The Dailies. February 24, 2023
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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8 thoughts on “The Dailies. February 24, 2023”
I changed my mind!
So for a long time now I thought that Beldreni has three infixes that work like honorifics, whether used on personal names or other nouns.
Like with other infixes in Beldreni, these would be inserted before the final syllable and thus shoves the previous penultimate syllable away. The infix also now carries the main stress of the word, since in Beldreni that will normally go on the penultimate syllable.
(That part hasn’t changed, either!)
These were:
-dē- [de:] – general purpose politeness
-wadē- VERY polite, used to express particularly high respect and regard
-madē- Used for members of your own (perhaps extended) family that you show particular respect too, for instance a venerated great-grandmother. Conveys less distance than –wadē-. This is also the form used towards extra-respected clan members, even once you’ve never met before.
That was what I thought.
And in isolation, I still think those look perfectly fine! It’s just that in practice, I find that more often than not, I don’t so much care for the sound of the various nouns with these infixes inserted. They become pretty cumbersome and feel awkward to my ears.
I decided to change them.
My new general-purpose politeness honorific is -kei- [kɛɪ], often with an extra -n if the final syllable is only a vowel.
For instance: forío, ‘writer, scribe’; forikeino, ‘Mr/Ms Writer’, ‘the respected writer’
The variation used for particularly high respect is -nakei-. Using the same example: forinakeino for a very highly regarded writer/scribe.
And as for the variation used towards venerated members of your own family/clan, I don’t have that one yet!
But I do know that in an earlier stage of the language, the general purpose honorific was -ii-.
–ka’ii– was the ultra respectful variation.
How fun! I love the idea behind these and the new sounds you’re going with for them. Love it!
Thank you! I’m much happier with these sounds.
So! More Kofnea vocab, with notes:
Love all the calendar worldbuilding!
So now you have words for ‘year’ and for ‘record, log’. This seems to be plenty to make up a title for some historical chronicles, should you wish to! 😀
The partitive, prepositions, and the postpositions look intriguing, but I think I will have to look at them more closely when I have time to delve!
Sorry if you’ve said this before, but: does the double /nn/ in wunn indicate consonant lengthening, vowel shortening, a difference in vowel quality, or…?
More of a worldbuilding question, but can you tell me more about the bushot concept?
Consonant gemination on the /nn/! Though I’ll double vowels for long vowels, e.g. /aa/ is a length distinction as well.
Bushot, or one’s sworn duty, is essentially your clan duty or role and has to be ascended to, unlike natural duty, gnsh, which you can have at any age. So every clan leader or band leader has that role as their bushot, and they can only have one. You can ascend as part of your challenge for recognition (as an adult / member of the clan) or sometime after your recognition. Most people choose to combine them if they have any kind of social visibility as regards their role, as separating them weakens one’s reputation a bit.
And like the current War Queen ascended while her mother was still ruling as War Queen and it basically started a coregency. It’s more common to ascend while the person you’re succeeding is alive to test you and determine whether you’re ready to challenge and will be accepted if you do (as there are additional elements to ascension than just recognition, which are usually administered by the person you’re succeeding).
This also gives a part of one’s “marks” or lineage names, e.g. the current War Queen is Yun Ahayin-Adan (her name) Yonyunndok (her duty name). There are other names on that list, but if someone wants to call her specifically in her War Queen role, they’ll just call her Yonyunndok.
Very cool!
Is Yonyunndok the perennial name for a War Queen or is that specific name individual to the current one?
A specific individual! So her mother’s name is Yonyunn, the person’s whose sworn duty lineage she’s in.
If someone starts a new lineage, e.g. Leshet ascended as a clan healer in the last big war but didn’t inherit the position, then their own name goes there, e.g. Leshetndok. If someone inherits their sworn duty from multiple generations back, it takes on the start of that lineage, e.g. Tayas is Hacheyenndok, whereas when he stopped being band leader of Curun and handed it off to his friend, they were Kanuarandok, as Tayas was descended from Curun’s son Hacheyen, and his friend was descended from Curun’s daughter Kanuara. So they traced their duty lineage differently.
That said, band and clan leaders are also sometimes just called by their band or clan name, so both of them have been called Curun at different points in their life.