The Dailies. June 23
Did you work on your language today? Create any new rules of grammar or syntax? New progress on a script? New words in your lexicon?
On the other hand, do any excavating or reading or enjoying stuff you’ve already created? Do you have any favorites to share?
How did you conlang today?
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5 thoughts on “The Dailies. June 23”
(I wish I knew how to post as HTML text…)
A few new words in Beldreeni:
kisel (v) ‘bring’. From the postposition ki, ‘in’ and the verb sel, ‘carry’. Formal version: kiseli, familiar version, kisela.
lanka (adj) ‘kind, gentle’ May have an ancient connection to lan, which means ‘creature, being’, esp. of the supernatural type (and which can be seen for instance in lan fā, ‘god’) . Not to say that supernatural beings would typically be seen as kind, the connection has got to be more indirect than that!
ulanka (adv) is the adverbial version of ‘kind’. While it literally means ‘kindly’, it’s often used in polite requests and then is closer to English “please” in use.
bō (n) ‘pot, jug’ Not to be confused with bo with a short [o], which is the familiar version of the copula.
hanad-bō (n) ‘teapot’. A vitally important noun, naturally! Stressed on the penultimate syllable due to its compound form.
umörelle (adv) ‘possibly’. The word for ‘possible’ is örelle, and I’ve established before that before a vowel, the adverbial prefix u- gets an M inserted.
ei-kan (n) ‘a unit of months’. This is a loanword from Lakespeech, the tongue of the Lakefolk. It’s chiefly used in West Beldreeni and is rare in the east. When making up the calendar that’s in use in the city of Meren with environs, I decided that ei-tchár and ei-dile are words for units of four months and three months, respectively, which are important for grouping and naming the months of the long year, and that they’re of Lakespeech origin – as are the names for the months of that calendar. (Here’s where worldbuilding clashes with conlanging somewhat: no doubt most of Beldreeni speakers use other names for the months, especially in East Beldreeni, but I haven’t felt the need to come up with them.) The year has 26 ei-tchár and 2 ei-dile, with 110 months in total. Incidentally, ei means ‘cut’ in Lakespeech.
I finally felt a need to have one word that can be used for both the four-month and the three-month unit, even as the overwhelming majority are of the former kind. So here it is. And kan means ‘even, level’ in Lakespeech.
Sample sentence, in polite neutral style:
Miki hanad-bō di ulanka kisellan örames go?
2sg.FORM tea-pot ACC ADV-kind bring-INF can-SUBJ-PAST ROG
‘Could you kindly bring (me) the teapot?’ or, ‘Would you be so kind as to get the teapot?’
The “normal” formal version would be same as above except changing örames to öramis.
Very formal version would be something like,
Meidin hanad-bō di umörelle ulankaika kisellan öramis go?
with the very polite second personal pronoun meidin and not just the word for ‘possibly’ but also an augmentative inside ulanka thrown in: ‘Could you possibly be so very kind as to bring me the teapot?’
Your sentence structure is very nice and it was easy for me to read. That was really cool. Well done!
Thank you very much!
Awesome stuff!
Glad you think so! I do feel better for having a name for a teapot.