Transemilia
Transemilia
i got a couple of calls for a separate post about transemilia when i posted about the telephone system, and while my first thought was that there wasn't enough to post, i eventually figured "why not"
ages ago i used to play nationstates.net a lot, first as a cartoon villain dictatorship and later as a sort of parody of hippie liberal paradise. when i got back into the game a few years back i decided i wanted to play as a country that more accurately represented my own politics, so the people's republic of transemilia was born. unlike the previous nations i had made in the game (for the liberal island paradise, i put some hawaiian-sounding gibberish as the motto and called it a day, and i just figured the dictatorship spoke german), i pretty quickly set about making a conlang for the nation, which i'll go into later. (with transemilia i got into raiding fascist regions with a group of other leftists, but eventually grew tired of the game and now i only really play it for pizza-related reasons)
in-world, the people's republic of transemilia (эiРеспубліка эiҒёлкмаюр Трансэмілдаюр /ɛirespu'blika ɛiʝolk'majur transɛ'mildajur/) is located in eastern europe, probably somewhere in the vicinity of hungary and romania although i deliberately haven't picked a place on the map for it (i do have maps but they don't show neighboring countries). the history basically parallels that of yugoslavia (minor kingdoms and principalities under austro-hungarian rule, uneasy kingdom after wwi, monarchy overthrown by homegrown communists and the red army in wwii) for most of it, except it misses the gorbachev-style liberal reforms of the 1980s and the western-backed color revolutions and bombing campaigns of the 90s (dont @ me). how did transemilia avoid these catastrophes (don't @ me) that overthrew every other socialist government in europe? it just did, that's how
i haven't done a whole heck of a lot of fleshing out the "world" of transemilia if i'm being perfectly honest, but in addition to the telephone system outlined above i did at various points decide on license plate formats, mailing address formats, and highway designations, because that's the kind of pointless fiddly detail my brain is drawn to for whatever diseased reason. i also drew a map by hand on paper, and then traced it on the computer in such a way to cover up the fact that i accidentally made the mountain range that bisects the country look like a vagina. oh also the name (which irl comes from the fact that when i transition i will use the name emily) is justified in-universe as referring to the fact that the country straddles a mountain range called the emilas, but it turns out that in the few place names that use the prefix "trans" it means "on the other side of xyz" rather than "across both sides of it". whoops!
ages ago i used to play nationstates.net a lot, first as a cartoon villain dictatorship and later as a sort of parody of hippie liberal paradise. when i got back into the game a few years back i decided i wanted to play as a country that more accurately represented my own politics, so the people's republic of transemilia was born. unlike the previous nations i had made in the game (for the liberal island paradise, i put some hawaiian-sounding gibberish as the motto and called it a day, and i just figured the dictatorship spoke german), i pretty quickly set about making a conlang for the nation, which i'll go into later. (with transemilia i got into raiding fascist regions with a group of other leftists, but eventually grew tired of the game and now i only really play it for pizza-related reasons)
in-world, the people's republic of transemilia (эiРеспубліка эiҒёлкмаюр Трансэмілдаюр /ɛirespu'blika ɛiʝolk'majur transɛ'mildajur/) is located in eastern europe, probably somewhere in the vicinity of hungary and romania although i deliberately haven't picked a place on the map for it (i do have maps but they don't show neighboring countries). the history basically parallels that of yugoslavia (minor kingdoms and principalities under austro-hungarian rule, uneasy kingdom after wwi, monarchy overthrown by homegrown communists and the red army in wwii) for most of it, except it misses the gorbachev-style liberal reforms of the 1980s and the western-backed color revolutions and bombing campaigns of the 90s (dont @ me). how did transemilia avoid these catastrophes (don't @ me) that overthrew every other socialist government in europe? it just did, that's how
i haven't done a whole heck of a lot of fleshing out the "world" of transemilia if i'm being perfectly honest, but in addition to the telephone system outlined above i did at various points decide on license plate formats, mailing address formats, and highway designations, because that's the kind of pointless fiddly detail my brain is drawn to for whatever diseased reason. i also drew a map by hand on paper, and then traced it on the computer in such a way to cover up the fact that i accidentally made the mountain range that bisects the country look like a vagina. oh also the name (which irl comes from the fact that when i transition i will use the name emily) is justified in-universe as referring to the fact that the country straddles a mountain range called the emilas, but it turns out that in the few place names that use the prefix "trans" it means "on the other side of xyz" rather than "across both sides of it". whoops!
Re: Transemilia
the transemilian language (step one: phonology)
phonologically, my main inspirations for transemilian were the slavic languages. transemilian is characterized by alternations between palatal and non-palatal consonants, a relatively simple vowel system, and potentially complex syllable onsets but very simple codas. the phoneme inventory is:
/m n ɲ/
/p b t d c ɟ k g/
/ts dz tʃ dʒ/
/ɸ β s z ʃ ʒ ç ʝ x ɣ/
/r j l ʎ/
/a e ɛ i o u/
/ai au ei eu ɛi ɛu iu oi ou ui/
onsets can consist of: no consonant; any single consonant; fricative + any consonant; stop or affricate + nasal; stop + liquid; stop + stop; nasal + any consonant; liquid + /j/; (fricative or stop or nasal) + stop + liquid. (any obstruents within a given cluster must match in voicing.) codas, on the other hand, can only consist of: no consonant; a nasal; a liquid other than /j/. this means that a hypothetical word /dziçcʎa/ consists of the syllables /dzi/ and /çcʎa/; that is, both syllables are considered open. stress typically falls on the last syllable of the root, though a few native and many borrowed words stress other syllables instead, most commonly the penultimate
the big part of the slavic inspiration is obviously the palatal/nonpalatal alternation. The consonants /g ɣ k x l n/ alternate with /ɟ ʝ c ç ʎ ɲ/, both in spelling and in many inflections. a cluster with a palatal in it tends to have all palatals rather than just the one, although there are numerous exceptions to this as well. all of this makes it difficult for me to pronounce things in the language, which is what led me to move on to other languages like ka'ekala, ruritanian, and the language of the book. it's a frustrating balance to figure out: i don't want every conlang i make to just stay within the same basic sound systems i'm familiar with (english, german, and spanish), but then when i do something like this where i add a dimension and make it more interesting, it ends up being a fucking mouthful and i get irritated and stop using it
the vowels are a bit simpler; as seen above they consist of /a e ɛ i o u/. i don't remember at all what the idea behind this arrangement is; there are essentially four front vowels and two back vowels, which seems unbalanced; the distinction between /e/ and /ɛ/ seems to call for a similar distinction between /o/ and /ɔ/, but that doesn't appear. also, until literally this past week, the "main" dialect neutralized the distinction between diphthongs beginning with /e/ and diphthongs beginning with /ɛ/, pronouncing both as the latter; this was done because making the distinction between the two was a bit of a chore for me. when i was finishing up the vowel-based dialect differences in order to make that map, however, the absurdity of this neutralization became obvious and unjustifiable (i had taken careful pains to make sure the distinction was preserved in the spelling but not in speech?? ok,,,,) so i changed the "standard" dialect to be one that made the distinction. i think with the dialect differences i came up with most of them make more sense as coherent systems than the main one if i'm being perfectly honest, although even here there are some things that are difficult to justify—why would the ayênko dialect create a length distinction on exactly one vowel and none of the others?
other dialect differences that i plan (or have planned) include more or less neutralization of unstressed vowels (in the standard dialect vowels are reduced to either /ɛ/ or /ɔ/ if unstressed in a syllable that is not adjacent to a stressed syllable), /l/ becoming /w/ or /u/ in environments where standard transemilian has [ɫ], and different realizations of palatals. the latter isn't really implementable until i get a better handle on the historical sound changes that led to the current palatal situation, but all i've really gotten in trying to develop that is a few false starts. i haven't even begun to map out where these dialect areas would go geographically
the alphabet is cyrillic, with a number of characters taken from e.g. the south slavic languages to cover sounds not present in russian, such as /dz/ or a distinction between /g/ and /ɣ/. someone on the zbb pointed out to me that some of the characters i had chosen didn't seem realistic based on the timeframe, so i wrote in my notes that the current orthography was created in 1947 to replace a much less suitable russian-based system that had been decreed by the monarchy lol. i also never really liked the romanization i came up with, which uses a lot of h-digraphs, writes /ɛ e/ as <e ê>, and is based on the pronunciation rather than the cyrillic spelling, but having a bunch of diacritics i'd need to copy and paste would defeat the purpose of romanizing it in the first place, and i couldn't come up with anything better
more on the grammar later, because unlike most of the stuff in this post i actually kind of like a lot of the grammar lol. feel free to ask me any questions or w/e
phonologically, my main inspirations for transemilian were the slavic languages. transemilian is characterized by alternations between palatal and non-palatal consonants, a relatively simple vowel system, and potentially complex syllable onsets but very simple codas. the phoneme inventory is:
/m n ɲ/
/p b t d c ɟ k g/
/ts dz tʃ dʒ/
/ɸ β s z ʃ ʒ ç ʝ x ɣ/
/r j l ʎ/
/a e ɛ i o u/
/ai au ei eu ɛi ɛu iu oi ou ui/
onsets can consist of: no consonant; any single consonant; fricative + any consonant; stop or affricate + nasal; stop + liquid; stop + stop; nasal + any consonant; liquid + /j/; (fricative or stop or nasal) + stop + liquid. (any obstruents within a given cluster must match in voicing.) codas, on the other hand, can only consist of: no consonant; a nasal; a liquid other than /j/. this means that a hypothetical word /dziçcʎa/ consists of the syllables /dzi/ and /çcʎa/; that is, both syllables are considered open. stress typically falls on the last syllable of the root, though a few native and many borrowed words stress other syllables instead, most commonly the penultimate
the big part of the slavic inspiration is obviously the palatal/nonpalatal alternation. The consonants /g ɣ k x l n/ alternate with /ɟ ʝ c ç ʎ ɲ/, both in spelling and in many inflections. a cluster with a palatal in it tends to have all palatals rather than just the one, although there are numerous exceptions to this as well. all of this makes it difficult for me to pronounce things in the language, which is what led me to move on to other languages like ka'ekala, ruritanian, and the language of the book. it's a frustrating balance to figure out: i don't want every conlang i make to just stay within the same basic sound systems i'm familiar with (english, german, and spanish), but then when i do something like this where i add a dimension and make it more interesting, it ends up being a fucking mouthful and i get irritated and stop using it
the vowels are a bit simpler; as seen above they consist of /a e ɛ i o u/. i don't remember at all what the idea behind this arrangement is; there are essentially four front vowels and two back vowels, which seems unbalanced; the distinction between /e/ and /ɛ/ seems to call for a similar distinction between /o/ and /ɔ/, but that doesn't appear. also, until literally this past week, the "main" dialect neutralized the distinction between diphthongs beginning with /e/ and diphthongs beginning with /ɛ/, pronouncing both as the latter; this was done because making the distinction between the two was a bit of a chore for me. when i was finishing up the vowel-based dialect differences in order to make that map, however, the absurdity of this neutralization became obvious and unjustifiable (i had taken careful pains to make sure the distinction was preserved in the spelling but not in speech?? ok,,,,) so i changed the "standard" dialect to be one that made the distinction. i think with the dialect differences i came up with most of them make more sense as coherent systems than the main one if i'm being perfectly honest, although even here there are some things that are difficult to justify—why would the ayênko dialect create a length distinction on exactly one vowel and none of the others?
other dialect differences that i plan (or have planned) include more or less neutralization of unstressed vowels (in the standard dialect vowels are reduced to either /ɛ/ or /ɔ/ if unstressed in a syllable that is not adjacent to a stressed syllable), /l/ becoming /w/ or /u/ in environments where standard transemilian has [ɫ], and different realizations of palatals. the latter isn't really implementable until i get a better handle on the historical sound changes that led to the current palatal situation, but all i've really gotten in trying to develop that is a few false starts. i haven't even begun to map out where these dialect areas would go geographically
the alphabet is cyrillic, with a number of characters taken from e.g. the south slavic languages to cover sounds not present in russian, such as /dz/ or a distinction between /g/ and /ɣ/. someone on the zbb pointed out to me that some of the characters i had chosen didn't seem realistic based on the timeframe, so i wrote in my notes that the current orthography was created in 1947 to replace a much less suitable russian-based system that had been decreed by the monarchy lol. i also never really liked the romanization i came up with, which uses a lot of h-digraphs, writes /ɛ e/ as <e ê>, and is based on the pronunciation rather than the cyrillic spelling, but having a bunch of diacritics i'd need to copy and paste would defeat the purpose of romanizing it in the first place, and i couldn't come up with anything better
more on the grammar later, because unlike most of the stuff in this post i actually kind of like a lot of the grammar lol. feel free to ask me any questions or w/e
Re: Transemilia
You are not alone. I also tend to find a lot of Clitoris Valleys and Penis Peninsulas.GreenBowtie wrote: ↑Tue Mar 09, 2021 9:44 pm i accidentally made the mountain range that bisects the country look like a vagina
That's not much of a big deal. There are lots of ways you could justify it (it's the name of a core province or something).the name (which irl comes from the fact that when i transition i will use the name emily) is justified in-universe as referring to the fact that the country straddles a mountain range called the emilas, but it turns out that in the few place names that use the prefix "trans" it means "on the other side of xyz" rather than "across both sides of it". whoops!
The language sounds nice so far (and what you say bothers you certainly doesn't strike me as particularly unrealistic). Is it based on a real life family or in way, or a priori?
Re: Transemilia
i can never remember which one is a priori and a posteriori. transemilian isn't derived from a different language, although it does include borrowings and internationalisms such as цігарэта /tsiga'rɛta/ "cigarette", фабріка /ɸa'brika/ "factory", фудбол /ɸu'dbol/ "soccer". when i'm not sure if a word should be native or a borrowing, i've set up a spreadsheet where i can input the glosses in other languages in the region (latvian, lithuanian; czech, slovak, polish; belarusian, russian, ukrainian; romanian; estonian, finnish, hungarian, northern sami—note that though the country's history is loosely based on yugoslavia i'm not really using south slavic as a model) and see how they do it. if they tend towards a borrowing (and especially if that tendency is true for both the indo-european and uralic models), i'll go with a borrowing, whereas if they do it differently i'll go with a native word (seeing how they borrow a word can be helpful as well). this helped me decide, for example, that "ham" was going to be a germanic borrowing, and that the borrowing would have a -u- rather than -i- vowel:
lat | lith | cz | slk | pol | bel | russ | uk | rom | est | fin | sami | hun | trans |
šķiņķis | kum̃pis | šunka | šunka | szynka | vyandlina; shynka | okorok, vetchina | okorok; shynka | șuncă | sink | kinkku | n/a | sonka | shunka |
Re: Transemilia
the alphabet is а б в г ғ д е є ё ж з ѕ и і к л м н о п р с т у ф х ц ч џ ш щ ъ ь э ӭ ю я. as in slavic languages, palatalization of consonants (or in the case of transemilian full-on palatals) are indicated by corresponding sets of "hard" and "soft" vowels:
the consonants can be broken into three groups: "hard" consonants (which have no palatal pronunciation and do not palatalize preceding consonants), "soft" consonants (which are palatal consonants that palatalize any preceding consonants), and "variable" consonants (which can have a "hard" or "soft" pronunciation depending on the following letters
the hard consonants are б в д з ѕ м п р с т ф ц /b β d z dz m p r s t ɸ ts/. the soft consonants are ж ч џ ш щ /ʒ tʃ dʒ ʃ ʃtʃ/. the variable consonants are:
so basically, a variable consonant is pronounced hard, unless:
so to illustrate:
phoneme | a | e | ɛ | i | o | u |
hard | а | е | э | і | о | у |
soft | я | є | ӭ | и | ё | ю |
the consonants can be broken into three groups: "hard" consonants (which have no palatal pronunciation and do not palatalize preceding consonants), "soft" consonants (which are palatal consonants that palatalize any preceding consonants), and "variable" consonants (which can have a "hard" or "soft" pronunciation depending on the following letters
the hard consonants are б в д з ѕ м п р с т ф ц /b β d z dz m p r s t ɸ ts/. the soft consonants are ж ч џ ш щ /ʒ tʃ dʒ ʃ ʃtʃ/. the variable consonants are:
consonant | г | ғ | к | х | л | н |
hard pronunciation | g | ɣ | k | x | l | n |
soft pronunciation | ɟ | ʝ | c | ç | ʎ | ɲ |
so basically, a variable consonant is pronounced hard, unless:
- followed by a soft vowel
- followed by a soft consonant (ж ч џ ш щ)
- followed by the soft sign ь
- followed by a variable consonant that in turn is followed by one of the above; or by a variable consonant followed by a variable consonant followed by one of the above, etc.
so to illustrate:
Code: Select all
/ka/ ка /alka/ алка /aʎka/ алька
/kja/ къя /alkja/ алкъя /aʎkja/ алькъя
/ca/ кя /alca/ алъкя /aʎca/ алкя
/cja/ кья /alcja/ алъкья /aʎcja/ алкья
Re: Transemilia
where the phonology (and alphabet) are influenced by slavic, the grammar is mostly inspired by the uralic languages. basically the idea was i wanted it to sound european but not necessarily indo-european. it's strictly agglutinating, and the inflectional morphemes are exclusively suffixing
nouns are structured DETERMINER + ROOT + NUMBER + CASE. the determiner can be an article or a demonstrative, and is required for all nouns (even personal names) except when in the vocative. the article can be definite or indefinite; while there is only one definite article, there are two indefinites, one used for count nouns and the other for mass nouns (the latter can also be used on count nouns when using them as a generic: an apple can be read or green). the demonstratives have a three-way distinction: бро- indicates something in reach of the speaker, вда- indicates something in reach of the listener, and щен- indicates something not in reach of either. this distinction was borrowed from hawaiian (although i think it's fairly common worldwide), and i later reused it for ka'ekala, which uses hawaiian more explicitly as a model.
number is either singular (no suffix) or plural -цо. there is also what is probably best called a singulative suffix -зун, which is used when a noun that is normally a mass noun is instead used as a singular count noun (such as "bring me a coffee" or "brie is a soft cheese"). it can also attach to regular count nouns, in which case it just emphasizes singularity, basically equivalent to saying "a single apple" in english rather than "an apple" or "one apple"
transemilian also has a large number of cases, which it was fun to let myself go overboard with:
adjectives follow the noun and agree with its number and case, but do not take determiner prefixes (unless the noun is dropped and the adjective is being used in its place). the earliest versions of transemilian had gender as well but i scrapped it fairly early on as it was making words too long
nouns are structured DETERMINER + ROOT + NUMBER + CASE. the determiner can be an article or a demonstrative, and is required for all nouns (even personal names) except when in the vocative. the article can be definite or indefinite; while there is only one definite article, there are two indefinites, one used for count nouns and the other for mass nouns (the latter can also be used on count nouns when using them as a generic: an apple can be read or green). the demonstratives have a three-way distinction: бро- indicates something in reach of the speaker, вда- indicates something in reach of the listener, and щен- indicates something not in reach of either. this distinction was borrowed from hawaiian (although i think it's fairly common worldwide), and i later reused it for ka'ekala, which uses hawaiian more explicitly as a model.
number is either singular (no suffix) or plural -цо. there is also what is probably best called a singulative suffix -зун, which is used when a noun that is normally a mass noun is instead used as a singular count noun (such as "bring me a coffee" or "brie is a soft cheese"). it can also attach to regular count nouns, in which case it just emphasizes singularity, basically equivalent to saying "a single apple" in english rather than "an apple" or "one apple"
transemilian also has a large number of cases, which it was fun to let myself go overboard with:
- nominative: zero suffix (vocative also has zero suffix, but additionally deletes the determiner prefix)
- accusative: -ве
- dative: -къӭл (can be rather broad in scope, and includes benefactives)
- genitive: -юр (softens preceding variable consonants; if indicating alienable possession, the genitive is preceded by the particle ғим: эімауто эіѕонюр "the woman's car" but эіцігарэта ғим эіѕонюр "the woman's cigarette")
- partitive: -здінь (indicates a part of a whole: a slice of cake, one of the boys; not used for more abstract meanings some languages' partitives are used for, although it is used for measurements such as калітэрцо шка інхюлздінь "two liters of water", and the distinction between partitive and genitive can be subtle: "one member of the group" would have "group" in the partitive, while "the leader of the group" would have "group" in the genitive)
- comitative: -кя (softens preceding variable consonants; indicates accompaniment, but with a focus on the non-comitative subject [or object, w/e]; "susan-NOM and karen-NOM killed the nazi-ACC" means they both did it, while "susan-NOM karen-COM killed the nazi-ACC" essentially means susan did the dirty work but karen helped)
- instrumental: -чу (softens preceding variable consonants; indicates "by means of": susan-NOM killed the nazi-ACC a knife-INST "susan killed the nazi with a knife"
- abessive: -хом (indicates "without", and is the negative form of both the comitative and the instrumental)
- locative: -ці (indicates where something is at, can be translated with different english prepositions depending on the noun; in my dictionary spreadsheet i have a column indicating what the "default" meaning of the locative is for any given noun: "the-house-LOC" without a preposition means "in the house" or "at the house", whereas to say "on [top of] the house" or "behind the house" you would need to use those respective prepositions)
- lative: -не (indicates the destination as opposed to a static location: "to the house" or "towards the house")
- ablative: -дэн (indicates the departure point: "from the house" or "out of the house" or "away from the house"; not used for any of the other stuff latin does with it)
- semblative: -мо (indicates "like X" or "in the manner of X"; currently the phrase "i speak spanish" is translated with a simple accusative "i speak the spanish [language]" but i am toying with the idea of changing it to a semblative construction, essentially "i speak like a spaniard")
- causative: -щэ (softens preceding variable consonants; indicates the cause of the action: i-NOM cried john-CAUS = john made me cry; john-NOM ran away shame-CAUS = john ran away in (from) shame; we-NOM read books-ACC candles-INST outage-CAUS = we read books by candlelight because of the power outage; the house-NOM burned down i-CAUS = i burned down the house)
adjectives follow the noun and agree with its number and case, but do not take determiner prefixes (unless the noun is dropped and the adjective is being used in its place). the earliest versions of transemilian had gender as well but i scrapped it fairly early on as it was making words too long
Re: Transemilia
transemilian is VSO. verbs conjugate for tense and aspect (and mood i guess), but not for person or number. the structure of a verb is maximally NEGATIVE + AUXILIARY + ROOT + SUBJECT MODIFIER + ASPECT + TENSE
the negative prefix is фі- and simply negates the verb (not, doesn't, don't, etc.). it always precedes the auxiliary if present
auxiliaries (or modals, i don't really know the difference tbh) attach to the verb as a prefix. arguably a verb with an auxiliary prefix is "really" just a compound verb, since most of the prefixes are the same or nearly the same as verbs with similar meanings, and other verbs can be called into service as ad hoc auxiliary prefixes as well (often but not always with humorous effect). some of the most common auxiliaries include каум- "want to", пяр- "can, be able to", жге- "should", вол- "try to", фтур- "know how to", etc.
subject modifiers (open to suggestions on a better term for this) are a nebulous class of suffixes with only two members, which cannot both be used on the same verb. the first is the reciprocal suffix -гур meaning, roughly, "each other", used whenever the meaning is present even if english wouldn't use it ("they are kissing"). the second is the distributive suffix -зін which indicates that the subjects are each carrying out the action individually rather than as a group ("they are driving home [separately in their own respective cars]"); the lack of this suffix does not, however, necessarily imply that the action isn't being performed individually
aspect suffixes come next, and of course indicate verb aspect. like the noun cases, this was something i had fun playing around with forming a larger set. the aspects are:
the negative prefix is фі- and simply negates the verb (not, doesn't, don't, etc.). it always precedes the auxiliary if present
auxiliaries (or modals, i don't really know the difference tbh) attach to the verb as a prefix. arguably a verb with an auxiliary prefix is "really" just a compound verb, since most of the prefixes are the same or nearly the same as verbs with similar meanings, and other verbs can be called into service as ad hoc auxiliary prefixes as well (often but not always with humorous effect). some of the most common auxiliaries include каум- "want to", пяр- "can, be able to", жге- "should", вол- "try to", фтур- "know how to", etc.
subject modifiers (open to suggestions on a better term for this) are a nebulous class of suffixes with only two members, which cannot both be used on the same verb. the first is the reciprocal suffix -гур meaning, roughly, "each other", used whenever the meaning is present even if english wouldn't use it ("they are kissing"). the second is the distributive suffix -зін which indicates that the subjects are each carrying out the action individually rather than as a group ("they are driving home [separately in their own respective cars]"); the lack of this suffix does not, however, necessarily imply that the action isn't being performed individually
aspect suffixes come next, and of course indicate verb aspect. like the noun cases, this was something i had fun playing around with forming a larger set. the aspects are:
- perfective: -ӭ (softens preceding variable consonants; never used with present tense)
- progressive: zero suffix (indicates action in progress: i am running, she was reading, we will drive)
- habitual: -ір or -ир depending on preceding sound (indicates frequent, regular, or repetitive action: i go to school, he used to teach)
- inceptive: -сам (refers to the beginning of an action: she started to read the book, i'm beginning to understand)
- cessative: -о (refers to the end of a completed action: she finished reading the book; he drive-CESS to the store = he arrived (by car) at the store; not to be confused with the perfective)
- pausative: -коі (refers to an action that has been interrupted or stopped prematurely; either it means the action has been "put on hold", or that it stopped before it was finished)
- resumptive: -шу (-ъшу after preceding variable consonants; indicates the resumption of a paused action: "she went back to reading her book", "i will resume dancing")
Re: Transemilia
miscellaneous stuff:
the word typically translated as "goodbye" темана is used whenever a conversation is ending, even when people aren't actually parting; two study partners sitting at a desk in a library who look up from their books and have a conversation would say темана when they stop talking and go back to reading, even while continuing to sit across from each other
personal pronouns (i guess this isn't miscellaneous but i forgot to put it in the post on nouns) have the root кра for first person, іл for second person, and цэу for third person; and take number and case suffixes like nouns (so кра is "i" but крацо is "we"). there's also a reflexive third-person pronoun нун that, looking at it now, is a bit too identical in use to german sich for my liking (right down to not making a number distinction ). the demonstrative pronouns make the same distinction as the demonstrative prefixes: бур for proximal, вел for medial, and стін for distal; unlike english they can be freely used to refer to people. "someone", "nowhere", "this/that/yonder thing", "everyone" are formed by attaching prefixes to interrogative pronouns. my notes for relative pronouns consist solely of the line "relative pronouns: ?????"
when working on place names, i came to the realization that many languages (certainly english) have different ways of forming them for different countries (or regions or cities). in some instances, the base form is the name of a given set of people (or the term for one individual among that people), and the place name is derived from that: pole -> poland, saxon -> saxony, arab -> arabia. in other instances, the base form seems to be the location, and the term for people is derived: africa -> african, china - > chinese, spain - > spaniard. we can make a third category of others where the derivation isn't immediately synchronically obvious, such as france/french, or where the terms may come from different roots such as dutch/netherlands, or nemets/germaniya (the russian words for german/germany). the third category i haven't dealt with in transemilian, but i set up rules and beginning lists for what belongs to which group. category 1 (base form is the name of the people) place names have variable place name suffixes, with the most common being -ія ("-ia") and -штэл ("country, land"); the places in this category tend to be "old world". in category 2 (base form is the name of the place), the names for people most commonly use the suffix -я (which is used in non-geographic terms to form names of people as well: ғгон "farm" -> ғгоня "farmer"), although if the place name itself ends in -ія then the person suffix is -да. adjective forms ("from [x place]") in category 2 places are almost always the same as the name for a person, while in category 1 places they are usually formed with the suffix -цар (a worn-down form of the genitive plural). only the name of the country itself is capitalized; adjectives and names of the peoples are written with lowercase, and if the name of the country is multiple words ("united kingdom") the derived form will be hyphenated. names of natural features (emila mountains, black sea, lake arrowhead) are grammatically nouns with modifying adjectives: эімАізімцо Эмілацо, эіНкал Слаун, эіҒэн Эрохэд
the word typically translated as "goodbye" темана is used whenever a conversation is ending, even when people aren't actually parting; two study partners sitting at a desk in a library who look up from their books and have a conversation would say темана when they stop talking and go back to reading, even while continuing to sit across from each other
personal pronouns (i guess this isn't miscellaneous but i forgot to put it in the post on nouns) have the root кра for first person, іл for second person, and цэу for third person; and take number and case suffixes like nouns (so кра is "i" but крацо is "we"). there's also a reflexive third-person pronoun нун that, looking at it now, is a bit too identical in use to german sich for my liking (right down to not making a number distinction ). the demonstrative pronouns make the same distinction as the demonstrative prefixes: бур for proximal, вел for medial, and стін for distal; unlike english they can be freely used to refer to people. "someone", "nowhere", "this/that/yonder thing", "everyone" are formed by attaching prefixes to interrogative pronouns. my notes for relative pronouns consist solely of the line "relative pronouns: ?????"
when working on place names, i came to the realization that many languages (certainly english) have different ways of forming them for different countries (or regions or cities). in some instances, the base form is the name of a given set of people (or the term for one individual among that people), and the place name is derived from that: pole -> poland, saxon -> saxony, arab -> arabia. in other instances, the base form seems to be the location, and the term for people is derived: africa -> african, china - > chinese, spain - > spaniard. we can make a third category of others where the derivation isn't immediately synchronically obvious, such as france/french, or where the terms may come from different roots such as dutch/netherlands, or nemets/germaniya (the russian words for german/germany). the third category i haven't dealt with in transemilian, but i set up rules and beginning lists for what belongs to which group. category 1 (base form is the name of the people) place names have variable place name suffixes, with the most common being -ія ("-ia") and -штэл ("country, land"); the places in this category tend to be "old world". in category 2 (base form is the name of the place), the names for people most commonly use the suffix -я (which is used in non-geographic terms to form names of people as well: ғгон "farm" -> ғгоня "farmer"), although if the place name itself ends in -ія then the person suffix is -да. adjective forms ("from [x place]") in category 2 places are almost always the same as the name for a person, while in category 1 places they are usually formed with the suffix -цар (a worn-down form of the genitive plural). only the name of the country itself is capitalized; adjectives and names of the peoples are written with lowercase, and if the name of the country is multiple words ("united kingdom") the derived form will be hyphenated. names of natural features (emila mountains, black sea, lake arrowhead) are grammatically nouns with modifying adjectives: эімАізімцо Эмілацо, эіНкал Слаун, эіҒэн Эрохэд
Re: Transemilia
and lastly, some samples!
the first is a dialogue from an aborted teach-yourself course i was trying to write. in it, two acquaintances, maya and mefêya (mary and matthew) see each other in a grocery store. this was the dialogue in the first grammar lesson, and introduced: VSO word order, pronouns, articles, plural and accusative suffixes, vocative case, and forms of address. it also has an example of locative case, but this is not explained to the reader at this stage
Мая: Ғая!
Мэфея: Каянзенве ғлаве, дӭлка!
Мая: Шінве ліва іл?
Мэфея: Ліва кра каӭлканцове.
Мая: Здэл кра эібананцове. Тэі іл цэуцове?
Мэфея: Цу цэуцо щентурці.
Мая: Аха, тэі кра цэуцове.
Мэфея: Темана.
Мая: Темана.
glosses and translations below:
the second is from a translation exercise i was giving myself. i had a page-a-day calendar for spanish vocabulary, which would give a new vocabulary word each day and then use it in a sentence; i translated these sentences into transemilian. i present them below as i have them, though i haven't looked through the grammar or pronunciation to see if they need changes to the current state of the language (so assume that they are written in western stitshu dialect rather than the standard eastern stitshu dialect). the calendar liked t have all the sentences in a given week be themed, and sometimes even tell a little story, and since i only kept up the translation exercise for a short time that's why so many of them are about sports
the first is a dialogue from an aborted teach-yourself course i was trying to write. in it, two acquaintances, maya and mefêya (mary and matthew) see each other in a grocery store. this was the dialogue in the first grammar lesson, and introduced: VSO word order, pronouns, articles, plural and accusative suffixes, vocative case, and forms of address. it also has an example of locative case, but this is not explained to the reader at this stage
Мая: Ғая!
Мэфея: Каянзенве ғлаве, дӭлка!
Мая: Шінве ліва іл?
Мэфея: Ліва кра каӭлканцове.
Мая: Здэл кра эібананцове. Тэі іл цэуцове?
Мэфея: Цу цэуцо щентурці.
Мая: Аха, тэі кра цэуцове.
Мэфея: Темана.
Мая: Темана.
glosses and translations below:
More: show
the second is from a translation exercise i was giving myself. i had a page-a-day calendar for spanish vocabulary, which would give a new vocabulary word each day and then use it in a sentence; i translated these sentences into transemilian. i present them below as i have them, though i haven't looked through the grammar or pronunciation to see if they need changes to the current state of the language (so assume that they are written in western stitshu dialect rather than the standard eastern stitshu dialect). the calendar liked t have all the sentences in a given week be themed, and sometimes even tell a little story, and since i only kept up the translation exercise for a short time that's why so many of them are about sports
More: show
- quinterbeck
- Posts: 385
- Joined: Sat Jul 21, 2018 12:19 pm
- Location: UK
Re: Transemilia
Don't have much to comment other than I like it!
Re: Transemilia
Re: Transemilia
These are extremely nice!GreenBowtie wrote: ↑Wed Mar 17, 2021 6:59 pm
in case someone might be interested, here are some transemilian flags:
- alynnidalar
- Posts: 336
- Joined: Mon Jul 09, 2018 11:51 am
- Location: Michigan
Re: Transemilia
This is a neat idea. I like Lexember (creating a new word every day in December) but sometimes it's weirdly hard to come up with something new, so having a list you're following (or even if you just use it as inspiration) is nice.GreenBowtie wrote: ↑Wed Mar 10, 2021 11:49 ami had a page-a-day calendar for spanish vocabulary, which would give a new vocabulary word each day and then use it in a sentence; i translated these sentences into transemilian.
In general I very much like to see languages in action, so I appreciate the example sentences!
Re: Transemilia
Don't forget the famous admiral without a navy...GreenBowtie wrote: ↑Wed Mar 17, 2021 6:59 pmflag of the transemilian navy. no i don't know what a landlocked country is doing with a navy
Yaaludinuya siima d'at yiseka wohadetafa gaare.
Ennadinut'a gaare d'ate eetatadi siiman.
T'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa.
Ennadinut'a gaare d'ate eetatadi siiman.
T'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa.
Re: Transemilia
doesn't Bolivia also have a Navy despite having lost their coasts to Peru? (or am i misremembering names again?)Travis B. wrote: ↑Tue Mar 23, 2021 11:05 amDon't forget the famous admiral without a navy...GreenBowtie wrote: ↑Wed Mar 17, 2021 6:59 pmflag of the transemilian navy. no i don't know what a landlocked country is doing with a navy
Re: Transemilia
This is epic. Love it. I like that you've put thought into exactly how your 'goodbye' word works, and that it's got an unusual quirk of function just because; this kind of thing is making Transemilia feel very tangible / realistic / colourful.
Re: Transemilia
Yes, Bolivia has a navy despite having been landlocked since the War of the Pacific, where they lost their coast to Chile.keenir wrote: ↑Tue Mar 23, 2021 5:15 pmdoesn't Bolivia also have a Navy despite having lost their coasts to Peru? (or am i misremembering names again?)Travis B. wrote: ↑Tue Mar 23, 2021 11:05 amDon't forget the famous admiral without a navy...GreenBowtie wrote: ↑Wed Mar 17, 2021 6:59 pmflag of the transemilian navy. no i don't know what a landlocked country is doing with a navy
Yaaludinuya siima d'at yiseka wohadetafa gaare.
Ennadinut'a gaare d'ate eetatadi siiman.
T'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa.
Ennadinut'a gaare d'ate eetatadi siiman.
T'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa t'awraa.
Re: Transemilia
i sure do!
the aforementioned accidental vagina map:
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the map of transemilia upon its independence in 1918:
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the map of transemilia today:
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most of the provinces and cities in transemilia had historical names in english and german that were different from the standard transliteration used today. the provinces are:
Transemilian | Transliteration | IPA | TradEng | TradGer |
Цімкра | Tsimkra | /tsim'kra/ | Sipkiria | Sinker |
Эхюлда | Echulda | /ɛ'çulda/ | Kyldir | Kolten |
Щіво | Shtshivo | /ʃtʃi'βo/ | Stivia | Stimmburg |
Вулям | Vulham | /βu'ʎam/ | Vulliam | Wullem |
Зборгэн | Zborgen | /zbor'gɛn/ | Sparginia | Spürgenland |
Стічу | Stitshu | /sti'tʃu/ | Stichia | Steckemark |
Аєнко | Ayênko | /a'jenko/ | n/a | n/a |
Грэцэл | Gretsel | /grɛ'tsɛl/ | Gretsel | Greitzel |
Дріѕа | Dridza | /dri'dza/ | n/a | n/a |
Ғёлкмажді | Jholkmazhdi | /ʝol'kmaʒdi/ | n/a | n/a |