Badiin

[Shemtov]

Badiin [ba.di:n] is a severely endangered language spoken by around 50 people is Russia's Khasansky District , along the Tumen River, across from North Korea. It's an isolate, but was thought to be its own branch of Altaic when that family was believed to be a thing. However, it is very different from the languages that historically surrounded it. The restrictions on syllable-final consonants may be due to Korean influence. Some propose that given some similarities (the accusative and genitive case markers are very similar) that Badiin is "Para-Tungusic". Some of linguists who believe that also believe in the "Macro-Tungusic" family, which also includes Korean and Japonic. Given similarities in the verb system of both Badiin and Mongolic, and legends of the Badiin coming from "Far in the Northwest", some have proposed that it's a Macro-Tungusic language with a Para-Mongolic substratum.
Phonology:
/p~b t~d~t͡ʃ~d͡ʒ t͡ʃ~d͡ʒ k~g/ <p~b t~d~c~j c~j k~g>
/b~v d~ð~d͡ʒ~ʒ d͡ʒ~ʒ g~ɣ/ <b~v d~đ~j~zh j~zh g~ǧ>
/pʰ~f tʰ~θ~t͡ʃʰ~ʃ t͡ʃʰ~ʃ kʰ~x/ <ph~f th~ŧ~ch~sh ch~sh kh>
/m n -ŋ/ <m n ng>
/s~ʃ h/ <s~sh h>
/r/ <r>
/l/<l>
/w j/ <w y>
/-ʔ/ <'> (or any consonant when it represents an geminated consonant.)

/i i: y y: u u:/ <i ii ü üü u uu>
/e e: ø ø: ɵ ɵ: o o: / <e ee ö öö ơ ơơ o oo>
/ɛ ɛ: œ œ: ɔ ɔ: ɑ ɑ:/ <ě ěě ȍ ȍȍ ǒ ǒǒ a aa>


The plain stops take there voiced allophones, and the voiced and aspirated stops take their fricative allophones intervocally.
The only initial clusters allowed are Cj and Cw. Any consonant can begin a cluster except for /l r/ and the aproximants themselves.
/s/ is pronounced post-alveolar before /i i:/.
The only consonants allowed to end a syllable are /p t k m n ŋ ʔ/
/ʔ/ is pronounced as a glottal stop at the end of words. or intervocally. Before another consonant it geminates the consonant or in the case of the aspirates, turns it into a preaspirated stop. Thus, a theoretical word /ju:dɑʔ/ would be pronounced [ju:ðɑʔ] on its own, but if it takes a suffix /bi/, it would be [ju:ðɑbbi].
The vowel harmony is front-back. /i i:/ are neutral. /ɵ ɵ:/ are the back equivalants of /e e:/ and /ɑ ɑ:/ are the back equivalents of /ɛ ɛː/.

Nouns:
Nouns are pluralized by the suffix <rět/rat>.

Cases:
Case suffixes come after the plural suffix. For singular nouns they have multiple forms depending on the end of the noun.

Accusative case: <bě/ba> except after /ŋ/ where the form is <gwě/gwa>
Genitive: <nii> except after /ŋ/ where the form is <wii>
Dative-Locative: <tu/tü>
Allative: <wi> except when the noun ends in <i> where the final vowel is lengthened. If it ends in <ii>, the final long vowel is replaced by <iyi>
Ablative: <tyee/tyơơ>
Instrumental-Perlative: <eng/ơng> after consonants. <ng> after vowels.
Comitative: <lȍȍ/lǒǒ>

Personal pronouns have two forms in the first and second person, being the nominative and oblique forms.
1P sing. Nom.: Bye
1P sing. Obl.: Myen
1P plr. Nom.: Iva
1P plr. Obl.: Měě
2P sing. Nom.: Chii
2P sing. Obl.: Chin
2P plr. Nom.: Shii
1P plr. Obl.: Shin

The 3P pronouns change only to indicate deixis, and are also the words for "this" and "that":
This: Yat
That: Cen



Verbs:
The copula is <Byěěn>. It is negated by <ȍm>

Iva Badiin niiđaam byěěn
"We are Badiin"

Yat Badiinnii mǒkhiŧaa byěěn
"This is a Badiin song"


Bye Rusi niiđaam ȍm byěěn
"I am not Russian"

Active indicative verbs have two tenses, past and non-past (there are also complex tenses involving converbs). They also have positive and negative forms, the latter used to negate the verb. They do not inflect for person.
The forms of verbs will be shown on the verb stem <Iđơ> "to come":
Past positive: Iđơsǒđi
Past negative: Iđơgooǧii
Present positive: Iđơzhi
Present negative: Iđơdook

Examples:
Bye Cinwi iđơgooǧii
"I didn't go to China"

Yat Cinnii uŧalakba etji
"He is eating Chinese Rice"

There are three irrealis moods in Badiin:
1. Imperative: Formed by the root alone:
Iđơ
"Come!"
2. Potential: Suffix -kat/kět Used to express that something is likely to happen:
Yat Cinnii uŧalakba etkět
He will eat Chinese Rice.
When proceeded by the emphatic particle ěě, this mood is an emphatic or polite imperative:
ěě iđơgat
"Please come"
It is used for the apodosis of conditional sentences in the construction PROTASIS byoo APODOSIS, if the protasis is likely to happen:

Chii Tuman Kuđii iđơzhi, byoo bye chin padyakkat
"If you come to the Tumen River [and I know you will], I will hit you.

3.Dubative: Suffix: gushi/güshi. Used to express something unlikely to happen, yet possible:
Yat Cinnii uŧalakba etgüshi
"He might eat Chinese rice [but probably won't]
When proceeded by the emphatic particle ěě, this mood is a negative imperative:
ěě iđơǧushi
"Don't come"
It is used for the apodosis of conditional sentences in the construction PROTASIS byoo APODOSIS, if the protasis is unlikely to happen:
Chii Tuman Kuđii iđơzhi, byoo bye chin padyakgushi
"If you come to the Tumen River [and I know you won't], I will hit you.


Adjectives:
Attributive "adjectives" are in fact attributive verbs. Despite the fact that they inflect as verbs, they come before the noun they modify, except if said noun is nominative, in which case they come immediately after it.
Niiđaam cadji küüdji kuđii Iđơdook
Niiđaam ca'-ji küü'-ji kuđi-i iđơ-took
man small-PRSNT big-PRSNT river-ALL come-PRSNT.NEG
"The small man isn't coming to the big river"

However, there are some attributive adjectives, mostly those denoting materiel or color, that act as instrumental nouns that come before the noun they modify:
Yat nơgơng ěđiimbě etji
"He eats the green apple"

Predicative adjectives use the adjective stem with the copula
ěđiim nơk byěěn
"the apple is green"

[mèþru]

I thought Altaic is still a thing... (neither widely accepted nor rejected)

[Shemtov]

I thought Altaic is still a thing... (neither widely accepted nor rejected)

I was under the impression that the idea of Altaic as a genetic stock is very unpopular, though it still has its defenders.

[mèþru]

Its very probable that I'm mistaken - I learned linguistics mainly from David Crystal's Cambridge Encyclopedia, Wikipedia and zompist.com, which are not the best places to learn about how accepted a theory is.

[Shemtov]

Converbs are verbs that are subordinated to another. In Badiin, there are two kinds of converbs: Copular and Common. Copular verbs can be subordinated to the copula, which takes tense, as a dummy verb. These converbs usually have a meaning of aspect, while the copula marks tense. The past tense of the Copula is <Byět>.
There are four main Copular converbs in Badiin:
1. Perfect. <-ȍm/-ǒm/-m>:
Yat nơgơng ěđiimbě edȍm byět.
"He has eaten the green apple"
2. Experiential. Used instead of the perfect when the emphasis is on the experience of the subject: <-khü/khu>:
Bye Tuman Kuđiba sihkü byět.
"I have seen the Tumen River"
3. Progressive: <-ing/ng>*
Yat nơgơng ěđiimbě eding byěěn.
"He is eating the green apple"
4. Habitual: <-cii>:
Yat nơgơng ěđiimbě etcii byěěn.
"He eats green apples".


*Yes, this is a nod to the false cognates that exist in natlangs.

[hwhatting]

I like this.

[vokzhen]

Its very probable that I'm mistaken - I learned linguistics mainly from David Crystal's Cambridge Encyclopedia, Wikipedia and zompist.com, which are not the best places to learn about how accepted a theory is.

My understanding, which granted isn't much better sourced than your own, is that the majority of the evidence doesn't favor a genetic relationship over a Sprachbund at the (pre-)proto-language level, with Korean and Japanese ancestors being on the periphery. As one example, Mongolian has similarities in lexicon to both Turkic and Tungusic, but the similarity of those two with each other is much lower. In addition, Proto-Turkic and Proto-Tungusic both had vowel length, while Proto-Mongolic didn't, but supposed Altaic words found in all three often only reflect vowel length in one branch. That points strongly to the words being native to either Turkic in the west or Tungusic in the east, with Mongolic in the middle as an intermediary eliminating the long vowels before further borrowing.

There's similarity between the three in terms of grammatical items, but afaiu it would be at a deeper level than much of the lexical "evidence." What little I've seen of Altaic work appears to ignore any temporal distance between grammatical similarity and lexical similarity, contaminating what could be decent work with a bunch of likely-borrowings. I do know some people here take a relationship as a serious possibility, but sometimes not in the traditional Altaic sense - WeepingElf has said he thinks Turkic shows more affinity for Indo-Uralic+Eskaleut than for the other "Altaic" languages.

[Shemtov]

Common converbs link the verb that takes them to the main verb. The following converbs are in common use in Badiin:

-khöö/khoo: Used to mean that the subject is doing both verbs at (around the same time):
Yat ěđiimrětbě botkaba maasuhkoo etji
"He eats apples and drinks Vodka"

-(ü/u)t
Used to mean that the verb that takes it happened immediately after the main verb:
Yat ěđiimrětbě botkava maasu'ut etji
"He ate apples, and then drank vodka"

-hii
Used to mean that the verb that takes it happened immediately before the main verb:
Yat ěđiimrětbě botkava maasuhhii etji
"He drank vodka after eating apples"

-the/thơ
Means the verb that takes it was caused or instigated by the main verb:
Yat ěđiimrětbě botkava maasuhtơ etji
"He drank vodka because he ate apples"

-piim
Means the verb that takes it is the protasis of a conditional sentence, while the main verb is the apodosis. This is used instead of the moods when stating a general truth and both actions are done by the same subject:
Chii kuđii pyaakpiim ükji
"If you jump into the river, you will die [because no one can survive that]"

While the following sentence:
Chii kuđii pyaakji, byoo ükji
can have one of the following implications:
"[you, personally, can't survive it, so] If you jump into the river, you will die"
or
"You'll probably jump into the river causing yourself to die"

[hwhatting]

Are these converb constructions based on anything in Tungusic or Mongolian, or are they your own idea? Some of them look decidedly strange from a Turkic point of view (Turkic languages being the only ones out of Altaic that I have studied somewhat).

[Shemtov]

Are these converb constructions based on anything in Tungusic or Mongolian, or are they your own idea? Some of them look decidedly strange from a Turkic point of view (Turkic languages being the only ones out of Altaic that I have studied somewhat).

As I posit that Badiin was influenced by ancient Koreanic languages, a lot of the "Converbs" are based on verbal suffixes in Korean, that while not converbs per se, have been analyzed as being similar to converbs (in regards to theory) and given this fact, and the fact that Badiin has more cononical "converbs" I have chosen to call them converbs.

[hwhatting]

What struck me mostly was not the fact that you have coverbs, but 1) word order (you seem to have OBJ1 OBJ2 V(2) COV V(1), while Turkic has OBJ2 V(2)-PARTICIPLE OBJ1 V(1) (=finite) and 2) temporal sequence - you have coverbs both for the first verb happening before and for happening after the second verb, while the Turkic languages I know seem to have only suffixes for actions expressed by the first (= non-finite) verb happening before or contemporaneous to the main verb, and just switch the verbs when the order is changed. So something like

Yat ěđiimrětbě botkava maasu'ut etji
"He ate apples, and then drank vodka"

which seems to be
He apples-OBJ1 vodka-OBJ2 drink-COV eat
would be expressed in the Turkic languages I know as
He apples eat-PAST.PARTICIPLE vodka drink.

[Shemtov]

What struck me mostly was not the fact that you have coverbs, but 1) word order (you seem to have OBJ1 OBJ2 V(2) COV V(1), while Turkic has OBJ2 V(2)-PARTICIPLE OBJ1 V(1) (=finite) and 2) temporal sequence - you have coverbs both for the first verb happening before and for happening after the second verb, while the Turkic languages I know seem to have only suffixes for actions expressed by the first (= non-finite) verb happening before or contemporaneous to the main verb, and just switch the verbs when the order is changed. So something like

Yat ěđiimrětbě botkava maasu'ut etji
"He ate apples, and then drank vodka"

which seems to be
He apples-OBJ1 vodka-OBJ2 drink-COV eat
would be expressed in the Turkic languages I know as
He apples eat-PAST.PARTICIPLE vodka drink.

The syntax was something of my own creation, yes.

[----]

Its very probable that I'm mistaken - I learned linguistics mainly from David Crystal's Cambridge Encyclopedia, Wikipedia and zompist.com, which are not the best places to learn about how accepted a theory is.

Altaic is not commonly accepted in the literature because attempts to reconstruct a proto-language (an entity necessarily implied by the theory of common descent) have been unsuccessful--they face serious issues that are at such a basic level that they can't be merely sidelined. All attempts at reconstructing Proto-Altaic have been met with at least one of the following issues:

-the proposed reconstructions are too 'dense/heavy', ad hoc, etc.--they often contain large numbers of diphthongs, extra syllables that disappear without apparent justification. Compare Matisoff's comments on similar trends in Tibeto-Burman historical linguistics: given an ostensible cognate list for 'ant'

pərwak, púɣɔ̂ʔ, grog-ma, təruk, sərɔ, etc.

someone (like Alfons Weidert supposedly) might reconstruct *kpstrwak to make them all 'fit' phonologically. But this reconstruction faces serious issues--we have to believe that the proto-language had clusters of 5 or more consonants when many of the daughter languages lack them entirely, we have to explain why one language chose to delete all the consonants except the second one, why one language chose to delete all the consonants except the third, etc. What would we compare such a reconstructed lexeme to in order to defend it? How many words are there with initial clusters beginning *kps-? We also have a much easier way of explaining this variation: the root is simply *rwak and the initial segments or 'prefixes' encode various semantic or grammatical features. the pə, pú initial segments are easily demonstrated to derive from *bəw 'insect', s- appears in many animal names in the language containing the word sərɔ, etc. No such explanation of this kind appears to be available for the variation found in the Altaic lexical base.

-Lexemes that are claimed to derive from a common ancestor can be demonstrably shown to have other origins. This is the most egregious and frankly embarrassing problem Altaic scholarship has faced so far. For example, Middle Japanese situ 'damp' is claimed to have an Altaic origin but it is a clear Chinese borrowing, < Middle Chinese śip (final p > t in Sino-Japanese vocabulary has other examples, e.g. ritu 'stand' from lip).

-Some portions of the phonological systems of modern Altaic languages cannot be accounted for via correspondence with other Altaic languages. In other words, one or two phonemes or phonetic structures in Altaic language A lack any correlate in language B. IIRC this includes many examples of velar nasals in Altaic languages. If the phonological systems of languages under consideration fail to show consistent correlations, then the comparative method cannot admit an apparent "genetic relation".

-Semantic comparisons are very distant or unlikely. Not much clarification is needed here. Numerous alleged cognates are pairs of the form "specific species" : 'plant' or 'a kind of plant' with no clarification of what kind of plant the word references, not to mention comparisons like 'to creep' : 'to be irritated'. If there is an actual relation here it is metaphorical but the metaphor is a long stretch and this stretch lacks an explanation or justification.


Matisoff, James- The Handbook of Proto-Tibeto-Burman
Vovin, Alexander- "The End of the Altaic Controversy"
Georg, Stefan- "The Poverty of Altaicism"

The two latter referenced works largely take the form of reviews of the EDAL : the Etymological Dictionary of Altaic Languages, which in pro-Altaic scholarship is taken to be the pinnacle of their academic task. Considering its place in the dialogue, its contemporaneousness, and its breadth, it's the most appropriate text to critique.

[Nortaneous]

comparisons like 'to creep' : 'to be irritated'. If there is an actual relation here it is metaphorical but the metaphor is a long stretch and this stretch lacks an explanation or justification.

What? Modulo transitivity, that exact development happened in English, with that exact word.

[Vijay]

I thought creep out in English could mean 'scare' but not 'irritate'.

[kuroda]

It's both an incontrovertable and widely accepted fact that Altaic is a completely demonstrable and proven language family, and it's also the fact that "Altaic" is obviously and unambiguously nonsense as a 'genetic' relationship. Seriously, both points are plain facts in both professional circles and popular media today.

Seriously, it's all crazy politics and elderly academics (and their students). Between Turks and Koreans with flags and self-evidently true nations with vastly deep and profound histories and Western media access, it's a bad business. Between "Altaicists" who are insanely knowledgeable about Turkic languages, and/or Korean, and/or Japanese, but couldn't find their way out of a Mongolian etymological bag with a library at their back -- to say nothing of Tungusic languages! -- and, well, each other: it's an ugly business too. I think the entire issue is just poison. And that people who invoke it at this point should be, basically, assumed to be hucksters, politicians, bad actors, and/or mentally disabled.

I'm really excited to come across Badiin, and want to see more. It really doesn't trip any of my Manchu-Tungusic triggers so far, honestly; but it's a part of the world and a set of (real world) languages that I am, or was, very heavily invested in once.

[Shemtov]

A note on the syntax of converbs:
When the different verbs have different objects, the objects are placed before the verbs, with the object of the main verb coming first. However, if one verb has multiple objects, they are linked by the suffix hȍk/hǒk after the first object, which does not take the accusative:
Yat ěđiimrětbě botkahǒk kook maasuhkoo etji
"He eats apples and drinks vodka and coke"

However, if emphasis wishes to be placed on the object of the main verb, the following contruction is used:
Yat botkaba maasuhkoo ěđiimrětbě etji
"He drank vodka, and it was apples he ate"

This construction can also be used with the converbs -(ü/u)t and -hii, when the speaker wishes to emphasize that the subject preformed the actions with different intents or when any causal implication is being discarded (as -(ü/u)t and -hii, can be used instead of -the/thơ in cases when using the cause-effect is pragmatically uncomfortable, such as discussion motives of crimes or admissions of guilt) :
Yat botkava maasu'ut ěđiimrětbě etji
"He drank vodka [without intent from the beginning] after eating apples"
or
"He drank vodka after eating apples [and the apples didn't drive him to drink]"

[Shemtov]

Numbers 1-10:
1 Bööt
2 Phök
3 Üli
4 Too'
5 Thu
6 Yö
7 Nět
8 Yaa
9 Khek
10 Phip

The teens are formed like this:
11 Phipbööt
12 Phipphök
13 Phibüli
etc.

Twenty has a unique form: Khuri

The other tens, 30-90, are derived from the one-digit number, albeit irregularly:
30 Ülüü
40 Tooyu
50 Thuuyi
60 Yüü
70 Nědü
80 Yaayi
90 Khegüü

numbers like 21 32, etc are formmed like this:
21 Khurivoot
32 Ülüüfök

[Shemtov]

Inchoative Verbalization (to turn something into something else) can be used productively by taking the noun in the Allative case, and treating it like a verb root with the -khöö/khoo converb attached, used with a dummy copula:
Bye botkawikhoo byěěn
"I am making Vodka"

This construction can be used with the instrumental case to mean "using X" in a intransitive sense:
Bye dǒǒgơngkhoo byěěn
"I am using an axe"

It can also be used with the comitative case to mean "To obtain; to enter into a state with":
Bye dǒǒklǒǒkhoo byěěn
"I am getting an axe"

or
Ilölȍȍkhöö byěěn
"It is becoming cloudy"

[Nortaneous]

Vijay: Yes, the drift from 'scare' to 'irritate/disgust' is recent, and probably the internet's fault.

[ObsequiousNewt]

Vijay: Yes, the drift from 'scare' to 'irritate/disgust' is recent, and probably the internet's fault.

This is a thing that happened?

[gach]

Vijay: Yes, the drift from 'scare' to 'irritate/disgust' is recent, and probably the internet's fault.

This is a thing that happened?

As in "His stupidity scares me." = "The stupid things he says really annoy me." ≠ "I am afraid of his lack of knowledge."

[ObsequiousNewt]

Vijay: Yes, the drift from 'scare' to 'irritate/disgust' is recent, and probably the internet's fault.

This is a thing that happened?

As in "His stupidity scares me." = "The stupid things he says really annoy me." ≠ "I am afraid of his lack of knowledge."

What, really? I'd been interpreting it as the latter. Like, "I'm afraid of what his lack of knowledge might lead him to do."