ash nazg on my pinky because it's too small

Well I'm coming out of lurk mode again, got the LOTR 1 DVD running, and am
trying to get back into action after years of hibernation (medication
problems). I'm back with my old girlfriend, the one from Iran, and she knows
all about my dabbling in made-up languages. She's cool with it, though she
doesn't understand why some people speak Tlhingan Hol at home and things
like that. Can't wait to see Two Towers...

Back to Tech, the eternal experimental/philosophical/personal/possibly
fictional conlang I've been working on. I'm focusing a lot on the philosophy
of the language and its associate culture. I thought about how different
tribal dialects might treat things like, the second person singular
"familiar" form. For example, to the ruling Qotil group, the "thou" form has
become a vulgarity. It is only used in expressions of contempt (the 2nd
plural is used normally), or in street language as a term of affection.
(Tech doesn't merely have swear words; it has swear grammar.)

I also came up with a "pyramid" system for distinguishing the gender of the
subjects and objects of verbs, possessors of nouns, and personal objects of
prepositions. First person makes no such distinction, with the same form for
"I" used regardless of the speaker's sex. Second person has two forms for
masculine and feminine (you probably won't be talking to anything with a
neuter gender, unless you're really bored). Third person has all three
genders. This is the case for both singular and plural (and collective
plural as singular), while dual will probably not discriminate gender at
all. These ideas came from both Semitic and Indo-European languages.

Also, a question: Is there a decent Arabic and/or Farsi translation of
Tolkien out there, or is that a project I might wanna work on....

~Danny~

Replies