Nari Discussion

[Ehati]

Nari

Hello, folks. This is the discussion thread for the Nari article, and in here I’m hoping to gain interest in the development of the language and assess how far it’s been developed/discussed prior to my current affair with it.

So, let’s start this off!

First, I’d like to state that there was a time when another person was working on Nari, and that they had a whole development plan laid out, but in intense searches for the article, I’ve come to realise that the article itself has been deleted. I don’t wish to tread over the work over this other kind soul, thus the statement.

Now, onto business with some interest-gauging.

1; Before starting development of the language, I’d like to know if there are currently words or phrases in use between the Inarta players that might not be in the lore or in Wind Reach’s locations. I’d like to simply get a handle on the current symbols and sounds we are all using. My current desire is for the lexicon to be devoid of duplicate sounds or sounds that are produced in the front of the mouth, such as ‘f’. What are your thoughts and ideas about this? I intend to work up a visual alphabet and the sounds each symbol makes, as well as the syllabary to show how consonants change with the vowels visually.

2; How would you folks like to see sentence structure? The current idea in my head is to connect nouns and adjectives into one word, where the adjective is the prefix. Plurals affect only the noun. Verbs are typically present tense with few instances of the future tense, and I’ll make a segment about the cultural reasoning behind this. I’ll be sure to make some examples of sentences that may be common or cliché.

3; The Orika, as the people from whom the Inarta came, are a very crucial part of Inarta identity to this day. What would you folks like me to develop about their impact on language and spoken custom? The alphabet itself I would have as being heavily adapted from what the Orika used, however the language itself would have changed. I imagine the Orika might have spoken a pidgin form of Common, if not Common itself in the years before the Valterrian, so explaining about how Nari came to be different from Common would be a good idea, right?


I've got some more questions planned, and I'm definitely hoping to get some questions from the masses as well! I'll also share excerpts of the article to gauge response and understandability.

[Ehati]

Here's an update for you all. It's actually being constantly edited as I work on some words to put into the dictionary, but this is probably going to be a hard and fast guide for the sounds you'll find in the language.

The Sounds of Nari

a - [ah] as in ‘last’ and ‘far’
c – [cz] as in ‘check’ and ‘church’
d – as in ‘doll’ and ‘dear’
e – [eh] as in ‘let’ and ‘lend’
f – as in ‘fear’ and ‘field’
g – glottal consonant often omitted from a word or phrase, as the ‘e’ in 'kitten' or ‘o’ in 'cotton', replaced in modern times with an apostrophe to direct the glottal sound
h – as in ‘hat’ and ‘hold’, but shorter
i – as in ‘clique’ but shorter
j – as in ‘jump’ and ‘judge’
k – as in ‘kick’ and ‘kelp’
l – as in ‘lemon’ and ‘lion’
ll – a rolled ‘l’, twice the length and with a quick motion of the tongue
m – as in ‘mellow’ and ‘mouse’
n – as in ‘note’ and ‘near’
o – [oh] as in ‘bore’ and ‘know’
p – as in ‘purple’ and ‘peel’
r – as in ‘red’ and ‘roll’
rr – a rolled ‘r’, twice the length and throaty in delivery
s – as in ‘seat’ and ‘silver’
t – as in ‘tool’ and ‘teal’
u – [oo] as in ‘tool’ and ‘yule’
v – as in ‘very’ and ‘veil’
y – [yuh] as in ‘yell’ and ‘youth’
z – [sh] as in ‘shelf’ and ‘should’

There is no b, q, w, or x in Nari. C doesn’t represent the sounds it does in the common English language as both S and K are present. Altogether, Nari consists of 25 sounds, and those sounds consist of six vowels (u, o, i, y, e, a) and eighteen consonants. G is used rarely within a word and typically occupies either the beginning or the end of a word to indicate a glottal sound when the word is used within a sentence. As a rule, Nari is spoken quickly and clearly, often lent a rhythmic quality by Nari speakers who find it close to birdsong.