#MyLang

[starcaptainslangs]

Day 35 - MyLang, Sound Changes part ??

Today's prompt is about finalizing and ordering the sound changes. I think over the weekend I was able to get that pinned down pretty well.

@quothalinguist did include a cool resource recommendation: Lexurgy!!! I have used the Zompist sound change applier in the past, but Lexurgy seems a bit clearer to me about how to write and understand the rules.

It's definitely closer to coding than I am used to, but I wanna learn something new and add this tool to my tool kit - a major goal of this year.

Also, it's been 35 days!!!! Whaaaat?!?

[starcaptain]

Day 62 - MyLang, Adpositions again!

Today's prompt is about considering how adpositions and case interacts. I feel like I did that yesterday so I'll just take it easy today. Woo!

[d109-56]

🎧 धमाकेदार खबर! 🎉

'अनामिका: द पॉसेस्ड प्लेव्राइट' ऑडियो सीरीज़ की दुनिया में स्वागत है! 🎭

हमें जुड़ें और अनामिका के रहस्यों को खोलने के लिए साथ चलें। इस सीरीज़ की 1 से 10 एपिसोड्स अब MyLang ऑडियो प्लेटफ़ॉर्म पर सुनने के लिए उपलब्ध हैं! 📻✨

🔍 अनामिका की सच्चाई और न्याय की खोज में उसका साथ दें, जब वह अतीत की अंधेरी दुनिया में घुस जाती है। डरावनी मुलाकातों से लेकर दिल को तेज करने वाली घटनाओं तक, यह ऑडियो सीरीज़ आपको अपनी सीट पर बाँधे रखेगी!

अब सुनें:

[spaceexp]

Galileo grows: two more satellites join working constellation

ESA - GALILEO Programme logo. 8 June 2017 Two further satellites have formally become part of Europe’s Galileo satnav system, broadcasting timing and navigation signals worldwide while also picking up distress calls across the planet.

Galileo satellite in orbit

These are the 15th and 16th satellites to join the network, two of the four Galileos that were launched together by Ariane 5 on 17 November, and the first additions to the working constellation since the start of Galileo Initial Services on 15 December. The growing number of Galileo users around the world will draw immediate benefit from the enhanced service availability and accuracy brought by these extra satellites. The launch into space and the manoeuvres to reach their final orbits still left a lot of rigorous testing before the satellites could join the operational constellation.

Liftoff of Galileo quartet

Their navigation and search and rescue payloads had to be switched on, checked and the performance of the different Galileo signals assessed methodically in relation to the rest of the worldwide system. This lengthy testing saw the satellites being run from the second Galileo Control Centre in Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany, while their signals were assessed from ESA’s Redu centre in Belgium, with its specialised antennas. The tests measured the accuracy and stability of the satellites’ atomic clocks – essential for the timing precision to within a billionth of a second as the basis of satellite navigation – as well as assessing the quality of the navigation signals.

Surveying with satnav

Oberpfaffenhofen and Redu were linked for the entire campaign, allowing the team to compare Galileo signals with satellite telemetry in near-real time. Making the tests even more complicated, the satellites were visible for only three to nine hours a day from each site.

Galileo's Redu antenna

The satellites are now broadcasting working navigation signals and are ready to relay any Cospas–Sarsat distress calls to regional emergency services. Now that these two satellites are part of the constellation, the remaining pair from the Ariane 5 launch is similarly being checked to prepare them for service.  Related links: Cospas–Sarsat distress calls: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Navigation/Galileo_s_search_and_rescue_service_in_the_spotlight Launching Galileo website: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Navigation/The_future_-_Galileo/Launching_Galileo Galileo Tour: http://esamultimedia.esa.int/multimedia/Galileo_tour/galileo.swf?lang=gb&mylang=gb EC Galileo website: http://ec.europa.eu/growth/sectors/space/galileo/index_en.htm European GNSS Agency: http://www.gsa.europa.eu/ Galileo begins serving the globe: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Navigation/Galileo_begins_serving_the_globe Galileo Initial Services: first quarter service performance for users: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Navigation/Galileo_Initial_Services_first_quarter_service_performance_for_users Images, Text, Credits: ESA/P. Carril/S. Corvaja/CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO. Greetings, Orbiter.ch Full article

[gherf]

Exclamations in Maltese

Stuck on the bus as it takes a detour allowed me some time to think of ways which my native language sounds even more melodramatic than I thought it capable of being

(literal meanings in italics!!)

Kos / Tassew!  Okay so on their own these don’t really have an equivalent in English; both of these are used when you realise something that you had probably forgotten or not paid attention to, so it’s like exclaiming “oh, right!”

Mhux hekk (nibqgħu)! - We won’t stay like that! Kont se ngħidlek (x’tagħmel)! - I was going to tell you what to do! These are used when someone says something rather outrageous and you’re basically like “um I don’t think so bitch”. The parts in brackets can be omitted since they’re basically extensions of the phrase.

Dan x’kien! - What was this! More or less used when someone does something unexpected / something which they usually don’t do, so it’s an affirmation of surprise.

Ara biss! - Look only! This is virtually the equivalent of “don’t you dare” in Maltese: someone threatens to do something and you’re like “holy shit nO”

Ma tarax! - You don’t see! Rather than accusing your listener of blindness, this is used when someone suggests something outrageous and you’re like “yeah that’s definitely not happening any time soon mate”

Ar’issa! (shortening of Ara issa) - Look now! First of all, no one ever says “ara issa”, just to point that out. Also used as a reaction to something which is more or less outrageous / surprising, so it’s like saying “oh wow” or “oh my god” with the perfect hint of patronisation :-)))

Mur ara! - Go see! This is used when someone suggests / proposes something rather preposterous or outside the norm, and you’re basically like “lmao imagine that!”. This phrase is usually merged with the pronoun of who’s being addressed (ex. mur arak, mur arana, etc.)

Minn fuq! - From above! No, this is not a response to being asked “where the fuck did this bird shit come from”. Instead this is typically used when someone does something conventionally generous and the other person replies with no gratitude or instead declines / rejects the act. So it’s kinda like “wow and to think I did that shit for you smh”

J’Alla / J’Alla le!  These are both technically apostrophes to God. They’re used to practically mean “Let’s hope so” or “Let’s hope not” respectively.

U le! - Oh no! Unlike its English translation, this isn’t really used as a reaction to indicate you’re upset. Instead, it’s used when something preposterous / ridiculous takes place, and you’re like “oh come on” but - shockingly enough - sounding much more patronising.

Ħeqq mela!  No literal translation, but this basically signifies “of course!” and it’s synonymous with dażgur.

Uxe! This weird ass utterance (reminder: x is pronounced as /sh/ in Maltese) more or less means “of course not” or just a strong negation to a question being asked.

Irranġa! - Arrange! I have no idea how to contextualise this, it’s more or less said when someone says they’re gonna do something and you’re like “yeah sure” or “sure I guess” or “ok do whatever the fuck you need to do bitch ttyl”, depending on the intonation.

And last but certainly not least...

Żobb! / Iżżabbab!  As you may be familiar with, żobb = dick. What’s more fun is the derivation of the verb, żabbab, which God knows what it even means at this point tbh. However, in an exclamatory context, both of these are used when someone proposes to do something and you’re just like “um fuck no you won’t”

Bonus: use considerably high intonation + drag any stressed vowels for an extensive period of time to sound even MORE melodramatic, native and judgemental. 3 in 1!  Hope you enjoy this (rather interesting) list! (which made me realise how many phrases involve some sort of indication of vision for whatever reason)

[starcaptainslangs]

Day 20 - Geographic Features

Today's prompt for me thinking about what would be the major geographic features to people who are six inches tall at most? Things like stumps, trees, bushes, ponds become the main geographic features. I decided that proto-MyLang originates from before the migration into the Yard, so there wouldn't be words for house-related terminology.

Here are the terms!

*tamba /ˈtam.ba/ noun, tree

*dur /dur/ noun, a navigable body of moving water; river

*tosan /ˈto.san/ noun, bush

*zol /zol/ noun, a navigable body of water; sea, lake

*garku /ˈgar.ku/ noun, boulder, large rock formation, mountain

*lëun /ˈlə.un/ noun, stump

I thought about making a root for "log" but I think it would be fun to derive that.

Thinking about historical evolution I think that it might go:

Proto-MyLang > Old Yardish > Old Houseic, Middle Yardish > Modern Houseic, Modern Yardish

Or maybe skip the old Yardish step. That would represent the genrations that initially entered the Yard and before settlement in the house began. Maybe, who knows what I'll settle on.

[starcaptainslangs]

Day 46 - MyLang, Case-marking

Wooo! Today is about exploring the ways that MyLang might case mark.

Because I went with a direct-inverse alignment the Subject Object marker is determiend by the SVO word order and the inverse/direct marker on the verb. So, I decided that I'll have some case particles to mark for some other cases. Here's the ones I went with and their Proto-MyLang origins:

Dative

Proto-MyLang origin: *sinlu “give”

Genitive

Proto-MyLang origin: *khura “property”

Instrumental

Proto-MyLang origin: *arso “hand”

Locative

Proto-MyLang origin: *thësë “ear”

Vocative

Proto-MyLang origin: *hoj “onomatopoeic, vocative”

The World Lexicon of Grammaticalization is an invaluable resource here. I have it in print but @quothalinguist provided a link to the pdf!

[starcaptainslangs]

Day 19 - MyLang, Proto-forms!

Today is the first day of word creation!!! Today's prompt focuses on creating body terms!

"Wings" is a basic term, because some Fae have wings. I also divided up words for hair based on the location: head, body and face (ie, beards). I decided that they consider the stomach and torso to be one unit (maybe with specifying chest and stomach by upper/lower stomach) and the foot and leg to share the same word. I think that is a rare feature, but not an uncommon semantic grouping.

I tried to use all of my phonemes in these words for as much variety as possible

Today yielded eighteen proto-words! They are:

arso /ˈar.so/ noun, hand

ojkan /ˈoj.kan/ noun, arm

fampha /ˈfam.pʰa/ noun, leg/foot

ijal /ˈi.jal/ noun, wing, specific to Fae

tor /tor/ noun, head

pilë /ˈpi.lə/ noun, torso, stomach, chest

qër /qər/ noun, finger

rusum /ˈru.sum/ noun, buttocks

khaj /kʰaĭ/ noun, groin

qhiw /qʰiŭ/ noun, neck

xe /xe/ noun, eye

hum /hum/ noun, nose

law /laŭ/ noun, mouth

thësë /ˈtʰə.sə/ noun, ear

lirza /ˈlir.za/ noun, hair on head

fua /ˈfu.a/ noun, hair on body

sarkha /ˈsar.kʰa/ noun, beard

tawpho /ˈtaŭ.pʰo/ noun, breast, mammaries

This is super exciting! I think my favorite words are arso and ijal.

[starcaptainslangs]

Day 14 - MyLang, Vowels pt 2, Diphthongs & some worldbuilding

Yay for diphthongs! So. Diphthongs. Let's have some.

I decided to go with /aj oj aw iw/ with the romanization like the IPA. Vowel-vowel sequences are also allowed so there is a differnece between /ta.i/ and /taj/, romanized as [tai] and [taj].

I can see these diphthongs mutating into new sounds, like /iw/ > /y/ in descendant languages.

I also had an idea for the conscript for MyLang. I'd have writing appear at the same stage as the proto-lang and it would be an abugida. In descendants, after intervocalic voicing happens for plosives, the [z] glyph can reduce in someway to become a voicing marker.

I also settled on using a 1:12 scale for the Fae, so 1 inch = 1 foot. I considered 1:24 scale, but that seemed a little too small. Also, there's a lot of miniature stuff avaialble at that scale for whenever I decide to build a miniature of a Fae house or something (that's a project starting to form in my mind... help!).

[starcaptainslangs]

Day 12 - Consonants pt 3

Today's prompt is about considering things like affricates and non-pulmonic plosives. I've decided to drop the voicing distinction in the plosives and instead have an aspirated/unaspirated distinction.

I am gonna evolve some stuff with the unaspirated plosives so I want to leave them in for now. I decided to do the orthography for the unaspirated plosives as [b d g qh] with [qh] for /qʰ/. We'll see how long that lasts lol.

Anyway that's it for today! Tomorrow is vowels, I think! Yay! I have some evil ideas (sinister even) to implement there.

[starcaptainslangs]

Days 105-107: MyLang: Verb documentation

The past few days are about verb documentation. I have settled most of how my verb conjugations will work and did my best to document what I have. There's more to refine and work out, but basically verbs conjugate for tense and aspect paraphrastically by using auxiliary verbs. English does this with constructions like "had eaten". MyLang works similarly.

I'm thinking I want more irregular forms for the auxiliaries. Two, ha "to be" and véj "to have" have irregular past tenses, but I am also tempted to add irregular negative forms.

Maybe lol

[starcaptainslangs]

Day 98-101: MyLang, Verbs Verbs Verbs!

Day 98 was about creating index markers for verbs. I need to make markers for:

Number marking

Direct/inverse partilce

Tense marker

Active participle suffix

Auxiliary

Luckily I worked out the lexical sources giving me:

Subject number prefix: dhe/é-

Inverse particle: ná (follows verb)

Past tense suffix: -lá/a (maybe changes when put on aux, or aux has its own form)

Future tense adverb: huúl

Active participle suffix -a/áx

Auxiliary: ós

I'm not fully decided if the auxiliary is going to be always used or if it will be used in certain grammatical situations. Here are examples of the same sentence with one using the auxiliary and one not:

Sha fœ́ lárollá dhe ódhi. The mouse gathered the dandelion (no auxiliary) Sha fœ́ ósla lároax dhe ódhi. The mouse gathered the dandelion (with auxiliary)

Both work for me, so I can decide later. I'll have to do some research on converbs to see how I can incorporate them, but I'll leave that for another day.

Here's an example that incorporates all the above, except the future adverb:

Sha fœ́dh ósla dhereéngax ná kó grakú Sha fœ́-dh ós-la dhe-reéng-ax ná kó grakú The mouse-PL do-past PL-crush-PART INV the boulder The mouse is crushed by the boulder/The boulder crushed the mouse

The inverse marker shows that the lower animate argument is the actor in the sentence.

Day 99 is about creating tense/aspect forms. I have a simple past and a future adverb so I'll just focus on aspects.

The imperfective will be the default so why not use the auxiliary verb to make the perfective? That makes sense to me. The revised example sentence is:

Sha fœ́dh ós dhéreéngax ná kó grakú The bounder crushes the mice (in one instance) Sha fœ́dh dhéreéng ná kó grakú The boulder is crushing the mice (currently/ongoing)

I think that's right. I'm kinda rushing today. So the perfect will be made with the past marker and the auxiliary. That's all I can do for those today. Let's move on!

Day 100 was about making examples to show non-finite verb forms.

I have the active participle covered with the -a/áx suffix. For the infinitive, I think I'll just use the plain verb. I'll have to do example clauses later.

Day 101 is about mapping out the components of the verb structure. Here is what I got:

ós-la dhe-[ROOT]-la(n)-ax huúl ná aux-PST PL-ROOT-past-participle future inverse

Okeee that's all I can do today.

[starcaptainslangs]

Day 40 - MyLang, Solidfying Alignment/Word Order

I've settled on doing SVO alignment and a direct-inverse alignment. That alignment type is one that I'll probably have to research further but I think it'll be fun to figure it out.

The prompt also included advice to create templates for transitive and intransitive verbs that you can update as you grow grammar and reference. I set up templates for transitive/intransitive clauses with animate subjects and ones for inanimate subjects. Here they are:

rýsk - “to sleep”

láro - “to gather/collect”

fjó - “mouse”

tezhí - “dandelion”

névo - “to grow”

grakú - “boulder”

múve - “moss”

Animate Subject/Agent SVO Transitive Template 

Fjó láro tezhíMouse gather dandelion

Inanimate Subject/Agent SVO Transitive Template

Grakú láro múve Boulder gather moss

Animate Subject SV Intransitive Example

Fjó rýsk Mouse sleep

Inanimate Subject SV Intransitive Example

Tezhí névo dandelion grow

I've continued to put words through sound changes (manually lol) and I really love the sound of things. Like rýsk sounds exactly like how I want. Love it!

[starcaptainslangs]

Day 39 - MyLang, exploring alignment & word order

Oh ho! We're starting to get into grammar!

I don't need to set anything or make a decision today, just explore. First, I considered what word order I wanted to do. In my main lang, K'awatl'a, I have a VSO word order and an Active/Passive alignment, so I won't consider those options as I want to do something that I haven't done in a major lang of mine.

That left me with SOV and SVO. I decided to go with SVO. I haven't used it in the past for any lang really, because I thought it was too ~~Englishy~~ (yes, I had the edgy phase of making a lang that was as NOT English as possible). I think it'll work great for MyLang! It's a word order I'm familiar with so hopefully that will let me concentrate more on other features that are more unfamiliar, like alignments!

For alignment, I'm considering two major options: Nom-Acc and Direct-Inverse. The reasoning behind Nom-Acc is that I haven't used it before so it'll be cool to approach something familiar and find a way to make it my own.

As for Direct-Inverse, it feels really cool and I'm vibing with it if I can figure out how to execute it well. The summary (or the summary of my understanding) is that there is a hierarchy that a participant can be on. One example the Wikipedia page mentioned, had a hierarchy of like 1st person > 2nd person > third person > obviate, and then within that I think the animacy of the participants matters too (like humans are more animate than a rock).

A simple example based on how I understand how Ojibwe does it (this is likely not that correct in the context of that language's entire grammar):

man sees-direct cat The man sees the cat

man sees-inverse cat The cat sees the man.

Another example from Sahaptin also seemed to include case markers for Nom and Acc and, I think, uses it mostly as a topicalization marker? Not sure on that.

So, at the moment I think that I am going to try for a direct-inverse alignment, and if that ends up not working, go to a Nom-Acc alignment.

[starcaptainslangs]

Days 85-89 - Indefinite Pronouns

This week was pretty busy, but I found time to sit down and hammer out the prompts for the past few days. It's all about indefinite pronouns!

Day 85 was about brainstorming pronouns. I came up with some interesting origins after researching stuff on Wiktionary. I also coined the word for frog fááravú. It descended from *phájrabu, a compound "green frog", which generalized into "frog" or "someone who is indecisive to the point of motionlessness; someone who waits for inspiration; someone who communes with nature". *rabu "frog" became a verb meaning "to groan, complain, moan".

Day 86 was about the indefinite pronouns. I already have a singular number so I'll just stick with that to indicate one of something as a modifier. The modifier version is just ghé "one". I derived kré "each from *qër "finger" thinking that each finger is separate. You have to use the genitive case with a noun when it's a modifier: kré yr fááravú "each frog". As a pronoun, it would take the ko article and thus become a noun! Voila!

Day 87 was about making plural indefinite forms. I created these:

ísh "few" from *ixi "few, small, little". Example: ísh yr téven "a few trees"

livó "some" from *bilfo "bundle". Example: livó ýr xaméredh "some foxes"

kúf "many" from *kuphar "swell, increase". Example: kúf yr hérkedh "many rats"

jer "all" from the root *jer. It just so happens that there's nothing that changes here. Example: jer yr thágej "all hawks"

To make these a pronoun, just slap the pronoun ko/kó before it.

Day 88 was about making an absence form. I decide to make a root *hekhë which became áx "no". When used as modifiers, the modified noun does not take a plural form. Other forms:

áxjer "none", compounded from *hekhë + jer "all"

ághe "no one", compounded from *hekhë + *geh "one"

I'll have to make forms for "nobody" and "nothing" once I have words for "person" and "thing". I haven't really decided what the Fae call themselves. Maybe Fée? I'm not sure.

Today's prompt is about sticking this all into the grammar. And with that, I'm done!