inefficientconlanger

[inefficientconlanger]

Quitting.

Unannounced three-week hiatus? I guess you could see this coming.

I think the conlanging phase of my life has come to an end. It was fun while it lasted, from my earliest fumbles with Draen (in 2014. Wow.) to the reign of Amraya to the swansong of Núkhacirj. I can’t say I have moved to bigger and better things. In fact, I haven’t really moved on to any new hobby.

Two weeks ago, a book I read sparked a sudden wave of anxiety about climate change. For more than a week I was convinced the world was going to end during this century, that I would have to watch as it slowly burned around me. I’ve since talked about it with knowledgeable people, and I have calmed down. But that kind of thing gives perspective.

That perspective showed me that I wasn’t really a conlanger anymore. I hadn’t been for a while, not enthusiastically anyway, but only recently I let go of the identity. This is not who I am anymore. And that’s okay.

I hope you wish me luck in whatever endeavor I take on next.

[inefficientconlanger]

18: Lifesaver

Khalj te rósja noxa phi xákusudélj gesa mi mar céthe, téi xákusudélj su mar nji ró.

I want you to know that it’s okay if you just save one person, and it’s okay if that person is you.

want-PERS 1s 2s-ACC know that okay-COP-GNO-PERS save one person only, and.also okay-COP-GNO-PERS COP person this 2s

Grammar:

A more literal translation would be:

I want you to know that it’s okay to only save one person, and it’s okay for that person to be you.

Words:

phi conj. that; subordinates a clause

xáku intrj. okay, alright adj. okay, acceptable

xákusu v. to be okay

gesa v. to save

mi num. one

Note: Numbers coming soon, maybe.

céthe det. just, only

[inefficientconlanger]

17: Weapon

Téi dólj nga apos, acuyámilj váive dan nunemilj máljami, xi eiphe thomi dan sora. Ngoriyásjil, aon iskirji tháikuchélja.

And there it was, not as much floating as simply resting, unconcerned about not touching the ground. Nightbreaker, its blade of gemstones and quicksilver.

- Injdathú, Book of Tears

and.then stand-PERS 3s.PRX that-LOC, float-IPV-PERS equal-PTCP not than rest-IPV-PERS simple-ADV.IPV, without worry touch not ground. break-night with blade gemstone-quicksilver

Worldbuilding:

The islanders’ gods don’t have an agreed-upon appearance. Instead, it is almost an art form how varied the depictions can be. Yet few things always remain the same. For Yiring, there are two: the scar across the face, cutting deep, and her sword. Nightbreaker. Almost sentient, the weapon awaits, hidden, appearing right before the world ends. Its master wields the power to level armies.

And yet, over and over again, we lose.

Words:

apos adv. there

From apo det. that

acuyá v. to float, to hover

vái v. to equal, to be equal in

váive ptcp. equaling, equally, as much

nune v. to rest (against), to be at rest, to be still

málja adj. simple

Note: Adjectives are marked with aspect (agreeing with the verb) to indicate adverbs. The ending for the perfective is -ná.

eiphe n. worry, concern

thomi v. to touch

ngori v. to break, to crack, to snap; to break something rigid

yásjil n. night; archaic and sometimes fossilized, has a negative connotations

iskirji n. blade, edge; long sharp part

tháiku n. gemstone, jewel; any kind of valuable stone

chélja n. quicksilver

Note: There is a lot of debate about what “tháikuchélja” really means, whether the blade looks like gemstones in quicksilver, quicksilver forming gemstones or gemstones acting like quicksilver. Even others suggest it is simply a poetic description of the blade’s texture. Until the sword reappears, we can’t really know.

Sorry for the delay, I had exams and problems with motivation. I think the solution might be making the language more complex, but I’ll have to try and find out.  

[inefficientconlanger]

16: Gold

Usúna khas Marlene no tóga aon ongín, gé curjís dantú nga aiyus reng.

Marlene wanted to marry a rich man, but she never found one she liked.

- 919th Just Used 5 Minutes of Your Day on /r/conlangs

/usúna kʰas mɑːliːn no tóɣa ao̯n oŋín, ɣé t͡ʃuɹís ðantú ŋa aijus reŋ/

marry want-REP Marlene with man having wealth, but find-REP never 3s.PROX like-REP RESM

Grammar note:

“Aiyus reng” is an odd construction, a relative clause without marker or referent, essentially like saying “she never found she liked one”.

Words:

usúna v. to marry; naturally reciprocal, one participant is topicalized over another using “no”.

tóga n. man, adult male; usually but not necessarily human

ongín n. riches, wealth; the adjective “rich” is expressed with a prepositional construction.

curjí v. to find

aiyu v. to like, to consider positively

[inefficientconlanger]

15: Dive

Asjéochi saikás tesja, no gamúyi tem yóthovái sélj aletá, athai noxas thesedés khanacúr phinjócá.

Bury me in the ocean, with my ancestors that jumped from the ships, because they knew death was better than bondage.

- Killmonger, “Black Panther”

scatter-IMP ocean-LOC 1s-ACC, with ancestor 1s-GEN jump-REL from ship, because know-REP exceed-GNO-REP die-N.ERG enslave-N

Grammar note:

The reportative evidential is often used with the arguments of verbs like “to know” or “to believe”, when talking about other people, to mark a statement as being claimed by someone else. In statements about other people, it usually means that those people have told the speaker. That is the case with noxas here, but it is more metaphorical; actions speak louder than words

Words:

asjéo v. to sprinkle, to spread (dust); to scatter ashes of a dead person

Note: Núkhacirj lacks a word for “to bury”; the word for “to hide” is used for buried treasure, “to engulf” is for being buried in sand, and “to place in the ground” is used to translate the funerary meaning.

saiká n. ocean, salt water

no prep. with, accompanied by

gamúyi v. ancestor, predecessor; of gamú + -yi agent nominalizer

gamú v. (trans) to precede, to come before

yótho v. to jump, to leap

sélj prep. from

aletá n. ship, boat

athai conj. because, for the reason that

khanacá n. death, from khana to die + -cá event nominalizer

Note: -cá inflects irregularly, dropping the “a” while retaining the high tone: -cúr, -cím, -cís, -cálja.

phinjócá n. enslavement, bondage, subjugation, from phinjó + cá

Black Panther left me rather unsatisfied, but every word from the villain’s mouth was gold. His presence instantly made the movie come alive.

[inefficientconlanger]

14: Miracle

ljáurju n. an anti-miracle; something highly unusual and negative

Other translations: a catastrophe, a fuck-up

Dómilj nite sjinis náyá xi ljáurju.

We will be there soon, unless we are really unlucky.

stand-IMPV-PERS 1p that-LOC soon without "ljáurju”

Words:

dó v. to stand, to stand up; to be at

Contrast tachu v. to lay, to lay down; to be at

Note: One can’t really say “to be at” without categorizing according to posture. Metaphorically, dó is used for people and buildings, for example and tachu is used for things in water (like boats or islands) and geographical formations.

sjinis n. there (where you are); locative case of sjin that (near you)

náyá adv. soon, not far into the future

Plugging some lexical gaps! I just have to remember to introduce some too at some point.

[inefficientconlanger]

13: Purpose

Avitága ljoi káoro ivén noxamikho dan, yunjaidérún ica eyén

If a man does not know to what port he is steering, no wind is favourable to him.

- Seneca

steer-Q for harbor which know-IMPV-COND not, favor-GNO-FACT no wind

If one doesn’t know towards which harbor one steers, no wind favors them

Grammar notes:

From the gloss one might notice that there is actually no mention of the person this applies to, while the original includes three. This is a grammatical feature adapted from Finnish, my native language, called zero-person, which simply leaves the subject out to mean “one”, like “to Mordor doesn’t simply walk”.

Nukhacirj plays this a bit looser: the omitted generic person can be either the absolutive or the ergative argument, based on context.

Words:

avitá v. (trans) to steer (a ship) v. (intrans) to head (towards)

ljoi prep. for, towards; marks a goal or a destination

káoro n. port, harbour, haven; a place to lay down one’s anchor, whether natural or artifcial

ivén det. which, what; used as a modifier

Compare ivá what, who; used like a noun

yunjai v. (trans) to be good to, to favour v. (intrans) to be favourable

Note: Not “to give preferential treatment to”

ica det. no, none of

eyén n. wind; often as Ni Eyén The Winds

[inefficientconlanger]

12: Teach

Vostedérún mar xiaon thúna. Ére iga, rjená aidé lú.

People are born without logic. For humans, it can be learned.

- Injdathú, Book of Thought

birth-GNO-FACT people without logic. human TOP, learn can-GNO 3sp

Words:

voste v. to be born; to give birth (to)

Derive vostecá birth, childbirth

xiaon prep. without having; xi without + aon with; having 

thúna n. logic; the art of order and sophistication in thought

Note: “Rationality” is also a valid translation. Thúna is the rejection and control of one’s natural tendencies to believe things based on bad evidence.

ére n. human; member of the species Homo sapiens

iga prt. (as) for, regarding; promotes something to the topic of a sentence.

rjená v. to learn; to study and learn

lú prn. third person singular peripheral; refers to something that is not the topic. 

Note: In this case using nga would have referred to “humans”, as it was explicitly marked as the topic of the sentence. Afterwards nga can be used to refer to “logic”, as the rules are pragmatic, not syntactical.

[inefficientconlanger]

Something Else

I have spent a lot of time over the summer writing up a long essay on international auxiliary languages, mostly inspired by Justin B. Rye’s “Ranto”, an incredibly thorough criticism of Esperanto. It’s sort of become a holy book for me, one I go back to over and over for wisdom.

Creating a language to unite the world is an inherently interesting idea. It is culture made into technology, language itself taken apart and reassembled better. It is idealistic, utopistic, it shows hope for humankind to be finally united.

And it is so very easy to get wrong. The skills and knowledge needed to make a good auxlang are the same ones needed to recognize a bad one, and few auxlang creators have either. Sometimes integral theories of linguistics hadn’t yet been invented when the language was created, leaving it crippled from the start.

So this is my exploration of the topic, in all its pretentious glory:

On The Technical Aspects Of A Global Constructed Auxiliary Language

[inefficientconlanger]

Kinship Terms

Núkhacirj’s system of kinship is largely gender-neutral, opting instead to make other distinctions to reduce ambiguity.

amá, áta, itha - mother, father, parent(s)

This distinction by gender in parents is pretty much unavoidable, unless you want a system where children call their parents by their names. The words for mother and father similar to these are very typical across a variety unrelated of languages.

nín, vul, aupú  - younger sibling, older sibling, sibling(s)

Distinction based on relative ages is rather common, and is the obvious one after gender. English also has this in expressions like “little brother” and “big sister”, but here the priority has been flipped.

nim, kitai, sánja, omili - child, eldest child, youngest child, middle child

Large families are largely unheard of on the island, but when families with more than three children occur, all children except for the oldest and youngest are referred to as omili. The plurals can be used to refer to multiple children: ni kitai the older children.

voná, íyir - maternal aunt or uncle, paternal aunt or uncle

Here there isn’t a neutral term, as one is very rarely needed. One’s mother’s siblings and one’s father’s siblings considered separate categories. If a collective term is needed, ni aupú itham siblings of parents can be used.

amamá, amáta - maternal grandmother, maternal grandfather

atamá, atáta -  paternal grandmother, paternal grandfather

Simple portmanteaus suffice for these. The system is actually relatively similar to that of Swedish. For more distant generations, ordinal numbers are used (”second maternal grandfather”).

vonánim, íyirnim - maternal cousin, paternal cousin

nínnim, vulnim - niece or nephew; from younger sibling, older sibling

nimnim - grandchild

A lot of mileage is gotten out of using nim as a productive affix.

[inefficientconlanger]

11: Apathy

Mata ivá? Kómemilj dan tesja.

So what? It doesn't matter to me.

Words:

mata conj. which leads to; so, therefore, then (of if X then Y; not required)

kóme v. to affect (meaningfully); to matter

[inefficientconlanger]

10: Experience

Xaungulj yós pirja gé xikáuru ésu khalj te réng.

I thought of something stupid but harmless I want to try.

think-PERS thing dumb but without-harm try want-PERS 1s RSM

Words:

xaungu v. to come up with, to think, to imagine; to come to mind

Note: “have a thought” might be the closest equivalent

yós prn. something; an indefinite abstract or mental object

Note: Contrasts with “someone” and “something physical”

pirja adj. dumb, stupid, thoughtless

gé conj. but

xikáuru adj. xi- without + káuru to harm, to hurt, to damage

ésu v. to try n. a try

kha v. to want, would like

réng prn. a resumptive pronoun, marking the place of the head of a relative clause

Note: I’m a big fan of resumptive pronouns. They allow for sentences like “I saw the man that he and his wife robbed a bank”.

Note:  The resumptive pronoun is used in all relative clauses that take a normal evidential and with -vai outside the absolutive argument. I am not yet completely clear on what the distinction between them is, but I’ll think about it.

[inefficientconlanger]

Ɛ: Age

Álelangi dantú mar injda ran uvi ing.

No wise man has ever wished to be younger

- Jonathan Swift

wish-INFR never person wise to young more

Grammar:

This sentence was a difficult one to find the right evidential for. -lj would suggest you’ve personally checked every wise person in the world, -rún doesn’t work, because the information conveyed is definitely new and -s and -vo would require some source.

This is why I have now decided that sweeping generalizations are covered by -ngi, the inferential evidential, because they are based on inductive reasoning.

Words:

álela v. to wish, to hope n. a wish

Contrast: orjúnju v. to have hope n. hope

dantú adv. never, from dan not + tú once, at a time

Compare aosatú always

injda adj. learned, wise, scholarly

ran prep. to, towards; with the goal of

uvi adj. young

[inefficientconlanger]

X: Differences

Sékhire iyilj ochés ninga ónlévai theses vivúr muni láuyál! 

Those who think vanilla is better than chocolate should be burned at the stake!

burn-CAUS should-PERS pyre-LOC 3pt think-REL exceed-REP cocoa-ERG pleasant vanilla

Although vanilla and cacao are native to Mexico,12 000 kilometers away, they are also found on the island, and Núkhacirj has native words for them. Based on how little Núkhacirj has changed since the writing of the Injdathú fourteen hundred years ago, the plants are estimated to have been imported to the island at least hundreds of thousands of years ago, if not much, much earlier.

Words:

sékhe v. to burn, to be on fire n. fire

sékhire v. to burn (smt.), to set on fire

Note: The causative is used to reinforce the idea that someone should be doing the burning. This is not that common in Núkhacirj, where it’s generally more important what is happening or ought to happen than how the outcome is achieved.

iyi xv. should, ought to

oché n. funeral pyre; later used as a translation for the pile that is used in execution by burning, a practice foreign to the islanders.

ónlé v. to think, to be of the opinion that n. opinion

-vai sfx. marks a relative clause

these v. to exceed, to be more than

vivú n. vanilla

muni adj. good; pleasant, nice

Contrast kiri good; effective, efficient

láuyál n. cacao, chocolate

[inefficientconlanger]

9: Hurt

Oyalj tárí seonge cel ximei síkíre máida.

Deepest wounds are made without spilling blood.

/ojaʎ tárí seo̯ŋe t͡ʃel ximei̯ síkíre mái̯ða/

make-PERS wound deep most without-spill blood

Words:

oya v. to bring into being; to make, to form, to found

tárí n. wound, gash: bodily damage drawing blood, of any shape; puncture

Contrast ixáo scratch, surface damage

seonge adj. deep; metaphorically concealed, obfuscated

Derive Aiseonge the Depths (of the ocean)

cel adv. the most; superlative

ximei prep. without (the use of); not using, from xi without + mei with, using

Grammar note: mei and ximei with an infinitive focus on the ergative, while no with, accompanied by and xi focus on the absolutive.

síkíre v. to bleed, to leak; to make bleed, to make leak; from síká + -ire causative

Note: The absolutive argument is the leaking fluid, and the ergative argument is the actor causing the leaking. The source of the leaking is marked with kái about

Contrast síká to bleed, to leak (from) (ergative: fluid, absolutive: source)

Note: The causative here is a total hack, but I sort of like it. It is a bit latinate.

máida n. blood

[inefficientconlanger]

Valency

Antipassive

The antipassive voice turns transitive verbs into intransitive ones with their ergative argument promoted to an absolutive argument, much in the same way the passive voice promotes the accusative argument (object) to the nominative argument (subject).

The antipassive is formed with the suffix -oi, which replaces the final vowel of the verb root and takes on its tone.

músa to give smt. > músoi to give

isjá to say smt. > isjói to say

When the final vowel is a diphthong, the suffix turns into -yo, and doesn’t replace the final vowel:

tao to ask smt. > taoyo to ask

Example:

Anjílj njinjur kapó - The tiger ate the pig

Anjílj kapó - The pig was eaten

Anjóilj njinj - The tiger ate

(*Anjílj njinjur is not allowed. It is analogical to saying *threw ball to mean the ball was thrown)

Anjóimilj njinj - The tiger was eating

The object can be reintroduced with the preposition kái about (think reintroducing the subject with by):

Anjóilj njinj kái kapó - The tiger ate the pig

Reflexive & Reciprocal

The reflexive (oneself) and the reciprocal (each other) are marked with the verbal prefixes am(a)- and irj(i)-, respectively:

Solilj njinjur kapó - The tiger licked the pig (hey, they’re friends now!)

Amasolilj njinj - The tiger licked itself

Irjisolilj njinj - The tigers licked each other

These prefixes are half inflectional and half derivational, used both to mark grammatical information and to derive new words. For example, from amaréita to kill oneself (inflected form of réita to kill) can be derived amaréitacá suicide.

There are also the reflexive and reciprocal pronouns, amal and irjin respectively.

[inefficientconlanger]

8: Blame

Isjámilin dan utudélj ró nga

Tare ailj ró ilin pé ing

I’m not saying it was your fault

Although you could’ve done more

- “Naive” by Little Giants

say-IMPV-ILLC not be.responsible-GNO-PERS 2s 3st

although can-PERS 2s once do more

Words:

isjá v. to say; to claim, to state

-lin sfx. marks the illocutive mood

Note: the illocutive is a mood I made up. It is used for speech acts, which are things you say not to convey information but to actually do something. As an example, when you say “I promise”, you are not telling someone how the world is, but actively changing it by making a promise.

utu v. be responsible, to be at fault for

Grammar note: Núkhacirj doesn’t have the conjunction “that”. Instead, nothing is put between the clauses.

nga prn. third person singular pronoun, used for the topic, in contrast to lú. Has an ergative and an absolutive case.

Note: This is a total retcon of almost everything about this pronoun, but as is a well-established rule of the blog that most definitely has always been in the blog description, anything can be retconned at any time.

tare conj. although, even though; presents contradictory evidence or caveats

ai v. to be able to, have the potential to

ilin adv. once, but not anymore

pé v. to do; the pro-verb

ing adv. more (no specific comparison); more and more, more with time

I’m back, with a newly fully functional laptop! Looking forwards to getting back to the rhythm, and letting this language fulfill its potential.