Like last time, these plot descriptions are based on those from Anilist, and you can use things like the structure of the title, the character names, and the occasional numeral to help you figure things out. You can also use the word-for-word translations from the previous quiz to help you figure out some of the more common words.

Hint: deciphering character names

The lengths of names may be of use but don’t expect them to perfectly match their lengths in Hepburn/English. Likewise initials might not always match the Hepburn.

Names are inflected with a masculine suffix -a and a feminine suffix -e, but to prevent hiatus these go through the following sound changes:

① a(ː).V → VːV = any vowel — as in *Sakura-e → Sakuré

② O(ː).V → ø(ː)O = round vowel — as in *Tomoyo-e → Tomoyǒ, or *Kló-a → Klő

③ E(ː).V → jV(ː)E = unrounded front vowel — as in *Miyuki-a → Miyukya

The sound change for front vowels may trigger further sound changes:

Tj → TTT = alveolar consonant — but note that alveolar geminates are realized as palatals

ji(ː) → iː

In that order.

1: Ňav Zuzǒ

Kyertev R**e kot́iv ani ňey na yatazey, šo Huźisaňe ňa sinj́eskev vuśkede. Kyertev N*****ǒ na gvajera kot́iv ani tey, šo Huźisaňe ňa sinj́eske. Kav anskagunska he, R**e u N*****ǒ ńederinet́e, u xi he yéne so yegune kot́i ňey, so šo yont́i koy-rámene u žent́i yerezine.

2: Hay Hiḱey to yaRoyčoḱiya!

Pe-1-e A. M***ŕe ňa anime-dećti : kyertiv xaíde lo še na dećte ňa “sule : buhe” čay. Suliv daŕi to yeruňevše ko yecigempoĺevše, no še la nay nat́e yekoḱev anske hiḱev anime-dećte, na fe šo še ňa dećte dum aniḱe nay može čay. Rine K. S****é ňa ariḱe so yerokev roynasinćke : yénske, šo nat́e zede na yeydrestev M***ŕe. Ńesint́ev hazoske, šo sokruňeynevńe, yesnij́iḱev biśe so M. C****ye iḿej́eske ňa hoževše xaye : dećke he, ńehke čoḱiya na dećte va pset́e “yalanav lobuha” to yerokivńe.

3: YaVaňgleynav Buhčonska

Yaceyv vaňgla ňa keyn udet́e he, noževše u dent́e bone so ogestev ranske čay. Yažalav vaňgla ňa dot́e bone ko randogiyey so šo moḱiḱe še dum bonev gune. Yaceyv vaňgla ruňet́ey yežalevfe, no može pet́ede lo yaceyvfey so bonev so “yeKődev yeTruňeyne” iḿej́eske. Jaḱav so E. E****a iḿej́eska ňa si žari he vaňgleynav marka dent́av ŕusulska bene so yatǒvša so A*****a iḿej́eska. E****a so vaňgla ŕaza u hira va sot́a yarǒv yatǒvša na čoniya. So šo, yavaňgleyneyv 2 kot́a yőravńa va udet́a yaboneyvńa anskey, u yeKődev yeTruňeyne to yaradaxey.

  • Erika3sis [she/her, xe/xem]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
    2·
    1 month ago

    congratulations And also rámene = ramen.

    Word-for-word

    ŇavA-Camp-CONS Zuzǒ:Laid-Back: KyertevSomething-loved-CONS RiňeRin kot́ivgoes-to anialone ňeycamps naby yatazey,the-lakes, šowhere HuźisaňeMount-Fuji ňaTOPIC sinj́eskevis-seen-CONS vuśkede.more-beautiful. KyertevSomething-loved-CONS NadeśkǒNadeshiko naon gvajeraa-bicycle kot́ivgoes-to anialone tey,places, šowhere HuźisaňeMount-Fuji ňaTOPIC sinj́eske.is-seen. KavA-day-CONS anskagunskaone-or-another he,TEMP, RiňeRin uand NadeśkǒNadeshiko ńederinet́e,befriend-each-other, uand xiafter heTEMP yénethe-one sowith yegunethe-other kot́igoes-to ňey,camps, sowith šothat yont́ieats koycup-rámeneramen uand žent́ienjoys yerezine.the-verdure.

    Compared to the original

    Laid-Back Camp: Rin likes to go camping by herself along the lakes that provide a scenic view of Mt. Fuji. Nadeshiko loves to take cycling trips by herself to places where she can see Mt. Fuji. After they meet, Rin and Nadeshiko take camping trips, eat cup ramen together, and enjoy the scenery.

    • AernaLingus [any]@hexbear.netEnglish
      2·
      1 month ago

      Is “KyertevSomething-loved-CONS ____” the equivalent of saying “____ my beloved”? Don’t remember that one coming up before! (kyertev Kumikǒ) Also you’ll have to forgive me, but I’m a little rusty on my glossing–what’s CONS, again? At first I was naively treating it like の, since that would work for the kyertev example, but in the other cases (what I interpret to be) the modifiers appear after (e)v, not before, so there’s clearly more to the story.

      I’m curious about a few other features:

      1. Does the language have obligatory temporal marking for perfective (or perhaps simply completed) actions? I was having trouble parsing the beginning of the third sentence, since it doesn’t straightforwardly map onto the English original, but I realized it would make sense as an idiomatic placeholder of sorts for an unspecified time in the past.
      2. Does nethe-one consistently refer to an earlier mentioned person and guneother a later mentioned person? (idk what morphophonemic stuff might be going on, so I apologies if those aren’t the correct forms) What other kinds of pronouns exist, if any?
      3. Does sowith šothat simply mean “together”? Is šothat itself a pronoun encompassing the pair previously mentioned? Something else entirely?

       

      Aside from the strictly linguistic questions, is the orthography patterned closely on a natural language? Naïvely, it reminds me of Serbo-Croatian orthography, but I know basically nothing about the language, so I don’t know how to read it offhand (besides a sense that the carons represent palatalization).

      • Erika3sis [she/her, xe/xem]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
        3·
        1 month ago

        Alright so my conlang’s a bit of a mess so you’ll have to forgive me for some of these things, but I’ll do my best to setsumei suru.

        CONS is construct state, which means that it’s close to の but sort of “in reverse”. This is to say, when a word is put in the construct state, it means that the word is modified by the following words, rather than modifying the following words itself. This is a feature most associated with Semitic languages — the go-to example is malikaqueen vs malikatqueen-CONS sabaʾSheba for “Queen of Sheba” in Arabic — but the construct state is also found in a number of other languages, Western Micronesian languages have them too for instance. So “kyertev _____” really means “a thing loved by _____”, and when this phrase is the subject of a verb, it really means “_____ likes to…”

        —Oh, I should clarify, the literal meaning of kyerte is just “a heart”, a word with which it Definitely Isn’t Cognate. So basically if we’re translating things even more literally it’s maybe more like “Rin’s heart goes alone…” for “Rin likes to go alone…”

        As for the other features:

        1. Not necessarily obligatory, or at least I don’t think of it as obligatory, but you’re on the right track to think that kav anskagunska he is an idiomatic placeholder — it’s really just the equivalent to “one day”. Sometimes I question whether not marking tense in verbal inflections actually was such a good idea after all!
        2. The lemmata for those words are an and gun, and yéne so yegune was really just supposed to mean “the two of them together”, I wasn’t necessarily thinking consciously about which character was yéne and which was yegune. There’s no form of obviation in this lang in any case, and there’s a healthy class of pronouns including interrogative pronouns, indefinite pronouns, personal pronouns, demonstratives, among others, all the classics.
        3. The pronoun šo is used as a complementizer and relative pronoun (very European!), and can in general be used as a pronoun pointing to the previous clause, which is the meaning of šo in the phrase so šo. This phrase so šo most often means “thereafter” but may also just mean “as well”, because my lang is perhaps a bit more vibes-based than it should be.

        Then as for the orthography, Ňň represents the /ŋ/ sound (modeled on Turkmen), Šš, Žž, and Čč represent /ʂ/ /ʐ/ and /ʈʂ/ respectively (these three are indeed modeled on Slavic languages like Serbo-Croatian), and then Ǒǒ represents a vowel in the vicinity of /ø/ for really no other reason than that it would feel “inelegant” to suddenly use a different diacritic for that letter. The doubled versions of these caroned letters replace the caron with a double acute accent, so N̋ /ŋː/ S̋ /ʂː/ Z̋ /ʐː/ C̋ /ʈʈʂ/ Ő /øː/. Non-caroned letters all double by just adding a single acute above them.

        The letters Aa, Bb, Ee, Ff, Gg, Ii, Kk, Mm, Oo, Pp, Ww are really pretty boring. They make exactly the sounds you’d expect from the IPA. Uu is normally read as /u/ but if next to another vowel may become /w/. Vv normally makes a /v/ sound, but can make a /w/ sound when used as the construct state suffix — officially only before consonants other than glides or another V, but in practice I often end up just reading the construct state suffix as /w/ almost always regardless of what comes after it. Yy normally makes a /j/ sound, but when followed by the aforementioned preconsonantal construct state suffix, /jw/ will fuse into /ɥ/.

        The letter Qq is not normally used. The letter Hh makes a /h/ at the start of a word but a /x/ elsewhere. The letter Jj makes a /ɖʐ/ sound.

        The remaining letters are the alveolars: Dd, Ll, Nn, Rr, Ss, Tt, Zz make the sounds you’d expect, Cc and Xx make /ts/ and /dz/ sounds respectively, and all of these when doubled will palatalize: D́d́ /ɟɟ/ Ĺĺ /ʎː/ Ńń /ɲː/ Ŕŕ /rʲː/ Śś /ɕː/ T́t́ /cc/ Źź /ʑː/ Ćć /ccɕ/ X́x́ /ɟɟʑ/

        • AernaLingus [any]@hexbear.netEnglish
          3·
          1 month ago

          Thank you for the extensive explanations! I studied a fair bit of linguistics in university, and while I never went much beyond my coursework (certainly not to the point of building a conlang!) I found it fascinating and still like to learn things about it here and there. I feel a little sheepish that I’m not able to contribute much in response when you make these detailed posts, but I want to make sure you know that I do read and appreciate them and I love seeing your passion for the subject doggirl-happy I also just like puzzles in general, so combining that inclination with anime and linguistics is like catnip for me.

          Also, up to this point I’ve been kind of stubborn in that I’ve tried to figure out the answers leaning solely on my knowledge of anime due to some misguided conception that anything else would be “cheating”, but I guess the point is to also leverage knowledge of your conlang as we glean more information about it through the side-by-side translations and your more in-depth explanations.

          By the way, what is the language called? I don’t recall you mentioning it before, but it may have just slipped my mind.