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[Artabanus]

Ken:

Just wanted to congratulate you (and of course, everyone else who put time into this subject over the years) on a masterful work. The language seems to me very simple and elegant, but with room to grow and for depth of expression. At least for the purposes of player fiction that is.

I have a question. I know it probably was mentioned earlier, but has the matter of phonology been broached with regards to Napanii? I know it may be seem to be a minutiae, however, I think it may be a simple matter to establish, or suggest a "Standard Napanii" pronunciation guide. This, of course, does not preclude the existence of regional and dialectal pronunciations; it would just suggest that there does exist a "Standard Napanii" (perhaps referred to by State linguists as, "SN"). This would perhaps be a good addition to your primer.

Knowing things like vowel and consonant pronunciation, syllable division, length, timing and stress, the existence of glottal stops (or not), sandi, etc, etc., could also make it easier for some to know how to pronounce some of the names we find in-game.

I have some thoughts/suggestions on a very simple guide that perhaps could be included and definitely expanded upon if necessary, if anyone is interested. At the very least, I thought I could jump-start this aspect of the Napanii tongue.

Thanks for listening.

Art

[lallara zhuul]

Well.

Finnish is pretty much spoken like Latin is.
So is Japanese, therefore its said that it is quite easy for finns to learn Japanese.

So as a primer for that you really do not need that much work...

[Artabanus]

Here's a little something I kind of threw together...perhaps to stimulate more discussion on the matter if so desired.

Art

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Artabanus]

Here's a little something I kind of threw together...perhaps to stimulate more discussion on the matter if so desired.

Art

Sorry. Here's a smaller, editable version.

Again, these are just my humble ideas. I'm sure they can be improved upon. Maybe they're not that good, and if so, I guess that will be revealed.

Thanks.

Art

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Artabanus]

Well.

Finnish is pretty much spoken like Latin is.
So is Japanese, therefore its said that it is quite easy for finns to learn Japanese.

So as a primer for that you really do not need that much work...

Very good to know; but there are a lot of folks who may not be familiar with Finnish, Japanese or Latin for that matter. I personally am fluent in English, French, Portuguese, Spanish, (as well as some Esperanto) and have a slight familiarity with Arabic, but nonetheless find having a phonetic guide helpful in knowing how to pronounce those languages that I do speak. And it seems logical to me to have a phonetic guide included in any primer, especially one for a new conlang. But that's just my humble opinion...I'm sure your opinion is shared by a great many also.

Art

[Ken]

Art, for some reason I either didn't notice or haven't been able to see your linked document.  Just realized it was there today.  Sitting down to take a look right now...

First thought is simply that I never considered any rules for the pronunciation of the language at all.

Looking at how you broke down the phonology, there are only two differences between how I've been saying things in my head and how you've presented them that really stand out: the vowels "i" and "u".  With Ishukone, for example, I've always imagined it pronounced with a short /ɪ/ sound, making the first syllable sound like "fish" without the "f".  Using the long /i/ or "ee" sound just doesn't feel right at all there.  Both letters come up in guristas, where my preference for the "short u" sound makes it "gʌr-ɪs-tɑhs" to me, but comes out as "goo-rees-TAHS" in your phonology chart.  Conversely, I use a "long u" in Ishukone, giving the second through fourth syllables the exact same pronunciation as you do.

This makes me curious as to how other players say some of these very common terms.

Looking at the terms you picked out for use in your document, I can't really articulate any rules by which my pronunciation of those two vowels is guided.  In some places I use the short vowels, sometimes the long.  Like I said, I never considered rules for this sort of thing so my assumptions about pronunciation are just based on whatever rolled off my tongue as I put the lexicon together.  As an English, Mandarin, and Korean speaker I'm sure my natural preferences for sounds are different from yours and from anyone else who might pick this up.  Thanks for starting the project down this path.  I think it's well worth fleshing out... as long as we can factor in a rule that keeps the (f)ish in Ishukone.

[Artabanus]

Looking at how you broke down the phonology, there are only two differences between how I've been saying things in my head and how you've presented them that really stand out: the vowels "i" and "u".  With Ishukone, for example, I've always imagined it pronounced with a short /ɪ/ sound, ...  Using the long /i/ or "ee" sound just doesn't feel right at all there.  Both letters come up in guristas, where my preference for the "short u" sound makes it "gʌr-ɪs-tɑhs" to me, but comes out as "goo-rees-TAHS" in your phonology chart.  Conversely, I use a "long u" in Ishukone, giving the second through fourth syllables the exact same pronunciation as you do.

Looking at the terms you picked out for use in your document, I can't really articulate any rules by which my pronunciation of those two vowels is guided.  In some places I use the short vowels, sometimes the long.  Like I said, I never considered rules for this sort of thing so my assumptions about pronunciation are just based on whatever rolled off my tongue as I put the lexicon together.  As an English, Mandarin, and Korean speaker I'm sure my natural preferences for sounds are different from yours and from anyone else who might pick this up.  Thanks for starting the project down this path.  I think it's well worth fleshing out... as long as we can factor in a rule that keeps the (f)ish in Ishukone.

Interesting Ken; you are quite right. Your background has colored your imagining of the language, and I have to admit that I too pronounced "Ishukone" and "guristas" using the short vowel sounds...after I thought about it, I went with trying to produce a consistent rule for the vowels, and kind of used a mix of Japanese and Romance languages. But that definitely goes against what is probably the norm for most if not all players/writers.

It did cross my mind that Standard Napanii may not be the norm for most in speech, even amongst the corporations. I'm sure Tibus Heth would not speak Standard Napanii, and it would be something that perhaps would be heard only in the media and perhaps amongst professionals. Not sure.

I will try to rework the suggestions to prefer open vowels sounds over the closed. And perhaps Napanii is similar to English: lots of rules and more exceptions to the rules.

Thanks for being open to my suggestions.

I've also worked up an idea for a Napanii Script, and a font to type it to go along with it. I'll post both when I can. I'd be interested to see what people think about it. The script is based on a variation of the Hangul alphabet called Rohal.

Thanks.

Art

[Ken]

It did cross my mind that Standard Napanii may not be the norm for most in speech, even amongst the corporations. I'm sure Tibus Heth would not speak Standard Napanii, and it would be something that perhaps would be heard only in the media and perhaps amongst professionals. Not sure.

...

The script is based on a variation of the Hangul alphabet called Rohal.

I imagine the opposite, actually.  As a diehard proponent of a more centralized State, the language of the government and national military seems to me to be one of Heth's greater tools.  Even if he didn't grow up speaking it as a lowly planetary laborer, he is certainly using it now (when autotranslation isn't available or preferred).

As for "Standard Napanii", the definition is almost a redundancy.  Napanii is meant to be the standard.  Still a young language, it has been under the control of State regulation for its entire modern existence.  Not enough time nor freedom has been available for it to diverge significantly enough to require the definition of standard and alternate varieties.  At most, there might be a "Military Napanii" with an exclusively active voice and preference for simple sentence structures and a "Civilian Napanii" used for high-minded speeches and board room subtlety.  Accents certainly exist (think of how different English sounds when spoken by an American from Alabama, a Scotsman from Edinburgh, and an Indian from Mumbai), but no substantive variations in form or content.

Finally, Hangul is a wonderful alphabet.  Clear, precise, and adaptable; qualities that the State linguists would have sought when sitting down to create a language that every citizen could easily learn.  Never heard of Rohal before, but a quick Googling shows that its derives from an attempt to write Korean linearly.  Interesting!  In any case, the Rohal letters look plenty alien enough to serve our purposes here.  Good choice.

[Artabanus]

I imagine the opposite, actually.  As a diehard proponent of a more centralized State, the language of the government and national military seems to me to be one of Heth's greater tools.  Even if he didn't grow up speaking it as a lowly planetary laborer, he is certainly using it now (when autotranslation isn't available or preferred).

As for "Standard Napanii", the definition is almost a redundancy.  Napanii is meant to be the standard.  Still a young language, it has been under the control of State regulation for its entire modern existence.  Not enough time nor freedom has been available for it to diverge significantly enough to require the definition of standard and alternate varieties. 

Ken:

I did not think about that issue, the fact that Napanii is still a young language and that variation in the language may not have had time to develop yet.

I was thinking after I wrote the last post that my intention for phonological guide was not as a guide for how we as players/writers/readers should pronounce Napanii...I thought of it more as an imaginary guide for us to approximate how native Caldari might pronounce the language. How anyone else might pronounce it based on their language experience most certainly would be different.

Nonetheless...I do agree with your thought and I will try working your pronunciation ideas into the primer. Perhaps Napanii is similar to English in the sense that the open and closed vowels are mixed throughout words...in other words the vowels are not fixed as in - for example Esperanto, or Spanish. Knowing the correct pronunciation is then a matter of memorization. English and Arabic are like that...and Portuguese to some extent. I will work out the ideas we spoke about.

Take a look at the script/cipher that I made up and let me know what you think. I did not include glyphs for "q" or "x" since I didn't see those letters in your primer. I could always add them if you think they are necessary.

Ignore the pronunciation rules for the vowels that I included in the prior suggestion; I'm just re-posting the same document so that you can see which glyph corresponds to which English letter. I'm working on refining the font, but it takes some time to get it just right. Let me know what your thoughts are. The Rohal alphabet can be seen at Omniglot.com.

Thanks for considering my ideas, Ken, and for patiently entertaining my detail-oriented obsessions

Art

[Artabanus]

Here are the files.

Thanks.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Artabanus]

And one more...enjoy.

Art

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Ken]

Work in progress

An example of prototype Napanii script used to write the English pangram "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" (note there is no "q" or "x" in Napanii; those letters were omitted):

[Artabanus]

I still have some design issues to work out with the font...I think the glyphs should all be relatively the same size...in a few days more I will release an update.

I hope all like the glyphs.

Art

[Artabanus]

Another thought...the Napanii script is ideally suited for Napanii...perhaps if using it for writing out English transliterally, we could replace the English "q" with the Napanii "k" and the English "x" with the Napanii "ks".
Just a thought.

Art

[Ken]

Already ahead of you on the TrueType.    

This preview shows you all of the unique characters in a Napanii font that I put together today based on Art's work.  All vowels have the same height, which is about 140% that of the consonants.  There are unique letters for the doubled vowels "aa", "ii", and "uu" as well as unique letters for "kk" and "ss".  You'll also see numerals and several punctuation marks.  Spaces are interpuncts, making the separation of words clearer.  Alternatively, you can use the underscore key to give a space of the same size without the interpunct.  

I'm calling this font "Napanii Military Block" (<<download there; EVE Files didn't like .ttf for some reason).  It's bold face and simple, precise angles find a home in signs, stenciling, and computer readouts throughout the Navy and broader State.

To use this font, turn on your CAPS LOCK.  All of the single letters reside in the uppercase portion of the font.  To get the unique doubled letters, use shift to input a lowercase a, i, u, k, or s.  Napanii doesn't use capitalized letters in its native script.

Art, as you can see in the preview, I made a few changes to your choice of glyphs and knocked all the curves and rounded edges away to give the font a very rigid appearance.  If you have no objections, I'd like to go with the basic shapes of these glyphs as the working versions for Napanii script.  Handwritten and artistic renderings of the glyphs would incorporate stroke order to give everyday Napanii a distinctive, Hangul-like look.  This is something we can look at for additional font faces.

if using it for writing out English transliterally, we could replace the English "q" with the Napanii "k" and the English "x" with the Napanii "ks"

Sounds good.  The above example where I used the script to write an English sentence was just to demonstrate how the letters looked together.

Edit: Further examples of the font in use...