Aquarian
Aquarian (an sheeb weskoyrish, pronounced [æn ʃib wɛs'kɔjrɪʃ] in Aquarian) is an ongoing and developing artlang project first created by Owen Fish in early 2012. After various proto-forms, Aquarian is starting to develop into a usable language for conworld and conculture use. The premise of Aquarian is that it is the main language spoken in the Kingdom of Aquaria (Weskoyrick [wɛsk'hɔjrɪk]) an as-yet undiscovered country.
Orthography
Aquarian is written using the unmodified Latin (English) alphabet without diacritics or variations. This was done to facilitate the language's use for online typing, Twitter, instant messaging and compatibility within all English-language system fonts.
Phonology
Aquarian is designed to be spoken as if it were English; in other words, you would read Aquarian as you would standard English.
Vocabulary and Etymology
The vocabulary and grammar of Aquarian is heavily influenced by the Celtic languages (Cornish, Welsh, Manx, Gaelic) but also by regional English dialects and slang, Yucatan Mayan, Turkish, Japanese and probably a dozen other languages. Being an artlang foremost, a degree of aesthetics and a sing-song cadence to the language was more important than the evidence of development through parent languages etc.
Example Phrases
- Nee chyon qui chintas, araany yas. [ni tʃjon kwi tʃɪn'tæs, ə'rɑnni jæs]
- Not all that glitters is gold.
- Yas an Chey Howell da! [jæs æn tʃe hawl dɑ]
- There is The White House!
- Vas ee a h-iracky heck an blywnes ugle. [væs i ə hɪræki hɛk æn bljunɛz ugəl]
- She was just reading the old books.
- Chy a h-affy allen Londra, gava? [tʃi ə hæfi ælən lɒndrə, gɑvə]
- We come from London, and you?
- Cha s'a h-affy, besh cha g'a dicky? [tʃɑ sæ hæfi, bɛʃ tʃɑ gɛ dɪki]
- Were I to go, what would I see?
- Chey meen, chey voon yas! [tʃe min, tʃe vun jæs]
- My house, is your house!
- Cas gally yoon yas a h-iracky how, onged surrys! [kæs gæli jun jæs ə hɪræki haw, ɒŋgæd səris]
- If you can read this, well done!
