Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Dunta

     Well, in this post I will talk about Dunta and its other inhabitants. The Okoda share a continent with a whole other group of humans who call themselves the Pazha Shosat (PAH-zha SHOH-saht) meaning literally “the people” or “the place of people.” (For the time being I will use cardinal directions until I explain the Dunta way of navigation.) Just West of the Okoda live the Wamali Shes (Wah-MAH-lee SHES) by their own name meaning “the people.” Even further to the west live the Yan Hile (YAHN HEE-lah) whose name I’ve lost the definition for. And to the west of the Okoda live the Potsa (POHTS-ah) which in their tongue means “the life.”
     Each of these five main countries have their own religion and language all of which are very different. I have begun each of these languages, but have gone the farthest with Dega. Dega is the first conlang I have begun making (not including the code I made when I was young that I foolishly thought was a language and the bad interpretation of Latin that the Yon Hēlā’s language comes from), and is probably the least original, and every time I work on it seems more and more like another romance language. I will definitely continue Dega, but I think I may put more effort into one of the four other languages (I have given up on the language of Yan Hile, as it just looks like a bad interpretation of Latin, but there is another language that they use for religious purposes: “ghumlezh”) which I will probably work harder on later as Dega’s holes are filled up, but I don’t know which is worth more work. If you would care to give input I would gladly except it, I will describe the grammars and peculiarities of the other three languages down below.
     The Pazha Shosat are a tribal people speaking a language with only four verbs. They are simple, living in the woods they often frighten the more “civilized” Okoda.
     The Wamali Shes have a smooth language of many glides (r, l, y, w,), nasals (n, m) and fricatives (s, sh, þ) that widely contradicts their reputation of an angry warring people. I thought it would be interesting to have a people who were very aggressive to outsiders, but had a pretty tongue and were especially nice to their fellow Wamali Shes.
    The Yan Hile have a language based very much on Latin which has a large vocabulary, but has many large holes in the grammar and is not very interesting except for the alphabet. The Yan Hile have a very shamanic natural religion, which uses its own language and a pictographic code to represent the things needed for different rituals.
     The Potsa Úlan have a pictographic writing system for their language where each word has a god/dess (the gods/goddesses are neuter: neither masculine nor feminine) to represent the word.

Here is a map of the Dunta world:
The Okoda live on the mid-eastern region of the central "L" shaped continent.


Some words to learn:
Madi - North-Western eighth of the common Dunta world map
Kama - South-Western eighth of the common Dunta world map
Lazi - Central-North-Western eighth of the common Dunta world map
Mista - Central-South-Western eighth of the common Dunta world map
Rizi - Central-North-Eastern eighth of the common Dunta world map
Data - Central-South-Eastern eighth of the common Dunta world map
Gini - North-Eastern eighth of the common Dunta world map
Tora - South-Eastern eighth of the common Dunta world map
Sadra - here/where I am now/this current place
NOTE: the directions are used to describe where in the world something is then where in the eighth of the world and where in the eighth of the eighth of the world and so on.
 
The new languages:
Sazh - Pazha Shosat - A language with only four verbs that uses nouns to make others verbs It uses an alphabet that is always a cursive script one letter connecting to the next.

Chali Shes - Wamali Shes - A language with almost no second person and no plural except with articles.

Ghumlezh - Yan Hile - A language which uses vowel changes and tones in the middles of words for grammar and three consonants for roots of words to represent a verb, a couple nouns, an adjective and an adverb.

Úlan Sel - Úlan Potsa - A language which uses particles to conjugate verbs and decline nouns. The writing system is pictographic and very artful.

Tell me which one sounds the most interesting in the comments choose one of the new ones or if I should continue hard on Dega. I don’t know what to do so please tell me what you think. Thank you! 
(If you want more information about one of the languages feel free to ask me and I will probably answer.)

Monday, March 14, 2011

E! Tutosi tuse lo?


     Hey! How are you? Is the common greeting of Dega; there is no real hello, but often an exclamation: “E!” is used before “tutosi tuse lo?” – “how are you?” (often shortened to simply “tuse lo?”) as a greeting. If one is feeling well they might answer “tuse te etos” or if one is feeling unwell they might answer “tuse te itos” or if they were feeling normal/OK/fine they might say “tuse te tos”.
     These are all things we have learned before—“tu-tosi” – what condition. “tus-e” – be-PRESENT-INDICATIVE. “lo” – you. “e-/i-/-/tos” – healthy/-/average health/-/unhealthy. And “te” – I/me.
    
     Some more conversational phrases and words are:
u – Adv. yes/-/no (yes can be used for emphasis or as an answer to a question.)
turaŋi dolat ri lo arata – how old are you (kind of a waste of breath, but oh well.) (tu-raŋi is how many)
tukoda tuse lo – who are you? (Used more for conversation)
tudalos tuse lo dira – What god are you guard of? (Used more for very important people. The person would then be called “guard of their god”. We will learn more about that when we talk of religion. tu-dalos is “which (what) god”, and dira is “guard of a god”.)

Sample sentence:
Keyate Ranu, “E! Tutosi tuse lo?” Sade zu.
Key-at  -  e      Ran   -   u,   “E!       Tu    -    tos      -      i        tus - e     lo?” Sad - e     zu.
Say-PAST-INDIC Ran-FEMIN  “Hey! INTEROG-condition-NOM/ACC be-INDIC you  Sad-MASC to/at
“Hey! How are you?” Ronū said to Sodā.

Note: I have decided to change the noun endings of “-os” and “-el” which are currently genitive and dative to genitive and “from” and make dative into a genitive preposition. I will change that in the simple nouns post as well.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Numbers

In this post I will talk about numbers. Dega uses a base-12 numeral system meaning it has 12 single digit numbers including 0; we use a base 10. In Dega instead of having words like twenty-four to show that the number is 2 tens and four ones words build up by taking the word for the number of 1's and sticking the first two letters of the word for the 12's onto the front and the same for the 144's and so on making a syllable for each number-place; for example thirty-four in base-12 (forty in base-10) is midet mi is from min—which means 3—turns into mi because it is not in the 1's place, but is stuck onto det—which means 4—is kept the same because it is in the 1's place. Treat the nouns given as adjectives with no neutral, comparative or superlative although no positive prefix is necessary; use the negative prefix to denote a number negative. If numbers need to be used as nouns just add the "-i" of the first declension nouns.
     From 0 to 12 in Dāgo is:
tak - 0
rom - 1
zor - 2
men - 3
det - 4
dast - 5
gal - 6
tul - 7
kat - 8
sut - 9
kur - 10
kit - 11
rotak - 12 (rom-m+tak=rotak)

     Since we are talking about numbers we might as well talk over simple math terms. Certain prepositions are used for the simpler math terms (i.e. plus, minus, times, divide).
gu - before/beside/with/plus +
do - outside/away/from/minus -
zu - to/at/divided by /
os - genitive suffix/times *

Words to learn:
tak - 0
rom - 1
zor - 2
min - 3
det - 4
dast - 5
gal - 6
tul - 7
kat - 8
sut - 9
kur - 10
kit - 11
rotak - 12
gu - before/beside/with/plus +
do - outside/away/from/minus -
zu - to/at/divided by /
os - genitive suffix/times *
raŋi - number (if plural this can be "numeral system")
ra- - prefix. this/that (like the question prefix not as in this/that thing specifically, but can be used that way with that particular noun. often used with: place (here/there), time (then/hen?), person (him/her), thing (that/this), reason, way, or others, depending on what you want to say.)
dot - used right before a "ra-" word to denote specifically that over there. derived from "do" - away
tata - time period of about ten seconds
risi - time period of 12 tata like a minute
meŋi - time period of 12 risi like a hour
dorta - time period of 12 meŋi like a day
kami - time period of 12 dorta like a week
rata - time period of 12 kami like a year, but only 144 dorta
ri - during


Sample sentence:
Dolat ri kode arata tuzor
Dol-at           ri         kod-e                      a-rat-a                 tu-zor
live-PAST during person-MASC    PLUR-year-NOM/ACC  7 - 2
The man lived during 72 (86 in base-10) years.






Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Questions

How can one have a conversation without questions? (No pun intended.)
Well it's certainly hard and I'm not going to try nor am I going to make you try so here it is.
      Questions are based around a single word: tū-. It is a prefix either attached to a word to make a "question word" (i.e. what, which, who, whom, when, where, why, or how) or stuck on to a verb to replace our "do questions" (e.g. do you like to eat?). The word order is never changed for a question as it is in English for there is no need with the prefix and refrain from using the question words as nouns, instead use the same word without the prefix.
To make the common words which we English-speakers use these words:
tu-leli - what thing? - what?
tu-koda - what human? - who?
tu-teri - what time? - when?
tu-rozi - what place? -where?
tu-tegi - what reason? - why?
tu-kaŋi - what method/way? - how?
tu-tose - what health/condition? - how?

tu- can also be used for "do questions" like so:
Tuteŋase lo kulotata?
Tu - teŋ   -  as     -    e       lo  kul  - o    -   tat       -      a?
?/do like pres. tense indic. you eat infin. gerundive. Nom./Acc
Do you like eating (to eat)?

NOTE: if you want to know the meaning of a Dega word in English or vice versa leave a comment of the word asking for the meaning.


Words to learn:
tu- - what, (as in "what" in "what place" not "what thing")
leli - thing/stuff (plural)
koda - human
teri - time
rozi - place/land
tegi - reason
kaŋi - method/way
tosi - health/condition
rala - to walk/move 
sa - inside/through

A sample sentence:
Ralat koda rozod iman sa.
The person walked through the dead land.


Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Adjectives and Adverbs

We have Nouns and Verbs, but they have no character and what's the best way to give a word character, but with an adjective or adverb. The adjectives and adverbs are used the same way except one is for nouns and the other verbs.
     Each Adjective and adverb has a superlative (most), a comparative (more), a positive (good), a neutral (not good/not bad) and an "opposite" of each of these (bad/badder/baddest).
     I will use "healthy" as an example for the prefixes for the adjectives (adverbs use the same ones). I will show two examples they are just used in accordance with the beginning of the adjective to make pronunciation easier with vowels. As seen in the post about verbs I showed in word order that adjectives go after the noun and before what genitive nouns there may be, unless they are modifying the them.
     Also note that in definitions most of the time just the positives and negatives will be given, but if they have odd neutrals those may be given as well.
    Note: there is no word for good/-/bad, that is a very broad description and can be substituted with a word that fits more specifically (there is a word that is relative to ones self and is more like good as in a police-man, good for the people, helps out kind; I will share it in the "Some words to learn").

healthy/-/unhealthy--tos
(Superlative) healthiest (healthier than everything) -  Telod re lel-/le-tos
(Comparative) healthier - lel-/le-tos
(Positive) healthy -  el-/e-tos
(Neutral) not healthy/not unhealthy/average - JUST ROOT IS USED
(2nd Positive/Negative) unhealthy - is-/i-tos
(Comparative) unhealthier - lis-/li-tos
(Superlative) unhealthiest (unhealthier than everything) -  Telod re lis-/li-tos

Some words to learn:
(rel.)--means the adjective is an opinion word and is used relatively to the speaker.
tos - healthy/-/unhealthy
dan - good/-/bad (rel. to "the people")
tel - all/whole/complete/-/nothing/-/missing/missing something/incomplete
saz - hot/-/cold
da - hungry/needy/-/content/-/bloated/spoiled
ku - alone/-/N/A/with someone else/in a group