introduction to Ut Aw Gyu:ll

[note: this is only half of my report on this language -- the other half
(containing mostly interlinears) is in a journal that is currently in the
mail; I beg your patience in that regard...but please, feel free to comment
on this half as well].


The people of Chatal Huyuk lived in Central Anatolia -- the modern Republic
of Turkey -- and are internationally famous as the makers of the world's
first landscape painting (a city sited near an erupting volcano).  Since the
ruins of Chatal Huyuk and related sites were first discovered, the people
who built those places had all either died out, or been assimilated into the
successive cultures in the region  --  though, in the 19th Century [AD], the
Lutheran pastor E.G.Himmings wrote in his journal about coming across a
translation of Plato, claiming that, of the Egyptians Plato kept company
with, a few drew images of leopards and vultures in a style that was not
Egyptian.  [though the alledged translation of Plato has not re-surfaced
since Himming's time, Himming's own journal has since been published by his
granddaughter: 'Work Among the Turks of Konya, and Pilgramages to Palestine
and the House of Mary the Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ', published 1901,
reprinted 1903 and 1913].

I myself was on vacation some time ago, exploring the Spice Bazaar in
Istanbul, Turkey, where I met Sophie Atoglu, a Turk who, it turns out,
shares my interest in languages.  And that was my introduction to Ut Aw
Gyu:ll, the language of - or the successor of the language of - Chatal
Huyuk.

Speakers of this language {purportedly related to the pre-Hittite Nesa} use
the names and naming titles of the peoples they live amongst.  Similarly,
aside from the ancient funerary practices, their religious lives are
identical to that of their neighbors.

The language has nearly stopped evolving, as it is only used in funerary
recitings.


Special letters in the language:
There are a few letters with either umlauts or ^ over the vowels.  As a
kindness both to myself and those with computers incapable of reading those
letters in email, I am putting the umlauts immediately after the vowel they
accompany  (ie, e: ), and the ^ immediately preceeding its vowel.

The ^ draws the vowel into a long sound -- much like the difference between
the names  ^Ali  &  Ali.

" is a glottal stop.  This is a rare occurance in-so-far as I have seen thus
far, but it may be a relic from earlier in Ut Aw Gyu:ll's history.

The _ is not a letter or a sound...it is simply my shorthand way of ensuring
that the reader understands that there is indeed a space between two words.
I offer it only as a way to help, not to slight any of you.


There is an element in the grammar that I can best describe as an "Inherent"
  For example, the following is drawn (not quoted) from a funerary
recitation:
aw_'os = to be  /  be
aw_^at = to stand  /  stand
aw_at = to be attentive  /  attentive
aw_^atk^a = to watch  /  watch
aw_'otk^a = to keep  /  keep

The /w/ is not strong; it flickers, half-heard because it is only
half-spoken; less than a second it exists for, then the succeeding word.

If Ut Aw Gyu:ll ever had a written language, that script has not accompanied
it through the millenia.  Speakers of Ut Aw Gyu:ll speculate upon what
manner of glyph or cuneiform their ancestors used.

Speakers of Ut Aw Gyu:ll, such as Sophie Atoglu, insist to me that their
language contains no borrowings from the _U:bdayt"a_  --  the "recent
peoples" {a catch-all term applying to the Urartians, the Mongols, and every
Anatolian group between}.  As difficult as that sounds, it may, in fact, be
possible, owing to the restricted useage of this language.

Owing to its use only during mortuary events, Ut Aw Gyu:ll has not changed
as much as, for example, Hebrew has over the same span of years.  Indeed, in
his 12th Century [AD] mention of the language, Ibn-Ali remarked that "the
speech seems to defy the laws which govern the changes which happen to
languages as they are eroded by the burdens of existance" [T. Ibn-Ali, 1122
AD, 'Languages Of Pre-Islamic Peoples: an Account Compiled For King