O'Gwyraech e Baebel

started a conlang a few weeks ago, and in the proper fashion I tested it out by translating Omniglot's Tower of Babel passage. Here is the transliteration:

1. Ngîrro e nîrn ur fi ngîdda caebeth i'ngeil eir aebosh.
2. Af tho saembro i'ngaelan dareiddhe, souirgh ru Shînar i'ngûirn outho, y raech i'styd njouch outho.
3. "Cilaen, loundo ys'fhîr, înni co shur ys myr," i'ngaeggedh outho tho voust. Loundo bru de baelcha un drougad bru de fraeghe i'ngeil outho.
4. "Cilaen, oebrath lo geil gwyraech lo doun o'dhrouir non soegh e nin. Nîrro tho fhûed non gwyraech ys fhîr, tho fheir aebosh drou ys'meth abaelan," i'ngaeggidh outho.
5. Îr yn byndh o'fhoebrath ur o'gwyraech lo i'dha vîr und o'dareiddhe tho roeth i'ngaelan o'lou.
6. "Wyn ouco ûn baenna ghoelghe lo ngîdda ou nouco caebeth i'sîil aenno fhoutho jyft troubaeghed o'fhon droghaede lo o'jouchta und dareiddha.
7. "Cilaen, tho fheir ys'aelan, ngîrro'fhoutho sin o'dareiddhe vousto drou o'beishyn outho ys'fhynaethi," i'ngaeggidh o'lou.
8. Nourisc outho tho gurîddhi'fheir mounno i'ngabaelan o'lou, o'fhoebrath i'mysc vîr outho.
9. Ynîn Baebel budhaedda o'gwyraech. Ngirrouddho mounno e fheir i'vynaethi o'lou, nourisc outho tho gurîddhi'fheir mounno i'ngabaelan oth.

And the English version:
1. Now the whole world had one language and a common speech.
2. As men moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.
3. They said to each other, "Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar.
4. Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth."
5. But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building.
6. The LORD said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.
7. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other."
8. So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city.
9. That is why it was called Babel -- because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth.

A bit about the language:
It is called Graeggydh, and it's structure is mainly inspired by Gaeilge na hÉireann (Irish Gaelic), which has a beautifully complex system of word-to-word eclipsing. I have also taken a few ideas from English, such as how vowels can represent a different sound depending on their place in the word. It is distantly related to my other language Sabethir, having common roots in the older tongue Amenhir. This relation is very faint though, as many of the words have undergone drastic change. For example, the Amenhir root 'minwar', to see, transfered to Sabethir as 'minar', and to Graeggydh as 'byndh'. Next on my agenda is a writing system...

A bit about pronunciation:
There are 6 sets of vowels, either in stressed or unstressed form. I plan for both forms to be represented by one letter in the alphabet I will devise, and the question of stress will be answered usually by their placement in the word.

Unstressed --- Stressed
a (fAther) ae (bIke)
i (pIt) î (pEEk)
o (wOOd) ou (brOke)
y (as in finnish /y/) oe (combination of wOOd and cAne)
e (fed) ei (cAne)
u (tOUch) û (fOOd)

Consonants are fairly standard, though if at the beginning of a word they often change to the next of their class depending on the sound that stands before them.

Class 1 --- Class 2 --- Class 3
f (Food) v (Voice) fh(a light f, somewhere between /f/ and /h/)
p (Pan) b (Bone) m (More)
c (Cake) g (Gain) ng(thiNG)
th(THin) dh(THis) nd(eND)
t (Tap) d (Dot) n (Not)
h (Hop) ch(german 'buCH') gh(soft ch, as in arabic /gh/)
s (Stand)
sh(SHip)
r (trilled r of spanish)
l (Lend)
j (Yoke)
w (Walk)

Here is an example of the consonantal chang I mentioned. The word for 'house' is 'doechad' (derived from Amenhir 'teheth'), but combined with the article 'o' meaning 'the', it becomes 'o'noechad'. There are a few rules to this that don't need to be explained here, but I just thought I would share. Once I get the writing system up and going, you will probably see this entry on Omniglot.com .