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I took a break from working on my habitually renamed conlang to try making a future version of an existing language. Everything in the language is based on my extrapolation of current trends. Because it would be far too confusing for everyone if the orthography changed and creating a new standard is regularly and harshly opposed, it has remained exactly the same as it has for centuries. A minor rift in society causes Amerilang to divide into two main dialects:
Formal Amerilang
The formal dialect has evolved to encode arbitrary levels of politeness, where politeness is directly proportional to the amount of effort put into the communication without repetition. Society revolves around an unattainable ideal of infinite politeness which all speakers attempt to emulate by never ceasing to speak until they are no longer able to communicate. They adhere religiously to an official reference to the BBC accent to pronounce all their words, lest they sound impolite. Conversations are in the form of polite interruptions.
If you would be so kind as to provide me with the general direction of the vicinity of the bathroom in relation to the both of us and this intercommunication between the two of us and our surroundings, which is of course discernible through the logic of nature in combination with your senses and reason [geminate ingressive airflow, commonly denoted /↓hː/ or gasp] and…
Where's the bathroom?
This example is a bit contrived because they are not directly addressing the fact that the other person is interrupting them.
Informal Amerilang
Informal Amerilang isn't really that different from modern American English aside from a few minor sound and grammar changes. Stops became difficult for speakers to distinguish and articulate, so they were reduced to just glottal stops. Other consonants that shifted include nasals, which became glottal stops, and fricatives, which became glottal stops. However, affricates shifted to glottal stops, while /l/, /j/, and /w/ became /ʔ/. Of course, /r/ became /ɻːː/. It is important to note that /r/ must be realized as exactly twice-geminate. It can't be /ɻː/, and it certainly can't be /ɻːːː/. If you need further clarification on this point, feel free to ask me in the comments!
The grammar is also almost exactly the same as modern English, aside from some minor adjustments. Any word can be dropped if it can be inferred from context, or maybe if the speaker just doesn't feel like it right now I'll bet you didn't think of that now huh. In order to be properly understood, one needs to alternate between a largest-possible downward glide and its reverse.
Where's the bathroom?
[ʔɛɻːːʔʔ˥˩ ʔə˩˥ ˑʔæ˥˩ʔɻːːuʔ˩˥]
Also acceptable: [ಠ_ಠːːːː fʌk ɪt]
Where is the bathroom?
As you can see, I've coined some additional IPA to indicate a borderline-malicious stare (I couldn't find the right diacritics). Hopefully the International Phonetic Association will make this the standard soon.
It is my hope that this new language will become the lingua franca of the world and bring about peace between nations and cultures.
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- 10 years ago
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