a few other low-priority projects of mine which could be part of Atla, though they are not really connected to the legendarium about my "Elves". And none of them I have developed far yet.

First, there are some "experimental IE languages".

One of these is what is currently called "Camonic", after the town of Chamonix near Mont Blanc in the French Alps, but as I am not yet sure where exactly to put it (though it will be somewhere in the western Alps, I think), the final name is uncertain. This is a Continental Celtic language which doesn't show the hallmarks of the Insular Celtic languages, i.e., no VSO word order, no initial mutations etc. Instead, a pretty SAE language with SVO word order and a lenition rule more like those of western Romance languages (i.e., not working across word boundaries). This language has nothing to do with the "Elves", but is a reply on Deiniol Jones's Arvorec, which, while masterfully crafted, looks like an Insular Celtic language despite purporting to be a Continental one.

There are a few other ideas I have. One is a Romance language of southwestern Germany, intermediate between Lorrain French and Rhaeto-Romance, thus to Germanech what Britainese is to Brithenig. Another is a language in which the laryngeals are preserved as voiceless fricatives, and the breathy-voiced stops have become voiced fricatives, thus resulting in a neat 2x2 matrix of stop and fricative manners of articulation. Alas, I don't know where to put it in the IE family tree. Further ideas are an IE language related to Tocharian, which has developed into a Chinese-like isolating, monosyllabic and tonal language, with tone ablaut as a derivational mechanism, an Anatolian language of the Balkans which may or may not have turned the "thorn" clusters into clicks, and "Colchidic Greek", a Hellenic language of Georgia, in which the voiceless unaspirated stops have become ejectives, and which is written in the Greek alphabet augmented with some Georgian letters. All these ideas are unconnected to the "Elves", and none of them has been developed in any detail yet.

Finally, I don't know whether I shall keep or scrap the Seiquian and Qwaric mini-families, both of which are barely developed beyond phoneme inventories of their proto-languages, which emerged from musing about substrata responsible for the aberrancy, from a Mitian standpoint, of Indo-European. I now feel more like scrapping them, though I like the phoneme inventories.

None of these side projects clash with the basic premise of Atla, so they could exist there as well, but on the other hand, they have nothing to do with it, either, so it is perhaps better to keep them unconnected and just say that they exist in "a version of the real world". Like different realistic novels by the same author which do not share any characters and don't form part of a series, not necessarily play in the same fictional setting. Of course, I could contrive stories which link all these to the legendarium of Atla (and be it that they are briefly mentioned in Der Leinenkodex, the novel I shall start writing soon,
set in the present of Atla, about a librarian exploring the origin and language of a mysterious codex written in Old Albic), but why should I? Wouldn't that be a bag on the side of it?

And of course, the non-naturalistic Quetch project has nothing to do with Atla! I could come up with a cover story about a modern "Elf" coming up with that scheme, but that would be utterly bogus. Quetch is not a fictional language, it is an experiment.

What do you think of all of this?

[Pabappa]

I would love to see more about the IE language with the laryngeals.... even just a phonology and a list of sound changes.

I really am not one of the best among us in terms of reading other people's work, unless I see something very particular. Often, what appeals to me most is an idea that I myself had tried to pursue at one point and gave up. In this case, you remind me of my brief attempt to come up with an IE language .... I gave up very quickly as I realized how much work was involved in reconstructing PIE roots. It was what made me realize that creating an a priori language is much easier than creating an a posteriori one, at least if it has to evolve.

Oh, and having seen this, I promise I will rename my Atla language to something else as soon as I can find a name I'll stick with. I feel like Im intruding on someone else's work whenever I have a name that's in use for something else, even when it's clear that there is no connection between the two. Atla is not even an internal name, so I have no reason for using it other than habit ... I came up with that name over twenty years ago and old habits die hard.

[Ares Land]

Is there an introduction to the whole premise of Alba? I'd be glad to read it!

I kind of have made peace with being distracted with side projects, myself. I have sort of a main conworld, but the whole thing's a hobby after all, and if I want to try my hand at alternate history instead, so be it (plus, I learned a lot doing these). Some side projects ended up in the same conworld when it was interesting; others just remain unrelated to it.

But if you do intend to have a language or a culture sort of 'finished' (well, as finished as it can be), I'd suggest you don't take any advice from me

[WeepingElf]

An introduction to the Elves is found here; a more general introduction to Atla here; both texts are, as all my jottings on FrathWiki, work in progress. I am currently in a stage of delineating what is part of Atla and what not (hence my post), so things may change at any time.

[Ares Land]

An introduction to the Elves is found here; a more general introduction to Atla here; both texts are, as all my jottings on FrathWiki, work in progress. I am currently in a stage of delineating what is part of Atla and what not (hence my post), so things may change at any time.

Oh, nice. I quite like the Rosicrucian Christianity idea. (I think every corner of the world must have its version of the legend; myself I heard Jesus Christ landed near Narbonne) Is there any connection with real life Rosicrucians?
I'm quite taken with the idea of a secret elvish society.

[WeepingElf]

An introduction to the Elves is found here; a more general introduction to Atla here; both texts are, as all my jottings on FrathWiki, work in progress. I am currently in a stage of delineating what is part of Atla and what not (hence my post), so things may change at any time.

Oh, nice. I quite like the Rosicrucian Christianity idea. (I think every corner of the world must have its version of the legend; myself I heard Jesus Christ landed near Narbonne) Is there any connection with real life Rosicrucians?
I'm quite taken with the idea of a secret elvish society.

The connection with real-life Rosicrucians is that the Rosicrucian manifestos are a mutant offshoot of Rosicrucian Christianity, which were interpreted differently by the various groups who claim to stand in their tradition.

[WeepingElf]

I have just created a new framework for the languages unconnected to the legendarium of the Elves. So they are no longer part of Atla.

[Man in Space]

How is Atla doing nowadays? It looks like (on Frath, anyway) the elves have returned?

[Rounin Ryuuji]

Hallo conlangers!

Hi.

This post is about which languages (in addition to those of the real world) there are in Atla, my own version of the real world in which my "Elves" and my main conlangs exist. The "Elves" are at the core of Atla (the name Atla is from Old Albic and just means 'world'), and the following languages definitely belong there:

So no "magic" or supernatural elements, then?

1. Hesperic - the language of the Bell Beaker culture and its descendants, including the Albic languages of the "Elves". This is an early divergent branch of Indo-European, even more archaic than Anatolian, and the most advanced of my projects.

2. Razaric - the languages of Neolithic Britain and their descendants, the languages of the "Dwarves". There are a few Razaric loanwords in Albic, and a number of Albic loanwords in Razaric. The Razaric languages show some signs of being related in some way to Basque, though no sound correspondences can be established. So far, Proto-Razaric is under construction.

3. Krelian - the languages of Neolithic Central Europe (Linear Pottery culture) and descendants. Possibly related to Kartvelian; contributed some loanwords to Hesperic. This language family is hardly worked out yet, though some ideas about its phonology and morphology already exist.

Breaking the quote here to ponder whether or not this is a Xenogears reference. Anyway...

4. Two "ordinary" IE languages spoken by immigrants into the Commonwealth of the Elves: Gellich and Belgich. Gellich is an early form of Gaulish (maybe still "Q-Celtic", if the Q>P shift is a shibboleth of the La Tène culture), while Belgich is Ancient Belgian, a "Para-Celtic" IE language from the area around the Rhine delta. Not worked out yet.

But what else? There are a few other low-priority projects of mine which could be part of Atla, though they are not really connected to the legendarium about my "Elves". And none of them I have developed far yet.

You have my attention.

First, there are some "experimental IE languages".

One of these is what is currently called "Camonic", after the town of Chamonix near Mont Blanc in the French Alps, but as I am not yet sure where exactly to put it (though it will be somewhere in the western Alps, I think), the final name is uncertain. This is a Continental Celtic language which doesn't show the hallmarks of the Insular Celtic languages, i.e., no VSO word order, no initial mutations etc. Instead, a pretty SAE language with SVO word order and a lenition rule more like those of western Romance languages (i.e., not working across word boundaries). This language has nothing to do with the "Elves", but is a reply on Deiniol Jones's Arvorec, which, while masterfully crafted, looks like an Insular Celtic language despite purporting to be a Continental one.

There are a few other ideas I have. One is a Romance language of southwestern Germany, intermediate between Lorrain French and Rhaeto-Romance, thus to Germanech what Britainese is to Brithenig. Another is a language in which the laryngeals are preserved as voiceless fricatives, and the breathy-voiced stops have become voiced fricatives, thus resulting in a neat 2x2 matrix of stop and fricative manners of articulation. Alas, I don't know where to put it in the IE family tree.

As its own little branch, perhaps?

...and be it that they are briefly mentioned in Der Leinenkodex, the novel I shall start writing soon,set in the present of Atla, about a librarian exploring the origin and language of a mysterious codex written in Old Albic), but why should I? Wouldn't that be a bag on the side of it?
...

Novels are wonderful things.

What do you think of all of this?

To answer very literally (touching on what I've omitted in the rest), I'm not really fond of things like monosyllabic tonal languages (Irony, eh?) and click consonants, but if they make you happy having them, then go for it.

[WeepingElf]

Indeed, there is no magic and no supernatural elements. And no Xenogears reference (I don't even have the faintest idea what Xenogears is!).

[Rounin Ryuuji]

And no Xenogears reference (I don't even have the faintest idea what Xenogears is!).

And extremely odd video game from the late 90's.

[WeepingElf]

How is Atla doing nowadays? It looks like (on Frath, anyway) the elves have returned?

Not the Elves ceased to be part of Atla; it was the languages unconnected to the legendarium of the Elves. Pronouns can be so misleading The Elves are and always have been the central piece of Atla - after all, the name Atla is from their language!

As for your question how Atla is doing nowadays, it is currently dormant. I have plans to rework Old Albic as something more closely related to known IE languages, especially Hittite; but I currently do not actually work much on it, since I am more occupied with other matters.