Re: Nyenya'a

In a message dated Thu, 18 Oct 2001 5:04:44 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Frank
George Valoczy <valoczy@...> writes:

> Well here is a little bit of rather premilinary information on Nyenya'a,
> my newest language, based mostly on Tundra Nenets and Japanese.
>
> Phonology
>
> Vowels
>
> a E i o u
>
> [u] after a palatalised consonant or [S] becomes [y]
> [i] after a vowel becomes [I], though it stays more or less a separate
> vowel. Technically there are no diphthongs, but in practice (especially in
> rapid speech), they do exist.
>
> Consonants
>
> p t      k ?
> b d
> w s S
>     j ts x
> m n      N
>   l
>   r
>
> p b m t d n l r x can be palatalised
> [?] becomes [q] before a consonant.
>
> Syllable structure is CV. The only consonant that can be syllable-final is
> [?]
>
> Nyenya'a is written in a modified form of Hiragana.
>
> Miscellaneous Bits of Morphology
>
> Nyenya'a has classifiers, like Japanese:
>
> animals: [xiki]
> books, etc: [satsu]
> paiks: [soku]
> buildings: [kE?]
> levels, floors, etc: [kaI]
> times, occasions: [soNu]
> people: [ni?]
> flat objects: [maI]
> cylindrical objects: [lapi]
> bizarrely shaped objects: [ma?E]
> spirits, gods: [kamE]
>
> Particles or Cases:
>
> Whether these are particles or in fact cases is not yet clear:
>
> Topic: wa
> Subject: Na
> Accusative: ?o
> Genitive: no
> Dative: ni
> Locative: na
> Allative: e
> Ablative: da
> Comitative: sa
> Instrumental: jE
> Interrogative: ko
Are these all derived from Japanese case particles or are some derived from Nenets cases?

> Verbs
>
> This is a lot like Japanese:
>
>                                 to go           to be
> Present: -dEma                  minadEma        oma
> Present negative: -nai          minanai         onai
> Past: -dEmata                   minadEmata      odEmata
> Passive: -rE-                   minarEdEma      orEdEma
> Causative: -sE-                 minasEdEma      osEdEma
> Imperative: -ka                 minaka          oka
> Desiderative: -taI              minataI         otaI
> Conditional: -rEba              minarEba        orEba
> Continuative: -mEba             minamEba        omEba
> Frequentative: -rENa            minarENa        orENa
> Habitual: -SEti                 minaSEti        oSEti
> Momentanteous: -xali            minaxali        oxali
> Diminutive: -jEtE?              minajEtE?       ojEtE?
> Inchoative: -la?                minala?         ola?
> Reflexive: -wa?a                minawa?a        owa?a
> Infinitive: -ru                 minaru          oru
> Nominaliser: -koto              minakoto        okoto
I like the basic idea, but how do you combine them? Is it going to be like
Japanese where interesting pre-forms show up alot?

that is: minanai "go-neg"

ikanai (japanese)   ikanakatta "go-neg-past"

Where the "preform" for -nai is "naki"

Also, where do most of the suffixes come from?

> Numerals:
>
> 1       Nopo
> 2       sid^ja
> 3       n^jaxa
> 4       t^jEtu
> 5       samaNa
> 6       ma?a
> 7       si?iwa
> 8       sidE
> 9       xasuju?
> 10      ju?
>
> Personal Pronouns:
>
>         Informal        Formal
> 1psg    orE             mana
> 2       omaI            pida
> 3       ke?             xaru
> 1ppl    orEta?          manata?
> 2       omaIta?         pidata
> 3       keqta?          xaruta?
It seems like the informal varieties are based on japanese while most of the
formal categories are based on Nenets. Is this true? If so, where does "xaru"
come from.


> And An Example:
>
> mana-Na         n^jEn^ja?a-no-xilE-?o           jarinaI
> I-SUBJECT       Nyenya'a-GEN-language-ACC       speak-PRES NEG
> I don't speak [the] Nyenya'a language.
>
> ----ferko

Very interesting, I like what I see so far! :)

Elliott

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