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

[schwhatever]

I'll try to get involved in this. Can I join?

[Cedh]

@ krinnen and schwhatever:

Also : I'm in the opinion that new comers in this relay should be allowed to just make a daughter of the language they like, instead of keeping the team thing. That way people don't have to wait for months, and the resulting tree will be much more realistic.

I completely agree. The relay has already beautifully fulfilled my original purpose for it. At this point I think it would be appropriate to make what we've been doing lately anyway, which is "whatever we feel like doing", into the main game. And to say "welcome!" to anyone who wants to jump in wherever and whenever they like.

Just choose a language you want to start from in this list, notify us of your choice and have a go!

Unfortunately not all the links still work. Arie, Öhat, Xa' and Puoni were lost in the KQ crash a few months ago; Yïåf was posted on the ZBB and got pruned, and Zhaj seems to have been the victim of domain grabbing. If someone has a copy of the missing material on their own computer it would be great to make it available once more...

[krinnen]

@ krinnen and schwhatever:

Just choose a language you want to start from in this list, notify us of your choice and have a go!

Very well

I'll be deriving a language from Kozado

Unfortunately not all the links still work. Arie, Öhat, Xa' and Puoni were lost in the KQ crash a few months ago; Yïåf was posted on the ZBB and got pruned, and Zhaj seems to have been the victim of domain grabbing. If someone has a copy of the missing material on their own computer it would be great to make it available once more...

I believe I have a copy of, at least, Arie in my computer at work. I'll check it out tomorrow.

Saludos!!

[krinnen]

Ah, wait. Is there vocabulary for Kozado?

EDIT: Also, I see now there are 2 Arie langs... I believe I have a copy of tzirtzi's, not nuntar's

[Corumayas]

I've just recovered a bunch of files from my old computer (which the relay killed off), including a modified-by-me copy of Yïåf and I think a wordlist for Zhaj. I don't have the original of either language though. I suppose I could post what I've got if anyone needs that stuff.

[Legion]

Ah, wait. Is there vocabulary for Kozado?

Kozado is not finished ! But ! If you want to make a daughter out of it I can resume work on it !

[jmcd]

It appears the Yiaf symbols in te back up version are a bit wrong so here's the original:

Code: Select all

Yïåf 

Yïåf  is the descendant of A’gaf of Ayasth of Adata of Ndak ta.  It is the language used approximately 500 years to 900 years since A’gaf was created as a language for the people of Fèråh (formerly Fadah).  Yïåf is now the lingua franca of the region spoken by many millions of people but mostly only as a second language to communicate with other people in the nearby area.  Otherwise, they use their own languages which were all originally dialects of A’gaf.

Sound change Rules

V*=ouOeiEjAa{29yV7MIU1
B*=ouOaV7M 
R*=ouOU
G*=V7M
E*=EeiI
Y*=92y
F*=92y{eiEjAI 
C*=kgNxM\wtdnslrRcJ\JCjSzhpbfv
U*=tdnslP*Szh
K*=kgNxM\ 
D*=tdnslr
P*=cJ\JCj
*a refers to A
*’d capital letters refer to the groups rather than the phonemes
p/f/V*_V*
t/s/V*_F*
t/f/V*_V*
f/ph/V*_V*
s/h/_#
s/d/V*_V*
x/kh/V*_V*
h//C*_
K*/K*w/_R*
l/w/_R*
K*/P*/_E*
t/c/_E*
d/J\/_E*
n/J/_E*
s/S/_E*
l/z/_E*
h/C/_E*
x/R/_C*
e/je/_C*V*
o/wo/_C*V*
2/y2/_C*V*
E/V/_K*
e/7/_K*
i/M/_K*
9/O/_K*
2/o/_K*
y/u/_K*
E*/G*/_K*
Y*/R*/_K*
R*/G*/U*_U*
l/r/_
x,g/M\/V*_V*
k/x/V*_V*
g//V*_wV*
k/x/V*_wV*
z,d/r/V*_V*
s/z/V*_V*
t/s/V*_V*
f,b/v/V*_V*
p/f/V*_V*
S,C,J\/j/V*_V*
c/C/V*_V*
2/I/_C*(C*)1
2/I/_C*(C*)i
2/I/_C*(C*)u
2/I/_C*(C*)o
2/I/_1
2/I/_i
2/I/_u 
2/I/_o
2//V*C*_#
2//V*C*_C*V*
{/E/_C*(C*){
{/E/_C*(C*)E*
a/V/_C*(C*)a
a/V/_C*(C*)R*
{/E/_{
{/E/_E*
a/V/_a
a/V/_R*
{/1/_Ca*
a/1/_C{*
x//_w
x/h/_
w/u/_
j/i/_
M\/M/_
 r/R/_
i/e/_R
i/e/R_
u/o/_R
u/o/R_
M/7/R_
M/7/_R
y/2/R_
y/2/_R
removal of double vowels e.g. aa>a and vowel clusters like 4 vowels in row that aren’t allophonically approximants.

Consonants
labial
alveolar
palatal
velar
Uvular
glottal
stop
p b
t d
c J\
k g


nasal
m
n
J
N


fricative
f v
s z
C 

R
h
 Phonology
Vowels
Front
Central
Back
Close
i y
1
M u 
Lax Close
I

U
Close-mid
e 2

7 o
Open-mid
E 9

V O
Open
{

A


The diphthongs are: üö ie uo au ou ai ei öi aï oï eï öï pronounced the same as their constitute parts i.e. au is pronounced like a+u : /{_u/. Au is the most common.
The vowels all become nasal before a nasal consonant and the nasal consonant dissapears before a consonant or at the end of a word.
R usually becomes /X/ next to a voiceless consonant.
When there is a voiced consonant next to a voiceless one, the first of the 2 determines if both are voiced or not.
Intervocalic and initial u,i and ï are usually pronounced /w/,/j/ and /M\ respectively.
All sandhi and umlaut from A’gaf and Ayasth is either now phonemic rather than allophonic or non-existant.

Phonological Constraints
Basically (C)V(C) but a consonant can not be next to another of the same.  If that happens by adding an affix, one is removed.

Pitch Accent

The accented syllable is high, the ones before it  and the one immediately after are at an intermediate pitch and any others are low.

The pitch accent system in Yïåf is entirely unpredictable otherwise and does not contribute to meaning so it is ok if you do not put the accent on the right syllable but you will sound a bit weird.


Orthography
<a e i å è ò ë ï î û ÿ ö ü o u y ?>
/{ e i A E O 7 M I U 9 2 y o u V 1/
<c g ng t d n s r ci gi ni hi si z h p b f v>
/k g N t d n s R c J\ J C S z h p b f v/

Morphology

Nominal Morphology

New nouns can be made in Yïåf  by joining 2 other nouns together.  As with A’gaf, nouns are only marked for case.  However, the cases are slightly different.  

Intransitive - The subject of an intransitive verb.
No prefix

Accusative - The object of a transitive verb.
ö(u)-

Ergative - the subject of a transitive verb.
g(ö)-

Essive – used to describe something temporarily being another.
daï-

Instrumental – used to describe using something.
pa-

Abessive – lacking in something, no x
ör-

Ablative – Place where movement started. 
dof-

Dative – indirect object, place where movement ended.
duo-

Inessive – describing being inside something
giè-

Illative – describing going inside something
öï-

Elative – describing going out of something
ret-

Personal Possessive Adjectives:
oh – my
oï – your (singular)
åh – his/her/its
öhòc – our
oïòc – your (plural)
åhòc – their


The personal possessive adjectives and the determiners
follow the noun they qualify.

Determiners
föd – a small part of
fac – few
davöd – a part of
davac - several
òföd – a large part of
òfac –many
aïöd – all of
aïac - every

Articles

The indefinite article is shown by 1 (cüö) and the definite article is shown by zero/is default.
Demonstratives
Personal Pronouns
1st sing
2nd sing
3rd sing
1st plural
2nd plural
3rd plural
Intransitive
üyhüö
gügüö
åhüö
yuòc
guguòc
yuyuòc
Accusative
öüyhüö
ögüö
öuåhüö
öuòc
öguòc
öuyuòc
Ergative
ngüö
nguò
gåh
èi
gau
gyuòc
Ablative
düöfüö
düönfuò
düöfåh
düöfèi
düöfüyïau
düöfyuòc
Dative
nai
donguò
nau
gièi
duoïau
dau
Essive
gahüö
ganuò
d?ïåh
gèhièi
gèïau
daïyuòc
Instrumental
pè
pa
p?hah
piyïyc
pòc
paryc
Abessive
üörÿ
ü?uò
üöråh
ü?rei
üörau
üöryuò
 öïè –this 
örciè –these 
öïö – that 
örcüö – those

The inessive, illative and elative are not used with the personal pronouns.  

Correlatives
Query
This
That
Some
No
Every
Adjective
èh
?iè
yïö
dav?iè
basüö
aïyhciè
Person
iyïau gah
iyïau ?iè
iyïau yïö 
iyïau dav?iè
paiyïau
iyïau aïyhciè
Thing
gah
?iè
yïö
dav?iè
pai
aïyhciè
Place
bar
gerör
garör
daorör
barör
N/A
Time
sër
gèih
hièr
dyf
byr
N/A
Way
èf
hiep
N/A
davep
N/A
N/A
Reason
yuòh
hiesüö
N/A
dafüö
basòh
N/A

Yes (årüö) is used to express and, x maybe(zec) y maybe to express or and no(ör) to express but:
iåïarÿ cüö årüö iåïarÿ güö årüö
1 lamb chop and 2 more
iåïarÿ cüö zec iåïarÿ güö zec
Either 1 lamb chop or 2
iåïarÿ cüö årüö iåïarÿ güö ör
1 lamb chop but not 2

Nouns can be turned into adjectives be prefixing them with ög- .  Adjectives can be turned into nouns by adding –ngèn as a suffix.  Adjectives can be turned into adverbs by adding öt- as a prefix.  Nouns can be turned into adverbs by adding fa-.

Verbal Morphology

Verbs all take mood prefixes and there are 2 classes of verbs which 2 different sorts of endings.

Mood:

Indicative positive – to say something’s happening
-

Indicative negative – to say something isn’t happening
pu- (sensibly with no umlaut)

Subjunctive positive – to say something would happen in x circumstances
düö-

Subjunctive negative – to say something would not happen in x circumstances
darsa-

Optative positive – to say something you want to happen
uh-

Optative negative - to say something you don’t want to happen
ungant-

Conditional positive – to say something that is a condition for something else happening
os-

Conditional negative- to say something that is a condition for something else not happening
uosaisa-

Question
zeh-

Tense/Aspect:

Past Imperfect

Present Imperfect

Past Perfect
Past perfect
Group 1
Group 2
1st singular
-ön
-nön
2nd singular
-nguòn
-nön
3rd singular
-ön
-nön
1st plural
-
-gi
2nd plural
-guo
-düö
3rd plural
-üö
-düö

Past imperfect
Group 1
Group 2
1st singular
-nün
-tün
2nd singular
-dynguòn
-tynguòn
3rd singular
-nün
-tün
1st plural
-dü?i
-tü?i
2nd plural
-dyuo
-tyuo
3rd plural
-dü
-tü

Present Imperfect
-mènraü?iè after other imperfect endings

There is also the imperative which is the basic given form of a verb.  

Voice

A’gaf voice has changed into separate verbs rather than forms of the 1 verb.

Syntax

Yïåf has basic VSO word order:

The king has killed him.
kill-PastPerfect-3rd singular he-Accusative Ergative-king
fèsön öuåhüö gögierha

In a nominal phrase, the basic order is noun, number, adjective relating to character, adjective relating to appearance, other adjective, correlative adjective, demonstrative:

These 3 soft yellow stones
Stone 3 soft yellow these
Tögiarÿ dau öïvèståvès hèimèn örciè

The cases are always even in coordinating constructions:

From the field and trading
Ablative-Trading yes Ablative-field yes
Dofciehin årüö dofciev årüö

Possessive constructions are formed just by putting the possessed noun before the possessor and turning the possessor into an adjective by adding ög-:

Land of kakhad
Land Adjective-kakhad
gièscar ögcahad

Possessive constructions are also used to specify locative phrases:

On the Table top
Inessive-top Adjective-table
gièdat ög(allophonically /k/)ciyuo

Verb phrases are ordered Verb, Adverb, Auxiliary, Verbal Noun.
I am nearly reborn
be born- 1st singular-Present  Adverb – near Adverb – second
öïèsiètünmènraü?iè ötcaröh ötröïyüö

Yïåf is not a pro-drop language so there must always be a pronoun even if there is no noun.

To form a predicate in Yïåf, the word order is Verb Adjective Noun.

Relative and Subordinate clauses are formed using the personal pronouns as conjunctions between the main and subordinate clauses.  

I killed the man that raped me
kill-Past Perfect-1st singular Accusative-man Ergative-I he rape-Past Perfect Accusative-I
fèsön öiyïau ngüö åhüö öïehinauònnön öüyhüö

Sample Text

Thus spoke Sinakan, (as) the great king, (as) the king of the land of Kaxad, (as) 
speak-PastPerfect3rdsingular, king great, king Adjective-Kakhad
èvön Sinhan: gierha garoï, gierha ögcahad, 

brother of the sun and the moon : 
brother Adjective-sun yes Adjective-moon yes:
baïhåt öghèimènra årüö ögfaor årüö:

"Before I sat on the throne of my father, all the rival countries were hostile towards 
Inessive-time Negative-sit-PastPerfect1stsingular Inessive-throne Adjective-father I-Ergative, foreign_country every Adjective-enemy
[gièzåt puöïåftün gièofhèr ögbah ngüö, råïauien aïac ögdaoråh

me.
I-Dative.
nai.]
?The nearby rival countries spoke thus :
speak-PastPerfect3rdsingular foreign_country many near:
èvön råïauien òfac caröh:
?"His father was a brave king.
“father his king brave.
[bah åh gierha perar.
?He conquered many rival countries.
conquer-PastPerfect3rdsingular foreign_country many he-Ergative.
ÿvön råïauien òfac gåh


?And he became a god.
in_addition, become-PastImperfect3rdsingular Ergative-god one he-Ergative.
ciehinën öïvièruònün gögierharèie cüö gåh.
?But he who sits on the throne of his father is a child." 
though man he sit-Present3rdsingular Inessive-throne Adjective-father Ergative-child one”
gar iyïau åhüö öïåftünmènraü?iè ögbah ngüö gögièvüö cüö]

When I, brother of the sun and the moon, sat on the throne of my father, 
Inessive-time sit-PastImerfect1stsingular Inessive-throne Adjective-father I, brother Adjective-sun yes Adjective-moon yes, 
gièzåt öïåftün ör årüö gièofhèr ögbah ngüö: baïhåt öghèimènra årüö ögfaor årüö: 

before I went to the rival country which were being hostile towards me, 
Inessive-time Negative-go-PastPerfect1stsingular I-Ergative Dative-foreign_country it Adjective-enemy Dative-I, 
gièzåt pudòrön ngüö duoråïauien åhüö ögdaoråh nai,

I went to the feasts of Ophai.
go-Pastperfect1stsingular Dative-feast many Adjective-Ophai.
dòrön dogiarÿuaroï òfac öguovai.
?I celebrated them, and I rose my hand to the shining mother.
celebrate-PastPerfect1stsingular they-Accusative yes I-Ergative pick_up-Pastperfect1stsingular Accusative-hand my Dative-mother shining yes I-ergative.
bièruòön öuyuòc årüö ngüö yfåön öcaï oh duomèn bår årüö ngüö.
?I spoke thus :
speak-PastPerfect3rdsingular I-Ergative:
èvön ngüö:

"My mistress, light of the stars, the nearby rival countries who call me a child belittle me.
“woman my:light Adjective-star: mock-Present3rdplural I-Accusative foreign_country many near they talk_rubbish-Present3rdplural I-Accusative it Ergative-child I-Ergative
?ïåhüö oh: hèi ögèi: òvrådümènraü?iè ngüö råïauien òfac caröh yuyuòc èïatünmènraü?iè öüyhüö åhüö ögièvüö ngüö
?And they begin to attack the borders of your holy land, my mistress !
in_addition, begin-Present3rdsingular attack-Noun one Illative-edge many Adjective-kingdom sacred your they-Ergative, woman my!
ciehinën, sèsièdümènraü?iè pyruongèn cöü öïciyråh òfac ögièscar ar oï gyuòc, ?ïåhüö oh!
?Strike the unholy down !" 
kill evil!
fès aryi!



Ophai heard the words of my mouth.
hear-PastPerfect3rdsingular Accusative-word many Adjective-mouth my Ophai.
dyvuòön örèïei òfac ögbåb oh uofai.
?She rose me and she gave strength to my arm.
pick_up-PastPerfect3rdsingular I-Accusative she-Ergative yes make- PastPerfect3rdsingular it arm strong my she-Ergative yes.
yfåön öüyhüö gåh årüö öïörcaïön åhüö öctögiarÿ ierån oh gåh åhüö.
?I conquered those who contested me in ten years.
conquer-pastPerfect1stsingular man many they fight-pastPerfect3rdplural Inessive-year ten I-Ergative.
ÿvön iyïau òfac yuyuòc böïhüö gièzaüruï yï ngüö.
?I conquered them.
conquer they-Accusative I-Ergative
ÿvön öuyuòc ngüö
?I captured prisoners, oxen and sheep, and I sent them back to the land of Kaxad." 
steal-PastPerfect1stsingular prisoner yes ox yes sheep yes I-Ergative.  send-PastPerfect1stsingular they-Accusative Dative-Kaxad I-Ergative.
gèivòïåïråvön gièi årüö öi årüö iaï årüö ngüö.  pièråön öuyuòc docahad ngüö.

Lexicon

Numbers

Cardinal
cüö – 1
güö – 2
dau – 3
büö – 4
gau – 5
öh – 6
müö – 7
guòc – 8
gör – 9
yï – 10
daïh -11
dauc – 12
daor – 13
dauvüö – 14
dauo – 15
deröh – 16
nau - 17
dòuòc - 18
daïör - 19
gåï – 20
gåïhüö – 21
gåïüö – 22
gåïrau – 23
gåïvüö – 24
gåïau – 25
gåïöh – 26
gåïmüö – 27
gåïuòc – 28
gåïör – 29
(the numbers 1 – 10 change like above when added onto 20 to 90.)
dauï – 30
bòï – 40
gauï – 50
aï – 60
bauï – 70
guòïaï – 80
gaï – 90
efüö – 100

Ordinal
rÿhüö – 1st
röïyüö – 2nd
rÿrau – 3rd
rÿvüö – 4th
röïau – 5th
röïöh – 6th
römüö – 7th
raug – 8th
röïör – 9th
uòï – 10th
rÿraïh – 11th
rÿrauc – 12th
rÿraor – 13th
rÿrauvüö – 14th
rÿrauo – 15th
rÿreröh – 16th
rÿnau – 17th
rÿròc – 18th
rÿraïör – 19th
röïaï – 20th
rÿrauï – 30th
rÿvòï – 40th
röïauï – 50th
rÿaï – 60th
rÿvauï – 70th
rauïaï – 80th
rÿyïaï – 90th
ziefüö – 100th

Nouns

aufciè – stool, chair
båb - mouth
bah – father
baïhåt – brother
byvoï - power
caï - hand
ciehin – trading
ciehinën – mathematics, addition, can be used as a conjunction meaning also, in addition.
cienën – knowledge
ciev - field
ciyråh - edge
ciyuo - table, platform
dåh - the unknown
dåm - fire
daoråh - enemy
dat - peak, apex, top
ierån - arm
erhi – prostitute
erhiehin – sex
faor - moon
gauien - foreigner, pagan
gèi - star
giarÿ – food
giarÿuaroï - feast
gièi - prisoner
gièit - tradition, the past
gièråh - ruler (other than king)
gierha – king
gierharèie - god
gièscar - kingdom
gièvüö - child
hèi - light
hèimènra - daylight, sun
hèr - group of something
hiehinauòn – rape(contraction of violent prostitute trading)
hier?n - tooth
iåï – sheep
iåïarÿ – lamb (meat)
?ïåhüö - woman
?ïaun - girl
isan - police
iyïau - man
mèn - mother
mènba - gate
mènra - day
mensie - lie
minnan - memory
nènca - army
ofhèr – throne
öi - ox, cow
öïvèståh – accident
öïvyfrå – bad reputation
ÿuòfò - crowd
par - fight
pasnènca - war
råh – ground
råïauien – foreign country
rèie - air
rèïei - word
sèi - ritual, rites of passage in plural
tïn - foot
tögiarÿ - stone
töh – building
zåt – time
zaüruï - year
zeie – rules

Adjectives

ar - sacred
aryi - evil
auòn - violent
bår - shining
caröh - near
garoï - great (also a modifier meaning very)
hèimèn - yellow
öïa – famous
öïvèståvès - soft
öïvie - arrogant
öïvöïh - modest
uï – short
parüö - reckless
per - good
perar - brave, heroic
öctögiarÿ - strong
örouï - long

Adverbs

mènraü?iè - now
paienën - smartly
pavåb - orally
pè – alone
pèhaï - manually
örcaï - using technology
öscienën - stupidly

Verbs

Group 1

bièrò – to praise, celebrate
böïh – to fight
dåv – to give
dòr – to go
dyvò – to listen, hear
èïa – to talk rubbish
erfå – to hurt
èv – to tell, to say
èvie – to sing
fès – to kill
gèivòïå – to control
?f – to put down
ÿv – to defeat, conquer
pièrå – to send
pyfrå – to name
pyruo – to attack
sèsiè – to start
òfò – to come
òvrå – to mock
vòu – to eat
yfå – to pick up

Group 2
bòu – to grow
ÿëror – to carry
öïåf – to sit
öïhehinauòn – to rape
öïèivuòïå – to fall
öïerfå – to commit suicide
öïerhiehin – to copulate
öïèsiè – to be born
öïråv – to get, receive
gèivòïåïråv – to steal
öïryvò – to think
öïvå – to pretend
öïvåf – to get up
öïvès – to die
öïvi - to imagine
öïvièrå – to introduce
öïvièrò – to happen, to become
öïvyruo – to confuse
öïörcaï – to make, to do
ÿuòvrå – to lack self-esteem

Also
gar-though, but
årüö – yes, yet, still, and
ör – no, but
zec – maybe, or

[krinnen]

Okay, since Kozado's not finished yet, I'll start working on Corumayas's Ghaf

[Corumayas]

Oh! I've been working on revising Ghaf for a while now. Nothing really fundamental has changed, but there's more irregularities in the morphology, the TAM system works somewhat differently, and there's more syntax (hopefully eventually a lot more). Also I think there are some errors on the original page. If you want to work on Ghaf, I'll try to get as much of the new material as I have finished online as quickly as I can.

Related: there are some differences between the version of Yïåf jmcd just posted and the one I based Ghaf on-- it looks like he revised the sound changes and changed a bunch of words accordingly. I'm trying to decide whether to adopt these revisions into Ghaf or not; it would change a bunch of words that I'm used to. I may leave it as is, or give both versions, and chalk it up to dialectal variation in either case... hmm.


@Shigeru-- if you have any specific questions, go ahead and ask them; no doubt somebody here will be able to answer. If you don't know where to start, do some reading about language change in the real world. The Correspondence Library is a great place to look for sound change ideas.

[jmcd]

Related: there are some differences between the version of Yïåf jmcd just posted and the one I based Ghaf on-- it looks like he revised the sound changes and changed a bunch of words accordingly. I'm trying to decide whether to adopt these revisions into Ghaf or not; it would change a bunch of words that I'm used to. I may leave it as is, or give both versions, and chalk it up to dialectal variation in either case... hmm.

Oh no. I didn't do that. i think what I did was alter the orthography so you should be able to find letter-or-cluster correspondences.

[Corumayas]

Related: there are some differences between the version of Yïåf jmcd just posted and the one I based Ghaf on-- it looks like he revised the sound changes and changed a bunch of words accordingly. I'm trying to decide whether to adopt these revisions into Ghaf or not; it would change a bunch of words that I'm used to. I may leave it as is, or give both versions, and chalk it up to dialectal variation in either case... hmm.

Oh no. I didn't do that. i think what I did was alter the orthography so you should be able to find letter-or-cluster correspondences.

Really? I think what I have is the very first version you posted, but I used it as working notes while I was deriving Ghaf so it's a little messy. I'll compare them again and see if I can sort it out.


EDIT: ok, here are the differences I found between the two versions.

In the sound changes:

Code: Select all

old             new
...
E/jE/_C*V*      e/je/_C*V*
O/wO/_C*V*      o/wo/_C*V*
...
2/V/_K*         2/o/_K*
9/o/_K*         9/O/_K*
...
y/9/R_          y/2/R_
y/9/_R          y/2/_R

Also, "removal of double vowels (aa ―> a) and vowel clusters" was clarified by adding "... like 4 vowels in row that aren’t allophonically approximants."

Anyway, the change from O/wO/_CV to o/wo/_CV is carried through mostly consistently in the grammar, sample text, and lexicon; the parallel change from E/jE/_CV to e/je/_CV seems to be carried through more sporadically, changing only a couple of words in the lexicon; or maybe it's just that few words were affected by that change to begin with. The other changes seem to have zero effect, or else they weren't carried through at all.

Also the spelling of /2 9/ is reversed: <ö ÿ> instead of <ÿ ö>. This spelling change is carried through consistently, except that the diphthong <öï> is left unchanged.

There are various resulting changes to words in the lexicon, and even to a couple of prefixes and a couple of pronouns. There's also some changes in the lexicon that don't seem to result from the altered sound changes. It looks like there are a total of 23 words and affixes affected; I've made a list so I can compare the Ghaf outcomes from both versions...

Anyway, maybe you could shed some light on all that? I suppose the newer version is probably more correct, so I should follow that; but I'm used to the words I got from the old version. Maybe I'll give both versions of the affected words and call it dialectal variation...

[4pq1injbok]

I was just reading the prologue to the sketch of Kozado and was struck by this:

Theses languages [of the continuum of which Kozado is part] progressively disapeared under the advance of more powerfull languages, and finally only Kozado remained, spoken by approximately 400 persons the villages of Abukho and Šezoiñeðe, in the northen region of the Khalanu city-state (though the name of the language suggest a more western origin).

Taken at face value that suggests to me that the prospects for a descendant of Kozado to exist are quite slim. So I guess I'm asking what happens next -- does this branch survive? If not, should deriving a daughter from it even be an option?

(Yeah, I know, I can't really talk given that I haven't said a thing about the recent history of AhH speakers...)

[Legion]

I was just reading the prologue to the sketch of Kozado and was struck by this:

Theses languages [of the continuum of which Kozado is part] progressively disapeared under the advance of more powerfull languages, and finally only Kozado remained, spoken by approximately 400 persons the villages of Abukho and Šezoiñeðe, in the northen region of the Khalanu city-state (though the name of the language suggest a more western origin).

Taken at face value that suggests to me that the prospects for a descendant of Kozado to exist are quite slim. So I guess I'm asking what happens next -- does this branch survive? If not, should deriving a daughter from it even be an option?

(Yeah, I know, I can't really talk given that I haven't said a thing about the recent history of AhH speakers...)

Well, many things can happen - in our real world history, we have witnessed the complete disapearance of languages which were spoken over vast area of land, languages of prestige, languages of Empire (Sumerian, Hittite, or Ancient Egyptian are examples of this). On the other hand, Spanish, which is now spoken as a first language by more than 300 million persons, was once only a dialect spoken in the Cantabria region of northern Spain...

I had originally planed to have the daughter of Kozado become the sacred tongue of a new religion, which would have expend its use to many place in the world...

At least, while Kozado allegedly has few speakers, their numbers seems stable over years, youngs still learn it as a first language. Unless a radical change in the region was to happen, Kozado has no reason to die.

[Corumayas]

So, my most recent revision project for Ghaf has been the lexicon. I've tried to incorporate the changes in Yïåf per jmcd's latest post, and check the sound changes in general, and I think I'd also like to expand it. Which leads me to two large questions.


1. There are a lot more words in Adāta than made it into A'gaf/Yïåf/Ghaf. I've already put a handful of these through all the sound changes from Adāta to Ghaf (as well as I could figure them out anyway), and those've been in the lexicon all along. I could do the same with more, but I wonder if the people whose languages are ancestral to Ghaf would like to participate and/or influence the process. It'd certainly be more interesting that way.

So, Zhen Lin, Legion, and jmcd, would you care to expand our branch's collective lexicon this way? Of course we could each apply semantic shifts, have some words drop out of use, derive new ones, etc. It might make the most sense to wait and do it whenever the list of extra words that Radius was talking about a while ago materializes, and just add some words from the original Adāta lexicon to the list that we pass along. Does that sound worthwhile?


2. Also, I think it would be fun to have more borrowing among the branches. The problem is that it's hard to tell which languages should be contemporaneous with each other. For example, I suspect that the languages I originally borrowed from, Yhát and Zhaj, should actually be significantly earlier than Ghaf. Would it be possible to work out a rough chronology? There's already some dates and time spans mentioned here and there, but they're scattered and sometimes inconsistent; it'd be nice to be able to say for sure that Öhat, Old Erhadzy, Aríe, and Yïåf are all spoken at about the same period, or whatever. Maybe a little conworlding could go along with this too; we could assign geographical locations to the langs that don't have that now, and piece together an outline history if we want. Anybody up for that?

[Legion]

The problem is that I am actually very reluctent to work on Agaf again, because :

-Frankly it's ugly - that's one of the reason I made Kozado, because I consider Agaf to be a big failure and I wanted to fix that somehow.
-The intricate sandhi rules of Ayath, combined with the absence of lexicon and the obscurity of some sound change (I've never understood what à è ì ò ù where supposed to stand for) make any derivation of a new word a nightmare.
-I don't like Ayasth, having a language like Adata, with no more (if less) inflections than English, suddenly turning into an über-agglutinative polysynthetic language is just not plausible.


By the way, I've been working on Kozado, a large lexicon will soon be online... as well as something else (let's say it will be a surprise).

[Zhen Lin]

I'm not entirely satisfied with Ayāsth myself, though personally I think it is plausible given the timeframe (c.f. French, according to some analyses).

Perhaps I shall revisit it.

[jmcd]

I would like to add more vocabulary to Yiaf in this way but I suppose I'd probly need to wait til Zhen Lin and Legion have done their bits.

[Legion]

I would like to add more vocabulary to Yiaf in this way but I suppose I'd probly need to wait til Zhen Lin and Legion have done their bits.

You could also use a relative small bunch of your existing words, have them gramaticalised into derivational morphemes, et voilà, hundred of possible new words easy !

[Corumayas]

jmcd actually did quite a bit of that already... most of the verbs in Yiaf are newly derived, iirc.

It looks like Zhen Lin and jmcd are somewhat interested; we have the sound changes for Agaf, so we could skip over you, Legion, if you don't want to be bothered with it.

[Legion]

jmcd actually did quite a bit of that already... most of the verbs in Yiaf are newly derived, iirc.

It looks like Zhen Lin and jmcd are somewhat interested; we have the sound changes for Agaf, so we could skip over you, Legion, if you don't want to be bothered with it.

Well, I could eventually do it, provided that the list of words to change is given to me in IPA/sampa, already with all the appropriate changes from Adata to Ayasth.

[Legion]

http://thelegion.free.fr/kozado.htm

The lexicon of Kozado is now online - it's not finished and still to be expanded, but there's already more than 110 words.

[Radius Solis]

Okay, so Dewrad's been a lazy sod and hasn't done anything with the new Ndak Ta words. So I asked permission to apply semantic changes and other lexicon management to them. Which is now done. Unfortunately the Relay Curse struck yet again when my computer went completely belly-up, and so the sound changes I'd already applied to the list are now inaccessible and have to be redone. Then the lot has to be HTMLified, or otherwise put into a publishable format.

But, I'm on it. At this point I'm so annoyed that the long-promised new words STILL haven't been produced that I'm going to press on until they are, despite the annoyance of doing the entire task myself. I'll check in again in the next day or so with either a finished list or else a progress report.

[Legion]

Okay, so Dewrad's been a lazy sod and hasn't done anything with the new Ndak Ta words. So I asked permission to apply semantic changes and other lexicon management to them. Which is now done. Unfortunately the Relay Curse struck yet again when my computer went completely belly-up, and so the sound changes I'd already applied to the list are now inaccessible and have to be redone. Then the lot has to be HTMLified, or otherwise put into a publishable format.

But, I'm on it. At this point I'm so annoyed that the long-promised new words STILL haven't been produced that I'm going to press on until they are, despite the annoyance of doing the entire task myself. I'll check in again in the next day or so with either a finished list or else a progress report.

Also, since the crash of Knee Quickie, edeastan language whose grammars when avalaible solely on the wiki are now not visible anymore: that concerns Nuntar's Arie, Whimemsz's Öhat, Ink Pudding's Xa', and your very own Puoni, Radius.

[Radius Solis]

Okay, sound changes are done. And once again I have to extend my gratitude to Corumayas for making doing a proper job of it possible - thank you!

I did notice a necessary change you missed, however: N > n / _#. After all the changes were applied, some word-final [N] remained and had to be converted - perhaps that situation simply didn't arise with the original wordset, I don't know. Also about 3/4 of the vowels in the new list are long, which annoys me, but whichever.

[Corumayas]

Okay, sound changes are done. And once again I have to extend my gratitude to Corumayas for making doing a proper job of it possible - thank you!

You're welcome! I had fun doing that.

I did notice a necessary change you missed, however: N > n / _#. After all the changes were applied, some word-final [N] remained and had to be converted - perhaps that situation simply didn't arise with the original wordset, I don't know.

I did have

m,ŋ/n/_#

in there; maybe the ŋ got lost in the shuffle somehow (or does it not show up correctly in your browser?)...

Also about 3/4 of the vowels in the new list are long, which annoys me, but whichever.

I wonder if that's an error in the sound changes, or just a fluke in the new list of words. I think Adata always did have a lot of long vowels, though.


BTW, I hope to get at least part of the Ghaf revision online this weekend-- if I can force myself to stop fiddling with it long enough. I've most recently worked out a pitch accent system which I'm pretty happy with.