Proto-Ginösic

[Ambrisio]

The syntax of Proto-Ginösic is completely head-final, like Japanese. There may be hints of V2 ordering, especially in late Proto-Ginösic. V2 is used only in informal speech, and is pretty much standard in the southern dialects, that later evolve into Ziilbel, where the verb may even move to first place. The northern dialects lack it, however.

And I chose to add an accusative case: -ke (as in ttuske - the house) but this is entirely optional.

Unlike Japanese, however, Proto-Ginösic has a strange feature: wh-movement. So "I am speaking Proto-Ginösic" is "Nuu Nuusdrõ ḳoltoo ḳuol go", while "What language do you speak?" is "Bet ḳoltoo ngoul ḳuol tri?" ('Bet' means what. Here the name of the language is in the instrumental case, not the accusative -- a direct translation would be "I am speaking by means of Proto-Ginösic".) I have decided finally to make the verbs a separate part of speech.

In non-wh questions (called 'lotoon-kkimpõns') a different order may be used informally, in late Proto-Ginösic, where the tense particle moves to first place:

Gomelb ḳuol ngoul Nuusdrõ ḳoltoo? (literally, 'do speak you Proto-Ginösic-INSTR') - the word 'gomelb' is a contraction of 'go mel ʒuub'.

So the previous sentence "Don't I love you"? is:

Trimelb ttu nuu ngoulken?

In Ziilbel, this is pretty much standard.

[Ambrisio]

Derivational morphology:

-põn: nominalizer, as in uḳõn "see" - uḳõnpõn "vision"
ngõel "come" - ngõelpõn "result" (c.f. Estonian tulema ~ tulemus)
del "free" - delpõn "freedom"
sur "hot" - surpõn " heat" (but "koud" means both "cold" and "chill" - because Proto-Ginösic is weird)

-ni: adjectivizer (if that is a word) - it turns a noun or verb into an adjective.
silset "silver color" - silsetni "silver"
toukõ rõnruosi "five years" - toukõrõnruosini "five-year-old"
kkelt "hunger" - kkeltni "hungry"
naik "thirst" - naikni "thirsty"
This is commonly used in color words, e.g. ngiilnim ḳisnim golnim "red, white and blue".

-pi: gerund suffix
ngõelpi "coming"

-ping: a suffix used for tense words:
orping: present ("being")
ngõelping: future ("coming")
tteimping: past ("going")

-soi: another adjectivizer, although it could create nouns.
kees "place" - keessoi "local, native" (both a noun and an adjective)
pun "happiness" - punsoi "happy"
uõnrõipõnsoi "ambiguous" (from uõn "many" + rõipõn "meaning" + soi, i.e. "many-meaninged")

-ma: like English -ly, an adverbial suffix

uḳõnderma - "obviously, visibly" from uḳõnder "visible" from uḳõn "see"
histesoima - "perfectly, completely" from histesoi "perfect" from histe "full"

-tel or -põel: verbal suffix

rõipõn "meaning" - rõipõel - "to mean"
mil "number" - milgis "computer" - milgispõn "calculus" - milgispõel "calculate"
kkar "rotation" - kkartel "to rotate"

-tim: another nominalizer, used only with verbs

uḳõn "see" - uḳõntim "eyesight, seeing" (also, in the terminative case, it could mean "Goodbye" or "See you again" - Uḳõntimbar in Proto-Ginösic)
qooltim - "hearing" (the analogous farewell on the phone is 'Qooltimbar')

[Ambrisio]

-har: collection

rõnhar: alphabet (from rõn - letter)

(By the way, the intrinsic etymology of the word rõn "star" is interesting. It is unrelated to the word rõn "letter", which is a borrowing from another language. Proto-Ginösic art depicts shining stars with little tic-tac-toes (like #). The word rõn in the native alphabet looks like a star. The extrinsic etymology is of course Estonian 'täht ' which means both 'letter' and 'star'.)

ketramhar: fireworks (from ket - beauty, ram - fire, and har - collection). I personally love this word, with an etymology for each syllable - it just sounds perfect for a Sino-Tibetan-inspired language. I can imagine it being written with three hanzi's.

[kodé]

The syntax of Proto-Ginösic is completely head-final, like Japanese. There may be hints of V2 ordering, especially in late Proto-Ginösic. V2 is used only in informal speech, and is pretty much standard in the southern dialects, that later evolve into Ziilbel, where the verb may even move to first place. The northern dialects lack it, however.

Unlike Japanese, however, Proto-Ginösic has a strange feature: wh-movement. So "I am speaking Proto-Ginösic" is "Nuu Nuusdrõ ḳoltoo ḳuol go", while "What language do you speak?" is "Bet ḳoltoo ngoul ḳuol tri?" ('Bet' means what. Here the name of the language is in the instrumental case, not the accusative -- a direct translation would be "I am speaking by means of Proto-Ginösic".) I have decided finally to make the verbs a separate part of speech.

But in Japanese, CP is also head-final, so that complementizers ('that', question particles, and the like) are on the right edge of the sentence. V2 and left-edge wh-movement require CP to be head-first. So what Proto-Ginösic has a verb-final syntax with a head-first CP, which is not uncommon in language, but is not like Japanese.

[Ambrisio]

Hindi has such a syntax (except that it has no wh-movement). I am not sure about Sanskrit, however, but the related language Kashmiri has developed V2 syntax. This is kind of like the Ginösic family.

(By the way, the real reason why Proto-Ginösic isn't completely head-final is that English syntax creeps in every time I try to form sentences in the language. )

[Ambrisio]

While we are on the subject of "rõn" and stars, I have also created another meaning for "rõn": sun. The Ginösic people were always aware that their sun is a star, and their home planet rotates and revolves around their sun. This is evident in words like "mulkkar" (day, literally "earth twirl"), "rõnruos" (year, literally "sun circle"), and "mulruos" (month, literally "earth circle"). The ideograph # for "rõn" has eight external regions, which reflects the Ginösic calendar of eight "seasons".

Merni guuk (early spring) - begins February 1st
Peisni guuk (late spring) - begins March 18th (17th in leap years)
Merni pol (early summer) - begins May 2nd
Peisni pol (late summer) - begins June 16th
Merni siuk (early autumn) - begins August 5st
Peisni siuk (late autumn) - begins September 19th
Merni qiip (early winter) - begins November 3rd
Peisni qiip (late winter) - begins December 18th

The leap day is added before "merni pol". In Ginösic it is called "mulkkartrin polmienpõn", or "extension of summer by a day". The first days of alternate seasons are celebrated as holidays, named after the season: Guuknis mulkkar, Polnis mulkkar, Siuknis mulkkar and Qiipnis mulkkar.

The Ginösic week (toukõnik) is five days long, and the leap day isn't counted as a day of the week. Thus the first week of summer has six days in leap years. "Peisni pol" has fifty days rather than the expected 45. The extra five days of "peisni pol" are called "toukõniktrin polmienpõn" (extension of summer by a week). There are two naming systems for days of the week:

1st day: "downbeat turn" (qamttõiskkar), or "first twirl" (teikun kkar)
2nd day: "step forward and turn" (kiinsomkkar) - the k should have a dot underneath, or "second twirl" (teidor kkar)
3rd day: "pirouette" (trelkkar) or "third twirl" (teigõnik kkar)
4th day: "step backward and turn" (qalsomkkar) or "fourth twirl" (teinguu kkar)
5th day: "upbeat turn" (hõrttõiskkar) - the h should have a dot underneath - or "fifth twirl" (teitoukõ kkar)

The fourth and fifth days (qalsomkkar and hõrttõiskkar) form the Ginösic weekend.

The leap year occurs every 4 years, unless the year is divisible by a hundred (senary 244) but not four hundred (senary 1504). This is of course identical to the Gregorian leap year rule.

Numbers are an integral part of Ginösic life. Ginösic people are generally skilled at arithmetic and can easily tell if a five-digit (senary) year is divisible by 244 or 1504. This is partly due to the concrete, transparent nature of the digits in Ginösic script -- no need to learn addition tables, and six is small enough to reduce the burden of memorizing multiplication tables. And as an added bonus, six - 10 in senary - is highly composite, so that multiplication is reduced to a bunch of rules, expressed in just seven pithy sentences, with three words each:

"Two is adding again" (Dor ek qiäl) - there is no verb "or tri" to facilitate memorization
"Three is a half on the left" (Gõnik kõp hemmäk)
"Four is two twos" (Nguu dor dors)
"One to the left is six" (Kun hemnis keikõ) - a succinct description of the place-value system
For five, "move left and subtract" (Hemnis qum tes) So 4*5 would be 40 - 4 = 32.
For seven (11), "move left and add" (Hemnis qum ek)
For ten, "ten is two fives" (Nguudrin dor toukõs)

The presence of "hem" (left) in four of the seven aphorisms reflects the significance of place value in Ginösic counting. In my conworld, place value counting and zero are as old as the Ginösic people themselves (kind of like the Babylonian and Mayan systems on Earth). The choice of six as a base comes from the five fingers on a human's hand. No fingers represented zero, one finger one, and so on, so that a system based on six different digits emerged.

And naturally enough, Ginösic people are extremely averse to any kind of numerology or number superstition. The Ginösic people have a nice aphorism for this: "Kõn, bet sol tri, sol tri". (What's foolish is foolish).