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this-is-my-main-i-follow-from · 4 months ago

Text

the rosary in michif

So the way I rewrote this is how to pronounce it with symbols that make sense to me. I also changed the english versions so you know how these things are pronounced.

ɑ = anywhere between father & mop

a = the a in the french la, or anywhere between the a in above & father, (not in between like the way the o in above is in between u from rut & o from mop), except the a in above is more like the u in bun or the e in the, but in the english I started using u to symbolize the u in crutch/a in above/o in above (even tho it is more like the o in mop or the o in more without the w at the end)/e in the

é = the e in met or pen

æ = late, bait, may eidelweiss

i = if, bit, some ppl even use this i in both halves of spirit (if they don't say spyyrit), & sometimes that sound that is like "eu" crossed with "uh" crossed with "o'" crossed with "a" crossed with "e" & you just can't exactly tell what it is

í = eat, feeble, meme

o = anywhere between boat & the first two "ho"s of ho ho ho, it can be the o,w of words like hope, or it can be just the o' like if someone interrupted you before you finished saying "go". It's almost like how er starts with eu & ends with r, this starts with o' & ends with w,

oo = on in french, between boat & boot, it's like the "o" from above was a little more short/fat in your mouth so it is slightly more like a "w" but not quite, & then you do end it with that diphthong w. Like if you end the french garcon with a w as well as an n.

ʊ = oo, like shoe which can be eu'w, or it can be just the w (which is a vowel, the welsh are right), who, the first part of when, or when you say a really elongated "ooh" not just an euw but an euwwwww!, the end of "oh!"

eu = book, look, cook, hurt, the french feu, birch, earl, like take your tongue down from the back there & stop saying the r, it's like how we say "uh" in north america but they spell it "er" in england, they don't mean ir/eur, they mean euh. Like heard in a british accent

ä = a like cat. It was originally written as ae, but ae to me means éy (or ah-y), while in michif according to my legend it is supposed to mean a like ban. I actually do get it being spelled ae, but I used to spell it aa & have taco be spelled ah & lot be spelled aw (cahmmin vs cawmmun being two ways to say common). Anyway this is the a like fabulous or the way your white (not european) grandmother says pasta.

š = technically sh, but I actually often pronounce this as an s. Many cree speakers, especially as they get older, say things with a bit of a lisp, making the s turn into sh, & we have taken that into michif. In fact, the word michif comes from the lisping of the t in metis into ts, & the all-too-common lisping of ts into ch. You can say as s or as sh & it is fine

č = ch, in michif we usually say it more like ch, the "tsh" sound, but in cree it is more like ts, sort of like the japanese tsu. You know how ts is at the very front of your mouth but ch is a little farther back & a little more on the edges? Go halfway in between. Keep a little more contact with either side of the front of your tongue, & say it. Mix ts & ch to get smth halfway between. It's almost like chs in the way it sounds, but more like tch in the way it feels. Evn throw in a bit of soft "th" in there if you need.

I don't think I have ñ, but it is like a "ng" that doesn't quite make contact. It's the french n

r = Two options here. Option 1: earl but hover before you close your teeth on the r. Feel how far back that is in your mouth? Push it a little farther back, push that r a little further in general. Instead of that r being stupidly in your teeth (that's the reason kids way w instead), keep it closer to your throat, more in your soft palate, not where the bone starts. Option 2: khrkhrkhrkhrkhr almost like that arabic crackly h, & it can be voiced or unvoiced. It's a trilled g. Not a trilled d like in spanish though. Make the sound like the dentist's vacuum. It's a fricative.

ž = j, like how ch is just tsh, j is just dj, like how s becomes sh, z becomes zh. It is j without the starting d.

Some of the Gs can also be Ks occasionally, along with many other consonants. t/d, p/b, etc.

In fact, k/p/t are often pronounced softer, less aspirated.

hk can be either h,k or it can be the semitic/celtic ch like in bach or loch. hp can be like the filipino f that they make bilabial instead of labiodental.

I think that's everything. It is a lot more simple than writing it out seems.

Oh & in english I used eth & thorn, eth being bath/thank & thorn being bathe/that

Li Shaplæ - The Holy Rosary

Wíčæwagɑnɑ Tapætamwag –

Apostle's Creed

Ndɑpwæténn li Bonjeu,

li Papa kašokatišidmawači,

kɑkiw kaožitɑt li syél ékwa la tér.

Ndɑpwæténn li Jéyzʊs

kɑgíkičítotɑt péyʊg égo son

Garsoo, kɑnígɑníštamagoyak,

kíošíéw očé

okičitawišokišíwinn avik

ékičitwɑwak Kinígígwann,

ékwa énítawigit očé la Sänt Vyɑrž.

Pontyas Paylat nɑšpič kígwatagíéw

li Bonjeuwa, kíšagawéywag

denn krwa, kínipo, ékwa kínačigɑšo.

Kíšidša'hwawandagɑnipočig,

dɑn la trwazyém žʊrnæ kípašéygo mína.

Dɑn li syél kítotéw,

ékwa kíapígɑšo andɑ

tapiškoč Papa. Mína tapætotéw

čipæwíéšowɑdat kapimɑtišíid

ékwa kɑnipoyit.

Ndɑpwæténn ékičitwɑwak

Kinígígwann, kɑkičitwɑwak liglíz,

kakío kapimičawɑčig li Bonjeu

awɑ dɑn li syél ékwa dɑn la tér kakío

li Bonjeu sa famí, čiponéy čigɑtég

kamačítočigɑtég, li kor číapačipɑt

ékwa čipimɑtišik tapitaw. Answičil.

Aí bilív in God, þa Fɑþer ɑlmaítí,

kríæter av hévén änd eurð.

änd Aí bilív in Jízas kraíst, hiz only San,

äwr Lord, hʊ waz kɑnsívd baí

þa päweur av þa Holí Spírit, änd

born av þa Veurjin Méry.

Hí suffeurd undeur Pɑnčas Paílit

waz krʊsifaíd, daíd, änd waz beuríd.

Hí déséndid tʊ þa déd, änd ɑn

þa ðird dæ hí roz agén. Hí

aséndid intʊ hévin, änd iz s��tid

ät þa raít händ uv þa Fɑþeur. Hí

will kum ugén in glorí tʊ juj

þa living änd þa déd.

Aí bilív in þa Holí Spirit, þa holy

käðlik čeurč, þa kommyʊnyeun av

sænts, þa forgivniss av sins, þa

réseurrékšan av þa bɑdy, änd laíf

éveurlästing. ɑmén.

Ton Pérínɑnn - Our Father

Ton Pérínɑnn, dɑn li syél kayɑyénn

kíčitwɑwann ton noo.

Kiya kɑníkɑništamann péytotéíé

kɑndawætamann tɑtočíkatéw

ota dɑn la tér tɑpiškoč dɑn li syél.

Mínɑnn anoč mon pänínɑnn

ponæíminɑnn kamačitotamɑk,

níštanɑnn nkaponæmɑnɑnik

aniké kɑkímaítotɑkoyɑkʊk

kayakočíinɑnn, mɑka

pašpíinɑnn ɑyik očé

mɑčíšíwæpišiwinn.

Kɑníkɑníštamawíɑk,

kišokišíwinn, kɑkičitæmíak

kiya aníé, anoč ékwa takíné. Answičil.

Awr Fɑþeur in Hévin, yor næm

iz holí. Mæ yor kingdeum keum,

änd yor will bí dun ɑn eurð äz

it iz in hévin.

Giv us teudæ þu fʊd þät wí níd

änd forgiv us for aʊr sinz,

just az wí forgiv þoz hʊ sin

ugænst us.

Giv us stréngð to résist témptæšun,

änd kíp us frum ɑll ívil. ɑmén.

Kičítéím Li Bonjeu - Glory Bé

Kičítéím kí Papaínɑnn,

ékwa li Garsoo,

ékwa Ékičitwɑwak Kinígígwann.

Tɑpiškoč kɑmɑčipaíik,

ékwa šæmɑk, ékwa tɑpitaw ~

la tér ékɑ čiponipɑyik. Answičil.

Glorí bí tʊ þa Fathér, änd tʊ

þu Son, änd tʊ þa Holí Spírit, äz

it wuz in þu béginning, iz naw,

änd forévir šäll bí ~ weurld

wiðawt énd. Amén.

O Mon Jéyzʊ - Oh My Jízus

O Mon Jéyzʊs, ponæminɑnn

kɑmačitotamɑk, pašpíinɑnn

dɑn li feu očé dɑn lenfér.

Nígɑníšta kɑkío ninígíawɑnɑnig ékwa anigé nawač kandawéítakig

číkitimɑgæ mɑčig. Answičil.

O mɑy Jízus, forgiv us awr sinz

änd sæv us from þu fɑyrz uv héll.

Líd ɑll soolz tʊ hévin, éspéšullí

þos most in níd uv yor meurcy. Amén.

Kigičítéímitínɑnn Marí - Hail Mary

Kigičítéímitínɑnn Marí,

ékičítéímit, Li Bonjeu wiya

avik twa. ékičítakišoyénn

kiya ki tʊ lí fém, ékwa

kíčitwɑwɑnɑ mawišwɑnɑ

kapimotɑtayénn katɑk Jéyzʊ.

Kíčitwɑwann Marí, Mér di

Bonjeu, ayamíéštémoinɑnn

šæmɑk ékwa atinapoyɑko. Answičil.

Hæl Mærí, full ɑv græs, þu

Lord iz wið yʊ. Bléssid ɑr

yʊ amung wimin, änd

bléssid iz þu frʊt uv yor wʊm

Jízas. Holí Mérí, Muþeur uv Gɑd,

præ for us sinneurs, naw, änd ät

þí aʊr uv awr déð. ɑmén.

Míawɑtann Mɑmaškɑč

i. Li tɑnž Gabríél kípæwítamawéw la Sänt Vyɑrž än pičí Jéyzʊ æwéyɑwat.

ii. La Sänt Vyɑrž kígíogawéw sa koʊzinn ílizabéth.

iii. Li pičí Jéyzʊ natɑwagéw.

iv. Li pičí Jéyzʊ kítotaígɑšo kɑkičitowak la Méyzon.

v. Kímiškɑgɑšo li pičí Jéyzʊ kɑkičotawak la Méyzon égoté žérʊsalém.

Mɑmatawinɑgwanɑ Kɑwašaškotéígé

- þe Luminous Mysteries

i. Jéyzʊs kíšigayatagašo dɑn la rivyér dé žordan.

ii. än nas aštéw én Kana.

iii. Jéyzʊs itwéw kakičitowišid pé ayaw.

iv. Jéyzʊs wapataíwéw ogičitoišíwinn éywɑškošod kíošta'ayik wiya dɑn li montaynn dé Téybor.

v. éškwač Jéyzʊs sʊpí kɑmíčišočig avik wíčéwagana kígímíægonɑnnwiyawɑnn ékwa son sɑn, číwíčéwayak tapitaw. (the institution of the eucharist at the Last Supper. Jesus gives us his body änd blood so that we can choose to receive eternal life.)

Mitɑtætɑgwann Mɑmaškɑč

i. Jéyzʊs kwatagætaw dɑn li žardan. (I've heard it as "jargin" not just "jardan")

ii. Jéyzʊs kínočígɑšo än fwét kíabačitɑwag ékwa lí ploon égígamogé.(the scourging at the pillar has a much longer name here: he is tied to a pillar & beaten with a whip made with lead)

iii. Jéyzʊs kíačigɑtéw än koronn oči šnélí.

iv. Jéyzʊs kípimíwatægɑšo la krwé. (I'd actually say krwa like krwoa bc it is croix in french, but michif is like cowboy french)

v. Jéyzʊs kíšagɑwéywag dɑn la krwé očičig ékwa očitak.

Mɑtawpayinn dɑn li Syél - Glorious Mysteries

i. Apičípaw Jéyzʊs niponik očé.

ii. Jéyzʊs dɑn li syél itotéw.

iii. ékičitwawišid péítotéw.

iv. La Sänt Vyɑrž šipwétaígašo dɑn li syél.

v. La Sänt Vyɑrž ošigašo la Rénn dɑn li syél.

Kígičítéímitínɑnn Kɑgičitwɑošyénn La Rénn - Hail Holy Queen

Kígičítéímitínɑnn

Kɑgičitwɑošíénn La Rénn,

Mama očé gɑšɑgí'íwét.

Kičítéítɑ mbimɑtišiwinínɑnn,

kɑšíwišíɑk, ékwa

kɑpagošéítamɑk.

Nimɑtonɑnn mon Sänt Vyɑrž

anɑnn očé kɑwæpinigɑšoyak

líz enfen očé ív.

Ota dɑn la valí mɑtowinn, ékwa

kɑgɑškéítamik,

kígagwæčímikawinn

číwíčí'íɑk.

Ayamíéš tamɑwínɑnn

wíjí'ínɑnn čimiškawayɑk

ton garsoo Jéyzʊs. Answičil.

missing in the translation so idk if it is correct: thine eyes of mercy toward us & after this our exile show unto us the blessed fruit of thy woumb, o clement o loving o sweet virgin mary pray for us oh holy mother of got that we may be made worthy of the promises of christ let us pray grant we bessech you that by meditating on the holy mysteries of the most holy rosary of the blessed virgin mary we may both imitate what they contain and obtain what they promise through the same christ our lord amen. It's missing it after it says "pray for us most gracious advocate & help us to know your son jesus" which is skipping the "turn" your eyes & the exile part. It is also missing toe rosary closing which is not technically part of the prayer but I associate it with the salve regina bc that's when I usually say it.

Ayamíɑwinn očé ékičitwɑwak Kinígígwɑnn - Prayer to þa Holy Spirit

Kɑníganíštamɑwíak dɑn li

syél, ana kaočicanawapamigoyɑk,

onígí'igwɑnɑ kɑtɑpwæit

mišíwæayaw ékwa kakío

kégwéy kaítagwak, anda

kaočikičitotagawíak, ékwa

pimɑtišíwinn kɑmí'igoyak;

Pépítigwæ dɑn mon čoér,

kišípégininɑnn

čígɑšíɑpawitayénn ægok

kɑpémačitotamak,

pimɑčitɑ ní'ígígwaínɑnn

kɑkičitowišíénn. Answičil.

Jéyzʊs Mon Bonjeuínɑnn - Jesus prayer (better translates to jesus my God(our's)

Jéyzʊs Mon Bonjeuínɑnn,

li Garsoo kapimɑtišid očé

ton Bonjeuínɑnn,

kitimɑgæminɑnn

kɑmačigækwyʊiɑk,

kiyanɑnn očé kapašpí'íwét. Answičil.

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a-z0-9-i-n-gram-completionist · 2 months ago

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1: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 a b c d e f g h i k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y 34/36 (24/26) (10/10)

2: 00 04 05 08 10 12 13 15 16 17 21 24 25 28 31 33 35 36 39 41 42 43 44 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 63 68 69 71 75 77 79 80 82 83 84 87 89 90 92 93 94 98 ac ag ai al an ap ar as at ay ba be bi bo bp bs bu ca ce ch ci cl co ct da de di ds du dv ea eb ec ed ee ei el em en ep er es et ev ex fa fi fo fr ga ge gh gi gl go gs ha he hi ho ic id ig ik im in io ir is it iv ke ki le lf li ll lo ls lu ly ma mb me mi mo mp ms mu my nd ne ng no ns nt ny ob od of og om on oo or os ot ou ow pa pe pl po pp ps pu qu ra rc rd re ri rm ro rr rs rt sb se sh si so sp sq ss st ta te th ti tl to tp ts tu tw ua ub ud ug us ut va vd ve vi wa wh wi wo xc xe xp ye yo yt yw 217/1296 (167/676) (50/360)

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7: antsbob antsspo antssqu appears arepant arespon asicall basical bobpant bobspon bobsqua bsponge bsquare cluding combine complet dividua elevant eminded erested eriment ermutat esponge esquare excludi exercis expecte experim gepants gesquar hitpost individ interes irrelev iterall ividual literal mutatio ndering ndividu ngepant ngesqua nterest ntsspon ntssqua obpants obspong obsquar ombined omplete onderin ongebob ongepan ongesqu orderin osition ositive pantsbo pantssp pantssq perimen permuta ponderi pongebo pongepa pongesq positio positiv quarebo quarepa quaresp rdering relevan reminde repants respong rmutati rreleva shitpos sically sitions sitives spongeb spongep sponges squareb squarep squares ssponge ssquare tations terally tereste tsspong tssquar uarebob uarepan uarespo utation various xcludin xercise xpected xperime youtube 105/78364164096 (105/8031810176)

8: antsspon antssqua arepants arespong asically basicall bobpants bobspong bobsquar combined complete dividual ermutati excludin exercise expected experime gesquare individu interest irreleva iterally literall mutation ndividua ngepants ngesquar ntereste ntsspong ntssquar obsponge obsquare ondering ongepant ongesqua ordering ositions ositives pantsbob pantsspo pantssqu periment permutat ponderin pongebob pongepan pongesqu position positive quarebob quarepan quarespo relevant reminded responge rmutatio rrelevan shitpost spongebo spongepa spongesq squarebo squarepa squaresp terested tssponge tssquare uarepant uarespon utations xcluding xperimen 72/2821109907456 (72/208827064576)

9: antsspong antssquar aresponge basically bobsponge bobsquare ermutatio excluding experimen individua intereste irrelevan literally mutations ndividual ngesquare nterested ntssponge ntssquare ongepants ongesquar pantsspon pantssqua permutati pondering pongepant pongesqua positions positives quarepant quarespon rmutation rrelevant spongebob spongepan spongesqu squarebob squarepan squarespo uarepants uarespong xperiment 42/101559956668416 (42/5429503678976)

10: antssponge antssquare ermutation experiment individual interested irrelevant ongesquare pantsspong pantssquar permutatio pongepants pongesquar quarepants quarespong rmutations spongepant spongesqua squarepant squarespon uaresponge 21/3656158440062976 (21/141167095653376)

11: ermutations pantssponge pantssquare permutation pongesquare quaresponge spongepants spongesquar squarepants squarespong 10/131621703842267136 (10/3670344486987776)

12: permutations spongesquare squaresponge 3/4738381338321616896 (3/95428956661682176)

anyway that put me in a Mood, and combined with my other recent post it reminded me of an experiment I’ve been pondering for years

google hits for the various permutations of ordering the individual words within ‘Spongebob Squarepants’:

Spongebob Squarepants - 35,900,000 but that one’s kinda expected, not what I’m interested in. Squarepants Spongebob - 843,000 but see below Bobpants Spongesquare - 3,680 Spongepants Squarebob - 2,550 Squarebob Spongepants - 989 Spongesquare Bobpants - 516 Bobsponge Squarepants - 443 Bobsponge Pantssquare - 433 Bobsquare Spongepants - 128 Bobpants Squaresponge - 104 Pantssquare Bobsponge - 83 Squaresponge Bobpants - 55 Pantsbob Squaresponge - 54 Spongepants Bobsquare - 53 Bobsquare Pantssponge - 36 Pantsbob Spongesquare - 33 Spongebob Pantssquare - 10 Spongesquare Pantsbob - 7 Squaresponge Pantsbob - 6 Squarepants Bobsponge - 5 Pantssquare Spongebob - 5 Pantssponge Bobsquare - 3 Squarebob Pantssponge - 1 Pantssponge Squarebob - 1

Squarepants Spongebob gets a ton of false positives from things like The Origin of SpongeBob SquarePants. SpongeBob SquarePants: The Complete First Season (DVD)

also literally like half of these are the titles of YTPs or other forms of youtube shitpost

here’s a chart of all the positions and how many times each word appears in them though (again, excluding those first two lines for being basically irrelevant to this exercise):

1 2 3 4 Sponge 3136 941 4835 283 Bob 4824 1087 715 2569 Square 1056 775 3152 4212 Pants 179 6392 493 2131

#max: 12

1K notes · View notes

nabooro · 2 years ago

Text

A note on phonology and spelling conventions

The many people across many years who have worked on the names, titles, customs and places of and on Naboo have obviously done it with disparate backgrounds in mind, which is why you have several obviously Japanese elements and also names like Pooja. On top of that, some of the names that were introduced in novelisations and so on have gone for something in a very Western pattern.

A big example of this is the name Naberrie, which is pronounced na-berry and spelled with an ie, because... reasons?

English is an exception of a language for how it’s vowels and consonants shift pronunciation based on somewhat arbitrary spelling rules. Even Romance languages, which have a great deal of vowel shift, aren’t so inconsistent as English is. In English, Palpatine is pronounced pal-pa-teen because of convention, and that specific convention has evolved out of a history of vowel shifts.

Nabooro is not English, and it makes no sense to me for a language that (relatively recently in its history) shifted to an entirely different alphabet (or should I say aurebesh) to have the kind of spelling and pronunciation inconsistencies that English does. A written language should reflect sounds as well as meanings!

The way I spell out and write words in Nabooro is based on the sounds (you may notice a large number of â’s and é’s - that’s because English has only five vowel letters that convey a number of different sounds etc., and Nabooro has 9 distinct vowels with one assigned sound each)

Which is to say: I have maintained the spellings for canonical names like Palpatine or Naberrie, but those are not pronounced the way the rest of Nabooro is, and maybe they hold onto their spellings because they were crystallised in writing before they enacted spelling shifts in Aurebesh - that, or old, noble families simply refused to change they way they wrote and spelled their names even after the shift.

However, the rest of Nabooro follows certain patterns, which are as follows:

b, d, f, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, v, w are the same as English

c is always pronounced like /k/, except before y or ee, where it is like /s/

ch is a distinct letter to itself, pronounced like in English

g is always hard, like in goat

ng is a distinct letter to itself, pronounced like in English

sh is a distinct letter to itself, pronounced like in English

th is a distinct letter to itself, and is pronounced like thor rather than like that or the (i.e. θ not ð)

â is denoted by the Aurebesh letter aurek, and is pronounced /ɑ:/ , as in father or palm

a is denoted by the Aurebesh letter enth, and is pronounced /æ/, like in cat or bang

é is denoted by the Aurebesh letter esk, and is pronounced /eɪ/, like in mate or café

e is denoted by the Aurebesh letter onith, and is pronounced /ə/ (butter, filler) between stronger vowels and /ʌ/ (but, crumb/ when it is the sole syllable in the word.

i is denoted by the Aurebesh letter isk, and is pronounced /ɪ/, like in inch or hit

ee is denoted by the Aurebesh letter isk with an accent mark next to it, and is pronounced /i:/, as in sheet or pleat

o is denoted by the Aurebesh letter osk, and is pronounced /o/. Unlike in English, it is not dipthongised into /ou/

u is denoted by the Aurebesh letter usk, and is pronounced /ʊ/, like in foot or pull

oo is denoted by the Aurebesh letter orength, and is pronounced /u:/, like in loose or soon

#nabooro #.phonology #.spelling

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whatdoesshedotothem · 3 years ago

Text

Monday 16 September 1839 Travel Journal

11 35/..

fine morn[in]g and F[ahrenheit] 56° at 5 a.m. off at 6 –

at Lillpero at 7 38/.. – off at 7 58/..

just out of Wiborg [Vyborg] bouldery com[mo]n

i.e. aft[e]r pass[in]g thro’ the suburb w[i]th the

good ch[ur]ch – then fr[om] there for so[me] dist[an]ce

thinned young Scotch fir forest and

a few lit[tle] corn fields and aft[er]w[ar]ds young rocky bouldery young Scotch

fir forest and coarse sandy r[oa]d as yest[erday] – ver[y] few cot[tage]s

b[u]t I slept gr[ea]t p[ar]t of the way look[in]g out ev[er]y now and then –

Lillpero well en[ou]gh lit[tle] lone h[ou]se – Russ[ia]n – we ha[ve]

met sev[era]l lit[tle] waggons load[e]d w[i]th so[me]th[in]g cov[ere]d gen[erall]y

w[i]th matt[in]g – no [servant] ab[ou]t at Wiborg [Vyborg] so ga[ve]

noth[in]g – fr[om] Lillpero to the frontier 86 [w] at 12 k[opek]

=26/64 I shall ha[ve] en[ou]gh Finnish mon[ey] left -

Lillpero in the forest and forest forw[ar]ds b[u]t yest[erday]

gen[erall]y and today so far the forest less swampy than

Wiborg [Vyborg] 18 2/3

Hotoka [Kotka] 17

St. P- [Petersburg] 83 2/3

Heslingfors [Helsinki] 300.

Sept[embe]r Mon[day] 16

common – r[oa]d good – sandy soil as yest[erday]

b[u]t r[oa]d hard and good – the police declin[e]d search[in]g

carr[ia]ge at W- [Wiborg] [Vyborg] s[ai]d they c[oul]d n[o]t do it – now (9 10/60) 1st

view of sea or lake or wat[e]r s[in]ce leav[in]g Wiborg [Vyborg] – and now nice

woody open count[r]y and farms and cot[tage]s a lit[tle] [?] – pass[e]d a

farm or 2 ab[ov]e 1/2 h[ou]r ago in a break of the forest –

fields – no corn out – good flock of

sheep recently shorn in 1/2 h[ou]r ago saw a pl[an]t of cranberry in

flow[e]r – at the beyond stat[io]n at 9 13/.. h[a]d to turn b[a]ck - alight at our stat[io]n

at Hotoka [Kotka] comf[orta]ble rooms

at 9 1/4 br[eak]f[a]st – beaut[iful]

view fr[om] our br[eak]f[a]st r[oo]m wind[ow]

of the fine wood[e]d fjord – Russ[ia]n – our beard[e]d landlord

ver[y] civ[i]l and good look[in]g – the men m[u]ch bet[ter] look[in]g than the

wom[e]n – br[eak]f[a]st boil[e]d milk and 4 boil[e]d eggs and br[ea]d and butt[e]r

they br[ou]ght us butt[e]r b[u]t we h[a]d our own and br[ea]d spar[e]d of

yest[erday]s’ din[ner] – br[eak]f[a]st at 9 38/.. to 10 5/.. – sev[era]l nice

outbuild[in]gs – off at 10 19/..

thin bouldery young forest and sea

(right) coup[le] of hund[re]d y[ar]ds off

ver[y] beaut[iful] – and at 10 27/.. peep

of the sea n[o]t far off (left) – at 10 33/..

(in 14 min[ute]s) ha[ve] lost sight of sea exc[ept]

our lit[tle] glimpse or 2 soon aft[er]w[ar]ds – and a beaut[iful] peep ag[ai]n of sea (left) –

10 40/.. unpainted hamlet 1 st[ree]t of gable-ends to the r[oa]d perh[aps] 200 y[ar]ds

long – the 1st vil[lage] there ans[werin]g Handb[oo]ks’ descript[io]n p[age] 142 it is in [?]

break of the forest, w[i]th nice clean even lit[tle] corn fields

asleep – till at 11 1/2 ver[y] pict[uresque] vil[lage] irregul[a]r vil[lage] of

Kyröla [Kyrölä] and our good stat[io]n – large good one story wood h[ou]se

Stolpebod – stolpe, stoop

Baaum (beam) tree

Hotacka [Kotka]

Lillpero 17 v[ersts]

Kyröla [Kyrölä] 14 v[ersts]

St. P- [Petersburg] 100 2/3 v[ersts]

Viborg [Vyborg] 35 2/3

SH:7/ML/TR/14/0009

Sept[embe]r Mon[day] 16

yellow (b[u]t old paint[e]d) w[i]th whi[te] wind[ow] frames –

ver[y] nice lit[tle] neat new-look[in]g fresh paint[e]d (yellow w[i]th pea green roof)

ch[ur]ch – and 2 or 3

good h[ou]ses w[i]th red roofs

oldish yel[low] paint

I th[in]k – the rest of the vil[lage] hamlet-like

and unpaint[e]d – by irreg[ula]r I mean that

the mid[dle] of the vil[lage] street swell[e]d out into

a sort of large square cont[ainin]g the ch[ur]ch and good h[ou]ses

ver[y] pret[ty] ab[ou]t here – fine br[oa]d expanse of wood[e]d

islandy wat[e]d left – and extens[ive] view of open

wood[e]d count[r]y – woody birchy and firs along our r[oa]d

capit[a]l r[oa]d – and n[o]t hilly today – this last vil[lage] of

Kyröla [Kyrölä] or Krasnoje Selo [Krasnoe Selo] the prett[ies]t we ha[ve] seen

ver[y] nice drive this stage – open birchy Scotch fir forest –

freq[uen]t peeps of the wat[e]r left – nice dry upland forest –

sandy b[u]t r[oa]d good – and mo[re] hilly than bef[ore] – the wat[e]r

left m[u]st be part of the series of lakes fr[om] Viborg [Vyborg]

that join the Ladoga? – plenty of cranberries

al[on]g b[u]t the pret[ty] red birnes n[o]t larg[e]r than our bilberry –

at 1 3/4 at [Pampala] good sm[all] unpaint[e]d lone h[ou]se

in nice dry airy break in the forest

snow plough – a calèche drove up –

just aft[e]r us – off at 1 12/.. – at 1 22/..

(in 10 min[ute]s) nice peep ov[e]r the forest

up fine wood[e]d extens[ive] count[r]y all ar[ou]nd us [crossed word] –

sev[era]l lit[tle] s[u]ch peeps last stage fr[om] the tops of lit[tle] hills –

sandy b[u]t r[oa]d good – at 2 10/.. (right – near) large pict[uresque]

ch[ur]ch on hill – yel[low] w[i]th dark col[oure]d roof exc[ept] East

end cupola roof red – and unpaint[e]d hamlet at its f[ee]t

Krasnoje Selo [Krasnoe Selo] Hotacka [Kotka] 14

St. P- [Petersburg] 87 Pampala 15 1/2

V- [Vyborg] 49 2/3

Helsingfors [Helsinki] 326 2/3

Kyröla [Kyrölä] 15 2/3

Kivinebb 13

St. P- [Petersburg] 71

Sept[embe]r Mon[day] 16

and our stat[io]n (good unpaint[e]d h[ou]se at 2 12/.. might ha[ve] slept

here appar[entl]y ver[y] well) – 2 snow ploughs –

nice hilly wood[e]d op[e]n airy count[r]y all

r[ou]nd ab[ou]t – the vil[lage] nicely plac[e]d on highgr[ou]nd –

off ag[ai]n at 2 1/2 – on ris[in]g the hill, the

count[r]y ver[y] pret[ty] here – fine extens[ive]

view – hamlets and farms scatt[ere]d up and d[o]wn – yel[low] stub[ble] f[iel]ds and green

young rye and good green pasturage – the unpaint[e]d (drab) hamlets and dark pine

wood[e]d hills finely contrast[e]d – b[u]t the hills n[o]t high – mere

rising gr[ou]nds all ar[ou]nd us – all right and left a wide woody plain

pret[ty] well peopl[e]d – no over-flow[in]g populat[io]n anywhere –

in this cold nord – gr[ea]t deal of birch all today –

now at 2 50/.. the wide plain right seems one sheet

of dark pine forest we pass thro’ a lit[tle] unpaint[e]d

scatt[ere]d hamlet or 3 or 4 or a series of scatt[ere]d farms and the villages

num[erou]s hamlet-like appurt[enan]ces – here and ev[er]y where

the wood fences as in S. and N- [South and North] at 3 5/.. cross good

riv[e]r and wood br[idge] and 14 men w[i]th as many one horse

ploughs plough[in]g in one stubble f[iel]d – cattle –

3 lit[tle] corn stacks in a f[iel]d – nice farm[in]g here –

7 nar[row] lines (bet[ween] Stakes or rails or [how] of

so[me]th[in]g like peasholm – plenty of geese here –

abund[an]ce of them at Viborg [Vyborg] in the Baltic near the

2 steams, and on the ramparts and in the st[ree]ts and

ev[er]ywhere – one stage hill this ti[me] and r[oa]d sandy b[u]t good

at 3 23/.. unpaint[e]d scattered hamlet and pret[ty] lit[tle] lake near right

and a bit of sm[all] bould[e]r stone cobble wall fence

the 1st I ha[ve] seen in the north – S.N. [South and North] or here)

Kiviniebb

Pampala 13 v[ersts]

Raiaioki 12 1/2 v[ersts]

St. P- [Petersburg] 58 v[ersts]

Geese

1st cobble st[one]

wall.

SH:7/ML/TR/14/0010

Sept[embe]r Mon[day] 16

at the stat[io]n at 3 33/.. – on highgr[ou]nd – lone

h[ou]se unpaint[e]d body – red roof

good en[ou]gh look[in]g h[ou]se – m[i]ght sleep

appar[entl]y as well as at many of the

oth[e]r stat[io]ns – the hamlet scatt[ere]d ab[ou]t

at a lit[tle] dist[an]ce – the appurt[enan]ces of the

stat[io]n num[erou]s as us[ua]l and hamlet-like

wide wood[e]d plain right and left and surely it the sea we

just see in the extreme dist[an]ce before us (right) –

off at 3 47/.. ver[y] pret[ty] at 3 52/.. lit[tle] steep desc[en]t on to

wood[e]n br[idge] ov[e]r lit[tle] stream that is perh[aps] the boundary?

steep boulder stones pav[e]d asc[en]t – en[ou]gh for our horses to do to get

us up – and good largeish houses – good all the way fr[om]

Viborg [Vyborg] – pret[ty] and hilly and m[u]ch birch – thin

forest, and pasture and cows – yes! (now 4 3/4) it

is the sea, a long sweep, in the dist[an]ce (right) –

the pavé roughish beg[a]n on this side the bridge at 3 52/..

b[u]t we go on the sides (sandy b[u]t ver[y] fine) now and then

ver[y] m[u]ch – and aft[e]r all the pavé is n[o]t so bad

so far – I w[oul]d rath[e]r risk our carr[ia]ge here than

fr[om] Hamburg to Lubeck, or even in the st[ree]ts of

Stockholm where if the pavé is so[me]th[in]g between the

deep chan[nel]s are terrib[le] – now at 4 5/.. the aft[ernoo]n

is dullish – shall we ha[ve] r[ai]n? now at 4 1/4 fine

wood[e]d count[r]y – range of wood[e]d hill left,

closes in (at perh[aps] 7 or 8 inches Eng[lish]) our plain

at the left - low birch wood bushes and young Scotch

firs scatt[ere]d here and to the right (in the dist[an]ce)

Raiaioki

Kivinebb 12 1/2 v[ersts]

Walkiasari 12 1/2 v[ersts]

St. P- [Petersburg] 45 4/6 v[ersts]

Sept[embe]r Mon[day] 16

and to the right in the dist[an]ce the fine sweep of

sea w[i]th a dark line at the b[a]ck of it form[in]g the horizon

lookd[o]wn in front in the dist[an]ce up[on] dark plan

ris[in]g to the horizon – and now 4 25/.. a scatt[ere]d hamlet

unpaint[e]d as us[ua]l – the sea now sweeps 1/2 r[ou]nd us

in the dist[an]ce fr[om] right to en face – we look up[on]

one sheet of forest belt[e]d right and in front by sea –

now towns or vil[lage]s distinguishable – the r[oa]d now

sandy (at 4 1/2) and goodish – the pavé nowhere

prev[ente]d my writ[in]g – at 4 1/2 lose my pen – in tak[in]g

off bon[ne]t m[u]st ha[ve] kick[e]d it out – now at 4 1/2 ver[y]

sandy and heavy –

the birch gen[erall]y green shew[in]g merely a tinge of autumn

here and there – hilly stage – now at 4 55/.. a lit[tle]

town or vil[lage] in sight bef[ore] us (right) w[i]th handso[me]

white, blue-cupolaed, ch[ur]ch – now at 5 first

buckwheat that I ha[ve] obs[erve]d part stand[in]g ripe,

and part cut, ti[e]d up in lit[tle] sheaves, and in stock – and

our road now and for a lit[tle] whi[le] b[a]ck as broad as

3 r[oo]ds (perh[aps] 60 y[ar]ds wide) and we go on the grass or

as well as we can thro’ the sand – and now (5 5/..) a few scatt[ere]d

farmsteads – our r[oa]d this stage the worse we ha[ve] h[a]d in

Denm[ar]k Swed[e]n or Norway, b[u]t still the r[oa]d to Hazelunen

m[u]ch worse in point of sand, and the r[oa]d fr[om] Hamburg to

Lubeck m[u]ch worse in 1833 in point of pavé –

the pavé beg[i]ns ag[ai]n now at 5 10/.. (we h[a]d it fr[om] 3 52/.. to 4 1/2)

b[u]t we keep on the side – on the sand – sev[era]l lit[tle] long nar[row]

stacks w[i]th spruce fir branches laid on the thatch (as obs[erve]d

once before) steep pitch d[o]wn to wood br[idge] x [cross] stream – then ascend to the

town, and at the Station at 5 1/4 at Walkiasari

SH:7/ML/TR/14/0011

Sept[embe]r Mon[day] 16

John stopt at the stat[io]n h[ou]se and we h[a]d s[e]nt Gross to

the douane, and g[o]t the bask[e]ts and cloaks out bef[ore] they ca[me] to say the

carr[ia]ge and all m[u]st go to the place – there at 5 25/.. and A- [Ann] and I there 3/4 h[ou]r –

then ca[me] b[a]ck sided our r[oo]m and A- [Ann] made tea – sat ov[e]r it till 8 10/..

then prepared our bed – on[l]y one in the h[ou]se – h[a]d Grotza at

8 3/4, when we h[a]d g[o]t all ready – and then till now (10 p.m.)

ink[e]d ov[e]r the latt[e]r 2/3 of the last p[age] and so far of this –

Jean w[a]s in desp[ai]r at the th[ou]ght of our stay[in]g all night –

s[ai]d if we d[i]d we must sleep up[on] hay for there were

no beds – and in ca[me] a large bundle of nice soft

hay w[hi]ch now lies in the corn[e]r of our r[oo]m – we ha[ve]

spr[ea]d out the one scant[l]y fill[e]d bed (w[i]th flocks I suppo[se])

on sofa and chairs so as to be wide en[ou]gh for us both –

of the 2 pieces of linen each n[o]t qui[te] clean ab[ou]t 1 1/2 y[ar]d sq[uare] we ha[ve] made

[crossed word] an und[e]r sheet, and shall put our cloaks ov[e]r

us – we ha[ve] the luxury of 4 pillows, and shall do ver[y]

well – we ha[ve] our own br[ea]d and butt[e]r and tea and sug[a]r b[u]t they

br[ou]ght ver[y] fair br[ea]d (wheat) and good butt[e]r, and 4 boil[e]d

eggs and a lit[tle] bowl of milk w[i]th the cream on it for our tea –

the cream made our tea excell[en]t and we sat ov[e]r and enjoy[e]d

it, declar[in]g how well off we were – we h[a]d g[o]t well

thro’ the ordeal of the douane, and congrat[ulate]d ours[elves] on being

in Russia – our b[oo]ks I bel[ieve] were all tak[e]n out of the carr[ia]ge

and look[e]d at; b[u]t, as desir[e]d, I cop[ie]d the list I ha[ve] and the Stockholm [crossed word] date

dat[e]d it Stockholm as really dat[e]d there, and sign[e]d it

= A. [Anne] Lister [sign] and then enclos[e]d it an envelope,

‘de Shibden hall’ and as desir[e]d seal[e]d it w[i]th my own seal

my arms, wr[ote] on the back ‘List of the books belonging to Mrs. Lister’

Sept[embe]r Mon[day] 16

and s[e]nt this by Gross to the Douane to be forward[e]d

to St. Petersburg, I engaging to go w[i]thin six weeks to the

committee of censorship to claim the list – s[ai]d I sh[oul]d

go to Mrs. Wilsons’ – we are thus allow[e]d to ta[ke] all our

b[oo]ks and th[in]gs and go in comf[or]t – How m[u]ch bet[ter] than to the poth[e]r

we sh[oul]d ha[ve] h[a]d if we h[a]d arriv[e]d at St. P- [Petersburg] by the steamer! –

our journ[e]y thro’ Finland h[a]s really been a ver[y]

agreeab[le] and a ver[y] economic[a]l one; and we ha[ve] seen

the count[r]y and the peop[le] – the latt[e]r alw[a]ys civ[i]l and ready to do

their utm[o]st to please, and the form[e]r well-farm[e]d (made

the m[o]st of) and interest[in]g – the r[oa]ds ev[er]ywhere good till

this last stage – and the sand of this noth[in]g to that of Hazelunen

and the for post aft[ernoo]n post pavés of the s[ou]th of Fr[an]ce often qui[te] m[u]ch or more as jolt[in]g and try[in]g to

the springs of a carr[ia]ge then the 43 min[ute]s out 88 min[ute]s

(fr[om] 3 47/.. to 5 1/4) here – this is the 1st ti[me] we ha[ve] fail[e]d

to find good clean beds and sheets at the Stat[io]n houses

and on[l]y once or twice we ha[ve] the peop[le] been w[i]thout

whi[te] (wheat) bread – the lit[tle] steep pitches are too short

to be dang[erou]s – the horses rarely stumble; and a man m[u]st be

a ver[y] bad driv[e]r and totally unaccust[ome]d to this sort of r[oa]ds if

he can[no]t get on comf[ortabl]y ev[e]n w[i]th a heavy Eng[lish] carr[ia]ge like ours ab[ou]t

8 versts an h[ou]r – I nev[e]r obs[erve]d the man or boy (Holcar)

ask for anyth[in]g mo[re] than wh[a]t w[a]s due for the horses

6 kopeks each fr[om] country stat[io]ns and doub[le] that fr[om] towns –

Åbo is a good town – Heslingfors [Helsinki] ver[y] beaut[iful]

cheerful and comf[orta]ble (the Societys’ h[ou]se good hot[e]l) and one

might ha[ve] advantages fr[om] the univers[it]y prof[essor]s (all the

students away – vacance for a fortnight longer) –

Viborg [Vyborg] dull as all fortresses of such sort m[u]st be? b[u]t a good

town and its fjord and situat[io]n beaut[iful] – the cold

SH:7/ML/TR/14/0012

September Monday 16the cold weather is coming – I have had a little chilblain in my right little finger these 2 days or more and Jean has got a little lumbago since Saturday – fine day (tho’ dullish coldish in the morning and dampish in the afternoon) – F56 ¼° now at 10 ¾ pm our 2 rooms have been warmed by a stove; for they were quite comfortably warm on our arrival no pot ath [at] breakfast and we have a tureen for one tonight Raining now at 10 ¾ pm

5 notes · View notes

pumpkinpaix · 4 years ago

Audio

anonymous:

I just discovered your mdzs pronunciation stuff and it's super helpful!!! Especially to an english speaker, it's so helpful to hear everything pronounced slowly! Would you ever consider doing more but on Chinese basics? Like tones, or differences between similar sounds? (But please don't feel obligated! Just a suggestion bc I find your pronunciation super helpful :)

hhhhh the file was too big for tumblr :’) even after I exported it at medium instead of standard quality, so i made a soundcloud after all aha.... it’s downloadable, even!

anyways! chinese school with cyan? :D transcript with helpful links under the cut.

previous chinese pronunciation posts with pinyin if you want to go back review them armed with new knowledge to practice: mdzs names 1, mdzs names 2

rough transcript (brackets indicate things i didn’t say but wanted to add as a note, or laughs lol):

hello everyone! okay, so I’m going to make an attempt to do some basic pinyin, I guess, a basic pinyin post? so the goal is by the end you should be able to hopefully! look at basic pinyin or any pinyin word and get a general sense of how it might sound. this is not comprehensive, and you shouldn’t take it as such, but i hope you might be able to get a good foundation out of it? I don’t know, just for sort of, a basic general overview.

I’ll use some MDZS words or names or whatever to I guess keep it fun as examples? But the rules should be generally applicable across the board. This is geared towards native English speakers because that’s what I am. I am not a linguist, just a layperson, so I’m going to be explaining like a layperson.

So, this is pinyin with cyan! chinese school with cyan. horrible, I thought i escaped this [laugh] oh, all those horrible saturdays. [all sounds will be read with first tone unless otherwise indicated]

okay, so, I’m going to do the basic vowels first. there are five so it’s: a o e i u ü

so I’ll do that a — oh wait, no there’s six, oh gosh! okay. bad start! so there are SIX basic vowels: a o e i u ü

so i’ll do that one more time: a o e i u ü

so there’s actually a seventh vowel sound, but we can get to that in a minute. it’s not included in the orthography.

so ü is usually the hardest for native english speakers since it doesn’t exist in english, but a friend of mine recently explained it really well. so if you say “ee” just like, “ee” like in creek or something like that, then shape your lips as if you’re saying “oo”. so if you speak french or german, it might be easier for you, those are just the two languages I’m familiar with. the ü is the same as the ü in german, like in die Tür, in french it’s just like you know, la lune, mur, etc.

basically say “ee” then move your lips until it looks like you’re saying “oo” — eeeeeüüüü or you can do the opposite, you can say “oo” then move your tongue as if it’s saying “ee” so: ooooüüüüüü. ü. and that’s basically it.

so now i’m going to do the initial consonants. that’s all the vowels. but the initial consonants, the consonants, or the consonant sounds that can start words, there are… well there’s not that many, but I’ll go through them really quick. there is an order, and every consonant is associated, every initial consonant is associated with a natural vowel sound and they come in groups. the order that i learned them in is this:

b p m f • d t n l g k h • j q x • z c s zh ch sh r

[repeated slower]

b(o) p(o) m(o) f(o) • d(e) t(e) n(e) l(e) g(e) k(e) h(e) • j(i) q(i) x(i) • z(i) c(i) s(i) zh(i) ch(i) sh(i) r(i)

I think the official one [the official order, i mean] might have the z c s and the zh ch sh r switched, but it doesn’t really matter they’re both in the same group. so you’ll notice that there are only four naturally associated vowels: o e i and ï [not sure if this is technically the right way to write it, but it’s convenient for illustrative purposes here].

so ï is the one that’s with the z c s, zh ch sh r group. I also think this is a pretty hard vowel to pronounce for english speakers, but i don’t really have a handy way of explaining it. i’ll try though!

so for things like the z c s sounds: say “sss” like you would in english. “ssss” then change your lips to the way you say “ee” and then vocalize without moving your tongue. so you can also produce this sound without changing your lip shape, but doing so will kind of force it, or make it easier to find I think. so ssssssi. sssssi. so that was me doing the whole process with saying ssss and then moving my lips and then vocalizing. but i can also do it with my lips rounded. “si”. that’s me with lips rounded, but having the lips wide like that helps i think

[or you can just vocalize “zzzzz” like in “buzz” or “jazz”. that zzzzzz sound gives you the vowel you want. that probably would’ve been an easier way to explain it haha.]

for the zh ch sh r sounds, to get that, you can say “juh” like how you would say j, a j sound in english, so it’s “juh” but dont’ say the “uh” just stick to the “j”. so that’s the zh sound. “zhii” just like hold it. then ch sh r. I don’t know, I think that’s pretty intuitive once you get those.

in terms of the consonants that i think that are difficult, they are d, j q x and z maybe? so i’ll go over them.

so d taps the palate in english, “duh”, “duh”. the d sound, it taps further back on the little bump [on the roof of your mouth] there, but it taps on the teeth in chinese. I think it’s a non-aspirated t sound? so say “tuh” but then instead of having that breath, just take that out. “de”. it’s a non-aspirated t, it taps in the same spot. so that’s the d, the “de” sound.

j q x, it’s the same sort of things, if you stretch your lips, I think i helps to move it into the right space. so instead of “juh” it’s “ji”. “ji”. “ji ji ji ji”. “qi”, “xi”. the q has the “ch” sound, but instead of sitting so far in the front, it sits a little further back [in the mouth]. instead of “ch” which is the ch, it’s “qi”, which is moving further back. and same with “xi”. instead of “sh” it’s “x”. i don’t know if that helps [laugh]. but instead of “sh” it’s “x”. so “xi”.

again, instead of “ch” it’s “q” and instead of “sh” it’s “x” [laugh]

[I forgot to talk about z oops. it’s basically a combination of d and z in english: “dz”. like the end of “hands”. that “dz” sound.]

okay, so, you can start a word with any of the vowels, any of them can be initials, but some of them will change orthography when they’re at the start of a word. so i think it’s pretty intuitive, but a o e all stay the same. but the “i” sound, the i, turns into a y, the “u”, the u, turns into a w, and the “ü”, the ü turns into yu. so “yu”.

okay, so that’s all the initials! that’s it! that’s not too bad.

okay, so now I’m going to start doing the finals, like the ends of words. you can end any word with any of the vowels, but I’m going to include them anyways because it’s in the table. i just copied this table from wikipedia because it’s i think pretty intuitive and clearly stated. they show both how the sound would be written as a full word and how it would be spelled when it was attached to an initial. so basically what i just talked about regarding changing orthography when you start a word with vowels, things like that.

[link to table in wikipedia]

okay starting with the first row, I’m pretty sure this is ï. the i sound that i said was difficult:

[row 1]

so I’m going to do that again. I’m going to do each one twice and then we’re going to move onto the second row.

[row 1 repeated, each sound twice]

okay, now the second row:

[row 2]

so we’re going to do the same thing again, twice each:

[row 2 repeated, each sound twice]

okay, and the third row:

[row 3]

and again, twice each:

[row 3 repeated, each sound twice]

and then the final row:

[row 4]

and then one more time, twice each:

[row 4 repeated, each sound twice]

okay so that’s it, that’s all the finals I think.

so I think -(i)un/yun is probably one of the harder sounds, the -un with the y at the beginning, the -iun? “yun”, with the umlaut. I don’t really know how to explain how to pronounce that one, but you know it’s the… yun [laugh]

okay so a note on u vs ü. when a word begins with j q x or y, and it’s followed by a u, it’s automatically be pronounced as ü even though it will not be marked. so here are some examples.

names like Ā’Yuàn: yuàn. it’s a ü sound automatically, and it’s not marked in the orthography. or Yú Zǐyuān. yú zǐ yuān. same thing. and then with something like in hánguāng-jūn, jūn, the j the “ji” combined with the -un becomes “jun” like the “yun” sound. or Jīn Zixuān. Xuān. Xuān. it’s the ü sound.

so an example of the same final spellings but with different initials. like the yuàn in ā’yuàn — you can see it automatically changes to an ü pronunciation, but spelled the same way the -uan ending, but you have a different starting consonant that’s not one of the exceptions, so “le” — so in luànzàng gǎng. luàn. it’s “u”. luàn. and then for like y��, yú zǐyuān, yú, instead of the ü, in jīn rúlán, rú, rú, it’s the “u” sound, and they’re marked the same way.

okay! yeah that’s pretty much it. that’s like all the basic sounds in chinese, I’m pretty sure. [laugh] it’s not actually that hard. i mean, it’s obviously hard, but there’s not as many sounds as you expect, or it’s less complex than you might think.

so obviously now we have to deal with tones. i know this is the one that everybody finds really scary, but i actually i know it’s easy for me to say because i’m a native speaker, but i actually think they’re very intuitive and easy to hear, as tones go. it’s gonna be fine. anyways, we’re gonna get through it.

here is how i remember tones: I do it with a cadence. and i literally sometimes have to go through this cadence on words when i’m not sure how to identify what tone they are. this is how i learned it, my grandmother taught me this, you know, i mean, it’s very standard, but:

ā á ǎ à

or hummed it’s: ¯ ´ ˇ `

and then I’ll do it again:

ā á ǎ à

¯ ´ ˇ `

so yeah, i really do sing it sometimes when i’m trying to figure out or remember what tone mark goes on something, I go dūh dúh dǔh dùh [laugh] over and over again until i figure it out.

and yeah, that’s it! they’re pretty intuitive, they follow the path of the tone, or the shape of the tone markers. so you can see the ā is flat, the á goes up, the ǎ goes down and then up, ǎ, and then à, the fourth one, just goes down.

so whenever you’re writing a tone mark on a word, they always go on the last vowel UNLESS there’s an a or e present. those always take precedence. I’ll spell out a couple of examples in the text.

[EXAMPLES: hào not haò and méi not meí, but jiù]

[laugh]

so i will go over, um… okay, i think my dad’s having a meeting downstairs, so maybe you’ll hear him in the background, but okay, the last thing i will go over a couple of sandhi rules, just a few! this isn’t all of them, i think there might be five? but i’m just going to do the three that are most relevant or the most commonly seen I think, or the ones that I think about that will trip you up most likely, i think, when you’re pronouncing things.

so the one that everybody knows, or the one that everybody teaches first, i think is the two third tones in a row will cause the first third tone to turn into a second tone. so for example, in Yílíng Lǎozǔ. “Láozǔ”. the two characters by themselves are lǎo and zǔ, but because they’re right next to each other, it becomes láo, second tone, “láozǔ”. [NOTE: the pinyin will still be spelled as lǎozǔ. you will just automatically read it aloud as láozǔ] so instead of “lǎo zǔ”, it’s “láozǔ”.

and then, the second thing that a third tone does is that a third tone that is followed by anything that is not a third tone drops to a thing that is called a low tone, I know i said there are only four, but this is… here’s an example. [there is also the soft tone, which is kind of the absence of tone, but I’m not going to talk about it here haha] in liǎnfāng-zūn, jin guangyao’s title.

liǎnfāng-zūn, you can kinda hear it doesn’t really rise again at the liǎn, liǎn, liǎn, by itself it goes down up, like a valley, but when it’s followed by the rest of the title, liǎnfāng-zūn, it just kinda sits at the bottom and then jumps back up. liǎnfāng-zūn, liǎnfāng-zūn, it just kind of sits at the bottom as opposed to coming back up, so it’s still. it still follows the same curve, it just doesn’t quite come back up i think

i actually had to look that one up, because I was like. oh is that real? i hadn’t noticed it.

but the third tone on its own is just the third tone, so for example, in xuē yáng’s courtesy name, xuē chéngměi, měi, you can hear it there, it comes back up—oh birds!

so xuē chéngměi, měi. dǔh. [laugh]

[LOL I TOTALLY FORGOT ABOUT THE THIRD SANDHI RULE I WAS GONNA TALK ABOUT. you can read about it in the link to sandhi rules i’m going to post at the end of the post.]

so yeah, that’s pretty much it actually! hooray! I’m sure, I mean, chinese is a whole language, so it’s complicated, this won’t really get you to a point where you can read pinyin entirely, but i think those are like the basic rules that i use when i’m reading pinyin, but of course, i’ve been reading pinyin for a really long time, that was the primary way i engaged with chinese text for many many years because i was illiterate! i’m still pretty illiterate, but that’s okay. i’m getting better! but yeah, so like i said, this isn’t comprehensive. if it was horribly confusing, if there was stuff in it that just didn’t make any sense, you can ask me questions! I will try to answer them. my brother’s coming home today, and i’ve been using his desk to record because his room has been empty, so i’ll have to figure out something else. but for now, um, yeah!

okay, bye. :)

/end transcript

okay!! so here are the promised links:

tone sandhi rules

very useful interactive table where you can click on sounds to hear them read aloud! (linked to me by @nerd-bastard thank you so much!)

obviously the wikipedia page is very good, though it’s a little dense

@tonyglowheart sent me a thread of someone reading out mxtx names on twitter here! the reader has a different accent than i do (they say they sound like they’re from the northern mainland. i would guess my accent is probably closer to something near shanghai? since I learned pronunciation from my grandmother, and then of course tempered by my american upbringing)

I would probably recommend going back to the other pronunciation posts I made to see a variation of sounds written out with different tones? i feel like that would be helpful!

anyways WOO thanks for your patience, it’s been a minute. brain’s doing kinda oomf these days, but we’re gonna make it :’) state of the world is. something.

normally i would just link my ko-fi here, but this time, i’m going to say check out my donations tag or do your own research into someplace more in need to put your money instead. :)

#chinese #learning chinese #mdzs #pinyin #chinese pronunciation #cyan chinese school #lmfao #new tag i guess #mine #my voice #i have NO idea how useful this is but at this point #*yeets into the void*#long post #cyan help desk #cyan vs heritage #statistically average

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always-a-slut-for-star-wars · 4 years ago

Note

Hey! So I saw that you got a book written in Aurebesh and I was just wondering... How/where can you learn to read it? I have always wanted to learn but have no idea how and I don't know where to start. The book looks super cool by the way😊

Heyyy,

So I started learning it when I was probably 9 when my dad showed me this Star Wars monopoly set he had and with the instructions came a little section on Aurebesh. So basically if you didn’t know Aurebesh is practically identical to English except each letter is replaced by an Aurebesh symbol

So when I saw this I thought that it shouldn’t be too hard so I gave it a go. I basically just started by learning how to spell my name and the name did my family members and from there I started to remember some of the letters that we shared. From there I started to write myself little notes and what not trying to use as many of the different letters as I could. Eventually I started to remember the letters that I used the most but I struggled to remember ones I didn’t use very often like Z, X, V, J and Q so I made a conscious effort to try and learn those ones.

But basically just try and use it and practice it as much as you can. Even just with little things like if you are writing a shopping list, try and translate it into Aurebesh and give it a go. It’s a very fun alphabet to write as well so that’s always good. If you’re a more digital person there are some people that developed Aurebesh that you can download onto your computer and use if you’re writing in Microsoft word and whatnot.

Thanks for the ask :)

Also p.s. it shows on the diagram the symbols for double letter sounds like OO, TH, SH and some others but I wouldn’t worry about learning those ones. I spent like a whole day on a wookiepedia article once looking at all of the Aurebesh that was found in the film and tv media as well as the comics and I very rarely found examples of the double letter ones being used but found examples where instead of the TH symbol being used they just used a T and a H. Some people like to use it but it’s not for me. Anyway, enjoy and please let me know how you go with it 😊

#clone wars #star wars #star wars clone wars #swtcw #tcw #ahsoka #ahsoka tano #swtcw s7 #tcw season 7 #captain rex #aurebesh #star wars the clone wars #aasfsw #send me asks

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lillianasrose · 5 years ago

Text

I fucking love you

Mistakes were a common factor in your life. Of course everyone makes mistakes, they’re easy. But this was the worst one ever. The pregnancy test sat on the counter blinking one single word at you, positive. It was one of many laying around in various places. It was one of those fancy electronic ones, the only one you couldn’t brush off as a ‘cheap dollar store stick that got in wrong most of the time.’ There also was the fact of the small baby bump you were sporting. You hadn’t realized until that woman at the gym walked up to you.

“Good for you mommy, keeping fit.” she had touched your stomach and you had almost tripped on the treadmill, “So when’s it due.” you slowed to speed down.

“What?” You had asked. Who the fuck was this lady to randomly walk up to you and touch you.

“Well your baby.” She had laughed, “That’s at least a three month bump.” your heart stopped then at the gym and you looked down at yourself, you hadn’t realized, you were trying so hard to deny it.

“April maybe.” You had gone to the store and bought a pregnancy test, it was the first of several each time you wished the result would change. Adam had been gone for 3 months, it had been three months since that stupid party.

You were drinking of course you were drinking A) it was a party, in your own apartment complex. B) You were sad, Adam was leaving for some unknown amount of time to be in this movie, you had been helping him pack his suitcase. He was your neighbor and your best friend. He could you not miss the perverted goofball?

“Y/N!” Adam called out to you from...somewhere. Speak of the handsome devil, “Squish,” He caught you around the waist bringing you to the stairs, “Shit your drunk. How much did you have?”

“Enough to to not miss you.” You pouted up at him, “You're too tall, I can’t kiss you.” you mumbled

“What was the last of that?” He asked, smiling down at you, trying to hear over the loud music.

“Mhhmm.” Adam hauled you up, wedding style, bringing you up the stairs.

“You have your keys, Squish?” he asked. You shook your head no.

“They’re at your house.” He groaned and kicked the door opposite to your’s open.

“You are going to be the death of me Squis-” And you kissed him, a lot. What started at the door moved to the couch and ended up in his bed. When you woke up the next morning you were in one of his t-shirts, he was missing, the shower was running, and you bolted. You had shut your door when he knocked.

“Squish?” He asked, “You ok?” You were not ok, you had ruined everything. Things were going to be awkward now, you had lost your best friend. “Hey, Y/N, please just talk to me.”

“I’m fine Adam, don’t miss your flight.” You had said through the door.

“I’m not leaving till you come out here and talk to me.” your hands shook as you opened the door, "I'm so sorry." he whispered.

"What are you sorry for? I'm not mad at you, I'm just embarrassed, I came on to you, I took advantage of you."

"I mean i didn't not enjoy it." he laughed. You took in a deep breath of air.

"Still friends?" You asked. He paused and you know he wanted to tell you no. "Best friends?" he nodded, not looking you in the eyes. You had ruined your only friendship.

"I'll be home soon," he promised, "Keep an eye on my place?" he asked. You nodded smiling through your sadness.

"Be safe." you said, hugging him for the last time in a long time.

And Adam left, months later you realized you were pregnant. You were too scared to go to the doctor, you ate healthy, did light exercise, continued working at your job, you almost texted Adam a time or two but always deleted it immediately. Adam was still gone, guess that movie was a big break for him.

"Ah boo ra!" you stopped the stroller coming around to crouch beside it. "Ah boorada!" your seven month old was clapping, he loved going to the park and you enjoyed pushing him along on the running trails.

"What's up baby, hey!" you grabbed his little hand, he was still doing his little chant, "Seth, what's up baby."

"Seth?" A deep voice boomed in front you. You jumped up not recognizing it at first.

"Adam?!" you gasped, "Your back?"

"You had a baby?" he asked back.

"Yeah I did." You nodded.

xXx Adam was shell shocked. They had an amazing night together before he left about a year and a half….

"How old is he?" Adam asked, catching Y/N off guard. He started whimpering and she swiveled quickly to pick him up. She held him with his little head tucked onto her shoulder, patting his back.

"What are you doing, no no no. Oh I know I know sh shh sh, Seth baby it's ok. You're not even crying." She was trying to dig through a bag with one hand and Adam took the baby.

"Hey buddy." he said gently, bouncing him a bit, "Why are you crying?"

"Juju." he whined, "Juju!"

"I got your juju don't worry." she swooped in and Adam grabbed the stroller for her as she settled onto a bench with the baby.

"Y/N, whose baby is that?" Adam asked her. His heart was beating out of his chest, he hadn't seen her in so long and now here she was, just as beautiful as the day he left her behind, holding this cute little dark haired baby with her y/e/c eyes. Both her and the baby, now happily sucking on a bottle, were looking at him with those eyes.

"Well mine of course." she laughed, she was shaking.

"Whose the dad?" He asked. She froze and he knew from that point; him, he was the father. She wouldn't look at him.

"Adam I gotta go." he tried to stop her, "Seth has his seven month appointment, I really have to go but I will see you later when we get home." and she jogged away. Adam wanted to run after her, but had a better idea. Lucile just down the hallway from them always knew everything

xXx "Hey baby Seth." Dr. Luna came through the door, "Hey mommy!" she greeted me with an infectious smile.

"Hi."

"So let's talk about the little star of the show, how's he doing?" There was a knock on the door and one of the nurses came in followed by Adam. Dr. Luna stood to greet him. Seth laughed making grabby motions at Adam from his spot lying on the table. "You must be dad!" She smiled widely. Adam nodded coming to sit in the chair on the other side of Seth.

"Seth is doing really well." I answer. A bit nervous that Adam had showed up.

"How is the lactose free formula I recommend?"

"Euuullk!" He shrieked swinging his little arms and kicking his feet

"He doesn't really like it, but bad taste is better than tummy aches I suppose." I rubbed Seth’s little tummy.

"pffft!" Seth huffed at me and I stuck my tongue out at him. Adam chucked from his seat, “Baa!” Seth rolled onto his tummy staring at Adam.

"Expressive little thing!" Dr. Luna smiled, “Alright so is our little man trying to sit up on his own?”

“Well not really he-” He pulled his little legs under him and sat up clapping at Adam, “Just did for the first time.” Luna gasped,

“Yay baby Seth!!” She cheered, rolling over to play with his little covered foot. He was still clapping at Adam.

“Oo ra oo ra oo raa.”

“He talks quite a lot, he likes to mimic people.” I explained to the doctor, Seth was laughing uncontrollably and I looked over to see Adam playing with him, clapping along.

“Ok, that’s fantastic. Next time I see you, you'll be saying big people's words.”

“He’s getting pretty close, if you tell him something he will remember and come up with his own baby word for it. Cat is caca, dog is doo, plant is plah. Stuff like that.” I heard Adam make an over exaggerated gasp.

“You are so smart buddy!”

“Exactly right dad, I think we are getting into a higher range of mental development. Does he recognize his own name?” She rolled back over to her computer.

“Seth?” He turned around to face me pointing at Adam.

“Ahra!” He said angrily before turning back around.

“He does!” Luna cheered, “Ok i’m going to go down my check list for the 8 to 9 month range, we may not have to do any more modified appointments. Afraid of strangers?”

“Definitely not.” Adam chimed in, “At least not from what i’ve seen, Y/N?” He asked, looking bashful at me. I smiled at him.

“No, he is very much not afraid of strangers. He’s a bit clingier to people he recognizes though.”

“That kinda checks two boxes, may need to kinda explain to him that strangers can be bad when he’s a bit older. Does he have a favorite toy?”

“It varies from day to day.”

“Alright, does he understand the word ‘no’ ?” Seth took in a deep breath and glared at her, “Chalk that up to a yes and he does not like it.” She said typing into her computer, “Makes lots of sounds, yes. Does he copy sounds and gestures you make?”

“Seth,” Adam called in a sing song way, Adam scrunched up his face funny and Seth copied him before giggling uncontrollably and falling back onto me, Adam lunged out of his seat trying to catch him and it hit the ground with a bang, which set Seth off crying. “I’m sorry I’m sorry!” Adam was chanting over and over. I picked Seth up, falling back hadn’t hurt him, it was just the noise.

“Shh shh, it’s ok.” I was trying to sooth both of the babies in the room, “Here,” I handed him over to Adam as the nurse righted the chair.

“I’m sorry buddy.” he was still saying.

“He’s ok Adam.” I told him gently, “He really doesn’t like loud noises. People talking loudly are ok but things like sirens, banging, construction, fireworks are a no go.” He was still crying and I tugged on Adam’s sleeve until he sat down next to me on the table. I rubbed Seth’s little head, “What are you doing baby, you're not crying you’re not even crying. You wanna come to mommy?” I asked, he huffed and clung on tighter to Adam.

“Oh it’s ok baby Seth I don’t like loud stuff either.” Dr. Luna smiled at me, “He’s obviously pointing at things. Seth,” She called when he was settled down, “Dad do you mind turning him around so I can look at his face?” She asked, Adam turned him and sat him in his lap, “Seth, watch.” She waved the brightly colored pencil then dropped it into her lap, “He’s following stuff with his eyes. If you per say, take something away from him or move something that he might want like a pacifier or a cup, does he come looking for it?”

“Our neighbor's cat will sometimes come in through the fire escape window to hide and Seth never fails to crawl around and track her down.” She cleaned the pencil really well and handed it to him.

“It’s unsharpened don't worry.” She smiled to Adam, “I just want to see how he plays.”

“Ooooo….BLAH!” He threw it away, at the nurse, beating on Adam’s hand on his stomach laughing, “Rada ra ra.” I dug into his baby bag, “Ra da ra.”

“Hey baby here.” I handed over his squishy pineapple.

“OOO-ah!”

“Very good,” Dr. Luna praised as he passed it around and chewed on it, “Passing things smoothly from hand to hand, picking and throwing things fairly well, can he hold onto things with his thumb and index finger, have you started giving him baby cereal.”

“He has an insane hate for baby cereal.” I responded, “But he grabs onto things you hand him fairly well.”

“I know he stands with support and bounces. Can he stand or try to stand on his own?” I shook my head no.

“Not unless he suddenly does it for Da-Adam again.” I smiled awkwardly. I didn’t know if I could call Adam dad, Dr. Luna had done it repeatedly and he hadn’t corrected her yet.

“Oh silly me, I just assumed-”

“I’m the dad.” Adam said quickly, “It’s a bit of an odd situation but I’m the dad.”

“Oh.” Dr. Luna smiled, “Well I’m delighted someone stepped up, Y/N sure needed someone in her corner after everything.” Adam looked at me, worried.

“I’m fine.” I told him, “We’re fine.” I said rubbing Seth’s head.

“Ok, I am going to go check up on my patient in room B, give you two sometime to get him undressed so we can do the physical check up, and get his shots.” Dr. Luna smiled, I nodded.

“Thank you.”

“My pleasure, I am always happy to see you and Seth in my office at any time.” She patted my knee. Headed to the door. “Oh! I am so sorry I almost forgot to ask if he is still sleeping with his machine? There seemed to be some notes in his chart from a Dr. Lance, there was a problem?” I let out a sigh.

“He developed this sort of hiccup noise but he wasn’t hiccuping, Dr. Lance recommended we take him off the machine and just hook him up to a pulse oximeter, he’s been fine ever since.”

“No more breathing problems?” She asked, smiling wide. I shook my head no,

“No more problems.” I agreed.

“High-five Mama! You are doing great!” She told me, “I’m still going to listen to that lung extra closely but if my hunch is right we might have a complete turn around.” She left and I prepared myself for the questions from Adam.

“Y/N?” He asked, putting his hand on top of mine. “Squish you gotta talk to me, what the fuck happened?”

“Where do I start?” I sighed.

“Well obviosly we had sex and now we have a baby, I’m assuming he is mine.”

“Yes you are the only man I had sex with in the past two years, so most likly he is yours.”

“Why was he breathing funny, what machine and why did he need it?” I shuddered.

“I was almost nine months, I was headed home from the store in a cab when some asshole decided he was tired of waiting and ran the red light slamming into the cab we were in. I woke up in the hospital, no longer pregnant and the nurse ran to get the doctor, they told me that I had pushed the baby out naturally in the ambulance. We were fine except, I hit my head and Seth had a centimeter whole in his lung and some fluid. He was hooked up to a breathing tube when they brought him to me and they were feeding him through a tube. We were at the hospital for two weeks before they sent him home with me, he was on a breathing machine at night with a mask and now we just have a little meter that goes off if his breathing isn’t normal and if it beeps we hook him up to the breathing machine for a while.”

“Please tell me I can go kick that bastard’s ass.” I shook my head at Adam.

“He pulled me out of the car and rode in the ambulance with me, they said he sobbed the entire time in the waiting room, I have no grudge against him.”

“Uh-uh.” I looked down at Seth who dropped his pineapple on the floor, he was pointing at it looking at Adam, “Uh-uh Boo ra.” I laughed.

“I think that’s his name for you. Boo-ra.” Seth agreed clapping

“Boo ra boo ra!” Seth agreed Adam growled, picking Seth up over his head.

“You gotta say Daddy. Come on Dada, Daaadaaa.”

“Doodoo!”

“No not Doodoo, Dada. come on say Dada.” Seth reached down, smushing Adam’s face.

“Mye mye!”

“Yeah Seth I’m all yours and Mommy’s…” my heart sputtered. Adam was looking at me with his huge brown eyes, “If she’ll have me?” He pouted, sticking his bottom lip out.

“Of course, I’m not gonna shut you out of Seth’s life.” I told him, he put Seth down wrapping his arm around me in a hug and holding onto Seth with the other arm.

“I should've been here.” He said, “I wish you had called me, texted me, something. I would have been here from the start.”

“After all those crazy ex’s I heard about, How you thought at first somehow Hannah’s-”

“Ahhhht!” He covered Seth’s ears. “Don’t teach Seth satan’s name!”

“-baby was also yours, I couldn’t Adam I was so worried you would reject me, I thought I had already killed our friendship with my stupid crush.”

“Why would you think that?!” He looked taken aback.

“You totally refused to look at me, when I asked if we were still friends!” I gawked at him.

“Squish you little idiot,” He held Seth out in front of me, “You see this cute little shit, this is why I wouldn’t look at you that morning. I didn’t want to be your friend because I wanted the process that made him with you every second of every morning, evening, and night since the moment I first met you.”

“You had a crush on me too?” I asked getting up and laying Seth down to undress him.

“Nope, not a crush, not had. I was about five seconds of watching you dancing with all those guys that night from snatching you up and tying your ass to my bed and never letting you leave. I fucking love you.” I looked up at him.

“You can’t be serious.” I said in disbelief. He covered Seth’s eyes with one hand and snatched me up with the other arm kissing me, hard. He broke away from my lips to trail his mouth up my neck to my ear.

“I’m only stopping because the doctor’s coming back.” He whispered before nipping my ear, and setting me back down flat on my feet. I blushed hard and quickly finished undressing Seth.

“Alright!” She said walking back in, “Dad Im’a need you to hop up so I can measure how much little Seth is growing and we can get our shots.”

#adam sackler #baby #adam sackler x reader #hbo girls #hbo girls fanfiction #adam driver #adam driver x you

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reeceweep24 · 5 years ago

Text

Pink Pearl (Peep) and Robot Spinel Au (Part 2)

As Peep walked off the steps and got into the garden, she could make out more of the mysterious figure's features. It had a upside-down heart shaped stone on its chest so Peep knew right away that it was another gem. Her hair was a magenta color and was in the form of pigtails. She wore a dark magenta top and puffy magenta shorts along with pink shoulder pads and gloves. She also had white stockings and knee-high boots. Her head seemed to be slightly lowered and had her hands clasped together in front of her.

Peep felt a bit of relief. Many of the gems on Homeworld had dropped their old ways and had become more accepting of each other. They were also allowed to explore other planets to help dismantle the Diamond’s empire or just to have an adventure. Maybe this gem had come here by accident and decided to explore the area. Peep having more optimism, started running up to the pink gem.

When she got closer however, something made her stop in her tracks.

The gem had an unusual look about her. There was a weird luster to her that no gem should have. She had segmented lines all across her arms and legs, similar to how gems looked when they were hit with a destabilizer. A gray dot was on each side of her mouth and boots. She also had her eyes closed as if she were sleeping. Three more lines ran down each of the eyes. The weirdest part of all however, was the fact that she looked very withered and what seemed like wires were protruding out of her.

Peep was taken aback by this. Not only did this gem didn’t really look like a gem at all but it looked like she had been here for a very long time. This was proven by the fact that the overgrowth had consumed her feet and vines were running up her legs.

“How can this be?” Peep thought, “Pink and I were the only ones allowed in the garden. How did this… thing get here and stay here as long as it has without anyone noticing?”

Although fear of knowing nothing about this being and what it might do if she woke it up, Peep wanted answers. Peep cautiously walked up to the uncanny gem until she was a foot away from it.

“Hey… Do you mind waking up, you seem like you’ve been sleeping for a long time,” Peep said.

No response came from her.

“I know you can hear me. Stop pretending you can’t,” Peep said a bit louder.

Still nothing.

“Just wake up already!” Peep shouted, frustratingly so.

She didn’t even move an inch.

Peep gave an exasperated sigh. Maybe the being wasn’t really sleeping after all. Peep then decided to get up close and take a closer look. She circled around the being thinking of what to do when her eyes landed on the heart-shaped gemstone. It had a colorless gray look to it that stood out from the pink complexion.

Peep found this interesting and thought that maybe she could do something with it. Peep then put out her hand and slowly reached for the gemstone. Her arm shook more vigorously as it came closer but eventually her fingers made contact with the gemstone.

In that exact moment the gemstone suddenly began to glow brightly. The being began to shake, making clicking sounds as it did so. Peep quickly pulled her arm back and was so paralyzed by fear that she couldn’t move.

The being continued to shake and click until her eyes began to slowly open. Peep continued to look on in horror. At last, after a bit of creaking her magenta eyes were now fully open and they blinked up at Peep.

Peep, finally regaining her senses, began to back away only to be tripped up by the rubble and fell down hard to the ground. In the midst of the pain she looked up at those magenta eyes as they stared back at her.

She then began to speak: ”Wh….at?...*creak*..Wh..o..oo..a.r..e..*snap*..y..o...u?”

She spoke in a broken voice that was interfered with mechanical noises. The ends of her hanging wires also began to spark constantly. Peep was at a loss for words. She couldn’t think of anything to say over the shock she just had.

“P-Peep,” was the only word that seemed to escape from her mouth.

“Y..ou..’re..*crack*..n..o..t..h..e..r..*click*. Wh...er..e...i..s..*tik*...s..h..e?”

“W-Who are you talking about?” Peep asked.

“I..w..as..*grind*...su..p..p..o..s..ed..t..o.*snap*..w..ai..t..f..o.*crack*.r..h.e..r..b..ut..s..h*click*e..h..as..*click*n’t..c..o..me..b..*pop*a..ck..y..e..*clink**clank*t..”

It was hard for Peep to make out what the robot said as the interruptions in her speech were becoming more frequent and distorting. The gemstone then began to lose it’s pink glow and the robot’s eyes started to flutter.

Peep immediately got up from the ground just as the robot began to stagger and lose its balance in the overgrowth. Peep caught her as she started to fall and helped her back on her feet. The robot was still struggling to stay active as she began to shake again and sparks were now flying off of her. Peep still held on to her by the shoulders

“You don’t look too well,” Peep said, “I can get you out of here and-”

“NO!” The robot snapped, “Sh..e..ee.*crack* t..o..old..mmm..*click*...ee..t..o..*grind*..s..t..ay..h..eerr*snap*..ee.”

“Who is this ‘she’ you keep talking about?!” Peep retorted.

The robot tried to answer but she couldn’t compose herself any longer. Her gemstone lost more of it’s radiance until it had reverted back to a grey color. Her eyes snapped shut and she began to fall forward. Peep grabbed onto her as she fell right into her.

Before the robot fell completely limp in Peep’s arms, she uttered something that would change Peep’s world forever.

“P..i..n..k.”

#pink pearl #spinel #spinearl #spinearl robot au #steven universe #spinelologie:// mechanical heart

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arigatogatos · 5 years ago

Text

Making the Draenei Language - Part 2

Part 1 | Part 3

First off, thanks to all the people who’ve expressed interest in this project! It makes me super happy that people think what I’m doing is interesting :D

Anyway, last time I went through and got a basic idea of the structure of the language, this time we’re diving into WHAT 👏 THAT👏 MOUTH👏 DO (and also spelling)

... and by that I of course mean phonetics (the study of the sounds produced in speech), phonology (the study of which sounds differentiate meaning) and phonotactics (how sounds are put together).

Phonetics and Phonology

Before we can even consider choosing some sounds for the language lets take a moment to consider those TEEF!

Taking my main boy Aegagrus (drawn by the wonderful @rurukatt, definitely didn’t put this in here cuz I still love this pic) as a model for my headcanon of Draenei teeth, we can see how those might get in the way of some sounds... but just like, specifically [f] and [v] (sounds in square brackets represent sounds not the letters, to hear what they sound like go here!) Both of those sounds involve making the same shape with your mouth - touching your bottom lip to your top teeth, but when you got some real long or pointy teeth, that might be a little bit hard to do! (or an accident waiting to happen if they’re sharp enough)

There’s only a small problem with this though, we have some canon words that use these sounds e.g “Pheta vi acahaci” - Light give me strength. I’m gonna explain this away by saying that we’re dealing with an approximate transcription using the Latin alphabet and English spelling conventions, which definitely wasn't designed to write down languages outside of well.. ideally Latin. I mean there’s a reason why English spelling is the way it is and one of those reasons comes down to using an alphabet too small for the number of sounds in the language.

Tangent aside, this means those two sounds are probably something like [ɸ] (again click here to hear these) for f and [β~ʋ] for v. These are sounds similar to [f] and [v] but they don’t involve teeth touching lips, check, and they’re probably what human transcribers misheard as [f] and [v].

Going through the other transcriptions in the data and making some guesses as to what they could be, we end up with something like this:

and huh that seems familiar... wait a second!

Yeah that’s just Hebrew without voiced fricatives, affricates or the sound [j] (the ‘y’ sound in English), and a bonus rhotic. I mean that’s probably to be expected as Draenei are heavily coded to be Jewish (a good post on that), so it makes sense that the sounds are also similar. It’s a shame to have such quote-unquote normal sounds (the th sound [θ] in ”thin” and “ether” is only in 4% of the worlds languages!) but that’s what you get when English devs make a game for a western audience, you get... ~~the fantasy accent~~ a.k.a discount slavic/germanic accents.

By the way [r] is the ‘trilled’ or ‘rolled’ r and [ɾ] is a ‘tapped’ r like in Spanish "por favor”.

Also, as another side note, this sound [ʔ] - the glottal stop is present in English too but you probably don’t recognise that it’s there. It’s the ‘-’ break in between “uh-oh”, and its also present in some dialects of American and British English where the [t] in words like “bottle” (bo’el) and “water” (wa’er) are replaced with the glottal stop.

Anyway, onto vowels! And yet again we come back to the problems of English spellings. English has approximately... too many vowels. In my dialect of Australian Standard English there’s up to 20 different vowel sounds depending on how you count. I mean all things considered we've done pretty well with the 5 vowel symbols we've got but good luck trying to accurately represent all this:

(not to mention the diphthongs) with just a e i o u. Most languages only have ~5 vowels so that’s about what I’m looking for. Taking into consideration all the English wackiness in spelling, we end up with what I think are 7 vowels (the pronunciation examples are definitely not gonna be spot on due to regional differences, learn the IPA its good):

[i] - meat, me, three, e-mail

[ʊ] - (short though) good, should, wood

[ʊ:] - (same as above but long)

[e] - bed, head, red

[ɔ~o] - (somewhere between the vowels in) bought, bot (those of you with the cot-caught merger are having real fun now)

[ɐ] - (this one is really only in Australian English) but, strut, bud

[ɐ:] - (same as above but long) bard, palm, start, hard

The two vowels with long forms are the interesting ones. All throughout the canon text we see ‘aa’ and ‘uu’ popping up again and again in things like “Maraad”, “Sayaad”, “Enkaat”, “Vaard”, “Tuurem” and “Krokuun”. Now this could just be stylistic choices made by the dev team to make the language seem more ~exotic~ but I think that it is definitely a case of phonemic vowel length. That’s where distinctions in words are made by elongating a vowel - something Latin had. But it’s not to be confused with what English calls ‘long vowels’, which are really the leftovers from actual vowel length after everyone in 1500 decided to pronounce every vowel just... completely different for some reason. The Great Vowel Shift is an interesting read). Anyway, it makes these double letters make sense, and is way more interesting than random double vowels. It’s also interesting that it’s not perfectly symmetric either, not all the vowels have this distinction, which is cool and perfectly natural for languages to do!

What is weird is that [ɔ~o] doesn’t have this feature, because in our vowel system, it’s almost directly in the middle of our two long/short vowels so it would probably assimilate and end up doing the same thing! So, going off that I’m going to simulate the beginning of language evolution, where the [ɔ~o] sounds is in the process of diverging into [o:] (oar, caught, thought) when it’s followed by ‘r, t, d, k or g’ and [ɔ] (lot, pot) everywhere else.

So, now we have the sounds for our language, how are they used? (dw hardcore conlanging people, I’ve worked out the rest of the allomorphy rules for the consonants but this post is already loooong)

Phonotactics

Phonotactics is largely about how syllables are formed and what sounds are allowed where. In an effort to try and not make the language *too* similar to English I want these rules to differ from English. Luckily, that’d really easy to do because yet again, English is a statistically weird language!

Syllables are divided into 3 parts - The onset, The nucleus and the Coda. For simplicities sake this corresponds to the consonants before the vowel, the vowel, and the consonants after the vowel. English lets wayyyyy too many consonants on either side ending up with abominations like “strengths” having 3 sounds before the nucleus and 3 after, or crimes against god like “twelfths” with 4 sounds after the coda.

Draenei on the other hand seems to be at most (C)(L)V(C). The brackets mean a sound is optional, C’s being consonants, L being ‘liquids’ like [l] and [r] (and [ʋ]) and V of course being vowels. Now going through the data (plus some creative input) we end up with some rules as to what can go where...

but we’ll leave the details of that for the final documentation and head onto...

Spelling! Everyone’s favourite...

There have been countless forum posts about how to pronounce ‘Draenei’ and even between developers at different panels there doesn't seem to be a consensus. This is probably due to the inconsistent spellings used throughout the lexicon so far - draenei and auchenai rhyme (I think) but they’re spelt with different endings!

With the language I have a few main goals

- Make it match as closely as reasonable with canon and common interpretations - Have the spelling be consistent (same letters should always produce the same sound) - In line with the first one, keep as much of the spelling the same as possible - Make it as alien as possible within reason (sadly phonetics and phonology will not be the place to do that)

So coming to a word like “Draenei”, I have to break at least one thingon that list. Personally I want it to be pronounced [drɐ.naɪ] (druh-nai). So, to be consistent with the sounds from before it should be spelt ‘Dranai’ but that definitely won’t do, or I could keep the spelling and pronounce it literally [drɐ.e.ne.i] (druh-eh-ne-ey to give a rough guide for that), which is... equally bad.

The compromise I'm going with is keeping the spelling of Draenei but making the [aɪ] (ai) sound spelt ‘ei’ across the language. Meaning is gonna be Auchenei. Well, not really because there’s still a bunch of other spellings that need standardising.

the ‘ch’ in “Auchenei” is pronounced with a [k], so is the ‘c’ in “Dioniss aca”. Going through and standardising things like ‘ph’ -> ‘f’, ‘ch’ -> ‘k’ or ‘sh’ depending and rewriting vowels to match the phonology we end up with something that preserves most of the identity and look of the language but just makes more sense! Aukenei would then be the spelling I’m using in the lexicon, probably with a little note for the canon spelling.

So, from now on I'm going to be using the reformed spelling TM, which hopefully will mean anyone attempting to speak this language will have an easier time getting what I'm envisioning, cuz everything is now consistant.

That about does it for this post. Yet again if you made it all the way to the bottom, congratulations! Hopefully the next posts will be a bit more interesting (I’m so fucking pumped for how the culture will impact the grammar and vocabulary holy shit) but I gotta get this one out of the way.

Next time, we’ll be doing word-building - the morphology of the language, Thanks for reading!

#draenei #wow #World of Warcraft #lorecraft #headcanon #theorycrafting #language #conlang #linguistics #draenei language #not art

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kiyoitsukikage · 6 years ago

Note

how do you pronounce karin's name? is it car-in? karen? I'm confused

Karin’sname is pronounced, more or less as you said, car-in, not Karen.

The Hepburnromanization (which is the most commonly used) follows Anglophone writingconventions for the consonants, while the vowels follow the Latin pronunciation(in general).

And this isvery convenient if you know Latin or Italian, like me, but I understand itcould be quite tricky if you don’t. I’ll try to exemplify:

- A ispronounced like the ‘a’ sound in ‘car’

- I ispronounced like the ‘e’ sound in ‘free’

- E ispronounced more or less like the ‘e’ sound in ‘dress’

- Thepronunciation of O is close to the ‘o’ sound in the NAmE pronunciation of the‘o’ in ‘rose’

- The U is alittle bit tricky, though it’s close to the double ‘o’ sound in ‘room’.

This is it,in short. At first I thought of writing just this much, but right now I’mattending a course on Japanese phonetics and phonology so, if you’reinterested, I’m going to pass some knowledge onto you~ Keep reading.

There aremany things to say about Japanese phonetics. To keep it short, I’ll just focuson the vowel sounds (which are the most difficult for non-Italian speakers).

Japanesevowels are quite easy, because they are only five sounds. You may be thinking“Yeah, English has five sounds, too – a, e, i, o, u” but it’s kinds misleading:actually, in English there are many more. (Think, for instance, of how many differentways you pronounce the letter A in the following words: ‘face’, ‘trap’, ‘bath’,‘square’, ‘comma’.)

Let’s seeJapanese vowels in details.

あ ‘a’ is pronounced like the ‘a’ in‘car’. In the International Phonetic Alphabet it’s rendered with the symbol ‘ɑ’.Note that this contradicts the general rule Japanese vowels = Italian vowels,because the Italian ‘a’ sound is pronounced in a more advanced position.

い ‘i’ (IPA ‘i’) is pronounced likethe ‘ee’ in ‘free’, although not with the same length.

う ‘u’ (IPA ‘ɯ’) has no equal in English (orItalian, for that matter). It’s pronounced like the ‘oo’ in ‘room’ (half of thelength), but the lips, instead of being rounded, are just compressed. Note thatthis is the correct pronunciation in standard Japanese (Tokyo dialect), but inother regions of Japan the variant ‘u’ (with rounded lips) is also used.

え ‘e’ (IPA ‘e’) is similar to the ‘e’ in ‘dress’.It’s halfway between an open and a closed ‘e’ sound; in fact, a more detailedway to write it in IPA would be ‘e̞’.

お ‘o’ (IPA ‘o’) has no equal in BrE,but apparently (I’m guessing judging by phonetic transcriptions of Englishwords in dictionaries) it’s close to the NAmE pronunciation of the ‘o’ in ‘go’.Once again, being halfway between an open and a closed ‘o’, the IPAtranscription could be ‘o̞’.

If thecomparison with English words sounds confusing (I know there’s a greatvariation of pronunciation depending on where you live), you can look up to IPAvowel chart page on Wikipedia, where you can listen to every sound (i-u-e-o-abeing respectively the first and second to last sound in the first row, thefirst and the last sound in the very middle and the second to last sound in thebottom row).

Devoicing sounds: in standard Japanese, the ‘i’ and ‘u’ sounds arepronounced differently under certain circumstances. This change is calleddesonorization or devoicing: ‘i’ and ‘u’ are almost not pronounced when theyare between two voiceless consonants (k, s, sh, t, ch, ts, h, p).

The mostfamous example of this (for Naruto fans at least) is Sasuke’s name (pronouncedmore like ‘Saske’), or Tsukuyomi (Tskuyomi). The list of words this ruleapplies to goes on and on (tsuki‘moon’, hito ‘person’, tsukuru ‘make’, tsuku ‘arrive’, kita pastform of ‘come’, kitsune ‘fox’, etc.).

(By theway, I’m following almost word-to-word the explanation my teacher gave – and Ican assure you he know his shit very well.)

#answers #Anon #I got carried away once again #japanese phonology

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temple-maiden · 7 years ago

Text

On the last day of July, our class started its season of demo teaching. This is a wise way to enhance our capabilities in speaking in front of people and also our training ground. Of course, every beginning starts with the basics. As we start this semester, Ms. Claire already handed us the outline and gave everyone in our class the lessons to be discussed.

So on the 31st, we had our 1st batch of demo teaching which, as what I’ve said before, started with one of the basics of the English language… NOUNS.

To properly start off, let’s begin with the common lesson under nouns.

Giving the meaning of Proper Nouns, it simply specifies the names of people, places, and things.

People’s names

· Tyler Knott Gregson

· Alexander

· Sally

· Mr. Burnand

· Aunt Georgina

· Mrs. Heussaff

· Uncle Erwan

The names of countries and their capital cities

· China | Beijing

· Japan | Tokyo

· Great Britain | London

· Italy | Rome

| I am longing to go to Norway to see the northern lights.

| Skylark just discovered a new café called Barkin’ Blends, wherein you can also play with dogs.

As to the Common Nouns, it specifies the names of people, places, or things in GENERAL.

Persons | children teacher, scientist, mailman, woman, parent, doctor, girl

Animals | lion, ants, tigers, cheetah, sheep, elephants, birds, mice

Places | street, hills, beach, metropolis, city, mountain, river, province

Things | trains, battleship, tree, lichen, music, radio, plant, milk

Ideas | love, ideology, loyalty, fulfillment, patriotism, religion, peace

From my classmate’s discussion, every proper noun has an equivalent common noun, but it doesn’t mean that every common noun has a proper noun. Also, Common Nouns only begin with a capital letter if it is placed at the beginning of a sentence while in Proper Nouns, obviously, always start with a capital letter.

Take note peeps:

There are times when a word can either be used as a common noun or proper noun and you might get confused as to when you should use the capitalized form. For example, let’s say, father. This can either be a common and proper noun. To get this straight, if common nouns are used as a title or name, that’s the time to make it capitalized, as it takes the place of actual names.

Now that we’ve already defined what are the proper and common uses of specifying nouns, let’s move on to classifying its purpose. You may question a ‘word’ like, “What is its role?” “Does it have a purpose?” “Is this word used in a singular or plural form?” “What can be an alternative to make it singular/plural?” These questions will be answered if you keep on scrolling down (lol).

In this section, you will learn if a word deserves to be counted or not.

Let me introduce to you, Countable and Uncountable Nouns! (*applause)

Countable Nouns are said to be referring to the things that can be counted and with the use of a/an, the, numbers, some/many (if the word is in plural form), many, few/a few, and how many? They can either be singular or plural.

a/an | a pen

the | the page

numbers | three babies

some/any (if the word is in plural form) | There are some pastel shirts in the cabinet.

many | There are many YouTubers at the event.

few/a few | There are few seats.

how many? | How many babies do you want?

Uncountable Nouns are said to be referring to immaterial concepts like love, life, etc. Also, these nouns are referring to stuff or liquid that cannot be counted like water, sugar, and salt (etc.). These words are always in singular form. It can be used with some/any, much, little/a little, and how much.

some/any | There is some blood in the tube. | There isn’t any chocolates on the tray. Note: a/an or numbers can’t be used before these words.

much | There isn’t much salt in my fries.

little/a little | They know a little French.

how much | How much do you need?

Let’s give way to an important part of Uncountable words, the Partitives. Uncountable nouns can be quantified by using partitives, as to refer to a part of a whole. Here are some examples:

o A glass of water

o A piece of cheese

o A loaf of bread

o A cup of coffee

o An item of news

o A bar of soap

To the nouns that are perceived by the senses and name it as something you can see, hear, touch, smell or taste, it falls under Concrete Noun. These include people, animals, places, and objects.

People | speech pathologist, lady, Tiarra

Animals | puppy, fish, tiger

Places | Notre Dame, beach

Objects | cupcake, keys, fruit, tea

To the nouns that we cannot hear, smell, touch, or taste, or should I say intangible things, it falls under Abstract Noun. They are usually actions, events, ideas, states of mind, feelings.

Actions and events | childhood, October, Friday, war

Ideas | energy, freedom, luck

Conditions | cancer, flu, cold

Feelings | anger, doubt

Let’s proceed to classify what a ‘word/noun’ is. Knowing its stand in a given sentence. This was further discussed in Material Noun. It is the name given to the material substance or things made up of an alloy. Nouns in this class are almost materials like cloth, air, metal, gold, salt, iron, silver, etc.

Sample sentences:

Cotton dresses are very cheap and comfortable.

I bought a gold ring for my mother’s birthday.

Calcium is a good mineral for health.

Plastic is made up of many molecules of ethylene.

Material Noun has 4 categories namely, Material nouns from nature, from animals, from plants, and man-made.

Material nouns from nature | water, silver, iron, sand, rock, rain, salt, air, gold, copper, coal, sunlight, earth, etc.

Material nouns from animals | egg, honey, silk, wool, meat, milk, leather, etc.

Material nouns from plants | cotton, oil, jute, medicine, rubber, food, wood, coffee, tea, perfume, etc.

Man-made material nouns | acid, asphalt, cement, chalk, cheese, ebony, felt, paraffin, alcohol, etc.

Of course, we still have rules in using these nouns. In general, articles such as a, an or the, are not used with material nouns if those are uncountable like:

· Honey is wholesome food and beneficial to health.

· Water boils only at 100°C temperature.

On the other hand, articles may be used with material nouns if those are countable such as:

· I would like to eat a Dutch cheese.

· It is a very healthy wine.

Use of ‘the’ and ‘some’ can also be done in the following way:

· The honey in the bottle is mine.

· I saw there is some milk in the glass.

After knowing the stand of a noun in a sentence, giving importance to its gender is truly appreciated. Gender-specific Nouns got your back. It refers specifically to a male or a female. When a noun’s meaning makes its gender masculine or feminine, it is considered to be a gender-specific noun. Gender-specific nouns will give you four types: Masculine Gender, Feminine Gender, Common Gender and Neuter Gender.

Masculine Gender denotes a MALE SEX. These are words for men, boys and male animals. Dad | bull | drake | ram | boar

Feminine Gender denotes a FEMALE SEX. These are words for women, girls and female animals. actress | waitress | vixen | bitch | sow

Common Gender denotes either a male or a female. soldier | student | cat | whale

Neuter Gender denotes a lifeless thing. It denotes a thing that is neither male nor female. book | pen | room | tree

Note these words, peeps.

Masculine Feminine Father Mother Son Daughter Man Woman Emperor Empress Bachelor Spinster

Animal Masculine Feminine Goose Gander Goose Fox Fox Vixen Pig Boar Sow Horse Stallion Mare Donkey Jack Jenny

Masculine Feminine Boy Girl Dog Bitch King Queen Monk Nun Drake Duck

These fingers of mine are tired of typing already and so do you in reading.

Have a break. Have a

There’s more to go. Don’t procrastinate. Read these all NOW!

Note: Objects without life are often personified that is spoken of as if they were living beings. We then regard them as males or females.

· Masculine gender is applied to object remarkable for strength and violence.

The Sun | Summer | Winter | Death| The sun sheds his beams in rich and poor alike.

· Feminine gender is sometimes applied to objects remarkable for beauty, gentleness, and gracefulness.

The Moon | The Earth | Spring | Nature | The moon has hidden her face behind a cloud.

Now, we’re down to identifying a noun’s singular and plural form. This is to note that not all nouns are to be made in plural form just by adding –s. We’re almost done so please keep on reading.

Regular Nouns and their Plurality

These nouns’ plurality are usually formed just by adding –s and –es at the end of the word. student | students successor | successors pass | passes

B. Nouns ending in ce, ge, se, or ze lace | laces cage | cages house | houses glaze | glazes

C. Nouns ending in y (preceded by a consonant) story | stories city | cities

(preceded by a vowel) toy | toys key | keys

D. Nouns ending in o (preceded by a consonant) potato | potatoes veto | vetoes photo | photos memo | memos

(preceded by a vowel) folio | folios video | videos

There are nouns ending in –o which are either added by –s or –es

avocado | avocados/avocadoes

motto | mottos/mottoes

Most other nouns ending in o, particularly those Spanish and Italian origin, can form the plural by simply adding –s.

soprano |sopranos

sombrero | sombreros

Nouns ending in –oo

zoo | zoos

tattoo | tattoos

E. Nouns ending in f, fe, or ff ‘f’ to ‘v’ transition sheaf | sheaves self | selves

‘fe’ to ‘ves’ transition life | lives wife | wives

‘f’, just by adding –s surf | surfs

There are nouns ending in –f which are either added by –s or –es

dwarf | dwarfs/dwarves

staff | staffs/staves

Irregular Nouns and their Plurality

Add or change to –en child | children ox | oxen

-oo- to –ee- transition foot | feet goose | geese

-ouse to –ice transition mouse | mice louse | lice

-us to –i transition cactus | cacti focus | foci/focuses fungus | fungi/funguses stimulus | stimuli

-ix/-ex to –ces transition appendix | appendices index | indexes/indeces matrix | matrixes/matrices

-eau to –eaux/-eaus transition beau | beaux bureau | bureaux/bureaus tableau | tableaux/tableaus

-um, -ium, -us, -on to –a transition stratum | strata bacterium | bacteria genus | genera phenomenon | phenomena

-a to –ae transition antenna | antennae/antennas formula | formulae/formulas vertebra | vertebrae vita | vitae

There are nouns that forms their plurality without changing or adding any affix to them.

Plurality form of hyphenated nouns fathers-in-law runners-up

Numbers and Letters’ Plurality form

3’s b’s %’s

THERE YOU HAVE IT! Thank you for giving me the patience that I deserve as you continue reading this post. Lemme have a break and see you on my next blog. Ciao!

#AdvancedEnglishGrammar #ENGL2053 #ABEnglish

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whatdoesshedotothem · 3 years ago

Text

Sunday 15 September 1839 TRJ

4 3/4

10 1/4

Damp morn[in]g F[ahrenheit] 60 1/2° at 5 a.m. I am all ready now at 5 35/..

no c[oa]ch h[ou]se .:. p[ai]d for man watch[in]g the carr[ia]ge

last night ./50 and p[ai]d Gross this morn[in]g for p[ai]d yest[erday] for

d[itt]o d[itt]o ./50 – w[i]th all the [?] I ha[ve] made, it is

6 3/.. when we get off – 3 min[ute]s lat[e]r than the ti[me] –

damp hazy morn[in]g – forest immed[iatel]y on leav[in]g the Stat[io]n

neith[e]r of us slept well last night – A- [Ann] m[u]ch bit –

we had noth[in]g b[u]t plates and caps and sauciers and knives

and forks and tab[le] linen and our doub[le] bedd[e]d r[oo]m and serv[an]t r[oo]m and

p[ai]d 4/20 – Scotch firs this morn[in]g bark[e]d all r[ou]nd

for a yard or 2 fr[om] the gr[ou]nd at 6 20/.. lit[tle] dist[an]t left

fjord or lake – r[oa]d red coarse as yest[erday] sandy b[u]t good tho’ m[u]ch r[ai]n

in the night – forest and lit[tle] breaks all the way to

Säcjarvi [Sackjarvi] at 7 1/2 – one h[ou]se in the forest – sm[all] b[u]t goodish

Sept[embe]r Sun[day] 15

Nisalax

Urpala [Uppsala]

as the Gent[leman] s[ai]d at Högfors one might sleep at

Helsingfors [Helsinki] 237 v[ersts]

Wiborg [Vyborg] 44 1/2 v[ersts]

St. P- [Petersburg] 181 v[ersts]

Säcjarvi [Sackjarvi] b[u]t

Urpala [Uppsala] seems

a good deal the

bet[ter] of the two –

Same sort of forest r[oa]d as yest[erday]

b[u]t less populat[io]n and bould[e]rs n[o]t so strikingly large –

the soil here a fine red gravel as yest[erday] and many

[expanses] of gravel-conglorn bould[e]rs –

mo[re] cattle this morn[in]g than ev[e]r bef[ore] s[in]ce Abo [Äbo] – no

sheep today as yest[erday] so few in these north[e]rn count[rie]s

can on[l]y be just en[ou]gh to supply the inhab[itant]s w[i]th wool and

a lit[tle] cheese and mutt[o]n – they salt the legs (the hams)

for winter – the Russ[ia]n male costume this morn[in]g ver[y] pret[ty] and pict[uresque]

a whi[te] frock coat and red belt or blue or dark and

often bound w[i]th the sa[me] – the wom[e]n wear a [strong]

linen? dark w[i]th narrow red stripes for pettic[oa]ts, and a bodice

or jack[e]t .............. and a whi[te] hand[ker]ch[ie]f

on the head – they all wear the red strip[e]d stuff – or

I ha[ve] seen many men wear it for jackets and trousers

8 25/.. sev[era]l baggage lit[tle] waggons and 1 horse and so[me] sold[ie]rs on f[oo]t

now at 8 25/.. just cross[e]d lit[tle] bridge ov[e]r lit[tle] stream and

cross[e]d a broad[e]r str[ea]m so[me] ti[me] ago the on[l]y two str[ea]ms

this stage so far – the forest too less swampy than the forest yest[erday]

at 8 3/4 consid[era]ble br[ea]k in the forest – unpaint[e]d

hamlet (we pass thro’) – one of the long[e]st flocks of

sheep we ha[ve] seen (recent[l]y shorn) – log houses

the trees n[o]t even flatten[e]d big boulder all among

the cot[tage]s – peas[an]ts wear bl[a]ck leather gloves like our

Russ[ia]n costume

man bl[a]ck beavers w[i]the buckles

SH:7/ML/TR/14/0006

Sept[embe]r Sun[day] 15

hedg[in]g mittens – hardly out of the hamlet

bef[ore] the young forest beg[i]ns ag[ai]n (Scotch fir and birch, alder

bushes ev[er]ywhere in the swampy places) – but mo[re]

break, and anoth[e]r fields hamlet (scattered) bef[ore] at 8 55/.. and at 9

one neat lit[tle] ochre-yel[low] and whi[te] seam[e]d stat[io]n h[ou]se

at Nisalaks the old[e]r port[io]n of the h[ou]se und[e]r the sa[me] r[oo]m unpaint[e]d

flatten[e]d log-h[ou]se – br[eak]f[a]st boil[e]d milk and Wiborg [Vyborg] (criks?)

Wiburg [Vyborg] 29 2/6

Säcjarvi [Sackjarvi] 15 1/6

Kiskila 14 1/6

Helsingfors [Helsinki] 252 1/2

St. P- [Petersburg] 105 5/6

br[ea]d tied up in a

sort of rose – and made

tea, and took my pint bot[tle] full

away w[i]th us – all

ready at 10 – off at 10 20/.. fr[om] Nisalax

we sh[oul]d ha[ve] liv[e]d bet[ter] here than we did at Urpala [Uppsala] I suspect –

nice lit[tle] stat[io]n – a lit[tle] meat on the fire boil[in]g when we ca[me]

in, and our milk ready in 10 min[ute]s or 1/4 h[ou]r – In 5 min[ute]s

pass thro’ the lit[tle] hamlet – and then forest rocky forest and big bould[e]r ag[ai]n

r[oa]d coarse red sandy as bef[ore] b[u]t good forest, till 11 1/4 good riv[e]r – 2 or 3

good wood, yellow paint[in]g h[ou]ses scatt[ere]d ab[ou]t and lit[tle] unpaint[e]d scatt[ere]d

hamlet – nice bit of open cultivat[e]d count[r]y – the

r[oa]d red sand (b[u]t good) and the soil red sand – still damp and

rath[e]r hazy – (Read[in]g Handb[oo]k artic[le] Moscow) soon

forest ag[ai]n – at 11 3/4 lookd[o]wn up[on] bey[on]d us (left) the

handsom[e]st gent[leman]s h[ou]se we ha[ve] seen in Finland, surround[e]d

w[i]th park-like gr[ou]nds – lit[tle] hamlet scatt[ere]d hereab[ou]ts –

h[ou]se and 2 wings – whi[te] w[i]th pea green roof – at 11 51/..

one neat good yellow, and whi[te] pilast[ere]d stat[io]n at

Kaskila and br[oa]d sheet of wat[e]r at a lit[tle] dist[an]ce in

front – anoth[e]r pavill[io]n-like gent[leman]’s h[ou]se alm[o]st in front

(to the right) fr[om] our stat[io]n yel[low] w[i]th pea green roof and whi[te] corners and

a whi[te] hexastyle portico (w[i]th pedim[en]t – the gable end) beautif[ull]y

Sept[embe]r Sun[day] 15

paint[e]d c[oa]ch h[ou]ses and stabl[in]g and unpaint[e]d barns and cot[tage]s

scatt[ere]d ab[ou]t the fine sheet of wat[e]r com[in]g close to the h[ou]se – ver[y] pret[ty]

Wiborg [Vyborg] 15 1/6

St. P- [Petersburg] 153 2/3

Niserlax 14 1/6

Helsingfors [Helsinki] 266 ½

here – one stage

last night to U- [Urpala] [Uppsala]

ver[y] pict[uresque] – and

[?] this morn[in]g – big boulders ag[ai]n conglom[era]te red granite as yest[erday]

pict[uresque] foresty stage to here – corn (rye) out in cocks

here – soon Scotch fir forest ag[ai]n – the cranberry and moss and heather

dispute as us[ua]l possess[io]n of the rock and bould[e]r

a lit[tle] farm and at 12 17/.. 3 lit[tle] stacks of corn thatch[e]d w[i]th straw and then spruce branches laid

on the top – here and ev[er]ywhere ab[ou]t they lay spruce fir

branches at the doors to keep one clean [crossed word] inst[ea]d

of mats when it is dirty as it alw[a]ys m[u]st be in wet weath[e]r

w[a]s this cust[o]m of strew[in]g branches in the way (as palm br[anch]

as our sav[iou]r rode al[on]g etc.) orig[inall]y to keep one out of the

dirt? now at 12 50/.. sandy and heavy r[oa]d uphill in the

forest – at 1 fr[om] the top of hill Wiborg [Vyborg] in sight, and

its fine island fjord, immense expanse of

wat[e]r and 10 arch wood br[idge] ov[e]r arm of the fjord on

left to w[hi]ch we wind d[o]wn and cross (deals and big bould[e]rs)

now at 12 7/.. 1 7/.. – beaut[iful] wood[e]d islandy expanse of

wat[e]r on each side – ver[y] fine dri[ve] fr[om] here –

at 1 10/.. cross anoth[e]r 10 arch wood[e]n br[idge] – the large

sq[uare] tow[e]r and 3 sm[all] point[e]d tow[e]rs of Wiborg [Vyborg] full in

view left fr[om] the br[idge] – fine wood[e]d dri[ve] fr[om] here – the

wat[e]r right – damp ver[y] sm[all] drizzling r[ai]n – bouldery com[mo]n

just bef[ore] ent[erin]g Wiborg [Vyborg] – at 1 20/.. the 1st barrier and archway –

then at 2[n]d archway and wat[e]r and wood br[idge] 13 arches, to cross

a steamer lying at the quai – ver[y] fine view of fjord and town

the old brick cast[le] close (right) on a lit[tle] isl[an]d – this w[a]s the large sq[uare]

tower I saw at the top of the hill at 1 –

enter the town at 1 25/.. – at the Society’s house good Inn at 1 1/2 –

Strew[in]g Spruce

branches inst[ea]d of mats

SH:7/ML/TR/14/0007

Sept[embe]r Sun[day] 15

S[e]nt Gross w[i]th my passp[or]t to the police – asleep –

c[oul]d n[o]t be seen till 3 – had my h[ai]r done and A. [Ann] and I out at 2 40/..

took Gross to shew us the police – close to the gate by w[hi]ch we ent[ere]d

the town – recross[e]d the br[idge] on 20 wood piers pillar each form[e]d of 5 –

then up the fort-hill – near the br[idge] right on ent[erin]g the town beaut[iful] view of the fjord and suburb to the

westw[ar]d – ret[urne]d by the wat[e]r side – obs[erve]d the big pieces of red

felspar [feldspar] in the porphyritic (conglomerate?) of their

rocks – then on pass[in]g the bridge ag[ai]n and reent[erin]g the town

turn[e]d left along the rampart – A- [Ann] stood sketch[in]g the

old brick cast[le] on a lit[tle] isl[an]d fjord or [crossed word] moat

all r[ou]nd – A- [Ann] sketch[e]d the old cast[le] – its tower 8tagon [octagon] that

Look[e]d sq[uare] in the dist[an]ce – the 3 upper stories of the tower[e]d seem roofless –

the fjord on this side (tow[ar]ds the sea) ver[y] beaut[iful] islandy and

wood[e]d as far as one can see – the wat[e]r on the opposite side

the town ver[y] pict[uresque] but mo[re] like a pret[ty] islandy lake –

Deal sheds – a large raff y[ar]d near left (look[in]g n[or]thw[ar]ds) and lit[tle]

unpaint[e]d hamlet scatt[ere]d a long way along the waters

edge – hamlets (too, right, and nearer, sweep[in]g round to

the town) a large handso[me] suburb w[i]th good ch[ur]ch

yellow w[i]th red roof and tow[e]r cupola pea green – Viborg [Vyborg]

a large town tak[in]g in its suburbs – a large handso[me]

ch[ur]ch in the large sq[uare] oppos[i]te our Inn – 2/3 the men one

sees are sold[ie]rs in their long plait[e]d-in-behind fawn-grey

gr[ea]t coats – they look like monks or women?

then al[on]g the rampart to a lit[tle] pastern gate – w[e]nt out

by it ab[ou]t 1/2 way or mo[re] tow[ar]ds the good suburb –

then turn[e]d (right) tow[ar]ds the sea (along the outside

rampart breast-work) of the fortress –

w[e]nt to the waters’ edge – tast[e]d the wat[e]r – merely

a lit[tle] brackish – n[o]t at all salt – beaut[iful]

view fr[om] a round knoll of bare granite rock of

ca[me] in at 5 1/4

din[ner] at 6 to 6 3/4

out at 7 for a

min[ute] or 2 to see

the ch[ur]ch en face

Sept[embe]r Sun[day] 15

each pier form[e]d of five uprights w[i]th a spur

fr[om] each side of the foot of each upright

on the top of the rock (right, on ent[erin]g the town – and close to the

bridge – so[me] sort of fortificat[io]n there) – on the top of the rock

large when bare, obs[erve]d the sa[me] ochre-yellow moss I saw

on the large old oaks in the park at Stockholm – and in

ret[urnin]g by the water side a lit[tle] of the blood-red moss I first obs[erve]d n[or]th

of Upsala [Uppsala] – scarp[e]d a lit[tle] off w[i]th the point of my parasol

stick – it w[a]s pulpy and vegetable-like – tho’ the wat[e]r trickl[in]g

d[o]wn it, made it look shin[in]g and so like recent blood, I alm[o]st

th[ou]ght at 1st (there being b[u]t a lit[tle] patch of it) that it might

be blood –

the wide expand[e]d, lovely, wood amphitheatric islandy

fjord – the light at 4 3/4 beaut[iful] – the dark

distant bound[ar]y of pine forest back[in]g

the smooth light wat[e]r ver[y] fine – A- [Ann]

th[ou]ght she h[a]d nev[e]r admir[e]d a scene mo[re] –

2 brigs on the stocks here (lit[tle] trading vess[e]ls)

ret[urne]d by the gate nearest the sea the road winding

within the outworks – then saunt[ere]d along

the rampart w[i]thin the walls – ver[y] fine

view (nearly the sa[me] as bef[ore]) of the fjord, b[u]t

saw rath[e]r mo[re] of it – good town – a

reg[ula]r fortress – remind[e]d me in this resp[c]t

of Rocroi where we slept last y[ea]r –

ca[me] in at 5 1/4 – wr[ote] a lit[tle] din[ner] at 6 –

ver[y] good fried Sprax a fish tast[in]g a lit[tle] like carp?

excell[en]t veal cutlet w[i]th curr[an]ts on the top and lemon

and I ate it w[i]th excell[en]t pres[erve]d raspberry, and on ver[y] good

pres[erve]d green gooseberries look[in]g like olives and pres[erve]d

candied lemon, and sago pudding, and good coff[ee] aft[er]w[ar]ds -

SH:7/ML/TR/14/0008

Sept[embe]r Sun[day] 15

aft[e]r din[ner] the oppos[i]te ch[ur]ch door op[e]n, w[e]nt in for

a min[ute] or 2 – a sort of priest or man ab[ou]t the ch[ur]ch ca[me]

to see wh[a]t we sh[oul]d do – 2 candles burn[in]g at 2 silvery shrines –

b[u]t nobod[y] in the ch[ur]ch – too dark to see m[u]ch – b[a]ck at 7 1/4

and h[a]d Grotza b[u]t so long ab[ou]t gett[in]g and pay[in]g for [Podoroshma]

and chang[in]g mon[e]y and pay[in]g up bills that it w[a]s aft[e]r 9 bef[ore] all this w[a]s done –

the sm[all] damp r[ai]n and haze clear[e]d off bet[ween] 2 and 3 p.m. and

aft[er]w[ar]ds fine aft[ernoo]n and ev[enin]g F[ahrenheit] 58° now at 9 10/.. p.m.

our bill 16/20 – c[oul]d get no copp[e]r mon[e]y – pretend[e]d they

h[a]d diffic[ult]y in giv[in]g me 2 five kop[ek] pieces change ag[ain]st

the bill – and in chang[in]g my mon[e]y they ga[ve] me two

25 kop[ek] bills and one 5 kop[ek] – 55 Rub[les] for my Finnish rubel

notes some kopek notes 75s. and a few 50s.

4 notes · View notes

pen-of-dunwall · 8 years ago

Text

Tales of the Heart, Ch. 15 - Now I Got My A’s and Z’s

by essie-essex

for citywatchoverseer

City Watch Guard

“He taught himself how to read.”

There oh... uh... once was a cat named Ollie who lived in a co-cozy ho-hose... hoss... a house, a cozy house, with his Mama, Papa, Bro-Bruh-Brother, and... Sister. But Ollie was no oh-or-di-na-ry cat. He was very c-curious and... oh-often got into tr... tr... trou-ble.

Un... One cold w-win-ter eh... ehven... even... e-ven-ing, it beg-an to s-snow...

...and s-snow, and snow, and SNOW. Haha.

“Oh, boy!” said Ollie. “My f-first w-win-ter!”

Ollie le-leapt on-to the... the, uh... the w-win-dow-sill, his eye-eyes fo-fol-low-ing the stra-strange white dots as they flo-a... flo-floated to the ground. He put his paws up to the cold gla-glass, rai... rais... rais-ing himself up on his two hi-hind legs to get a bet-better look. Brother and Sister played ou-out-side, thro-throwing hand... fuls of white po-po-pow-powder at each other, their ch... cheeek... cheeks and noses red and ro-round. Ollie's tail swis... swis-sh... swished with, oh boy, ex... exit... exit-me-excitement as he watched them.

“How I would love to play in the snow,” Ollie said, his eyes filled with de-des-desire. “I would buh... buh... bur... burr-ow under it oo... uh-until I found the per-fect spot, warm and dark.”

The cat til-tilt-tilted his head back, pee-king at the door. Papa sat in his big chair reading a book, and Ollie could hear Mama in the kit-kitchen.

Surely, they would not not-notice...

Ollie ju-jumped to the gro-ground and cro... croch... croached... no, crouched, he crouched low, ti-tip-tip-toe-ing his way to the front door where the ch-child-ren would be re... ret-returning at any mo-ment, and when they open-opened the door, he would spr... sprin... sprint out into the snow and bur-bury himself in it before they could catch him.

He heard fa-faint la... lau... log... log-ha... lag... la... laugh-laughter as the ch-children ne-nea-neared the door and his ears per... perk... perked as he heard moo... muh... muffleh... muffle... muffled sto-stomp-ing.

“Ready... Ready...” he said to himself. He dar-dared not move. It was almost time.

The door click-clicked as one of the children turned the dork-door-doorknob, the door crack-ing open a mom-moment later. Ollie star-star-ted to change-charge but stopped sud-den-ly as the cold breeze cau... caused his skin to shiv-shiver. The children enter-ed the house, brus-brushing white powder from their coats.

“The door will close soon,” Ollie said. “This is my last chance!”

He took a deep breath, cr-crouched low, and chan-charged outside.

I let my arm drop, still holdin' the open book between my fingers, and sigh.

When I got this book from the library, the lady told me that this was for kids, but Ollie the Cat's First Winter by T.J. Brownstone ain't no easy reader. I can feel myself gettin' tired, and my head kinda hurts.

I probably shouldn't be readin' durin' my shift, but it can get real borin' just standin' here waitin' for somethin' to happen. It's kinda rainy today, so the market ain't too crowded, so that means no fights over the last fresh fish to break up, no youngsters stealin' sweets to chase after, and no pretty ladies to holler at. Nope, nothin' to do but just stare at the sky... or read if you know how.

I hear laughter from in front of me and spot two boys in worn clothes whisperin' to each other. I guess the rain didn't keep everyone away. They stop, the larger one takin' a few steps towards me.

“Hey, aren't you reading Ollie the Cat?” The boy looks up at me with tight lips and somethin' that ain't just innocent curiosity hidden behind his eyes.

“Yeah, what about it?” I say, pullin' my shoulders back. “Shouldn't you kids be at home anyways?”

“It's a free city,” the boy says. “We're just walking home from school.”

“Yeah, well, keep walkin'. I gotta job to do,” I tell him.

“You didn't look like you were doing your job. You looked like you were reading an Ollie the Cat book.” The little brat smirks.

“Well, you kids just don't know any better. Now, scram.”

The boy snorts, his mouth tight and his face red. He looks back at the other, who has the same expression on his face, like he thinks somethin's funny.

“That's a kids' book,” the boy says. “Like for babies. I read all the Ollie the Cat books when I was nine.” He turns to look at his friend behind him, who giggles.

“Yeah,” says the smaller boy. “Me too. Isn't that the one where Ollie goes outside in the winter and freezes--”

“Hey!” I scream. “Don't give it away! I ain't read the whole thing yet!”

The boys jump at the sound of my voice, but pretty soon they ain't scared no more and start laughin'.

“Wow, City Watch Guards really are dumb!” The taller boy says. His little friend giggles along with him, but I'm about done with their shit.

I draw my sword and lunge towards 'em, like I'm about to attack.

“Yeah, keep laughin' when you're in damn pieces on the ground!”

The boys scream, scurryin' away like rats, and I watch until they're out of sight, takin' a deep breath to calm myself.

“It's okay, Murray,” I say. “They're just a bunch of spoiled kids.”

That's right. They're a bunch of spoiled schoolboys. Not everyone had the money to go to school when they was kids.

I grew up during the Morley Insurrection, when spyin' on your neighbor, makin' sure they wasn't helpin' the Morlish (or the “Morleyans” as we was s'posed to call 'em, just to piss 'em off), or that, stars forbid, they was Minnows themselves, was much more important than goin' to school or doin' any kinda work that wasn't helpin' the Empire win against the rebels.

There was plenty of jobs with the war on, and the factory fatcats was glad to get their hands on any children, so they could work 'em hard. An eighteen-hour workday, each and every day, is what I remember from my childhood. But there was bread to eat and bunks to sleep in. Sure, they was dirty, but they was indoors. I sent my pay home to my parents so they could take care of my sisters and brothers who was too young to work.

So, no, I didn't have no time to read like the little brats these days, but that don't make 'em better than me. Hell, I'm better than them, since I learned how to read all on my own. That's right, all by myself. No one helped me learn my letters.

Now that I know how to read, though, there's plenty around to practice with. It's crazy how many signs they got posted 'round the city, and there's even more than usual in the marketplace with words like “FRESH FISH” “HOMEMADE SOAP” “GARDEN VEGETABLES” “RARE FRUITS” and “BAKERY”. I tried to read them all when I first started learnin' my letters, but now those signs are so easy to read, I can understand 'em all in just a second or two.

I've learned a lot from readin' posters on the walls and such, too. Like the recruitment ads for the City Watch say guards are s'posed to make a whole four coins a day, and Officers make six coins. I ain't never seen more than three coins in a day, and lately they've been givin' me just two. I told this to the others so maybe we could get together and ask for our real pay, but they just told me to quit bein' so smart.

“You read it on a poster?” Jackson was the first one to speak when I told the boys about our pay.

“Yeah, we're s'posed to be gettin' four whole coins a day,” I 'member foldin' my arms and leanin' against my bunk, thinkin' I was somethin'. Like I was gonna start some kinda movement, leadin' all the guards in the Watch through the streets holdin' up signs. But that attitude didn't last for long.

“I think he's just makin' that up,” another one of the guards said from across the room. “You can't even read anyways.”

“I learned,” I said. “Well, I'm learnin', but the poster really does say that. There's one right next door. Just come with me, and--”

“You tryin' to get us fired, Murray? Quit bein' so smart.” Jackson turned toward the door. “Now, I'm gonna go steal me some food, and then I know a certain lady who's waitin' for these two coins in my pouch. You all comin'?”

The others followed Jackson, leavin' me alone. Just a year ago, I never would'a passed up a night with a girl, but sometimes a man just wants somethin' more.

I'd thought that by learnin' to read that maybe I'd feel better about myself or the world or somethin' like that, but I don't know. Now instead of others makin' fun of me for bein' dumb, my own fellow guards make fun of me for bein' too smart.

But now that I can read faster, I'm startin' to get why there's people that actually like to read. Some books are really interestin'.

My shift ends, and I head back to the bunks while the others go for a drink.

I wish that boy from earlier today hadn't told me what would happen to Ollie the Cat. So, he freezes to death? I take the book out of my bag, flippin' through it and lookin' at the pictures. On one page, I can see Ollie racin' out the front door into the snow. I turn the page and see a picture of a sad little cat, all curled up in a ball, with icicles hangin' from its fur.

Poor Ollie.

But the book's not over. There's more. I turn the page and gasp. Papa carries Ollie into the house. He's alive!

I turn the page again. Now he's in front of the fireplace, and on the next page, he's smilin' and warm, and on the next—wait.

I slam the book shut.

No, I gotta read it. I can't just look at the pictures.

Cold and wet, Ollie had no energ-energy to run from Papa and, in-stead, curl-ed... curled up in his arms, shiv-shivering v-vio-vio-lent-ly. He cried when Papa tried to put him down, hanging on tight to his clothes with his sharp claws. Fin-finally, Papa man-aged... managed to set Ollie on the floor, where Sister and Brother waited for him with two flu-ffy to-wels. They dried him off as well as they could, and handed him to Mama, who w-wrap-ped... wrapped him in a soft blan... blanket.

“Let's put you some-place nice and warm,” she said, cudd-ling him in her arms. Papa picked up a box and took a woo... wood-en stick from it. Ollie watched the stick, which nor-normally, would have looked very fun to play with, but he was far too cold to play. With a quick g-g-gues... gest... gesture, Papa stuck it against the box, making o-rang... o-range light come from it.

“How strange,” Ollie said, tilt-ing his head to the side. Thog...though Papa had now cau-caught his at-ten-ti-on, he was still much too cold to do anything but watch laz-lazily from Mama's arms.

Papa put the stick into a hole be-hind a grat-grating. Ollie had never not-not-noticed that hole before. It looked like a great place to hide. But Ollie was too cold to think of hid-ing there now.

Wips-wisps of smoke and then orange waves grew from the bo-ttom of the hole, con-sum-ing the large chunks of wood in its in-ter-i-or. Ollie watched the flames. They were like nothing he had ever seen before. Mama took him closer and set him down, and Papa replac-ed... replaced the grat-ing, ob-scur-ing the dan-king... dancing fig-ur-es... figures. Ollie was dis-a-ppoin-ted. He wanted to watch them dance, but he was too cold to arg-argue. He lay in front of the fireplace, feeling the warm-th flow from it. Oh, how good that warmth would feel ag-ainst his skin. How good it would be to bury himself in warm orange waves.

Ollie stood, get-ting closer to the fireplace, but Mama st-stopped him.

“No, no, Ollie. That is fire. It is hot. You cannot get too close, or you will get burn-ed... burned.”

But Ollie did not un-der-stand. What was hot? Like a hot sum-mer's day? He could almost puh-purr, think-ing of the past summer when he lay out under the sun, while Mama stood near-by fan-fanning herself with her hand.

“W-hew, it's so hot today,” Ollie re-mem-ber-ed... remembered her saying. “It feels like I'm burn-ing up out here.”

So, hot was not bad at all! Mama mig-might not like it, but Ollie lov-loved when it was hot.

Hearin' voices outside, I look up from the text and close the book. The boys are back, drunk and loud as usual. I have a bad feelin' about this story, but I'll have to finish it later.

But I'm so worried about Ollie that I can't even sleep.

That mornin', the boys and I reach the marketplace and then go our separate ways, heading to our posts. Up ahead is Lee, who does the shift before me. He's singin' a song. I can't make it out at first, but as I get closer I hear the familiar tune of the A's and Z's song.

“A, B, C, D, E, N, G/ haych, I, J, K, elementally,” he sings.

I can't help but laugh.

“It's not 'elementally'. It's 'L, M, N, O, P,'” I almost say, but I don't wanna come off as a smart-ass.

It's funny how easy it is for me to sing that song now. When I first tried to learn it, I couldn't understand it. It was just a bunch'a sounds. How could anyone memorize it?

I 'member first hearin' it bein' sung by a bunch'a little kids goin' to school. They walked behind their teacher in a straight line, and she sang right along with them. It was the weirdest song I'd ever heard. It didn't have no words in it – at least not until, “Now I know my A's and Z's/Tell me what you think of me.”

Now, I was at least smart enough to know that A's and Z's meant letters. So that's what all that gibberish was. The kids was learnin' their letters!

Every mornin', I tried to listen to the whole song, but I never caught the whole thing, and I still didn't know what any of it meant. Finally, one day I just went up and asked.

I 'member the teacher saw me comin' and slowed down before she put her arm out to shield the children.

“Hello, Ma'am,” I said, rememberin' to be polite, of course.

“Good day,” the teacher said. She eyed me real cautious, like she was scared I was gonna attack her or somethin'. “Is there something I can help you with?”

“No, I mean, yeah. I was, uh--” I took a deep breath. “I just wanna know what that song is you're singin'.”

“What song are we singing?” The teacher's eyes got wide, and she looked at me like there was somethin' funny. “It's the A's and Z's song. We're reciting the alphabet.”

“So, that's letters, right?” I asked.

“That's, uh, that's correct, yes.” The teacher nodded. “Um, is there anything else?” she asked, after I didn't say nothin' for a moment.

“Could I learn it, too?”

The teacher opened her mouth and closed it again.

“I – sure. I mean, I could.” She stopped to think for a moment. “We could use an escort on our way to the school. I much prefer walking my students there to letting them go by themselves, but I would feel much safer with an actual guard to protect us.”

I knew I wasn't supposed to just leave my post, but I only had to walk them to school and then I'd be right back. Plus, there was other guards nearby.

“Sure,” I agreed. “And you'll teach me the song?”

“You can learn right along with us,” she said. She took a piece of paper from a bag hanging on her shoulder.

“Oh, I can't read,” I said, lookin' at all the funny symbols on the paper.

“Well, each one of those is a letter. So, here's A, B, C...” she pointed to each as she said it. “Let's get going. Children? A's and Z's, but let's sing it very slowly so... Sorry, I didn't get your name.”

“Murray,” I told her.

“And I'm Helena Delaney,” she said, smilin' kinda quick and then turnin' to the kids. “Okay, let's sing slowly so that Murray can read along with us.”

The moment I heard her say those words, I couldn't help but think how strange it sounded. “...so that Murray can read along with us.” Me. Readin'. How crazy was that? But I guess it was also kind of excitin'.

The school kids' voices interrupt my thoughts, and I wave Lee off and take his place.

“Murray! Hi, Murray! Good morning, Murray!” the kids all say as the line approaches with their teacher, Miss Delaney, at the front.

“Good morning, Murray,” she says, smiling.

“Mornin' Miss Delaney. Mornin' kids,” I say, givin' them all a big wave.

“Shall we carry on?” says Miss Delaney, and they head off, the A's and Z's song startin' automatically as I line up behind them.

“So, Murray, how is the reading going?” Miss Delaney asks.

We've arrived at the school, and all the kids are gettin' ready for the day and sittin' at their desks. I notice the familiar A's and Z's chart at the front of the classroom. I can recognize all the letters real easy now, and to think I used to not know what any of it meant.

“It's goin' pretty fine,” I answer. “I'm readin' a book about this cat. His name's Ollie.”

“Oh, Ollie the Cat. A bit too advanced for my children, but I'm still very familiar with those books. Which one are you reading?”

I lift up my helmet to rub the back of my head.

“It's the one where it's snowin' and Ollie goes outside.”

“Oh, that one.” Miss Delaney frowns and shakes her head. “Those books are always so tragic for an animal lover like me, but that one was especially sad.”

“Don't tell me!” I nearly yell, holding my hands up. “I haven't finished it yet.”

“Okay, okay!” Miss Delaney chuckles, putting her hands out. “Calm down, I won't spoil it for you.”

“Thanks,” I say, relaxing my arms. “Well, I gotta go back to my post. I'll see you tomorrow.” I turn to the kids. “Bye, kids!”

“Bye, Murray!” They all say, and I turn to leave while Miss Delaney starts class.

Time to get back to Ollie.

The flames wigg-led wiggle-wiggled and pop-popped, dancing in a way that made them almost ir-re-sis-ti-ble... irre-sistible to a cat like Ollie. He watched the emb-ers float into the air and disappear as he w-hipp-ed... w-hipped his tail back and for-th, his eyes con-cen-tra-ting in-ten-se-ly on the tan-ta-li-zing fire.

But how would he get past the grating? He would have to move it, but sure-ly Mama or Papa would stop him before he could get past.

He sc-scanned the room, noticing-noting that the children had gone to bed and Mama and Papa sat do-doz-dozing off on the nearby sofa. So, he stood, war-i-ly stepping forward, his eyes locked on the nearly-sleeping couple. Creep-ing toward the bar-bar-ri-er s-se-pa-ra-ting him and the fire, he put his claws through the grating and yank-yanked it right down. It fell to the floor with a loud cla-clank that nearly made him dart in the other di-rec-tion, but he clamed-calmed himself and jumped on the grating, ready to make the final po-pounce.

“Ollie! No!”

The sound had wo-ken Mama and Papa, and they stoo-d, making their way to him. Ollie pa-nic-ked... panicked. He didn't have much time. The warmth from the fire toa-toast-toasted his skin like a hot summer's day, but he wanted those fla-mes flames for himself. He pounced, ready to trap the w-rig-gling w-riggling fire under his paws, as Mama sc-rea-m-ed... sc-reamed from behind him.

But soon he was the one sc-rea-ming.

“Hot! Hot! Hot!” he scree-ched... screeched. The fire was too hot. He bat-ted at the flames co-ver-ing his body, trying to keep them away, but it was no use as the fire cha-char-red... charred his bea-u-tiful fur, turn-ing it to the color of ash. Ollie screamed and screamed and screamed until his black-en-ed... blackened body went still, his life having fl-fled his us-use-useless co-corpse.

The End.

I can't believe it.

“Hey, Murray, you comin'?”

What in the Void just happened?

It's the end of my shift, and my buddies are all ready to go, but I clutch the book in my hand, my heart banged up and all but broken.

“No, you all go on. I'm gonna take a walk,” I say and push past 'em without sayin' another word.

You know, I figured things wouldn't turn out good for Ollie, but still the endin's left me kinda down. I got just as much into that book as someone would get into a story bein' told 'round the fire--

The fire.

Emotion hits me and leaves me with a bad feelin' in my stomach. Why'd that cat have to be so damn stupid?

I curse Ollie and T. J. Brownstone and the damn librarian that gave me the book and the goddamn library that kept the book on its shelves like it wasn't nothin' but another kid's story, just like the rest.

“Murray, what are you doing here?”

I walk into the classroom, and seein' the look on Miss Delaney's face, I let the tears fall.

“Is something wrong?” Miss Delaney asks. Her eyes get real wide, and she looks from side to side, but I'm too busy blubberin' to notice.

“Ollie died,” I sob, sniffling between words. “He... just jumped into the fireplace... and burned up.”

I look up at Miss Delaney, who, for just a moment, smirks before putting on a sympathetic face.

“It ain't funny,” I cry. “Why are you laughin'? Don't laugh!”

“Oh, Murray,” Miss Delaney approaches, putting her hand on my arm. “You didn't know?”

“Didn't know what?” I swallow, trying to keep my sobs at bay.

“Murray... Ollie dies in every book.”

The tears stop, and I stare at her through blurry eyes.

“W-What?”

“The cat dies in every book.” Miss Delaney replies. “That's the theme of the series. It's supposed to teach you not to be so curious that you get yourself into trouble.”

“I... wait a—What?”

Miss Delaney smiles a bit and then giggles, taking a handkerchief from her pocket.

“You poor thing!” she says, dryin' my eyes. I take the cloth from her, rubbin' it all over my face, wet with wasted tears.

“It's the same cat in every book? But how does he come back to life?” I hold up my finger. “Wait, wait, I know this. Cats got nine lives, right? So, as long as he doesn't die a whole nine times, he's okay.”

“Not quite,” Miss Delaney chuckles. “I think the trick here is that Ollie isn't a real cat. He's just a book character.”

“Well, that ain't realistic.” I sigh. “I could write a better story than that.”

“Maybe,” says Miss Delaney. She raises an eyebrow. “Are you looking to be a writer now?”

I laugh, feelin' my eyes dry up. Look at me, cryin' over a book.

“Oh no, nothin' like that. I just wanna read a better story. Somethin' happier.”

“Well, the library's still open. Maybe I can help you find some books you'd like to read.”

I nod, thinkin' of the possibilities—plus maybe Miss Delaney has a better taste in books than the librarian.

“Yeah, that'd be nice. Just no sad endin's,” I say. “And no cats.”

#dishonored #TotH #tales of the heart #for city watch overseer

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welshword · 8 years ago

Text

Pronunciation

Consonants:

Consonants in Welsh can only make one unique sound, as opposed to English which can make several sounds per consonant. For example, the c can make a k sound as in cat or a s sound as in city. When you learn the sound a consonant makes in Welsh, it will only ever make that sound you learn.

Consonant sounds same in English and Welsh:

These consonants look the same in English and Welsh, and sound the same.

· b /b/ Like b in boy. Welsh example: bachgen (English: boy)

· c /k/ Like c in cat. Welsh example: cath (English cat)

· d /d/ Like d in dog. Welsh example: drwg (English bad)

· g /g/ Like g in gun. Welsh example: gardd (English garden)

· h /h/ Like h in happy. Welsh example: hen (English old)

· l /l/ Like l in lake. Welsh example: calon (English heart)

· m /m/ Like m in mad. Welsh example: mam (English mother)

· n /n/ Like n in none. Welsh example: nain (English grandmother)

· ng /ŋ/ Like the end of the English word sing. In Welsh, this letter can come at the front of a word. In Welsh, it is never pronounced with a hard g, as in the English finger. Welsh example: angau (English death)

· p /p/ Like p in poker. Welsh example: pen (English head)

· s /s/ Like s in sad. Welsh example: sebon (English soap)

· t /t/ Like t in tar. Welsh example: tŷ (English house)

· th /θ/ Like th in think. Welsh example: methu (English fail)

· si is pronounced as in English sheep, when it comes before a vowel.

Consonant sounds in English, Different letter in Welsh:

These sounds are found in English, but they are assigned to a different letter in Welsh. Train yourself to read them differently now.

· f /v/ Like v in violin. Welsh example: gafr (English goat)

· ff /f/ Like f in friend. Welsh example: ffrind (English friend)

· dd /ð/ Like th in then. Welsh example: hardd (English beautiful)

Consonant sounds in English, Not in Welsh:

These sounds are in English, but you will not hear them in Welsh.

· The c in Welsh only makes a hard /k/ sound. It will never sound like an s, such as in the English city.

· The g only makes a /g/ sound. It will never sound like an English g, like in the English gender.

· The th in Welsh represents the th in English think. The dd represents the other th in English, like the word then.

· There is no z sound in Welsh.

Consonant sounds only in Welsh:

These consonant sounds may be new to you.

· ch /x/ Like the Scottish loch or German composer Bach. Welsh example: chwech (English six)

· ll /ɬ/ The ll is a hard Welsh sound to make. It is best described as putting your tongue in the position of l and then blowing out air gently. Like saying a h and l simultaneously, but with more puff. Welsh example: llyn (English lake)

· r /r/ The Welsh r should always be trilled. Welsh example: ar (English on)

· rh /r̥/ The Welsh rh should be trilled with aspiration. Like saying a h and r simultaneously, but with more puff. Welsh example: rhan (English part)

Vowels:

There are seven vowels in Welsh. Most vowels can be two different sounds. The y can take three different sounds.

· a

· e

· i

· o

· u

· w

· y

Short Vowels:

· a /a/ Like a in pat.

· e /ɛ/ Like e in pet.

· i /ɪ/ Like i in pit.

· o /ɔ/ Like o in pot

· u /ɪ/ Like i in pit.

· w /ʊ/ As in book.

· y /ə/ Like uh in above

The rules governing the letter Y are some of the most confusing in Welsh. Normally it’s pronounced like the u in cut, but in the last syllable of a word it represents the sound like the i in bit. Note; This includes words with only one syllable, such as llyn (hlin).

Similar rules apply for combinations of y with another letter;

· yr is (approximately) pronounced like English burn, except in the last syllable of a word, where it is said like in English beer. (Both times, the r is audible, not dropped. See the preceding rule.)

· yw is pronounced like English moan, except in the last syllable of a word, where it is said like the Welsh iw and uw (see below).

That just leaves the exceptions. The small words, y, yr and yn are pronounced uh, urr and un.

Dipthongs:

· ae, ai and au /aɪ/- like English sky. (Actually, there is an exception for the last one. “au” is the plural ending for certain words, e.g. creigiau. In these cases, its pronunciation is shortened to a “hanging A”

· aw /aʊ/ - like English cow.

· oe (and oi and ou, which are rare) /ɔɪ/ - like English boy.

· ei and eu and ey /əɪ/ - like nothing in English; try ‘uh-ee’ and then running the vowels together.

When you see a vowel followed by an R, or a diphthong followed by an R, both the vowel and the R are pronounced; this differs from many dialects of English. The following sounds are therefore approximate, and you should make sure to pronounce the R.

· aer, air and aur - like English fire.

· awr - like English hour.

· er - like English bare, but shorter.

· ir or ur (or yr in the last syllable of a word) - like English beer.

· wr - like English poor.

Long Vowels:

· a /ɑː/ Like a in father.

· e /ɛː/ Like ae in aeroplane, but without any trace of an r, or a y sound between the a and the e.

· i /iː/ Like i in machine.

· o /ɔː/ Like aw in hawk.

· w /uː/ Like oo in pool.

· u and y take the same values as i does.

· A vowel is short if it comes in a word with more than one syllable.

So all these rules only come into play when we’re talking about one-syllable words.

· A vowel is short if it’s followed by two consonants, if the first of the two is n or r.

· A vowel is short if it’s in a word of one syllable and the consonant following it is any of the following; p, t, c, m, ng

· If the vowel is a, e, o, w or y and it’s followed by l, n or r then it is also short.

· This leaves the following options for when the vowel is long; in a word of one syllable; followed by two consonants the first of which is ll or s; either followed by no consonants, or followed by b, ch, d, dd, f, ff, g, s or th, or (if it happens to be i or u) followed by l, n or r.

A circumflex accent (the hat sign) is placed over a vowel to indicate that it’s long when you might otherwise think it was short.

#IFTTT #pronunciation

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