A community for conlangs and conlangers
The Dailies. March 10
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?




I could't comment on this yesterday; however, I came up with two more words last night (Pacific time).
I created the words for to push and door:
Awesome!
Do you have passive constructions? Can you say The door was pushed?
That is a wonderful question! I have not yet worked on the passive voice; though I have considered it on occasion. Your question sparked some ideas, so I might have something formulated later today.
Cool!!!
Very nice! You're making sentences too.
Thank you. It is a wonderful sense of accomplishment.
Late late late, but I do have some new stuff for Beldreeni!
And now this is an edit! I thought I didn't have words expressing 'less' and 'least' and came up with two new ones, but looking through my files it seems I do after all! They're adverbial derivations of bei, 'little, small', as is the case in Swedish but unlike Swedish they're not identical in form to the adjectival comparative and superlative.
usebei, often realised as usbei, 'less'
As the adjective is always after the noun in Beldreeni when in attributive position, us(e)bei in its turn is placed after the adjective.
wanbei 'least' Ditto.
Both are formed from ubei, 'little' in the adverbial sense, as 'This does little for me'.
So these two aren't actually new, but they're rediscoveries for me! /edit
Actually new:
gossli with the accepted variant gosslei (n) 'dirt'
gosslion (adj) 'dirty'
gossliira (v) 'dirty something', 'get something dirty'
gossliira suke (v) the reflexive version, 'get oneself dirty'
Gossliduanon! A rather strong insult with the pejorative infix -duan- [dwan] inserted
Nai dā madzhena ru, san dā suta usbei ru. (Neutral style)
'This road isn't good, but it's the less bad road.'
Neepel gossliduanon! Roughly 'You/That dirty winter peasant!', expressing classist/urbanite prejudice against someone making their living as a farmer in the winter, in the south (which is what the word neepel signifies).
And here are not one but two different sayings arguing against that kind of thinking, both made in the formal register:
Chen ho gossli semana man elimo ho gossli wai.
'The dirt of the earth is better than the dirt of the soul/spirit.'
Mande ho ros to gosslion usedzhebei man vuri ho ros wai.
'Summer mud is not (any) less dirty than winter mud.'
(Since that very contemptuous urbanite in the winter is probably deep in mud themselves in summer, up north - as most everyone farms then. And if they don't, themselves, most of their family likely do.)
Ros is a noun meaning 'mud, clay' that I've made up before.
I realise I still don't have a word expressing 'both'...
I love the interplay of the insults and proverbs and just the vocabulary in general. Very, very nice!
For Akachenti:
akhiato • [ a.xja.to ] • to be obedient, to be subordinate
ikhiet • [ i.xjɛt ] • obedience, subordination
ki- • [ ki ] • too, again — verb prefix. As in, Kibuga:, "I love you too."
ri(h)- • [ ɹi ] • orphaned, motherless, without family — adjective. Compare with -ru- and obru-, used to negate verbs and with eh, used to negate nouns not referring to personal relationships.
igacho • [ i.ga.tʃo ] • turkey, particularly a type of wild turkey kept on personal land — noun
And rediscovered the use of topic marker with no apparent referent being used basically as a benefactive. "For you, we're not subordinate." Obrakhíata. The agent is clearly the word-final /a/, the patient is marked as the "being subordinate" action bandied about throughout the entire conversation, and that leaves a hanging 2nd person /o/ with nothing to refer to except the person potentially benefitting from the thing the speaker is not doing. It'd be like saying in English, "You, we're not doing it." The "for" that would be required in English is implied in Akachenti but not expressed.
Cool!
So, would "I love you" be buga or something else.
ubaga:
Ki can't morph to ku, and while it's actually possible to say buga:, for some reason, it's more likely to be said ubaga:. The only difference is whether "love" or "you" is topicalized.
So which one is topicalized in which? Sorry if that's a silly question, I'm not used to topicalization.
The one that's fronted.
In ubaga:, the you is in front and made topical. In buga:, the first letter of the verb is first and the verb is topical.
And no problem! It's kind of new for me too. :D
Cool. I actually really like the idea of the you being topicalized being more common than the other variant.
It's funny because the situation is reversed in the case of present persistent, where the action is initiated in the present rather than the past. But it makes sense. The first time you tell someone or realize you love them, love would be more topical than you in that case. But when the fact that you love each other is already established, it makes better sense that you would be.
That actually make a lot of sense to me. Like, when it's new, it's "Love is what I feel for you" and when it's ongoing it's "you are someone I love".
Exactly!
How ingenious! There's so much nuance and expressivity in such a small package.
It's the one thing that reconciled me to the pain of comprehending their messy but mandatory topicalization rules. There's actually a good return on investment. :)
These are great! I really like the [x] phoneme, even though none of my current conlangs feature it. The ki- prefix seems very versatile! Igacho is a great word for a wild turkey! (Says the one who's never even seen a living turkey in person...)
And the 'orphaned' adjective (adjectival prefix) has an interesting wide grammatical usage (the implications of which seem very sad)...
That benefactive meaning is so cool, on the other hand.
Thank you! I think the orphaned meaning developed from the negating relationship status meaning and probably during the more volatile violent period in recent history. It was used a lot for that sub-meaning, so picked it up as primary.
At some point I'm going to sit down with all the thematic roles and figure out which get treated how. I do kind of like the benefactive, even if I wish it were slightly clearer.