Un zijn sënabh anët… a poem in Efenol

[Note: So far, I’ve tried to publish weekly (though not always on the same weekday). However, started college a couple of weeks ago so I’ll have much less free time. Because of that, I won’t be able to publish so often.]

Today I’ll share with you a text in Efenol, one of my Spanish-based conlangs. I’ve made some changes to this language since the last time I wrote a post about it, so this text will show you how the as-of-yet most updated version of Efenol looks like.

The text I translated is an old Spanish ballad: Romance of the Lover and Death (in Spanish: Romance del Enamorado y la Muerte, notice that the word ‘romance’ here stands for a kind of ballads which were popular in Spain during the Middle Ages). As usual, a glossed text follows.

Romanth del’Enamoradh i a·Mhyrth

Un zijn sënabh anët,
sijnid de mhi alva.
Sënabh con mis’emër
c’en mi breith lo tenî.
Bi enthar mucher my blanch,
myt ma c’a·nîbh fir.
– Com ath enthadh Amor?
Com ath enthadh Bidh?
A·pyrth ethan therhadh,
binthein i thilëi.
– No së l’Amor, amanth;
së a·Mhyrth, Deo m’emî.
– Â, Myrth tan ryrô,
dech-me bivir un dî!
– Un dî no pydh ser,
un or tîz de bhidh.

My defirz se cgalthabh,
ma defirz se bhethî.
Sea se bha pâr a·gâl
don su amor bivî.

– Aver-mhe a·byrth, Blanca!
Aver-mhe a·byrth nîn!
– Com te podherê seo avir
si l’ogeithôn no ê benidh?
Mi pbadher no fy a·phaleith,
mi mhadher no eth dorvidh.
– Si no m’aver aor
sea no m’avirâ, ceridh!
A·Mhyrth m’eth buchan,
chunth ti, bidh serî!
– Ben-the bach a·bhenthan
don lavarbh i coî.
T’itarê un cordhôn de hedh
par ce hubh arhibh.
I si e·chordhôn no alchanth
mi trinth einadhirî!
A fin sedh se ronf;
a·Mhyrth c’alhi bhenî:
– Bam, enamoradh,
l’or sea eth cunfildh.

Many countries, many conlangs

Some days ago, I started to translate the names of every single country in the world to four of my conlangs. It was rather a hard task… and a long one, there are so many countries out there! Nonetheless, it was a really interesting translation exercise. I also decided to include the names of the continental landmasses, some territories in dispute as well as the word for Earth itself. A full toponyms guide for alternative-word journalists 😉

I chose four conlangs which different ways o dealing with country names. The first one is Efenol. It’s based on Spanish, and so are its toponyms. However, many of them have been modified so much that it’s hard to recognize them (like Wân which bears little resemblance with “Uganda”). The second one is Inlush which, just as the former, is also based on an actual language (English), but sometimes with hardly recognizable results (who would say that Vanatu would end up being Fanwetó?). Then it comes Romanice. It’s a clearly Romance-based conlang and most toponyms are similar to those of other languages (Corea del Sur is also Spanish for South Korea, whereas Istati Uniti is almost Italian for US). The last conlang I chose is Tengoko, a mainly a priori language. Most Tengoko toponyms are based on the pronunciation of the name in the local language, with some exceptions such as Nuyem-Ryan’gek (Union Kingdom) for the United Kingdom.

(The list is after the read more tag)

L’enchanthadh – An Efenol Legend

Not long ago, I was told about an old Spanish legend, so old that its origins are blurry and many irreconcilable versions have came to being. Now yet another version was birthed, but this time it’s narrated by a different voice, in a different tongue. By combining parts of various versions of the myth, I managed to compose the text  I bring to you today in one of my constructed languages.

N’un lên madhuradh de·Hn Sean, un pathor bî bio
un mucher bêlîm bethidh de·vanch therch d’un·cybh.
Pînabh su cevîl lâr i ochur ngun pîn d’ôr.
-C’ê ma bêl… – ferhunthô al·phathor – e·phîn o seo?
Sofîtann ce lha podherî ser un vuch, l’einthan dich “Tu·bîn ê ma bêl”.
-Ô! – dich a·mhucher n’un sufir – Meldhîthën a·di!
Por thu·gulf tharê enchanthadh thîn în ma!

The legend has its roots in Spain and so does the conlang it was translated to. I find this legend beautiful, and so I chose a conlang which is also based in one of the nicest languages I know. That’s why the text is written in Efenol, a Spanish-based conlang with an enormous Sindarin influence.

A·hevîl Bhavel (en)

After thinking it for quite a while, I finally started this blog about conlanging, the somewhat geeky but certainly interesting (at least for us ;)) pass-time of making languages which I’ve been into for several year. At least it’s interesting for us, the conlangers ;)!

Some conlangers develop exclusively (and extensively!) a single conlang (which is often thoroughly detailed, well documented and which massive vocabulary and grammar), while others create many conlangs which may or may not form part of a linguistic family  or be linked by a mythology or a story. Without any doubts, I am of the second kind (as are most conlangers I’ve heard of so far), I’ve made quite a lot of conlangs (some of them related, while others are ‘isolates’ ), but I must admit that many of them are very simplistic and and some would be more-accurately described as linguistic games rather than languages (I’m still unsure of whether Yanglish could be considered a true conlang).

Sometimes, the folks in an unfinished book may ask their writer to give them a language (or a conlanger may write a book to give his/her conlang a country to be spoken as well). Other conlangers dream of a world where millions of people are able to understand each other by using an common language (and I’m not referring only to Esperantists but also to the proponents of IALA’s Interlingua and Lingua Franca Nova). On the other hand, most of my languages weren’t made to be the next Klingon nor the future world language but just to answer questions as “How would Spanish be like if it had evolved like German?” (the kind of things everyone wonders, you know (!)), or aren’t but the result of playing with a recently structure in some language I’d just discovered.