Friday 13 July 2018

Vicang language


1. Orthography  

1.1 Consonants – initial and final

This language follows a very specific pattern of syllables and codas, influenced by its own writing system which I hopefully will develop in a later post. The initial consonants, as well as the final consonants (shown in bold) are shown here:

-          ‘ = /ʔ/
-          B b = /b/
-          C c = /t͡s/
-          Ch ch = /t͡ʂ/
-          D d = /d/
-          G g = /g/
-          H h = /ɦ/
-          J j = /ʐ/
-          K k = /k/
-          L l = /l/
-          Lh lh = /ɬ/
-          M m = /m/
-          N n = /n/
-          Ng ng = /ŋ/ (final only)
-          P p = /p/
-          R r = /r/
-          S s = /s/
-          T t = /t/
-          V v = /v/
-          Y y = /j/
-          Z z = /z/

1.2 Vowels

There are, like in English, five basic vowels – a, e, i, o, u (/a, ə, i, ɔ, u/) – however, two additions can be made to them

-          “e” can become “é” (pronounced /e/)
-          All vowels except “i” can be nasalised into their equivalent forms, represented with a tilde

2. Intransitive verbs & tenses

2.1 Basic intransitive verb forms

Intransitive verbs are those which do not take direct objects, such as verbs of motion (i.e. “run”, “fall”), or whose direct objects are largely unincorporated as pronouns (for example, “to eat” – although you can distinguish what is being eaten in English, in the language the general pronoun for “it” or “them” is used, and what is being eaten is shown prepositionally (addressed later on)). These are split accordingly into two classes, 1 and 2.

Both classes take several basic forms – take, for example, “dok”, “to eat”:

-          “docep” – the general plural form, used in class 1 intransitive verbs to indicate the subject in plural, but in class 2 (such as this verb) it can be used for both subject and object plurals
-          “doy” – the emphatic form – in class 1 it is used to show the form without any additional clauses (i.e. “I eat it”, “I run there”), but in class 2 it can be used to emphasise the direct object aspect when it is changed (plural “doynep”, conscious form “dohi”)
-          “dokna” – future tense (plural “dokanap”)
-          “docho” – distant past tense, describing events not viewed or known to the speaker (plural “dochop”)

2.2 Additional tenses

In addition to the incorporated tenses, two articles directly precede the verb to indicate an aorist (undefined) and continual tense – “yak” and “he” respectively.

Note than unless specified with the use of distant past tense or the general past article (very rarely used, “ye”), past and present forms (“eat”/”ate”/”have eaten”) are identical.

2.3 Subject inflection in indirect objects

For a verb where the object remains the same with an additional clause, the inflection among persons follows a quite common pattern, relative to the clause – for example, to say that one “eats at sunset” requires the prepositional noun “sunset”, or “pi’ẽma”, to be inflected for certain persons:

-          I eat at sunset = dok pihanma
-          You (sg.) eat at sunset = dok pihoma
-          It (unconscious) eats … = ‘a dok pi’ẽma
-          He/she/it (conscious) eats … = ‘a dok pihoma
-          We (I & them) eat … = docep pihanma
-          We (you & I) eat … = ũ docep pihoma
-          You (pl) eat … = docep pihoma
-          They eat … = docep pihoma’a

Note of course that when not in any of the time phrase inflections, the intransitive subject precedes the verb, as with the pronouns “’a” and “ũ”.

-          I eat the cat = dok ki’an
-          You eat the cat = dok ki’on
-          It (unconscious) eats the cat = ‘a dok kin
-          I eat the cat at sunset = dok ki’an pihanma

(I do not condone eating cats at all, just a convenient grammatical example)

As for the simple use of “it”:

-          I eat it = ũ doy
-          You eat it = o doy
-          It (unconscious) eats it = ‘a doy
-          He/she/it (conscious) eats it = ‘a dohi
-          We (I & them) eat it = yu doynep
-          We (I & you) eat it = ũ doynep
-          You (pl) eat it = o doynep
-          They eat it = ’a doynep
-          The cat eats it = kin doy

In the rare instance of the direct object in a Class 2 verb needing to be “you” or “me”, this is simply shown by putting the appropriate object pronoun straight before the verb.

2.4 Inflection of Class 2 based on direct object

When direct objects change for plurality in Class 2 verbs, the position of the noun and verb change to reflect this change in plurality e.g.

-          I eat them at sunset = pihanma docep
-          You eat them at sunset = pihoma docep
-          It (unconscious) eats them … = ‘a pi’ẽma dok
-          We eat them = pihanma doynep (note that the emphatic is used to show both as plurals at once)

Nouns than are being eaten are simply put in the plural themselves (discussed alongside other nouns later on)

3. Transitive (Class 3) nouns

3.1 Basic subject forms

Transitive nouns, such as “help” or “love”, take both an easily alternating subject or direct object, which in this class are directly incorporated into the verb. Do not forget, however, that the basic inflection forms are still incorporated for tense – see “lhak” (“help”), inflected as “lhakna” in the future and “lhacho” in the distant past, and in plural “lhatsap”, “lhakanap” and “lhachop” respectively.

-          I help … = lhak-é-
-          You (sg.) help … = lhak-õ-
-          It (unconscious) helps … = lhak-’a-
-          He/she/it (conscious) helps … = lhak-ra-
-          We (I & them) help … = lhac-ap
-          We (I & you) help … = lhac-epé-
-          You (pl) help … = lhac-opo-
-          They help … = lhac-ap’a-

3.2 Object forms

Non-plural pronouns are inflected quite simply:

-          I help myself = lhak-é-yung
-          You help me = lhak-õ-yung
-          I help you = lhak-é-yo
-          We (I & them) help you = lhac-ap-yo
-          I help it (unc.) = lhak-é-yã
-          I help him/her/it (con.) = lhak-ék-ra (the “-k-“ is only used in the 2nd person sg. Inflection)

However, other plurals are added differently:

-          You help us (me & them) = lhak-õ-tsam
-          He helps us (me & you) = lhak-ra-tsém
-          I help you (pl.) = lhak-é-tsom
-          We (I & you) help them = lhac-epé-‘i’a

4. Nouns, pronouns & adjectives

4.1 Noun & pronoun classes

As briefly mentioned in the previous sections, nouns are divided between “conscious” and “unconscious” – conscious beings are those which are traditionally seen not only to be animate, but to have features characteristic of humans; mainly people, mammals, a few other living birds, reptiles and fish, but also large features like the sun, moon and certain mountain ranges. A good rule for determining whether an animal is within the conscious group is whether it appears to have a human face – of course, this is merely a symbolic remnant of early beliefs.

With pronouns, there are six sub-classes overall, distributed among all classes and each associated with a corresponding colour (see adjective section for details):

-          States of being & time: emotions, social roles, periods of day and most adjectives, when they are treated as nouns – vang (light green-blue)
-          Animate creatures – ‘a (red)
-          Inanimate objects: mainly living objects, like trees and plants – me’ik (dark green)
-          Mass objects: collections like mountain ranges, villages and even bodies of water & stone – yip (white-grey)
-          Celestial objects and concepts: stars, sun, moon, sky, and concepts such as dreams and the ephemeral – meru (dark blue)
-          Singular physical objects: mountains, rivers and houses – yéi (yellow-orange)

4.2 Plurals, ablative and prepositional

Plurals are generally shown with the suffix “-ap” or “-nap”, although there are important rules relating to this in both verbs and nouns – for example, the vowels in this suffix must correspond with the preceding vowel, except where “o” can become “e” – and if a noun already ends in “-n”, this is instead “-r-p”, e.g. “kin” (cat) becoming “kirip” (cats), and “bakã” (slug) becoming “baknap” (slugs).

There are also forms of each noun, such as the ablative (“out of”, or “off”), taking “-ak” as a common ending, and a prepositional form, ending in “-ling”.

4.3 Adjectives and adverbs

Conventional adjectives take four possible articles, which can either follow the noun or the adjective itself (for the first three, the noun itself can simply eliminate the inflection and use the article as a marker):

-          For conscious singular nouns, “pã”
-          For unconscious singular nouns, “põu”
-          For plural nouns, “pup”
-          For ablative or prepositional, “poing”

Certain other types of adjectives do not require these, and simply follow the nouns:

-          Nouns repurposed as adjectives
-          Numerals

-          Colours, which are simply modified versions of the pronouns discussed in 4.1

o   Vang – vi’ung
o   ‘a – ahong
o   Me’ik – mikong
o   Yip – yepung
o   Meru – merong
o   Yéi – ye’ong

Present participles of verbs are modified with the article “hi” in following, and for past participles are simply inflected with the ending “-abong”.

4.4 Possessive adjectives and patterns of inflecting additional phrases

Possessive pronouns are incorporated into the noun as a suffix, much as the inflections for Class 1 and 2 verbs are incorporated as midfixes. In the former case, this process is quite straightforward:

-          Cat = kin
-          My cat = kinaho
-          Your (sg) cat = kina’u
-          His/hers/its cat = kinek
-          Our (mine and yours) = kinu’onap
-          Our (mine and theirs) = kinho’ap
-          Your (pl) = kinu’ap
-          Their = kinhep

The midfixes also follow similar, but not identical, patterns to those detailed with “pi’ẽma” in 2.3, where the middle syllable is phased out according to its original standard form:

-          Vowels are generally altered to “a” in the first person and “o” in the second if initially “e” or “i” – if “o” or “u”, then the first person remains “a” but the second person becomes “i”
-          If the original form of the syllable starts with a glottal stop, this mutates to “h-“, and stops/nasals mutate to the equivalent fricatives accordingly (if it originally starts with a fricative, it mutates to a nasal)

4.5 Numerals 1-10

1.       uyẽ
2.       chim
3.       cung
4.       bi
5.       nabã
6.       nusep
7.       aimi
8.       ving
9.       vai
10.   lak

5. Prepositions and sentence order

5.1 Time phrases

Time phrases, as secondary to the main clause, do not need suffixes to indicate the action occurring “during” them – however, they can use a variety of articles to indicate circumstances such as “before”, “at the start of”, “at the end of”, “because of” (equivalent to “for” with non-time-related nouns).

The distance of time phrases is modified with the postpositions “ruk” and “asik” (see 5.2)

5.2 Prepositions – locations and motion towards as possession

The meaning of something moving “towards” the noun is likewise assumed for conventional nouns, as is seen with the example with the cat in 2.3. This is used to indicate possession in a similar way to the “’s” clitic in English.

The locative form of the noun is used to show a stationary position, generally equivalent to “on” or “in” – however, a postposition “ruk” means can mean “below” or signify “deeper within”, and “asik” means “over” or “above”. These two postpositions also have equivalent meanings of “less” and “more” with adjectives.

Wednesday 4 July 2018

Dyamakat (Lake People) language


Orthography

-          a - /a/
-          b - /b/
-          c - /t͡ʃ/
-          d - /d/
-          e - /ɛ/
-          f - /f/
-          g - /g/
-          h - /h/
-          i - /i/
-          k - /k/
-          l - /l/
-          m - /m/
-          n - /n/
-          o - /ɔ/
-          p - /p/
-          r - /r/
-          s - /s/
-          š - /ʃ/
-          t - /t/ (at end of word, /t̚/, as in Vietnamese)
-          ṭ - /θ/
-          u - /u/
-          v - /v/
-          x - /x/
-          y - /j/
-          z - /z/
-          ž - /ʒ/

Word order

There is generally no strict sentence order, with a few exceptions – for example, the “topic noun” typically comes first (see Prefixes section for use). In direct statements, it is marked with the topic prefix, but there is none used to indicate a question, as seen in these examples:

Kema me rai son karvu oi-xyek? river topic.pl summer often fish.std spec.mountain
Do I fish in the mountain rivers in the summer?

Mi-xma me rai son karvu oi-xyek – topic.river topic.pl summer often fish.std spec.mountain
I fish in the mountain rivers during the summer

Rai son karvu oi-xyek? summer often fish.std spec.mountain
Where do I fish in the mountains in the summer?

Formality/informality

Those speaking from authority use a grammatically differing form of the language – take, for example, “bit”, the nominative first-person pronoun. Informally, this is not used when the first person carries out the action, and this is gathered from this contextual lack. However, it is used in formal expressions such as these, to multiple effects:

Mya-lu rexopo a še bit – topic.village stay.formal you.nom permit.formal I.nom
I permit you to stay in (my) village

Here, not only is “bit” used as a pronoun, but carries the double meaning of possession. In all formal speech, the sentence-final use of a pronoun carries this double meaning.

Also note the use of formal second-person verb forms, which shall be discussed in the Verb endings section.

Unless necessary, no expressions of time or time-related morphemes are used formally, and neither are plural-indicating particles.

Prefixes

Two prefixes, “mi-“ and “oi-“ are commonly used before words to denote (with “mi-“) the area around which something occurs, physical or otherwise, and (with “-oi”) the thing specifically characterising a previously ambiguous noun, especially (for examples of their use, see the Word order section).

These are subject to the following mutations depending on preceding phonemes:

Vowel = mya-
k = mi-x
š = mya-š-
b = mi-v-
l = mya-l-
t = mi-ṭ-
c = mi-h-
m = mi-b-
ṭ = mi-h-
d = mi-t-
n = mi-d-
v = mya-v-
f = mi-x-
p = mi-f-
x = mi-z-
g = mi-k-
r = mo-r-
z = mi-ž-
h = mi-s-
š = mya-š-
ž = mya-ž-

The same patterns occur for “oi-” with “mya-“ to “oya-“ and “mo-“ to “o-“.

Use of article “va”

Nouns do not exist as such, apart from family members and featural nouns (i.e. village, river, mountain), and in context are described by the verb they carry out, or that is carried out on them. The article “va” precedes the noun to mean “one who –s”, and comes after the noun to mean “one who is -ed”.

The article is shortened to “mya-v” in the topic and “oya-v” in the specific.

“Va” and copulae

“Va” is used especially when a copula (“to be” verb) is required e.g.

Mi-šni va korek bui – topic.skilled one.who bow-hunts sister
My sister is a good/skilled bow hunter

(It should also be noted here that adjectives often take the topic prefix with copulae)

Note also that the possessive “my” is implied – if the sister relates to another party, the equivalent pronoun of this party is placed after the sentence (although “you” has no possessive form, and is just assumed, except when rendered as “these” when absolutely necessary (see Pronominal declension)).

Article “te”

“Te” is often used to create plurals, although “me” is used only to adjoin multiple topic words in a manner similar to English “and” (see the first two examples in the Word order section, where it serves to show the noun for “summer” is in the topic form).

Pronominal use & reciprocity

When main pronouns (“I”, “you”, “up there”, “down there” although most often just “I” and “you”) are used in reciprocity they can cancel out e.g.

Tum va ha (literally “the one who is loved is you”) – I love you (but I don’t know if you love me)
Tum va – I love you (and you love me)

Actions of motion, e.g. giving, are declined like other verbs but take the topic position/prefix.

Informally, accusative pronoun forms can be used to clarify e.g.

Va pumi korek ((I) bow-hunt the bird) v.s. va pumi tib korek (the bird bow-hunts me)

Verb forms & time

-          “once” = standard verb form
-          “often” = “son” before verb
-          “always” or “permanently” = “rekip” (stay) at end of sentence
-          “repeatedly” = “rekpoš” at end of sentence
-          “very often” = “tuc” before verb
-          “yesterday” = “bul” after verb
-          “will indefinitely” = verb coming last in sentence

Verb forms

-          Standard – normal use
-          Formal – used as “you” form when speaking from authority, formed with “-o” on end and “-xo-“ before what was originally the final syllable
o   e.g. “pumi” = “puxomo”, “karvu” = “karxovo”
-          Hodiernal future = “-oš” ending, used to mean “tonight” or “later today” (in cases of ambiguity, the noun for “night” (“uc”) can be used to distinguish the former)
-          Negative = a “palindromic” form of the first syllable, to mean “not”
o   e.g. “rekip” = “kerip”, “karvu” = “rakvu”, “pumi” = “upmi”

Pronominal declension

For the four basic pronouns, the following declensions apply:


I
You
Up there
Down there
Nom
Bit
A/ha*
Yeku
Yemi
Lat/Acc
Tib
Ta
Toku
Tomi
Ade
Ob
Oma
Ok
Omi
Ine
Be
E/he
Ike
Imye
Sup
Bas
As/has
Yekes
Yemes
Per
Ban
An/han
Yekin
Yemin
Ant
Bota
Ata/Hata
Yekta
Yemta
Abl
Bya
Ya
Yey
Yemey
*Initial “h” applied when the pronoun comes after a vowel.

Nom = nominative (subject)
Lat/Acc = lative/accusative (the object, or directly “towards” a noun)
Ade = adessive (near the noun)
Ine = inessive (in the noun)
Sup = superessive (above the noun)
Per = perlative (through, along the noun)
Ant = antessive (in front of, ahead of the noun)
Abl = ablative (away from the noun)

Verb list (negative forms in brackets)

-          Mren – swim (remen)
-          Gubu – drown, sink (ugbu)
-          Kak – must, need to (akak)
-          Šni – be skilled (neši)
-          Ruh – shift, move oneself (ure)
-          Hob – connect, marry (ebe)
-          Še – permit, give (enš)
-          Šup – help (ušpe)
-          Flod – climb (lefod)
-          Yabat – flower, bloom (bayat) (va yabat = leaf)
-          Rekip – stay, do something for a long time (kerip)
-          ṭok – avoid (oṭek)
-          Karvu – fish (rakvu)
-          Pumi – fly (upmi)
-          Korek – hunt with bow (rokek)
-          Tum – love, empathise (mut)
-          Batit = leaf-coloured green (tabit)
-          Orim = water-coloured green-blue (romi)

Featural noun list

-          Fot = tree
-          Metan = house, dwelling
-          Kema = river
-          Kyek = mountain
-          Lu = village
-          Bal = day, sun
-          Uc = night, moon
-          Dyam = lake
-          Ik = star

Familial terms

Triangles refer to feminine, circles to masculine – note that “kuh” and “bui” also generally refer to friends.