bloodyrosemccoy | The Language Diaries, Part 7

First week of school, and look what I get up to.

The Language Bird Demonstrates Grammar (With A Little Help From Its Friends)

Shen Ashrrajezho Vyuñiñi Muzho Rroarripil (Ogo Lyıkazhol Ghelif Tan Bel Ryuva)

‘The bird is red.’

Shurrozho shen niñi.

‘The birds are red.’

Shurrozho jen niñi.

‘The birds were/used to be red.’

Eten, shurrozho jen niñi.

‘The bird sings.’

Shen niñi rrela.

‘The birds are singing.’

Jen niñi rrelavra.

‘The red birds sang to the blue cats.’

Jen vyuñiñi shurrozho je rrotusit barsumŕl rrelavu.

‘The cats and birds will sing.’

Kipal, jen rrotusit ish niñi rrelavra

‘In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.’

Mezhtalul shen azharo rrohabıt jelipta.

‘It’s not dead, it’s resting!’

Lye makrutzho, bal vyajiki!

‘Now you’re just making things up.’

Pei, ułi zandrorris shia ashfyızhi oliefıl.

‘The winters where I live are long and dark, which is why I have all this fur.’

Eñazhrizho yetsweshtizho jen kurshi dosh ka jelivru, dena ñulzho ashen vıdharufa ke.

Summary

Behold! Rredrra, another spoken language for aliens—these being my four-armed humanoids with fur and claws, and the really big females. It’s meant to sound rather hefty, whatever that means, but also not to be particularly growly or guttural. My own personal images of languages are highly idiosyncratic, and sometimes inexplicable, so I won’t try to justify it when I say it sounds like tea to me. Just take my word for it.

I also palatalized this language’s brains out, because, I don’t know, I suddenly decided that palatalization rocks my world, except when it sounds like you’re failing to eat yogurt. I also insisted that there be a possibility for the initial cluster tsw from Tswana and related languages. I am experimenting with sound changes for Rredrra, something I’ve been scared to do properly. I did a bit in :rimulet, but this is a bit more, I think.

This is my first attempt at an ergative/absolutive language, and I keep forgetting which term applies to which case. I couldn’t tell you which language I take that particular inspiration from, but I can say that I based its case-marking structure and free(ish) word order loosely on Russian, or what I know of it from linguistics classes. The verb inflections quite obviously take all they can get from Spanish and its something like 252 possible verb endings, if you count the fourteen tense/mood/aspects and six person/number inflections and three different verb classes and ignore the myriad irregular and strong and sound-changing verbs. I didn’t get quite that carried away, and I cheated by having verbs not distinguish between first and second-person (I forget the term for this, but a lot of languages have a hierarchical structure in which the first and second persons—the speakers—get lumped together as priority and third persons get the shaft), but I still have sixty-six possible verb forms.

I also took an idea from what is either Hawaiian, or just from my really shaky perception of it, and that’s the way to do adjectives. Normally they come after the noun, but if they are the focus they go before it, and the word order plus a definite article do the job of ‘is.’ The literal translation of ‘the bird is red’ would be ‘red the bird.’ I like this construction.

Oh, and it goes without saying that since this is a different planet, the words niñi 'bird' and tusit 'cat' are approximations. Each is a similar animal to its Terran counterpart in ecological niche.

Still have to work out possessives and pronouns properly, but I’m having an awesome time so far, so I’m not too worried.

It’s good to be working again!