Sample sentences:
The jade disc is good.
LOTOTEETOE NO CHOCHO.
jade disc LOTOTEETOE be NO good CHOCHO.
My stool is upstairs because I put it there.
EE HA NO TOTO-DRA
TAN CKS MOTEE STI EE.
my EE stool HA be NO stairs-up TOTO-DRA
because TAN it CKS there MOTEE put STI i EE.
The bags are in my purse.
PO NO EE NEE S.
bags PO be NO my EE purse NEE in S.
bag PO
bags PO
( Plurals are not regularly marked. )
Pronunciation:
A as in bat
I as in bit
O as in pot
Writing system:
The opposite of actual Chinese writing systems, the semantogram comes first, then the phonograms.
Here are three ways to write "jade disc". Its written with one, two, and three semantograms. Here hui 回 is not a picture of a spiral but a picture of a stylized jade disc made square. This is done in fun.
( If a Classical Chinese character has a variant, its usually in its semantogram. But if there were variant ways of indicating a character's sounds, each would be different. Here I chose signs for phonograms which have something to do with "jade disc". This is a situation which actually occurs a lot and is worked into folk etymologies. Egyptian is a less sloppy writing system because its semantograms are more clearly marked. Chinese leaves it open-ended too much for my tastes.)
In some texts, "jade disc" will just be written with a single phonogram and nothing else. Modern translators have to rely on ancient glosses or modern guesses and context in such situations. This is part of what makes reading the footnotes so interesting.
"jade disc" A
- conlang 12 11 2018.jpg (5.02 KiB) Viewed 6310 times
- conlang 12 11 2018 B.jpg (6.01 KiB) Viewed 6310 times
- conlang 12 11 2018 C.jpg (6.47 KiB) Viewed 6310 times