[conlang_learners] Comments on Alurhsa

[Tony Harris]

As a quick piggyback on this, I will say there is an extensive 
vocabulary currently in either spreadsheet or PDF/dictionary form that I 
would be willing to make available as a searchable online version.  
Grammar in PDF that Amanda used is more updated than the online pages 
(which have languished a bit), but nothing in the online pages is really 
outdated, just that there's more stuff.  I also had a phpBB forum that I 
simply didn't put back up when I moved hosting providers, but would be 
willing to do so if there was interest.  As well as adding a good deal 
more texts that exist but are not currently online.  I fear there are no 
actual lessons written, I have not been able to wrap my mind around how 
to present the language in that way.

I say all this not to try to influence votes for or against, but so you 
all have an accurate picture what resources would be, and would likely 
not be, available.




Jim Henry wrote:
> Alurhsa by Tony Harris is an artlang with a fictional setting;
> conhistorically, it's an auxlang based on a reconstructed
> protolanguage, but because of the culture of its
> speakers, more complex and irregular than most or all Terran auxlangs.
> Tony is fluent in Alurhsa -- I've heard him speak in it off-the-cuff.
> He's been using it for over thirty years.
>
> The phonology is complex, with 25 vowels (including nasal/oral
> distinction and three degrees of length) and 46 consonants (including
> distinctive bilabial vs. labiodental fricatives, dental vs. alveolar
> stops, and postalveolar vs. retroflex fricatives).  The romanized
> writing system requires acute, grave, circumflex and diaresis on
> vowels, and a few other extended characters for consonants -- nothing
> that isn't found in the Latin-1 character set or easily typed on a
> U.S. International keyboard.  Many of the consonants are represented
> by digraphs or even trigraphs.  The phonology description is generally
> good, but would benefit by adding IPA symbols to the descriptions using
> similar phonemes in various natlangs and instructions for how to
> pronounce the more uncommon sounds.  Punctuation is well-defined and
> not terribly complex or unusual.
>
> Nouns inflect for six cases and two numbers, although plural
> inflection is only used when no other indication of number appears.
> There is an archaic, non-productive dual.  There are five noun classes
> or genders, but only pronouns show agreement with their anaphors in
> gender; adjectives, verbs etc. don't show gender agreement.
>
> Pronouns inflect for person, number, gender, case, and formality; they
> have gender agreement in first and second person as well as third
> person, and three degrees of formality in the second person.
>
> Verbs are marked for tense, aspect, voice, and mood, and agree with
> their subject in person, number and formality.  They have a variety of
> infinitives and participles for different tenses, voices and aspects.
> The terminology used on the verbs page is a little nonstandard (e.g.,
> referring to an "imperative tense" rather than "imperative mood"); I'm
> not sure yet whether or to what extent this reflects a real difference
> between Alurhsa and the familiar languages for which the standard
> terminology was devised.
>
> Positionals are the equivalents of prepositions and locative/temporal
> adverbs in other languages; they interact with the case of their
> object noun in interesting ways.
>
> The Alurhsa articles show definiteness, but don't agree with their
> heads in case, number, gender etc.
>
> Numbers and other quantifier particles are invariant.
>
> There are a number of productive but not always predictable derivation
> processes, prefixes and suffixes and compounds.
>
> A few pages on the Alurhsa website give 404 errors or are marked
> as "under construction", but Tony says he can email us some newer
> and fuller documentation than what is on the website.
>
> There are a number of  texts on the website, both original and translated,
> concultural and Terran, plus short sample phrases and sentences in
> the grammar documents.  I especiallly like the page of folk sayings and
> proverbs, e.g.,
>
> Nelhé qórsës pólef ghílâ sevánán.
> It takes a long time to find eternity.
>
> Tony has also written a bilingual (Alurhsa and English) blog;
>
> http://blog.alurhsa.org/
>
> And there are seven MP3 files of Tony reading seven of the
> texts; beautiful!
>
> Alurhsa is a complex language, perhaps one of the more difficult
> ones nominated, but there are certainly plenty of materials to practice
> with.  I haven't counted up the total size of files on each site, but
> I think it's roughly comparable to Vabungula and maybe exceeds most or
> all of the other artlangs nominated in the size of its publicly
> available corpus.
>
> Amanda Furrow recently translated into Alurhsa for
> the second Inverse Relay.  Amanda, would you like to comment on
> Alurhsa as well, and particularly on the documents Tony sent you that
> aren't on his website?
>
>