Uskra

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Ossicone
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Uskra

Post by Ossicone »

Uskra is my most recent conlang. I suggest reading up about it on the website but here is a forum rendering of the language. (But the website is prettier! And has more info on the conpeople.)
Any comments, questions or corrections are appreciated. :D

Phonology
I originally created Uskra as a sketch for a minimal phonology challenge. It still keeps to that idea with a relatively small phoneme inventory including three vowels / ɑ i u / and eight consonants / p t k ʔ s m n ɾ /.

The orthography is straightforward. You might notice some sounds not listed above. They come from rules listed later.
< p t k ' s ś h hr m n r a i u >
[ p t k ʔ s ʃ h xɾ m n ɾ ɑ i u ]


Syllables are fairly simple as well. Consonant clusters are only permitted on the onset. Codas are only permitted word finally.
Permissible CC's:
sp spɾ pɾ
st stɾ tɾ
sk skɾ kɾ
sm smɾ mɾ
sn


Permissible codas: / t k m n ɾ /

Allophones

- Before the front high vowel / i /, / s / is realized as [ ʃ ].
s → ʃ / _i

- Before the tap / ɾ /, / s / is realized as [ x ].
s → x / _ɾ

- As the onset of a syllable plosives / p t k / become aspirated.
{ p t k } → {pʰ tʰ kʰ } / _V

- At the beginning of a word / ʔ / is realized as [ h ].
ʔ → h / #_

- The sequence / tɾ / is pronounced as / ʧ / if not preceded by / s /.

Nouns

Noun morphology is fairly limited in Uskra but can contain quite a bit of information. Below is a table describing the few suffixes and particles.

Image

One thing not marked on nouns is number. If it is important number can be specified with measure words.

The measure word is placed before the noun which is then followed by a numeral. That numeral must take locative marking. Using the definite locative suffix will indicate a precise quantity whereas using the indefinite locative will indicate an approximate amount.

Iska hur inaur.
iska hur ina-ur
drop water 2-DEF.LOC

"Exactly two drops of water."

Iska hur ina.
iska hur ina-∅
drop water 2-IDF.LOC

"About two drops of water."

Pronouns

Uskra has no formal set of pronouns. Instead names and certain common nouns are used if the need arises. Nouns typically used in this way are familial terms (brother, sister), occupations (fisher, farmer) or titles (leader, storyteller). Several factors go into choosing what to call a person. These include familiarity, age, gender and the audience.

Possession

Showing possession in Uskra can be somewhat counterintuitive to an English speaker but is fairly simple.

Image

Niraki.
niɾ-aki
cat-1PSS

"My cat."

Niri pusiani.
niɾ-i pusi-ani
cat-DEF.A tail-OPSS

"The cat's tail."
In a sentence where the verb conjugates in for the obviate person the possessive suffixes will strictly refer to the objects specified. However, if this is not the case then the third person possessive is used for human possessors whereas the obviate person possessive is used for non-human possessors.

Hitimi hu'a.
hitim-i hu-ʔa
head-DEF.A small.creature-3PSS

"The child's head."

Hitimi huani.
hitim-i hu-ani
head-DEF.A small.creature-OPSS

"The small animal's head."

Hu is a word used to refer to small creatures including human children.

Verbs

Unlike the nouns there is fair amount of marking on verbs. The conjugation will also depend on if a verb is transitive or intransitive.

Image

Following the table above we can take a verb from its infinitive and conjugate it. For example the verb u'ama "to walk." The verb root is -'am- which can be used to create some basic sentences.

Śi'ama
ʃi-ʔam-a
1A-walk-NPST

"I am walking."

Ni'amuk.
ni-ʔam-uk
3A-walk-PST

"He was walking."

Image

Inversion and Negation

Looking at the tables above it might seem that there is no way to create a sentence with a third-person agent and a first-person patient. It is true that there is no verb conjugation for such a sentence. Instead one would use an inverse particle to achieve that meaning.

Image

Verb particles are always placed directly before the verb and only one may used in a sentence.

Itikuma ta'i.
i-tik-∅-uma taʔi
1A-give-3P-PST hit
"I hit him."

Mik itikuma ta'i.
mik i-tik-∅-uma taʔi
INV 1A-give-3P-PST hit

"He hit me."

Mri itikuma ta'i.
mɾi i-tik-∅-uma taʔi
NEG 1A-give-3P-PST hit

"I didn't hit him."

Mrika itikuma ta'i.
mɾika i-tik-∅-uma taʔi
NINV 1A-give-3P-PST hit

"He didn't hit me."

Light Verbs

There are relatively few fully functional verb roots. As such certain verbs are used to carry the conjugation while a defective verb root will carry the meaning.

For intransitive sentences the light verb is always uma "to be." For transitive sentences the verbs uka "to have," utika "to give," or uhra "to take" can be used.

Nima ski.
ni-m-a ski
3A-be-NPST jump

"He jumps."

Nikas hu'i.
ni-k-as huʔi
3A.OP-have-NPST hunt

"He hunts it."

Choosing which light verb to use is generally straight forward but there are occasions when it can be less so. In the first example above "jump" is an intransitive verb. But it can be used reflexively with either "to give" or "to take" to add different shades of meaning.

Atikas ski.
a-tik-as ski
3A.3P-give-NPST jump

"He jumps forward."

Ahras ski.
a-xɾ-as ski
3A.3P-take-NPST jump

"He jumps backward."

--------

There's more to come but I'm tired of typing now.
Any comments, questions or corrections are appreciated. :D

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masako
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Re: Uskra

Post by masako »

You don't mention anything about regularity in your description of verbs...so, are all verbs completely regular?

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Re: Uskra

Post by Ossicone »

masako wrote:You don't mention anything about regularity in your description of verbs...so, are all verbs completely regular?
Yup.

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Re: Uskra

Post by Burke »

I love the inversion particles!

Might I ask what the inspiration was? Was it from the real world planet earth land, or off of a whim?
Formerly a vegetable

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Re: Uskra

Post by WeepingElf »

This is very pretty and looks quite plausible. A nice blend of Native American and Polynesian traits, I would say. Keep it up!
...brought to you by the Weeping Elf
Tha cvastam émi cvastam santham amal phelsa. -- Friedrich Schiller
ESTAR-3SG:P human-OBJ only human-OBJ true-OBJ REL-LOC play-3SG:A

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Re: Uskra

Post by Ossicone »

Garlic wrote:I love the inversion particles!

Might I ask what the inspiration was? Was it from the real world planet earth land, or off of a whim?
I remember hearing about such a thing occurring in a natlang. But I never bother investigating it, so I can't tell you if it really does or what language it would be. XD

The mixing of the negative and inverse just felt natural when I was making it though.

WeepingElf wrote:This is very pretty and looks quite plausible. A nice blend of Native American and Polynesian traits, I would say. Keep it up!
Thank you. :D

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Re: Uskra

Post by masako »

WeepingElf wrote:This is very pretty and looks quite plausible.
Plausible? Perhaps, but hardly naturalistic.

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Re: Uskra

Post by Ossicone »

Indeed. Naturalism isn't the primary goal for this lang, but fun is. I don't get much fun from that sort of detail, so I skipped it.

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Re: Uskra

Post by Ossicone »

Oops. I meant to post a second update a while ago.
But it's here now. Hopefully, with some more interesting tidbits.

Reflexives
The most obvious use of the reflexive verb conjugations is to express statements where the agent is also the patient.

Atikum ta'i.
a-tik-um ta'i
3A.3P-give-PST hit

"He hit himself."

Mis satikatum ta'i?
mis sa-tik-at-um ta'i
Q.why 2A-give-2P-PST hit

"Why are you hitting yourself?"

However, with certain verbs and constructions the reflexive can be used to mean something else.

One such case exists with the verb uma "to be." While normally an intransitive verb, it can be used reflexively. When this happens the verbs meaning is changed to something like "to become."

Imi'um asna sku.
i-m-i'-um asna sku
1A-be-1P-PST hungry with

"I became hungry."

Amas kru sku.
a-m-um kru sku
3A.3P-be-PST red with

"He blushed." (He became red.)

Copula

Uskra uses the word sku "with" to form the copula. For this construction sku is placed after the descriptor.

Niri ipri sku.
niɾ-i ipɾi-∅ sku
cat-DEF.A small-IDF.P with

"The cat is small." / "The small cat."

There is a slight change in meaning if sku is placed between a noun and its descriptor. This is used to emphasize the quality of the descriptor.

Niri sku ipri.
niɾ-i sku ipɾi-∅
cat-DEF.A with small-IDF.P

"The small cat."

Word Order

Uskra has a fairly strict word order. However the exact order will vary depending on the number and type of participants.

When only a subject is specified the word order is VS, when only an object is specified the order is VO and when both a subject are present the order is SVO.

Nikas.
ni-k-as
3A.OP-have-NPST

"He has it."

Nikas nir.
ni-k-as niɾ-∅
3A.OP-have-NPST cat-IDF.P

"He has a cat."

Nikas anipirai.
ni-k-as anipiɾa-ai
3A.OP-have-NPST boy-IDF.A

"A boy has it."

Anapirai nikas nir.
anipiɾa-ai ni-k-as niɾ-∅
boy-IDF.A 3A.OP-have-NPST cat-IDF.P

"A boy has a cat."

Indirect objects will always come after the verb if specified. The presence of an indirect object also forces the direct object ahead of the verb.

Anipiri nirita nitikum amita.
anipir-i nir-i ni-tik-um am-ita
boy-DEF.A cat-DEF.P 3A.OP-give-PST fish-DEF.P

"The boy gave the cat a fish."

-----

Thats all for now.
As always any comments, questions or corrections are appreciated. :D

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Re: Uskra

Post by Rik »

I've enjoyed reading about this conlang, and I like the way it's presented on the website.

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Re: Uskra

Post by Ossicone »

I'm glad to hear it.

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Re: Uskra

Post by Nachtuil »

I know this thread is ancient but I heard an intro spoken in Uskra on the conlangery podcast and loved it. The website is dead, is this pretty much all we'll ever have of this language?

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Re: Uskra

Post by Nachtuil »

Oh hey, I found a link: http://ossicone.com/conlangs/uskra/

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