The Qorbenic Programme

[el imiradu]

Report on the progress on Qorbenic II, Stage 1

Work on Qorbenic II commenced at 12:20am on 20th June, 2066. The initial goal was the fusing of English noun stems with regularised Finnish case and number endings. The endings in question were selected by the committee as follows:

Nominative: -0
Accusative: -ta (derived from the Finnish partitive. Researcher Groswald objected to this decision; he was outvoted and consequently defenestrated)
Genitive ("of") / Instructive ("with"/"using"): -n
Inessive ("in"): -ssa
Elative ("from"): -sta
Illative ("into"): -an
Adessive ("at, on"): -lla
Ablative ("from") -lta
Allative ("to, onto"): -lle
Essive ("as"): -na
Translative ("into", transformation): -ksi
Abessive ("without"): -tta
Comitative ("(together) with"): -ne

Plurals were to be formed with -i- (-j- between vowels) before the case ending. An experiment with nominative/accusative ending -t was deemed unsuccessful.

-e- was to be inserted before consonant-initial affixes in certain contexts, which were hotly debated with no consensus decision.

EXAMPLE PARADIGM: hous "house": hous, housta, housen, housessa, housesta, housan, housella, houselta, houselle, housna, houseksi, housetta, housne; housi, housita, housin, housissa, housista, housian, housilla, housilta, housille, housina, housiksi, housitta, housine.

==

On December 12th-16th 2066 the committee reconvened over a four-day period to discuss Stage 1b. In this substage, it was determined that English verb stems would be combined with endings derived from those of Latin and French.

Present tense:

sg || pl
1st: -o || -mus
2nd: -s || -tis
3rd: -t || -nt

Imperfect tense:

sg || pl
1st: -ai || -aimus
2nd: -ais || -aitis
3rd: -ait || -aint

Future tense:

sg || pl
1st: -ro || -ramus
2nd: -ras || -ratis
3rd: -rat || -rant

Conditional tense:

sg || pl
1st: -rai || -raimus
2nd: -rais || -raitis
3rd: -rait || -raint

The subjunctive and past historic were disregarded on the grounds of being unnecessary relics of a brutal imperialist past.

The perfect and pluperfect tenses were to be created with the present/imperfect forms of haver "to have" plus the past participle (usually -é, but -t for verb stems ending in a vowel).

Imperative: sg. -0, pl. -ez
Infinitive: -r

For verb stems not already ending in a vowel, it was decided that -e- would be added before endings beginning in a consonant. Where stems did end in a vowel, this would be deleted where the inflection began with a vowel.

===

The completion of stage I meant that the first sentences in Qorbenic II could be generated by the Hidden Children, as follows:

Help meta! Help meta! Werella bo? Bet dark heressa and cano see nothingta. //// All human beingi bent borni equali dignitissa and rightissa. Bent endowéi reasonne and consciensne and shouldent acter wonanotherelle spiriten brotherhooden ... ////

Let usta gor down and confounder theyn speechta.

====

Stage I of the project was thus declared successful, although it was seen that more work on Qorbenic II was still to be done.

[maıráí]

I'm not sure what's going on but I think I like it.

[Ambrisio]

So do you plan to have a phonology? Pronouncing the English words with English phonemes and the Finnish case endings with Finnish phonemes seems kind of weird: English has no phonemic consonant length, for example, while Finnish does. Otherwise, I don't see how to distinguish "-lla" and "-lle" using English pronunciations, as they would be reduced to the same "-ll@".

I think you may have better luck with the Estonian endings "-l" and "-le".

And seriously, why Latin? What is wrong with the Finnish verbal endings? The "shouldent" in the UDHR sounds too much like "shouldn't" for comfort -- "shouldvat" doesn't have that connotation. And of course, you haven't mentioned negative verbs yet. Do they use a Latinate or a Finnic paradigm? Maybe, for a change, you could use something like Chinese "bu"--I personally think it sounds great.

Also, I am a bit perplexed about your infinitive ending. If "teacher" is the infinitive of "teach", then how do you say "teacher"? (Here's what I would do. I would introduce the trilled R and the retroflex approximant R as separate phonemes, and use the trill in the infinitive and the approximant in the noun, reflecting the etymology. I also thought of using "teachja" for the noun form, c.f. "opettaja", but of course you have to be careful not to Finnicize everything, as you would eventually end up with Finnish.)

[el imiradu]

The question of orthography greatly vexed certain conservative scholars throughout the initial development of Qorbenic II; it was eventually Professor Barabbas who suggested the following respelling of English, based on the pronunciation current in the North of England (the present-day Arric Wasteland) in approximately 1985:

/p b t d tʃ dʒ k g/ <j q n k Q H l m>
/m n ŋ/ <h n ǩ>
/f v θ ð s z ʃ ʒ h/ <r b f v c x t d ȝ>
/w j l r/ <g z p r>

/i: ɪ u: ʊ/ <aa a yy y>
/ɛ ɜ: ə ɔ:/ <u ẅ i uu>
/æ ɑ: ɒ/ <e o w>

/eɪ aɪ ɔɪ aʊ ɔʊ/ <ww ẅẅ ö öö ı>
/ɪə ɛə ʊə/ <ii ä ää>

It was pointed out that the transcription above was not, strictly speaking, intuitive, although it was agreed that the august Prof. Barabbas's scheme was in all other respects ideal. As a compromise, the committee elected to keep the esteemed Professor's orthography, but to redefine the values of the letters as follows:

<p b t d ǩ k g q Q H> /p b t d c k g q ʡ ʔ/
<c ȝ> /ʨ ʥ/
<m n> /m n/
<f z x h> /f z ħ h/
<v j l r> /w y l r/

/a ä e i o ö u y w ẅ ı/ <a ɛ e i o ø u ɨ ʉ y ɯ/
<aa ää uu yy ẅẅ öö> /a: ɛ: u: ɨ: ʉ: ø:/

As a result of these changes, the First Utterance could be recast as follows (non-English morphemes retained their original orthography, with the exception of the infinitive ending -er which was to be spelt phonetically as <-e>):

Ȝupj haata! Ȝupj haata! Gälla qo? Qaat kol ȝiissa enk leno caa nyfaǩta. //// Uup ȝzyyhin qaaaǩi qaant quuni algipi kamnanassa enk rẅẅnissa. Qaant inkööéi raacinne enk lwntincne enk tykent elne gwninyvirelle cjaranen qryviȝyken ... ////

Puq ycta mır köön enk lynröönke vwwn cjaaQta.

It was at this time that the Allophony Commission was established, although their discoveries would not be published for some time.

A number of suggestions made by the Estonian Lobby were ignored, the Committee not being interested in the propaganda of the proponents of International Auxiliary Languages.

The following question was also tabled to the Committee:

And seriously, why Latin? What is wrong with the Finnish verbal endings?

The Vice-Treasurer drafted a letter of response as followers:

Dear Inquirer,

You are severely warned against questioning the supremacy of the Latin personal endings in public again. The Latin language is and remains a foundational part of our culture and its euphony and clarity remain unsurpassed. It is the conscensus of this Committee and of the wider scientific community that the confusing and contradictory paradigm adopted in recent years by the Finns presents no serious challenge.

Zux,
Dr. T.X. Foucault-Porphyrogennetos

In the event this letter was never sent owing to a postal strike.

[Ambrisio]

So would the first word in the UDHR be pronounced /u:p/?

I like the <ẅẅ>. It feels like a weird hybrid of Welsh and Finnish (the word "rẅẅnissa" is especially awesome). Maybe Tolkien would have loved it.

The one thing I am a bit uncertain about is the phoneme that you represented by <Q>. I just can't pronounce it no matter how hard I try. Might it turn into a voiced pharyngeal fricative (like old Hebrew ayin) in some accents?

And by the way, what does "leno" mean?

[GBR]

It was pointed out that the transcription above was not, strictly speaking, intuitive...

Lol

[Rik]

I applaud the work of this Committee!

[communistplot]

I applaud the work of this Committee!

Indeed, this is shaping up to be one of the more interesting conlangs I've seen.