An introduction

About the language

Niu

Niu, or Niuran, is a language with the goal of being a language that breaks the barrier between languages, unifying those who don't speak any other common language. The idea of the language is progression, because if communication isn't a bottleneck anymore, anyone can freely progress in a way they desire.

Origin

The language has roots in some major languages spoken around the world. The vocabulary is notably originated from germanic, sinoic, japonic and koreanic languages, with some vocabulary also originating from romance, slavic and semitic languages. This mix will make the language seem somewhat familiar to many, but also new and interesting to learn.

Resources

Learning Niu

This website will be a major guide to learning Niuran. It will be a comprehensable but brief guide. A book is currently being made to aid the learning of the language, ideally this will also come with practice excercises. For more information or any question the discord server, a place to chat to other people interested in (learning) Niu or any of those involved in the creation, can be used to ask questions freely, or just try to talk in Niu.

Join the discord!

란디 "background"

뉴

딧고독 엔다마!

Preparation

About the writing system

Hangeul

Hangeul is a writing system developped by, or by the command of, king sejong the great of (Joseon) Korea. The writing system was produced in 1444 and made public in 14461. To this day in both North and South Korea a specific holiday devoted to the writing system is held. The writing system has been standardised to the korean language and is in many ways a unique writing system, most notably because it is the only writing system actively created for a language.
The symplicity of the writing system however makes it very fit to adapt to a language that has a simple phonology. Niu is designed to be simple to pronounce and written (using the korean alphabet) and no real changes, besides romanisation and a reduction in characters used, have been made to the writing system.
The writing system groups a single syllable within a block, spacing the language well for reading and writing. And the forms of the letters are simplistic in nature making them easy to remember.

About learning the writing system

Before learning

In the document announcing the Hangeul writing system the following is written about hangeul; "a clever man can learn them in one morning, though a dull man may take ten days to study them"2. This suggests the writing system is easy to learn, even for the uneducated in 15th century Korea. For the modern world, very used to writing and reading, this holds very much true and learning the alphabet is achievable within hours. The Niu langauge uses slightly less consonants and vowel characters compared to the Korean version of the writing system, thus learning the writing system isn't quite the same.
To the right of the (or below) will be a brief but comprehensive guide on how to read (and write) the letters needed to understand Niu, along with a guide on how to pronounce them.

It is really easy

Learning Hangeul

ㅏ

The vowels

There is only 5 base vowels in the Niu language, these are a e o u and i, written as ㅏ ㅔ ㅗ ㅜ and ㅣ respectively. These vowels can be grouped into two different groups; tall vowels: a ㅏ e ㅔ and i ㅣ, and wide vowels: o ㅗ and u ㅜ.
These vowels can also be combined, the more straight forward way of combining is by combining either a wide vowel with a tall vowel, this method creates the following vowel combinations; oa ㅘ, ue ㅞ and ui ㅢ. The other method is by combining the vowel i with other vowels (except for i itself) this combination is written down by doubling the short line on the vowels, creating the following combinations: ia ㅑ , ie ㅖ, io ㅛ and iu ㅠ.

ㄱ

The Consonants

There are more consonants, however consonants cannot combine to form new groups of sounds; in order the consonants are: k ㄱ, n ㄴ, t ㄷ, r ㄹ, m ㅁ, p ㅂ, s ㅅ, - ㅇ, and h ㅎ. The ㅇ consonant is used at the beginning of a syllable indicating the syllable starts with a vowel rather than a consonant. The character itself however is considered a consonant.

가

The blocks

To write a syllable, rather than writing the characters from left to right "ㅎㅏㄴ", they form blocks "한 han".
A syllable always starts with a consonant, if there is no consonant pronounced at the beginning of a syllable the consonant character ㅇ is used instead, this consonant is written on the top/left side of the character, tall vowels like ㅏ appear to the right of this consonant "아 a" and wide vowels like ㅗ appear below the consonant "오 o".
A combination of a wide and tall vowel appears basically both below and right of the consonant, like ㅘ if combined with for example an initial consonant of ㄱ looks like "과 koa".
Consonants can also appear at the end of a syllable, after a vowel, these are simply written below the other letters of the syllable, like the ㄴ in "한 han"

나

Vowel pronunciation

ㅏ 아　 a　 /a/ hat
ㅑ 이아 ia　 /ja/~/ia/ miaow
ㅔ 에　 e　 /e/
ㅖ 이에 ie　 /je/~/ie/
ㅗ 오　 o　 /o/
ㅘ 오아 oa　 /wa/~/ua/
ㅛ 이오 io　 /jo/~/io/
ㅜ 우　 u　 /u/
ㅞ 우에 ue　 /we/~/ue/
ㅟ 우이 ui　 /wi/~/ui/
ㅠ 이우 iu　 /ju/~/iu/
ㅣ 이　 i　 /i/

다

Consonant pronunciation

ㄱ 기옥 k　 /k/
ㄴ 니온 n　 /n/
ㄷ 디옫 t　 /t/
ㄹ 리올 r　 /r/~/ɾ/
ㅁ 미옴 m　 /m/
ㅂ 비옵 p　 /p/
ㅅ 시옷 s　 /s/
ㅇ 이오 -　 /-/~/ʔ/
ㅎ 히옿 h　 /h/