Aingeljã
Aingeljã (X-SAMPA: /ajNge"lja/, IPA: /aiŋge'lja/) is a conlang invented by Ángel Serrano, who started to work in it around 1992. Its all-in-Aingeljã Aingeljã grammar was published online for the first time in 2002, after which it received a warm interest from the conlang community, specially in the Conlang Mailing List and the Spanish-based Ideolengua group.
As a conlang it can be classified as follows:
- It is an artistic conlang (artlang), where the sounds, vocabulary and grammar rules have been chosen just because they look nice to the author. It has been created as a linguistic experiment about how it would be to make up a language.
- It is not intended to be learnt nor spoken by people different to the author, except perhaps for courtesy greetings and other simple messages by other conlangers. It has no associated conworld, nor does it appear in any fictional work. It is therefore a personal conlang.
- Its grammar and vocabulary have been modelled after existing natural languages (natlangs), in particular, some Romance languages. So it is an a posteriori conlang.
Introduction
Although Aingeljã has its own grammar rules, it is mainly related to Spanish, Aragonese and Catalan. These three languages belong to the western branch of Romance languages, the former two to the Ibero-Romance subgroup, and the latter to the Occitano-Romance subgroup. In particular:
- With Spanish, it shares many features such as its verbal system, many lexicon roots, etc. Similarly to Spanish, there are only five vowels, /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, /u/, plus a schwa sound /ə/ not present in Spanish (but in Catalan and other languages). However, the two Spanish verbs corresponding to "to be" (ser and estar) are present in Aingeljã as a unique verb esăre.
- With Catalan, it shares its tendency to apocopes and syllables ending in a consonant. Words beginning with l- are palatized before e, i and u (in Catalan before any vowel). Example: llop (Cat, Ain), lobo (Spa), "wolf". Singular words ending in -n have lost this letter both in Catalan and in Aingeljã, although this letter is present in plural and in feminine. Example: mà (Cat), mã (Ain), "hand", plural: manas; estació (Cat), stazõ (Ain), "station", plural: stazonas; bõ, bona, bõns, bonas (Ain), "good".
- With Aragonese, and unlike the other two, it shares its tendency to keep unvoiced stops between a pair of vowels (no lenition). Example: sapre (Ain), saper (Ara), saber (Spa, Cat), "to know".
Other Romance languages have a moderate influence in Aingeljã, such as:
- Galician and Portuguese, from whose definite articles o and a have been derived ou, a, meaning "the". The nasal accent (~) from Portuguese is used very frequently, although it has nothing to do with a nasalization of the vowel. It is a maker of the loss of an etymological nasal in the end of the word, which is recovered when followed by a vowel sound. In this case, both words are pronounced together. This process is similar to the liaison in French and is called "ligature" in Aingeljã grammar. Example: ego sum (Latin), jo sõ (no ligature in Ain), "I am"; jo sõn unatstatès (with ligature in Ain), "I am American".
- French and Italian, which have provided Aingeljã; with some vocabulary. Examples: cheville (Fre), caviglia (Ita), chavilla (Ain), "ankle"; chercher (Fre), cercare (Ita), cercre (Ain), "to look for". With French, it also shares the tendency to palatalize the sound /k/ before /a/ (although this process is partial and incomplete). For example, camminus (Lat), chemin (Fre), chamĩ (Ain), "path"; capillus (Lat), cheveau (Fre), capell (Ain), "hair".
- The only in influence taken from Romanian is the use of the breve accent (ă), which can only appear above the vowel a to represent the schwa sound /ə/. It is used in certain verb infinitives, the so-called weak verbs (see below).
Some little traces from Germanic languages such as English and German are present in the vocabulary as well. For example: "to work" (Eng), vircre (Ain); "child" (Eng), cjude (Ain); Vogel (Ger), focle (Ain), "bird"; Wolke (Ger), vouca (Ain); "weather" (Eng), Wetter (Ger), vedra (Ain).
Phonology
Aingeljã has 6 vocalic phonemes:
| Front | Central | Back | |||
| Close | i | u | |||
| Close-mid | e | o | |||
| ə | |||||
| Open-mid | |||||
| Open | a |
The 22 consonantic phonemes are summarized in the following table. When in pairs, the phoneme
on the right is voiced and the one on the left is voiceless.
| Bilabial | Labiodental | Dental | Alveolar | Postalveolar | Palatal | Velar | ||
| Plosive | p b | t d | k ɡ | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | |||||
| Fricative | f v | s z | ʃ | |||||
| Affricate | ʧ ʤ | |||||||
| Approximant | w | j | ||||||
| Lateral approximant | l | ʎ | ||||||
| Trill | r | |||||||
| Tap or Flap | ɾ |
Spelling
Aingeljã is written with a modified version of Latin script with 27 letters:
| A a | B b | C c | Ç ç | D d | E e | F f | G g | H h | |
| /a/ | /be/ | /ke/ | /ke sede'ʎa/ | /de/ | /e/ | /fe/ | /ge/ | /aʃ/ | |
| I i | J j | K k | L l | M m | N n | O o | P p | Q q | |
| /i/ | /jot/ | /ka/ | /le/ | /me/ | /ne/ | /o/ | /pe/ | /ku/ | |
| R r | S s | T t | U u | V v | W w | X x | Y y | Z z | |
| /re/ | /se/ | /te/ | /u/ | /ve/ | /ve 'doula/ | /eʃ/ | /i 'gɾeka/ | /zet/ |
The vowels can have several diacritics, accents or tildes (called tjudas in Aingeljã Grammar) that help the pronunciation. They are the following:
- Nasal accent (~), to mark a lost etymological nasal in the process of ligature. The syllable
with this tilde is always stressed (and this tilde overrides the use of other accents).
- Grave accent (`), the usual way to mark the stressed syllable.
- Accute accent (´), only used in several forms of the indefinite past tense of the verbal
conjugation to indicate the stressed syllable.
- Diaeresis (?¨), to break a diphthong into a hiatus.
- Breve accent (ă), to indicate the schwa sound.
The only allowed combinations of vowels and diacritics are:
ã ă à è é ĩ ì ï õ ò ũ ù ü
Some comments about specific spelling features that should be taken into consideration:
- The letter C is always pronounced /k/, even before front vowels E, I. It is considered a completely different letter to Ç, which is always pronounced /s/.
- The letters K and Y are kept for foreign words only.
- The letter X is always part of the digraph IX, which is always pronounced /ʃ/. This digraph can only appear in the middle or at the end of a word (never at initial position).
- The letter J always corresponds to the semiconsonantic phoneme /j/ and appears in
ascending or rising diphthongs (ja, je, jo, ju, jă), where the stressed vowel is the second part of the diphthong. However the semivowel sound /i/ is always written I and appears in descending or falling diphthongs (ai, ei, oi). In this case the stressed vowel is the first vowel of the diphthong.
- The letter W always corresponds to the semiconsonantic phoneme /w/ and appears in
ascending or rising diphthongs (wa, we, wi, wo, wă), where the stressed vowel is the second part of the diphthong. However the semivowel sound /u/ is always written U and appears in descending or falling diphthongs (au, eu, ou). In this case the stressed vowel is the first vowel of the diphthong.
Morphology
According to its Morphology, Aingeljã is a synthetic fusional language, as it makes use of morphemes to denote grammatical, syntactic, or semantic change.
The types of parts of speech in this conlang are the usual ones in Romance languages: nouns, adjectives, pronouns, determiners, verbs, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions and interjections.
Morphological rules
A word has a lexeme or stem, which carries the semantic information, followed by a set of morphemes called suffixes. In some occasions, a set of morphemes can appear before the lexeme. These are called prefixes. Less frequently, they can appear in the middle of the word before other suffixes. In this case, they are called infixes.
The morphological rules available in Aingeljã are: inflection and word formation.
Inflection
Inflection is the process of creation of variants of a single word, all of them with the same lexeme (and therefore meaning), in order to fulfil agreement rules: gender, number, verbal conjugation, etc. In particular:
Gender
Gender (masculine or feminine) is specific to nouns. Some nouns are masculine and others are feminine, so gender has to be learnt by heart. In both cases, adjectives complementing a noun has to agree with it in gender.
Some nouns and all adjectives have masculine and feminine variants. In this case, they will appear by default as masculine in an Aingeljã dictionary, as masculine gender is unmarked. The easiest way to produce the feminine version of a word is to add an -a to the masculine. In case the masculine ends in -e, this letter is removed before adding the -a. Example: cjude bõ (m), cjuda bona (f), "good boy", "good girl".
If the masculine ends in a vowel with a nasal accent, the feminine is formed by adding -na but loses the accent. Example: bõ (ms), bona (fs), "good".
Any word ending in -a is feminine, while masculine words can end in any other letter. Of course there are exceptions and particular cases to this rules. For example, a feminine word can end in a nasal vowel. Examples: mã (f), "hand"; nesonnazõ (f), "reverie".
Gender agreement is also present in determiners complementing a noun, including articles, and in pronouns (they agree with the noun they substitute). Personal pronouns have gender only in the third person of singular and in all persons in plural.
Number
Number (singular or plural) expresses the quantity of a noun (one or many, respectively). Adjectives complementing a noun also agree with it in number.
As a general rule, singular is unmarked, and that is how Aingeljã words appear in a dictionary by default. The easiest way to transform a word into plural is to add an -s to the singular. Example: cjude (ms), cjudes (mp), cjuda (fs), cjudas (fp), "boy", "boys", "girl", "girls". In some cases where the word ends in a specific letter, such as -ç, -f, -gg, -ix, -ll, -nn, -s, -z, the plural is made by adding -es instead of -s. Example: sonn (s), sonnes (p), "dream", "dreams".
A masculine word ending in a vowel with a nasal accent, adds -ns and keeps the accent. Example: chamĩ (ms), chamĩns (mp), "path", "paths". A feminine word ending in a vowel with a nasal accent, adds -nas and loses the accent. Example: mã (fs), manas (fp), "hand", "hands".
As with gender, number is also present in determiners accompanying a noun, in pronouns substituting a noun, and in personal (conjugated) forms of verbs.
In a nutshell, nouns, adjectives, pronouns, determiners, and verbs are variable words, and adverbs, prepositions, conjuntions and interjections are invariable words.
Verbal conjugation
See the verbs section below.
Word formation
Word formation is the process of creating a new word from another one. Unlike inflection, word formation generates a word completely different in meaning, but also the resulting word can be a different part of speech, or it can have a different gender or number. There are two ways for word formation: derivation and composition.
Derivation
Derivation is the process by which a new word is formed by adding prefixes, infixes or suffixes to the original word. Examples: cità (n), citatã (n), "city", "citizen"; trist (adj), tristiza (n), "sad", "sadness"; manggăre (v), manggata (n), "to eat", "meal"; cristau (n), cristawain (adj), "crystal", "crystalline"; gaubĩ (adj), gaubinèntic (adj), "yellow", "yellowish"; prowăre (v), prowail (adj), "to prove", "probable"; dezeix (n), dezeixăre (v), "wish", "to wish"; ouscur (adj), ouscureçre (v), "dark", "to darken"; tocre (v), tocatejăre (v), "to touch", "to fiddle".
Composition
Composition is the process of creating a new word by putting togetter two or more single words. Example: mal (adv), "wrong", razonator (adj), "someone who can reason", malrazonator (adj), "crazy"; wardre (v), "to keep away from", plugga (n), "rain", wardepluggas (n), "umbrella"; mins (adv), "less", prezăre (v), "to appreciate", minsprezăre (v), "to look down on somebody"; ràpid (adj), "quick", ment (n), "way, style", ràpidament (adv), "quickly"; qwĩ" (prn), "who", vollăre (v), "to want", qwĩvolle (prn), "whoever".
Nouns
Nouns can be masculine or feminine in gender, singular or plural in number.
Adjectives
Adjectives can be masculine or feminine in gender, singular or plural in number. They can appear before or after the noun they accompany, but always after other possible determiners, such as articles, possessive or demonstrative ones, among others. Adjectives always agree in gender and in number with the noun they accompany.
Determinate articles
| Singular | Plural | |
|---|---|---|
| Masculine | ou | ous |
| oul' | ||
| Feminine | a | as |
| al' |
Determinate articles are a type of determiners that are used mainly to constrain the extension of the noun they accompany to entities already known by the interlocutors. They correspond in English to "the".
- Ou and a are used before singular nouns that begin by a consonant other than h (this is a mute letter). They are already used before nouns beginning with the semiconsonants j or w. Examples: Ou llï?ur (m), "the book", a fama (f), "the woman", ou went (m), "the wind".
- Oul and al are used before singular nouns that begin by a vowel or by h. In this case, there is a word bonding, so that the last letter of a word (the article) is bonded when pronouncing to the first letter of the following word. This is represented by an apostrophe ( ' ). These words are also written without intermediate blank spaces. Examples: oul'ùnic (m), "the only one", al'aqwa (f), "the water".
- The articles ous (masculine) and as (feminine) are used for plural.
Indeterminate articles
| Singular | Plural | |
|---|---|---|
| Masculine | ũ | ũns |
| ũn' | ||
| Feminine | una | unas |
| un' |
Indeterminate articles are a type of determiners are used with the noun they accompany, to show that it represents an unknown entity for the interlocutors, which is mentioned for the first time in the conversation, or which is going to be described in a vague and indefinite way. They correspond to the English "a/an".
- Ũ and una are used before singular nouns beginning with a consonant, other than h. They are also used before nouns beginning with the semiconsonants j or w. Examples: ũ dïe (m), "a day", una pereixõ (f), "a person".
- Ũn' and un' are used with singular nouns beginning with a vowel or with h. In this case, there is a word bonding, so that the last letter of a word (the article) is bonded when pronouncing to the first letter of the following word. This is represented by an apostrophe ('). These words are also written without intermediate blank spaces. Examples: ũn'home (m), "a man", un'oreixa (f), "an ear".
- The articles ũns (masculine) and unas (feminine) are written for plural.
Possessive determiners and pronouns
Possessive words indicate who the owner of something is. The possessed thing is specified by the noun they accompany (if they are determiners) or the noun they substitute (if they are pronouns). They agree in gender and number with this noun, but as well, they agree in person and number with the owner/s.
They correspond in English to the determiners "my", "your" (singular), "his", "her", "its", "our", "your" (plural) and "their", as well as the pronouns "mine", "yours" (singular), "his", "hers", "its", "ours", "yours2 (plural) and "theirs".
| Masculine | Feminine | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | ||
| Singular | 1st Person | mou / moul' | mous | ma / mal' | mas |
| 2nd Person | tou / toul' | tous | ta / tal' | tas | |
| 3rd Person | sou / soul' | sous | sa/ sal' | sas | |
| Plural | 1st Person | nou / noul' | nous | na / nal' | nas |
| 2nd Person | vou / voul' | vous | va / val' | vas | |
| 3rd Person | sou / soul' | sous | sa / sal' | sas | |
The forms ending in -l' are used in the same way as oul', al', ũn' and un', this is, before words beginning with a vowel or h.
Personal pronouns
The personal pronouns indicate the grammatical persons. There are two types:
- Tonic, with full meaning and stress.
- Atonic, without full meaning, nor stress, so they cannot be used alone in a sentence.
Some atonic pronouns are used with the so-called pronominal verbs. These pronouns just give a special meaning to the verb (which usually presents both versions, a pronominal one and a non-pronominal one), usually a reflexive or reciprocal meaing.
| Tonic | Atonic | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Not pronominal | Pronominal | |||
| Singular | 1st Person | jo | mi | mi |
| 2nd Person | tu | ti | ti | |
| 3rd Person | ill illa se |
ou / oul' / ïu / si a / al' / ïa / si |
si | |
| Plural | 1st Person | nos | nus | nus |
| 2nd Person | vos | vus | vus | |
| 3rd Person | illes illas |
ous / ïus / si as / ïas / si |
si | |
Notes:
- The direct object pronouns for the 3rd person are: ou, oul', a, al', ous, as. They correspond in English to him, her, it, them.
- The indirect object pronouns for the 3rd person are: ïu, ïa, ïus, ïas. They also correspond in English to him, her, it, them.
- Impersonal sentences do not have a real subject. In practice you can use the pronoun se (=one), which compensates the lack of a subject. The corresponding verb is always conjugated in the third person of singular. Examples: se plugge (it is raining), se njeixe (it is snowing), s'eh fret (it is cold), s'eh caude (it is warm).
Preposition + article unions
Some prepositions followed by a determinate article are contracted into one single word. This is the case of ne (in) and de (of). In case they are followed by a word beginning by a vowel or h (included the indeterminate article), they suffer a bonding and become n' and d', respectively. Bear in mind that the preposition a (at/to) is never contracted with an article, and becomes ad when it is followed by a vowel or h.
| Preposition + article | With contraction | |
|---|---|---|
| ne + | + ou | = nou |
| + ous | = nous | |
| + a | = na | |
| + as | = nas | |
| de + | + ou | = dou |
| + ous | = dous | |
| + a | = da | |
| + as | = das | |
| Preposition + Article | With bonding | |
| ne + | + ũ | = n'ũ |
| + ũn' | = n'ũn' | |
| + ũns | = n'ũns | |
| + una | = n'una | |
| + un' | = n'un' | |
| + unas | = n'unas | |
| de + | + ũ | = d'ũ |
| + ũn' | = d'ũn' | |
| + ũns | = d'ũns | |
| + una | = d'una | |
| + un' | = d'un' | |
| + unas | = d'unas | |
| Preposition + Article | Without contraction nor bonding | |
| a + | + ou | = ad ou |
| + ous | = ad ous | |
| + a | = ad a | |
| + as | = ad as | |
| a + | + ũ | = ad ũ |
| + ũn' | = ad ũn' | |
| + ũns | = ad ũns | |
| + una | = ad una | |
| + un' | = ad un' | |
| + unas | = ad unas | |
Verbs
Verbs are much easier in Aingeljã than in other languages:
- All the verbs but two are regular.
- There is only one conjugation, as all the verbs have converged into the first Latin conjugation: -are > -re.
- There is no subjunctive mood.
The only irregular verbs are the auxiliary ones: esăre (to be), which is used in the passive voice, and hawăre (to have), which is used in the perfect tenses. These verbs are irregular only in present tense. In the remainder cases, they follow the regular rules.
All the infinitives end in -re, present participles in -ant, and past participles in -at.
Each conjugated form is created out of a lexeme plus some special endings or morphemes for each person. In general, it is not mandatory that the subject of the sentence always appears, as it can be identified by the verbal ending.
Verbal tenses:
There is only indicative mood with the following types of tenses:
- Simple, formed out of the lexeme of the verb plus personal endings. There are six simple tenses: present, imperfect past, undefined past, future, conditional and imperative.
- Compound, formed with hawăre + past participle (-at). There are five perfect tenses: perfect, pluperfect, undefined past perfect, future perfect and conditional perfect.
Types of verbs according to their lexeme:
There are three classes:
- Strong verbs, whose lexeme is obtained directly from the infinitive by removing the ending -re. The infinitive of these verbs is a paroxitone word, this is, the stressed syllable is the last but one. Example: chantre /"tSantre/ (to sing), whose lexeme is chant-. These verbs do not have 1st person ending in present tense: jo chant (I sing).
- Weak verbs, for which there is an intermediate -ă- (pronounced /@/), between the lexeme and the ending -re. The infinitive of these verbs is a proparoxitone word, this is, the stressed syllable is the last but two. Example: venăre /"ven@re/ (to come), whose lexeme is ven-. They have an extra -e in the first person singular in present tense: jo vene (I come). For the rest of the conjugation, it is the same as for strong verbs.
Examples of conjugation for normal verbs:
| Present tense of strong verb "chantre" | Present tense of weak verb "venăre" |
|---|---|
| Jo chant | Jo vene |
| Tu chantes | Tu venes |
| Ill/Illa chante | Ill/Illa vene |
| Nos chantèms | Nos venèms |
| Vos chantèts | Vos venèts |
| Illes/Illas chanten | Illes/Illas venen |
Examples of conjugation for auxiliary verbs:
| Present tense of verb "hawăre" | Present tense of verb "esăre" |
|---|---|
| J'heh | Jo swi |
| T'has | T'es |
| Ill/Illa hast | Ill/Illa eh |
| Nos hawèms | Nos soimes |
| Vos hawèts | Vos ets |
| Illes/Illas hen | Illes/Illas sen |
Syntax
To be done.
Some texts in Aingeljã
Our Father
Nou Pare, qwe ets nou cell,
qwe santificat eh vou nome,
qwe vene a nos vou reixĩ.
Qwe eh façata va voluntà,
tant na terra com nou cell.
Donat-nus hogge nou pã qwotiggãn
e pardonat nas ofensas,
com tantbain nos pardonèms qwĩns ofenden-nus.
E nõ deixat-nus cadre na tentazõn
e lluwerat-nus dou Mau.
Amain.
Ring's Poem (Tolkien)
Tre aneus per ous Reixes Elfes baix ou cell.
Seit per ous Moussers Nanãns nous palazes de petra.
Nou per ous Homes Mòrtals condenats a morăre.
Ũ per ou Mouser Unrerat, super oul'unrerat trõ,
na Terra de Mòrdor dõ stenden-si as Unras.
Ũn'Aneu per reixăre tots. Ũn'Aneu per trowăre-ous,
ũn'Aneu per atrajăre tots et atre-ous nas tenrewas,
na Terra de Mòrdor dõ stenden-si as Umras.
Babel Text (Genesis 11:1-9)
Tota a terra parlabe ũ mesme langaix et usabe as mesmas paraulas. Qwand ous homes emigreiren des oul'Est, troweiren illes una planura na reggõ de Senar e stauliçeiren-si lla. E diçeiren illes ũns ad autres:
- Vadèms façre brecs e coçre-ous a foc.
Illes useiren brecs nou loc da petra, et asfaut nou loc da mortella; e diçeiren illes:
- Vadèms costrujăre una citàt et una torra daqwe someta atangge adast ou cell; ainsĩ nos esarèms famoses e nõ dispersarèms-nus super ou fez da terra.
Meh ou Mouser baixé per vidre a citàt et a torra qwe ous homes costrujaben de segat, e diçé-si: «Tots illes formen ũ sol pople e parlen ũ mesme langaix; e doul'eh sol ou principi de sas interprisas; naçata qwe illes proponen-si resoutré umposïul per illes. Jo vad baixăre confuixonăre sou langaix per qwe illes nõn entenden-si ũns cõn autres».
Ainsĩ, ou Mouser dispersé-ous de lla pur tota a terra et illes deixeiren costrujăre a cità. Pur dou, illa apellé-si «Babell», per qwe lla confuixoné ou Mouser ou langaix de tots ous hautants da terra, e des lla Ill dispersé-ous pur tota sa surfiza.
Rhyme VII (Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, 19th century Spanish poet)
Dou salõ noul'unrerat àingul,
de sa propjetarja qwejaix riprowata,
silenzosa e courata de pouve,
vidabe-si al'harpa.
Qwanta nota dormabe ne sas cordas,
com ou focle dorme nas branchas,
aspetant a mã de njeix
qwe sape arrancre-as!
Au! - pensé - qwantas voutas ou ggenn
ainsĩ dorme nou fond dal'auma,
et una voixa, com Làzar, aspete
qwe diçe-ïa «Lleva-ti et anda!»!
Participation in conlang relays
Aingeljã has participated in four conlang relays, such as the "Olympic Relay" (relay no. 10/R, 2004), the "Scheduleless Relay" (relay no. 12, 2005),l "The Missed Bus Relay" (relay no. 13, 2006) and the LCC6 conlang relay (2015).
External Links
- http://www.aingelja.es Official homepage of Aingeljã
- http://twitter.com/aingelja A daily tweet in Aingeljã (official account on Twitter)
