Saturday, December 3, 2011

Expanded Old Bactarian Vocabulary

I've changed the name from Ancient Bactarahad to Old Bactrian. In the fictional timeline of the language's development, Ancient Bactarian was the first form which is nearly identical to the lexicon mentioned below, except that the Ancient Bactarian forms of the words are in italics while Old Bactarian forms are displayed. After Ancient Bactarian came Old Bactarian, which this post and the previous one describe.

Old Bactarian was used in writing official documents of the Bactarian Empire as well in rituals in the capitol city. After the fall of Bactaria, the language went through an Intermediate phase for about 200 years and then became Modern or New Bactarian, which solidified over a simulated 500 year period.

anaxus    circle, cycle
anxus      life, breath; anctai - to breathe
araxus     taker, enactor
as            adj. high, tall
barexus   wall
bat           because of, by
braga       gift, content (braxus); bragai/bractai - to bear
cadaxus   fall, descent
daath       time
daca        adj. auburn; dacai - to season
daga       day (daxus); dactai - to continue
dalsus     measure, dial
dalxus     scythe, sickle
derexus   interval, time, segment
doxus     death; doctai - to die
draxus    thing, object; dractai - to move/drag/have/carry
drexus    creature, life-form
drixus     reaction, animal, body; drixus acan/caniadrixus - dog, edrixus - sheep
funuxus  funeral, procession
il             aeon
ir            plain
laath       flow, current
laxus      stream, milk; lactai - to stream
luxus      light
maath     capacity
maga      power (maxus); mactai - to do
mat        with
masaraxus   devourer, eater
meiraxus child
nat           beneath
naxus      night
paxus      festival; pactai - to take part
pag-ya       participant, initiate
peraxus     height, apex, zenith
prag-ya     guardian
praxus      guard; practai - to guard
pyruxus    pyre, pyramid
rag-ya       king
raxus        reign; ractai - to rule
solus         sun
solaxus     solar, the physical sun, star, position of a star, solar axis, pole
solguxus   satellite, orbiting body, sphere; solguctai - to orbit
tarexus      abyss, tartarus, toilet, outhouse, rest room
vaxus        awakening, growth
uxus          junction; uctai -to meet, join

Verb Endings:
-ctai          present tense
-ctaia        subjunctive, "while"
-ctanjur    future tense, "soon"
-ctaya       possible, "may", "could", "would"

Declension: http://galiai.blogspot.com/2011/10/ancient-bactarahad.html

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Ancient Bactarahad

Ancient Bactarahad was spoken before the current version such in the post I made a while back. It was closer to the root language and has a different system of declension.

Anaxus - circle/cycle
Braga/Braxus - brought
Daga/Daxus - day (New Bactarahad jaa - time/eternity)
Maga/Maxus - power
Naxus - night
Paxus - festival
Prag-ya - guardian
Praxus - guard
Rag-ya - king
Raxus - reign
Uxus - junction


For -xus words:
-xus    nominative
-x       accusative
-xi      within (inessive)
-xa     from (ablative)
-g       compound
-c       dative


For -a words:
-a       nominative
-a or -an     accusative
-e       dative (to, towards)

-un  -  her (possessive) ex. naxun - her night
-u    -  his (possessive) nominative -u, accusative -unu

Sunday, October 16, 2011

A Journey of Scales

"Did you know the sun's 1,300,000 times bigger than the earth?" my father said to me in a dream. I thought it was real, like a normal day, since he never usually talks about astronomy. In response, I said, "If you think that's amazing, I'll show you the scales with comparisons of everyday objects."

For a moment, I told him to imagine what I was saying.

"If the sun was the size of a basketball," I said, shaping my hands into a ball-form, and then pulling out a bluish marble from my pocket. My father finished the sentence, "Then the earth would be the size of the marble."


"No," I said, "In fact, it would be Jupiter that would be the size of the marble. The earth would be the size of a grain of sand."

Moving on, I said, "Now, if we want to see just how far the planets are from the sun, and not just their sizes, we have to make the scale even larger."

I told him now to imagine that the marble was the size of the sun, the grain the size of Jupiter, moving the scale down by one unit. Setting the Sun-marble in the center of the floor, I stretched my arm until it was three feet from the marble. Setting my imaginary sand-grain there, I said, "That's where the FIRST planet would be, Mercury. The others are still farther. So even though they're extremely small compared to the sun, they're also extremely far away, so they don't become overwhelmed by the sun's energy."

In this situation, sand-grain Jupiter would be some ten feet from the marble, if I remember correctly. The Sun is still hot enough and powerful enough to radiate its heat even across such a distance, spanning many times its own width.

I woke up at this point, disappointing this conversation had only taken place there and not in the waking world. You should visit here if you're interested in learning more about Solar System scales:
http://www.noao.edu/education/peppercorn/pcmain.html

And that's just the Solar System.  The Solar System. That's just the Heliosphere, which is the sphere of our sun's influence; past this tiny shell, which itself is like a grain of sand compared to the nebulae and clusters of our galaxy, lies an entire cosmos filled with progressively larger and larger structure, past the realm of human comprehension.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Journey Through the Stars - III

Your ship is old now. For countless eons, more than you can count, you've been traveling the void of space. Off on the starboard a pulsar comes up, emitting its constant beacon like a lone lighthouse on the edge of the infinite sea, radiating its light in a constant spin. You hear its pulsations on board:

"Oh God, it's beautiful," says the Captain, still weary, old in age and hardly there, it's felt. No one knows what goes on in the mind of the old man, only that he sits there looking at the stars, rarely breaking his slumbering, eternal gaze to issue a word or two. For the most part the mission takes care of itself; it's almost at mission's end. Home no longer exists; space is his home.

The racketous beating leaves the hull, and the distant, spinning light fades away from the dark view of the inner hull. It fades away into the myriad of off-colored stars, tinted with the decay of countless years like a silent graveyard whose lights are the spirits of the dead through which we wade. The ship is old, and she's been good, carrying out her assignment to the last, at one with the aging Captain of whose secrets she alone is shared. How beautiful the journey has been, now to die among the stars; one more light fading out.

The trip has been long and hard. Silence has settled around most of the ship; few of the original crew are left. For the old generation which left ages ago, it is the end.

Now you are deep. There is no sun here, no stars to light the path. You are so deep that there is nothing around you for hundreds of light-years. Color fades. Surrounded only by darkness. You are so far out... your eyes begin to see. In the distance, a luminous band comes to light; the Milky Way, slowly rotating in her cosmic path, and then another light; Andromedia. The skies are full of stars; of galaxies, sweeping and vast, of stars and pulsars, of nebulae shifting in the vast void, of countless stars and lights which you cannot account for.

It is a fitting song for your last moments. The vision burns into your eyes, the last light transmitted to your eyes a mirage of a million worlds and stars, of grand formations of cosmic medium, of the vast voids and vantage points from which your solitary ship now wades ever slowly through the infinite gulfs, to drift forever through time and space without end. No regrets, my friends. Old Captain sits in his throne, neither alive or dead, simply sitting there as if waiting, and petrified, for whatever he's been searching for. You look upon from the command deck for the last time, and then close your eyes. The music comes back to your ears; you remember all those times aboard when you heard the universe's song. Then it all turns to silence, like the ever void itself.

... the end

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Journey Through the Stars - II

Your ship continues on. The darkness has taken you, the void all around. The sun is but another star now, fainter by the day. The last you see of your own system are those two little marbles floating on the edge, Uranus and Neptune, which in their separate systems live their isolated and dark existences on the edge of an abyss. Beyond here is the Kuiper belt, more distant and wide-spanning than the one further in, with cold dark bodies, some large, some small, hanging over their distant center like an intricate mobile. Further on feeds it into the Oort cloud, the shell of silent comets, beyond which lies the limit of the heliosphere, the final departure from the sun's influence and into the influence of interstellar space.

Even out here on the edge of the void already, the sounds of the hewed giants, last stops of the solar system, hang ever in the air of your passing ship.



Now on the solar system's last stop, Neptune. After this, there will be no more giants of color and moons; just a dark void of silent comets and asteroids tumbling in the black vacuum.

From here on out, you are entering the interstellar zone. From here on out, you are entering the infinite.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

The Importance of Sound

Audio is life.

The universe itself is made of vibrations - super-strings resonating at different levels, defining their existence - different frequencies of energy and existence standing out as forms manifest in the universe. All exist as vibrations, although on subtle and unknown scales - probably stretching to infinity - at the cosmic center of chaos. These waves give things their definition and nature - everything resonates on a certain level, whether distinguishable in the material universe or in a dimension beyond. When waves cease, so does the Existence - it fades into death and nothing. All that exists exist as a combination of waves emitted across the universe. Everything from the tiniest of atoms to galaxies emit these waves and frequencies according to their own nature.

Even you exist with waves. The planets emit waves, though there's no air to transfer sound through - it merely travels as radiated energies, pulsing like silent but active beacons shedding their energy. They emit their own sounds, songs and frequencies as surely as they exist themselves - the natural resonance of the universe and all of it's manifested and fragmented forms (that is, fragmented from the primordial source, the Monad).

As animals, a certain sensory function we have is hearing, which can pick up audible manifestations of these waves. Every sound is a vibration or a combination of vibrations causing something in the world - even hearing a skillet clanging against a frying pan is hearing these vibrations, since it is a physical product of these two things' existences and interactions with each other. We hear sound everyday, and often times we take it for granted - music is humanity's great delight, for it helps us comprehend the rhythms of existence. Like our own breath, the universe's rhythm is a steady pulse, a beat which is eternal and emanated in a million forms, all of different speed and depth. Good music will have synchrony with these things, while bad music is chaotic and often artificial in its conjectured and ephemeral noises that lack a foundation in pure emanation.

When men sit down by the sea and watch the waves come and go, they hear the sounds of the sea, the howling and the waves, but most of all they hear the gentle ebb and flow of the water, the back-and-forth rhythm of the sea. Even the sea, that vast ocean much like the void, resonates on an easily audible level for mankind to hear.

So then, whenever we listen to the sounds of the universe, it is a reconnection with things more ancient than humanity; with the original universe itself. These primordial sounds help us to synchronize our focus into the greater picture, the metauniverse so to speak, on a stage higher than this existence and beyond the pale of human perception. Once the humanist perception is abandoned in favor of the wider one, the natural rhythms are recognized and man can finally become one with everything - through sound, he is able to reawaken, reconnect to that which was once lost to humanity through its ignorance and fallen-ness.

Music has a function too. Like every other medium, it can be used for manipulation of mood changing; the mass media of today often blare loud chaotic music in order to frenzy the consumers up at the cost of their organic spiritual connectivity. Marching music instils powers of pride and morale, even when faced with absurd opposition; Bach's abstract artistry invokes a particular set of mind too. Classical Music is revealed to enable the creative process to a greater degree when exposed to the human mind during infancy; and often times music becomes a man's last and only solace from a world of pain, their only joy in a bleak and joyless world, the only thing keeping them going. Music should be used wisely, to the greatest of our benefit - to reconnect, to understand, to motivate and better ourselves.

Also like media does, with delicate artistry Music can transport people to another world, the world of the song. Enya's Only Time was one of the first songs I heard that really affected me - it transported me to an entirely different reality, removed from the bleak world in which I lived. As a child, my imagination went far off, to far sunny island among crystal blue waters, with turtles and dolphins, with soft sands and cool air, things that in the recesses of my mind I was not afraid to experience, and it was only able to be discovered and accessed by this song. I didn't know it at the time, but I had discovered the power of music on the imagination. I still remember the first time I heard the song, on the crackling radio in a daycare bus. No one really said anything about it, since it was just some hit at the time - but secretly I really liked it, even though I didn't know what it was called. Book's often have the power to transport readers to other fields of experience from which their humanly limitations often prevent from ever knowing, and the same goes for music. With the aid of music, a whole range of experiences are possible.

Audio, as a holy manifestation of vibrations audible to the human ear, is also intrinsic in meditation. This goes for language as well; contrary to the contemporary notion that language was random and relative, language was originally ordered from the issuance of vibrational correspondence to real-world objects and concepts, not the chaotic memorization-system of today. Language was built rather on what people naturally felt inclined to describe an object as, since it's transcripted audible sound was universal - only in this latter day and age, with its degeneration, have languages become a subject of pure relativity with the only vestiges of holy resonance being their dying heritage.

The Vedic school of Hinduism still teaches the importance of sound resonation, and it's also why Sanskrit is considered a Holy Language; it is purer and closer in its sounds to the original vibrations than modern day languages are. The holy sound "aum" is also to be closely inspected here. This goes without saying that sounds have a particular holy value; when strung in a certain way, they resonate and it creates synchrony with certain fluctuations, which is the basis of all magical and meditative acts. That is how spells and incantations worked and why meditation was often associated with certain sounds. Sound a key ingredient in helping meditation.

Listening to natural rhythms is an humbling experience. It is important to the human body, since it responds to sounds the same way it does to the changing of the seasons or the tides of the moon. Sound has the power to help our consciousness to new levels. It is one of the senses that, if used wisely and not self-destructively, can help bring a great advancement in spiritual and mental understanding.

Sound is important, sound is indispensable - it is a way of observing the known universe. Rhythms we can recognize on a primal level - the realities of the cosmos resonate throughout.

Monday, October 3, 2011

Journey Through the Stars - I

You are about to embark on a journey that will take a whole lifetime. Your ship will be heading out of the solar system - beyond to the stars of the galaxy, to the core and then to the cold and quiet void of space. But even in these frozen depths, silent waves silently grind like the pulsing beatings of an ethereal sea, echoing through the radios and receptors of your ship in the vastness of the void.

Your mission will encompass many sights and sounds - the quantum waves of the planets will be broadcasted across your ship's radio. You will pass by the outer planets on your trip; using Jupiter to swing around towards Neptune while meeting Saturn and Uranus along the way - then out of the solar system, where beyond the Oort Cloud of sunless floating masses, you'll be amongst interstellar space - the first step in your long journey. There you will progress past an array of nearby stars along your path, until finally you've reached the immense propensity of the void and the sum of your journey. The natural rhythms of the universe.

Before embarking for the first step out of the solar system, the captain's only words before takeoff are: "So begins our nine million mile trek out of the reaches of our solar system."


Embarking

For days you go by. Nothing seems to move; earth is all but gone now, soon reduced to a small lit orb in the distance of the window, and then not there at all. The orbit of Mars has been passed, and now your ship is lumbering through the asteroid fields. You don't see any asteroids, because they're so far apart - even as you accelerate, none come in view of the ship. Even though countless swarms of asteroids inhabit this vestigial and forgotten belt, the vast distances of space make you truly see their greatness.

The bright orb of the Giant has loomed for months now. It grows slightly by the day, like a star, until finally you can see it's swirling eye and the bands of clouds. Faint glimpses of moons can be seen here and their, satellites flickering in rays of distant-traveled sunlight just right to see. The faint pattern of Jupiter's mutter crackles faintly, for even out here the signals begin to become audible. Even so far out here, the faint and silent breath of the Giant continues on like a ceaseless tide, an immersed rhythm of waves and frequency.

The vibrations of the planet become stronger, and as you get closer, the Giant fills the viewscreen with its enormous, lumbering presence, imposing and mighty, and now the song of Jupiter distinctly rings its murmur across the ship:
Jovian song rings in a quiet murmur across the ship, like the muttering and hooting of a sleeping giant. The eye whirls steadily past, enough to engulf a thousand worlds, your ship to say the least. The faint roundness of Europa gleams yellowish in the distance, yet the approach will not be closer. The mighty giant passes you, as surely as it came, and again you are left with no indication of your own movement. The eternal sounds fade away with distance back into silence, only a steady and constant hum of the on board receptors; background radiation. The ringed planet is still too far off in the distance, but even from here you immediately recognize the two protrusions of the disk shaping each side - the sides of the rings. The boost from Jupiter's gravity has given us an additional lift, and from here it's smooth sailing until we reach Saturn.

Over the weeks the calm orb comes closer. We see, as opposed to Jupiter, the calm and placid bands of Saturn's cool sandy clouds, it's shape elongated from a peculiar formation. The rings are vast and sharp; we soon enter in range of Saturn's song.

First it is a hum. Then a steady rumble. Like the sea at night, the ceaseless grinding of the orbits continue their well-known paths - the mighty god's waves strike the ship, eerily floating across the bridge. You and the captain hear it; all take a break from the controls to listen as the receptors pick up. They dim the lights, so that only the LEDs of the monitor lights continue to glow. Outside the vast window of the observation deck, spanning around the bridge, Saturn looms silently in the distance, her wave's sounding across the bridge. Soon we cross the rings; they are under us, and the immense size of Saturn becomes appearant. With proximity grows the intensity of the noise - we sleep with it day and night. We simply sit on bridge and listen to her eternal song:

The sun is so distant now. Only the outer plane gives solace.

The immense span of the rings floats beneath the ship. Below, you see the crystal thin disk slowly rotating beneath. The inside of the ring is only meters thick, composed of various ice crystals variously spaced and sized, from grains of sand to the size of cars. You imagine going to retrieve ice from the rings for water - of walking amongst the ice forms of the rings, of dipping in and out of the immense disk's plane. Yet you know such pristine beauty shouldn't be touched by man's orders - and further yet, that all your provisions for the rest of your life are stored aboard for safe keeping. Still, the ever present rings merge closer, and their particular sound can be heard too:

Come take a journey with me-
To beyond the stars where man can't see.

Saturn's form drifts away like the others, a lone giant.
Once again the sounds fade out, left with the sounds of the ether and the ship.
So ends the first part of the journey.

Continue to Part II

Saturday, October 1, 2011

Bljaidi

It came to me in a dream; the faint picture in my head remembered from a whole night's worth of dreaming, a crepuscular digital screen with the words typed " bljaidi " on it, and I understood what it meant; at least in some of the words I knew what they meant without ever having seen them before.

That morning I recorded the occurrence in my journal (dream diary), and began to work on the language. It was a Germanic mix of Baltic and Slavic phonology and influence, taken from the basest roots of the proto-Germanic tongue and applied to an estranged Baltic people on the Baltic coast. Perhaps they were conquered by Teutons? In any case, the more I wrote down things about the language, the more it came to me the words and the constructs that I'd seen in my dream. From what little I had I built off of it to create an entire lexicon for use, and I consider it one of my better conlangs. It was kind of the executive product of my maturation from Lamian, the conclusion of that current; I don't have a name for it, and I've been using Bljaidi since it was the first word I saw (it means bright) and Dyliht (which means twilight).
Some samples:

Ej studan - I study
Ej studans - I am studying
Eje studans - I was studying
Eje studan par Gotisk - I have studied for German, I studied German
Eje studans par Gotisk - I was studying German, I've been studying for German

All verbs end in -an, (some end in -ain), equivalent to the Germanic -en and the Latin -um, and often time this follows a vowel deletion between the letters of the Germanic root; e.g. beran - to bear or to have becomes bran. The Germanic feature ge-, corresponding with Old English a-, has instead transferred from the verb to the Subject and becomes a Subject suffix; for example, Ej estudan, "I studied", became Eje studan, and it stuck that way. Therefore, the Past Tense is made by affixing an -e to the end of the Subject. The verb itself does not change for Past Tense.

Future tense is marked by an -e to the end of the verb, observe the following: (ex. ej bran - I have)
Ej brane - I will have
Eje brane - I was going to have

Passive Mood is achieved simply by dropping the -n at the end of a verb.  For example, bran becomes bra, and in a sentence, ej bran - I have, ej bra - I am had.

Continuous mood (English -ing, e.g. I am studying) is marked by an -s affixed to the end of the verb; studan becomes studans, and bran becomes brans (just like study becomes studying, and have becomes having). Continuous mood for Passive verbs adds an -ni to the verb: bra becomes brani - ej brani means "I am being had". Another example: Gotisk studani i Galjar - German is studied in France.

Nouns

Nouns come in a certain variety: ones that end in -ad, -eo, -i, -av and -t. The ones with the -ad suffix are the most common. Their declension is rather simple:
Blad - flower

Nominative - Blad, pl: Bladi
Accusative  - Blad, pl: Blaidi

Genitive is simply marked by placing the owner at the end of the expression, usually in Accusative Plural case, for example: stav draidi - stem of the tree, where stav is stem and drad is tree.
You thought that was easy? Most of the other endings don't even have declensions. There are some exceptions, such as words that end in -t:
Naht - night

Nominative - Nyt,   pl. Nahti
Accusative -  Naht, pl: Nahti
(**note that -aht is also spelled as -iht).
For the -v declension (e.g. stav - staff, stem) simply follow the -ad declension but replace the d with v (e.g. stav, staivi). Words that end in -i become -y for their Pluralization, but otherwise they do not decline.

Nouns also each have an Adjectival Form and an Additional Form; the Adjectival form simply placed a -j after the first letter of the noun; drad becomes drjad, and it makes it into an adjective. Therefore, drjad would mean strong or durable, since it is the quality of a tree. In order to add an adjective to a word, you must place the adjective behind the word and set it to the Accusative Plural case. If the Noun being described is plural, then the adjective must be in singular.
Example:

stav drjaidi - strong stem
stavi drjad  - strong stems

The Additional form is basically used for word building; whenever you combine two words to make a compound word, the Front word is in its Additional form. This usually is just replacing the last letter with an -i, for example, Drad becomes Drai. With this we can make words using tree and stem; Draistav means "trunk", literally meaning "Tree-Staff" or "Tree-Stem". Words that end in -i (like sti, meaning "grain")have the Additional form of -y, so Sti becomes Sty. Examples of compound words:

Blaistav - stem (like a flower's stem, the stalk); also letter or rune (bright-staff, the lines of letters)
Blaisti    - flower seeds
Draistav - tree trunk
Draisti   - tree seeds

Words that end in -av and -eo do not have different Additional Forms; the words would not change when you use them in compound words. Compound words are not only limited to nouns, but extend to verbs too:

dan - to do
blaidan - to bloom
draidan - to be strong

There are many other features of Bljaidi that are far too extensive to go over here. It is by far my most complete conlang, and I am proud of it; I built it naturally and instinctively. The first words in the lang were blad, bleo (which also means flower/bloom), and dry (meaning tree, in the context of a forest, not an alone tree).  For those of you wondering, the y is pronounced like the German ü and the -aidi is pronounced something like English "-ithey", imagine saying "lithey". Whenever there is an I near the D, the D is pronounced as a soft Th sound.
I also tried to make each Nationality-name unique by making it have a history behind it, thus:

Gal - French (Gaulish, Celtic)
Got - German (Gothic, Geat, Gotlandic)
Lav - Russian (Slav, with s- deletion)

Either -jar or -jum can be added to denote a country; Galjar or Galjum for France, for example.

I'll post more on the vocabulary lists later. Sample texts are easy to make; the creative versatility that this language offers is great.

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Zanis

Sometimes I'd go off on a tangent and contrive an entire conlang in a matter of hours. Often time I did this just for fun, with no other purpose. I've struggled with this madness many times, most of the time throwing away what I've created and never looking back to it. But the call is there. It consumes all other things, and makes me want to write.

Zanis was one such tangent. It fulfilled this puerile conception I had in mind of an archival language, purposed for simple transcription of information while retaining a "cool sound" that was both Arabesque and as if it was spoken by some arcane cult.
Of course, it's not a complete language. Here's what I have of it,

a-       without
ba-     great, revered
be-     in-, to put into
ne-     de-, under
bas     shatter, break free from
barz    dark, obscure, unseeable
bog     god, deity
brog    demon, troll
hal      lord, holy one
hath    holy
kal     chain, bind; kahal - fetters, prison
kat     creation, confection
nig     swarthy, blackened
nun    really, only, just
rak     possession; marak - my, sarak - your, sharak - her
sal     current, existence, soul, besal - influence, leadership; destruction
sar     to do
sath   equal, limit, saturation, dichotomy, reveal, under; asath - without equal
sha     she
shab   slave
shal    planet, world; beshalatki - to spirit away/whisk away to another world, neshalatki - to bury
sheb   servant, tool; beshebatki - to enslave
sher    illusion, irreality; sherkatki - to deceive
shub   beast, animal, goat
yab    void, space
yog    one, whole
zha     who, which
-ai      from
-al      the
-an     (verbs) can, able
-at      turns the word into a verb, -atki - to, turns verb into infinitive form
-ath    -ness
-na    not, no (also written as -ne), e.g. sathne - not equal
-s      (verbs) equatorial suffix, e.g. shas - she is
-ta     the
-urath    adjectival suffix, e.g. hal barzurath - Unseeable Lord

I imagined some inhabitant of a city from Lovecraft's dreams to have spoken this. It's obvious to see how Shub Niggurath is derived from this. There may have been other names as well. I don't plan on working on it anymore since it was a tangent... just something interesting to look at.

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Lamian Words

How to change cases/Declension guide: Lamian Cases

Words that do not end in -as  decline just like normal words except that the Nominative form often lacks -as. This is because those words are not derived from verbs.

Lexicon:

aithas - aether, od, aetheral energy and being
aras - air, nobility
asmas - position, way
doas - yonder (adj)
dos - stone, brick, sediment, v.1 to sediment, to settle, to cake, to amass, to harden
edas - unrelenting, ferocious, in fury, entranced, possessed
eiras - heights, angels
elas - heroy, bravery, spirit, will, friend, fellow, compatriot
eles - eye
epas - far-reaching, wide, long
etas - forewarning, ominous
gathas - flame, spark, figuratively a man, v. to dance, wisp
lapas - component, piece, unit, part
lepas - particle, unit, atom
magas - power, alchemy, science, magus
mayas - nurse, sister, nourisher, chaneller for Galas, attending maiden, tool, mother

modas - vibration, current, world, alterium, bound excursion (not used in sense of universe or altraum), bound fragment, continuum, the current world ,(mode of existence)

ostas - light, glow, the gentle light of morning, forms: ostemlai = sun's rays, ostayor = morning
palas - color, shade, shadow, emission, fruit, bud, flower, cast (thing itself)
paras - sphere, globe (geometry), v. to glide, orbit, go across
pelas - shade, skin, surface, shell (sea shell), face, thing
saras - sea/ocean, swarm, heavy
sopas - courteous host
uram - depths, waters; uncountable (uran)
bai - bee, wasp
both - chamber, compartment, hole, cell, burrow, nest, boith - honeycomb
eon - onion, bulb
dan - fir tree, fir forest
daum - smoke, light ash, scent, daumith - heavy ashes
thel - bird, avian
thuen - home, place where things belong
duen - path, way, course, track, loc. edueneas=to follow one's orbit
duer - gate

dul - rampart, room, pocket, enclave, cave, bunker, shelter, domain, vicinity, layer, inside of a shell (shell is shield/field/wall/barrier/gate/structure)

dun - noise, rumble, din
dum - depths, space, room
dur - dimension, world, especially a higher one; the spirit world, greater cosmic current, metaworlds
dirg - earth
don - unstable, dizzy, dancing, falling, shaking, trembling, abused
durg - shame, embarassment, serpent, scar
emla - tree, female
gam - heat, energy
gasma - see yab
 lad - liquid, oil, bathe, foam
lan - cloth, fabric, linen, a line, strap, lace
lath - track of land, enclosement, land

las - lapus lazuli, cutting force, culling force, n o t e : gerimith and lasimith are considered sister-stones- one for growing, one for shearing. v. form is "shear" or "to cut". v. to cut

les - lace, string
lith - tear, rain drop (especially when the drop is running down something)
lod - body, shadow, shape, contour
lom - ample bosom, womb
lor - shadow, place, cast
lur - petal, flower petal, also used figuratively to mean child, a bud
man - place, temple, house
mas - lily pad, moss, algae, any soft cover
mes - moss, algae
min - love, eternal existence
mis - stream, brook, smaller river; moisture in soil, humidity
mith - stone, or grey
moc - forest, boundary, sea (of sth)

mor - field, sea, forms: moras yor/morayur = nightfall, twilight (when the stars appear, lit. opening of the field of stars)

mur - place, land, person, place-spirit, a whisper, a murmur, murmur in the earth. murai are trapped in the ground

mus - damp, tainted, filled, touched
nal - soft, like ground powder
nel - clump, lump, bump, clod, hill,hilltop (also nol)
nan - water, light/soft/powdery snow
nar - pond creature, insect
nas - snowy, snow, water, fluid-like, liquidy
nis - water, snow (harder than nas)
nin - snow
nir - band, chain, bridle, reign, strap, as a verb: to wrap around (lan)
niur - soon

nor - hole, gash, wound, defect, opening, crag, tear, lit. a "both" that has been emptied or hollowed out

num - cloud, nebula, collection of many things, brains, thought/conception/inception, nursery, free/anscestral spirits of a place too

nur - child, child of the stream, elf, water-mur, nymph, bride, blossom. Like mur, but less restricted to a place, transcendant of earth, or a running stream or growing plant

pad - a small trail on a hill or through a meadow, as a verb: to go along a path
reth - root, toe, foot, origin, support, spoke; red, rose, as a verb: to originate
sal - salt, mineral, powder, substance, medicine, lime (Salimith - rocky substance, ore)

sar - heavy, beating, pounding, smashing, hammer, something that comes down, falls (galasar - the fading/falling of a star)

sat - crystal, clarity, accuse, say truth, implant
sot - spilling, lumbering, saturation, bursting, decadent
sin - metal, ore
thal - to reckon, account for, count, take into order, inspect: thalas, also means "initiate"
thaud - corner, extreme or minimum of an ellipse, apsis, periapsis, apoapsis
ther - wind, zephyr, gust, expulsion, convulsion, breeze of air, breath
yab - gap, void, chasm, expansive
yar - segment, portion, instance (usually of time), point, spot, one out of a whole
yel - cold, devoid of heat or energy, dead

yer - procession, process, march, order forth, plan that is enacted, line, row as a verb: to proceed, march, go forth, and when paired with object = to depart

yir - sequence, set, order, line, row

yol - hill, mound, boulder, parabolic expression or protrusion, usually of land (Yolas Dirg). Yoluas is the arch of a letter, and yollan/lanas yol is arch.

yor/yur/gur - reinstigation, resurrection, rising, coming
yun - vegitable, bulb, herb

asaras - lake
osaras - pond
aluas - eternity
aluen - river
oluas - word, rune, inscription, script, letter, chant
eleas - seat, pedestel
etei - may you be
ulos - inhale
elos - exhale
thar - vector

Examples of combinations:

emla - tree
emlayir - a row of trees
emlith - a small group of trees
emlayer - procession of trees, as a verb: cutting down a tree (emlayeras, emlayerin, emlayeranniur)

Suffixes:


-aies    many
-ain     having done something
-ainna    most, very (adjectival)
-en     instrumentive noun maker
-eni    how many
-ete    as, like, in the way/mode of
-i        with
-ine    (verbs) to, in order to, towards (opposite of tei)
-iat    agent marker/having done something, e.g. miriat = having seen
-iet    being as, as a, being, to be
-ior    question marker (v/n)
-ioru    question marker, "if without"
-o       from, by, because of
-te      gerund, subjunctive marker (v) (-ing, jp. -te)
-tei     when, if, during the moment of, after this, direct subjunctive for (v), describes following event
-un     time, place, event, also -eimas
-an     (verb) conjugate marker, also means "that which", in continuous verbal sense (especially when not connected to any suffix.)

poetic devices:
-iol    (unknown)
-em    related to the speaker
-es     related to the listener

yey    now and then, sporadically
yayu    beginning, suddenly
yoyu    suddenly
yoy      now
yae      then, that, in which
de        last

a    and, but also
e    and, also, with
cyo    what, interrogative pronoun (as in cyo leseinne?')
sa     then, therefore, so, thus, well, anyways
ta     singularly, only, alone, just, w/o when paired w/ gen
ue    for what, towards what, lit. "towards not?", also means reason or cause
ut    and

mui      negation, not, ex. easiet mui easiet:to be or not to be
muie    no more, not any more
muis    if not, if not for, without
mie      ever, never, forever
mies    if ever

This should be my last post about Lamian. It was good while it lasted. Take what you can from it.

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Lamian Verbs

The verbs of my conlang, Lamian, are a mix in grammar between Indo-European stems and Japanese morphology. The verbs also follow a uniquely philosophical series of laws. All infinitives are given in the "past tense". There are three tenses that preside over Lamian verbs.

1. Present tense, or "Temporal Tense" - these describe actions happening now, or actions which happen only in the immediate present. Such actions are not continuous and happen within a short period of time; they can be repeated, but they happen "in the now". They describe actions that are temporal, and describe only one instance of the action it describes.

2. Past tense, or "Continuous Tense" - these describe continuous actions, or actions that things tend to do overtime continuously. These include descriptions of processes that repeat and exist throughout time and beyond time; for example, the rotations of the planets is a continual process, and would commonly by represented with the Past Tense, as if to say, "That which was, is and will always be".

3. Future tense - these describe actions that will happen soon, or are predestined to happen.


Take the statement, einin, which means "rotates" or "it rotates". Since it is in the Present tense, it means something akin to "it rotates now" or "at the moment it rotates"; it implies that it may or may not rotate in the future, and that it may or may not have rotated in the past - only that it rotates at the moment of the speaker. It describes a current reality that may be unique to this time. One might say, "a book spins", because someone flips a book into the air - it describes a temporal motion of an object. Books do not tend to spin, and the spinning book has not always spun nor will spin naturally in the future - but it spins now, and that is expressed with the Present tense.

The statement, einas, which means "rotated" or "rotates", is descriptive of the continuous process of rotation. For example, the rotation of a book, as in the previous example, would never be expressed in the Past tense, since the action only happens "in the now". However, something like the rotation of a planet would be expressed with the Past tense, since it is something that has existed and continues to exist. The Lamian philosophy states that temporal actions do not exist in the long-run of time, only "in the now". It also states that anything in the past worth recording are continual processes, since these are the only actions which have real and everlasting importance. This eliminates triviality, and therefore Past tense expresses actions that continue to effect us even today. It also expresses reoccurring things and things that continue to act a certain way. An example of this sense in English would be, "He shaves". The sense of this statement doesn't mean that he shaves at that very instance, but it means that he shaves reoccurring, that it is something continuous that he does that is not a one-time action expressive of only a present occurrence. It is a reoccurring, or eternal, action by the person, an action that has happened and thus continue to happen as before. That is the nature which the Past tense is expressive of. Future tense is just expressive of something that is predetermined to happen, and uses the element "niur", which means "soon".

There exists a certain set of attachable prefixes in Lamian that each give a specific extended meaning to a verb. For example, the prefix e- means "across" or "trans", like the P.I.E. prefix "s-", and it also implies a certain earthly or temporal nature for the verb. The verb leas  means to lay down, to found, to chose and to collect, and when it is paired with this prefix, eleas means to lie across something, to stretch across, to cover or to place on something. It implies specifically something earthly or relating to the physical, such as stretching a blanket of night over the land, or a country lying in a particular corner of the earth, or simply lying down. Common combinations of these prefixes are supplied in the Verb list, while other combos are left to the creative combination of the writers.

Verbs are also closely linked with nouns, since in Lamian every noun was developed from a parent verb. Both the Past tense of a Lamian verb, which is expressive of continual existence, and the nominative case of a Lamian noun, which is expressive of an unchanging object, have the same ending: -as. This is because they originate from the same ending. For example, the word lamas by itself means both light and to illuminate. This is because the Lamian philosophy states that the statement of a noun automatically indicates the main reoccurring tenancy of the thing, and statement of a verb automatically implies the presence of the thing which naturally/continually preforms that action. Therefore, to say "lamas" implies the presence of light as well as the reoccurring action of light, which is to illuminate, thus expressing the existence of light.

However, there are times when one object preforms an action that is not typical to it; for example, a light could burn something or blind something. In this case, you would state both the noun lamas and the word for burning, beras. The object of the sentence, which is the receiver of the action, can also be attached to the verb by using an -a- stem, for example, lamam ganas, which means "to summon light", can also be expressed as "lamaganas". Lamas has its ending changed to a simple -a and then added onto ganas, which means to call or summon.

Word order is usually subject - object - verb. Whenever the verb happens to be the same as the subject, for example lamas - light and to illuminate, the order is simply subject - object or verb-object, since they are the same. When the object is attached to the verb, it becomes subject - verb, since in that case, the verb is not the same as the subject.

This way redundancy is reduced, so instead of saying lamas modam lamas ("the light lights the world"), you would say "lamas modam" or "modam lamas", or even just "modalamas".


Verb list:

aithas    to breath, fluctuate, rhythm

agas    to absolve, eat, absorb (dumie eragas - to fade (into darkness), also gamageas - to fade, lit. stretch heat, experience entropy, to bleed)

beras    to pulse, throb, twinkle, go in and out (when paired with noun in locative case = in and out of (noun), e.g. in and out of the trees). Related word: belai - flowers (lit. the blooms, blossoms,)

degas    to burn

eas    to exist, to be; Related words: eam - existence

eras    to thus be, to so be (eas paired with prefix -er)

einas    to become, turn, rotate; Related words: einai - rotational periods, of day cycle, rotation

elas    to keep, hold, retain, withhold, have, show, bear, exhibit

enas    to command, put forth, lead, decide, rule, reign, take ownership/responsibility, put, mandate, enact; Related words: enam - ruler, lord, king, ienas - to disperse, dismiss

erenas    to so be ordered/commanded

galas    to nurture, sustain, produce; Related word: galam - fount, fountain, well, star, duct

gamas    to charge, warm, Related word: gamen - hearth, fireplace

geas    to gape, stretch, open wide, n. chasm, gap, universe/cosmos (also yasma/gasma/casma)

gemas    to pour, flow into, flood, swarm

ganas    to call, summon, bring, charge, call out for, conjure, name

duorganas - to summon a bridge

genas    to progenate, continue, produce, make alive, go on, make go on

geras    to make timed, emerge, begin, coming into being, make becoming; geram - plant (?) (lit. growths), geraduen - time's flow

geril - plant, flower

 gerith - garden

geren    vessel of time, ath. that bears the mark of time, the fruit of time, grain, harvest, crop, culture; sth through which you can mark the time

lamas    to illuminate, emit; lamam - light, lamen - lamp, lantern, vessel

leas    to gather, collect, count, tell, lay down, choose, judge, found; layam - law, order, dictation, judgement, transform

eleas    to lie across or on something, or, to stretch across, lie (as in a place), be placed on sth., or, to traverse

erleas    to found, dictate

lipas    to slip, evade, glide, get out of or in way, +gen. slip away from, when paired with noun in locative case = slip into, through or within

litas    to slide, ski or surf. Similar to lipas except it requires a medium to run down; to tear or rain

luas    to record, mark, scratch, leave mark, crest, stroke; luam - record, recording, text, work, piece of work

oluen    book, written material, codex

ithas    to meet, congregate, transit; allign; galithas - planetary allignment, planetary transit

luseas    to search for

meas    to mow, reap, cut, take, put into, insert, take (as in to eat); omean - scythe, tool for reaping

melas    to crush, hit, bring in, grind, compact (i.e. gravity); melen - container of gravity, hammer, graviton

miras    to behold, bear witness, witness; miram - miracle, spectacle, sight, vista, vision

nathas    to give, the accusitive to need or be needed by

niuras    to come, be soon, be resultant

pagas    (unknown)

samas    to unify, make one, bring together

semas    n. sense, nature, as in something's nature, aspect, essence, being

seas    to say, differentiate, tell, judge to be so, discern, proclaim

oseas    to depart

eseas    to see through, see visions, use the third eye, see from afar, to dictate from divine posession

erseas    to say, speak, proclaim

thas    to concieve, give birth to, make, create, bring into world (or asthas); lamasthas - create light


Verb prefixes:

e       through, across, around, over
a       over, into
o       related to an object, means to an end
er, ere    literally, physically, resultantly
tha         fore-, in favor of, -like,
i             inter-, ex-, dis-, un-, atomize
po          with-, con-

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Deciphering Nostraman II


See: 
Nostraman Grammar  (new)
Deciphering Nostraman I

The second Night Lords book by Dembski-Bowden, Blood Reaver, expands much upon the initial pretext of Nostraman and provides ample examples throughout of the Nostraman language. We are given even more clues as to the nature of Nostraman… Below I have the collected examples from the book, and their approximate meanings.

Ashilla sorsollun, ashilla uthullun
I am blind, I am cold
Since the words meaning “blind” and “cold” are both described as literally meaning “sunless”, we can derive that sorsollun and uthullun are the terms for blind and cold, with the suffix –llun or –un meaning “-less” or “without”. Therefore, ashilla would mean I, or perhaps “I am”.

Asa fothala su’surushan
(A term of dismissal)

Vaya vey… ne’sha.
I don’t… understand.
Since I described the use of the apostrophe in the previous post as being a possible contraction of a pronoun, ne’sha could retain the meaning “I” or maybe a negation like “not”. Therefore, Vaya vey ne’sha – I don’t understand.

Shrilla la lerril
(jibe, “whore that mates with dogs”)

Vellith sar’darithas, volvallasha sor sul
(From this I postulate the ending –asha might mean “I”)

Tosha amthilla van veshi laliss
This vessel is cursed
We see tosh and tesh in Nostraman – I think this might be the demonstrative pronoun “this”, similar to the English variation of “this” and “that”. Since “vasha” might correspond with the verb “to have” as conjectured below, veshi could be another conjugation of the Nostraman term “to have”, as if to say more literally, “This vessel has a curse”.

Forfallian dal sur shissis lalil na sha dareel
We must be cautious, watch yourself

Sil vasha nuray
He has no arms
Vasha could be the third-person singular conjugation for the Nostraman word “to have”.

Sinthallia shar vor vall’velias
That woman will be the death of us
The suffix –thallia might mean “that”. If that is true, then “amthilla” from earlier means “this ship”. In that case, we don’t know what tosha/tesh means.

Corshia sey
Breathe now (a deadly greeting)
Alternatively, breathe while you still can. I believe sey here means “now” and corshia is some conjugation of the verb “to breathe”.

Nishallitha
Poisonous

Athrillay, Vylas
Greetings, brother
This is pretty self-explanatory. The –ill suffix could possibly be a pluralization, and kinship terms seem to have many v’s and l’s (e.g. Viris colratha).

Vulusha, vulusha sethrishan?
How much?
Alternatively, How, how much?

Hopefully, since this is a trilogy, the Dembski-Bowden’s third book in this series will come out soon and perhaps shed some real light on this language.

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Deciphering Nostraman I

See:
Nostraman (main article)
Deciphering Nostraman II

In the dark future, there is only conlanging. Aaron Dembski-Bowden's novel Soul Hunter embarks on the presentation of the constructed language Nostraman, which is the obscure and native language of the Night Lords legion in the Warhammer 40k universe. Since the language seems to have some semblance of consistency, I think Dembski-Bowden has a certain formula for this language that he's only revealed to us in little snippets so far. We are only given sparse phrases in Nostraman, with only rudimentary translations part of the time since Nostraman is "hard to translate" into any other tongue. 

Currently there are two books that have samples of Dembski-Bowden's Nostraman; Soul Hunter and Blood Reaver. This post will be going over the language as presented in the first book; I'll do an analysis on the text presented in Blood Reaver at a later date. 


In the book's universe, Nostraman is a grandiose and wordy language, "flowery", "The tongue had its
roots in High Gothic, but much had changed through generations of unique phrasing by faithless, truthless, peaceless people." There are obvious examples of where Nostraman words come from High Gothic (Latin), for example, what other word would mean "night" in the phrase, "Solruthis ve za jass" ? Here I postulate "Solruthis" to be a flowery word meaning "Without Sun", meaning "Night". From this we can see that "Sol" means Sun as in Latin, and that -ruthis is some kind of suffix akin to English "-less", as if to say "Sunlessness". 



Another expression come across in the book is, "Kosh, Kosh'eth tay." This is translated as an expression of thanking someone. Notice the use of the apostrophe when a word seems to be "added" to another word; in our history, languages descending from Latin often contracted forms using the apostrophe (look at French; le Amerique -> l'Amerique). Therefore, the " 'eth " might function in a similar way, for a word probably expressing an integral part of a sentence like a pronoun. Since people sometimes lengthen their graces by expanding "Thanks" into "Thank you very much", this phrase could perhaps mean something along these lines: "Thank you, thank you very much". You can see here the same pattern of repetition. So then, if Kosh is expressive of a simple "thanks", 'eth could mean "you" and tay could mean "very much" or an expression of great quantity, an intensifier. Supposing these things are true, we now have three words for which we know the meanings: kosh, 'eth and tay. We should experiment with these if found anywhere else in the sample texts in order to figure out if they indeed mean these things. 


The corpus: 


Viris colratha dath sethicara tesh dasovallian. Solruthis veh za jass. 
Sons of our father, stand in midnight clad. We bring the night. 


Athasavis te corunai tol shathen sha'shian?


Kosh, kosh'eth tay... Ama sho'shalnath mirsa tota. Ithis jasha. Ithis jasha nereoss. 


Jasca
Yes


Possible words:


Corunai      eye
Ithis            color
Jasca          yes
Jasha          nice
Kosh          thanks
Nereoss     very, an intensifier
Tay            very, an intensifier
Te              your 
Solruthis    night
Viris          sons (or father, ?)


Like I said, I am not sure about any of this, most of this is pure speculation. Please stick around for part II


(P.S. - I really hope that Dembski-Bowden actually made a conlang for this, and didn't just make up random words ;^;)

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Language of the Vril-ya

Il - God, e.g. Ilu-Aschera
Vri - as, like, both of these are Babylonian words
Vril - "As God"

Yani-Ya Koom-Zi Vril-Ya An Sumer An Drakon Aur-an
Yani-Ya Glek-Ya Sol Nax An Sorat An Drakon Aur-an

Enter the place of the Vril-ya, man of Sumer, man of Dragon to his well-being.
Enter the revolution of the Dark Sun, man of Sorat, man of Dragon to his well-being.

A-glauran - their political creed, "the first principle of a community is the good of all."Ata - sorrow
Aub - invention
Aur-an - health or well-being
Bodh - knowledge
Bodh-kum - ignorance
Ek - strife
Glata - public sorrow, public calamity
Glaubsila - poetry
Glauran - well-being of the state
Glek - universal strife
Glek-Nas - degeneration, entropy
Glun - town
Iva-zi - eternal goodness
Kum - cavern, hollowness, space (also spelled as koom)
Kum-in - hole
Kum-posh - government of the many
Kum-zi - vacancy, a void
Nan-zi - eternal evil
Naria - sin
Narl - death
Nas - corruption
Nax - darkness
Pah-bodh - futile philosophy
Pu-pra - disgust
Pu-naria - falsehood
Sila - frequency, tone
Tu-bodh - philosophy
Un - house
Veed - immortal spirit
Veedya - immortality
Ya - to go, a very important auxillary verb
Zi - to stay or repose
Zi-kum - valley
Zummer - lover
Zutze - love
Zuzulia - delight

Excerpt from Lytton's Vril:Power of the Coming Race:

Example: An - man
SINGULAR

Nom.: An, Man
Dat.: Ano, to Man
Ac.: Anam, Man
Voc.: Hil-An, O Man 
PLURAL
Nom.: Ana, Men
Dat.: Anoi, to Men
Ac.: Ananda, Men
Voc.: Hil-Ananda, O Men

Example: Ya - to go
Yam - I go
Yiam - I may go
Yani-ya - I shall go (literally, I go to go)
Zam-pu-yan - I have gone (literally, I rest from gone).


"Ya, as a termination, implies by analogy, progress, movement, efflorescence. Zi, as a terminal, denotes fixity, sometimes in a good sense, sometimes in a bad, according to the word with which it is coupled."

"By a single letter, according to its position, they contrive to express all that with civilised nations in our upper world it takes the waste, sometimes of syllables, sometimes of sentences, to express. Let me here cite one or two instances: An (which I will translate man), Ana (men); the letter s is with them a letter implying multitude, according to where it is placed; Sana means mankind; Ansa, a multitude of men."