Worldbuilding Wednesday: Conlang (Sith)

I posted this on Tumblr awhile back, but today's a good day to post it here, right?

So I decided awhile back - somewhere around chapter 30ish of my big story - that I wanted to do more with the Sith language. I checked out the entry on Wookieepedia, and was disappointed (but not surprised) to discover that it wasn't very filled out, most of the words were those "ooh look at me I'm scary and daaaaaaaark" types of things, and if I wanted anything that was remotely workable, I'd have to come up with it myself, working with what was already there, what needed to be there, and my own newfound interest in conlang.

This is my first attempt at anything like this, so it's definitely not perfect or anything they're going to teach a class in anytime soon, but it's been a fun project so far.

Sounds!
First things first! Sith needs its phonemes (the sounds that make up the language). Canon source says 23, canon words use ones not listed, so to bring the two in line I ended up with 31.

This is all written in the International Phonetic Alphabet, so if you know that there you go, if you don’t and want to learn there’s the link (including audio!), and if you’re like “Dee, just stop making things complicated,” we can do that, too:

Consonants:
B, CH, D, DZ, F, G, H, J, K, L, M, N, P, Q, R, S, SH, T, TS, W, Y, Z

Vowels:
A, Â, AI, E, I, O, OI, U, Û

Most consonants are self-explanatory, with the possible exception of “ch,” which sounds like Bach. “G” is a hard g. Vowels are like so:
A - ah
 - hat
AI - buy
E - heat
I - hit
O - toad
OI - toys
U - suit
Û - hut








Rules!
Of course there’s rules! Every language has rules, even if in English the main rule seems to be “of course there’s a thousand exceptions”. xD Many of the rules are on the Wookieepedia page, but I’ll list them here, too.

  • Usually closed syllables (ending with a consonant)
  • Every word is accented on the first syllable
  • glides are used when two vowels are next to each other when forming compound words (agglutination)
  • Typical word order is verb-subject-object, though subjects or objects can be at the front for emphasis
  • Verb roots are one syllable and end in a consonant. Mood, tense, etc. are indicated by suffixion markers
  • Nouns have cases

To get a little more in-depth on word order, here are the rules I’ve been following (or at least, I’m pretty sure I have):

  • Verb-Object
  • Noun-Adjective (ex: gato rojo)
  • Noun-Genitive (ex: “the dog of the girl” instead of “the girl’s dog”)
  • Adposition-Noun (prepositions, not postpositions)
  • Noun-Relative Clause (ex: “the woman whom I saw”)

Verbs!
I haven’t gotten super in depth on mood markers for verbs quite yet, so this section is basically just covering the suffixions for tenses, with a smattering of pronouns and an example to demonstrate.

Infinitive: raz, to love (specifically the love/passion between lovers)
Present: -ir. Example: razir zai, “you love,” following the verb/subject rule
Past: -em. Example: razem juz, “she loved”
Future: -oksh. Example: razoksh nu, “I will love”
Nominal: -ut. Example: Lajir loz lo razut, “He searches for love”



Pronouns!
I've stayed simple with this one.

Nouns!
Nouns get cases, too. Thus far I have eight. This is all very much a work in progress, so please bear with me.

Nominative (subject of a sentence) no suffix
Accusative (object of action) -yit
Vocative (addressing) -kaz
Genitive (possessive) -dor
Dative (indirect object, to/for) -ottoi
Ablative (about/concerning) -anjat
Instrumental (means by which the action is done) -jontu
Locative (in location to the verb) -nolak






Examples:
Dzimir nu, tsisaridor. “I serve, my lord.” (This version of ‘my lord,’ literally translated ‘Sith lord,’ has the possessive suffix on it, indicating that they are the speaker’s master, rather than just any Sith who happens to be senior to the speaker.)

Razoksh nu zain za myjir ba qyâsiknolak. “I will love you until we return to the Force,” more colloquially translated as “until we become one with the Force”.

Wonoksh qyâsik nun. “The Force shall free me.”

I have a list of current vocabulary here. Feel free to save a copy.

Writing!
You didn’t think I was gonna quit without including orthography, right? I built off of this version, though it had really random combinations and was missing a bunch of the phonemes. I kept the ones that worked, replaced the ones that didn’t, added the ones that needed adding. The final result:

You can see from the example at the bottom that the vowels are added either above or below the tail of the letter before it.

So! That’s what I’ve been doing in my spare time. My poor notebook is falling apart, and this is just the introductory outing with bare simplicity. If you have questions, hit me up. I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to answer it depending on how complicated you get, but I’ll certainly try. :D