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Lv 5
? asked in Society & CultureLanguages · 8 years ago

Is there such thing as too many diacritics in a language?

I'm constructing a language... but I got at least two diacritic variations for each vowels (A,E,O, and Y)Do you think it can be hard to read a language with too many diacritics? I use them to represent one phoneme (sound)

take this series of sentences for example:

Zĕ qul hźakar seinius zir zurānis āsl sųod.

Uargų zĕ ta, koẃʦena mĕ dāzýo zær taikų kódh, mĕ merkh zær mýrna.

Zĕ qul hźakar iuẃkų zir sufæzito āsl sųod.

Uargų zĕ ta, koẃʦena mĕ qul zær fýr kódh, mĕ merkh zær mýrna.

Update:

ẃ = za

ų = oo

ý = ee

ĕ = long "ay"

3 Answers

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  • 8 years ago
    Favorite Answer

    I'm glad there are other people who are interested in language construction. This is one of my focuses in the field of linguistics.

    One thing you have to remember is the language has to be practical. If it is for personal use, meaning no one will use it but yourself, then you're perfectly fine with using all the fancy variations of accent marks and diacritics. However, if you have intentions of sharing this language with others and having people learn and use it, the language will flop due to the heavy usage of accent marks. It might look cool and sound even cooler, but not everyone is as language-oriented as we are, and although it sounds somewhat crass, you have to keep it somewhat simple for others to understand.

    On another note, I notice you have some interesting syllable patterns going on here, particularly in line three with the words "hźakar" and "iuẃkų." Also, I find the letter "ẃ" to be a nice addition to the language, but it's quite a strange idea. It seems like a very intriguing design thus far.

    What I do when I start constructed languages is play around with random letter combinations and create random words based on words I know in other languages. I basically go from there and start compiling "English to Language X" and "Language X to English" dictionaries. I have worked on three fabricated languages from scratch, one of which has a non-Latin based script. The first language I worked on has a dictionary of over 30,000 words; I have been working on it since the fall of 2010. They are very time consuming, but worth it. They help you become a better linguist.

    If you'd like, keep me updated on this. It's not very common to see someone commit to a project like this. Good luck!

    Source(s): Linguistics major at Emory University, 15C
  • 8 years ago

    Vietnamese has three different diacritics that can occur on vowels in addition to the vowel itself...this in addition to five different tone marks. Some people might consider this to be too many but it does allow a person to correctly pronounce written Vietnamese which would otherwise require additions to be made to the alphabet.

    ex. Cái thằng chồng em nó chẳng ra gì. = That husband of mine, he's good for nothing.

    Con chó này chẳng bao giờ sủa cả. = This dog never barks at all.

  • ?
    Lv 6
    8 years ago

    It depends on what sort of language the reader is most familiar with. The languages I speak (French, German and English) use few if any diacritics so I would find this hard to decipher, let alone translate. If the reader was familiar with Arabic, Hebrew or Hungarian, they would probably find it easier to read without getting caught up on the diacritics, being used to them.

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