Month: December 2017

Lexember has been going well, and one of its biggest benefits is that I’ve started rendering things in IPA. Going forward on my podcast, I think I will actually just render Tveshi and Narahji words in IPA for my script version — it’ll be a lot easier to minimize my American vowel accent that way.

This is the “teachers and ancestors” post, so named because I want to start out with a longer word that I cannot fit in tweets — the Tveshi word for teacher, fågoim /ˈfɑ.go͡ʊim/.

Fågoim is a good word for showing something important with Tveshi articles. Tveshi articles are not mandatory in most cases, nor are they used often. Here’s an example:

Mesh fayiem gefai mėi.
/Mɛʃ ˈfɑ.jiɛ̯m ˈgɛ.faɪ̯ ˈmɛ.ʔi./
We performed last rites for my grandmother.

This directly glosses to:

Mesh fay-iem gefai mei.
1PL perform-last-rites-PST-PL grandmother 1S-POSS.

There is no article present in the actual Tveshi accompanying grandmother.

Articles, where they appear, come after the noun in most cases. In these places, one uses an article for emphasis. They come before the noun in others. The difference between kin/emị kena (an obsession or crush) and kena kin (the desire) relies on whether the article precedes or follows the noun. In the former case, it’s necessary for meaning; in the latter, it’s emphatic. One could actually say emị kena emị to refer to a crush emphatically.

Words like teacher, on the other hand, showcase some formality features in modern Tveshi that involve articles. One’s own teacher is fågoim mėi, as an example — the word teacher with the possessive pronoun.

To show respect to a teacher one has never had, the archaic articles for people are used in front of the word, not after — emị fågoim.

Within philosophical schools, someone who is not directly one’s teacher is referred to with the article feim, typically reserved for ghosts in old liturgical texts. This is because the ghost of that person’s teaching are within one’s own teacher.

Mė ćalimem em fågoim lịfa nossu vėi gopesem.
I comforted a teacher.HON when ler.FORM student died.
(Em is the object form of emị.)

Mė ćalimem fågoim mėi lịfa nossu gopesem mėshepui.
I comforted my teacher when a student among us died.

Mė ćalimem fan fågoim lịfa nossu gopesem mėshepui.
I comforted a teacher.HON when a student among us died.
(Fan is the object form of feim.)

The adjective henefågoini, teacherless, is a pejorative used against socially disruptive teachings or those who adhere to them. Fågoini is the adjective teaching, as in nonakhė fågoini, a teaching forest used in forestry and agricultural education.

Sifågoim indicates the education industry, with fågoinekouri meaning a teacher in the context of primary and secondary education. Fågoinekouri is never used for philosophical school teachers or teachers in higher education.

Ufågoim is often used for university-level faculty.

The verb afågoinit means to teach, to nurture a teaching in someone. The word for families instructing/teaching children is amolit, with the adjective moli and noun mola. Fanagoć mėi mola athuait mesh. My parents taught us to sing sacred songs.

#Lexember on Twitter

On Day 9, I realized that many on Twitter might not realize that I am doing 20-30 entries a day, as I intend to fix my Tveshi dictionary and grammar this month despite how daunting a project it actually is.

To select which entries to tweet, I think about which ones are (a) cool and (b) can fit in a single tweet. Sometimes, this fails because things like ancestors and ghosts are cool — but a snapshot tweet of what I’m doing is my intention. I have plenty of short entries, such as:

åsseka, book
geha, peak
modakoura, committee
hahi, broken
feaså, scroll
hjo, bed

… and none of these has a lengthy entry. (Well, geha does.)

Day 8

Noña /ˈnoʊ̯.ɲʌ/ n. Quietude, stillness, restfulness.
Adjective noñi /ˈnoʊ̯.ɲi/, quiet, still, restful. Evokes the quality of silence near the winter solstice when walking at night in snowy stillness.
Verb anoñit /ʌ.ˈnoʊ̯.ɲit̪/, to rest, to be still, to be quiet.

Day 9

Atiato /ʌ.ˈt̪iɑ̯.t̪o/ n. Stream. Atiatohi /ʌ.t̪iʌ̯.ˈt̪o.çi/, stream-like. Atiatohit /ʌ.t̪iʌ̯.ˈt̪o.çit̪/, to stream. Colloquially, atiato describes things that are steady, but manageable & habitual.

The Tveshi version of the Internet is called atiatoennaji /ʌ.t̪iʌ̯.t̪oʊ̯.ə̃ð.ˈɑ.ʒi/, streamspace-of-people. Atiatoenna /ʌ.t̪iʌ̯.t̪oʊ̯.ˈə̃ð.ʌ/ is used to describe public goods and benefits paid for by the citizenry.

I decided to post this word predominantly due to Net Neutrality. The Tveshi Internet is very unlike ours, as social media platforms beyond an online forum system do not exist. One generally communicates via text or vid.

Day 10

Dė /dɛ/ n. Stone. Di /di/, durable, made of stone.
As a verb, adit /ˈɑ.dit̪/, to solidify, is used in metaphor to describe things that are made solid like stone.
Colloquially, di is used to refer to reliable people.

Day 11

Daiahė /ˈdaɪ͡a.hə/ n. The quality of being in good order; orderly symmetry. Efịhjo femị hat daiahė. That bedroom feels right (and is clean).
Daiahi /ˈdaɪ͡a.çi/, clean, well-ordered.
Adaiahit /ʌ.ˈdaɪ͡a.çit̪/, to clean, to put in order.

Day 12

Ćaofo /ˈtʃɑo̯.foʊ̯/ n. Vine. Aćaofoit /ʌ.ˈtʃɑo̯.fo͡ʊit̪/ is to vine. A blood-vine tree is called called yoi thoćaofoi /jo͡ʊi θoʊ̯.ˈtʃao̯.fo͡ʊi/or yoi kouveshi /jo͡ʊi kʼou̯.ˈvɛ.ʃi/, tree blood-vining or heart-containing tree.

When I talk about blood-vines or blood-vining trees in Epiphany, I am never being metaphorical. These are not actually trees. They are a type of life-form on Ameisa that moves extremely slowly, a plant-esque fruiting animal. The fruits are complete protein sources within which the eggs hide. They bleed real Ameisi blood.

Day 13

Fu /fu/ n. Patience. Ofui /ˈoʊ.fui̯/, patient. Afuit /ˈɑ.fui̯t̪/, to wait for.
Mė fuata fauyo. /Mɛ ˈfuɑ̯.tʌ ˈfaʊ̯.joʊ̯./ I had waited for a parent. This is using the expectant verb mood, which is a bit hard to make idiomatic in English.

To make the verb to consider, one uses the suffix that means towards. Depending on the noun class, this could be -su, -sui, or –sėa. The suffixes for towards and inside of/in have actually merged somewhat, and towards is often now shortened to -s for all noun classes. I’m rendering it in the formal version below.

Mė fuata fauyosui. /Mɛ ˈfuɑ̯.tʌ ˈfaʊ̯.joʊ̯.sui̯./ I had expected to consider a parent.

Day 14

Faya /ˈfɑ.jʌ/ n. Ancestor. Appears as fayi /ˈfɑ.ji/ for ancestral. The verb afayit /ʌ.ˈfɑ.jit/ is used for death or last rites.

Mesh fayiem gefai mėi. /Mɛʃ ˈfɑ.jiɛ̯m ˈgɛ.faɪ̯ ˈmɛ.ʔi./ We performed last rites for my grandmother.

Vė vas fayem. /Vɛ vɑs ˈfɑ.jəm./ Le died.

Fakha /ˈfɑ.ʀʌ/ n. Ghost, restless dead, disturbance. Fakhi /ˈfɑ.ʀi/, to bear ill will of the dead. Afakhit /ʌ.ˈfɑ.ʀit̪/, to haunt, to bear malice towards.

In slang, one uses the term fakha to refer to a friend with whom one has fallen out — and depending on tone, it is either pejorative or regretful.

Fakha emị meshem mė vo nịnni mohuyem moda nusi.
ˈfɑ.ʀʌ ˈɛ.mɪ ˈmɛʃ.əm mɛ voʊ̯ ˈnɪ̃.ði moʊ̯.ˈxu.jəm ˈmoʊ̯.dʌ nusi.
The ghost forgot me and never wrote a comforting word.

Which leads me to something else: There are two words for and in Tveshi. Vo /voʊ̯/ is used when the subject of the two phrases is the same. Nia /niɑ̯/ is used when the subject is different in the next phrase.

There are also positive and negative words for but:

petai /ˈpɛ.t̪aɪ̯/
pehia /ˈpɛ.çiʌ̯/

Vė vas fayem petai ćå deihat uhio. (positive connotation)
Vė vas fayem pehia ćå deihat uhio. (negative connotation)
Le died, but you achieved a success.

Day 15

(Note: You may see that I changed this title. That is because Dec. 15 is the one I forgot to hashtag, and I was like, wait, but it’s the 16th! That’s why.)

Khaira /ˈʀaɪ̯.ɾʌ/ n. Weapon. Adjective okhairahi /oʊ.ʀaɪ̯.ˈɾɑ.çi/, weaponized. Verb akhairait /ʌ.ʀaɪ̯.ˈɾɑ.çit̪/ means to harm, beat violently, hit, pummel. Reflexively, it means that no weapon was used.

I only have one LaTeX page of my incredibly poor late-teens-early-twenties dictionary decision to go in the A section. Then, I can move on to the remainder of the alphabet.

‘Tis the Season

Lexember has been nice because I’ve spent a lot of time building up derivative words and ensuring that semantic drift is elegant and culturally useful to the people who speak this language. This will be a very long dictionary — with many words related to sacred texts. While in my early 20s, I started by rendering short passages of sacred texts in Tveshi itself.

There’s a folder on my computer called Old Files for Reference — Not Sorted. In it, I have things like this:

While weeding the fields, Kakinne looked across the row at Sehet Añi. “Why do you help,” le said, “when you have all the comforts of your station?”
The esteemed one said, “Why do you help when you have a family to nurture?”
“I cannot provide for them if they have nothing to eat.”
Sehet Añi smiled at lim and threw the weeds le had gathered over ler shoulder. “And that is why I, too, must toil.”

An earlier version of Tveshi looked like [1] below. The ì has since changed to an ị because I have reserved acute and grave accents for tonal sounds in Aòḥám and other languages. I’ve switched from ë to ė for noting final schwas because ë now indicates rough-breathed vowels. À is now å.

[1]

Ukhìnni nifìpis inokhiać Kakinnë dishàm Àñis: Kuàćitait ćà likha? Ćà haoà hàgi ćàlimë fàdyinep.
Kuaćitait ćà likha ìfà lis ćà haoà sejàtho afàgoinit?
Më ni fàgoinaut goiñë ìfeti sher ni haoa nijal ahàgoilit.
Àñi làumem vehë vo haćadem hoieinoić pes genëm. Hùf! Ña mekha và mekha kouripis hata-mëi.

[2]

Note: This is not an edited translation, but a rough one. You can see that the places I’ve done literal translations are in sloppy, pseudo-linguistic notation.

Anifịptis inokhiać, Kakinne disham hueilumėa anni Añis. “Kuaća likhasio ćå,” los vė modaha. “Ćå hat mefamosio ćathu ćalimi.” [Lit. You.FORM have law.CAUS a comfortable foundation.]
Gaih Sehet Añi modaha, “Kuaća likhasio ćå? Ćå hat sejatho låfuapui nia ahinit.”
“Mė ni ćualera takhị å sher haoiera nijalė.”
Sehet Añi laumem vo haućadem pussåmėalumėa kourinnịsio hueić nifi. [Sehet Añi smiled and.same-subject threw shoulder.ABL+above work.CAUS toil-plants.] “Helai atai mė mathemauptu, seno mėisa.”

The phrase seno mėisa literally means together-echo ourselves. It means me too.

The differences between these are (a) that I developed a better understanding of linguistics and (b) that I abandoned some grammatical elements that I was trying out in favor of developing Tveshi consistently. [2] is so much better from a linguistic standpoint.

Embers from My #Lexember Twitter Posts

Day 4

Raika /ˈɾaɪ.kʼʌ/ n. Printing press. From rai sikahi /ɾaɪ si.ˈkʼɑ.çi/, essence-adj ink. Adjective raikahi /ɾaɪ.ˈkʼɑ.çi/, printed. Verb araikait /ʌ.ˈɾaɪ.kʼaɪt̪/, to print. Modaraika /moʊ.dʌ.ˈɾaɪ.kʼʌ/, a character in its print, not handwritten, form.

The verb ahairaikait means to press, to pressure, to persuade and derives from hai raikahi, consciousness being pressured. It’s used to describe persuasiveness, too, as hairaikahi, persuasive.

Day 5

Kher /ʀɛɾ/ n. Keepsake box. Colloq., something of little interest to others. The adjective kheri /ˈʀɛ.ɾi/ means hidden or out of sight. The verb akherit /ʌ.ˈʀɛ.ɾit̪/means to hide, to conceal.

Day 6

Upa /ˈu.pʌ/ n. Desire, nonsexual. Adj upahi /u.ˈpɑ.çi/ — desirous, compelling. The verb aupit /ˈɑu.pit̪/ is to desire nonsexually; be compelled by; be obsessed with. Kin upa /kʼin ˈu.pʌ/ (“the upa”) means platonic crush (person) or deep hobby (activity).

An enormous part of the Tveshi, Iturji, and Ịgzarhjenya social systems incorporates the idea of sacred friendships. Thus, their languages all have specific words for terms that are difficult to find in English outside of either philosophical posts about the various types of love in Ancient Greece and Rome or the contemporary asexual community. These sacred friendships usually exist alongside marriages; marriages are often neither for love nor for sex.

Day 7

Anna /ˈɑ̃.ðʌ/ n. Ideal. As an adj, anni /ˈɑ̃.ði/ means best-case scenario, best of our world. Verb annit /ˈɑ̃.ðit̪/ means to idealize, to set up. Derivative terms include hui anni, a good fit; huei anni, a crop row; kusa anni, the peak of one’s career; and sikouikara anni, activism.

I spent about an hour and a half working on my Tveshi dictionary and wrote up about 10-15 entries, which included derivative words based on prefixes, suffixes, and compounds. I have a group of “unclaimed” words that I am using to fill out roots that I don’t have yet and that don’t make sense as compounds. Here are a few words!

Hakha /ˈhɑ.ʀʌ/ (NN). Fortune. Adjectives hakhi or hohi, fortuitous. Verb ahakhit, to twist, to turn, to spin. Common derivative terms include nuahakha, ill fortune; peaira hohi, habitable planet; nåhakha or nåkha, a slang pejorative used to indicate the situation of an inexperienced person being placed in a position that le is not excelling at; Iahakha, the name of the Goddess of Fortune; aihakha, computer program; aumịhohi, dead, an alternative term; ohakhakouri, fortune-teller who tells lots and auguries, not a direct oracular conduit to the gods.

One realization: I’ve never actually written down the compound word rules for Tveshi, so I certainly hope that I have applied consistent rules over the long count. So — I detoured a bit to write them up.

For most compound words, the Tveshi add the words straightforwardly. The lower-register word for god, yåssị /ˈjɒ.ʂɪ/, is combined directly with the word nara, jar, to make the term narayåssị /nʌ.ɾʌ.ˈjɒ.ʂɪ/, god-jar. This is a slang term for a professional oracle. This new noun can easily be transformed into an adjective or a verb. The word ćeno /ˈt͡ʃɛ.noʊ/, replacement, comes from ćė no, wind-echo.

Some compound words arise from noun phrases. The word unnadaso, lexicon, comes from unnan modasioć, and the noun phrase was once very common. Typically, as slang replaces esteemed usage, the final two syllables of the first root are retained, and any final consonants are lost from them — especially nasals.

The modifier word retains one to two syllables, and its terminate vowel is almost always -o or a strong -a, the only sign that a word is a holdover from a noun that had a case modifier (i.e., modasioć means caused by words). The word nokho /ˈnoʊ.ʀoʊ/, well, comes from the words no khianua, echo avoiding light.

I wanted to translate “lexember” into Tveshi. It would have been an ideal Day One, but yesterday, I participated in running an internal conference about data + society — so, needless to say, it was overambitious given that I had to be at work early.

So I started yesterday by fixing the next entry on my docket. When I was in my early 20s, for some reason, I listed all of the words in Tveshi as verbs when Tveshi derives its verbs from nouns. Any noun in Tveshi can become a verb or an adjective. Adjectives add either -i or -hi to the end depending whether the final sound is a consonant, a strong vowel, or a weak vowel. To make verbs, one adds the prefix a- (which means pure or ideal when used as a noun prefix; it gradually became a mandatory verb prefix to emphasize that something was an infinitive) and the suffix -it or -ait. There are also quite a few irregular verbs because Tveshi is a conquest contact language. Most other conquest contact languages are extremely regular because bureaucrats form language committees and streamline things, but Tveshi is so politicized that … well, you know how Senatorial debates can get.

This is why B-D is the most clean part of my dictionary.

Day 1

Gaiga. /ˈgaɪ.gʌ/ (NN). A prayer or petition to a higher power. The word for a statement of praise to a divinity is iahuilei. Gaigahi /gaɪ.ˈgɑ.hi/ is the adjective form, and agaigait /ʌ.gaɪ.ˈgɑ.haɪt̪/ is the verb to pray.

There. Simple.

The word actually reminds me a lot of the English word gaga, which makes me think Lady Gaga. I was like, “Really, teenage me? You didn’t realize what this word looked like?” Except what language is complete without words that are uncomfortably like the names of American celebrities.

Day 2

Let’s translate the word lexember into Tveshi. This was more complicated than I wanted because I had to invent the word for lexicon. I decided that the Tveshi word for lexicon would have come from the term a story of words. Here are some additional discoveries:

• I have never made the words story or history. I did make the word fiction, though, so all is not lost.
• For some reason, the suffix -kol never made it from my Tveshi calendar terminology document into my conlang document. I’m fixing this and adding the month terminology to my conlang materials.

For the words story and history, I decided that Tveshi doesn’t differentiate the two explicitly in the dictionary. Here are my entries for  story/background/history  and time:

Unnan /ˈũ.ðɑn/ (NA). Story, history, especially in the sense of background. Pl. unnamua /ũ.ˈðɑ.muɑ/. Adjective is unnani /ũ.ˈðɑ.ni/.

The double nn is pronounced by nasalizing the prior vowel and articulating a /ð/ by tipping the tongue against the edge of the upper teeth. It’s different from the voiceless /θ/ in Tveshi, marked th, which is voiced in a similar dental position to the English sound.

A storyteller is a unnanekouri. A historian is an åhunnanekouri. Natural history is oihunnan, which means that people who study in fields related to natural history are oihunnanekouri. Geology is hohunnan, and geologists are hohunnanekouri. Cultural histories are called unnaji (pl. unnajić).

Ko /kʼoʊ/ (NN). Time. The word kolị /ˈkʼoʊ.lɪ/ is month, and the word hokolị /hoʊ.ˈkʼoʊ.lɪ/ is season. The suffix for month is -(e)kol.

Lexember, then, relies on the word lexicon, which I made out as:

Unnadaso /ʊ̃.ðʌ.ˈdɑ.soʊ/ (NP). Lexicon. This comes from unnan modasioć, story caused by words.

Lexember is Unnadasokol /ʊ̃.ðʌ.dʌ.ˈsoʊ.kʼoʊl/, the word lexicon using the month suffix -kol.

Day 2.5

Gaisị /ˈgaɪ.sɪ/ (NP). Reverence, respect. The adjective has limited use. The word Gaih /ˈgaɪç/ is used as an honorific for deities in hymns, for one’s matriarch, and one’s parents. The verb form is agaisit /ʌ.ˈgaɪ.sɪt̪/, to revere, to respect. The word is strongly linked to måt gaisi /mɔt̪ ˈgaɪ.si/, the term for ethical teachings about one’s place in the family and broader social world.