Re: More on the Hermetic Language

En réponse à Paul Burgess <paul@...>:

>
> Ummmm, oh gee, there was a time when I was more or less
> familiar with the IPA. But that was way back 25 years
> ago or more.
>
Hehe, other people already pointed you at the Conlang Links page and the IPA-
XSAMPA chart, so I needn't add them here :) . I think you're going to find the
IPA a bit changed in 25 years :)) .

> "mnah Vah-NAHN-thah," with "ah" like the /a/ in
> "father" or the /o/ in "hot" (pronounced the same in the
> part of the American Midwest where I live). And /th/ as
> in "thin."
I kind of guess that in X-SAMPA it corresponds to something like [mnA vA"nATA]?

 In Hermetic, there is less of a tendency than
> in English for this vowel to tend toward schwa in
> unaccented syllables.
>
That's what I guessed when listening to you speaking in Hermetic. Your vowels
tend to be quite clear, and the language sounds quite mellifluous, though not
as much as Quenya (which is neither a compliment nor an insult :)) . To each
language its set of aesthetics :) ).

>
> Gender in Hermetic is not grammatical gender as in
> French. A noun referring to a male is, in Hermetic,
> *often* (but not always) put in the masculine gender.
> And an adjective referring to a female would be
> *usually* (but not absolutely always) inflected as a
> feminine adjective. Et cetera. With the adjectives,
> there are narrow (and fairly idiomatic) bounds within
> which gender is optional. For instance, in describing
> myself, I would probably put an adjective in the
> masculine gender, but not 100% of the time.
>
And in which cases wouldn't you? Because you want to keep your gender secret,
or it's irrelevant to the conversation, or it's impolite?

In this case Hermetic is far from my Maggel. It also has masculine, feminine
and neuter gender, but in this case the gender is absolutely grammatical, even
more so than in French. That's to say that it's often completely disconnected
to the physical gender of what a noun refers to (Maggel speakers have no
difficulty referring to a man with a feminine noun - actually, the word
for "captain" is such a word -, and when they do they will also refer to that
person with a feminine pronoun!) and is immutable! (Maggel doesn't have easy
ways to turn a masculine noun into a feminine one or vice versa).

>
> In Hermetic, you need a pronoun to distinguish second
> from third person:
>
> iw'omdhralis, "I read"
> atho dralis, "you (sing.) read"
> ocho dralis, "he/she reads"
>
> yin omdhralis, "we two read" (no inclusive/exclusive
> distinction)
> athin dralis, "you two read"
> ochin dralis, "they two read"
>
> iy'omdhralis, "we read" (three or more)
> athi dralis, "you read"
> ochi dralis, "they read"
>
Your pronouns look rather regular :) . As for the conjugation, I admit having a
soft spot towards prefix conjugations :) . I like them very much! :)

> Pronouns in Hermetic are often omitted when they can be
> readily inferred from context, or sometimes even when
> they *can't* be readily inferred.
>
Just like Japanese does :) . I've always liked this feature, although I'm not
sure I'm gonna incorporate it in Maggel...

>
> Used to indicate an action or state which is ending or
> winding down:
>
> golis, "it is red"
> golliis, "it reddens"
> golanis, "it is ceasing being red"
>
OK, thanks for the explanation.

>
> Here are a few examples:
>
> Mna yaldo chocilias, "The young person was sitting
> down."
>
> Mna yaldo schociliiso nthaas yo mna sipiroth, "The young
> person who was sitting down gave me the book."
>
> Somchociliisw'omnthaas yaldo mna sipiroth, "I who was
> sitting down [or, as I was sitting down, I] gave the
> young person a book."
>
> Omnthaas yaldo chociliiso mna sipiroth, "I gave the
> young person who was sitting down the book."
>
I think I understand a bit of the system now. I found the third example most
striking: the subclause verb becomes one with the 1st person pronoun!! That's
neat! Does it do it at all persons? Are there limitations for that? And I like
the alternate translation. Giving a temporal meaning to a relative clause is a
nice idea.

>
> In Hermetic, an adjective is completed by another
> adjective, and an adverb is completed by another adverb.
>
How do you differentiate the situation when two adjectives complete the same
noun from the one when one adjective completes a noun and the second completes
the adjective? Or cannot that situation happen?

>
> Yes, I ought to do this. Though the problem is (1)
> finding the time, and (2) Hermetic has long since grown
> to the point where anything I put down on paper will be
> only a partial and very incomplete description of the
> language and its workings. :)
>
It will still be better than nothing :)) . And it's no different from what is
done on many natlangs :)) .

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

It takes a straight mind to create a twisted conlang.

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