A brief talk about elven musicality

Elvish is a very musical language, beautiful, elegant, and beautiful.

Such "common sense" should not be a problem for readers of the Lord of the Rings, or fantasy readers.

Originally, it was just a two-batch and two-batch novel, and the author was the boss - the author said, beautiful language, of course, is beautiful language without doubt. But the author of the Lord of the Rings, the beloved Toto not only spoke the ABC of the Elven language, but also "created" it. Learning Elfish is not only interesting, but also has some ideas, such as the "musicality" of Elfish language.

I first came up with this idea when I saw a textbook about the Elf language, which was inspired by the Finnish language, and then I was introduced by Mr. Fei Fei that Finnish is a language that sounds a little bit like "not very good". For a moment, I really wanted to talk about the "musicality" of Elfish language.

First of all, I have no experience with Finnish, so I have no idea what the Finnish pronunciation system is. At the same time, I think that although Toto was inspired by Finnish to create the Elvish, the changes and changes since then have been very large, and he has borrowed a lot of other languages from the Indo-European family, so the pronunciation system is probably not the same as Finnish. Fortunately, I can find information on the pronunciation system of the Elf, so it is not a problem to study the Elf.

Secondly, as a contrast between the strengths and weaknesses of "musicality", I intend to use as examples the pronunciation systems of two other languages that are not unfamiliar to most of you who read this article. One of the things that is not musically good – yes, is the English language itself. Personally, I think that Elf is indeed a very "musical" language compared to it. But on the other hand, at least the musical elements are not weaker than the elves (I personally think they are stronger), that is, (fireworks!firecrackers!pigeons!) Chinese^^.

So. As a preface, I want to say that - the first article is not the kind of jishu text that will scare you to death.,The principles and knowledge mentioned in it are very simple.,There should be no problem for junior high school students.。 The second example is what we are most familiar with. It's just that we didn't pay attention in the past. Thirdly, hey, hey, hey, I will love the country and see you, you, and the greatness of the Chinese you are used to!^0^

Question one

What is the "musicality" of language.

Those who have studied junior high school physics can answer this question, which is the question of the physical definition of "music" and "noise". ()

"Musical sound" is a kind of sound that makes people feel harmonious, beautiful and comfortable in hearing, and its physical expression is that the frequency waveform changes regularly. The sounds produced by classical instruments are typical of musical sounds.

"Noise" is a kind of sound that makes people feel confused, irritable, and harsh in hearing, and its physical manifestation is that the frequency waveform changes irregularly, such as the sound of a saw^^.

Of course. It's another thing to have music that has to listen to chaotic, irritable, harsh sounds, and that's another thing, and if you want to say "I'll just say it's music" a lot of horrible sounds in heavy metal, we can't talk about it. What about this - a little bit of a fork, human feelings "cool" and feeling "harmonious, beautiful, comfortable" can not be equated, even in terms of physiological development, people often need pain, pressure and other stimuli. So "noise" can also make your spirit feel "cool". Ah, by the way, it is important to mention that the kind of "coolness" as a sexual impulse often has similar characteristics to noise stimulation. Therefore, people should not confuse "sexy" voices, "magnetic" voices, and "musical sounds" (to put it simply, if you listen to classical music or rock music, which do you think is more "sexy"^^).

Okay, now that the "sound" and "noise" problems are solved, let's look at the "musicality" of language.

The human articulatory organ can produce both musical and noisy sounds.

The musical sound we produce is called a "vowel" in linguistic terms, that is, when you pronounce a vowel, the sound you produce is represented by a regular change in the frequency waveform. The vowels give a clear, clear, and hearty feeling. As for those sounds being vowels...... 55, don't everyone know Chinese and English after learning it for so long? There are ten vowel phonemes in Chinese, and we are familiar with the eight aoeiuüeier, which are represented by Chinese characters as "ah, oh, goose, clothes, house, fish, eh, and er". The other two that we are not familiar with will not be talked about for the time being. As for English, there are also AEIOU commonly used.

And the noise we make is "consonant" in linguistic terms. For example, the so-called "initials" in Chinese, bpmfdtnlkghjpxzhchshrzcs, plus an ng. And there are a lot of them in English, and many of them are written in the same way (although the pronunciation is different), so it should be easy to understand.

The "musicality" of language refers to the contrast between the "musical factor" and the "noise factor" of language. That is, the position of vowels in the pronunciation system and the position of consonants in the pronunciation system.

Question two

The theoretical basis for the Chinese language to be called a "musical language". ()

Let's compare this with English (most Indo-European languages can be compared).

The "sound factor" in Chinese is higher than the "sound factor" in English, and the "noise factor" in English is higher than the "noise factor" in Chinese.

There are ten vowel phonemes in Chinese, and it is not troublesome to look at which ten they are, that is, there are ten "single sounds" (only one sound). In addition, there are nine diphthongs in Chinese, that is, the two vowels are pronounced together, such as the "袄 (ao)" of "cotton jacket", the "ou" of "Europe", and the "kai" of "beginning" (it means that the er in pinyin is not a diphthong, because er is actually just a sound "er", not the e and r spelled together). But that's not that much, the most important thing is that there are many triphages in Chinese that are not very common in languages, and the three vowels are naturally spelled together, such as the "iao" of "piao", and the "iou" of "you" (we omitted i when writing pinyin, but i is a drop of existence!). There are four triphthongs in Chinese. The existence of triphthongs shows the richness of the pronunciation of "musical sounds" in Chinese.

In contrast, English has twelve vowel phonemes. This one is more than Chinese, with eight diphthongs, one less. But. There are no triphthongs in English, that is, the vowel pronunciation is not rich enough.

Then there's the question of pinyin.

Every morpheme (that is, a word) in Chinese, consonants are dispensable, and there are many syllables without consonants and involve a large number of commonly used words. On the contrary, the absence of vowels is absolutely a no-no.

Except for the two very special vowel phonemes (the two I didn't mention - alas, the perverted phonemes.) Ignore them, and use them rarely), and every other Chinese vowel and diphthong, and triphthong, can become a syllable of certain characters without consonants. For example, a (ah, ah, ah, oh), o (oh, oh), e (hungry, oh, ......oh, Too many), I (a Yiyi Yi ......Yi More – pay attention. Although we write yi in pinyin, but the y is just a placeholder, not a consonant, this syllable only i is pronounced by a vowel), u (no five houses dance fog mistakenly cover the defilement of Wu don't...... Same as i. Note that the wu,w written in pinyin is just a placeholder symbol),ü (with the desire to fish Yu Yu Yu Yu ......Yu ）。 Also, "Ao", "Ai", "Er", "Eh", "Billion", "Pressure", "Ua", "I", "Üe", "Ϊ", "I (By the way, some of them are not in line with pinyin habits, that is the remaining writing of pinyin and the measures taken to avoid "misunderstanding", for example, "I" is actually pronounced uo, but we write pinyin is wo, which is the Chinese pinyin writing scheme stipulates that the beginning of the u vowel is represented by w placeholders, and the result seems to be a consonant plus reason spelling - other similarities).

On the other hand, not only can consonants often be dispensed with, but they are also very restrictive when they are needed – one point, except for the two nasal consonants n and ng (which are a η represented by two letters), other consonants cannot be used at the end of a syllable, which means that the end of a syllable is in many cases without a consonant. On the other hand, there are only single consonants without polyphony, that is, there will not be two or three consonants spelled together.

Let's look at English.

A morpheme in English (that is, a "word" in English), except for very few (such as a, air, eye, ear), almost every stanza or before or after has a consonant sound (go to the word list yourself), for example, "an" has a nasal consonant n at the end. Of course, English vowels can basically be used at the beginning of a word as a single syllable, such as utter, which can be seen as a combination of the syllable Λ and the syllable ter, but such a vowel is not only weakly pronounced, but is often swallowed up by the consonant endings that precede it. ()

In addition, the use of consonants in English is very flexible, and each can be placed before and after. There are also complex consonants in the combination of consonants. For example, "screen", the "scr" is three consonants placed in front of them. Another example is "think", that is, the two consonants of "nk" are placed at the end together (but th is not a compound consonant, you should know that it is pronounced with a sound θ).

To sum up, in a nutshell, when we speak Chinese, we pronounce vowels (musical sounds) most of the time, while when we speak English, we have more opportunities to pronounce consonants (noise) – this is the fundamental reason why Chinese is more "musical" than English.

Question three

What about the phonetics of Elvish?

First of all, let's talk about what makes Elf a "musical language" for foreigners.

Fundamentally, this is a requirement for Toto's Elvish pronunciation -

Toto said that English pronunciation has a tendency to ignore vowels in polysyllabic words, such as weakening the vowels in skimming polysyllabic words, but when pronouncing his elvish, each vowel must be pronounced clearly. (This point can be associated with the Chinese pronunciation of the "character is correct and round" requirements).

In addition, Quenya (the so-called most musical ancient Elvish) has strict requirements for consonants and compound consonants at the end of words, that is, the meaning of trying not to use them. It is said that Toto was not so strict when he first started to create Elven language, but later he decided to be strict after referring to his knowledge of phonology. So while Toto does list some compound consonants in the Elvish phonetic table, it doesn't seem to be used much in actual word-making activities.

Then that is to say. The "musicality" of the Elvish language is undoubtedly also an effort to strengthen the vowel factor and reduce the consonant factor.

However, I personally think that the vowel factor of Elf is still not enough. ()

First. Elvish has ten vowels and six diphthongs, and there is no such thing as a triphthong. (This is the main thing)

Second, they are all Indo-European languages, and morphemes without consonants are rare. There are very few times when vowels work alone. But. According to Toto's requirement that "each vowel must be pronounced clearly", and with strict control of the consonants at the end of the word, at least the vowel syllables of those initials cannot be skimmed or weakly pronounced. This increases the vowel factor throughout the speech flow. (This is very similar to Chinese.)

Question four

Clear and voiced consonants

I recently heard a guy who studies phonology talk about it, but I haven't seen it in the official textbook, so I'm going to put it up separately as a reference.

There are two kinds of consonants, noise, and human noise, one is to use the vocal cords, that is, the noise of the throat. Well, let's say something about it—a roar came out of his throat—OK, that's pretty much what it felt. The other is the noise of just exhaling air without using your throat, which is similar to our whispering, the kind of tiny sound.

The former is called a "voiced consonant". The latter is called "clear consonant".

Voiced tones can reinforce the noise factor in the speech flow.

There are many voiced sounds in ancient Chinese, but today except for the four separate "remnants" of voiced lmnr, the rest of the consonants are all clean sounds.

There are a lot of voiced sounds in English, and there are fifteen voiced sounds in English (so Chinese speak English has a problem that is not easy for Chinese to pay attention to is that the voiced sound is not good, you think you must be right, like bdgvw These sounds, in fact, you have not added the guttural sound, it is wrong-that is, I always feel that it is not as "magnetic" and "heavy" as foreigners say it). However, compared to Old English, there is already a phenomenon of voiced clearing. ()

As for Elf, I counted, and there were fourteen voiced consonants.

So the elves GGBBYY, as well as the elves JJMMNN, are thick and thick - the speech is still quite "magnetic" but not clear enough.

Question five

Questions about tone.

When mentioning the "musicality" of Chinese, zuihou also mentioned the tone, Chinese has four tones Everyone knows, ancient Chinese is "ping, up, go, enter", modern Chinese is "yin, yang, up, go", four different tones, it is said to make the sound more repressive, but also musical?

Of course, English and Elf are both rising and falling tones (so it is still strange for foreigners to learn Chinese and learn the tune of death and life for N years).

Question six

The "musicality" of language and music

The fact that a certain national language is "musical" has nothing to do with whether the music of that ethnic group is developed or not and whether they are crazy about singing. In fact, phonology has found that the "musicality" of language gradually increases with the development of language, and on the contrary, the more primitive the people's living state, the more they love to sing and dance - and again, in my personal opinion, as far as music (in fact, it should be said that all literature and art) is concerned, it is made for "satisfaction" rather than "harmony". There are many ways to be satisfied, both harmonious and discordant. The group we call "classical music" is mainly composed for "harmony". And this batch of music is not the original music, nor is it the music of today's avant-garde (you don't think that the so-called "avant-garde" music, a lot of it is still conjured from the original music).

So zuihou adds a sentence - whether a language is more "musical" is not necessarily the basis for "good" or "bad" - doesn't everyone also like Sex's voice?

Summoning the Elves Method

Warning: This is just an example! just an example of what you can do when you become proficient in this craft. If you're trying, you're taking a risk!

Remember this commandment, and then cast a spell on spirits on the astral plane, not the physical plane. Focusing on the observation of the crystal ball and the black mirror in a triangular shape, one can see the action of the spirits. Put on a robe and light incense and candles. Place a chair in the center of the magic ring and sit on it. Here are the astral talismans (missing a picture here, right?)

Hold the talisman, stare at it, and repeat the elf's name over and over again for at least ten minutes. Then look at the Black Mirror (or Crystal Ball) and concentrate on repeating the following mantra:

"I call you. The elf STOLAS, calling you in the name of the true god YODHEHVAVHEH (yode-heh-vahv-heh), ADONAI (ah-doe-ney), EHEIEH (eh-hey-yay), andAGLA (ah-gah-lah), appears in the mirror (crystal ball) before me. ”

Continue to stare in the mirror. until the image is clearly visible. When you see it, ask it, "What is your name?" and if you answer correctly, ask it to write its name on the air. If the elf answers something else, you let it go or ask it to appear before you. If that's the spirit you want to summon. Then say the following welcome speech:

"WELCOME, ELF STOLAS, IN THE NAME OF THE SUPREME GOD. I command you to stay in the mirror and answer honestly the questions I give. ”

Then you can ask the questions you want to ask. Remember that you must be polite, not reckless, and treat this spirit with all respect. YOU CAN ALSO LET IT DO SOME RISKY TASKS FOR YOU, BUT IF IT ENDANGERS OTHERS, YOU WILL BE PUNISHED BY KARMA. There will be retribution for all things. You don't want anything to run around and bite you in the ass, do you? Once your request is over, you must agree with the elves to leave. Remember that you must give the order to leave. Even if the elf doesn't show up - because he might be there, but you can't see him. Otherwise, you will be followed by the elves forever until you die!

Here are the instructions to leave:

"LEAVE PEACEFULLY AND RETURN TO THE ASTRAL REALM FROM WHICH YOU CAME, THE ELVEN STOLAS UNDER THE RULE OF THE TRUE GOD. I have ordered you not to hurt anyone when you leave, and to come quickly when you are summoned again. ”

* You can perform low-level banishment spells with a pentagonal magic circle!

*This ritual can be used to summon celestial, demonic, elemental, or angelic spirits. ()

At the end of the day, you can write down everything you experienced. You have to keep a record of all these trips and events. All the spells must be memorized without having to be read from the cards. It must be ensured that the names of the true gods in the summoning spell are pronounced correctly, and that magical rituals must not harm anyone. Even if you summon demons, you can still command them to do good things for you. May peace follow you.

Winged Elves

Winged Elves are the rarest of the elves. They are flying elves who live a life of seclusion and are rarely discovered by outsiders. And due to their rarity and isolation, their existence is almost legendary, and many people believe that winged elves are nothing more than myths, legends, or fantasies. ()

Nature:

The Winged Elves are a proud race, above all else, and will not let such things affect their lives. The Winged Elves are the most serious of all the Elves, and at times, almost unforgiving under the guidance of necessity, like the other Elves, the Winged Elves worship beauty, creativity, and nature, but for them, the greatest pleasure is undoubtedly flying. Even when they're not soaring in the sky, they're always looking into the distance. Precisely in line with their love of the infinite sky, the Winged Elves do not like to be in small spaces, when they suffer from claustrophobia. Body Description:

Elegant and extremely charming, the winged elves are about the same height as humans, though even more slender than their elven relatives on land. Their faces are more defined and angular, and their eyes are larger, with golden, sky-blue, emerald green, or vivid brown eyes. Their hollow skeletons allow them to fly, but they also make them vulnerable, but they are strong on their chests and shoulders and can flap their gorgeous giant wings. Their plumage is usually pure white, but also black or gray, and their hair is often white or black, occasionally golden or silvery-white. Like the rest of the elves, they have no hair on their faces or bodies. They prefer simple, loose-fitting clothes that do not interfere with their wings, and are usually light white, gray, or silvery. Winged elves have a shorter lifespan than other types of elves, reaching adulthood around fifty years old and rarely exceeding three hundred years old. Like other elves, the winged elves do not need to sleep, and are in a meditative state for four hours a day instead.

Relations with other races:

While the detachment of the Winged Elves surprised even the Elves, they seldom showed the arrogance and self-righteousness common to other Elves, and they took pity on all races that did not possess the ability to fly. They have very little interaction with other races, and only maintain friendly and brief interactions with the nearby elves. They maintain the deepest compassion for their fellow citizens who are unable to fly, whether it is due to acquired injuries, illnesses, or misfortunes inherent in birth. However, wingless or flightless winged elves are unable to accept this sympathy, and will usually leave their homeland, or eventually die of despair.

Camp:

Like the other elves, the winged elves value freedom, tend to the elegant aspects of the state of chaos, and though do not respect all life as their earthly relatives, the general attitude is still that of friendship.

religion

The winged elves are a devout race, but their most worshipped god is not Corellon Larethian, but Aerdrie Faenya, the winged elf goddess who rules the sky, the climate, and the birds. Although no one knows where they really came from, the Winged Elves are convinced that they have survived to this day thanks to the help of Goddess Finaya, and that they are the most favored offspring of her. Some of the Winged Elves even believe that they are the original Elves, but most of the Winged Elves speculate that it was the hands of the false Agil Finaya that allowed them to become one with their beloved Giant Eagle.

Language()

The language of the Winged Elves is light and fluent, and is the same language spoken by the other elves, but some have even invented a rather complex sign language based on this language. Many of the winged elves consider it an honor to speak Arroan, the lingua franca of birds, and a few speak a little of the language of the neighboring inhabitants.

Name:

When the Wing Elves reach adulthood, they will choose a name for themselves, but they can still be called by "young names" among their close friends. The family's reputation is of paramount importance to the Winged Elves, and the family's lineage can be traced back countless centuries to fight for their original choices. (To be continued.) )