From: andrew <hobbit@...>
Subject: Re: A New language
To: CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU
> On 08/17 15:52 Mau Rauszer wrote:
> > Myáni, (well), what about the speakers (I like ton be informed about the
> > background of a lang [if there exists something like that]).
> They are still emerging from my mind. The focal point of the language
> is a city. The governor of the city is called the Ninshuhentes, the
> Lord Protector in English. He, or she, is an elective monarch. They
> are a pre-industrial republic and have been so for several hundred
> years.
In a fantasy world or just like our earth?
The basic unit in their society is the stumase, which means
> household and is a broader unit than the nuclear family. Any group of
> people who share a life together may be called a stumase. They have an
> odd naming rule that a parent's surname can only be passed on to the
> eldest surviving child while other children use a patrinomic.
> Inheriting a family name is considered prestigious.
Are they living in patriarchism?
> > You mean they don't distinguish the second and third person? Hm.
> > Interestingly weird. Just a question: do this lang have gender?
> >
> hmm, I had better run through a few paradigms to explain.
> Let's take the verb curishen, to sleep:
>
> me curish 'I sleep' meme curishen 'we sleep'
I read somewhere that 1st person pronouns tend to contain a nasal. Is this direct in your language?
> te curisht 'you sleep' tete curisht 'you sleep' (plural)
> to curisht '* sleeps' ga curishen 'they sleep'
So you form plural pronouns by stem-duplicating.
> * he, she, it, that, this
>
> So the present tense has three endings: -0 for 1s; -t for 2s, 2p, 3s;
> and -en for 1p and 3p. Also if a person said *ga corhyini curishen 'the
> kiddies sleep', they would be gently corrected to say ga corhyini
> curisht. The -t ending is also used with plural nouns.
>
> The verb to be is irregular:
Of course :)))))))
> me mi 'I am' memen 'we are'
> te si 'you are tete ti 'you are' (plural)
> to ti '* is' gan 'they are'
>
> Five of these pronouns have reduced forms:
>
> me, m 1s meme, mme 1p
> te, t 2s tete, tte 2p
> to, tte 3s ga 3p
>
> The meaning of the reduced form tte is generally clear by context.
But they are probably suffixes, ain't they? (It's hard to pronounce a sole m or t,
at least, for me :)
>
> [gender]
>
> 2.0 has natural gender. The agent ending -entes is considered to be
> strictly epicene. There may be feminine and neuter forms of the third
> person pronoun 'to', but I am resisting it.
>
> > Is the cluster |ny| confluing into /J/ or should be pronounced strictly as
> > /nj/? I tried to say like that but it was tiresome for my tongue.
> >
> /nj/ but don't sweat it. I think the speakers would understand you if
> you used /J/.
OK :)
> > > I like the cluster /kS/.
> > Me too. In an older stage of LW I used |sh| for /kS/ but later I found
> > that it don't fit into their taste. Hwe, I leave LW alone now 'cuz I'm
> > always talking about it.
> But the whole point of this list is that it's for people who don't get
> bored talking about their languages!
I mean I'm talking about LW even when I don't want. Like the evolution of LW is
a bit OT for this subject discussing your 2.0 :)
> > But aren't the triagraph |ksh| too long for a frequent sound?
> >
> Only when transliterated into latin letters. :) Although the original
Yeah, I was talking about transliteration not their script :)
> script hasn't been developed yet. I have some ideas.
Is it totally dfifferent from anything we know or does it show similarities with
a system of our own world?
> - andrew.
> --
> Andrew Smith, Intheologus hobbit@griffler.co.nz
> alias Mungo Foxburr of Loamsdown
>
http://hobbit.griffler.co.nz/homepage.html
>
> The tribe need a father who is afraid only of ceasing to love them well.
> - James K. Baxter