雨書：さっあ、俺の 凬書使れは 彼狼間書使れの 前ろう 蒼しい芽 在り、 ほっい！
凬書：「さっあ、いめの ていぜけどうれは せいらをまぜけどうれのかをろう さをしい めい あり ほっい！」
狼間書：
Sâ, Imyo no Tezeki-doreya se-Rômazeki-dore no kōro sôshi me ari, hoi!
音書：[s̪ɐ̞́ˑɐ̞̀ | íˑ.mᶣi̯ò̞ᵝ n̪ò̞ᵝ t̪è̞.z̪é̞ˑ.c͡çì̥ d̪ò̞ᵝ.ɾ̪é̞ˑ.jɐ̞̀ s̪è̞.ɾ̪ó̞͜ó̞ᵝ.mɐ̞̀.z̪é̞ˑ.c͡çì̥ d̪ò̞ᵝ.ɾ̪é̞ˑ n̪ò̞ᵝ kó̞͜ó̞ᵝ.ɾ̪ò̞ᵝ s̪ó̞͜ó̞ᵝ.ɕì̥ mé̞ˑ ɐ̞́,ɾ̪ʲì | xó̞ᵝˑì]
訓り書：AFFIRMATIVE-EXCLAMATION 1sg-CASUAL.GENITIVE wind-BOUND.write(=Hiragana) use-NOMINAL.DEFINITE DISTAL.wolf.interval.write(=Roman Alphabet) GENITIVE front.LOCATIVE pale-green.ADJECTIVE-ATTRIBUTIVE bud COPULA.PREDICATIVE EXCLAMATORY PARTICLE
"Indeed, my use of Hiragana pales (literally "is a pale green bud") in the face of that use of the Roman Alphabet!"
Which I have said before (it's really just a historical orthography that used to make sense but doesn't now), but this was a good time to try and work out how comparatives would function, at least between two things. I had considered calquing the Japanese use of の方が (no hō ga), but thought that was rather too obvious, but I rather like the idea of something standing in front of something else as a basis for it.
Some other notes:
- The forms 音書 (wotozeki), literally meaning "sound writing" and 訓り書 (wosorizeki), "instructional writing", are fairly transparent renderings of "phonetic alphabet" and "gloss";
- The pronoun 俺 (imyo) is more generic (and not characteristic of casual registers, as in Japanese) than the spelling would suggest, being in some degree in free variation with 朕 (ime, which is not self-aggrandising or reserved for imperial use) of which it is an etymological doublet; forms spelled 我れ (wore, now an impolite second-person pronoun) and 吾れ (ware, now obsolete except in the plural form) are historically attested;
- 吾れ (ware) was originally a back-formation from its possessive 吾が (waga) and plural 吾ら (wara), an otherwise regular shift of historical /wa/ > /wo/ being blocked by /a/ in a following syllable. It had numerous derivatives in archaic polite speech, among the most frequent was 吾方れ (wagata(re)) — 方 (-gata) was originally a pronominaliser on its own, but then was regularised with the ubiquitous suffix れ — having a contracted form 吾手(れ) (wata(re)), causing 手 (ta — "hand") to be abstracted out as a pronominaliser, and the development of 吾手方(れ) (watagata(re)); most modern speakers would recognise these, but not use them except facetiously
- The character 私 is used to write 私しい (wakashi), which means "private, personal" rather than "I, me";
- The particle ろう (ro), etymologically probably identical to the last element of Japanese 心 (kokoro) and 所 (tokoro), is most commonly used when giving a location of something in reference to something else that (1) can move; or (2) is a part of some larger object (as with kō — "front");
- Compare other particles: べい、べ (be or myo), meaning "in, at (a place, not a time)", connected with Japanese particle へ (e), "to"; に (ni), meaning "at (a time, not a place, though it appears in some fossilised expressions with other meanings, as 方に katani — "on the way to", as opposed to 方ろう kataro — "in the style of, after the manner of")" or "under the circumstances that, when".
- The lative particle is けい、け (ke, kyo, connected to 来ふ kyō — "to come");
- The っ ("small tsu") doesn't actually represent elision, but rather a sort of separator that looks more like a squiggle in the handwriting I picture the native speakers of the language using; it's mostly used in words like さっあ (saa) and ほっい (hoi) to indicate a marked disyllabic pronunciation without any of the interactions vowels tend to do if you juxtapose them directly;
- The language has rather a lot of exclamatory particles (I enjoy the flavour these can give to speech); at the end of the sentence, the "h-exclamatories" (hâ, haa, hê, hoi) can be question tags, or, if set apart a bit more, are closer to just space-fillers. I have an idea that they were originally more distinct in meaning than they are now, but haven't worked that out much yet.
