Like last time, these plot descriptions are based on those from Anilist, and you can use things like the structure of the title, the character names, and the occasional numeral to help you figure things out. You can also use the word-for-word translations from the previous quiz to help you figure out some of the more common words.
Hint: deciphering character names
The lengths of names may be of use but don't expect them to perfectly match their lengths in Hepburn/English. Likewise initials might not always match the Hepburn.
Names are inflected with a masculine suffix -a and a feminine suffix -e, but to prevent hiatus these go through the following sound changes:
① {a(ː).V → Vː|V = any vowel} — as in *Sakura-e → Sakuré
② {O(ː).V → ø(ː)|O = round vowel} — as in *Tomoyo-e → Tomoyǒ, or *Kló-a → Klő
③ {E(ː).V → jV(ː)|E = unrounded front vowel} — as in *Miyuki-a → Miyukya
The sound change for front vowels may trigger further sound changes:
{Tj → TT|T = alveolar consonant} — but note that alveolar geminates are realized as palatals
ji(ː) → iː
In that order.
~~1: Ňav Zuzǒ~~
~~Kyertev R**e kot́iv ani ňey na yatazey, šo Huźisaňe ňa sinj́eskev vuśkede. Kyertev N*****ǒ na gvajera kot́iv ani tey, šo Huźisaňe ňa sinj́eske. Kav anskagunska he, R**e u N*****ǒ ńederinet́e, u xi he yéne so yegune kot́i ňey, so šo yont́i koy-rámene u žent́i yerezine.~~
2: Hay Hiḱey to yaRoyčoḱiya!
Pe-1-e A. M***ŕe ňa anime-dećti : kyertiv xaíde lo še na dećte ňa "sule : buhe" čay. Suliv daŕi to yeruňevše ko yecigempoĺevše, no še la nay nat́e yekoḱev anske hiḱev anime-dećte, na fe šo še ňa dećte dum aniḱe nay može čay. Rine K. S****é ňa ariḱe so yerokev roynasinćke : yénske, šo nat́e zede na yeydrestev M***ŕe. Ńesint́ev hazoske, šo sokruňeynevńe, yesnij́iḱev biśe so M. C****ye iḿej́eske ňa hoževše xaye : dećke he, ńehke čoḱiya na dećte va pset́e "yalanav lobuha" to yerokivńe.
3: YaVaňgleynav Buhčonska
Yaceyv vaňgla ňa keyn udet́e he, noževše u dent́e bone so ogestev ranske čay. Yažalav vaňgla ňa dot́e bone ko randogiyey so šo moḱiḱe še dum bonev gune. Yaceyv vaňgla ruňet́ey yežalevfe, no može pet́ede lo yaceyvfey so bonev so "yeKődev yeTruňeyne" iḿej́eske. Jaḱav so E. E****a iḿej́eska ňa si žari he vaňgleynav marka dent́av ŕusulska bene so yatǒvša so A*****a iḿej́eska. E****a so vaňgla ŕaza u hira va sot́a yarǒv yatǒvša na čoniya. So šo, yavaňgleyneyv 2 kot́a yőravńa va udet́a yaboneyvńa anskey, u yeKődev yeTruňeyne to yaradaxey.
Is "{Kyertev|Something-loved-CONS} ____" the equivalent of saying "____ my beloved"? Don't remember that one coming up before! (kyertev Kumikǒ) Also you'll have to forgive me, but I'm a little rusty on my glossing--what's CONS, again? At first I was naively treating it like の, since that would work for the kyertev example, but in the other cases (what I interpret to be) the modifiers appear after (e)v, not before, so there's clearly more to the story.
I'm curious about a few other features:
Aside from the strictly linguistic questions, is the orthography patterned closely on a natural language? Naïvely, it reminds me of Serbo-Croatian orthography, but I know basically nothing about the language, so I don't know how to read it offhand (besides a sense that the carons represent palatalization).
No one else has got the other two yet, you wanna have another go?
Alright so my conlang's a bit of a mess so you'll have to forgive me for some of these things, but I'll do my best to setsumei suru.
CONS is construct state, which means that it's close to の but sort of "in reverse". This is to say, when a word is put in the construct state, it means that the word is modified by the following words, rather than modifying the following words itself. This is a feature most associated with Semitic languages — the go-to example is {malika|queen} vs {malikat|queen-CONS} {sabaʾ|Sheba} for "Queen of Sheba" in Arabic — but the construct state is also found in a number of other languages, Western Micronesian languages have them too for instance. So "kyertev _____" really means "a thing loved by _____", and when this phrase is the subject of a verb, it really means "_____ likes to..."
—Oh, I should clarify, the literal meaning of kyerte is just "a heart", a word with which it Definitely Isn't Cognate. So basically if we're translating things even more literally it's maybe more like "Rin's heart goes alone..." for "Rin likes to go alone..."
As for the other features:
Then as for the orthography, Ňň represents the /ŋ/ sound (modeled on Turkmen), Šš, Žž, and Čč represent /ʂ/ /ʐ/ and /ʈʂ/ respectively (these three are indeed modeled on Slavic languages like Serbo-Croatian), and then Ǒǒ represents a vowel in the vicinity of /ø/ for really no other reason than that it would feel "inelegant" to suddenly use a different diacritic for that letter. The doubled versions of these caroned letters replace the caron with a double acute accent, so N̋ /ŋː/ S̋ /ʂː/ Z̋ /ʐː/ C̋ /ʈʈʂ/ Ő /øː/. Non-caroned letters all double by just adding a single acute above them.
The letters Aa, Bb, Ee, Ff, Gg, Ii, Kk, Mm, Oo, Pp, Ww are really pretty boring. They make exactly the sounds you'd expect from the IPA. Uu is normally read as /u/ but if next to another vowel may become /w/. Vv normally makes a /v/ sound, but can make a /w/ sound when used as the construct state suffix — officially only before consonants other than glides or another V, but in practice I often end up just reading the construct state suffix as /w/ almost always regardless of what comes after it. Yy normally makes a /j/ sound, but when followed by the aforementioned preconsonantal construct state suffix, /jw/ will fuse into /ɥ/.
The letter Qq is not normally used. The letter Hh makes a /h/ at the start of a word but a /x/ elsewhere. The letter Jj makes a /ɖʐ/ sound.
The remaining letters are the alveolars: Dd, Ll, Nn, Rr, Ss, Tt, Zz make the sounds you'd expect, Cc and Xx make /ts/ and /dz/ sounds respectively, and all of these when doubled will palatalize: D́d́ /ɟɟ/ Ĺĺ /ʎː/ Ńń /ɲː/ Ŕŕ /rʲː/ Śś /ɕː/ T́t́ /cc/ Źź /ʑː/ Ćć /ccɕ/ X́x́ /ɟɟʑ/
Thank you for the extensive explanations! I studied a fair bit of linguistics in university, and while I never went much beyond my coursework (certainly not to the point of building a conlang!) I found it fascinating and still like to learn things about it here and there. I feel a little sheepish that I'm not able to contribute much in response when you make these detailed posts, but I want to make sure you know that I do read and appreciate them and I love seeing your passion for the subject
I also just like puzzles in general, so combining that inclination with anime and linguistics is like catnip for me.
Also, up to this point I've been kind of stubborn in that I've tried to figure out the answers leaning solely on my knowledge of anime due to some misguided conception that anything else would be "cheating", but I guess the point is to also leverage knowledge of your conlang as we glean more information about it through the side-by-side translations and your more in-depth explanations.
By the way, what is the language called? I don't recall you mentioning it before, but it may have just slipped my mind.
I've decided to call it Manjatian.