Archive for January, 2006

Work So Far

January 5, 2006

Words:

  • ni: separates subject from object and object from verb.
  • su: diminutive. You can use high tone to mean “large”.
  • mi: location indicator.
  • fu: inside, within. You can use high tone to mean “outside”.
  • lja: past tense marker. You can use high tone to indicate future tense.
  • ja: and.
  • cu: with, including. You can use high tone to mean “without, needing”.
  • fulu: hole, pit. You can use high tone to mean “hill, mountain”.
  • luni: ground, dry, dirt, earth, world, land. You can use high tone to mean “water, lake, sea, swim, wet”.
  • misa: person, exist, to be.
  • fulju: nasty, bad, useless, dirty. You can use high tone to mean “nice, good, usable, clean”.
  • lulu: snake, slither.
  • fela: smell, sniff, nose.
  • sica: sit, chair, rest, sleep, bed, comfortable, comfort. You can use high tone to mean “stand, pain, discomfortable”.
  • nimu: eat, food, consume, swallow, digest. You can use high tone to mean “starve.”

Translation so far:

  • In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. mi fulu fu luni ni lja misa ni su misa.
  • Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort. fulu ni lja -misa ni fulju ja fulju ja luni, cu su lulu, ja fela fulju. fulu ni lja -misa ni luni -cu sica ja nimu. fulu ni lja misa ni fulu su nimu sica.

Syntax

January 5, 2006

The conlang is isolating and is SVO. Modifiers come after the stem, and particles come before their word.

Example: “green hobbit” would be DIMINUTIVE person green.

Morphology

January 5, 2006

Here’s the morphology for my conlang.

The vowels are all front vowels and are the equivalents of Spanish a, e, i, o, and u.

The consonants are: c (equivalent to s in Spanish), f, j (equivalent to German), l, m, n, s (equivalent to sh in English), and t (equivalent to th in English).

The valid clusters are: cj, cl, cm, cn, fj, fl, lj, mj, nj, sj, and tj.

There are also two tones when indicated or logical. A high tone is written with a dash before the word, and indicates the opposite of the original meaning. It can be used on some particles and some other words.  The regular tone is low and indicates the listed meaning.