The Dailies. August 31
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?
0
One thought on “The Dailies. August 31”
Last night on stream I finished the last little bit I had left of translating this character generator snippet:
This intelligent gentleman has hooded eyes the color of varnished wood. His fine, straight, chalk-white hair is worn in a style that reminds you of a tangled bush. He is short and has a graceful build. His skin is light-colored. He has a small mouth. His wardrobe is elegant.
And here is my result:
Ræsaghol ærallo om i-saha. Nofoly jiaju yhwā. Anhiet jiaju-šwe ipan irytef ozdi. Miza-šwe i-teu, ni-mak, ni-linji. Relšiwa-tu ipan tišeš jæmha. Šew i-lyro fe šizāhan ekansi yhwā. Fær-šwe i-lin. Njehi oso yhwā. Relši-wā ne-ræsaghi.
A few of the sentences have been made into several shorter sentences, or otherwise modified to become a bit simpler. Here are the lines one-by-one with simple glosses, translation and commentary. Warning, long, heh.
Ræsaghol ærallo om i-saha.
elegant person that is-smart.
That elegant person is smart.
I don’t think my conculture would have a specific word for “gentleperson”, so I just went with “elegant person”. Saha I think is “smart, clever” more than intelligent, but it will have to do.
Nofoly jiaju yhwā.
Deep.pl eye.pl 3p.sg.PRES-have
He has deep eyes.
I decided to go with deep rather than hooded because it’s just so specific. I decided that adjectives do take a plural marker affix, –ly in this case but I suspect there are different ones. Also since the original says “he” I’m translating it with “he” even though the conlang doesn’t distinguish.
Anhiet jiaju-šwe ipan irytef ozdi.
Color eye.pl-POSS.3p.sg. be-like varnished wood.
The color of his eyes is like varnished wood.
So, like mentioned the other day I decided that when there’s an affixed pronoun in a genetive construction like above, the first word takes a -t ending to mark it. I’m almost a bit tempted to make that the general way “x of y” constructions work, because I think my “toom” is a bit clumsy. Maybe I’ll make “toom” the formal version or what you use for emphasiz, and the -t is just the informal version… but that still leaves a definiteness problem because anhiet toom jiaju-shwe would be double definite whereas anhiet jiaju would be indefinite and I’m not sure how to mark definiteness on that… guh, I keep confusing myself. We’ll see.
Anyway, there’s also a new copular verb roughly meaning “to be like, to be similar to”. Or pseudo-verb I should say because, much like the i- copula for adjectives/nouns describing the subject, this one also doesn’t conjugate or take the OSV word order for verbal sentences. It’s ipan, so I’m thinking it’s related to that i- somehow.
Miza-šwe i-teu, ni-mak, ni-linji.
Hair-3p.sg.POSS is-fine, and-is-straight, and-is-INTENSE.white
His hair is fine, and straight, and pure white.
When the subject takes more than one descriptor, the first one takes the regular i- and the rest take ni-, a combo of the i- and the n-/ne- meaning and or with. Linji is not a plural in this case but a sort of intensifier that is no longer productive but has lexicalized on some words. In this case it means “very white, completely white”.
Relšiwa-tu ipan tišeš jæmha.
3p.sg-wear-OBJ be-like tangled bush.
He wears it like a tangled bush.
The –tu goes back to the hair in the sentence above. Now that I’m typing this, I am not sure if ipan is the appropriate thing to use here… Since this comes after a verb and not a noun… what do y’all think, does it make sense for it to be the same copula for “x is like y” and “does x like y”? Maybe I’ll have to rephrase this into “his wearing it is like a tangled bush”. Then I’ll need to sort out that genitive cluster thing as well as what the noun version of relshi is… tricky.
Šew i-lyro fe šizāhan ekansi yhwā. Fær-šwe i-lin. Njehi oso yhwā.
3p.sg.NOM is-short and graceful build 3p.sg.PRES-have. Skin-3p.sg.POSS is-light. Small nose 3p.sg.PRES-have.
He is short and has a graceful build. His skin is light. He has a small nose.
I’m quite pleased I actually managed a direct translation with this one, haha. light instead of light-colored, but otehr than that it’s pretty direct anyway.
Relši-wā ne-ræsaghi.
3p.sg.PRES-have with-elegance.
He dresses with elegance.
No big changed from the original here, since I’ve decided since my ne-noun phrases, while literally meaning “with noun”, is an adverbal construction equivalent “x-ly”.
So yeah that was long. I’ve picked out another prompt like the above to start working on. Looks like it’s gonna give me one or two new constructions or other innovations, so yay for that.