Was sitting around with my boys, aged 10 and 11. And we were having one of our usual elaborately fantastic conversations. (A new favorite: Is Origami Yoda real or just a figment of Dwight’s imagination?)

Today’s conversation went in the other direction, namely backward. Which is how we came up with a potentially new way to communicate, Shilgne. Which looks a little something like this:

The idea is this: Shilgne (pronounced shill-gu-nee) is English in reverse. But not entirely, because that’d be stupid. Sh, st, th, ch, ck, ph, and many other consonant plurals that result in a single consonant sound stay in place. Same with the combined vowels, altho they’re a bit harder to track. Does ou become uo or remain the same? (I worked this out with children. Try to keep up!) A silent e becomes an up-front phonetic eh. Keep the plurals, and perhaps the possessives, at the end. Take out the natural apostrophes, because they’re a estaw fo ecaps. But add new ones where necessary (as well as hyphens, if it helps). By which I mean, generally simplify things because u’oy wonk tath sith si a wen eguag-nal, d’na sti l’la ruo n’wo. In other words, it’s an ensemble piece.

I’m not entirely clear how you pronounce some words. For example, our common you becomes u’oy. But how to say it? Is it you-yoi or oo-oi? And what to do with an initial w? Our equally common who could be ohw or owh. Either way, how to vocalize? Esealp pleh su, Etep D’nesh-n’wot!

The more I investigate this language, the more it resembles Welsh.

Still, I am thinking of recording my videos in Shilgne. Only a select few will understand.