Tinasan, Ineshîmé, and other fantasy-Japonic curiosities

[Rounin Ryuuji]

Oh god, that etymological spelling. It's hideous. I love it.

Thank you.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

Now I have finished the rough draught of a document detailing the orthography. It is, I think, rather intuitive internally, though a headache in hiragana little odd if you're already familiar with Japanese by which I mean it is, I hope, the total clusterfuck I promised, since some of the characters have rather different values (these are conditioned by historical sound changes, and by the internal circumstances surrounding their creation).

I would have invented entirely new kana, or used hentaigana, but both present too many technical issues to consider for the moment; it might be something to consider in the future — I have a distinct idea of the writing the Ineshîmé use being rather "cursive", but it has a more Western look to it, as if it were written with a fountain pen (and all the attendant curlicues and flourishes) rather than an inkbrush. I also picture it written horizontally, read top to bottom, and right to left; books printed in it would presumably do so also.

[Qwynegold]

Warning: Long ramble about what inspired me to make the language, [...] This may bore you, [...]

I don't mind this at all.

[Vardelm]

Warning: Long ramble about what inspired me to make the language, [...] This may bore you, [...]

I don't mind this at all.

Ditto. Seeing what inspirations led to a given conlang is usually pretty interesting.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

Something nice...

Also something nice...

I'm still working on this, too, but I haven't produced anything else worth releasing. It's really nice to see interest, though.

Any specific questions?

[Travis B.]

I don't have much to add, but I too find this interesting and look forward to seeing more on it.

[Vardelm]

Any specific questions?

Not specifically yet. Japonic langs, phonology, and writing are not my strong points, so I can't really add anything so far. I'm interested to see you get more into syntax and viewing the morphology in that context.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

Any specific questions?

Not specifically yet. Japonic langs, phonology, and writing are not my strong points, so I can't really add anything so far. I'm interested to see you get more into syntax and viewing the morphology in that context.

Getting the verbs through all the sound changes is my next objective. I'm still trying to chew some of what I've bitten off with them. The language goes through so many changes, it's a little overwhelming. The interest really does encourage me, though!

[Vardelm]

Getting the verbs through all the sound changes is my next objective. I'm still trying to chew some of what I've bitten off with them. The language goes through so many changes, it's a little overwhelming. The interest really does encourage me, though!

I hear ya & ditto!!!

[Rounin Ryuuji]

I'm starting to feel all fuzzy inside.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

I've managed to produce a somewhat more coherent document detailing how we got here phonologically; the result has been a language that's a bit of a cross between Classical Japanese and Japanese reimagined as some sort of European language. That wasn't entirely my intention to begin with, but I think it works quite well for the purpose, and does sound very nice, at least in theory. I should have an easier time developing the language morphologically now, at very least.

[Qwynegold]

This was not an alt-Earth language, or was it? So are you gonna use the kanji as is, or will you make up your own characters with a one-to-one correspondence?

[Qwynegold]

The definite forms tend to feel very Japanese, I think, while the Indefinite forms seem a bit more... Persian...? French? some sort of oddly soft Germanic?

I think almost everything sounds very Japanese, with a few words here and there looking like some vague kind of 外国語. So you've really managed to get that JRPG aesthetic. It's impressive that you've managed to get there through sound changes, because I find that you often overshoot it, or don't get the details quite right, when you try to do that.

[Qwynegold]

Cooking seems to be as mismashed as anything you might find in a developed country today (characters mention eating quiches, stir-fries, "stacktoast" — had to invent a new word for "sandwich on toast", "potatoes Kokori" ("French fries"), and some sort of tomato-based sauce all in the same region as if none of these things were particularly remarkable;

Well, you've got to have a lot of different recipes to make use of all the random ingredients monsters drop.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

This was not an alt-Earth language, or was it? So are you gonna use the kanji as is, or will you make up your own characters with a one-to-one correspondence?

The people speaking it could hypothetically descend from alternate humans, but there isn't any direct confirmation of this in the setting itself. I actually have ideas for actual characterforms the speakers would presumably use, but I haven't really any way of encoding them (I'm not a particularly good visual artist, but what I have in mind looks rather like a form of Kanji that evolved by being written in a cursive form with various Western tools of writing).

I think almost everything sounds very Japanese, with a few words here and there looking like some vague kind of 外国語. So you've really managed to get that JRPG aesthetic. It's impressive that you've managed to get there through sound changes, because I find that you often overshoot it, or don't get the details quite right, when you try to do that.

Aww, thank you.

Well, you've got to have a lot of different recipes to make use of all the random ingredients monsters drop.

Ehehehehe, though I haven't actually shown monsters to be a widespread problem in the world, or to drop ingredients.

[Qwynegold]

I actually have ideas for actual characterforms the speakers would presumably use, but I haven't really any way of encoding them

What do you mean by encoding? Are you talking about making a font?

[Rounin Ryuuji]

I actually have ideas for actual characterforms the speakers would presumably use, but I haven't really any way of encoding them

What do you mean by encoding? Are you talking about making a font?

Yes, I am. I know there are programs for it, but I don't have the graphic design skills for that.

[Qwynegold]

Aha. Well, it doesn't have to be technically difficult. You could probably just copy an existing Japanese font and then replace every glyph with a design of your own. Then you could use the existing IME to write it. But you need a good aesthetic.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

But you need a good aesthetic.

That's the trouble. I could design new characters by hand, but making them digitally...

[Vardelm]

That's the trouble. I could design new characters by hand, but making them digitally...

Believe it or not, the design is the hard part. Do that work by hand so that you can focus on the creative aspect and not worry about any technical considerations. Once you have something you like, look into how to digitize it. At that point, it's just a technical hurdle, and there are plenty of tutorials on how to do that type of thing as well as people who answer questions on various forums: probably even here. Separating the "design by hand" and the "digitiziation" into separate steps makes both a lot easier.