2c2·e19: The Language of Colors

[Arayaz]

An idea: an engelang communicated through flashing colors.

I'll make sure that all colors are sufficiently distinct by using three-digit hexadecimal codes, instead of six-digit.

==Noun Morphology [Edit: Outdated]==

Each noun is made up of two components: the root and the case/number "suffix."

#4c2 "animal," singular nominative
#4ca "animal," plural nominative
#4c8 "animal," singular accusative

0: root
2: nominative singular
4: genitive singular
6: dative singular
8: accusative/possessee singular
a: nominative plural
c: genitive plural
e: dative plural
f: accusative/possessee plural

(These are difficult to tell apart for human eyes, but this isn't meant to be used by humans, of course.)

These are all formed from the root #4c0 "animal."

At most 256 roots can be present in #2c2#e19, so compounding would be extensive.

[Arayaz]

==Syntax in 2c2e19==

All words are nouns. A noun may be followed by any number of other words, which are taken to modify it.

They may modify it in a variety of ways, e.g. adjectival, possessive, etc. The "noun case" section above is outdated, since that wouldn't be how it works.

Instead, the blue value will indicate how it modifies whatever it modifies, as well as definiteness:

Demonstrated with the root 3d0 ■ "tree":

0 ─ root ─ 3d0 ■
2 ─ phrase head (def.) ─ 3d2 ■
4 ─ genitive (def.) ─ 3d4 ■
6 ─ agentive (def.) ─ 3d6 ■
8 ─ patientive (def.) ─ 3d8 ■
9 ─ adjectival ─ 3d9 ■ ("treelike," "wooden")
a ─ patientive (indef.) ─ 3da ■
c ─ agentive (indef.) ─ 3dc ■
e ─ genitive (indef.) ─ 3de ■
f ─ phrase head (indef.) ─ 3df ■

And with the root 560 ■ "(an instance of) running":

0 ─ root ─ 560 ■
2 ─ phrase head (def.) ─ 562 ■
4 ─ genitive (def.) ─ 564 ■
6 ─ agentive (def.) ─ 566 ■
8 ─ patientive (def.) ─ 568 ■
9 ─ adjectival ─ 569 ■
a ─ patientive (indef.) ─ 56a ■
c ─ agentive (indef.) ─ 56c ■
e ─ genitive (indef.) ─ 56e ■
f ─ phrase head (indef.) ─ 56f ■

The brighter ones are indefinite, since it's new information and needs to be more clearly visible.


==Orthography==

The unicode character ■ is used in various colors when I want to cause more pain to people as the true orthography.

[Arayaz]

One note: nouns in the singular have more green than red, and the two values are reversed in the plural. So 3d0 ■ pluralizes to d30 ■.

==How to Actually Make a Sentence==

All noun phrases are taken as assertions of existence ─ or nonexistence, with a particle 000 ■ as the very first modifier. Words with equal red and green values are reserved for grammatical purposes.

Thus 3df ■ means "there is a tree."

To express something with a verb, use the agentive (and patientive, if necessary) forms of the nouns.

■■ / 56f916 : there is an instance of running done by the people, i.e. the people ran.

If the "verb" is definite, it means more like "the running was done by the people."

==Multiple roles==

Of course, some modifiers will also be the heads of their own phrases. For this, put it as whatever modifier role it serves, and add ddf ■ for indefinite or dd2 ■ for definite after it, to be the head of the next phrase.

==Some rules==

The modifiers come in order, from least to most blue. This helps to facilitate knowing where one phrase ends and another begins.



Edit: This seems to have been the CBB's 229,900th post! Soon the 230,000th will come...

[Creyeditor]

I just wanted to say that I really like this idea. I looks like it could fit an exolang setting. May I interest you in thinking about the properties of the flasing mechanism, i.e. the duration of each pulse, the pauses in between, the number of flashes, maybe even some kind of frequency of flashing? These could help you to get more distinct morphemes/lexemes.

[Arayaz]

I just wanted to say that I really like this idea. I looks like it could fit an exolang setting. May I interest you in thinking about the properties of the flasing mechanism, i.e. the duration of each pulse, the pauses in between, the number of flashes, maybe even some kind of frequency of flashing? These could help you to get more distinct morphemes/lexemes.

Thanks for your suggestions! These would be really useful for derivation.

There wouldn't really be pauses in between, because it's more chameleon-like: changing colors rather than black > color > black > color.

[Arayaz]

==An Example==

For this, I need to add one more modifier type: 5 (definite) or d (indefinite), meaning "(having) done." & 7 & b, meaning "having had X done to them." (The passive of the previous one.)

I will be translating the concept of "fisherman."

We begin with the word for "fish":
■ 4cf "animal" + ■ 0fe "of [a] water" = fish (sg.)

Then we pluralize it:
c4f0fe = fish (pl.)

Now, using ■ 260 "act of grabbing, taking, or catching", we get:
26fc4addf0fe = an act of grabbing some fish from (one body of) water, i.e. fishing (successfully)

So then:
■■■■■■, or 19f62dddfc4addf0fe = (there is a) fisherman (there is a person who has done multiple actions of grabbing animals from one body of water)


==Lexicon==

Some roots I have defined so far:

0f- : water
19- : person
1a- : second person pronoun
1e- : first person pronoun
26- : (act of) grabbing, taking, or catching
2c- : language
3d- : tree
48- : attempt (to do something)
4c- : animal
56- : (instance of) running
ce- : (act of) doing something lovingly (pl. to love)

And bluegrays (grammatical terms):

000 : negation
dd- : marks onset of a new phrase

[Arayaz]

Topic Focus

Any color segment can be reduplicated (held longer) to place emphasis on it as the most important piece of information.

[Creyeditor]

I like it. How much longer are long color segments? Twice as long? 1.5 times as long? 3 times as long? 100 times as long?

[Arayaz]

I like it. How much longer are long color segments? Twice as long? 1.5 times as long? 3 times as long? 100 times as long?

1.5 to 2, probably. Oh, and each panel is probably around a third of a second on average.

[Omzinesý]

I like the idea.
I have to say I don't understand your syntax. Could you have a glossed example sentence?

[Arayaz]

I have to say I don't understand your syntax. Could you have a glossed example sentence?

Sure.

"I tried many times to not fall while running"

■■■■■■■

84f ─ 48- "attempt," inverted to 84- "attempts," + -f, for indefinite phrase head
At this point, the sentence means "there are/were/will be attempts."
1e6 ─ 1e-, the first person pronoun, + -6, the definite agentive modifier
At this point, the sentence means "there are/were/will be attempts done by me," or, more naturally, "I tried/am trying/will try many times."
000 ─ negates the following color
afa ─ af- "an instance of falling" + -a, indefinite patientive
At this point, the sentence means "there are/were/will be attempts done by me for there not to be an instance of falling."
ddf ─ dd-, which marks a new phrase headed by the previous color
1e6 ─ 1e-, the first person pronoun, + -6, the definite agentive modifier
At this point, the sentence basically means "I tried/am trying/will try many times to not fall."
651 ─ 56- "an instance of running," inverted to 65- "instances of running," + -1, the "related to" adjectival modifier

Thus: "There are many attempts made by me for there not to be an instance of my falling related to running."

─────────────────────────────────────────────────


And to make an updated list of modifiers:

0 ─ root
1 ─ "related to" adjectival
2 ─ phrase head (def.)
4 ─ genitive (def.)
5 ─ having done (def.)
6 ─ agentive (def.)
7 ─ having had X done to it (def.)
8 ─ patientive (def.)
9 ─ "like" adjectival
a ─ patientive (indef.)
b ─ having had X done to it (indef.)
c ─ agentive (indef.)
d ─ having done (indef.)
e ─ genitive (indef.)
f ─ phrase head (indef.)

And lexicon:

0f- : water
19- : person
1a- : second person pronoun
1e- : first person pronoun
26- : (act of) grabbing, taking, or catching
2c- : language
3d- : tree
48- : attempt (to do something)
4c- : animal
56- : (instance of) running
af- : an instance of falling
ce- : (act of) doing something lovingly (pl. to love)

[Creyeditor]

ddf ─ dd-, which marks a new phrase headed by the previous color

What does this marker do (in boring 'old' terminology)?

[Arayaz]

ddf ─ dd-, which marks a new phrase headed by the previous color

What does this marker do (in boring 'old' terminology)?

Essentially, when a color that is already serving as a modifier to another phrase is also the head of its own phrase, that phrase (that it is the head of) is inserted after it, with the dd- as the head.

I'll also add the note: after a dd- phrase ends, if it is followed by more modifiers in such a way that it could be ambiguous, you can add the "closing bracket" 00f.

[Creyeditor]

I still don't get it. Is it like a relative clause marker? Or is it like a resumptive pronoun? How can the head of the modifier phrase be both the color and dd-?

[Arayaz]

I guess a better explanation would be: any single color can only be the head of a phrase or a modifier. If a color would serve both roles, the dd- acts like a pronoun, serving as the head of the next phrase. Kind of like saying "I saw the tree; it was tall" instead of "I saw the tall tree."

[Creyeditor]

I see, I understand it much better now. Pronoun is a concept I am familar with.

[Arayaz]

I see, I understand it much better now. Pronoun is a concept I am familar with.

Sorry if I didn't describe it well.

[Creyeditor]

Not a problem at all. Sometimes different perspectives on the same idea make it easier for me to understand stuff. I like the idea of dd- being some kind of resumptive pronouns that is required for a syntactic reason, i.e. because a color can only either be a modifier or a head but not both.

[Arayaz]

Edit: Rewritten at this post!

I'll confess that I had essentially scrapped this language, or at least let it remain dormant. But some people showed interest in it, so I decided to come back and revamp it.

The fundamental concept of 2c2e19 was that every sentence is a noun phrase, asserting the existence of the noun. Every word is also a noun, and as such, each word can be marked for definiteness. This can convey a difference in meaning: tree-INDEF tall-INDEF would be "there is a tall tree," tree-DEF tall-INDEF would be "the tree is tall," tree-INDEF tall-DEF would be "a tree is the tall one" (in practice I doubt this would be used), and tree-DEF tall-DEF would be "the tree is the tall one."

However, it was cumbersome to mark definiteness everywhere, so I do think a better system will be necessary in the revamp, as well as a good way of marking negation.

2c2e19 2.0: 2c2ef0

In the spirit of the original, every single word is a noun: "walk," "green," and "rock" are "instance of walking," "green one," and "rock." And every statement is an assertation of existence.

Every word can either serve as a phrase head or one of many types of modifiers. Every phrase head can be followed by an infinite number of modifiers. If one of those modifiers is modified itself, a resumptive pronoun dddd- must be added, agreeing in definiteness with the modifier. It works just like it did above.

Each word is expressed as a color, in 6-digit hexadecimal. The first four digits are lexical, and the fifth expresses salience. The sixth expresses case. The first pair of digits (the red value) must be less than the second (the green value); metathesizing them pluralizies the noun. Now, slot-by-slot, I'll give the different segments.

Here's my lexicon:

Spoiler:

2c2e- : language
eaf1- : hog, pig, boar, swine
228e- : biting

It's pretty small for now...

Salience:

-f- : the one and only; proper nouns
-a- : a; introducing important new information
-7- : a; introducing information but dismissing it as not completely relevant
-2- : the; not new information

Case:

- Case isn't really case so much as expressing *what* the relationship between the modifier and the head noun is.

-0 : head noun
-4 : the head noun is related to this
-8 : the head noun is caused or made by this
-b : the head noun is a member of this group [indef] or is this [def]
-f : the head noun is affected by or undergoes this

-8 would essentially be an agentive. Notice, however, that the patientive has the inverse of what we would expect. Thus the object is actually the head noun. And the verb can even be left off with the agent taking -f, since -f simply means "is affected by." I can be affected by biting that is caused by a hog, but I can also simply be affected by a hog.