So I’ve been conlanging again instead of writing. I have some plot ideas, but I haven’t really worked them out and I’m not 100% happy with the last chapter end. So I’m doing some thinking away from just words and just in the world at large.

I am much slower coming up with new stuff then I am editing and reapproving old pieces of text.

So one of the things I do to get into the heads of my characters is try to think and talk like they do. Since this is a second world (that is, one that I’ve entirely made up) they don’t speak English, they speak in their own language – Hadysh (in English) or “ɹ̝̠̊ɔməkal” in their own language.

To help with that mouthful it would be like (HRAW-muh-kahl) and one would speak “vit ɹ̝̠̊ɔməkal” or “vi ʌt ɹ̝̠̊ɔməkal” (“in Hadysh”). I should point out, “vit” and “ʌt” cause softening to the following word, but the phoneme “ɹ̝̠̊” cannot be softened. For example if you wanted to say “in language” as in the medium you are using is language you’d say: “vit çalag” from “vit” (by means of) and “kalag” (language). “Vit” itself is a contraction of “vi” and “ʌt” essentially meaning “in the composition of” and the “kal” at the end of “ɹ̝̠̊ɔməkal” is a shortened form of “kalag.”

So here are some sentences that I’ve worked on. Remember that all of this is in “perfect” speech. Someone speaking this would be considered robotic or speaking the language well, but lacking any regional dialect or native slurring/morphing of specific sounds.

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We walk to the lake in the forest.

ʃɔnəma ɪ m^jθiɹd vi mɑgət.

SHAW-num-mah ih m^yih-THEERD vee MA-gut 

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Tomorrow we’re going to hunt in a forest.

xwændalə θ^ɪbʊfað vi nɑgət

CH^†WAHN-dahl-uh th^ih-BUHF-ahth vee NA-gut (^† like in “Loch Ness”)

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Certain speakers depending on dialect would change these to more regional.

One aspect compared to English is the compression of the future tense “are going to hunt” to just “hunt” except in the future-tense.

This also highlights the difference between the inclusive and exclusive we. In the first sentence it is inclusive (meaning speaker and listener). The second is exclusive (meaning speaker and not listener). In English we use context, but it can lead to confusion. For example, “We are headed to the lake!” Inclusively I could be telling everyone in the car where I am driving them. Exclusively I could be telling a friend my plans for a date with Brigid (which he is not a part of).

I’ve also worked a bit on more of the mutations, adding and subtracting. The newest addition is the “strange” mutations, which occur in creating compound words. So that adds the third – and likely last – tier of mutations (softening, hardening, and strange).

There is only one good example so far, those who have had a chance to read my drafts so far will understand a bit more context but here is how one little bit works.

The word “to hunt” is “bʊf” and to make it a doer of the verb (-er in English) it’d become “bʊvəd” after you apply the hardening of “f” to “v”.

A specific group of people in my story are the hunterfolk, the word for “folk” or “people” is “tsiað.”

Generally word order in descriptions is backwards of English, so “hunterfolk” would be “folkhunter” so “tsiaðbʊvəd.”

But both “ð” and “b” are voiced and it can be sort of a pain to try to pronounce them both without also inserting a stop. So something has to give. Strange mutation dictates that “voiced+voiced” yields “voiced+m” so it becomes “tsiaðmʊfəd.”

It can get more complicated like how “tsiað” is the plural of “person” (so literally “persons” or “people”) but you cannot pluralize “tsiaðmʊfəd” because it is a collective noun.

So the tsiaðmʊvəd of ædʌɹɔməç are ɹ̝̠̊ɔməçi and speak ɹ̝̠̊ɔməkal among the tsiaðɹ̝̠̊ɔməç.

Simple, right? Sláinte, everyone.