Kinuiltys, version 2

[Ambrisio]

Inspired by Kanejam's Latin lessons, I just decided to revamp my language Kinuiltys, since I don't like the way it sounds now (with those ridiculously long words, bipersonal inflections and what not). So for the new Kinuiltys, let's start with the phonology, which isn't particularly interesting:

The vowels are as before:
<a ā e ē i ī o ō u ū y> /ʌ ɑ(:) ɛ e(:) ɪ i(:) ɔ o(:) ʊ u(:) ʏ/ in Archaic Kinuiltys, /a a: e̞ e̞: i i: o̞ o̞: u u: ʏ/ in Modern Kinuiltys

The consonants are slightly different:
<p b t d k g q> /p b t d k g q/ (the allophonic rules for the stops are the same as in English)
<f v th dh s z sh zh kh gh h> /f v θ ð s z ʃ ʒ x ɣ h/ in Archaic Kinuiltys, /f v θ ð s z ɕ ʑ x ɣ h/
<ch j'> /tʃ dʒ/ in Archaic Kinuiltys, /tɕ dʑ/ in Modern Kinuiltys
<m n l r j w> /m n ʟ ɹ j w/ in Archaic Kinuiltys, /m n l r j w/ in Modern Kinuiltys

Nominal morphology:
There are six cases: nominative, genitive, partitive, essive, translative and vocative, two genders: yin and yang (feminine and masculine), and two animacy classes: animate and inanimate. Here's an example of a feminine noun: ventes 'woman'.

Code: Select all

ventes | ventēs - Nominative
vente | ventēs - Vocative
ventēn | ventēne - Genitive
ventēt | ventēte - Partitive
ventē | ventēwis - Essive
ventēkh | ventēghis - Translative

Other feminine nouns may inflect differently: shumēta 'princess'

Code: Select all

shumēta | shumētās - NOM, VOC
shumētan | shumētane - GEN
shumētat | shumētate - PART
shumētā | shumētāwis - ESS
shumētākh | shumētāghis - TRANSL

and pilwē 'daughter'

Code: Select all

pilwē | pilweis - NOM, VOC
pilwein | pilweine - GEN
pilweit | pilweite - PART
pilweī | pilweīwis - ESS
pilweīkh | pilweīghis - TRANSL

These nouns are mostly regular. Emē 'mother' declines like pilwē. Yin nouns are just like feminine nouns in the way they inflect: ilkō 'sun', for example, declines just like pilwē (so ilkoine gen. pl. and pikoīwis ess. pl.), and dianis 'brain' inflects just like ventes (so dianīs nom. pl. etc.)

Masculine nouns are different. Nouns ending in -s inflect one way:

'man'

Code: Select all

hevurys | hevurī - NOM
hevuri | hevurī - VOC
hevuri | hevuryde - GEN
hevuryt | hevuryte - PART
hevurī | hevurīwis - ESS
hevurīkh | hevurīghis - TRANSL

'father'

Code: Select all

aiwes | aiwē - NOM
aiwe | aiwē - VOC
aiwe | aiweze - GEN
aiwet | aiwete - PART
aiwē | aiwēwis - ESS
aiwēkh | aiwēghis - TRANSL

(The sound <y> can't be lengthened or appear word finally in Kinuiltys, so it becomes <i/ī>.)

while nouns ending with -on inflect another way:

'lion'

Code: Select all

airon | aira - NOM
airo | aira - VOC
airo | airone - GEN
airot | airote - PART
airoe | airoewis - ESS
airoekh | airoeghis - TRANSL

and nouns ending with -an inflect another way:

'moon'

Code: Select all

vielan | vielā - NOM
viela | vielā - VOC
viela | vielane - GEN
vielat | vielate - PART
vielae | vielaewis - ESS
vielakh | vielaeghis - TRANSL

Pronouns:
'I/we'

Code: Select all

sē | nēs - NOM
mē | nē - VOC
mēn | nēden - GEN
met | nēdet - PART
mē | nēwis - ESS
mēkh | nēghis - TRANSL

'you'

Code: Select all

tē | tīs - NOM
tē | tī - VOC
tēn | tīden - GEN
tet | tīdet - PART
tē | tīwis - ESS
tēkh | tēghis - TRANSL

'he/they (masc).' - like a masculine noun *lis in the singular and *lojes in the plural, with the following irregularities:
lī (nom. sg.)
lois (nom. pl.)
loidēwis (ess. pl.)
loidēghis (transl. pl.)

'she/they (fem).' - like a feminine noun lō in the singular and lojes in the plural

'it/they (yang) - like a masculine noun *les in the singular, except for the nom. sg. form lē; the plural is identical to 'he, they (masc).'

'it/they (yin)' - like a feminine noun *les in the singular, except for the nom. sg. form lē; the plural is identical to 'she, they (fem).'

And a sample verb: dīryn 'to sleep' (with stem dīr-)

I sleep - sē dīram
you sleep - tē dīrith (in the manuscript Aleksīn muletī, fictional astronaut Alexis Lewis explains the meaning of the th sound in the second person singular: since her pronunciation is strongly interdental, it creates the visual effect of pointing the tongue towards the addressee)
he sleeps - lī dīra
we sleep - nēs dīrmes
you sleep - tīs dīrtes
they sleep - lois dīren

(For most consonant-stem verbs, the endings are regular.)

Here are some vowel-stem verbs (thematic u): tanūn'to spy'

sē tanwam
tē tanwith
lī tanwa
nēs tanumes
tīs tanutes
lois tanwen

(thematic a): dilān 'to rest'

sē dilām
tē dilaith
lī dilā
nēs dilames
tīs dilates
lois dilaen

(thematic i): mīn 'to own'

sē miam
tē mīth
lī mia
nēs mīmes
tīs mītes
lois mien

It's an irregular verb, but there are regular verbs, like kellīn 'to fly':

sē kelliam
tē kellīth
lī kellia
nēs kellimes
tīs kellites
lois kellien

(e stem): mulēn 'to write' (hence Muletī 'writings').

sē muleam
tē muleith
lī mulea
nēs mulemes
tīs muletes
lois mulēn

[eldin raigmore]

But I like bipersonal inflections!

[Valkura]

"<p b t d k g q> /p b t d k g q/ (the allophonic rules for the stops are the same as in English)"
What do you mean?

[Ambrisio]

Ra lintymmis (it's very simple). Unvoiced stops are unaspirated, unless they begin a stressed syllable, in which case they're aspirated.

"To be" is irregular:
ram, rith, ra, ermes, ertes, eren

[Valkura]

Ra lintymmis (it's very simple). Unvoiced stops are unaspirated, unless they begin a stressed syllable, in which case they're aspirated.

I didn't even know that was a rule in English. It makes sense though.

[Ambrisio]

I completely forgot about stress. Stress is morpheme-initial, so:

rēnelyn 'to envision' - derived from rē- 'in' + nelyn 'to see', so the stress is on the second syllable
silwes (f.) 'age' - it's one morpheme, so the stress is on the first syllable
pelītys (m.) 'knowledge' - it's pelī 'know' + tys (nominalizer) so the stress is on the first syllable.

The reflexive pronoun is just like the third person pronoun, with the initial l replaced by d, so dī, dois, dō, dojēs, dē.

[eldin raigmore]

"To be" is irregular:
ram, rith, ra, ermes, ertes, eren

Doesn't look very irregular.

[Ambrisio]

Then, how would you reconstruct its infinitive form?

(Actually, it's eryn, so the plural forms are regular, but the singular forms aren't.)

More nominal declensions:

bīmer 'projector' (masc.)

Code: Select all

bīmer | bīmerī - NOM
bīmer | bīmerī - VOC
bīmeri| bīmeryde - GEN
bīmeryt | bīmeryte - PART
bīmerī | bīmerīwis - ESS
bīmerīkh | bīmerīghis - TRANSL

I think I'll change the word for 'author' to mulēr, which inflects like bīmer. I don't like mulērys because it sounds too High Valyrian (like Daenerys, Viserys, ...)!

There are also the so-called sand nouns, which are feminine. An example is tellis 'sand':

Code: Select all

tellis | tellīs - Nominative
telli | tellīs - Vocative
tellin | tellīne - Genitive
tellit | tellīte - Partitive
telli | tellīwis - Essive
tellikh | tellīghis - Translative

These include rare feminine nouns in -ys, such as brēdys 'wind'. These pluralize to -īs however, since there's no tense version of y in Kinuiltys. So:
brēdys | brēdīs - Nominative
...
brēdykh | brēdīghis - Translative

[Ambrisio]

Question words:

mīs (regular, declined like a feminine plural noun) - 'what'
minē (regular, declined like a feminine singular noun) - 'who'
milon - 'where' (c.f. Estonian 'kus')
miloes - 'whither' (c.f. Estonian 'kuhu')
mildis - 'whence' (c.f. Estonian 'kust')
mīden - 'when'
mīghis - 'why'
mīzhes - 'how'
mistō - 'how many'
mistōmas - 'how many-eth' (like German 'wievielte')

Notice that all of them begin with m.

The system of pronouns is very regular: Relative pronouns are obtained by replacing the initial M with Z (so: zīs 'that', zinē 'who', zilon 'where', ...). For demonstratives, either delete the initial M:
īs 'this', inē 'this person', ilon 'here', istō 'this much', or replace the I with O, to get:
ōs 'that', onē 'that person', olon 'there', ostō 'that much', ...
In native grammars, this inflectional paradigm is known as miozis (which inflects like a feminine noun), after the starting letters M, I, O, and Z. (For a natlang precedent, miozis is present in Hindi, but the initial letters are K, I, U and J.)

Inē and onē may be used for a proximate-obviative distinction.

There are three infinitives: the infinitive, the supine and the verbnoun. They are used just like their Estonian equivalents:

nelyn 'to see' (like Estonian 'näha')
nelydon 'to see' (like Estonian 'nägema')
nelidhē 'sight' (like Estonian 'nägemine')

likewise: kellīn, kellīdon, kellīdhē 'to fly, to fly, flight', ...

[Ambrisio]

Postpositions:

rēn - in
rēs - into
redis - from
nūn - on
nue - onto
nudis - from (the latter three are commonly used to denote possession)
gin - with
āgin - without
prēn/prēs/predis - near
elen/ele/eldis - above, over
āghen/āghe/āzdis - below, under (the phonaesthetic meanings are explained in the Muletī)
siden/side/sittis - in front of
ērden/ērde/ērtis - behind
lōmen/lōme/lōntis - around
īden/īde/īttis - between
veren/vere/vertis - by
lēhe - for
oze - according to
dis - about (topic)
nel-nel - vis-a-vis
fēre - against
tol - through
toirā - after
jelwe - before

Conjunctions:

hē - and
hest - but
jāla - or (so: ... or ... would be jā ... la ...
nōla - exclusive or (so: either ... or ... would be nō ... la ...)
ā - not
tem - because
tēves - since
tēmar - therefore
fēren - although
uwēs - both (which declines like a feminine plural noun!)
hestā - rather than
tīki - until
zīden - if (note: a homophone means 'when')
zīden, hē tekai zīden - if, and only if
ōden - then
ed - than, from (as in 'different from', 'better than', ... even though redis 'from' could be used as well)
mi - whether (also used as a question particle, like Estonian kas)

more to come...

[Ambrisio]

"To be" is irregular:
ram, rith, ra, ermes, ertes, eren

Doesn't look very irregular.

I'll change it, then:
bulo, cha, pora, kshobi, muke, tūpyk :-)

[Ambrisio]

Numbers:

(odd numbers decline like masculine nouns, even numbers like feminine nouns -- so there's a clear pattern)
tekys (masc)
teinis (fem)
vēris (masc)
volē (fem)
illys (masc)
lōtes (fem)
shiletekys (masc)
shileteinis (fem)
shilevēris (masc)
shilevolē (fem)
shilerillys (masc)
menē (fem)
menē tekys (masc)
menē teinis (fem)
...
24: teinimenē
36: vērimenē
48: volemenē
...
144: hostis
(In numbers higher than 12 that are not congruent to zero mod 12, only the last digit inflects.)

[Ambrisio]

Also note that all digits to the left of the units digit in a number are feminine -- guess why. (Kinuiltys uses a base-12 system.)

Oddly enough, the genders add with the numbers:
masc+masc=fem
fem+fem=fem
fem+masc=masc
masc+fem=masc
(the same is true when + is replaced by -).

and multiply:
masc*masc=masc
masc*fem=fem
fem*fem=fem
fem*masc=fem

I was thinking of using a weirder gender system where primes are masculine and all other numbers are feminine, but that wouldn't fit the place-value system! (3, for example, is masculine, but 147=144+3 would be feminine!)

Typically, Kinuiltys speakers don't count on their fingers beyond 5. So there's no need to reconcile their base twelve system with the more natural base ten. But Frontian Sign Language is different -- they use base five, and also, some dialects of Kinuiltys use a sexagesimal system.

sixty: kainis
3600: iēnis
216000: krōsis
12960000: nūftis
777600000: nimēstis
46656000000: lōwis

They also have a sophisticated system of metrology, based on the Rydberg constant and sexagesimals.

[Click]

The vowels are as before:
<a ā e ē i ī o ō u ū y> /ʌ ɑ(:) ɛ e(:) ɪ i(:) ɔ o(:) ʊ u(:) ʏ/ in Archaic Kinuiltys, /a a: e̞ e̞: i i: o̞ o̞: u u: ʏ/ in Modern Kinuiltys

I think that a ‹ȳ› will fit nicely in there.

[Ambrisio]

So it's <ȳ> /y:/, which is the tense version of <y>, which would show up in sand nouns, such as brēdys:
brēdys | brēdȳs - Nominative
...
brēdykh | brēdȳghis - Translative
It would also show up in the plural essive and translative forms of masculine nouns in -ys, such as mulērȳghis 'into authors'. But the vowels <y> or <ȳ> can't end a Kinuiltys word -- they would become <i> and <ī>. So *hevurȳ isn't a valid Kinuiltys word.

[Lambuzhao]

Ready for a minor mind-explosion?

And a typical verb looks like selyn 'to want':
sē selam, tē selith, lī sela, nēs selmes, tīs seltes, lois selen

Looks similar to my Rozwi verb selar “to desire, to want”:

i selo, ihm sele, ei’a seles, ien selome, iham selete, eiša selesi

**NB: 2SG sele originally was *seles, but the final /s/ was extremely weak. 3SG seles was originally *sele, but added an /s/ by analogy of 3PL selesi.

This verb is part of the so-called “Greek Conjugation” in my Rozwi. In Rozwi, there are a handful of verbs, all ending in /r/ that follow this pattern.

Most Rozwi verbs follow the (native) “Regular Conjugation”.

For comparison, here’s a pretty oatmeal verb: done~swutr “to speak”

i swutri, ihm swutrim, ei’a swutrek, ien swutrine, iham swutrima, eiša swutreš



These Kinuiltys words also have ¿cognates? in Rozwi:

elen/ele - above, over :: Rozwi `ol - in

eldis - above, over :: Rozwi lod (*`olod) - into

āgin – without :: Rozwi `ogegn – without

tīki – until :: Rozwi `oyiki – at, on (for time or place)

Emē – mother :: Rozwi ōma – mother

zinē – who (REL) :: Rozwi wdien – who (REL)


jāla - or (so: ... or ... would be jā ... la ...
:: Rozwi yaza...a... "both...and"; yaza...ra... "either...or..."

And possibly

dis – about :: Rozwi œdān – concering, about


Your Partitive case ending /t/ reminds me a little of Rozwi Accusative case ending /θ/, which possibly came from *-t. This ending is part of an imported & imposed set of case endings known as the Eχœri Declension, named after the Grainary Lords (Eχœri) who subjugated the Rozwis with a Leaden Gauntlet early in their history.

Your concept of miozis also has a similar phenomenon in Rozwi with correlative adverbs :

milon - ilon - olon - zilon
::
hi - ki - tri - hi

Some fun coincidences afoot?

[Ambrisio]

Ēstys libū tēnue, Lambuzhao!

That literally means 'peace be upon you', which is the standard greeting in all Frontian languages -- and the reply is Hē tēnue ba ēstys, and in case you wonder, tēnue is an inflected preposition 'upon you', and libū is the present subjunctive form of pora, kind of like English uninflected 'be'. The conjugation of eryn in the present subjunctive is weird (don't you just love those irregular verbs?)

livūs, katō, libū, mākuma, bēni, lākon

Maybe there's a Frontio-Rozwic language family waiting to be discovered!

selar

If I understand correctly, -ar is your infinitive suffix. The same is true of -yn in Kinuiltys. So the root is sel- in both languages, and the 1PL and 2PL are also extremely similar (selmes ~ selome, seltes~ selete).

Emē – mother :: Rozwi ōma – mother

That isn't a coincidence. The phonaesthetic connection between 'm' and 'mother' should be obvious.

Hebrew: ima 'mother'
Korean: eomma 'mother'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mama_and_papa

[Lambuzhao]

Lehev a ihmen!
god-NOM CNJ you-LOC
Lit. god (be) with you

ihmen is in the LOC, but used sort of comitatively.

This is the more modern, common greeting in Rozwi. Nowadays, lehev means as much peace, tranquility, enlightenment, happiness as "god".
If one doesn't feel so inclined, one can also say the pretty vanilla/milquetoast
Euve dohtre! Good day!

Maybe there's a Frontio-Rozwic language family waiting to be discovered!

Indeed. Technically, it would be called Frontio-Çarak. Or even Frontio-Klæ'Ungan.
Klæ'Ungan is the macrofamily that includes Rozwi (Çarak), Mouskani Çarak, Kwijin, Omapadai, Oshche, Okei, Rheghe, Orou, Rang Nui, Hwa, Yauchuan, Brooccan, Yobçun, Kuduçun.

[Lambuzhao]

selar

If I understand correctly, -ar is your infinitive suffix. The same is true of -yn in Kinuiltys. So the root is sel- in both languages, and the 1PL and 2PL are also extremely similar (selmes ~ selome, seltes~ selete).

hah! You would think. Really, the verb stem is *SLR (Pugnu Carak silari).
What happened is this. Early in my world's history, there was a kind of alt-history/history repeating itself. Wealthy merchants and landowners of Greek and various Romance descent created a kind of commonwealth that grew into an empire of sorts.
This empire had far reaching effects: political, social, cultural and even linguistic.
One of the linguistic effects was this kind of takeover of Rozwi verbs that ended in */ri/.
They were made to work like a Romance sort of infinitive /er, ar, ir/. Like you suggest, they lopped off the /r/ and conjugated from there. The conjugational endings are not Rozwi, either. They are obviously some sort of /:lat: descendent.

Oddly enough, verbs whose stems en in /l/ also tend to disappear the final liquid in conjugation. These verbs use the native Rozwi "regular" conjugational endings.

To make an infinitive, you add the morpheme /done/ to the front of the present, zero-grade verb (or sometimes the gerund). This is a relic of earlier times, when just about everything conjugational used to be prefixed to the verb stem. This (agglutinative) prefixing still exists in sister languages like Oshche, Okei, Hwa, and to a limited extent in others.

[Ambrisio]

In Modern Kinuiltys, the cases are simply numbered -- so pethmē 'first' is the nominative shilē 'second' is the genitive, vērmē 'third' is the partitive, volmē 'fourth' is the essive, illymē 'fifth' is the translative, and lōtmē 'sixth' is the vocative. Archaic Kinuiltys uses a more complex naming system. The first five cases are known as lomerī 'accessories', and the genitive is split into two functions:

1) The nominative (lomion 'actor')
2) The accusative (lontys 'deed')
3) The essive (ertys 'role')
4) The genitive of location (ioseghon 'location'), which is also used for possession.
5) The genitive of bestowal (nuedantys 'bestowal')
6) The translative (ghistērkhetys 'transformation')

The vocative isn't included in the list since it's extremely similar to the nominative.

The past tense in Kinuiltys is marked with the prefix o-/or-, with slightly different verb endings. An example is selyn 'to want'

sē oselam, tē oselith, lī osela, nēs oselme, tīs oselte, lois oselen

(So the -s in the first and second personal plural forms is dropped.) It's the same as the ordinary past in English.

The recent past tense is a little more complicated. It uses different verb endings.

sē oselūm, tē oselūth, lī oselū, nēs oselūme, tīs oselūte, lois oselūn

Here are some infinitives followed by their recent past first person singular forms:
tanūn: sē otanūm
kellīn: sē okellizhem (the -zhe is when the thematic vowel is a front vowel).
dilān: sē odilaum
mulēn: sē mulezhem It's identical to the present perfect in English.

The distant past tense is formed as follows:
When the initial letter of the verb is a consonant, prefix that consonant followed by o.
Otherwise, prefix nor. The endings are the same as the present tense, not the recent past tense. So:

selyn -> sē soselam, tē soselith, lī sosela, ...
eryn -> sē noreram, tē norerith, lī norera, ... (it's regular!)
It's the same as the past perfect in English.

For the ordinary future tense, infix -esi- between the stem of the present tense and the present ending. There's one exception: So:
sē selesiam, tē selesīth, lī selesia, ...

Again, eryn is regular, so eresiam, eresīth, eresia, ...

For the distant future, the infix is -ita- (and -aa- and -ae- become -ā- in this tense):
sē selitām, tē selitaith,lī selitā, nēs selitames, tīs selitates, lois selitān

For thematic verbs, the thematic vowel is lengthened and the infix -si- is added for the ordinary future tense, and for the distant future tense, the thematic vowel is shortened and the infix -ita- is added, with the same sandhi rules. (Note however that -ii- becomes -ī-.)

So there are the six tenses in Kinuiltys!