My 27th Speedlang Challenge Entry: Jróiçnia

In today’s video, only the second video on my second YouTube channel, I’m going to be going through Jróiçnia, my entry to the 27th Speedlang Challenge. These are semi-regular language construction channels hosted on reddit as well as elsewhere. I’ve skipped a few since the last speedlang that I’ve put up on this website, which was the 23rd and you can find its post further back. I will hopefully get to some of the older speedlangs in the future, as I did participate in a few others.

Firstly, to quickly go through the orthography and phonology of this language, here is how everything will be written:

	labial	dental	alveolar	palatal	post/retroflex	velar+
strong	p	th	t	c	ch	k
weak	b m	dh nh	d n	j ñ	jh ň	g ŋ
fricative		z	s	ç	x
lateral			l	lh		ł
rhotic			r			ř
approx	w			y
NASAL (N)	*m	*n	*n	*n	*n	*n

A phonological chart of the orthography.

The characters that are in the same cell as each other, on the “weak” row, they’re allophones of each other. Nasal allophones pop up for the weak or voiced stops, and they are written as such, as their nasal allophones. Allophony doesn’t really get written for anything else except for the nasal. The nasal is more of an archiphoneme than a phoneme on its own so it gets a little bit complicated.

	front	back
high	i	u
mid	e	o
low	a

Vowel Orthography

I’ve got a normal run of five monophthong vowels, and we’ve got a bunch of diphthongs and a few triphthongs as well, we’ll get to why in just a second.

Diphthongs	ui	iu	ia	eo
	ei	eu	ea
	oi	ou	oa
	ai	au	ua
Triphthongs	uai	eai	eau	iau

Diphthong and Triphthong orthography.

Here is the actual consonantal phonology, there a lot of the allophones are unwritten:

	labial	dental	alveolar	palatal	post/retroflex	velar+
strong	pʰ	t̪ʰ	tʰ	cʰ	ʈʰ	kʰ
weak	b~v~m~b̥	d̪~ð~n̪~d̪̥	d~z~n~d̥	ɟ~ʝ~ɲ~ɟ̊	ɖ~ʐ~ɳ~ɖ̥	g~ɣ~ŋ~ɡ̊
fricative		θ	s	ç	ʂ
lateral			l~ɭ	ʎ		ʟ
rhotic			r~ɾ~ɹ~ɻ			ʁ
approx	w			j
NASAL (N)	*m~w̃	*n̪	*n	*ɲ~j̃~ɥ̃	*ɳ	*ŋ~ɰ̃

A table of the phonology in the International Phonetic Alphabet.

The strong stops are always aspirated, always voiceless, they’re pretty much invariant. The weak stops on the other hand, they’re voiced sometimes, usually in clusters or finally, they become fricatives of the same place of articulation when they’re intervocalic, they become nasals if they’re adjacent to the nasal archiphoneme and they’re voiceless but not aspirated initially. The fricatives, some of them are sibilants, some of them are not and there would be some variety dialectically whether or not the palatal and retroflex in particular get pronounced as sibilant fricatives or non-sibilant fricatives, it varies a little bit. The front-coronal lateral has a little bit of allophony, the rhotic has quite a bit of allophony. Even in the name of the language, Jróiçnia, the rhotic becomes the palatal approximant version of the rhotic because it’s adjacent to the palatal stop and the voiced palatal stop is just voiced, not devoiced, because it’s in that kind of cluster. With the nasal, almost all allophones are just be written “n”. It does get written “m” occasionally, but most of these allophones, especially the intervocalic nasalized approximants are written as “n”.

	front	back
high	i	u
mid	e ~ ɛ	o ~ ɔ
low	a ~ ɐ

Vowels in IPA.

The mid vowels do become their kind of, or the mid close vowels become their normal mid or lax variants when they’re in unstressed syllables, the same happens for the low vowel, it also happens when it’s in diphthongs and triphthongs.

Diphthongs	ai (æɪ̆	ei (ɛĭ	oi (ɔʏ̆	ui (ʉy̆
	eo (eɤ̆~ɛʌ̆	ea	eu (eʊ̆	iu (iʉ̆
	ia (iə̆	ua (uə̆	oa (oə̆
	au (aʊ̆	ou (oŭ
Triphthongs	uai (uɐ̆ĭ	eai (eɐ̆ĭ	eau (eɐ̆ŭ	iau (iɐ̆ŭ

Diphthong and Triphthong IPA.

With the diphthongs and triphthongs, a lot of them are pronounced differently to the monophthong vowel. For example, “ei” is /ɛĭ/, not /eĭ/. This is canonically how they are supposed to sound, and for the diphthongs and the triphthongs, they’re all opening. It is the initial vowel, the initial grapheme I suppose, that indicates the primary syllabic vowel and the non-syllabic or sort of off glide component is second. It’s not really an off glide because it’s not a glide, the approximant glides behave a little bit differently when they’re in clusters and that’s important because this is a Speedlang Challenge, so there are constraints.

The first few constraints included having more diphthongs than monophthongs, and a few triphthongs as a bonus. There are words further along that show how the off glides of the diphthongs behave differently to the actual approximant glides. Having at least three laterals was another, and from the charts above there’s an alveolar, a palatal and a velar lateral. A bonus to this was, “Contrast at least four different coronal places of articulation with at least two phonemes in three of them”. I’ve got plenty of phonemes, at least three in all four coronal places of articulation, but I thought it would be almost too easy to have the three different laterals be at the three or four different coronal places, so I decided to throw in the velar lateral instead. Another was “Have at least four major allophones of at least one phoneme, or as a bonus, have four major allophones for a series of consonants”. In this case, all the voiced or weak stop consonants have four allophones. I’m considering the normal voiced version the default, even though it may not be the most common. I’d have to do an analysis on how they all pop up, and I have an odd feeling the intervocalic fricative allophone might actually be the most common in running speech. Lastly, “Have stress assignment rules”. Stress is essentially weight sensitive in roots with some unpredictability in conjugated or declined content words. Even in the name of the language, Jróiçnia , it does have stress on the initial syllable, not on the second syllable, as indicated by the accent.

Covering a little bit more of the phonology, the coronals are divided up into dental, alveolar, palatal and retroflex, but really the division is between the front coronals and the back coronals with a subdivision between laminal and apical. There is lamino-apical harmony in the coronals. This can be seen with the nominative and accusative plural suffixes.

	suffix	knife = zeog	hand = jhur
nominative plural	(V)x/ç	zéogeç	jhurúx
accusative plural	ch/ca	zéogca	jhúrcha

Partial declension of two nouns.

The retroflex, because the “x” is the retroflex sibilant /ʂ/, and the palatal, /ç/, they will agree, they will harmonize with whatever is in the stem of the noun that they’re attached to. With the word for knife, it’s “zeog”, and the “z” in “zeog”, that’s a laminal dental fricative /θ/ so it uses the laminal palatal fricative. For the word for hand here, this is the retroflex “jhur”, and because the “jh” is retroflex /ɖ?, it’s apical, and so in this case it is also retroflex apical fricative, it harmonizes to be apical. It’s the same for the accusative, we’ve got our laminal stop in “ca” and apical in “cha”. This gives us “zeogca” and “jhurcha” for the accusative plural. This harmony here looks like it’s complete harmony, it’s a retroflex and a retroflex, but really it’s just apical. The apical alveolar /s/ sibilant or /s̺/ sibilant, really, if we want to be apical about it, that would also work, that would also be considered harmony.

The nasal archiphoneme is a little bit different:

clay material	náuli	ˈNaŭ.li	ˈnaʊ̆.li
what?	moin	NoĭN	mɔ̃ʏ̆
fire	níude	ˈNiŭ.de	ˈɲiʉ̆.zɛ
hearth	eníude	eˈNiŭ.de	ɛˈj̃iʉ̆.zɛ
island	jhaunúi	ɖaŭˈNuĭ	ɖ̥aʊ̆ˈw̃ʉy̆

bread	laun	laŭN	lãʊ̆

cambium	laumalóa	laŭN.baˈloă	laʊ̆.mɐˈloɐ̆
sailor	dhonhoináiboł	d̪oN.d̪oĭˈj̃aĭ.boʟ	d̪̥ɔ.n̪ɔʏ̆ˈj̃aĭ.vɔʟ
at me	dóne	ˈdoN.de	ˈd̥o.nɛ
grain	iñéul	iNˈɟeŭl	iˈɲeʊ̆l
our	tuňíx	tʰuNˈɖiʂ	tʰuˈɳiʂ

pearl	bolíant	boˈliăNtʰ	b̥ɔˈliɐ̆ntʰ
glaze	çnour	çNoŭr	çɲoʊ̆r
glasswort-ish	sanxía	saNˈʂiă	sɐɳˈʂiɐ̆
plant	siank	siăNkʰ	siɐŋkʰ
leave(reach away	renłóag	reNˈʟoăɡ	rɛŋˈʟoɐ̆ɡ

Examples of how the nasal is realized.

Above, we’ve got two different transcriptions, one of them is purely phonemic, so the archiphoneme comes up as an archiphoneme /N/, whereas in the phonetic, you can see that it comes up as different nasal realizations depending on what sound it’s next to. For example, we’ve got a “moin”, which is nasalized on both ends, you can have the archiphoneme popping up a couple of times and it can preferentially attach to the onset or to the coda of the nucleus, although it does kind of blend in with the nucleus when it surfaces as nasalization. Initially here it is “m” before a rounded vowel, with differing allophones for other vowels. It can surface as nasalization, which is usually what happens when it’s at the end of a word, but when these words are compounded that will change. The word for cambium comes from tree-bread, or bread-tree because of the order that the modifiers go in, because the nasal archiphoneme pops up next to this weak voiced stop, the voiced stop completely assimilates and just becomes a nasal at the correct place of articulation. The same thing happens with the dental, the alveolar, the palatal and the retroflex. It’s always going to harmonize when it’s in a cluster, even with voiceless consonants it will assimilate to place. It can pop up in pretty much any position.

In the transcription used in the above table, it shows that the voiceless stops are aspirated initially and finally, they’re always aspirated. In the broader, purely phonemic description, voiced stops are just voiced stops initially and the mid vowels are mid close vowels. In the closer transcription, the mid close vowel ends up being just a mid vowel, or a lax mid vowel, and the initial voiced stops are voiceless, but it’s a devoiced voiced stop. It’s not an aspirate, it’s not really voiceless, and if anything happens, if there’s a prefix that makes that stop intervocalic, then it will become a fricative, or if there was a prefix that puts it in a cluster, then it would become a normal voiced stop. That’s a little bit on the allophony of the nasals and a little bit on the coronal harmony. Due of the importance of these nasal archiphonemes and because of the importance of the intervocalic lenition, I will be showing them in transcription. In a purely phonemic transcription, they wouldn’t be shown because they’re only phonetic alterations. For example, here is a sentence:

the small animal eats its plants here

3rd.s-eat-hab-3rd.pl def.s small-mod animal(base)-gen.s plant(alt)-acc.pl prox.loc

el-ejoa/jo-ux roa olin-ui weauku-/N sian/ik-cha peu

In the standard orthography:

elejoajóuç roa olinúi wéaukun síanikcha peu

So this sentence, “the small animal eats its plants here”, it’s verb initial. It is the third singular agent habitually eats a third plural patient. The verbal arguments are different, the singular and the plural, so we don’t need to worry about logophoricity or anything. We’ve got a definite singular “small” with its modifier, adjectives need to be accompanied by the modifactional suffix to modify whatever noun is coming after them. “Animal” is in the base form and the genitive, and then “plant” in its altered form in the accusative. This construction is a little different to normal, normally a noun in the genitive will be in its altered form and a noun in the accusative will be in its normal or base form. I’ve messed them around a little bit, and I’ll get to why a little bit later. How this is transcribed can vary a lot.

This is a purely phonemic transcription:

e.le.ɟoăˈɟoŭç roă o.liˈⁿuĭ ˈweăŭ.kʰuN ˈsiă.Nikʰ.ʈʰa pʰeŭ

This is an in-between transcription:

e.le.ʝoăˈʝoŭç roă o.liˈɲuĭ ˈweɐ̆ŭ.kʰũ ˈsiɐ̆.ɲikʰ.ʈʰa pʰeŭ

This is close to a phonetic transcription:

ɛ.lɛ.ʝɔə̆ˈʝoʊ̆ç roə̆ ɔ.liˈɥ̃ʉɪ̆ ˈweə̆ʊ̆.kʰũ ˈsiə̆.j̃ikʰ.ʈʰɐ pʰeʊ̆

The in between transcription doesn’t really show the nasals becoming nasalized approximants, it doesn’t show exactly what’s going on with the vowels in diphthongs. The standard orthography, it’s purely phonemic, it shows the nasal as a nasal, it shows the nasal as a nasal even when it surfaces as nasalization or a nasalized approximant, but it could be written differently. There is an alternative orthography that takes care of those differences, that changes according to how things are being realized and shows the nasal archiphoneme differently:

Alternate orthography:

eleźoaźouç roa olĩui weaukũ siãikĉa peu

This is the level of transcription I’m going to use:

e.le.ʝoăˈʝoŭç roă o.liˈɥ̃uĭ ˈweăŭ.kʰũ ˈsiɐ̆.j̃ikʰ.ʈʰa pʰeŭ

I’m not going to show that the unstressed mid vowels become lax. I am going to show that the voiced stops become fricatives intervocalically. I’m not going to go into too much detail when it comes to the diphthongs, but I am going to show what’s happening with nasalization and nasalized approximants.

Here’s a little bit on the nouns, starting with the pronouns, the basic pronouns as they would usually pop up:

	base
1st	dom
pl	tuas
2nd	eidh
pl	dhiç
3rd	ceuł
pl	chux
4th (noun)	kleud
pl	//

These pronouns, of course, get modified for case, but we’ll get to case in a second as well. Speaking of, here are some altered forms:

	knife = zeog	hand = jhur	plant = siank	clay ore = opmau
altered form	zeóg	jhúru	síanik	oponáu

This would be used normally for the genitive and the dative. You can see with this diphthong, “zeog”, and it is a diphthong, it breaks into “zeóg”, breaking into two separate monophthong vowels. For “hand”, you just get the addition of an extra vowel, so “jhur” becomes “jhuru” and for plant it’s also an extra vowel, for “opmau”, but the extra vowel becomes an extra infix, breaking up the nasal from its adjacent consonant, so that turns the labial nasal of “opmau”, which only became labial because it’s adjacent to a labial that turns back into normal nasal archiphoneme, intervocalically, it becomes some sort of nasalized approximant in “oponau”. There are also reduced forms of certain nouns, these reduced forms are used to combine with other nouns derivationally, not just as compounds, but also to combine with verbs as a form of incorporation, again, we’ll get to that in a little bit more detail in a second.

	full	reduced
tool	xobáu	xo(b)
fire	níude	niu
earth	éuwop	op

There is also a collective which is formed through kinds of partial reduplication. Normally this partial reduplication gets rid of the diphthong, but not always.

mushroom	debáu	various mushrooms / mushrooms and such	debáubau
clear-gem	reizléuth	jewelry, various gems	reizléutheth

For “reizléuth”, a clear gem of various kinds, and then “reizléutheth” is jewelry, various gems, a collective. Same with “debau”, and it is “debau” with its initial devoiced and central stop fricated, that becomes “debaubau”, which maintains the diphthong. For obvious reasons, “debaubau” needs to maintain that diphthong in both places, as a reference to the song “Oh Yeah”.

For the case, we’ve got nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, nice and easy:

	singular
nom	//	zeog
acc	ka	zéogka
genitive	N(V)	zeóŋ
dative	lei	zeóglei
	plural
nom	(V)x/ç	zéogeç
acc	ch/ca	zéogca
genitive	(V)ñuç / (V)ňix	zeóŋiç
dative	x/çei	zeógçei

For the genitive and the dative, that is when you get your altered form of the noun. So we have all of those in plural and in singular, the nominative is essentially unmarked in the singular and we can see how the stress marker is needed in some cases because they are disyllabic, so there is a choice of what you stress. The altered form usually puts the stress on a particular vowel, so it breaks the expected kind of metrical or weight sensitive stress. It breaks that a little bit and diphthongs so I do refer to it as breaking. Also you can see again the lamino-apical harmony with the different possible endings.

Speaking of which, getting back to that sentence:

the small animal eats its plants here

3rd.s-eat/hab-3rd.pl def.s small-mod animal(base)-gen.s plant(alt)-acc.pl prox.loc

el- ejoa/jo -ux roa olin -ui weauku -/N sian/ik -cha peu

elejoajóuç roa olinúi wéaukun síanikcha peu

In this instance, to show that the nominative agent of the phrase or clause is the possessor of the accusative argument of the clause, we’ve kind of swapped things up a little bit. So animal, which is “weauku”, you add the nasalis to make it genitive, but normally the genitive would take the altered form. It’s not doing that here to show that it is a nominative that is also in a possessor relationship. The accusative is in its altered form to show that it’s possessed, even though there isn’t a explicit possessed case, normally, in most other instances it wouldn’t be marked.

to you, I give it

2nd.s-dat.s, 1st.s-give -gno-3rd.s

eidh -lei | oN- weigu-∅ -ce

eidhléi, omwéiguce

Here we have the dative, and so we need a ditransitive verb, so we’ve got our verb to give. We’ve left out all the other pronouns and just put in the dative pronoun. Generally, this language would be prodrop, it would drop the pronouns once they are marked on the verb

I am pleased

1st.s-content-gno 1st.s-dat.s

oN-dalei-∅ dom-lei

onaléi domléi

This is sort of dative of effect, the affected dative, similar to what happens in Icelandic or even in Spanish, this would pretty much be the equivalent of “me gusta”, it pleases me, it isn’t considered the nominative.

they are mine

3rd.pl-be-gno 1st.s-gen.s

chu-euw-∅ dom-N(V)

chuéuw dommo

Above is the genitive being used as a kind of a possessive, not just as an indicator of the possessor, but an indicator of things that are possessed. The first person genitive can work as mine, it can also work as my, it depends on the clause that it’s used in.

Moving on to noun compounds, compounds are another part of the challenge constraints:

		theo plant = uroum
person	doN	donuroum	theo grower/seller
tool/instrument	xo(b)	xoburoum	a harvesting tool
wild/feral	oar	oaruroum	wild growing forms of the plant
place/location	edh	edhuroum	a garden/plantation of the plant

These are reduced nouns, so these are really derivational modifiers of a noun, it’s not quite the same as a compound. So a “theo plant”, theo from theobromine, also caffeine, chocolate, that kind of stuff. This plant, “uroum”, and it is an “m” at the end, underlyingly, it’s surely a nasal archiphoneme and the voiced bilabial stop, but it’s not going to surface like that unless something weird happens. Derivation gives us “donoroum”, that “n” is supposed to be a nasalized bilabial approximant because it’s in between two labialized vowels, which are also back vowels. All of the back vowels are labialized, it’s nice and normal that way. We can derive various new terms from this term plant, whether it’s the person associated with that plant, a tool associated with that plant, a wild form of that plant, there’s a few different kinds of these derivational prefixes that are derived from nouns.

loose compounds
wool dog	oukre obluar
grain mill	xoloax iñeul
tight compounds
cambium	laumaloa
inkfish	ebausiask

Noun compounds can occur in two different ways, pretty similar to English. In Germanic languages, noun compounds are pretty common and in English, we’ll often write noun compounds with a space in between, where in other Germanic languages they would be written as one word. In this language, the looser compounds behave differently to the tighter compounds. So, for example, “laumaloa” for cambium, the compounding has turned “laun” and “baloa” into one word and the nasal archiphonium has done its thing. It’s the same with “ebausiask”, that is a compound of two different words as well, which we might get to a little bit later. The looser compounds behave a little bit strangely when it comes to clitic modifiers.

	grain mill
	xoloax iñeul	clitic on the first	clitic on the second
int	win	xoloaxwin iñeul	xoloax iñeulwin
neg	ado	xoloaxado iñeul	xoloax iñeulado

Clitic modifiers can go on any part of the compound, they can go on the initial or on the secondary component of the compound without really any change in meaning. Now, this interrogative isn’t a “wh-” interrogative, it’s not that kind of question. It can be used to highlight things in a question, which we’ll get to when we get to clauses.

Here we’ve got some noun verb compounds.

lime-burning (quicklime	siáx ajoaáith
string-dropper (plumbline	zoalwa bwaçcéaiàith

In this case, lime-burning or burning-lime (quicklime, the lime that burns essentially) that is a compound of a noun and a nominalized verb. Almost always verbs need to be nominalized to enter into these kinds of compounds, and we can see a similar thing here with a string-dropper (a plumb line used for measuring how even walls are and stuff) it’s a very similar thing where it’s string-dropper, a dropped-string, a string that you drop and it is this noun with a nominalized verb. You might notice the triphthong separated out from the following diphthong vowel by using the grave accent. The acute accent for stress and the grave accent for basically a diaeresis, to show when the vowels are not in a diphthong, when they might look like a diphthong otherwise, or to show that they’re not in a triphthong.

There are more constraints, such as having roving morphemes. Moving around the clitics is one instance of roving morphemes, I’ve got a couple of other instances of roving morphemes where things move around a little bit and having multiple roving morphemes, having the interrogative be used at multiple locations in a clause, does have an effect, and we’ll get to that in a minute. Another was “use subject medial word order” and Verb initial word order is absolutely fine for me. Clearing up some other types of clause was another constraint, we’ll get to our relative clauses and other subclauses a little bit later. Lastly, having qt least three different kinds of compounding, so we’ve already seen noun-noun compounding, two types, tight and loose, as well as noun-verb compounds. We’ll get to some other compounds later as well. Having certain compounds act as separate words was the final grammatical constraint, and the fact that the clitic can attach to either part of the noun compound, that’s one way in which these stems are treated as separate words for some, but not all, inflectional morphology. For cases as well, the case markers will often go on both instances of a word, but the interrogative will only go on one of the words and modify the whole compound, so that’s one of the ways that the compounds can behave a little bit strangely. That only happens with the noun compounds, it’s only the noun compounds that can be loose.

The verb and adjective compounds are the tight kind of compound.

drop	bwaç
tie	xcheai
drop-tie	bwaçceai

This is our drop-tie from string-dropper, so when something is tied up so that it can be dropped or tied in a way that’s for dropping. This particular compound between “bwaç” and “xcheai” causes a little bit of a phonetic change here, where the “ç” is a laminal and the “x” and “ch” are apical, so in the compound, the laminalness spreads, the apical becomes a laminal stop instead, just to fit with that lamino-apical harmony.

make/cause/force	iampol
shine	edoin
make-shine(polish	poledoin

Here is the verb for to make, to cause or to force, “iampol”, which gets reduced to a modifier, almost like an auxiliary verb when it compounds onto other verbs to create a causative. So the “shine” here, “edoin”, and the “d” gets pronounced as a fricative at the right place of articulation, that becomes “poledoin”, which is to polish, to make shine.

to scrape hide	ziaktheaj	verb-noun compound
to hide-scrape	theziak	incorporated noun

Here there’s a little bit of a contrast between a verb-noun compound, “to scrape hide” which would take the transitive verb to scrape something and make it intransitive, because it’s hide that you’re scraping, the object is incorporated, it’s pretty normal object incorporation. Whereas “to hide-scrape”, that is an incorporated noun, but it remains transitive, so you can hide-scrape something that’s not hide. To scrape something in the manner that you would scrape hide, even if it’s actually something else. These are different kinds, really the first one is a verb noun compound, the second one is just incorporation.

stone	axchoi
red	buíl
cinnabar	wuìlaxchói

Adjectives can also be compounded onto the front of words, and we’ve got our stress marker here to show that it is “buíl” with two vowels in hiatus, not “buil”, which would be the diphthong, This compound gives us the word for a redstone, cinnabar, it’s a very particular kind of redstone. It’s not just a red stone, which would just be an adjective and the noun, but it’s redstone, not like, of course, the kind in Minecraft, but cinnabar. Verb-adjective compounds, are something I might do, I haven’t decided yet. I might just make adjectives almost zero derived as verbs and let adjectives take on the initial modifiers for things like become or cause to be red, but that is still up in the air. I haven’t decided on the verb-adjective compounds, I have adjective compounds and verb compounds, I’m not sure how I’ll put them together. That should cover, at least with the actual verb-noun compound, that should bring me up to the three.

Here we have the conjugation paradigm, apologise if it’s a little squished:

		1st	pl	2nd	pl	3rd	pl	4th	pl
	handle =jhuraib	<N>	s	ei	(V)dhi	ce	ux	ed	jha
1st	o(N)	oňuraim	oňuraibxa	oňuraibei	oňuraibdi	oňuraibche	oňuraibux	//	//
pl	us	uxjhuraim	uxjhuraibxa	uxjhuraibei	uxjhuraibdi	uxjhuraibche	uxjhuraibux	//	//
2nd	idh	ijjhuraim	ijjhuraibxa	ijjhuraibei	ijjhuraibdi	ijjhuraibche	ijjhuraibux	//	//
pl	çi	xijhuraim	xijhuraibxa	xijhuraibei	xijhuraibdi	xijhuraibche	xijhuraibux	//	//
3rd	el	eljhuraim	eljhuraibxa	eljhuraibei	eljhuraibdi	eljhuraibche	eljhuraibux	eljhuraibed	eljhuraibejha
pl	chu	chujhuraim	chujhuraibxa	chujhuraibei	chujhuraibdi	chujhuraibche	chujhuraibux	chujhuraibed	chujhuraibjha
4th	kl(V)	//	//	//	//	klujhuraibche	klujhuraibux	//	//
pl	eux	//	//	//	//	euxjhuraibche	euxjhuraibux	//	//

This language does have polypersonal agreement, so it agrees with both the subject and the object. The verb is “to handle”, which is a verbalized form of the noun hand, so this is a denominal verb. We’ve got our various prefixes in the first column which show the agent, and we’ve got our various suffixes along the top row which show our patient. With most of these, it’s pretty simple, you can have first acting on first and that would be seen as a reflexive with these singulars, whereas the plural, it’s not necessarily reflexive or reciprocal, other markers would be necessary. To differentiate between the third, let’s say a third singular acting on itself and a third singular acting on a different third singular, we have the fourth person which really just serve as sort of a logophoric differentiator. It just serves to show that it is a different third singular that’s being acted upon by the first third singular rather than the same third singular, so that pops up when you have, really only third person arguments. It’s a pretty rare one to pop up, but it does happen occasionally, I wanted to potentially cover that case. You should also notice that there is the same lamino-apical harmony going on. In the second singular agent, the lamino-dental combines with the root initial apical, it just turns into a geminate. Geminates aren’t super common in this language, but they do happen.

That is the person conjugation, for tense, aspect and mood there is a little fusion:

visit = giułoag	gnomic	hab/usitative	perfective	completive(perfect)
realis	giułoag	giułoagog	giułoagot	giułoaŋ
irrealis i	giułoagi	giułoalog	giułoagic	giułoagin
realis past k	giułoagko	giułoakog	giułoagok	giułoagonk
irrealis past r	giułoarg	giułoarog	giułoagro	giułoargon

This language is pretty agglutinative, so different things don’t fuse together too often. The person markers don’t fuse with TAM, but the mood, whether it’s realis or irrealis, that does fuse with the tense, whether it’s past or non-past, and then with the different aspects. The perfective is a true perfective aspect, the competitive is more like the English perfect. The perfective is just the action being seen as one whole action, whereas the perfect is the action, some action possibly in the past, having an effect on something in the present. They are slightly different so I’ve separated them out here. My habitual or usitative, is a little bit broader than the habitual that we might have in English, it can be used for things that happen, you know, yearly or regularly without necessarily being habitual, not as regular as a normal habitual. The gnomic is used in cases where English would use the gnomic, like “dogs run”, but it’s also used just for a general kind of continuous or imperfect.

		usáuru	we hit
continuous	initial redup	usaráuru	we do/be hitting
passive	<L>	usáurul	we are hit
reciprocal	-S(V)	usaurus	we hit each other

The overt continuous is marked with initial reduplication, but it is a little bit different from the continuous that we might do, it’s a little bit hard to phrase because it is a true continuous, so this is continuous and gnomic rather than any other form. We’ve got a passive and a reciprocal as well. As I mentioned, the reciprocal is necessary for this kind of differentiation where it’s not reflexive when it’s two of the same person being marked.

		onejóa	I eat
punctive	(e)thi	onejóathi	I eat it all up
iterative	jau	onejoajáu	I eat and eat, I gorge
diminutive	łan	onejóałan	I nibble

Then we have a couple of other more derivational aspects that come on separately, that come on a little bit later in the verb template and they are derivational. So the punctive means the event happens all at once, so you don’t just eat, you eat it all up, you eat it in one go, you swallow it whole. The iterative means you keep doing it over and over again, so eating and eating, and the diminutive then is the smaller form, like a nibble or just a bite out of something. So those are all separate suffixes because it is agglutinative.

Here are some more of the clitics:

		elheok	it goes
int=	iN	inelhéok	does it go?
neg=	ad(o)	adelhéok	it doesn’t go
emph/imp-	koa	koaèlhéok	it really goes

So the clitics, I already demonstrated that the interrogative and the negative can hop onto nouns and compound nouns. The emphatic, which is sometimes the imperative, can do the same. Here we’re going with “it goes”, the third singular go, “elheok”, and this “lh” it is the palatal lateral. So it’s “elheok” and we’ve got the interrogative form of it, the negative form of it, and the emphatic form of it. Normally these are proclitics. They go at the start of the word, and they would be followed by any person conjugation, and you can see it with the third person following the emphatic.

However, when it’s being used as an imperative, they swap places:

Go away!

3rd.s-emph-ven-go-prf

el-koa-reN-yeok-ot

elkoarenyeokot

el.kʰoă.reˈɲjeŏ.kʰotʰ

So the pronominal marker will go outside the emphatic when it’s being used as an imperative, so it’s another case of a morpheme changing where it goes. Go is a lot more neutral in this language than it is in English, there isn’t a direct go versus come contrast. There’s a venitive go, an andative go, and a plain go. The venitive and andative prefixes are used to tell the direction that a verb is happening in, whether it’s happening towards or away from the speaker. I’ve unfortunately mixed them up, “go away” should be andative and “come here” should be venititve.

So here we’ve got one of the test sentences, “when is it that your guests from the city will arrive?” with emphasis on the “from the city”:

When is it that your guests *from the city* will arrive?

int=3rd.s-cop-gno temp comp 3rd.pl-fut-arrive-prf def.pl guest-nom.pl 2nd.s/alt-gen.s def.s int=city-from

iN=euw-∅ prei mou chu-yeo-łoag-ot aòs giułoagoł-x eidh<e>-N roa iN=baujho-Nap

inéuw prei mou chuyeołóagot aós giułoagółx eidhén roa imáujhonap

iˈeŭw preĭ moŭ ʈʰu.jeŏˈʟoă.ɣotʰ aˈos ɡ̊iŭ.ʟoăˈɣoʟʂ eĭˈðẽ roă iˈmaŭ.ʐo.ɰ̃apʰ

We’ve got our interrogative at the start for “when is it?”, “when is the time in particular that the people will arrive?” but we can also see the interrogative hopping onto “from the city” here. It’s used not just to introduce that it is a question, but also to emphasise “from the city” as distinct from guests from any other location. That is one of the ways that the morphemes being reduplicated are used again within in the clause with an effect, it has an actual effect on the meaning.

Just a quick thing on the adjectives, because I think it’s good to clear it up.

the animal is small

3rd.s-be-gno def animal-nom.s small-nom.s

el-euw roa weauku-∅ olin-∅

eléuw roa wéauku olin

Here we’ve got the animal is small, so it takes the copula, copula goes at the start, it’s a verb initial language, it’s always a verb initial language, and because the adjective here is being used predicatively, it’s not being used attributively, so it doesn’t need that modifying marker, almost an attributive marker, which you would need if you’re saying it is the small animal.

it is the small animal

3rd.s-be-gno def small-mod animal-nom.s

el-euw roa olin-ui weauku-∅

eléuw roa olinúi wéauku

You can see here the difference between these two sentences is pretty tiny, you’ve put the adjective in front of the noun and you’ve added on that modifier, that’s really all you need to change. Here we can see it being used as an adverb as well:

I eat slightly / a little

1st.s-eat-gno small-adv-with

on-ejoa-∅ olin-le-cen

onejóa olínlechen

It needs this adverbial marker but also the postposition “with” or “along with”, almost a comitative postposition. It’s literally “I eat with smallness” meaning “I eat in a small way”, “I eat slightly” or “I eat a little”. So that is one of the ways that adjectives are just a little bit complicated.

Just to quickly go over the articles, we’ve got definite, indefinite, singular, and plural:

	sing	pl
def	roa	aós
indef	yua	was

We can see here an instance of two vowels coming together, not forming a diphthong for it’s “aós”, rather than “aos”, it’s “aós”, whereas this is a diphthong “roa”. Then we’ve got a few postpositions, though there are a few more.

		sea = egau
to	oç	egauòç
from	Nap	egaunap
at	di	egaudi
along	geu	egaugeu

These would also, at least “oç” and “di”, they would also harmonize with the correct lamino-apical harmony of the root. In this case, “sea” = “egau”, it doesn’t have any coronal in the root to trigger harmony, and it is “egáu” with the stress on the diphthong. The velar, voiced velar, becomes a voiced velar fricative, because it’s intervocalic, it doesn’t matter if it’s the initial of a stressed syllable, if it’s intervocalic, it’s intervocalic.

V	VO	SV
I hit it	I hit the animal	the person hit it
1st.s-hit-gno-3rd.s	1st.s-hit-gno-3rd.s def.s animal-acc.s	def.s person-nom.s 3rd.s-hit-gno-4th.s
oN-auru-∅-ce	oN-auru-∅-ce roa weauku-ka	roa doran-∅ el-auru-∅-ed
onáruce	onáruce roa wéaukuka	roa dorán eláuruèd

Just to cover the verb initiality of it, because this language is prodrop, the verb is initial, but you can have inversion as well. The SV example wwould really be, “It is the person that hit it.”, it would be emphasizing it. Normally you can have just verb phrases, verb followed by object, verb followed by subject, verb followed by subject and object, it’s almost always verb initial, but there can be occasional exceptions.

So moving on to types of clauses, starting with adverbial clauses:

I went (to) where I saw it

1st.s-go-pst loc.adv 1st.s-see-pst-3rd.s

oN-yeo-k eunhou oN-gocan-ka-ce

onyéok eunhóu oŋocánkace

I went to where I saw it or I went where I saw it, we’ve got the locative adverbial, which is what introduces the locative adverbial clause. The following verb phrase that is now being used as a modifier of the verb, so “I went”-“where I saw it”. The locative adverbial and the temporal adverbial, they also have non-adverbial uses where they’re just a locative or temporal.

I fall when I jump

1st.s-fall-gno temp.adv 1st.s-jump-gno

oN-joan-∅ preino oN-keup-∅

oñóan préino onkéup

In the locative there is the dental nasal, “eunhóu”, and that “eu” is also the “eu” in “peu”, the proximal locative. Those are adverbial clauses and these are content clauses:

I know (that) it hit it⁴

1st.s-know-gno (comp) 3rd-hit-pst-4th

oN-peař-∅ (Nou) el-auru-k-ed

ompéař (mou) eláuruked

In “I know it hit it”, and we’ve got our little logophoric fourth in there where it’s two different its, two different third singulars. The complementizer can drop out if it is a simple content clause. For heavier content clauses you have to use it, but also if the content clause is fronted ahead of the vowel, or fronted ahead of the verb.

that it hit it⁴, I know

comp 3rd-hit-pst-4th 1st.s-know-gno

Nou el-auru-k-ed oN-peař-∅

mou eláuruked ompéař

This is another case of usually verb initial not being verb initial, but you need the complementizer to show otherwise it would be ungrammatical. You can also see the nasal archiphoneme, because it’s popping up ahead a labialized diphthong, it comes out as the bilabial nasal instead and same when it’s in a cluster with a nasal. Also the gnomic on verbs, the simple gnomic present realis and, or simple gnomic, the non-past realis, and the nominative singular, they are null morphemes so they don’t actually get written as anything, you could think of them as the default.

On to the relative clauses:

the hand that hit it

def hand rel-hit-gno-3rd.s

roa jhur ouN-auru-∅-ce

roa jhur ounáuruce

Very simply, you use a relativisor on the verb and that relativizer takes over the agent person marking. These verbs that come up in relative clauses, even though they are marked for tense and they are marked for object, in a way they’re non-finite, they’re less marked than a finite verb because they don’t have the initial person agreement. The person in the relative clause, what it’s relativizing, must always be the subject of the relative clause. It doesn’t have to be the subject of the matrix clause, it can be whatever in the matrix clause, but it has to be the subject in the relative clause.

the parents hand that hit it

def hand rel-hit-gno-3rd.s parent/alt-gen.s

roa jhur ouN-auru-∅-ce te/weur-NV

roa jhur ounáuruce tewéurne

The relative clause has to go through all of these voice changing operations to keep it in the right place. In this case, the hand is possessed, but the possessor goes outside the relativized clause, so the relativized clause, which is in this case is just a verb, here it goes in between the possessor and the possessee, which is a little bit weird, but I thought that was the way I was going to do it. So “the hand that hit it the parents” rather than “the parents hand that hit it”.

the hand that I hit

the hand that was hit by me

def hand rel-hit/psv-gno 1st.s/alt-dat.s

roa jhur ouN-auru<L>-∅ doN<V>b-lei

roa jhur ounáurul donobléi

“The hand that I hit”, in English, this would put the hand in in the accusative, we have to passivize it to do it in this language. So it’s the hand that was hit by me.

the hand I give to you

the hand that was given (to) you by me

def hand rel-give/psv-gno-2nd.s 1st.s//alt-dat.s

roa jhur ouN-weigu-∅-ei doN<V>b-lei

roa jhur oumwéiguèi donobléi

We’ve got similar voice changing operations going on here, “the hand I give to you”, it becomes “the hand that was given to you by me” in order to keep it in that subject position so we’re not losing the information with that relative taking over from the person agreement. We can see our dative, the altered form of the pronoun here.

the hand to which I give

the hand that was given to by me

def hand rel-ven-give/psv-gno 1st.s/alt-dat.s

roa jhur ouN-reN-weig<L>u-∅ doN<V>b-lei

roa jhur ounremwéigu donobléi

“The hand to which I give” comes out a little bit different to the “hand I give to you”, because this only needs to be passivized, whereas this needs to be passivized and take the venitive (which should really be the andative) in order to swap around the arguments that little bit more. So these argument swapping operations, these voice/valence changing operations, are really important for the relative clauses because even though you can relativize out of different syntactic positions, it has to be the subject in the relative clause. So that’s the relative clauses.

One of the other tasks, along with documenting the language and participating in Lexember, was to write a passage that uses at least 10 Lexember words. So I have this nice little passage:

people don’t go to the lake to wash, not now.

neg=3rd.pl-go-gno def lake-nom.s-to purp.adv wash-evnt neg=temp.prox

ado=chu-yeok-∅ roa krouge-∅-oç gurno mouxka-joi ado=perei

adochuyéok roa króugeòç gúrno mouxkajhói adoperéi

they don’t eat cambium nor forage for tubers in the city.

neg=3rd.pl-eat-3rd.s-gno indef cambium-acc.s or neg=3rd.pl-forage-4th.pl-gno indef.pl tuber-acc.pl def city-in

ado=chu-ejoa-ce-∅ yua laumaloa-ka leo ado=chu-kodheo-ja-∅ was poalpug-cha roa baujho-ziu

adhocuèjóace yua laumalóaka leo adhocukodhéoja was póalpugcha roa baujhosíu

they cultivate their plants in gardens and fields.

3rd.pl-cultivate-4th.pl-gno plant-acc.pl 3rd.pl-gen.pl def.pl garden-in and def.plural field-in

chu-dleauk-ja-∅ siank-cha chu-N aós edleaułke-ziu snei aós reothon-ziu

chudléaukjha síankcha chun aós edléaułkesiu snei aós reothonzíu

do they know the earth?

int=3rd.pl-know-3rd.s-gno def.s earth-acc.s

iN=chu-peař-ce-∅ roa euwop-ka

inchupéařche roa éuwopka

I coined a lot of words for Lexember, including words like lake, wash, cambium, forage, tubers, cultivate, plants, gardens, fields, I’m pretty sure earth as well. So this is, I guess, kind of a lamentation from the persons, the people, the speakers of this language, who still live in the countryside in kind of the traditional way, lamenting the state of the people who now live in cities, who don’t wash in the lake, who don’t eat cambium, the inner material of tree bark, which is a forageable food, they don’t forage for tubers, they only cultivate and grow plants in gardens and fields. “do they know the Earth?”, the implication is that because they no longer do these things they no longer, they no longer have that connection with the Earth, and we can see here the interrogative just popping up at the start, it doesn’t need to pop up in the other places. We can see because it’s the people are cultivating the things we need that fourth plural. There’s no animacy distinction, there’s no gender, there’s no noun classes so that’s one of the reasons that a logophoric kind of clarification is so important. Whereas, the third plural and the third singular are seen to be different, they are different, different forms. In “they don’t eat . . .” and “they don’t forage . . .” because it’s a “nor” the negative is used twice to show that both of the noun clauses are negative, otherwise it would be they don’t eat cambium or they forage, it would work out a little bit differently, I guess it would be ungrammatical.

There are several things that need to be done for a speedlang challenge and one of them is translating five sentences from an appropriate source.

Here’s I said at the start of my video:

Hi everyone, Caoimhín here from the comfort of my kitchen

2nd.pl-cop-gno well human-uni.ref | dear.person proc.loc | 1st-come-gno def comfort loc-cook-evnt/-gen 1st.gen=from

çi-euw-∅ deibla doN-mougeł | kei.dor peu | oN-woçyeok-∅ roa ansei edh-adhei-joi/-N dom-No=Nap

çiéuw déibla domóugeł | Kéidor peu | omwoçyéok roa anséi edhadheíjoin dommonáp

çiˈeŭw ˈd̥eĭb.la d̥oˈmoŭ.ɣeʟ | ˈkʰeĭ.zor pʰeŭ | om.woçˈjeŏkʰ roă anˈseĭ e.ða.ðeˈi.ʝõĭ d̥om.moˈw̃apʰ

I’ve decided to say that instead of “hi”, it’s a “be well” it’s kind of a “good day” or a “blessings be” kind of introduction. This is followed by the human prenoun, compounding derivational modifier, on the universal referent, so universal is your every, everyone, everything, every-whatever, but in this language, to make it everyone, you need that human modifier to come in on top and the nasals just kind of harmonize together. I decided to translate my name as just “dear person” for Caoimhín, there’s lots of ways to translate it. In English we can kind of get away with “hi everyone, Caoimhín here from the comfort of my kitchen”, there isn’t a verb in there, it’s pretty much a verbless clause, but that isn’t going to fly in Jróiçnia. You need to have some sort of verb, so instead it’s more like “hi everyone, Caoimhín here, coming from the comfort of my kitchen”. There are multiple genitives here, it’s the comfort, it’s the kitchen’s comfort, it’s my kitchen’s comfort, so we’ve got multiple genitives in a row here and we’ve got this genitive form of the pronoun and then “from”. “from” is a postposition, it is more of a clitic, so it goes at the end of the genitive phrase, modifying the whole genitive phrase all the way up to that definite marker there.

This is an actual Zephyrus test sentence, number 73:

When will your guests from the city arrive?

temp.int 3rd.pl-fut-arrive-prf def.pl guest-nom.pl 2nd.s/alt-gen.s def.s city-from

prein chu-yeo-łoag-ot aòs giułoagoł-x eidh<e>-N roa baujho-Nap

prein chuyeołóagot aós giułoagółx eidhén roa báujhonap

pʰrẽĭ ʈʰu.jeŏˈʟoă.ɣotʰ aˈos ɡ̊iŭ.ʟoăˈɣoʟʂ eĭˈðẽ roă ˈb̥aŭ.ʐo.ɰ̃apʰ

This is the actual sentence, and in this form I’m using the temporal interrogative, so the actual “wh-” word of when and it is “when? your people will arrive”, and it’s in the future. The future here is really kind of a preverb, it’s almost like an auxiliary. They’re your guests, so it’s guests belonging to you, the genitive comes after the possessum, the possessor comes after the possessee or possessum, however you want to say it. That did not strike me as right in this language, I don’t think that works. Technically it works, I don’t know if it’s ungrammatical or just dispreferred.

When is it that your guests from the city will arrive?

int=3rd.s-cop-gno temp comp 3rd.pl-fut-arrive-prf def.pl guest-nom.pl 2nd.s/alt-gen.s def.s city-from

iN=euw-∅ prei mou chu-yeo-łoag-ot aòs giułoagoł-x eidh<e>-N roa baujho-Nap

inéuw prei mou chuyeołóagot aós giułoagółx eidhén roa báujhonap

iˈeŭw pʰreĭ moŭ ʈʰu.jeŏˈʟoă.ɣotʰ aˈos ɡ̊iŭ.ʟoăˈɣoʟʂ eĭˈðẽ roă ˈb̥aŭ.ʐo.ɰ̃apʰ

It would be better to phrase it with a verb, an actual verb at the start. I’m still figuring out exactly what this language allows and what it doesn’t allow. This version is definitely better, “When is it that your guests from the city will arrive?” So we have that complementizer again, you can’t drop it because the complement clause is so much longer. So “it is when that your guests will arrive from the city?” and then we have the city emphasized version.

When is it that your guests *from the city* will arrive?

int=3rd.s-cop-gno temp comp 3rd.pl-fut-arrive-prf def.pl guest-nom.pl 2nd.s/alt-gen.s def.s int=city-from

iN=euw-∅ prei mou chu-yeo-łoag-ot aòs giułoagoł-x eidh<e>-N roa baujho-Nap

inéuw prei mou chuyeołóagot aós giułoagółx eidhén roa imáujhonap

iˈeŭw pʰreĭ moŭ ʈʰu.jeŏˈʟoă.ɣotʰ aˈos ɡ̊iŭ.ʟoăˈɣoʟʂ eĭˈðẽ roă iˈmaŭ.ʐo.ɰ̃apʰ

You could emphasize other things, you could emphasize guest, “When is it that your guests will arrive from the city?”, just by moving that interrogative clitic around, and it’s still just one interrogative phrase. The extra interrogative is really just used for emphasis in that case.

Moving on to Zephyrus test sentence 211:

“This tree is fifty feet high,” said the gardener.

3rd.s-stand-gno prox.s tree-nom.s 5 10 span-nom.pl | 3rd.s-say-pst def gardener-nom.s

el-uazdhe-∅ bou baloa-∅ tuid keath eiwas-ax | el-jroiç-ko roa donléaukoł-∅

elúazdhe bou balóa tuid keath éiwasax | eljróiçko roa donléaukoł

eˈluăθ.d̪̥e b̥oŭ b̥aˈloă tʰuĭd kʰeăt̪ʰ ˈei.wa.saʂ | elˈɟɹoĭç.kʰo roă d̥onˈleăŭ.kʰoʟ

I’ve decided not to have any real marker for the direct or indirect speech here, it works in a very similar way to English. That, or “five 10 spans”, that is my version of 50ft, and “stand” is really what gives you the “high”. There’s a few copulas in this language, so “stand” is used in this case because the tree stands 50 foot, it works as the tree is 50 foot because “stand” is seen as a type of copular verb. These sentences are translated pretty early on in the month of creating this language, so some things changed, I made some different choices with how I was going to write things and what exactly their behavior was going to be.

Moving on to Zephyrus Test sentence 61:

We sailed down the river for several miles.

1st.pl-go-sail-vrb-pst path.adv def river-prl sea-to span/col-dat

us-e-thoin-aib-ka reañou roa eibar-geu thoadho-oç eiwas/as-xei

uzethoináibka reañóu roa eibargéu thóadhoç eiwasasséi

u.θeˈt̪ʰoĭ.j̃aĭb̥.kʰa reăˈɲoŭ roă eĭ.varˈɡeŭ ˈt̪ʰoă.ðoç eĭ.wa.sasˈseĭ

I’m giving this the normal past and it is a verbalized form of sail, and it’s “go sail”, because it needs to be, that’s just one of the ways that it becomes verbalized and to show that you’re sailing somewhere to travel by sailing. I’ve just put it in the past, simple past realis, so it’s something that you did generally, it’s something that you used to do, we used to sail down the river for several miles, or we sailed down the river for several miles every day, you could add that into this version of the sentence where it’s just using the past.

We sailed down the river for several miles.

1st.pl-go-sail-vrb-prf path.adv def river-prl sea-to span/col-dat

us-e-thoin-aib-ot reañou roa eibar-geu thoadho-oç eiwas/as-xei

uzethoináibot reañóu roa eibargéu thóadhoç eiwasasséi

u.θeˈt̪ʰoĭ.j̃aĭ.votʰ reăˈɲoŭ roă eĭ.varˈɡeŭ ˈt̪ʰoă.ðoç eĭ.wa.sasˈseĭ

However, if we go down to the perfective form, we sailed down the river for several miles, the implication is that we did it once. We sailed down the river for several miles and then went and did something else, it was complete, something that you did possibly just once. “What did you do? We sailed down the river for several miles.” That is conjugated just a little bit differently, that a different ending. This is the completive:

We sailed down the river for several miles.

1st.pl-go-sail-vrb-cmp path.adv def river-prl sea-to span/col-dat

us-e-thoin-aib-an reañou roa eibar-geu thoadho-oç eiwas/as-xei

uzethoináiban reañóu roa eibargéu thóadhoç eiwasasséi

u.θeˈt̪ʰoĭ.j̃aĭ.vã reăˈɲoŭ roă eĭ.varˈɡeŭ ˈt̪ʰoă.ðoç eĭ.wa.sasˈseĭ

This is used like the perfect in English, it would be an answer of, yeah, “how did you get here? We sailed, down the river for several miles” “we had sailed” “How do you know this river?” “We have sailed down the river for several miles”. So this “cmp”, you could really translate it with a “have” or a “had” to really put it in the perfect, but I didn’t want to change it too much to show that it is a pretty subtle change in this language,

We have similar here for Zephyrus Test sentence 89:

The little boy’s father had once been a sailor.

3rd.s-be.prf-pst.comp parent-gen def small-mod kid/alt indef prs-sail-vrb-nom

el-awo-nk tweur-ne roa olin-ui sroak/o yua doN-thoin-aib-oł

elawónk twéurne roa olinúi sróako yua dhonhoináiboł

e.laˈwoŋkʰ ˈtʰeŭr.ne roă o.liˈɥ̃uĭ ˈsroă.kʰo juă d̪̥o.n̪oĭˈj̃aĭ.voʟ

The “had once” indicates to me that this is completive. The verb is initial as normal. We’ve got this kind of whole phrase here, “The parent of the boy, a sailor”. With the fact that I don’t have any noun classes, the fact that I don’t have animate versus inanimate or masculine versus feminine, I have just gone with parent and kid or child. There will almost certainly be lexemes that differentiate between the genders of things like son, daughter, mother, father, that kind of thing, but I haven’t coined them.

Here we’ve got “the little boy’s father had once been a sailor” in the more simple past perfect.

The little boy’s father had once been a sailor.

3rd.s-be.prf-pst.prf parent-gen def small-mod kid/alt indef prs-sail-vrb-nom

el-awo-ok tweur-ne roa olin-ui sroak/o yua doN-thoin-aib-oł

elawók twéurne roa olinúi sróako yua dhonhoináiboł

e.laˈwokʰ ˈtʰweŭr.ne roă o.liˈɥ̃uĭ ˈsroă.kʰo juă d̪̥o.n̪oĭˈj̃aĭ.voʟ

So it’s not the completive, it’s not an answer to the same kind of question. It doesn’t have to be an answer to a question, but the original could be an answer to something. It could be an answer to something like, “how does the little boy know about knots?”, “The boy’s father had once been a sailor.” In this case, it’s more of just a general fact, “Oh, what did he used to do? He had once been a sailor.” It’s really not as, you know, as good a translation of the English, this would really be more like “the little boy’s father was a sailor”, or “was once a sailor”, “was a sailor for a while”, because it is perfect, it ended, it completed. It can’t be “The little boy’s father was a sailor, and he still is”, but I wanted to drop it in here just to kind of emphasize that difference,

Over the course of these example, various approximants pop up where the approximant behaves differently to how a diphthong would behave, so we can see things breaking up. Also, some suffixes differentiate between consonant final and vowel final stems, and if there’s an approximant, it’ll act as consonant final, if it’s a diphthong, it’ll act as vowel final. That’s one of the other differentiators between the diphthongs and the sequences of a monophthong or a diphthong and a glide in this language.

Here we’ve got the emphatic in Zephyrus test sentence number 26:

Go away!

3rd.s-emph-ven-go-prf

el-koa-reN-yeok-ot

elkoarenyeokot

el.kʰoă.reˈɲjeŏ.kʰotʰ

This comes out a little bit long winded for a command. If you’re telling someone to go away, the away part of it and the perfective of it, the fact that you’re telling them to go away, not be going away, not be on your way, which might be a different version, that is kind of stretching it out a little bit, it makes it a little bit longer.

Go!

3rd.s-emph-go-gno

el-koa-yeok-∅

elkoayéok

el.kʰoă.reˈɲeŏ.kʰotʰ

Whereas this simple “Go!”, it would be understood, even though it’s a gnomic, because it’s in the imperative, it would be understood to kind of “go away now”, get out of here now, rather than at some point in the future, you could add a future to it.

I am content

1st.s-content-gno (1st.s-nom.s)

oN-dalei-∅ (dom-∅)

onaléi (dom)

I am pleased

1st.s-content-gno 1st.s-dat.s

oN-dalei-∅ dom-lei

onaléi domléi

it pleases me

3rd.s-content-gno-1st.s

el-dalei-∅-N

eldalein

So here just an extra little bit, different ways of using the verb to be content, which is really what it is. If you are content or if you are pleased, showing that something is making you content, you put it in the dative, even though you’re still the agent or the subject of the verb phrase. For it pleases me, it can all run into just one verb because the thing doing the pleasing is the agent.

Doing Lexember, I aimed for 10 words a day for the entire month of December and I got a little bit over that. So we’ve got various different terms here, presented in the order they were created:

Day 1
To start with I coined a generic term for “hide or pelt of an animal” = *theajh* /t̪ʰeɐ̆ɖ/. This is essentially skin or integument, but non-human, and not feathers. Importantly, it is hide or skin as a separate thing, rather than “an animal’s coat or pelage” = *bréga* /ˈbɾe.ɣɐ/. Various animal skins can be used to make either fur or leather, depending on treatment. A fur ready to be made clothes is “prepared fur” = *xuaik* /ʂuə̆ɪ̆kʰ/ whereas dehaired tanned skin is “leather” *snař* /snaʁ/. Between skinning and tanning, hides are often scraped, first to remove leftover fat and meat, then possibly to remove the hair. The root for scrape as a verb is √ziak, as in “I scrape it” = *onzíakche* /onˈθiɐ̆kʰ.ʈʰe/. This verb can combine with the noun as an incorporand in two ways. In the first, the verb is detransitived “scrape-hide” = √ziaktheajh, as in “I scrape hide” = *onziakthéajh*. The other form of incorporation does not effect valence, so “hide.scrape” = √theziak must be conjugated as “I hide.scrape it” = *onthezíakche*. This verb can then be nominalized as “hide.scraper” = *thezíakoł* /t̪ʰeˈθiɐ̆.kʰoʟ/ but this is ambiguous. There are two possible noun compound fixes, either using the word for person or tool to clarify, forming a compound like “hide.scraper person” = *dorán theziakoł* (with *dorán* /doˈrã/ meaning “person”) or “hide.scraper thing” = *xobáu theziakoł* (with *xobáu* /ʂoˈbaʊ̆/ meaning “tool, device, thing”. However, there is also a reduced prefix form of at least these two words, with something like “hide.scraperman” = *dontheziakoł* and an equivalent for “hide.scraper.tool” *xotheziakoł*. I’ll aim to make the other nominal derivational prefixes less transparent. I’m counting the words for “person” and “tool” and the derived words, but not the compounds. I am writing the noun compounds with spaces, like English.

This first day was written when the language was just 9 hours old.

Day 2
I decided that the speakers of this language have a domestic animal that they pluck the wool off of, rather than shearing, so “pluck” = √eichran as in “I pluck it” = *oneichránche* /o.ɳeĭˈʈɻʰaɳ.ʈʰe/. This is usually done when the animal is moulting, “it moults” = *elómlan* /eˈlom.lã/ from √omlan. I’ve separated out the nominal for “moult” = *omlañói* /om.laˈɲoĭ/ with the *-joi* eventive suffix. This next part will take a second, because I needed a word for “stick” = *geołt* /geŏʟtʰ/ and then a root for “grab or grasp, take hold of” = √asau. This gives me a noun-headed compound, no nominalizer needed *geołtasau* /ˈg̊eŏʟ.tʰa.saŭ/. As a noun, this is a grasping stick, specifically a stick that grasps wool, a “distaff”. Similarly, I needed “drop” = √bwaç and “tie” = √xcheai to make √bwaçceai /bwaç.cʰeɐ̆ĭ/ meaning “to drop while tied, to plumb, to yo-yo”. You may see where I’m going with the next word “spindle” = *itén* /iˈtʰẽ/ leading to the noun-headed compound with a verb-verb compound *itemwaçcéaioł* /i.tʰe.mwaçˈcʰeɐ̆ĭ.oʟ/ which does have a nominalizer, as it’s a “drop-spindle”, a spindle for dropping, rather than a spindle that drops something. That gives the classic distaff and drop-spindle of wool preparation, but I don’t have much world building yet. I’m thinking maybe dogs for wool, like Salish wool dogs.

Day 3
I decided to start with “tree” = *balóa* /b̥aˈloă/ and go with tree based fibers. That usually involves stripping off the “bark” = *koix* /kʰoĭʂ/ and separating out the “bast” = *zuath* /θuăt̪ʰ/ which forms the actual fibres. These fibres are more or less the phloem of the tree, and inside (closer to the trunk) is the “cambium” = *laumalóa* /laŭ.maˈloa/, the edible tree-bread, from tree and “bread” = *laun* /lãŭ/, so that’s a quick snack. Most trees need to have this bast fibre treated, often with a “boil” = √upleu as in “we boil them” = *usupléux* /u.suˈpleŭʂ/ and they often need to be dried and “beat” = √auru-jau. This is from “hit” =√auru and the iterative suffix, as in “we beat them” = *usaurujáux* . Finished fibres are usually grouped into threads with a “twist” = √ialhon as in “they twist together/with each other” = *usialhonsóux* /u.siă.ʎonˈsoŭʂ/. The resulting threads then need to be brought together in a “weave” = √řaint as in “You weave it” = *idřáintte* /iˈdʁaĭnt.tʰe/. There is one tree that has vast fibres already crossed in a net-like arrangement, the “net-tree” = *bloaéaçcu* /bloăˈeăç.cʰu/ from tree and “net” = *éaçcu* /ˈeăç.cʰu/. In our world, lacebark trees are tropical, usually Carribean, but I think I want this culture to be temperate.

You can see that I was starting to work out my various kinds of compounding with these various different things, different kinds of nominalization, different kinds of verbalization will pop up as well. Here we’ve got our word for tree and our word for bread, so you can see the order of the compounding, it’s bread-tree, bread of the tree. Tree’s bread or treebread is probably how we’d say it in English. Of course we wouldn’t, we’d say cambium in English because that’s the word that we have, we already have a lexeme for it.

Day 4
Starting the Metal day with a word for “wood” = *krauy* /kʰraŭj/ as in the material, rather than a collection of trees. Adding a root for “cook” = √adhei, specifically to bake or calcine, and putting them together for “charcoal” = *kʰrauy adheikáith* /kʰraŭ.j‿a.ðeĭˈkʰaĭt̪ʰ/ the essential fuel for early iron smelting, using a passive participle form of the verb. Some basic words here then for “metal” = *páuřo* /ˈpʰaŭ.ʁo/ and “stone” = *axchói* /aʂˈʈʰoĭ/. Together, “stone-metal” = *pauřoxchói* /pʰaŭ.ʁoʂˈʈʰoĭ/ is metal from a stone, like “copper” = *ceauz* /cʰeăŭθ/. Next however, let’s coin the word “bog” = *moadu* /ˈmoă.zu/ so we can make “bog-metal” = *pauřonóadu* /pʰaŭ.ʁoˈw̃oă.zu/ where the speakers get “iron” = *glian* /ɡlĩă/. You tell it’s iron bog-metal thanks to the mark it leaves being “red” = *buíl* /b̥uˈil/. With one/two words left, the iron is worked with a “hammer” = *tóubla* /ˈtʰoŭ.bla/ from which we can get the verb “hammer” =√toublai. Finally we can get a good sentence, “we hammer the cooked iron” = *ontoubláiche roa glian adheikáith* /on.tʰoŭˈblaĭ.ʈʰe roă ɡliă.ɰ̃‿a.ðeĭˈkʰaĭt̪ʰ/. I think this would settle a technological level of bloomery iron smelting and wrought iron production for the speakers of this language.

So we can see that verb, it’s not burn as in set fire to it, because of course, to make charcoal from wood, you don’t actually want it to catch fire, you just want to heat it up a lot and that’s, that’s what that verb means. We can see our different compounds here for different kinds of metal, you know, ore versus metal that you find in a bog. Bog iron, of course, very important.

Day 5
For precious metals, I’ll start with the classic, “gold” = *řóuro* /ˈʁoŭ.ro/, which is nice and easy. “Silver” = *íaño* /ˈiă.ɲo/ is second best today, but was harder to get, usually being attracted from compounds with “lead” = *egáil* /eˈɣaĭl/. These extraction processes would of course depend on “fire” = *níude* /ˈɲiŭ.ze/ usually burning in a controlled space, or “hearth” = *eníude* /eˈniŭ.ze/, formed with the locative derivational prefix *ed-*. Making a quick diversion to coin “water” = *duag* /d̥uăɡ/ and “gem/jewel” = *téikan* /ˈtʰeĭ.kʰã/. With adjectival initial reduplication, water becomes “liquid/fluid” = *duduag* /d̥uˈzuăɡ/. It may be toxic, but “mercury” = *pauřuag* /pʰaŭˈʁuăɡ/ was very sought after, and large amounts of it were an impressive status symbol. It comes from an old compound of metal and water. Another compound is “cinnabar” = *wuìlaxchói* /wu.i.laʂˈʈʰoĭ/ for red-stone, the source of the mercury. Just to separate it out, “carnelian” = *wuìltéikan* wu.ilˈˈtʰeĭ.kʰã/ for red-gem. I think any more would be pushing the tech level further than I want.

Day 6
Better start with “clay” = *náuli* /ˈnaŭ.li/ as a material. The soil type and deposits of clay are “earth-clay”= *opmáu* /opʰˈmaŭ/ with the earth or ground prefix *op-* from the word for “ground” = *éuwop* /ˈeŭ.wopʰ/. To turn the clay into “ceramic” = *gweinch* /ɡweĭɳʈʰ/ it’s usually shaped on a “wheel” = *lóaxu* /ˈloă.ʂu/ before being fired in a “kiln” = *braŋ* /braŋ/. Necessary repairs are achieved with “slip” = *sluad* /sluăd/, which also means glue. It can be clarified as “clay slip” = *sluad náuli* or “animal glue” = *sluad weauku*. Ceramic may be glazed with a “glaze” = *çnour* /çɲoŭr/, but this often isn’t necessary when it is fired in a “pit” = *olhéa* /oˈʎeă/. It takes so much charcoal and dung to reach a high temperature, necessary to sinter or “fuse” = √gijoa the ceramic, that the carbon makes the pottery “black” = *éobu* /ˈeŏ.vu/, inspired by Pueblo blackware.

Day 7
Starting with a nice basic “sand” = *tiars* /tʰiărs/. The speakers of this language would gather their sand from the “beach” = *dabóu* /d̥aˈvoŭ/. Definitely not tropical coral sand, more of a rocky/shelly sand. I’ve coined stone as a material, so here’s “rock” = *jhlaun* /ɖ̥ɭãŭ/ as in a rock. Although there would be some natural “scree” = *xóatak* /ˈʂoă.tʰakʰ/ larger rocks would often need to be broken up, “crush” = √orchun as in “we crushed them” = *usorchúnkuche* /u.soɻˈʈʰuŋ.kʰu.ʈʰe/. You could do that by hand, but pulling together somo previous words and morphology, we have “mill” = *xoloax* /ʂoˈloăʂ/ derived from wheel, and then “water-mill” = *xolóax duag* to power some hammers for rock crushing. I’ve done a lot of nouns so far this week, so we’ll add “fill” = √yuago and “pack” = √puith, as that would be the use of all the crushed rock. Seeing as I’ve added sand, I’ll add “glass” = *asléau* /asˈleăŭ/ as well.

Day 8
Starting with a great rock, “basalt” = *gúatok* /ˈɡ̊uă.tʰokʰ/ dark and great for carving and structure. Also used for structure are “granite” = *abráu* /aˈbraŭ/ sometimes polished and “sandstone” = *axchóichiars* almost always left as a “block” = *tóuren* /ˈtʰoŭ.rẽ/. Taking a quick diversion to adjectives, “pale/light” = *íaliç* /ˈiă.liç/ and “dark/deep” = *keojho* /ˈkʰeŏ.ʐo/ certainly of colour, possibly of flavour. Back to rocks for “dolomite” = *kéojho rabéu* and “limestone” = *íaliç rabéu*, I might leave *rabeu* /raˈveŭ/ as a fossilized noun. Dolomite would be used as blocks, often for kilns, where as limestone would often be processed into “lime” = *siáx* /siˈaʂ/, I’ll leave the slaked and quick distinctions for another time. I will coin “chisel” = *áitsa* /ˈaitʰ.sa/ seeing as I have hammer already, but also “string” = *zóalwa* /ˈθoăl.wa/ from which “plumb-line” = *zóalwa bwaçcéaiàith*, roughly “tiedropping-string”.

Day 9
As Islanders, I think the “sea” = *thoadho* /ˈt̪ʰoă.ðo/ is the logical place to get “salt” = *xias* /ʂiăs/, but there are deposits of halite or “rock salt” = *xíaxchoi* /ˈʂiăʂ.ʈʰoĭ/ where you can get a rock of salt or a “salt rock” = *jhlaun xias*. Salt can also form a “crystal” = *zleuth* /θleŭt̪ʰ/ as a “salt crystal” = *zleuth xias* Starting to go off track here to coin a word for a glasswort-ish plant, a “saltplant” = *sanxía* /saɳˈʂiă/. This plant gets burnt, “burn” = √ajoa to produce “ash” = *ajlhoakáith* /aɟ.ʎoăˈkʰaĭt̪ʰ/, specifically “soda ash” = *sanxía ajlhoakaith*. Coining a word for “wet” = *poag* /pʰoăɡ/ lets us coin “slaked lime” = *poagúi siáx*. Mix those all together and you’ve got “lye” = *gauřop* /ˈɡ̊aŭ.ʁopʰ/. While I’m at it, quicklime or “burning lime” = *siáx ajoaaith* and “potash”= *kralhúai* /kʰraˈʎuăĭ/. Totally went on a tangent away from salt, but it made sense to me to take it this way. I’ve also figured out the geology of where *Jróiçnia* was/is spoken, so I have a good idea what semi-precious and precious stuff they should have been able to access.

Day 10
Starting with some biological gems, “amber” = *sóube* /ˈsoŭ.ve/ is commonly picked from beaches and rivers, but also found on and in the ground of certain terrains. Certain veins hold “jet” = *kéutas* /ˈkʰeŭ.tʰas/ particularly coastal hills. Even more natural is “pearl” = *bolíant* /b̥oˈliăntʰ/ harvested from certain shellfish, and mother-of-pearl or “nacre” = *choaren* /ˈʈʰoă.rẽ/ from the shells themselves. Pearls in particular may not be “white” = *uin* /ũĭ/ enough, so they are bleached, “bleach” = √poluin, probably using one of the handy alkalis from yesterday. Moving on to something more geological, “obsidian” = *trajóu* /tʰraˈʝoŭ/ is found buried all over the island, but no new obsidian is forming. Varieties of “quartz” = *leuwop* /ˈleŭ.wopʰ/ are common, including smoky or “dark quartz” = *kéojho léuwop* from all the granite in the mountains. A popular stone used as a gem is “jasper” = *paxíul* /pʰaˈʂiul/, not as strictly defined as it is today. Less common, usually found when rock is being mined, is “opal” = *tikáid* /tʰiˈkʰaĭd/ usually of the less brilliant variety. Most of these stones need to “shine” = √edoin and are thus given a “polish” = √poledoin, but are rarely “cut” = √çlheath like precious gems, which are coming tomorrow!

We’ve got a few words here that are very, very similar. So “euw”, “euw” is just “E-U-W”, and that’s actually the copula, “euwop” is earth, “leuwop” is quartz, so those words do sound very similar. Presumably “euwop” and “leuwop” are related, whereas “euw”, the copula, presumably isn’t.

Day 11
Distinguishing gems was hard before modern technology! Starting with the famous red gem “ruby” = *wuìlzléuth* /wu.ilˈθleŭt̪ʰ/ and coining a word for blue/green or “grue” = *goun* /ɡ̊õŭ/ to use for the blue counterpart, “sapphire” = *řouzléuth* /ʁoŭθˈleŭt̪ʰ/, both of which would get confused with spinel of the right colour. Sorting out the greener “emerald”= *kéojho řouzléuth* and paler blue “aquamarine” = *íaliç řouzléuth* literally deep and pale grue-crystal respectively. Those fancy gems would often be called “hard”= *kúarot* /ˈkʰuă.rotʰ/ distinguished from “soft” = *oçóu* /oˈçoŭ/ such as red “garnet” = *oçóu wuìlzléuth*. With quartz, zircon and other potentially “clear” = *réiso* /ˈreĭ.so/ gems also getting confused, those that are clear are called “clear-gem” = *reizléuth* and this would probably cover diamonds as well.

Day 12
Having accidentally used up a bunch of organic gems two days ago, I’m going to start with a few last inorganic ones. Oddly enough, starting with “fat” = *cuith* /cʰuĭt̪ʰ/ for the fat-gem “chalcedony” = *cuith teikan* inspired by descriptions of nephrite jade in the far east. From there, to the fancy striped version “agate” = *łutóun* /ʟuˈtʰõŭ/ and the possibly even fancier shiny “tigers eye” = *raléi* /raˈleĭ/. These are basically all silicon oxide like quartz, and I’ve covered carnelian and jasper already, so I’ll drop in the rarer “amethyst” = *gwílu* /ˈɡwi.lu/ as well. Speaking of tiger’s eye, I’m a big fan of chatoyancy, so adding in “selenite” = *úinchoi reizléuth* the clear-crystal of the whiterock “gypsum” = *úinchoi* /ˈuĭɳ.ʈʰoi/. Given that they’re both water soluble, do the same thing to bean juice (tofu-production) and are often found together, I think the Jróiçnia speakers would connect them. I think fossil wood or “wood-gem” = *teikan krauy* bridges the gap nicely to more organic things. I already coined amber, but the not-quite-fossilized “copal” = *xéobal* /ˈʂeŏ.val/ is easier to carve, rather than just polish. Very biological is “coral” = *emláit* /emˈlaĭtʰ/, specifically coral with a red skeleton, also more for carving. Not exactly a gem, but “bitumen/pitch” = *kluach* /kʰluăʈʰ/ is useful, valuable and rare, occuring only in one small pool. I’ve gone ahead and added “brown” = *dhúanco* /ˈd̪uăɲ.cʰo/ and “yellow” = *níala* /ˈɲiă.la/ to flesh out the basic colour terms for describing all of these gems.

I wanted to mess around with different kinds of diphthong, I wanted to make sure that I had all of them there, all of them present and more different kinds of compounds. Even compounds of compounds, because this is a tight compound of the word for white and the word for rock, to give us whiterock or gypsum, adjectives go in front of the noun they modify, and they still do in their compounds, whereas the clear gem of white rock or “whiterock clear.gem”, that’s selenite, the clear gem that you get from gypsum.

Day 13
Starting with the prompt for once, “horn” = *gyoum* /ɡjoŭm/ is harvested from what I’m calling a “dwarf wisent” = *řóaten* /ˈʁoă.tʰẽ/. Such a creature once lived in Sardinia, but this version is probably more of a small American Bison, or possibly an ovibos. A similar material would be “antler” = *bidháik* /b̥iˈðaĭkʰ/ shed by male “plains deer” = *ekóil* /eˈkʰoĭl/ and also by “giant deer” = *búawoł* /ˈb̥uă.woʟ/ in the forest. Male and female giant deer have antlers, but the male’s are much larger. Getting in some more verbal, there’s “carve” = √choizu and it’s diminutive “engrave” = √choizułan. Similarly, from “put/place” = √eiro we get “inlay” = √wozéiro. From previously coined cut we get intaglio or cameo, “cut-away” = √woçlhéath. Lastly, appropriate for the animals involved, “hunt” = √dúintu.

Day 14
Starting with the prompt again, “bone” = *topráu* /tʰoˈpraŭ/ is used decoratively and for some tools, especially the long “leg” = *zuad* /θuăd/ of the forest dwelling “giant ground bird” = *éixun* /’eĭ.ʂũ/. Their large “beak” = *tíadu* /ˈtʰiă.zu/ is also used for carving. Flashing back to yesterday for “tortoise” = *píugok* /ˈpʰiŭ.ɣokʰ/, which isn’t usually used to produce the material “tortoishell” = *chóarpiugo* /ˈʈʰoăr.pʰiŭ.ɣo/, that comes from turtles. There is a differentiation between a mollusc “shell” = *zweab* /θweăb/ and a testudine “tortoise-shell” = *ukóult píugok* from “shell or dome” = *ukóult* /uˈkʰoŭltʰ/. Tortoise shells are still useful as natural bowls, but are generally decorative and decorated. Coining a word for “shape” = *glau* /glaŭ/ and adding shell gives me “cabachon” = *glau ukóult*, the common shape of all the softer gems from the past few days.

Day 15
A normal “tooth” = *síaron* /ˈsiă.roŋ/ is one thing, but a standout tusk or “fang” = *kajhóu* /kʰaˈʐoŭ/ is usually what you need for “ivory” = *keunch* /kʰeŭɳʈʰ/. The main tusked animal for the speakers is “boar” = *lhiauj* /ʎiăŭɟ/ though “whale” = *joále* /ɟ̊oˈa.le/ also provides some, a lot per whale, but far fewer whales than boars are caught. Unfortunately, to be harvested they need to “die” = √peçaun. There is another option, a specific “nut” = *zneig* /θn̪eĭɡ/ from a type of tree, a “palm” = *téirblu* /tʰeĭr.blu/. Nuts are usually used for small sculptures and pendants, but tusk is often used to make a “handle” = *jhuráilaboł* /ɖ̥uˈraĭ.la.boʟ/ for a special kind of “knife” = *isíaŋ* /iˈsiăŋ/.

Here we’ve got another instance of an approximant coming up against vowels. I wanted to have some examples of that just to show they are different from sequences of, just to show that they’re different from the actual diphthongs that I have. We’ve got various different things coming up here, this is just to prove that I’ve done them. There’s an initial palatal lateral, didn’t have many initial palatal laterals, so I had to drop one in there.

Day 16
The most basic piece of lumber would be a “log” = *kulóad* /kʰuˈloăd/, though wide trunks are often broken down into “shingle” = *íardo* /ˈiăr.do/. Large beams and posts usually come from “oak” = *duláuř* /d̥uˈlauʁ/ and “beech” = *wéiňo* /ˈweĭ.ɳo/, or at least trees like them. Sometimes these trees are cut as a “pollard” = *ojéil* /oˈʝeĭl/, but this is more common with trees that provide “twig” = *ipʰrón* /iˈprõ/ used in weaving “basket” = *xaltái* /ʂalˈtʰaĭ/. Common trees for this are similar to “willow” = *beyáup* /beˈjaŭpʰ/, and “linden” = *luçói* /luˈçoĭ/ which is also allowed to grow larger. All trees get used for crafting as well as construction, but some wood looks better, like “maple” = *thíaru* /t̪ʰiă.ru/. These trees would usually be felled by “axe” = *áikur* /ˈaĭˈkʰur/ and smaller portions are usually cut by “saw” = *xosisíaronon* /ʂo.siˈsiă.ro.w̃õ/ roughly meaning toothed-tool.

We’ve got another instance here of a nasal surfacing in a particular place, so underlyingly, it must be the nasal archiphoneme and the voiced velar stop, and in certain cases, in the dative and the genitive, they’d probably separate out and be separated by a vowel, they’d be broken. This is another interesting nominalizer, this is a, a saw, something that you cut with by going back and forth. So it is a tool that cuts and it’s done iteratively, so saw is actually quite a complicated word in this language. You can see the nasal archiphoneme popping up in what might be an awkward place cross linguistically, “zneig” might be a little awkward to pronounce, but this language doesn’t follow the phonology of English, so things are going to be a little bit different.

Day 17
Seeing as I coined nut previously, I’m starting with a verb meaning “to nut-bear” = √zneiŋui for a couple of yesterday’s trees, and you can sspecify nuts like “acorn” = *zneig dulauř* for oak-nut and such. Usually, these are technically their fruits. The most popular fleshy fruit is a “pome” = *áudhib* /ˈaŭ.ðib/ which comes from a “pome-tree” = *audhimúiòł* /aŭ.ði.muĭ.oʟ/ literally a pome-maker. Sometimes these are peeled, but it’s not strictly necessary. These are usually fleshy fruits with hard, stone-like seeds. Most seeds are fairly small, but some are larger. Some of these are grown for their nut-like “seed” = *teŋłúr* /tʰeŋˈʟur/. These are seeds, but get treated like nuts. Another popular fruit are kinds of “berry” *çeulz* /çeŭlθ/ which often come from a “bush/shrub” = *jepwíul* /ɟ̊epˈwiŭl/. These are smaller fleshy fruits, usually with very small seeds. These are almost never peeled. One in particular is the “bushberry” = *çeulz jepwíul*, a smaller understory plant with tangy fruits. However, a thornier berry-maker is “thornberry” = *çeulz áumlin* from “thorn” = *áumlin* /ˈaum.lĩ/. A completely different plant, with mild, almost creamy fruits, but still considered a berry. There is also a “treeberry” = *çeulz balóa*, as the type of fruit can occur on larger trees, in bunches of seperate fruits. While many of these grow wild in the “forest” = *gachřúan* /ɡ̊aʈʰˈʁũă/ they are often grown and managed in small groves, like an “orchard” = *edhbalóalo* /ed̪.baˈloă.lo/ along with some smaller plants. If the smaller plants are to the fore, especially slighter ones that provide “grain” = *iñéul* /iˈɲeŭl/ then it’s usually a “garden” = *edléaułke* /ed.leăŭʟ.kʰe/, but these almost always contain a couple of fruit trees and bushes.

Day 18
Starting off with a word for “bean/pea” = *bothíal* /b̥oˈt̪ʰiăl/ or really any pulse, usually one that comes in a “pod” = *kóulud* /ˈkʰoŭ.lud/ that grow on a “vine” = *jyéulhik* /ˈɟjeŭ.ʎikʰ/. They are usually plants that “climb” = √abwad, but there is a more stalky kind called “feed/feeder” = *polejóaòł* /pʰo.leˈʝoă.oʟ/ which is commonly used as a supplementary food for animals, but is also eaten by people. These legumes start as a “flower” = *puiçéa* /pʰuĭˈçeă/, itself usually an “edible flower” = *ejlhóaàith puiçéa* /eɟˈʎoă.aĭt̪ʰ pʰuĭˈçeă/. Stretching out the legumes into Fabaceae, “acacia” = *áumloa* /ˈaŭm.loă/ is another tree that is grown, also with edible wattles, in drier climates. Another seed tree, in various climates, is “pine” = *áitedi* /ˈaĭ.tʰe.zi/, just to add more to the trees from previous days. Storing up all these seeds, beans and nuts may attract a “mouse” = *bolúa* /b̥oˈluă/, but many households would have a “mouser cat” = *cíàn bolùaáiboł* /ˈcʰi.ã b̥o.luăˈaĭ.voʟ/ to minimize the issue of vermin.

Day 19
I have decided that the island where Jróiçnia is spoken does have contact with the rest of the world. As such, people do “trade” = √kraluid and there is the occupation “trader” = *donkralúidoł* /d̥oŋ.kʰraˈluĭ.zoʟ/. However, I’m going to stick with native, or at least fully adopted, plants for this one. Starting with a bush/tree, the “theo-plant” = *uróum* /uˈroŭm/ which produces caffeine and theobromine in it’s berrys, seeds, roots and “leaf” = *çuał* /çuăʟ/. Both the seeds and leaves can be brewed into a “tea/tisane” = *yuél* /juˈel/ which is also common with other plants, such as some of the edible flowers from yesterday. The seeds and roots are also used as flavoring, similar to kola or chocolate. Moving onto a larger tree, “nic-holly”= *xestíak* /ʂɛsˈtʰiăkʰ/ is a holly like tree that produces nicotine in its leaves and berries. Its leaf is used for its stimulating “smoke” = *salúr* /saˈlur/, also giving the verb “to smoke” = √salurnui, as in inhaling. The berries taste pretty bad, but are also brewed into a ritual concoction, one that can cause nicotine overdose if too much is drank by someone inexperienced. Going with more of a small leafy plant for something “kratom-like” = *topláu* /tʰoˈpʰlaŭ/. People usually “masticate” = √lheab, but do not swallow, the leaves. The leaves are also dried, which they “grind” = √iartsun into a “powder” = *sleun* /slẽŭ/. Tisanes of the plant usually cause a higher dose, which leads to a non-stimulant effect, similar to its real life namesake.

Day 20
There’s definitely a big variety of “leafy food plants” = *jhreup* /ɖ̥ɻeŭpʰ/ and the same term is used generically for their leaves. Many of these can be acquired through *forage* = √kodheo, but most are grown in the gardens mentioned yesterday, occasionally in a “field” = *réothon* /reŏ.t̪ʰõ/ like grain plants. Most of these plants can be eaten “uncooked” = *dhòadhéilhoł* /d̪̥o.aˈðeĭ.ʎoʟ/ as a “salad” = *bíauto* /ˈb̥iăŭ.tʰo/ but some are preferred as cooked “greens” = *ceřúag* /cʰeˈʁuăɡ/ sometimes by boil or by “fry” = √seiple. For many of these plants, tender young shoots and leaves are eaten raw, while older leaves are cooked. Speaking of brassicas like cabbage, some are grown for “oil” = *niau* /ɲiăŭ/ or “spice” = *eksíat* /ekʰˈsiătʰ/ usually from seeds, giving “oil seeds” = *teŋłúr niau* and “spice seeds” = *teŋłúr eksíat*. The majority of these plants are grown for multiple products, with their leaves used as well. I’m going to coin the word “wall” = *gujéur* /ɡ̊uˈʝeŭr/ because the gardens mentioned are usually a “walled garden” =*edléaułke gujeulhernúiòł* /edˈleăŭʟ.ke ɡ̊u.ʝeŭ.ʎerˈnui.oʟ/. The walls are really just very tall ditches, with steep but green walls. They are filled with broken rock, from weeks back, with earth rammed around that core. Smaller plants are raised by building a “rockery” = *ejjhláunan* /eɖˈɖɭaŭ.w̃ã/ often a couple, usually in corners. Lastly for today, “compost” = *láukar* /ˈlaŭ.kʰar/ is usually fermented somewhere in the garden.

Day 21
Starting with a further plant part, “root” = *reas* /reăs/, many of which have many uses, but focusing on the “tuber” = *póalpug* /ˈpʰoăl.pʰuɡ/ for today. I’m really just making up English names for the plants this time, as no perfect analogs exist. Starting with the “tarrot” = *ařéid* /aˈʁeĭd/ a tuberous tap root similar to carrot or parsnip, but also similar to sugar beets. It can be eaten raw, but is quite hard. It usually cooked, and sometimes pulped and cooked down for sugar extraction. Its leaves are also eaten as greens, as are its flowers. Next is “liro” = *polúag* /pʰoˈluăɡ/, an aquatic tuberous plant. It needs to be grown in pools, with its tuber in the muddy soil. These tubers need to be fermented or treated to break down their starches into more edible sugars, and it remains quite savoury and malty. Usually it is pounded and milled down to a flour, but can be eaten whole once treated. The “nightlily” = *ebráix* /ebˈraĭʂ/ is generally grown for its fragrant flowers and edible buds, but it does have many, smallish, tubers. These tubers are crispy, almost like an apple, and remain so after cooking. They are mildly sweet, but neutral enough for savoury dishes. The “vinetato” = *ultéaç* /ulˈtʰeăç/ is a tuberous vine. It is mainly grown for its fruit, but over many seasons, especially good seasons, its tuber-like base, really more of a corm, grows. After a few years these can be football sized or larger, but usually only when cultivated. These massive roots are commonly chopped up to cook, but can be cooked in almost any way. They are unpalatable to eat raw, but inoffensively so. With so much food, I’m coining a word for “meal” = *łóunu* /ˈʟoŭ.nu/. It’s not any meal in particular for now, and probably covers large snacks or in-between meals. I’m also going to round out the plant vocabulary with “branch” = *tetíal* /tʰeˈtʰiăl/ and “stem/stalk/trunk” = *wáuko* /ˈwaŭ.kʰo/, keeping it very general for now. Lastly, somewhere to put all these tubers and grains, a “storage-shed” = *oyéir* /oˈjeĭr/.

Day 22
Starting with actual “grass/cereal” = *ojhéi* /oˈʐeĭ/, this is the main grain plant alluded to in past days, commonly grown in open fields. As well as the seeds, the stalks are also used for “hay/thatch” = *oçcéal* /oçˈcʰeăl/. It’s not the only choice, a “pseudocereal” = *daunt* /d̥aŭntʰ/ is also grown, but generally more in gardens and also for it’s leaves. For most of these plants, you need to “sow” = √poula and “harvest” = √erkloum, but some will self-seed. Most commonly, these grains are cooked with an excess of water, to form something like “frumenty/gruel” = *kogáu* /kʰoˈɣaŭ/. Grain from the main cereal plant can also be soaked in lye-water, much like “hominy” = *bolíñ* /b̥oˈliɲ/. However, these grains don’t need to be nixtamalized like maize. Rather, the lye breaks down the harder coating and softens the grain to the point where it can be eaten, raw and cold, after some washing with normal water to remove the lye. These are usually still cooked, but more commonly roasted or fried. Various cereals are put to the “grain mill” = *xolóax iñéul* /ʂoˈloăʂ iˈɲeŭl/ and the subsequent flour made into various leaven and unleaven breads, along with flour from certain tubers and nuts. Bleached, lye processed, cereal can be re-dried and milled to make a very fine white flour, but most flour is brown and commonly lacking gluten. Mixed flours are used to produce different characteristics for different cooking methods. These flours are of course used for “noodle/pasta” = *tarúad* /tʰaˈruăd/ which can be dried and transported. Various shapes exist, but ribbons and balls similar to cous cous are most common. This of course brings up the possibility of “dumpling” = *náichxel* /ˈnaĭʈʰ.ʂel/, practically a universal food, sometimes made with pasta like a ravioli or pierogi, sometimes baked or fried like a pasty or handpie, sometimes created with tuber produce to make something like a potato dumpling. Of course they can be sweet as well, I’m sure a thornberry *naichxel* would be smashing. With various dumplings, grain dishes, nuts, tubers, legumes and salads, along with some spices, edible flowers and tisanes to drink, a meal that is composed of many small plates, often a large “sharestyle” = *améuto* /aˈmeŭ.tʰo/, may be a traditional style.

Day 23
There are always so many types of edible “mushroom” = *debáu* /d̥eˈvaŭ/ and this word would cover the big fruiting bodies like bracket and puffball as well as the classic mushroom, but probably not conks. However, thanks to the cultivation of mushrooms, “hyphae” = *eyóadh* /eˈjoăd̪/ are/is at least understood to be the white stuff in the soil that fruiting bodies come from. This is also known to be the base of a food like “oncom/tempeh” = *gonchóu* /ɡ̊oɳˈʈʰoŭ/ produced from various foods or even food waste, as the fungus converts indigestible material into protein. Some things possibly considered seperate include “truffle” = *políau* /pʰoˈliăŭ/ which is usually found by following boar and then chasing them away once they start digging at a trees roots. These would be many mycorrhizal bodies, not necessarily true truffles. Another is “mould” = *céoñu* /ˈcʰeo.ɲu/ which would be known mostly as a problem, no blue cheese on this island. Some mushrooms would be eaten raw, and some of course need to be cooked, but some would be preferentially dried and ground, often to use in “broth” = *kezái* /kʰeˈθaĭ/ or as a flavouring for other dishes. Mushrooms would be known to associate with “rot/decay” = √braul especially that of trees and wood, which would be taken advantage of for cultivation. On the other hand, their use to “ferment” = √setuan might not be understood, the connection between yeast and mushrooms isn’t very obvious. Popular fermented drinks include grain based “beer” = *cuil* /cʰuĭl/, often small beer or table beer, and fruit based “wine” = *léigo* /ˈleĭ.ɣo/, often quite strong and associated with certain festivals and rituals. People do also “distill” = √zruai these into stronger beverages, along with alcohol fermented from tubers and cambium, and many more things. Lastly, there would certainly be many types of mushroom with hallucinogenic effects “other mushroom” = *gíukol* /ˈɡ̊iu.kʰol/, commonly used for mushrooms that one needs to be careful with, whether that’s making sure not to eat too many or making sure to process them a certain way first. These would also usually be associated with certain rituals and festivals.

Day 24
I’ve covered a couple of animals in previous days, most of which exist with both wild and domesticated, or semi-domesticate, populations. One such animal is some sort of caprine, a “sheep/goat” = *péaà* /ˈpʰeă.a/, kept for meat and fat mostly. There are wild goats, but many are farmed, usually in a transhumance way or as part of silviculture. They are also common pack animals and there are some distinct breeds. Small deer are kept in a similar way. Another mountain dweller is a small glire, something “pika-like” = *juanz* /ɟ̊uăn̪θ/, which has also been partially domesticated and raised as a food source. The (probably) related, spiny “porcu-hedge” = *slidíak* /sliˈziăkʰ/ is also used for food, but they are generally raised incidentally in large gardens where they eat pests. Primarily hunted is a more lagomorphic “hare” = *rayái* /raˈjai/, though these are sometimes raised as well. I’ve previously mentioned a megapode, which is really more of a lanky flightless bird, taller than a turkey but a similar weight, not a real world megapode exactly. They are mound-builders and are sometimes farmed, sometimes hunted wild. A smaller, chicken-quail sized “kilopode” = *éilur* /ˈeĭ.lur/ is commonly farmed, while the much larger “gigapode” = *etéaub* /eˈtʰeăŭb/ is almost exclusively hunted from the wild, with a very limited number semi-domesticated, used as beasts of burden and for transport. Smaller birds, usually just called “songbird” = *ebéok* /eˈveŏkʰ/ are kept as pets, some are eaten but usually wild caught ones. Getting to the actual word of the prompt, “meat” = *theŋ* /t̪ʰeŋ/ usually refers to muscle tissue, and may include heart. Other edible bits are *organ/offal* = *kíurol* /ˈkʰiŭ.rol and they are eaten, as is collected “blood” = *zeunth* /θeun̪t̪ʰ/, usually in the form of a pudding or sausage. To guard domestic animals and help with hunting wild ones, we need a “dog” = *óukre*. Adding the verb “hunt” = √abeřd we can coin “hunting dog” = *óukre xobabéřdoł* /ˈoŭkʰ.re ʂo.vaˈveʁ.doʟ/. While we’re at it, I never coined a word for “wool” = *oblúar* so I can finally coin “wool dog” = *óukre oblúar* /ˈoŭkʰ.re obˈlúar/ which I have settled on as a main source of wool. Despite all these animals, and the dwarf wisent, I don’t think there will be much of a dairy culture.

I thought this was a little bit funny, a megapode is a type of bird, they have big feet, so I decided for the smaller version to call it a “kilapode” and for the even bigger version to call it a “gigapode”, and you can see this kind of inspir, inspired animals here, so the “kilapode” would be something like a rail, and the “gigapode” would be something like a moa. This language exists in a world that is not quite our own, so there were various things where I had to make up words for them because they don’t exist in our world.

Day 25
I’m going very general to start with, “lact” = *kríato* /ˈkʰriă.tʰo/ which is just a word for natural white liquids. I’m connecting it with plants like dandelions and “lettuce” = *xkríuchu* /ˈʂkʰriŭ.ʈʰu/. The more useful tree version is “latex” = *linkríat* /liŋˈkʰriătʰ/ which would be taken from some trees, but none as productive as a rubber tree. Speaking of latex, I’m coining “allergy” = *gláumxo* /ˈɡlaŭm.ʂo/ as a potential explanation for the lack of dairy industry. On a similar note, “poison” = *xróasta* /ˈʂroa.stʰa for more generally deadly things. The “milk” = *banát* /b̥aˈɰ̃atʰ/ is produced from nuts, seeds and beans. These need to be given a “press” = √çroun after soaking for best extraction. Blended up, these can be used to make a something “tofu-ish” = *bantía* /b̥anˈtʰiă/when coagulated by gypsum, or drank as something like “horchata”= *thréuçcin* /ˈt̪ʰreŭç.cʰĩ/. Usually a “cheesecloth” = *xnuxéog* /ʂɳuˈʂeŏɡ/ is used to separate out the remains, the “pressings” = *çróunlonia* /ˈçroŭn.lo.j̃iă/ which can then be used as feed or for oncom.

26
Starting strong with the actual prompt “egg” = *ploak* /pʰloăkʰ/ is of course a valuable resource. The outer covering of a bird or reptile egg gets its own term “eggshell” = *kéiñiç* /ˈkʰeĭ.ɲiç/ separate from mollusk and tortoise shells. Inside the egg, we’ve got the “yolk” = *lúaron* /ˈluă.rõ/ which does double duty as a word for core, and the “albumen/glaire” = *péimbix* /ˈpeĭm.biʂ/. When cooking the egg white, it needs to become firm or “thick” = *dyouř* /djoŭʁ/ and this leads to a verb also used with the aforementioned tofu-like foods, “coagulate” = √podyouř or thicken. The eggs of amphibians of course have no shells, and are generally regarded differently, as “spawn” = *pulgói* /pʰulˈɡoĭ/. More commonly eaten, but also seen differently, is “roe” = *selhái* /seˈʎaĭ/ from various fish, and it’s male counterpart the “milt” = *réadhu* /ˈreă.ðu/. Of course the most commonly eaten eggs come from a “bird” = *brei* /breĭ/. Various eggs are foraged, but birds that are farmed usually conveniently lay in a “hutch” = *togóajh* /tʰoˈɣoăɖ/.

27
Definitely one of my first thoughts upon seeing this prompt was “ink” = *eobáuli* /eoˈvaŭ.li/, which doesn’t just come from a “fish” = *silésk* /siˈleskʰ/, but an “inkfish” = *ebausíask* /e.vaŭˈsiăskʰ/ the native term for cephalopods generally, but specifically the cuttlefish supplying “sepia” = *yéanesk* /ˈjea.nesk/, one of the few words where intervocalic “n” is pronounced /n/. I’ve already coined a word for the sea, but I’m going to say that that’s specifically the western ocean, distinct from the eastern “sea/bay” = *egáu*. Coining a generic word for “snail” = *corúil* allows for the compound “sea snail” = *egáu corúil* /eˈɣaŭ cʰoˈruĭl/, a particular kind of which is used to produce “purple” = *kuire* /ˈkʰuĭ.re/ which isn’t really a basic colour term, as it is also the name of the pigment and the specific snails. Going a little left field, there is a fruit tree that isn’t cultivated much. It takes years to mature to fruiting, the fruit is small and requires bletting for consumption. However, a few small farms do cultivate them, for their leaves. These are unpalatable to people, but make up the bulk of the fodder for small herds of goats. From these goats, “urine” = *zual* /θuăl/ is harvested, evaporated, and processed into “goat yellow” = *peaàjéi níala* /pʰeă.aˈjeĭ ɲiă.la/, a brilliant and fast yellow. Most dyes are not so fast, or “sticky” = *pliuk* /pʰliŭkʰ/ and so require a “mordant” = *poplíukoł* /pʰopʰˈliŭ.kʰoʟ/, which many of tomorrow’s dyes will need as well. A basic option comes from swellings on trees, a “gall” = *óablu* /ˈoăb.lu/ from which “tannin” = *agéult* /aˈɣeŭltʰ/ is extracted.

Here we’ve got an example of that compound, so you can see how this word for ink, “eobauli” has gotten compressed quite a lot to just “evau-” and this word for fish, “silesk”, has become “siask” which is quite different, but that’s because this compound is pretty much grammaticalized as its own word, it’s cephalopods. Sepia, of course, is the name, the, the actual Latin name for a cuttlefish, as well as the color, as well as the dye,so I’ve decided to do the same thing, and again, it’s got that N in the middle. I had to make note of it because otherwise there’d be no way to tell, I’d assume that it was the intervocalic nasal becoming an approximant, but in this case it’s not, and in a couple of other cases, I just wanted it to be a little bit unpredictable because real languages are.

Day 28

To start with, I’m just going to go through some of the popular plants for the main common colours. To produce red, a plant known as the “mat hadder” = *dowéul* /d̥oˈweŭl/ is used, “woango” = *řuaid* /ʁuăĭd/ is used for blue, considered a subshade of *goun* along with green. A plant I’m calling “join-metal” = *éildo* /ˈeĭl.do/ is used for yellow. Most “dye” = *pluax* /pluăʂ/ requires a mordant, such as “alum” = *stetíag* /stʰeˈtʰiăɡ/, or “green vitriol” = *géado* /ˈɡ̊eă.zo/ derived mostly from “pyrite” = *toglía* /tʰoɡˈliă/ and used also to produce “vitriol water” = *duag géado*. These will influence the exact colour left behind, with “false safflower” = *xeosían* /ʂeŏˈsĩă/ varying from yellow to orange to red depending on the way it’s processed. Another dye source that can produce various colours is “lichen” = *ríakle* /ˈriăkʰ.le/, which is commonly harvested but harder to cultivate. Commonly cultivated for food are “all yum” = *áunchi* /ˈaŭɳ.ʈʰi/, but the “skin/rind/peel” = *óaçan* /ˈoă.çã/ of their bulbs, “all yum bulb skin” = *óaçan póalpug áunchi* is used for various greener shades of *goun*.

I’ve got the same thing here for these different kinds of plant that create the different dyes. So “join-metal”, the plant “weld” is used to create dyes, “woango” is woad and indigo. Mat Hadder from Mad Hatter, it’s madder, the plant used for red dye. I’m pretty sure, false safflower, safflower is referred to as false saffron because it produces yellow. So just, you know, throwing in some jokes for myself, it’s nice to have those little jokes on the inside.

Day 29
Absolutely starting with the classics, a reddish brown “ochre” = *dontúi* /donˈtʰŭi/, a more yellow-brown “sienna” = *optháun* /opˈt̪ʰãŭ/ that will darken up if toasted, and a lighter, almost greenish, “umber” = *zilía* /θiˈliă/. All of these earths and clays are generally dried and powdered before being wetted back into a pastey-paint for use. Specific kinda are found and mined in specific areas, but something of the class “pigment providing earth or clay” is found almost all over the island. Some of the colour variety in the above comes from “magnesty” = *eñóiç* /eˈɲoĭç/ a stone which on its own provides a dark black pigment. Similarly, “colcothar” = *wuìglía* /wu.iɡˈliă/ provides the red. Rarer is the blue “chalcanth” = *céugo* /ˈcʰeŭ.ɣo/ which is usually made rather than found or mined. Mined for and also fairly rare on this island, is the brilliant red “realgar” = *wuìlxróas* /wu.ilˈʂroăs/. All of these would be used as dyes or pigments in their own right, along with cinnabar, but also as adulterants, modifiers and mordants of other dyes. Realgar and cinnabar, along with their metals arsenic and mercury, would be known to be toxic and lesser used for dyes, also being in demand for metal work. Many of these pigments end up as the kind of dry powder commonly used as in “paint” = *kámli* /ˈkʰam.li/. Some specific kinds, like the “tempura” = *aiyúlx* /aĭˈjulʂ/ used by very fancy artists, have their own name. More common paints, like the “lime paint” = *kámli síax* used to paint walls white, is named as a type of paint, rather that it’s own thing. I’m going to drop in “brush” = *jhriut* /ɖriŭtʰ/ as well, something to paint with.

I’ve decided to go with the older words for things like copper sulfate, ferric oxide, calling them with these older words because this is presumably how the speakers of the language would understand them, because even though they’re technologically advanced enough to use and to create iron oxide, they still wouldn’t be technologically advanced enough to actually know it’s iron and oxygen combined

Day 30
What’s cooler than being cool? Ice cold! So starting with “ice” = *lhíaru* /ˈʎiă.ru/, this doesn’t really form on the island. Higher elevations do regularly have “frost” = *zriçíag* /θriˈçiăɡ/, especially the drier regions, but these are hot during the day. In the winter, the mountains do see “snow” = *etráus* /etʰˈraŭs/, but this melts in the spring. To save some snow, it is transferred to a “cave” = *púalon* /ˈpʰuă.lõ/ where it is commonly packed into ice. Caves with streams nearby or in them are used, and the water is used for evaporative cooling, as are waterwheel driven bellows. Ice is then brought down slope to an “iceshed” = *oyéir lhíaru*. In the mountains and parts of the south, the weather is cool and humid enough that a semi-submerged, insulated shed is enough. Unfortunately, these lowlands are usually too humid for evaporative cooling to work, or for much extra cooling to be desired. In the dry, hot north, aquifers and lakes fed by the snow are tapped, with underground aqueducts bringing water down to settlements. Basically, it’s a “qanat” = *rejúag* /reˈʝuăɡ/ system. These underground canals are combined with special domes that are evaporatively cooled, essentially a yakhchāl, a “cooling shed” = *oyéir poluilóuòł* /oˈjeĭr pʰo.luĭˈloŭ.oʟ/. Staying “cool” = *uilóu* /uĭˈloŭ/ is even more important in places where it’s usually too “warm” = *breuŋ* /breŭŋ/, and on this island the hot region is the drier one. This makes certain cooling methods more effective, like taking advantage of the “wind” = *kwia* /kwiă/ by means of a special “tower” = *áulodh* /ˈaŭ.lod̪/, essentially a bâdgir or “windtower” = *áulodh kwía*. These are used in combination with cooling sheds and water cisterns. Various techniques are used even in an individual “house” = *kojái* /kʰoˈʝaĭ/ to promote coolness, usually by managing the “breeze/draught” = *súiskul* /ˈsuĭs.kʰul/. In the cooler, humid south, ice is used for preservation, but in the dry hot north it’s mostly used to cool places and beverages, or to make a sort of “sorbet” = *charúam* /ʈʰaˈruăm/. I feel like I have to give the speakers of the language a treat every now and again.

When it comes to keeping things cool in the desert, I had to borrow some terms from Arabic because they keep things cool in the desert, they have words for those kinds of things so I had to use them.

Day 31
Before getting down to business today, I feel I need an adjective for “hot” = *setsíal* /setʰˈsiăl/ and “cold” = *kuróu* /kʰuˈroŭ/, as distinct from cool and warm. The island the speakers live in has deserts with 40°C summer days, and peaks with winters that fluctuate around zero, with some desert nights dropping even a little lower. Speaking of deserts, let’s go with a pretty hard way to get water to start with, from a “cactus” = *muak* /muăkʰ/ or some sort of “succulent” = *gyéba* /ˈɡje.va/. I have already coined a word for water, and subterranean canal, so I’m going with “bridge” = *ugéil* /uˈɣeĭl/ in order to coin “aqueduct” = *ugéil duag*, literally a water-bridge. Although the qanat network is the main access point to any “aquifer” = *blúgon* /ˈblu.ɣõ/, which is essentially synonymous with water-table in this language, people may also dig an artesian-style “well” = *poçcéa* /pʰoçˈcʰeă/ to access the same. One way to bring water up from any of these sources, be it a river, home well or qanat/aqueduct, is something you could call a sāqiyah/sakia or rehat, some type of “water elevator” = *yéankup* /ˈjeăŋ.kʰupʰ/. Many of these things are protected by a special kind of waterproof “plaster” = *thúaiza* /ˈt̪ʰuăĭ.θa/ that varies between something like qadad or more like tadelakt. I mentioned the importance of the melting snow in this season last time, but I’m coining a word for “spring” = *záuriŋ* /ˈθaŭ.riŋ/, mostly to differentiate it from a “spring” = *oib duag*, literally a water-source, distinct from a source of water, as in a river, a “lake” = *króuge* /ˈkʰroŭ.ɣe/ or simply “rain” = *axéal* /aˈʂeăl/. In some areas, it doesn’t rain much, but in the “air” = *íusal* /ˈiŭ.sal/ is “fog” = *duag íusal*, also the word for condensation, literally air-water. Just to get a verb in there, and get up to the right number, I’m coining the word for “wash” = √mouxka.

I’m just going through the days here to prove that I’ve done them all just in case anyone’s only reading this piece. You can of course check out on Reddit, on r/conlangs, if you go to the Lexember challenge, you’ll see my comments there as well. That makes for 337, which of course a prime number, which I was very happy about.

That brings us up to the end, so that is Jróiçnia. I hope you enjoyed this piece. If you did, please do like it. If you enjoy this kind of content, then please subscribe to this website and my YouTube channel. I will be going over some other speedlangs that I have created but didn’t get a chance to submit. For example, Speedlang number 24 from way back, I have a slide deck ready for that. There are plenty of other speed langs that I have a bit done on, so there will be more pieces about them in the future, so do stick around. Thank you very much for reading and hopefully I’ll see you back here next time.

Caoimhín's Content

My 27th Speedlang Challenge Entry: Jróiçnia

Leave a comment Cancel reply

My 27th Speedlang Challenge Entry: Jróiçnia

Share this:

Leave a comment Cancel reply