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.