Aidan Grey wrote:

>     I really want to say thanks - your work with Cein
> has really gotten Aelya moving. I can't help but think
> of the two langs as siblings, like Irish and Scots
> Gaelic (okay, technically, one's a parent of the
> other, but you see what I mean).

I do! They're *really* like siblings.

> Cein is still in my top five (actually, it's in the top
> 2 faves!).

Having read this message through, I must say Aelya is
very high up on my top list as well. Me like! Me like! :)

And I'm guessing it's Aelya that's your number one. :)

>     I do have a couple of questions for you - how do
> you decide when you should have a mutation or not? I
> keep ending up with a mutation for everything, and I
> really don't want that! I'm about to decide that
> plurals always have a soft mutation (t>d, frex), and
> leave it at that, even though I want a spirant
> mutation as well.

Hehe. I had similar problems when trying to decide what
would cause mutation in my conlang Rinya. It soon became
rather unwieldy as you've noticed. As for Cein, I decided
to have mutation in just some few strict surroundings and
then keep it that way. Now I have soft mutation (lenition)
after some common prepositions/particles ending in a vowel
(genitive _o_, sg.def.art. _i_), for the second element of
a compound, and for modifiers following their head noun
(like adjectives).

Spirant mutation _only_ occurs in the plural (and after some
exceptional nouns such as _ni_ 'woman' due to their having had
a final _-s_ in Quenya.

Nasal mutation only occurs after a few prepositions ending
in _-n_, like _nen_ 'by', _an_ 'to, towards' and _in_ 'to,
for'.

That's still *a lot* of mutations, come to think of it. :)

>     How does initial /K/ {ll} arise in Cein?

I have no idea. Is the answer "because it says so in the
Grand Master Plan" good enough for you? :)

Why do sound changes happen? They just do, I guess.

>     An interesting comparison between Aelya and Cein:
>
>     Cein ann, an = Aelya ann (oblique stem in and-)

How do you mean that C. _an_ is Ae. _ann_? Do you mean
that Q. suffixes like _-n_ and the like become _-nn_
in Aelya?

>        Nasals cause voicing of following unvoiced
> stops, and final -nd > nn.

Aha. So you have _anta_ >> _and_, but _anda_ >> _ann_?
I'm leaning against _anta_ >> _an(h)_, but I'm still
not sure.

>        I'm toying with the idea od spirantization of
> voiced stops after nasals as well, which would give
> ann, anydh, but I'm thinking no at the moment. Since
> there are so many meanings glommed onto this one word,
> I think differentiation would've happened, and some of
> the meanings will be taken over by Irish, Welsh,
> Sindarin, or Norwegian loans.

Yes, that's probably a better idea. I like the look of
_anydh_ tho.

>     Cein ew 'little bird' = Aelya eun 'bird'
>        The change in meaning (and the final -n) is due
> to similarity with Irish e/n 'bird'. The meanings of
> Quenya swapped in Aelya, and 'little bird' is
> indicated by pilydh (oblique pild-). P- comes from
> confusion in mutations: filydh was understood as
> philydh from mutation of pilydh.

Oh. Already some oddities and exceptions. Nice.

>     As to article, Aelya has a plural article _na_.
>
>     Here's a sample declension:
>
>     cal 'lamp'
>
>              sg         pl         part       dual
>     nom    i gal       na cala     cell       na caul
>          /@ ga:l/     /n@ ka:la/  /kel/      /n@ kawl/
>     gen    i calle     na gale     cello      na caule
>          /@ kal:@/    /n@ ga:le/  /kel:o/    /n@ kawl@/

How come _cell_ isn't /kel:/? I like the Nordic way of having
a long vowel when followed by a single consonant and a long
consonant (and short vowel) when the consonant is double/
geminate.

And why isn't there soft mutation after the plural article
_na_? You only have it for gen.pl. Why is that? I see you
mentioned it a bit further up. Are you thinking about having
spirant mutation for the plural just like Cein? How would
you explain that? I don't think spirant mutation would be
as important in Aelya as it is in Cein since you mark the
plural by umlaut, which Cein doesn't.

Anyway. I *really* like the series gal ; cala ; cell ; caul.
It looks marvelous.

>     Part = partitive, from Q -li
>     Dual = u-affection from -u
>     Gen = from Old Aelya -hi > -e (who knows where it
> came from)

I had completely forgotten about the dual and partitive
of Quenya! I have to check that out immediately to see what
that will look like in Cein. Thanks for bringing this to
my attention.

A possible sample declension in Cein:

cen 'elf'

        SG       PL       PART      DUAL
DEF     i gen    i chen   i gein    i gewn
       [I dZEn] [i xEn]  [I dZEjn] [I dZEwn]

INDEF   cen      chen     cein      cewn
       [tSEn]   [xEn]    [tSEjn]   [tSEwn]

But what would I do with words like _ffein_ 'white cloud'?
Keep _ffein_ in PART, but have _ffewn_ in DUAL?

And what about a word like _ffym_ 'sleep (noun)', then?
{y} is [i].

Let's see:

        SG       PL       PART      DUAL
DEF     i ffym   i ffym   i ffyim   i ffywn
       [I fim]  [i fim]  [I fijm]  [I fiwn]

It's the PART that's causing problems. [i] and [ij]
aren't really different in my mouth. I guess this isn't
a problem after all. The pronunciation would be the
same, but the spelling would be different. Just like
_ni_ [nI] 'woman' would end up _ny_ << _nii_ [ni] in
the PART, but _niw_ in the DL. And _llug_ [KUg] 'dragon'
would be _lluig_ in DL and _lluwg_ [Ku:g] in PART.

>     Note that this is very preliminary - like I
> mentioned, I haven't decided on a stable spot for
> mutations, and I think I want one or two more cases to
> remain - maybe.

I've practically removed all cases in Cein. Everyting is
taken care of by word order and prepositions.

>    I'm interested to hear your thoughts...

If only Tolkien had been on this list as well. Imagine
having him in this discussion, too! I imagine him having
faced the same problems with Sindarin, and having to make
the same decisions as we do with Aelya and Cein. Well, well,
it's nice enough to see the similarities and yet the
small (and sometimes big) but very interesting differences
between Aelya and Cein.

||| daniel, really looking forward to your reply.

PS. Is there a website on Aelya somewhere out there?
I've searched for one, but just got some sporadic info
on Aelya by Clinton Moreland-Stringham. Was that you
before changing to Aidan Grey or what? I'm a bit confused.

--
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<>     Ond llamm! <> www.geocities.com/conlangus <>