conlang servey (Hattic & Askaic)

--- Fefichu Heather Rice:

> Language name, creator's name, realative date of
> creation (just any old number will do), country and
> first language of creator, purpose of conlang
> (auxlang, conlang, loglang, . . . ).
Hattic and Askaic, two closely related languages that form, together with a
third, smaller language (Megza) the Khadurian branch of the Indo-European
family.
Jan van Steenbergen.
1996 (both languages)
The Netherlands; Dutch.
Artlangs, mostly for fun and aesthetic pleasure.

> Phonetics:  number of consonants, number of vowels,
> presence of nasalization, tone and how many, where the
> accent generally falls.
(Hattic)
Cons.: p, b, f, v, m, t, d, s, z, n, k, g, ch, h, c [ts], dz, c^ [tS], dz^
[dZ], s^ [S], z^ [Z], l, r, j
Vowels: a, e, i, o, u, ã, i~ [e~], õ.

(Askaic)
Consonants: p, b, f, v, m, t, d, s, z, n, k, g, ch, h, ñ [N], s^ [S], z^ [Z],
l, r, j
Vowels: a, e, i, y [I], o, u

(Please note that the caret should be read as a haczek over the preceding
consonant, while the tilde should be read as a tilde over the preceding
consonant)

Nasalization: In Hattic incorporated in the spelling, in Askaic doesn't exist.
Tones: no.
Stress: no binding rules; in Hattic usually on the first syllable, in Askaic on
the penultimate.

> Morphemes:  presence of allomorphs, mutation,
> assimilation, prefixes, suffixes, infixes,
> suprafixation, dicontinuation, exclusion, total
> fusion, subtraction, reduplication.
Mutation: no.
Assimilation: yes
Prefixes, suffixes, infixes: a lot (esp. prefixes and suffixes).
Reduplication: both languages have reduplication in the perfect tense, like
Greek.
For the other items I will need an explication.

> Is the conlang agglutinating, isolating or fusional?
Definitely fusional. Both languages have a rich inflectional system.

> Nouns and such:  subclasses of nouns (common/proper,
> abstract, things that may not be expressed explicitly
> in affixes), presence of cases and how many and what
> kind, kind of possession (alienable, inalienable, no
> distinction, etc.) presence of gender, number,
Proper and abstract nouns don't behave differently from other nouns. Both
languages have six declensions.
Cases: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, locative. Askaic
also has a rudimentary vocative case.
Kind of possession: no distinction.
Gender: masculine, feminine, neuter.
Number: (Hattic) singular, dual, plural; (Askaic) singular and plural.

> articles, demostratives, adjectives, quantatives.
No, yes, yes, yes.
The demonstratives in Hattic are: _kir_ "this" and _uler_ "that", in Askaic
_kis_ and _uls_ "id.". Nothing particular about them.

> Are comparatives expressed by affix, word order or both?
Only by affix.

> Do pronouns express gender, number, declension?
You mean personal pronouns? Yes. Gender only in the third person.

Hattic:
        1       2       3m      3f      3n
sg.     af      zu      šu      ša      šun
du.     uj      ju      suj     saf     saf
pl.     vaj     juš     seš     saš     ša

Askaic:
        1       2       3m      3f      3n
sg.     aku     zu      šu      sa      šunu
pl.     ui      juš     seš     saš     ša

> Are there indefinite pronouns, possessed pronouns?
> Others?
Personal, possessive, demonstrative, relative, reflexive, reciprocal,
interrogative, indefinite.

> Are prepositions bound, unbound?  How many
> prepositons (approximate).  Presence of clitics.
Untill now, I have got 28 prepositions in Hattic, 27 in Askaic. They are a
corner stone of language, and play a very important role in the word-building
process.

> Is derivational morphology mostly by compounding words or
> by affix or both?
Both.

> Verbs and such:
> Are person, number, object expressed with the verb?
Yes, yes, no.

> Are there static verbs (to be)?
Yes.

> Is the object
> incorporated into the person marker (making a
> phonetically different affix like in the Native
> American languages)?
No.

> Is transitivity marked for
> transitive, intransitive, bitransitive or other?
Unmarked.

> Is the person inclusive, exclusive, no distiction?
Inclusive.

> Kind of gender.
Verbs do not mark gender.

> Are past, present, future expressed?
> Recent, remote?  Is mode express, what kind?  Is voice
> expressed?  What kind?  Manner?  Aspect?  Please list
> what kinds of manner and aspect the conlang expresses
> in its verbs.
(Hattic)
Persons: 3
Numbers: singular, dual, plural.
Tenses: present, past (imperfect), perfect, future, conditional.
Moods: indicative, conjunctive, imperative.
Voices: active, passive.
Aspects: none.
Furthermore, there are the infinitive and a bunch a participles.
At last, there are three conjugations and a lot of irregular verbs.

(Askaic)
Likewise, with the following differences:
- there are only two numbers, singular and plural;
- no conjunctive mood, but an optative instead, which also functions as an
  obligative;
- the passive voice plays a more important role than in Hattic;
- participles are used more often than in Hattic.

> Presence of adverbs, pro-drop.
What is pro-drop?

> Can nouns, adjectives, adverbs be changed to verbs and
> vice versa?
Yes. I created an elaborate system for doing so. It really helps in creating
new words.

> Presence of adjective, adverbial clauses and relative
> pronouns.
Yes.

> Sentences:
> Does the conlang have an ergative or accusative
> system?
Accusative.

> Word order and is it free or strict?  Are adjectives, adverbs
> and prepositions before or after the modified word?  Is the word
> order changed in a question?
Hattic: basically VSO. Adjectives and prepositions come before the noun.
Questions are made by a change in intonation, unless they are introduced by an
interrogative pronoun or adverb, in which case the latter is placed at the
beginning of the sentence.

Askaic: standard is SVO, but this is not written in stone; according to his
taste the speaker or writer can be freely replace it either VSO or SOV
(object-first sentences occur rarely). Modifiers (adjectives, numerals,
demonstrative pronouns etc.) are always placed after the modified noun. In
questions, the main object of the question is placed at the beginning of the
sentence (which is obvious when the question is introduced by an interrogative
pronoun, but might look strange in some other cases). This can mean a change in
word order, but not necessarily.

> How many (approximately) conjugations are there?
As I wrote above, both languages have three conjugations:
Hattic: inf. -az, -iz, -uz;
Askaic: inf. -azi, -ezi/-uzi, -izi.

> Other:
> What is the number base for the numeral system (10?
> 12?)?
Ten.
1-10:
(Hattic) sum, zuf, dreš, hedre, bãh, sfeš, sem, oguf, anun, zahm.
(Askaic) uins, zo, drys, gvares, beñve, such, seum, ovu, enve, zeum.

> Presence of idioms, irregular forms of nouns
> and verbs.
Yes, yes, yes. That's inherent to a language that endeavours to be as natural
as possible.

> Is the language syntax very predictable,
> or are there many exceptions?
Hmmm, never thought about that, really. I think there must be some exceptions.

> How much literature has been produced and what kind
> (I'm not talking about translations, but stuff you
> wrote yourself).
No, most texts are translations. The only "original" stuff I have are sentences
that serve as examples of grammatical constructions.

> Is there a history and dictionary of the conlang?
By history you mean a conculture with a history? Or perhaps a proto-language?
Anyway, in both cases the answer would be: yes.

> Script invented?
Yes. It is mainly inspired by Greek and Cyrillic, but it is essentially a
secret script that my father devised and that I found after his death.

> Other conlangs produced by the creator of this one.
Wenedyk:
My current project: a Slavo-Romance language that basically tries to answer the
question what Polish would have looked like if it were a Romance language. This
is accomplished by applying everything, that made Old-Slavic into Polish, to
Vulgar Latin. The result is something that looks like Polish but isn't. Wenedyk
is not in the first place meant to be beautiful, nor do I try to express my
creativity in it; it is rather something between an experiment and a game. I
see a lot of possibilities for a conculture, though.
If you want, I can fill in the same questionnaire for Wenedyk, too.

Vozgian:
A North-Slavic language, and in fact my first serious conlang. Currently, it's
horribly out-of-date, but I intend to resume working on it soon. It needs a lot
of changes and improvements. Vozgian has also two sister languages, Motyak and
Slopik, but I doubt whether I will keep them.

Megza:
As I mentioned, a sister language to Hattic and Askaic. It made a good start
this year, but I interrupted working on it when I started Wenedyk.

There is some other stuff, including a Romance language from my childhood, and
a group of Indo-European languages (surprised?) from my teens, but these are
really not worth mentioning.

> If you could summarize your conlang in a sentence,
> what would you write?
Hattic and Askaic belong to the Khadurian languages, a separate Indo-European
group that basically fills the gap between the Germanic languages and Tocharian
in the ring of kentum languages around the center of satem languages. That was
one sentence, I believe, be it an ugly one!

Essentialist explanations (for John):

Hattic is essentially Tocharian spoken by a Goth who thinks he is speaking
Sanskrit.

Askaic is essentially Hattic spoken after drinking to much julvušer, the local
vodka.

> On my servey, I knew I couldn't possibly cover
> everything that conlangs will be, so I included a long
> notes section.  If you want to provide any other
> information about the conlang, just keep typing!
Let's see. There is a conculture, but it's nothing more really than a few pages
of history and a couple of maps. It serves merely as a vehicle for the
languages.

A few text samples:
Hattic: Umner fäsar, kir ad än civi, pu zifäšoder zu õmu.
Askaic: Fetsar uñis, saundis en tsivud, jenu zvu zaivusaider.
English: Our father, who is in heaven, hallowed by Thy name.

Hattic:

Flãsid nazer ajder hirštever ušik lauz, ta ad Chada Respublika zaržu tkohu; ma
lalãsu jovanu adan lauz, ta ad tkohu zaržu kosmu.

"No sensible human being will be able to say, that the Hattic Republic is the
center of the earth. But only an idiot [lit. a duck] would say, that the earth
is the center of the universe."

Askaic:

Uluiš fai sajuze šla gje, anu tabase som ja sam, gve šešelestis keñgaš miaš.

"You can sleep with anyone, but I’ll kill him/her if he/she touches my books."

(just in case: š=s-haczek, ž=z-haczek, ã=a-tilde, õ=o-tilde, ñ=n-tilde)

> Thanks a lot all!
You're most welcome. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to spill them!

> Heather
Best,
Jan

=====
"Originality is the art of concealing your source." - Franklin P. Jones

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