The Dailies. June 9
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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4 thoughts on “The Dailies. June 9”
A few more Nahul words here, and then I’ll share a kind-of-poem/song lyrics in a separate comment! (Which unfortunately didn’t end up sounding very lyrical OR rhythmical, so it’s a little implausible that it would be a well-known song and/or poem in Nahul… Hopefully if I ever get to the point where I can make up something directly in the language instead of having to translate into it from English or Swedish, I’ll get better results!)
ragaf (n) enemy
moli (n) nose; this belongs to gender II and not III in spite of ending with a vowel, because it’s a body part. Object form moliat
onu (n) picture, image
ellonu (n) footprint (lit. “foot-image”)
hugír (n) the name for a particular family of deciduous trees; belongs to the animate gender, with the irregular object form hugrel (instead of *hugirel)
maraná (v) I honoured [someone]; I praised [someone] gratefully and solemnly; infinitive lo-maran. Primarily used towards the gods for religious ceremonies/prayers. Probably coming from ma + ran, with ran a possible root meaning ‘to thank’ and ma meaning something else, maybe ‘rite’. I don’t have a regular word for ‘thank’ yet, but I haven’t decided if I’ll go with ran (which already means ‘three’ but I shouldn’t fear homonyms too much) or something else.
uragá I drew (a bow); I tightened sthg; lurag ‘to draw (a bow), to tighten’
sibó (n) god; plural na-sibó; object form siból or siboël
turá (v) I fell; lo-tur ‘to fall’
turoná (v) I felled something/I shot down something; lo-turon ‘to fell (sthg), to shoot down, to take down (sthg)’
turoth (n) fall
minó (prep) behind (when used for a direction, tied to an action/a movement)
minon (prep) behind (when used for an existing location, and I’m sorry I don’t know the right English grammatical for this. I know them in Swedish mostly from studying German!)
lehei (prep) in front of (direction)
leheth (prep) in front of (existing location)
All right, here we go for the made-up poem or song lyrics or whatever it is! I’ll start with the Nahul words, then English follows. As usual, the word order in declarative statements is VSO with a possible fronting of topics (though I’ve done little of that so far) and sentence adverbs are often initial. Yes/no questions are preceded by the dummy word mien. Sometimes subject and object switch places.
Possessives are expressed by possessional suffixes: phi-smáthatas ‘our spears (object case)’ethimas ‘our archer’; aledató ‘his/her bow (object case)’. Possessional suffixes are always placed at the very end of a noun, after any case endings. Like in Finnish.
Hanoi chai hinó phi-bakhat.
Beledach aito ragafu moliat.
Mien tolach lo-seph lo-gun phi-smáthatas,
Kobeth hasach lo-lu mazos koth ukhetat?
Cheloi chai hinon phi-bakhat.
Belach larengu ellonun.
Wesezó hutet da batán da zaninat,
Phaga* dengel au pha karón.
Uragoi chunova ethimas aledató,
Da turonoi ran harakel na-setul.
Maranach na-siból da khesach.
Sesoi chai minó phi-bakhat.
*****************
The sun rises over the mountains.
We cannot see even the nose of the enemy. [i.e. the enemy can’t be glimpsed at all.]
Must we keep holding our spears,
Or can we wander calmly in peace?
The sun shines over the mountains.
We see footprints of a lareng. [a dangerous tree-climbing predator mammal]
Danger may come with fangs and claws,
From (up) a tree or from a large rock.
Our best archer draws his bow,
And fells three large birds.
We praise/thank the gods and eat.
The sun sinks behind the mountains.
*You’d say the lareng is in a tree but on a rock, which makes the equivalent words for from different as well. Phagá can also be translated as ‘out of’ and always corresponds to ko/koth (‘in/into/inside’), while pha corresponds to no/non (‘on’). Finnish locational cases inspired me!
All right, returning to this post six and a half months later… this is embarrassing. Between this and now and finding a handwritten note a few days ago that I’d forgotten, I also managed to forget I’d already come up with words in Nahul for ‘to rise’ and ‘to sink/set’.
Thinking it over, I’ve decided to keep lo-char and lo-mal from this Lexember (who I actually came up with first, but then forgot) over lo-han and lo-ses as seen in this post. I might find new meanings for the latter words…
So here is the updated version of the poem/song lyrics:
Charoi chai hinó phi-bakhat.
Beledach aito ragafu moliat.
Mien tolach lo-seph lo-gun phi-smáthatas,
Kobeth hasach lo-lu mazos koth ukhetat?
Cheloi chai hinon phi-bakhat.
Belach larengu ellonun.
Wesezó hutet da batán da zaninat,
Phaga dengel au pha karón.
Uragoi chunova ethimas aledató,
Da turonoi ran harakel na-setul.
Maranach na-siból da khesach.
Maloi chai minó phi-bakhat.