Re: New language under development

On 5/27/05, Patrick Littell <puchitao@...> wrote:

> A quick look at Jakaltek might be interesting; it's the only Mesoamerican 
> language I can think of with a healthy inventory of noun classes. There are 
> about 24 of them. They're used like classifiers, definite articles, and 
> pronouns. Take "naj", which is for non-kin males. "naj Pel" = Peter, "naj 
> winaj" = the man, "naj" = he. There are different classifiers for kin (like 
> one for siblings) and for respected community members. There's even one for 
> corn and corn products -- "ixim ixim" = the corn.
> 
Hmm, I seem to recall that the "ix" of "ixim" was originally the female 
class prefix in an ancestor Mayan. (In most Mayan language's there's just 
the male & female class prefixes, but many plants and animals can take 
them.)

Makes me think about multiple class prefixes... why not have a hierarchical 
tree of classes? Something like...

aj = male, generic non-kin (aj-tsyak "Diego")
ajho' = male kin (ajho'-mam "Father")
ajtat = respected male (ajtat-mam "male elder")
ajtxe = male child (ajtxe-tsyak "Diego Jr.")
ajik = groups of males (ajik-tij "war party")

ix = female, generic non-kin (ix-kal "Katherine")
ixho' = female kin (ixho'-mam "Mother")
ixtat = respected female (ixtat-mam "female elder")
ixtxe = female child (ixtxe-kal "Little Kate")
ixik = groups of females (ixik-patx "knitting circle")

lo' = food (lo'lo' "banana")
lo'tat = sacred food (lo'-ixim "corn")
lo'txe = small food (lo'txe-mij "millet")
lo'bol = round food like fruit (lo'bol-mel "mango")
lo'ik = groups of food (lo'ik-lo' "bunch of bananas")

ta' = thing (ta'-lo' "boomerang")
ta'txe = small things (ta'txe-mij "gravel")
ta'bol = round & large things (ta'bol-xim "moon")
ta'ik = groups of things (ta'ik-tsil "bundle of arrows")

And so on. Maybe even extend the derivations to personal pronouns ("ma" you, 
"ma'tat" you (respectful)). Or working its way into the possessive system, 
"ma'ajtatmam" your father.

Could be interesting. Could get very complicated!

Cheers,
-- 
Patrick Littell
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