Category: Conlanging

Continuing with Gary’s list:

76. Among the wheat grew tall red poppies.

This uses the same structure as yesterday’s sentence.

76. dappɛbɨdi hɛnɨdi sɨŋyɨdi alanduso gamaɬi olaya dɛstɛ.

In Kēlen:

76. la jamāli japēwi janēli jasīñi sū anhamāji āñ;

Questions?

Continuing with Gary’s list:

75. Between the two lofty mountains lay a fertile valley.

Between! That means a new verb: duso. And that means I have now used all 11 verbs. Yay, me!

duso means to go back and forth from one point to another. To make a path between two points, we prefix duso with alamya making alanduso. And even though the valley is not actually moving, we still use alanduso.

75. gyɨdɨdɛn gegyelɨdɛn alanduso laɬi laddɨŋyi ɛni dɛstɛ.

In Kēlen:

75. la jajīra sū jalāji jasīñi ēnne āñ;

Questions?

Continuing with Gary’s list:

74. Near the mouth of the river, its course turns sharply towards the East.

Hmm. This is a description of the river’s path. Which means we get to use some neato path words, one of which we’ve already seen: edatta “entrance, beginning of a path”. For this sentence we will use mɛddatta “end of a path” and hɨddatta “turn in a path”.

74. tanan dantɨŋi daka nokiɬi mɛddatta tɨŋi hɨddatta aŋana notɨŋi sandɨŋi dɛstɛ.

The river goes along its path and goes towards its end and goes to a sharp turn and goes towards the east. We could probably omit dantɨŋi daka.

In Kēlen:

74. ñi jatāna rā jatōrren nō rānnie ānen anāŋŋena;

Questions?

Continuing with Gary’s list:

73. When will your guests from the city arrive?

OK a question with an actual question word. This took a little thinking, and I think I am satisfied by how I did this, but I reserve the right to change it later.

First, for guests, we use madɛlɛ. Arriving is susi N ono where N is arriving. Guests from the city requires a relative clause, and I am going to use “other village” rather than “city”: madɛlɛ ma dɛspɛ hɨde tɨŋi.

Now for the question word “when”. For this we are going to use the phrase baŋi ɨlɨŋi which means “which time” or “some time”. We will also use the dubitive dɛmɛ as we did in other questions.

73. susi madɛlɛna ma dɛspɛ hɨde tɨŋi ono baŋi ɨlɨŋi dɛmɛ.

In Kēlen:

73. ñi malāsēli rū jamāonre rā þō ilkēñ;

Questions?

Continuing with Gary’s list:

72. During our residence in the country we often walked in the pastures.

Let’s deal with the second half first. We often walked in the pastures or fields uses eyaŋi “move about in”. leni eyaŋi mɨŋyi ɨnavi.

Now for the first part. Country here is “countryside” as opposed to “city”. I am not sure this conceptual distinction exists in my language. So, we are going to use da sota “this place”. And “during our residence” is “while we dwelled” because I don’t want to create an abstract noun “residence”. leni kohɨdɛn eyɛmɛ da sota.

To join the two pieces, we use na which would be the equivalent of “while, during”.

72. leni kohɨdɛn eyɛmɛ da sota na leni eyaŋi mɨŋyi ɨnavi.

In Kēlen:

72. il ñalna jamāra sū xō il ñi lēim rā jamāesi āñ ilnāja;

Questions?

Continuing with Gary’s list:

71. On the top of the hill in a little hut lived a wise old woman.

Way back in episode 8 I discussed the pattern SRC LOC mɛhaŋi ko as “SRC makes a home in|dwells in|lives in LOC”. But that gets a bit unwieldy with a complex location like “on the top of the hill in a little hut”. So, an alternative construction involves the verb ɛmɛmɛ, which we haven’t used yet. Specifically, it involves ey-ɛmɛmɛ in the construction SRC ko-hɨdɛn ey-ɛmɛ LOC, which leaves room for a complex LOC.

71. kyɛnɛ tɛta syena kohɨdɛn eyɛmɛ laka ɨsa da tɛndɛ lɛnɛ da olat dɛstɛ.

In Kēlen:

71. ñamma jamāra ā macēna mahēna masōnen sū jakō jīña sū jalāīñ ōl;

Questions?

Continuing with Gary’s list:

70. The first boy in the line stopped at the entrance.

The first boy in line is the subject of the sentence, and it is rendered as the line’s first boy galanɨd da koda andana and he goes to the entrance edatta and then he stands there, all stopped or unmoving vodakya.

70. galanɨd da koda andana otni edatta ladi mava sɛttɛ vodakya dɛstɛ.

In Kēlen:

70. ñi mamōīñ sū jañūna jānne mōrre sū anxūri;

Questions?

Continuing with Gary’s list:

69. The cover of the basket fell to the floor.

This one is fairly straightforward. The cover went from the basket down to the ground.

69. pede dolɨdɛn otni lɛkyi tadya.

In Kēlen:

69. ñi jōl rū jacāona rā anlēci tā;

Questions?

Continuing with Gary’s list:

68. Many little girls with wreaths of flowers on their heads danced around the bonfire.

Now that is a fun subject. With a serial predicate, at least in sodna-lɨni.

Let’s start with the predicate. The girls are dancing and they are doing it around the campfire. (Campfire, bonfire, no diff, ok?) So they tɛŋi gyadad “go to dancing” and they nokili nolako dugaŋya “close to the campfire surroundingly”. And look, a verb of motion we haven’t used yet! kiɬi in its most basic form means to go by a location rather than to a location. The girls aren’t in the campfire, they’re by it. Prefixing kiɬi with noya means that they are close by it.

Now for the subject. The actual subject is many little girls. The rest is modifying that subject is one big phrase (or rather series of phrases). We can do that!

68. aŋo lakina ɛsna mavna olana ha nada bɨɬɨn da maladi otni gyadadi nokɛtti nolako dugaŋya dɨstɨ.

In Kēlen:

68. ñi malāki mīñi nā ma la sōlle pa jawāeli jamāli rū janāola āñ ānen anjāra;

Questions?

Continuing with Gary’s list:

67. The little seeds waited patiently under the snow for the warm spring sun.

Here we have little seeds sitting with patience. And they are under the snow, and they are waiting for the warm sun in the spring. Right.

To sit under something involves tɛndɛ LOC tadya. To sit for some time, i.e. to wait, is tɛndɛ goɬi. We can combine those into tɛndɛ LOC tadya goɬi.

As for the warm spring sun, we could say that the seeds are sitting and then the sun comes. The clausal conjunction in this case would be ladi, which connects clauses in a sequence. I know that in an earlier sentence, the child waited for her father, and her father became a sessile source or purpose. The English sentence implies a purpose for the little seeds, but I don’t feel comfortable doing that in this sentence. Animate beings can have purpose. Inanimate objects do not do things for a purpose. Making the warm sun into a purpose would imply that without the warm sun the seeds would not sit there, they’d go do something else. But that is not true. They would sit there until the warm sun came.

With only a rainy season and a dry season, the snow comes in the rainy season, and the warmth comes with the turn of the seasons bɨɬɨs da hɨddɨŋi.

67. gyodi ɨsi ɛspenɛn tɛndɛ dolnavi tadya goɬi ladi loho kyala tɨŋi bɨɬɨs da hɨddɨŋi olaya dɛstɛ.

In Kēlen:

67. la jajōþi jīñi ānen ankēspen sū anrōli tā ilaþ ñi malō macālle il jīlpēneha;

Questions?