Conlang relay [relocated] (aka "The Cursed Relay")

[Basilius]

First, congrats to Cedh and TzirTzi - it's great job, indeed!

(Also, Cedh, Tzirtzi, please check your PM boxes; if there's no recent message from me, please let me know - ZBB software might have swallowed it somehow, I'll resend it then.)

Anyway, I would welcome people's opinions and if anyone else is also interested in renewing work on this family, do let me know!

I am :)

However, for purposes of exploring the classification of languages and the history of migrations, much of stuff written in that thread can be safely forgotten, including the tentative label "Northern". In fact, I realize that I have no clear picture of the geography of the area or migrations involved, and it wasn't any better when I discussed the daughters with Qwynegold. In particular,

Another problem that occurred to me is that the Siixtaguna culture is an immigrant culture, in historical terms fairly new to the Siixtaguna coast and nearby islands (having migrated from some unspecified place in the east, presumably Tuysafa).

- this bit still sounds awesomely novel to me :)

On classification proper...

Also - and this is true regardless of whether we do some in-between langs like the above - it doesn't make much sense the family being called Nualis-Takuna when N and T are languages on just one branch, and there is a much higher branching subfamily.

There's no problem if all the features that unite N and T are conservative. That is, only shared innovations really count; do the two have many? is there anything non-trivial?

And, as for migrations and geography - the piece I'm interested in.

Basically, I'd like to have some space left for two (sets of) projects.

One is a bunch of related dialects based on various modifications of both my "third alternative" scenario for morphosyntax and Qwynegold's latest version of SC's. (The oldest sound changes shared by all dialects in this group are known.)

The other is about exploring my original scenario for morphosyntax. (For this, there are no specific SC's yet, and in principle I can adopt a few early changes from either N or T.)

Neither of the two projects implies vast territory or huge cultural impact on neighbors; however, in principle there may happen to be some interest in exploring further outcomes of the rather bizarre scenarios involved. That is, it would be nice if the dialects in question weren't doomed to quick extinction.

As for time depth, I was thinking originally of something like 2,500 years.

Qwynegold had some ideas about adding more dialects, too; if he's game, it should be checked how his scenarios fit with the rest.

One possibility here would be to change the currently Northern subfamily into being the aforementioned Continental subfamily, which was the result of an earlier wave of migration and so might well be more different to N and T than they are to each other whilst occupying a similar area.

This is more than I dared to desire for the projects I'm involved in :) OTOH... an earlier wave of migration might result in more diverse daughterlangs, right? I think, the two groups of "Northern" scenarios I mentioned above don't have too much in common, in fact; in particular, they'll hardly share any early SC's at all. Yet both might turn out parts of "Continental", which seems to be roomy enough to comprise a few other projects :)

The Takuna are slightly farther from their original homeland than the Nualis, and so it would make sense that their language is more conservative (such is the typically observed pattern); but the proposed Northern grouping would probably be rather further from the homeland and yet linguistically is massively more innovative.

I don't think the relation between geography and innovation needs to be very straightforward (Icelandic or Lithuanian are indeed conservative, but Irish or Bengali aren't).

But I don't know how much planning Basilius and Qwynegold had done around the culture and history of their potential daughterlang?

I haven't done much. Only vague ideas; like, the area could not be uninhabited by the moment when the "Northern NT" speakers arrived, so there must be a factor for their culture to spread. I thought of specialization on fishery; it could make larger settlements possible, near particularly suitable fishing sites; and settlement size could be the decisive factor in terms of military advantage and (especially) linguistic assimilation, in interaction with less specialized autochthonous hunter-gatherers. OTOH, the diverse substrate influences implied by such a setting (i. e. prolonged co-existence of relatively large NT-speaking groups with diverse smaller groups of the autochthons, the latter being slowly assimilated) would help to explain the bizarre and diverse paths of language evolution.

This would imply spreading along river valleys, deep into the hinterland.

[Cedh]

In fact, I realize that I have no clear picture of the geography of the area or migrations involved, and it wasn't any better when I discussed the daughters with Qwynegold. In particular,

Another problem that occurred to me is that the Siixtaguna culture is an immigrant culture, in historical terms fairly new to the Siixtaguna coast and nearby islands (having migrated from some unspecified place in the east, presumably Tuysafa).

- this bit still sounds awesomely novel to me

To me too. I've always assumed that the Núalís-Takuña languages originated on the Siixtaguna subcontinent, specifically in the region directly opposite Tymytỳs.

[Corumayas]

To me too. I've always assumed that the Núalís-Takuña languages originated on the Siixtaguna subcontinent, specifically in the region directly opposite Tymytỳs.

That was my assumption too. A few months ago I wrote up a thing about population movements in Siixtaguna as I understood them then; it's not necessarily definitive, but in part it summarizes the outcomes of some previous discussions (both in this thread and on the Akana forum).

A couple of additional points I think are worth noticing:

-Núalís in classical times (ca. 100 YP) is not a single language but a family (according to the Máotatšàlì grammar).

-The south and east coasts (where most of the action is) have mountain ranges running along them, which I think have two effects: first, they're a barrier to migration to and from the interior (which might be problematic for some of your ideas about divergent N-T groups there); and second, they could be a haven for language isolates and small families (which might provide an alternative scenario for those divergent groups).

[TzirTzi]

Another problem that occurred to me is that the Siixtaguna culture is an immigrant culture, in historical terms fairly new to the Siixtaguna coast and nearby islands (having migrated from some unspecified place in the east, presumably Tuysafa).

- this bit still sounds awesomely novel to me

To me too. I've always assumed that the Núalís-Takuña languages originated on the Siixtaguna subcontinent, specifically in the region directly opposite Tymytỳs.

That was my assumption too. A few months ago I wrote up a thing about population movements in Siixtaguna as I understood them then; it's not necessarily definitive, but in part it summarizes the outcomes of some previous discussions (both in this thread and on the Akana forum).

Hmm. Well, in draft document on the Siixtaguna culture here that I wrote in 2009 and never finished I mentioned this idea that the Siixtaguna people were, in the long term, migrating westwards - I had assumed that they had migrated across one of the island chains from Tuysafa (the whole Siixtaguna culture was heavily Austronesian inspired - relatively low-tech long-distance seafarers). I don't remember where I got the idea from - I'd thought it wasn't something I'd come up with but just expanded on from existing ideas, but if no-one else remembers it then perhaps I'm wrong about that.

A couple of additional points I think are worth noticing:

-Núalís in classical times (ca. 100 YP) is not a single language but a family (according to the Máotatšàlì grammar).

Thanks, I'd forgotten that point. Something to incorporate..

-The south and east coasts (where most of the action is) have mountain ranges running along them, which I think have two effects: first, they're a barrier to migration to and from the interior (which might be problematic for some of your ideas about divergent N-T groups there); and second, they could be a haven for language isolates and small families (which might provide an alternative scenario for those divergent groups).

The "continental" grouping weren't particularly far inland in the scheme I'd imagined - they're just on the coast and move inland as far as the mountains as they're pressured by migrations of the island groups.

[Basilius]

A few months ago I wrote up a thing about population movements in Siixtaguna as I understood them then; it's not necessarily definitive, but in part it summarizes the outcomes of some previous discussions (both in this thread and on the Akana forum).

Corumayas, thank you for reminding about that discussion! (And I am sorry for not responding to your summary back then - it required thoughtful commenting, and I was entering an unlucky streak in terms of spare time...)

And now I got an idea upon re-reading the relevant bits:

2 Early movements
Sometime around -8000 YP, population density in a handful of regions in and near Northern Peilaš began increasing to unprecedented levels. While none of these regions were located in the Siixtaguna subcontinent, two of them were near enough to affect it significantly: the Aiwa Valley (where agriculture was developing) and the Sumarušuxi archipelago (where the increase may have been related to improved fishing techniques).

This population growth led to movements out of both these areas. The Sumarušuxi expansion probably occurred first, with people spreading both north onto the mainland and east towards Tuysáfa (the Mediundic migration). A little later the Aiwa Valley Neolithic expansion carried early agriculture onto the subcontinent.

Both of these movements primarily affected the southern (Affalinnei-Lotoka) coast, although they could have spilled over to the eastern (Takuña) coast and (much less likely in my opinion) the interior of the subcontinent.

3 The Canoe Culture
The next significant development for Siixtaguna was a native one: the "Canoe Culture" was the distinctive product of the eastern coast and islands. Beginning with the invention of the canoe around -6000 YP, the Canoe Culture spread along all the coasts of the subcontinent, reaching Sumarušuxi by about -4000 YP (whence the Ultimundic migration towards Tuysáfa began).

It's not entirely clear whether the Canoe Culture was spread by migration or cultural diffusion. Probably there was a combination of both; and maybe it happened differently in different regions-- for example, maybe it was primarily migration in the sparsely populated north and northwest, but diffusion in the more populous east and south.

The Canoe Culture was bound to the coasts; it had little effect on the interior of Siixtaguna, which probably remained sparsely populated.

At the end of this period (ca -4000 YP) Salmoneus originally suggested that there would be four major "Canoe Culture" language families arrayed along the coasts of Siixtaguna and Sumarušuxi. I think there could actually be a few more...

4.1 The Siixtaguna Culture & Núalís-Takuña
Probably the earliest of these is the "Siixtaguna Culture", a group apparently descended from the Northeastern Canoe Culture. This culture comprised two groups: a "Coastal" one that included the speakers of Proto-Núalís-Takuña, and a "Continental" one that moved into the river valleys of the interior. The Núalís-Takuña languages dominated the entire eastern coast and most of the offshore islands when the Isles peoples arrived, so their expansion must have occurred well before this; it's tentatively dated to the late third millennium BP, with a secondary expansion of the Takuña (at the expense of some of their cousins) probably in the late second millennium.

Members of the Núalís-Takuña family could have reached the southern coast as well (at least the eastern part), and the Continental Siixtaguna people of the interior apparently spoke languages more distantly related to this family. By historical times, both of these groups have probably been partly overrun, but not erased, by later migrations.

The idea is that the best candidate for ultimate PNT home is ... the Sumarušuxi region!

(1) This seems to agree with TzirTzi's vision of PNT originating from some Eastern island group, and the original main direction of migration being East-to-West.

(2) It also fits together well with the Austronesian source of inspiration just mentioned by TzirTzi (i. e., no walrus hunters).

(3) It addresses TzirTzi's concerns about conservative languages located near the original homeland: Núalís and Takuña become frontier groups (and southward expansion of Takuña in historical times is relatively recent).

(4) PNT expansion becomes natural part of the spread of the NE Canoe Culture.

(5) In Cedh's historical maps for -1800 to -800 YP, NT-speaking groups occupy considerable portions of Sumarušuxi and Lotoka Coast.

TzirTzi, what do you think?

* * *

But my own reasons to like this idea are somewhat egoistic :)

They are about the history of the Ttiruku Arc and Isles language family.

Each of the Isles-speaking group reached its historical homeland via the islands of the Ttiruku Arc, with several intermediary stops. In each intermediary homeland, they were a minority surrounded by more numerous peoples of comparable civilizational level. This implies very profound contact influences on their languages (lexical loans in the first place). In other words, to flesh out our historical Isles languages, we need information on their former neighbors, mostly in the islands of the Ttiruku Arc. Currently it's a blank space, and I feel this to be a problem.

Now, what does the Sumarušuxi hypothesis offer here?

*1*. It supplies us with a rather old language (-2600 YP or so) already known for an important part of the area. Some of its daughter languages could spread to the East, and reach (e. g.) Ttiruku earlier than the time when the Isles-speaking groups arrived there.

*2*. I regularly advertise PNT as a thought-provoking protolanguage, but I haven't mentioned that this works counter-clockwise too: years ago, TzirTzi and I had a PM exchange discussing possible prehistory of PNT (morphosyntax in particular). If this work is resumed, we may obtain a still older promising protolanguage for our musings (let's tentatively label it Pre-PNT).

*3* ...Which will have immediate impact on some subjects of global importance: Pre-PNT could be roughly contemporaneous with Proto-Ultimundic (ca. -6000 YP), and can have daughters spoken as far to the East as (e. g.) Eastern Tuysáfa. However, one important detail depends on Ultimundic affiliation of Proto-Isles (which doesn't appear to be closely related to PNT): if the latter is rejected (a possibility mentioned in the Akana Wiki page about "Three Waves"), then in all probability Pre-PNT just *is* Proto-Ultimundic!

Comments?

[Corumayas]

My personal opinion is that rather than spreading the language families we have over ever larger areas, we should be building more families. On the other hand, not only is that a lot of work, but the desire to give an interesting proto-language lots of interesting daughters is also perfectly understandable.

I don't agree that originating in Sumarušuxi would make the Núalís-Takuña expansion a "natural part of the spread of the NE Canoe Culture." The Northeast Canoe Culture, as I've always understood it, flourished in what I have been thinking of as the Núalís-Takuña homeland: the region of coasts and islands around Tymytỳs. This is why I wrote that the Siixtaguna culture was "apparently descended from" it. Sumarušuxi (and Ultimundic) belongs to another (probably younger) branch, the Southeast Canoe Culture.

But I do recognize that the Ttiruku Arc connects Peilaš with Tuysáfa in a way that has no parallel on Earth. Communication between the two continents may not be direct until ocean-going ships develop, but there's no firm barrier to cultural and technological exchange between them (certainly less of one than existed between Eurasia and North America). Maybe we should reconsider what the consequences of this might be, on a global scale as well as a local/regional one. For example, maybe the kinds of long-distance language relationships you're suggesting could be more likely than on Earth...?

[Zhen Lin]

My personal opinion is that rather than spreading the language families we have over ever larger areas, we should be building more families. On the other hand, not only is that a lot of work, but the desire to give an interesting proto-language lots of interesting daughters is also perfectly understandable.

Certainly. We don't have anything on the Twins yet, for example. !Xsali hasn't been published yet. I'd be up for another family... when I have time... eventually... probably should finish work on Vylessa first though, and create more Proto-Peninsular words.

[Basilius]

My personal opinion is that rather than spreading the language families we have over ever larger areas, we should be building more families.

I understand this concern very well. After all, I claimed several *macro*families for Ttiruku alone by the beginning of its Golden Age :)

However, "pre-proto-"languages offer something important in this respect: it seems to me that they tend to promise more interesting combinations of features than a priori protolanguages created from scratch (OK, I mean my own potential creations here, but anyway). For example, my current vision is that "Proto-Macro-Isles" will (1) have class agreement in adjectives (and rather peculiar inner syntax of NP's otherwise); (2) actively use ablaut (plus some other derivation techniques whose reflexes in PI resemble consonant gradation); (3) be *not* rigidly verb-last, nor (strictly) accusative; (4) have little (if any) suffixal morphology in nouns themselves; (5) allow for head-modifier order in compounds (combined with some mangling of the compounded stems); (6) include bits that make transformation into PI (which is mostly suffixing and left-branching) probable and natural. This just looks much more curious than what I'd invent myself out of thin air :)

Or take Pre-PNT. Consider basic WO in PNT clauses:

(1) With "true verbs": V S O
(2) With "participle verbs": N(V) S O V(aux)

Note that "V(aux)" is just one of the "true verbs" in auxiliary function, and that "N(V)" (the "participle verb"), in terms of morphology, is just a noun carrying no morphological marking differentiating in from regular (non-verbal) nouns. Now, imagine how weird could be the transformation that produced the above patterns from some previous state: what was the original syntactic function of "N(V)"? the original structure of the chain "N(V) S O"? the principle determining the position of finite verb?

And all this isn't real reconstruction: we are free to just pick the version of "Pre-Proto-" that looks tastier :)

Also, there's a problem with proliferation of protolanguages for the period in question: the whole "Canoe Culture" deal is just too recent. If "Ultimundic" remains a valid grouping, then it represents the main group of peoples involved, and a rather compact one in terms of linguistic genealogy; and we don't have so much choice: retro-designing Proto-Ultimundic from either Proto-(Macro-)Isles or Proto-Núalís-Takuña seem to be the two most natural options.

On the other hand, the Ultimundic migration does not need to wipe off all the pre-existing diversity: the landscape provides for enough refuges for peoples representing previous migration waves. This is also true of the possible eastward NT migration I mentioned in connection with my Sumarušuxi hypothesis: the migrating seafarers could occupy an island here, a strip of land there... Yet, this scenario may supply us with *the* major source of lexical loans in the Isles languages: conceivably, the Isles peoples will mostly deal with the "Eastern branch of NT", for they'll primarily settle in the same type of habitats (most attractive and easiest to access for maritime newcomers). In other words, we can quickly advance with stuffing several important languages of the historical epoch without sacrificing much of the other possibilities for ethnic composition of the Ttiruku Arc.

I don't agree that originating in Sumarušuxi would make the Núalís-Takuña expansion a "natural part of the spread of the NE Canoe Culture." The Northeast Canoe Culture, as I've always understood it, flourished in what I have been thinking of as the Núalís-Takuña homeland: the region of coasts and islands around Tymytỳs. This is why I wrote that the Siixtaguna culture was "apparently descended from" it. Sumarušuxi (and Ultimundic) belongs to another (probably younger) branch, the Southeast Canoe Culture.

This is an important correction, indeed.

OK, let's look at the scenarios behind the available hypotheses about PNT location.

(1) The "conservative" hypothesis is that PNT originates from the NE corner of Siixtaguna and had "always" been there (within the timeframe that is conceivable at this point). The "NE Canoe Culture" then originates from the same area and can be older than the "SE Canoe Culture". Part of the expansion of the former was the spread of the NT peoples to the SW, mostly along the coast and via adjacent islands. This was preceded by expansion of the "Continental Siixtaguna Culture" that could be linguistically unrelated.

I am not sure about the dates: -2600 YP (PNT) seems to be too late for the beginning of the spread of the older one of the two "Canoe Cultures". Then, there should have been an earlier wave (associated with the peoples that ended as part of the "Continental Culture"?).

(2) "The Sumarušuxi hypothesis": the NT peoples come from Sumarušuxi to the area around Lotoka, then spread to the NE. The "Continental Culture" is (probably) not part of NT, and the relation with the "NE Canoe Culture" is unclear, but most probably the latter represents a local development superseded by later migrations of NT and pre-Kennan peoples. (Alternatively, it can be viewed as a relatively recent merger of an offshoot of the "SE Canoe Culture" with some indigenous cultures of NE Siixtaguna, which implies a revision of dates).

(3) The above two hypotheses were put first because it seemed to me that "Northern Polynesia" and "Northern Route" were rejected in earlier discussions of Isles migrations; IIRC island chains connecting the two continents in the North didn't look geotectonically plausible. Then, the hypothesis of NT peoples coming from NW Tuysáfa (which seems to be TzirTzi's original vision) needs some additional presumptions. For example, some advanced navigation methods could be discovered and then forgotten - cf. the history of Polynesians on Earth; however, both geography and cultures involved don't seem to match the Polynesian example well (for example, early Polynesians seem to have been very warlike, which was probably a factor in their migrations and geographical discoveries). In general, the PNT culture would look more Aleutian than Austronesian (because of climate in the first place).

The "NE Canoe Culture", with this hypothesis, would probably originate in Tuysáfa as well, which is an interesting turn. Otherwise everything is like with hypothesis (1).

More ideas?

TzirTzi, your opinion is especially important!

[TzirTzi]

Lots of good thoughts going on!

Basilius, your suggestion of the N-T peoples originating in Sumarušuxi fits very well with my original conception - indeed, I wondered about this possibility when I was writing the document on the Siixtaguna culture I linked to. I also agree that east-west migration across the less islanded sea to the north east would require rather more solutions and thought in terms of technology (though not impossible - not without real-world precedent), or geological revision (definitely not desirable), so that's probably not a preferable option. The Siixtaguna culture and the N-T languages originating in NE Siixtaguna doesn't fit my conception of their culture, which is very focused around (relatively) long distance sea-faring, with systematic taboo lexis associated with sea-journeys, etc. - but scanning through what's actually written briefly, I don't think it would take too much work to change it if necessary, as it's mostly in my head.

So all in all, regarding the implications for Nualis-Takuna, I like option (2) most - and Basilius' points regarding the further options this gives us for linguistic relations and historical borrowing and influence in the area make sense to me as well. But if the consensus is that only (1) fits with the other material then I'll get over it

On a separate note, I'd be more than happy to recommence and contribute to discussions on pre-PNT as well if that turns out to be a viable project!

Corumayas - my feeling on the issue of fewer, larger, deeper language families compared to more new proto-languages would be that both of these approaches are fine, and aren't mutually exclusive. If we look at Earth languages, we see everything from extremely huge and widespread families (e.g. IE) to smaller, sometimes local families to isolates. Families also vary greatly in time depth, rate of speciation (or whatever the real term would be for languages ), geographical spread and geographical relation to other families - some languages have only very distant relatives and are not geographically contiguous to them; some families are made up of closely related and geographically contiguous languages. I think it would only be realistic to try to create such variation in Akana too, so both projects expanding existing language families and joining them, and projects creating new protolangs and families seem needed to me. What do you think?

And on a more practical note, I think it's good to have both types of project available to people. It's nice to be able to work on collaborative things (expanding families) and it's also nice to have personal projects (new proto langs). As you can see, after doing that talk I'm still in very meta-think mode...

[Corumayas]

I'm not arguing against your alternative scenarios at the moment, I just want to clarify something about the "conservative" one:

(1) The "conservative" hypothesis is that PNT originates from the NE corner of Siixtaguna and had "always" been there (within the timeframe that is conceivable at this point). The "NE Canoe Culture" then originates from the same area and can be older than the "SE Canoe Culture". Part of the expansion of the former was the spread of the NT peoples to the SW, mostly along the coast and via adjacent islands. This was preceded by expansion of the "Continental Siixtaguna Culture" that could be linguistically unrelated.

I am not sure about the dates: -2600 YP (PNT) seems to be too late for the beginning of the spread of the older one of the two "Canoe Cultures". Then, there should have been an earlier wave (associated with the peoples that ended as part of the "Continental Culture"?).

My understanding is not that the Northeast Canoe Culture, the Siixtaguna Culture, and Proto-Núalís-Takuña are all the same thing... rather, they're a series of successive developments in the same region. According to Sal's original scheme, the Canoe Culture first appears ca -6000 in the northeast, then spreads along all the nearby coasts. By -4000 it's differentiated into several regional variants, the NE one probably being closest to the original homeland. And the Siixtaguna Culture later develops (or appears) in the same region. So P-N-T would probably correspond to one descendant of the prehistoric Canoe Culture, several thousand years later; other descendants may or may not speak more distantly-related languages (as I wrote in that article-y thing, I think it's possible that the Canoe Culture spread by diffusion of technology rather than population movements, so it might not necessarily involve the spread of languages).

[Corumayas]

Sorry, I somehow completely missed TzirTzi's post yesterday! It must have appeared while I was writing the above...

I think the emphasis on sea-faring could still fit if they were from the Tymytỳs-et-al. archipelago.

But I'm actually not opposed to having the N-T peoples originate in Sumarušuxi, as long as it can be made to fit with the other stuff we know about them. My main concern is that whatever scenario we adopt should produce the situation described in the Mûtsipsa' and Máotatšàlì grammars: the Takuña occupy the Siixtaguna coast and a couple (but importantly not all!) of the offshore islands, while the Núalís are a remnant family in the remoter islands around Tymytỳs. This distribution makes me think that the Núalís have been there longer than the Takuña; which in turn is what made me think that they're closer to the original homeland.

But maybe there's another way to explain that. The Núalís could be descended from a group that migrated north much earlier than the Takuña. Having the Takuña move from south to north rather than the other way actually makes perfect sense: if they come from near the Lotoka region, it would allow them to have had contact with more civilized peoples early on, which could help explain things like where their writing system comes from. (In general, I think that by the time they meet the Mûtsinamtsys the Takuña can't be quite as "primitive" as you've described them in some places: the two groups meet and then compete on an equal footing, so they must at least have regular agriculture; and the Takuña actually adopt writing first.)

On the subject of language families (and the meta-strategy) I think you're absolutely right. I just want to avoid a conworld where every language is related to every other language...


(edit: fixed spelling of Tymytỳs)

[Cedh]

I came across the following poem today, and I thought it might make an interesting translation challenge. In the context of Akana, it seemed to fit best with the traditions of Etúgə or Toło, so I decided to try my hand at Namɨdu, even though it's not my own conlang. I hope that my translation, which makes extensive use of nominalized adjectives in the appositive case, sounds at least somewhat poetic and not completely non-native...

Minds free,
Thoughts gone,
Brow clear,
Faces serene.
Were they cool?
Only as cool as autumn.
Were they hot?
Not hotter than spring.
All that came out of them
Came quiet.
Like the flower season.

Pyon sku azles,
with ACC.PL-mind APP.PL-free
pyon spi azyogu,
with ACC.PL-trifle APP.PL-put.away-NMLZ
pyon zodoł aspesen,
with ACC.PL-eye APP.PL-alert
pyon zazodwen azbos –
with ACC.PL-face APP.PL-calm
Oddek obu azmitsen le?
COP.IMPF.PL 3PL.ACC APP.PL-cold Q
Mitsen ryen lÿoddu dzes.
cold like autumn* maybe
Oddek obu azrełga le?
COP.IMPF.PL 3PL.ACC APP.PL-hot Q
Rełga ryen lumus tsegga.
hot like spring* only*
Yak kadɨlo rema sed ok gɨppi,
all NOM.PL-hidden.thing REL NULL.AUX.IMPF 3PL.NOM answer
yeded ksosse azwogga odduk,
PROG.AUX.IMPF NOM.PL-this APP.PL-quiet come-PL
ryen lobwa.
like summer*

*) I had to coin a few words for this, notably terms for the seasons:
lÿoddu "autumn" < lu-eidu "the falling"
lumus "spring" < lu-mus "the growing"
lobwa "summer" < lu-aboa "the blooming" (cf. Ndd. ñavwa < ŋa-aboa)
liwe "winter" < lu-iwe "the freezing" (iwe < B.Nz. iwe, because the outcome of Fáralo lu-eib > lÿob would have been too similar to the word for "summer")
tsegga "only, just, barely" < čega

[Basilius]

Thank you for the exercise, Cedh!

Affanonic:

Føffejørmjø fylli ryti
Mjumjøfjørøhaffja nini,
Fymmos mimytsi jo tsuhun
Li tsu mi mytsijuralli -
Mimoi rojo føne nyral?
Howis tseri nauwirun wo.
Arkaffa? Niriffalu wo.
Akwimos ri tsjurin nyral,
Pipys sai wo mimetsjun njau.

Quasi-smooth near-literal translation (I'll add glosses later):

From within the souls that free
Behind the faces were
From which thinking had gone away
Of distant small subjects -
From within them, was it blowing coldly?
In comparison with winter, not.
Warmly? For the springtime, not.
What was coming from them,
Others could not hear it.

All lines are eight syllables, so it could be sung. Also, it came out with a lot of assonances in it. Yet, it sounds more like something composed by a learned scribe of postclassical times - because of the mannered syntax.

[Basilius]

Affanonic:
[snip]

The flowers dropped out somehow... A more complete version:

Føffejørmjø fylli ryti
Mjumjøfjørøhaffja nini,
Fymmos mimytsi jo tsuhun
Li tsu mi mytsijuralli -
Mimoi rojo føne nyral?
Howis tseri nauwirun wo.
Arkaffa? Niriffalu wo.
Akwimos ri tsjurin nyral,
Lili ninjun jaunonjural
Jonon jotiwirun tissal,
Pipys sai wo mimetsjun njau.

From within the souls that free
Behind the faces were
From which thinking had gone away
Of distant small subjects -
From within them, was it blowing coldly?
In comparison with winter, not.
Warmly? For the springtime, not.
What was coming from them
In growing flowers'
Noble path was making its way,
Others could not hear it.

(Still thinking about proper glossing...) EDIT: added the glosses, see below

A lot of alliteration in the added lines, again. Also, I notice that it's only in the last line that the time frame is set:

Pipys sai wo mimetsjun njau.
Others could not hear it.

- only the underlined words refer unambiguously to the past; all the preceding text would be understood as present tense without the context - which must create some additional effect.

EDIT: interlinear glosses

Code: Select all

Føffe-jør-mj(a)    -ø     fylli     ryti
Soul -PL -INSTR/ABL-INESS which.NOM free

Mjumjøf-jør-øh     -affja   nini,
Face   -PL -ACC/LOC-POSTESS be[IPF]

Fymm(a)        -os    mimytsi    jo      -0   tsuhun
which.INSTR/ABL-ADESS think[IPF] GER[IPF]-NOM go.away[PF] 

Li        tsu     mi    mytsi  -jur-al -li -
EQUAT.NOM distant small subject-PL -GEN-SUBST.NOM  

Mim(a)       -oi    rojo føne     nyral?
TOP.INSTR/ABL-INESS cold blow[PF] DUR 

Ho    -wis tseri       nau   -wir    -un       wo.
Winter-ACC compare[PF] GER.PF-ACC/LOC-SUPERESS not

Arkaffa? Niriffa   -lu  wo.
warm     springtime-BEN not

Akwi         -m(a)     -os    ri          tsjurin  nyral,
ANAPH.ANIM.PL-INSTR/ABL-ADESS CATAPH.NOM  come[PF] DUR

Lili    ninjun    jaunon-jur-al 
TOP.NOM grow[IPF] flower-PL -GEN

Jonon joti -wir    -un       tissal, 
noble route-ACC/LOC-SUPERESS make.one's.way[IPF]

Pipys   sa    -i   wo  mimetsjun njau. 
TOP.ACC others-NOM not hear[IPF] PAST

EDIT2: Some peculiarities of the Affanonic version - its being so dense in alliterations in particular - look a bit unusual for a quick-and-dirty translation exercise. For this reason, I tried to calculate the probability of obtaining this frequency of alliterating syllables (counting only onsets, with the given size of phoneme inventory etc.), and I quickly understood that chance coincidence can be safely excluded.

The obvious explanation of the observed phenomena is that Chuang Tse translated his verse from Affanonic.

Currently I am considering two hypotheses of how this could happen:

(1) Chuang Tse was an Affanon.
(2) His Muse was an Affanonic deity.

I like the first version more, but in either case the available facts suggest that the possibility of communication between Worlds should be considered proven.

;)

---EDIT3: corrected a typo in the glosses---

[Radius Solis]

FWIW, the reason I haven't been around much the last few months is that I've been having a dry spell in conlanging - just not feeling much like doing anything.

On the other hand, yesterday it suddenly came into my head to revisit Puoni and see if I can get a sound change list for it that I feel better about. I liked the results of Puoni's old sc list, but some of the changes themselves were clunky and artless, and sometimes they went a bit too far. So I've worked out a preliminary list that's a little less like taking a sledgehammer to Faralo, preserves the results I liked best, and dumps a couple of dumb ideas from the first version... but I have to put it through its paces still and see what comes out the other end, it may need tweaking. This may or may not go anywhere.

[dunomapuka]

I came across the following poem today, and I thought it might make an interesting translation challenge. In the context of Akana, it seemed to fit best with the traditions of Etúgə or Toło, so I decided to try my hand at Namɨdu, even though it's not my own conlang. I hope that my translation, which makes extensive use of nominalized adjectives in the appositive case, sounds at least somewhat poetic and not completely non-native...

Good job. Namɨdu has a sort of "chunky" feeling which fits the poem well. I'm not sure whether those nominalized adjectives; the problem is that I haven't developed the syntax much. The more obvious, prosaic ways of phrasing those lines would be sku oduk les "the minds are free," or pyon les sku "with free minds..."

But I might work out some specific way of nominalizing adjectives. It probably involves an extra morpheme. Which in Fáralo would be lu-, but in Namɨdu it would be something else. I'll think about it.

I like your proposed usage of tsegga. But I never noticed that there weren't any names for the seasons in the Edastean stock. It would be nice if we had some, that were of ancient lineage.

OR, the Fáralo languages might use borrowed Mûtsipsa' words for the seasons, as part of a religious calendar!! I will tinker with this.

[Basilius]

BTW, Radius, Dunomapuka - may I use the occasion, that is, your presence on the board?

WRT all the recent story about relocation of PNT, about Ultimundic, Canoe Culture(s), possible substrates for *all* the Isles langs (and maybe Kennan), etc. It seems important to me to get some feedback from you (and in fact from all the participants who may read this). I mean, even if you don't have a definite opinion yet, or don't feel that all that may affect your projects in any important respect, this would be a useful input too, if stated explicitly.

It appears to me that a huge piece of our Global History is going to shift in a somewhat unexpected direction, so everybody's response is helpful.

In particular, if you get some negative feeling from any of those proposals, but haven't formulated your arguments yet, I'd consider this a problem that must be addressed in some way: I suppose we are all here to have fun, so if anything just feels wrong, this may be more important than logical coherence &like.

[Radius Solis]

BTW, Radius, Dunomapuka - may I use the occasion, that is, your presence on the board?

WRT all the recent story about relocation of PNT, about Ultimundic, Canoe Culture(s), possible substrates for *all* the Isles langs (and maybe Kennan), etc. It seems important to me to get some feedback from you (and in fact from all the participants who may read this). I mean, even if you don't have a definite opinion yet, or don't feel that all that may affect your projects in any important respect, this would be a useful input too, if stated explicitly.

I don't have a strong opinions on any of it. I haven't even read it all yet, but I doubt I will object to anything else if I can have these two things:

1. I would like to keep the rights to a future daughter of Mutsipsa', spoken in its home islands, and which was influenced by Kennan invaders. Someday this language will be finished enough to post, and I have done too much work on it already to throw it all away.
2. I would like the Kennan expansion story to be broadly valid, including that their place of origin needs to be northern and cold and that they succeed in temporarily subjugating many of their neighbors to the south. But it's fine if you need to change who their neighbors are or exactly when these events happen, so long as it can still involve the Mutsinamtsys.

For everything else, I will be happy to work with whatever you guys decide.

[Basilius]

Thanks :)

I don't have a strong opinions on any of it. I haven't even read it all yet, but I doubt I will object to anything else if I can have these two things:

1. I would like to keep the rights to a future daughter of Mutsipsa', spoken in its home islands, and which was influenced by Kennan invaders. Someday this language will be finished enough to post, and I have done too much work on it already to throw it all away.

I don't think any version changes much in the known history of Mutsipsa' (or rather, I hope we've taken it into account in our previous discussion).

With the southern Proto-Homeland for Núalís-Takuña, this seems to mean that some groups (Pre-Núalís first, Pre-Takuña second) moved - relatively quickly - along the coast *without* colonizing the adjacent islands; much later the historical Takuña began to explore the islands starting off their new northern homeland - and this was roughly contemporaneous with the arrival of the Isles speakers.

Corumayas? TzirTzi?

(And besides, we have those probable early contacts with the "Eastern" Núalís-Takuña tribes scattered along the Ttiruku Arc.)

2. I would like the Kennan expansion story to be broadly valid, including that their place of origin needs to be northern and cold and that they succeed in temporarily subjugating many of their neighbors to the south. But it's fine if you need to change who their neighbors are or exactly when these events happen, so long as it can still involve the Mutsinamtsys.

As I understand, with PNT relocated, the main potential change that might affect the prehistory of the Kennan seems to be that the Continental branch of the Siixtaguna Culture could be linguistically unrelated to Núalís-Takuña, or perhaps wasn't homogeneous. The practical consequence is that we can throw in a couple of a priori protolanguages to stuff Kennan with loans :)

[dunomapuka]

With the southern Proto-Homeland for Núalís-Takuña, this seems to mean that some groups (Pre-Núalís first, Pre-Takuña second) moved - relatively quickly - along the coast *without* colonizing the adjacent islands; much later the historical Takuña began to explore the islands starting off their new northern homeland - and this was roughly contemporaneous with the arrival of the Isles speakers.

Sounds good to me - to be honest, I don't care about prehistory too much as long as it's not wildly implausible, and it gets everyone in the right place at the right time. I'm more interested in what the Takuña and everyone start doing once they are all writing and philosophizing and interacting with each other!

[Cedh]

I don't think any version changes much in the known history of Mutsipsa' (or rather, I hope we've taken it into account in our previous discussion).

With the southern Proto-Homeland for Núalís-Takuña, this seems to mean that some groups (Pre-Núalís first, Pre-Takuña second) moved - relatively quickly - along the coast *without* colonizing the adjacent islands; much later the historical Takuña began to explore the islands starting off their new northern homeland - and this was roughly contemporaneous with the arrival of the Isles speakers.

(And besides, we have those probable early contacts with the "Eastern" Núalís-Takuña tribes scattered along the Ttiruku Arc.)
[...]
As I understand, with PNT relocated, the main potential change that might affect the prehistory of the Kennan seems to be that the Continental branch of the Siixtaguna Culture could be linguistically unrelated to Núalís-Takuña, or perhaps wasn't homogeneous. The practical consequence is that we can throw in a couple of a priori protolanguages to stuff Kennan with loans

If we adopt the scenario that P-N-T originates in the south (which I'm okay with too, although I'd suggest the Lotoka region instead of insular Sumarušuxi), then it seems likely to me that Pre-Núalís would be the first of these groups to migrate northward. This might imply that languages of the N-T family (as opposed to older groups belonging to the NE Canoe Culture, which might be distantly related or not) are not found much further to the northwest than the straits of Tymytỳs - i.e. the Pre-Kennan probably won't meet them much before they start their own expansion.

As for languages descended from (Pre-)P-N-T in the Ttiruku Arc, that's a nice consequence of reinterpreting that part of prehistory. I'm not sure whether Pre-P-N-T should be equated with Proto-Ultimundic though, although a few languages descended from it could certainly have reached the SW of Tuysáfa. If this happens much later than the original Isles migration, say, around -500 or later, we could probably even retain the name "Ultimundic" for what wouldn't really be the "last wave" anymore...

[Corumayas]

I like your proposed usage of tsegga. But I never noticed that there weren't any names for the seasons in the Edastean stock. It would be nice if we had some, that were of ancient lineage.

OR, the Fáralo languages might use borrowed Mûtsipsa' words for the seasons, as part of a religious calendar!! I will tinker with this.

Another calendar would be cool! Don't forget what we've already established about the Ndak calendar, of course. (BTW, I've long intended to invent Ngauro month names someday... but Ombàsi knows when that'll get done.)

With the southern Proto-Homeland for Núalís-Takuña, this seems to mean that some groups (Pre-Núalís first, Pre-Takuña second) moved - relatively quickly - along the coast *without* colonizing the adjacent islands; much later the historical Takuña began to explore the islands starting off their new northern homeland - and this was roughly contemporaneous with the arrival of the Isles speakers.

Corumayas? TzirTzi?

This sounds exactly right to me.

In case it wasn't clear from my earlier posts, I also have no problem with your proposal at this point. It seems like it might require some rethinking of TzirTzi's Siixtaguna Culture scenario, which I don't mind if he doesn't. And if it means also revising other parts of the prehistoric scenario (such as the Three Waves and/or the Canoe Cultures), that's fine with me too-- as long as we think it all through carefully, of course. There are a lot of moving parts to keep track of here!

[TzirTzi]

With the southern Proto-Homeland for Núalís-Takuña, this seems to mean that some groups (Pre-Núalís first, Pre-Takuña second) moved - relatively quickly - along the coast *without* colonizing the adjacent islands; much later the historical Takuña began to explore the islands starting off their new northern homeland - and this was roughly contemporaneous with the arrival of the Isles speakers.

Corumayas? TzirTzi?

This sounds exactly right to me.

In case it wasn't clear from my earlier posts, I also have no problem with your proposal at this point. It seems like it might require some rethinking of TzirTzi's Siixtaguna Culture scenario, which I don't mind if he doesn't. And if it means also revising other parts of the prehistoric scenario (such as the Three Waves and/or the Canoe Cultures), that's fine with me too-- as long as we think it all through carefully, of course. There are a lot of moving parts to keep track of here!

I don't mind indeed - what specific points did you have in mind?

[dunomapuka]

I've been looking over Proto-Lukpanic again - I forgot how terribly charming it is. It has a rather Zompistean feeling about it. I am now adding some quirky new words, including an idea that came to me in a dream once: an independent lexical item meaning "rotten onions." (in the dream, it was for Zomp's Old Skourene, one of my favorite conlangs ever.)

WHY do the Lukpanab have a special word that means "rotten onions?" I don't know. I'm sure there's a good reason.

[TzirTzi]

Perhaps some form of fermented onions is a major Lukpanic foodstuff?