Vingdagese

Vingdagese Vưng-Ḍác Tǫ
Pronounced:	Native: /vɪŋ.ɗaːg tõ/ Anglicized: /vɪŋ.dəg.iːz/
Timeline and Universe:	Alternate Earth
Species:	Human
Spoken:	Carnassus
Writing system:	"Logography"
Genealogy:	Language Isolate
Typology
Morphological type:	Isolating
Morphosyntactic alignment:	Direct Inverse
Basic word order:	SVO; Head-Initial
Credits
Creator:	Thrice Xandvii | ✎
Created:	September 2017

Phonology

Vưng-Ḍác Tǫ ( File:VDT-tox.png) has 14 distinct consonants in its inventory (with a bit of allophony) and has 14 vowels as well. The vowel space is divided into 4 groups, namely: the a-group, i-group, o-group and the pair of diphthongs. This gives Vưng Ḍác Tǫ a rather large range of possible syllables despite the fact that clusters are limited and most words are only one syllable in length with a smattering of two syllable compounds.

Consonants

	Labial	Coronal	Dorsal	Laryngeal
Nasal	m [m]	n [n]	ng [ŋ]
Plosive	p [p ~ b]	t [t ~ d]	c / q [k ~ g ~ q]	Ø / ʼ [ʔ]
Implosive	ḅ [ɓ]	ḍ [ɗ]	ġ [ɠ]
Fricative	v [β ~ v]	z / d(h) [z ~ ð]	j [ʝ]
Rhotic		r [ɾ ~ r]

Vowels

	Plain	Lax	Long	Nasal	Diphthong
A-Group	a [a]	e [ɛ]	á [aː]	ą [ã]	ay [ɑɪ̯]
I-Group	i [i]	ư [ɪ]	é [eː]	į [ĩ]
O-Group	o [o]	ơ [ɔ]	ú [uː]	ǫ [õ]	oy [ɔɪ̯ ~ oɪ̯]

Phonotactics

The general description of the syllable unit in Vưng-Ḍác Tǫ is the following: (C)(F,R)V(P,N). There are, of course, some provisos that go along with that generic description. Many of the constraints and other changes to that basic structure are described in the following section on allophony.

Allophony

Some general allophonic rules (as well as mentions of orhography in the romanization):

• If /k/ appears in a syllable before a vowel belonging to the o-group, it becomes /q/ (and is written as such).
• If /z/ is the initial consonant in a cluster it becomes /ð/.
• Neither nasal nor implosive consonants can form clusters.
  • The exception being if the nasal forms the second element of the cluster and is homorganic with the previous consonant. (In these cases the stop is written and pronounced with it's voiced counterpart.)
• The tz cluster is pronounced [ʦ] unless followed by /i/ where it is instead pronounced [ʧi].
• The o-group's diphthong's two realizations are in free variation and depend on the speaker.
• Whenever an implosive appears second in a two-syllable compound, it laxes the vowel in the first position of the compound (i.e. the language name), if it is plain.
• When initial, the rhotic is trilled, when it appears in consonant clusters it is tapped.
• If a vowel would begin a syllable, it instead begins with /ʔ/, which is unwritten.
• If a glottal stop begins the second syllable in a two syllable compound, the consonant is written as an apostrophe.
• If a glottal stop ends a syllable, it becomes /q/.
• Stops that appear in the coda of a syllable are voiced, however the spelling isn't changed.

Grammar

Insert a description of the language and its grammar as it develops in this space.

Examples Here.

Script & Characters

Each character written in Vưng-Ḍác Tǫ consists of two components. The first element is the Logogram and it serves to differentiate characters that mean different things, refer to different parts of speech or to give a clue to the meaning of the word. Here, logogram is used loosely and simply felt like a good word to describe the purpose of that portion of a character. A complete list of the possible logograms used in Vưng-Ḍác Tǫ is not feasible as there isn't a discreet number of them, and they have the most variation among them. Also, some of the logograms are indeed identical in appearance (if not function) to the second part of Vingdagese written characters. The second in each is a Phonogram. Phonograms do belong to a finite group, that describe a portion of the basic syllables possible in Vingdagese. Keep in mind that phonograms represent an older, simpler, version of the possible compliments of syllables. They do not include any consonant clusters, final consonants, non-cardinal vowels or diphthongs. All of that phonological information is conveyed in the combination of the Phonogram and Logogram portions toghether. Phonograms alone are not sufficient for proper pronunciation.

Phonograms

The primary function of phonograms in the written language of Vingdagese is to establish a general range of possible ways in which the character could be pronounced. At one time, the language was a syllabary and was written exclusively with these phogograms (though some of them have changed form since then). However, a vast array of homophones and ambiguity began to exist in the written language... especially as the spoken language changed to add more variety in the ways that syllables were constructed. As such, additional components were added to lower ambiguity in the usage of characters. From that point on, there were two parts to each character, and the relationship between written phonogram and spoken syllable have greatly diverged. This has primarily occurred with respect to the exact vowel used, initial clusters and in coda consonants. Now, though, it does serve as a useful tool to organize characters alphabetize and also to roughly group similar sounding characters together.

	Cardinal Consonant
Vowel	ʼ	M	N	Ng	P	T	C	Ḅ	Ḍ	G̣	V	Z	J	R
A	File:VDT-P-'a.png
I	File:VDT-P-'i.png
O	File:VDT-P-'o.png

Characters

The following table of characters is organized according to the cardinal vowel in each character's phonogram. From there, each is sorted into a row according to the number of additional strokes needed to write it beyond those that appear in the phonogram; in other words, the number of strokes in the "logogram" component of each character. If there are multiple characters that would be in the same cell, they are sorted "alaphabetically" by the primary consonant of their phonogram according to the order they are listed above.

	Vowel Group
Add'l Strokes	A		I		O
1	na
2			cem	File:VDT-tzii.png tzí
3	ayng	ḍác	rét		ngoy
4					File:VDT-tox.png tǫ	qú
5	pac		File:VDT-cvo'c.png cvơc
6			ving		moyc
7	dhrá
8
≥ 9

Lexicon

—For a partial list of words in Vưng-Ḍác Tǫ, see: Lexicon.

Commentary and discussion of words in the language will go here

Creator Comments

Vưng-Ḍác Tǫ is a language whose script is inspired by the real-world design of Tangut. This language is spoken by peoples living on the world of Carnassus. It too is believed to be an isolate, like the majority of the languages spoken on Carnassus.

This language began life with working with the Tangut script. Obviously, as this type of thing so often does, it inspired me to want to make a language to match. The obstacle, however, was how does one use such a complex stroke-heavy written script like Tangut in such a way that it begins to look unique, yet keeps the aesthetic? This is still a problem as the script and language develop, however it is not an insurmountable one. At present, I have ripped apart many Tangut characters into some base parts and components and have begun to stitch them back together again. Generally, this consists of the creation of two parts that are composed of chunks of the 3-part Tangut characters and then placed back together in such a way as to create a 2-part character. As is clear in the above chart, each character has a pretty distinct left- and right-half. As to what those will mean or how the script will ultimately function is still somewhat debatable. I am beginning to think that one aspect will have to do with the meaning in some way, while the other the sound, but this would take a great deal of coordination and logical organization of the constituent pieces. Maybe this will begin to develop as characters are chosen for disparate meanings and then later I can glue things together logically to make this system look more cohesive as it goes. Another key feature was the addition of some pieced together elements to make it look just a bit more "Chinese." One of the aspects of that aim is the "square" as well as the "hat" glyph form.