Zompist Bboard Again

:: Deyryck ::

Hello and welcome to this new thread where I will try to present the best I can the conlang called Deyryck.

.: Creation :.

I started the creation of Deyryck back in July of 2009. I created it without a single notion of linguistic. It is and was from the start intended to be part of my conworld, but I'll get to that in a bit.

I've presented Deyryck many times and the different presentations tend to vary a lot. The language itself did not change though. Well... words were added but aside from that it did not change. What changed is my vision of how I should describe the language. And this is going to be a little disclaimer. I know that some people do not agree with me and will not like it, but I prefer to describe Deyryck as a native speaker would. So I will use unusual terms. It is my conviction that this gives both a more accurate and a more interesting presentation. Then again I understand if you disagree.

.: Context :.

As I said before, Deyryck is a language that comes from my conworld. The way it works is deeply linked to this world and the culture of its native speakers. Thus I'd like to give a little bit of information regarding the context conworld-wise.

In my conworld, the civilization of the universe (called Àntôrsioa) reached the conclusion that a language, after surviving and evolving for a very important period of time, is destined to take one of two paths. It will either focus on intention to the detriment of information (i.e. a Dèyam). Or it will focus on information to the detriment of intention (i.e. a Kjyam). Rather than seeking an impossible balance, the largest empires decided on a system with two languages :

• A Dèyam that is used for the daily life and evolves quickly
• A Kjyam that is used for administration and other precise matters that would almost be frozen in time

At the beginning of the fourth age, the largest empire is called the ikian empire. Its two languages are called "Deyryck" (Dèyrik) and "Fikji". Since Deyryck is the fast evolving Dèyam it has changed a lot during the previous ages. The version I shall present, the one of the fourth age, is called the "Tahari'Dèyrik", but we will stick with Deyryck.

The ikian empire spreads over billions of galaxy. Because of that, whilst Fikji is universal, Deyryck will adapt in many ways depending on where it is spoken. That adaptability is called "tolerance". And this will have a lot of impact. You might see me use the acronym "EAD" which stands for "Earth Adapted Deyryck" but even if I don't many things I will explain are of a simplified and adapted version of the language. When I will get more into how tolerance works, I will extend the previously given incomplete explanations.

.: Phonology :.

So the phonology being the first part of the actual presentation of the language, that is why I had to explain the "EAD" part. This pronunciation is a proposition for an earthling way of speaking. Not only would it change on different worlds but you could also expect it to change for different earth countries. Therefore the IPA is mostly given as hints for the general idea, as long as the words are clearly distinct, it can be adapted.

Here are the different characters:



Right away you will notice different categories. There is the guiding system and the strength system. I will explain the strength system later. As for the guiding system, it is part of the tolerance system. You can simply admit that guided characters are vowels and that the rest is consonants. Also, I would like to add that this is a very unexhaustive list. I'm pretty sure the other characters will not be needed. If and when they do I'll introduce them.

.: Bird and plumage :.

Deyryck uses the "bird and plumage system". The bird is the set of rules the language follows (mostly its syntax) and the plumage its "words". (word might not be appropriate but more on that another day) This is somehow the easy part of the Deyryck, it has a very limited set of rules described in the bird then everything is handled in the plumage.

There are more than one bird, but for the most part the bird that we will use is called: The golden bird.

The golden bird describes Deyryck's syntax as follow : Context Target Fact Goal Reaction (or, alternatively: FactContext FactTarget Fact ExpressionTarget ExpressionContext but let's not make things more complicated)

We can simplify that: CTFGR. Since the reaction will mostly be omitted, we can shorten a bit more: CTFG. Now to understand what it means:

• C(ontext): The context in which the fact reside (optional)
• T(arget): The target of the fact (optional)
• F(act): The actual fact, that is, the actual information of the sentence/expression
• G(oal): The reason for the expression, that is, why do say what we say

There is a word for a somewhat neutral goal when you either don't want to state your intention or don't have any specific: a.

As we can see, only the fact and the goal are mandatory to create a sentence. Since you can use this neutral goal, a basic sentence would consist only of a fact expressed in a single word.

.: Words and sentences :.

Words in Deyryck do not have any intrinsic function. There is no noun, verb, adjective or else. They are themes and the way you use them defines their function. Also this language relies heavily on the context. Hence the same sentence may have many different meanings. The more you understand the language, the more you earn the tools to be more precise. Although it is not intended, Deyryck has the potential to be as precise as a Kjyam.

How about our first sentence?

The theme for love is "laka", hence, out of context you could assume that : "laka a" means "I love you". "Laka" being the fact and "a" the goal.
Let's try to use the golden bird to get more and more precise.

You will have guessed that the "target" will be similar to the object. This is general simplification that will work most of the time, but guarantees you some surprises.

"Ara" is basically a 3.SG.FEM (she/her/hers), so you could add it as a target: "ara laka a" => "I love her."
Given other common "pronouns": i => I/my/mine ; ti => you/your/yours

• "ti laka a" => "I love you."
• "i laka a" => "I love myself."

Let's add some context. The theme for "everything" is "aha". In this sentence, used as context we could translate it as "always".
So: "aha ara laka a" => "I (will) always love her."

Now let's say we are saying that because we want the person we're speaking to to be aware of that, we could use the theme "sûzva" for news/information.
We would then have: "aha ara laka sûzva" => "FYI, I (will) always love her."

Now, we have assumed that we were talking about ourselves all this time, which is common sense in Deyryck. What if we wanted to talk about "ti"? There is no room for that kind of information in the golden bird. Well that's it, this language sucks, cya.

Oooor, we could talk about something... new. ^^

.: Synthesis :.

Yeah, after this, this is over.

Synthesis in Deyryck is when a word will alter the bird. The most basic of all synthesis is the qualification. Any word can qualify another one when it is prefixed to it. In our case, we want to express that our fact does not concern "me" but "you". So all we have to do is prefix "ti" to the fact.

"aha ara tilaka sûzva" => "FYI, you (will) always love her."

The sentence that we had before is called "pure". A pure sentence has no synthesis. Pure sentences are almost never used.

You might have understood than the golden bird is quite the easy part of the language. The plumage is the one thing that holds all Deyryck's complexity, and yeah, it is complex.

That being said, I hope I didn't put too much information at once and that this "brief" introduction was entertaining enough. Thanks for reading.

Hi, Threr:

I know nothing about constructional languages. I'm just coming to say hello and welcome you to join the forum. I am also quite new, maybe the latest newbie before you. I received welcome from the others so I'd also like to pass it to you now.

Welcone to ZBB!

Zhong from Taiwan.

In that case, welcome both of you to the board! Have some pickles and tea:



(It’s a tradition for welcoming new members. Please don’t ask me why…)

Threr wrote: ↑Fri Aug 05, 2022 5:44 pm The golden bird describes Deyryck's syntax as follow : Context Target Fact Goal Reaction (or, alternatively: FactContext FactTarget Fact ExpressionTarget ExpressionContext but let's not make things more complicated)

We can simplify that: CTFGR. Since the reaction will mostly be omitted, we can shorten a bit more: CTFG. Now to understand what it means:

• C(ontext): The context in which the fact reside (optional)
• T(arget): The target of the fact (optional)
• F(act): The actual fact, that is, the actual information of the sentence/expression
• G(oal): The reason for the expression, that is, why do say what we say

I really like this! It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a conlang with an alignment not based on transitivity properties. (In fact, I can think of only one, namely zompist’s Elkarîl.) This system generally makes a lot of sense to me, though I must admit to finding the ‘target’ a little hard to understand — could you elaborate on that category, please?

The one minor critique I have is that I find the highly nonstandard terminology makes this presentation a little hard to follow. However, most of it does seem to correspond to standard linguistic terms. ‘Guided’ and ‘guide’ phones are as you note vowels and consonants respectively; meanwhile, I’m willing to guess that the ‘strength’ system involves some kind of consonant mutation or gradation. The ‘bird’ and ‘plumage’ seem to straightforwardly be the grammar and the lexicon respectively, while the ‘golden bird’ could as well be termed the ‘basic clause structure’ or similar. Your ‘Fact’ is more usually termed the ‘focus’; the ‘Context’ has some similarities to a topic, but some differences too.

Welcone to ZBB!

In that case, welcome both of you to the board! Have some pickles and tea:

Thank you guys!

Please don’t ask me why…

though I must admit to finding the ‘target’ a little hard to understand — could you elaborate on that category, please?

Not surprising, without any synthesis, the target is a very broad concept. It can either be something that the fact impacts or a direction for the fact.

Some examples:

ti isprah' => I'm speaking with you.
ra kasiya' => It's raining on her.
kayéi kééna' => I'm closing the door so that it's colder.
rê isarya => I'm scared of him.
dèyrik isprah' => I speak Deyryck.
ivav ga => There is my sister. (this means "I have a sister")
ikûh raloko isarya => I'm scared that she might/does not like my family. (This one's bit a trickier, I'll have to talk more about the plumage)

Thing is, in some cases, there will be what is called a promotion. A promotion is when a word is getting closer to the goal.
Two examples :
métapa ik'a => I came yesterday. (Here métapa should be expected as a context but is indeed a target)
rakasiya' => It's raining on her. (Yup exact same sentence as earlier but "ra" has been promoted from target to part of the goal.)

Promotion are solely based on context, ask anyone (who speaks Deyryck) what "rakasiya'" means without any context, they'll answer "Shy's crying.". Because without context, they won't know it's a promotion. There are tools to make a promotion explicit. Which I'll get to soon enough.

The one minor critique I have is that I find the highly nonstandard terminology makes this presentation a little hard to follow

Hence the disclaimer.

most of it does seem to correspond to standard linguistic terms

That's the whole problem "it does seem". Every time I tried to use common linguistic terms, I ended up with situations where it does not fit. Plus I find it personally less interesting this way. Then again, I explained that in my little disclaimer.

‘Guided’ and ‘guide’ phones are as you note vowels and consonants respectively

Yeah that's the thing, they are only when it comes to EAD. I chose to make them match with vowels and consonants. They really aren't sounds.

I’m willing to guess that the ‘strength’ system involves some kind of consonant mutation or gradation.

The effect of strength on the sound does not matter. EAD make /z/ the weak of /s/ because it felt logical, could've been /d/ for all I care. The important part is how they are used to create new words and to transform existing ones. It is, for instance, used sometimes to make promotions explicit. "lagk'a" being a much more common way to say "I love you" than the previously stated "ti ilaka a".

The ‘bird’ and ‘plumage’ seem to straightforwardly be the grammar and the lexicon respectively, while the ‘golden bird’ could as well be termed the ‘basic clause structure’ or similar. Your ‘Fact’ is more usually termed the ‘focus’; the ‘Context’ has some similarities to a topic, but some differences too.

The last part sums it up "some differences too". Hence that part in my disclaimer:

I know that some people do not agree with me and will not like it, but I prefer to describe Deyryck as a native speaker would. So I will use unusual terms. It is my conviction that this gives both a more accurate and a more interesting presentation. Then again I understand if you disagree.

Plus you see, I very like when people, just like you did, go and try to adapt the Deyryck term to linguistic ones. It makes me learn some new words (especially english terms, since I'm french) and the more you do the more I can understand how accurate these are. And when they're not, where does the difference lies.

Anyway thank you so much for you answer! I hope you're satisfied the reply!

Welcome to the board!

Threr wrote: ↑Tue Aug 09, 2022 10:14 am That's the whole problem "it does seem". Every time I tried to use common linguistic terms, I ended up with situations where it does not fit.

That will be the case for a lot of languages. Often you can pick the term that fits the closest, and then in the explanation detail how it actually works. That gives the reader a general impression that can then be fine tuned.

Threr wrote: ↑Tue Aug 09, 2022 10:14 am Plus I find it personally less interesting this way. Then again, I explained that in my little disclaimer.

The conlang could have its own labels for its grammar that fall in line with what your personal thinking is on the subject. That might allow you to keep it interesting for yourself. For presenting the language to other people standardizing your description will help communicate the ideas much better than custom terms. If you're sharing the language here, I would assume that's a goal.

Welcome to the board!

Thanks!

That might allow you to keep it interesting for yourself. For presenting the language to other people standardizing your description will help communicate the ideas much better than custom terms. If you're sharing the language here, I would assume that's a goal.

I don't need to keep it interesting for myself, it is no matter what. I'm doing this because there are people like me who find this more interesting. Not for my language, for all languages. The goal is to share the language, yes, not to share a skeleton. The story, the wording, how the language is designed at its core is part of its flavor. My opinion is that if you only want to bring every conlang to pure linguistic it is just plain boring. I am sharing my language the way I like language to be shared and the way I wish others would share theirs. If it is an absolute that people don't like that, fine by me, I'll be on my way. But I genuinely believe (well actually I know for a fact from other people) that I am not the only one that actually prefer that approach. One again, my opinion is that standardization is stripping the language of most of its flavor from the start. And that's exactly what I cannot abide by your previous statement:

That will be the case for a lot of languages. Often you can pick the term that fits the closest, and then in the explanation detail how it actually works. That gives the reader a general impression that can then be fine tuned.

The general impression of a conlang does not interest me at all. I want to understand how it works, its philosophy, its details, that's what I like in a conlang, that's where I find the creativity of the conlanger flourishes the best. Else, it feels like math with extra to me.

Then again, I'm not sharing for myself, though every comment on the language is highly appreciated as it can help me make it grow even further. I'm offering what I'd love to be offered.

I might join the others in saying that I also find the language extremely difficult to comment on, given the presentation. The reason we have a set of standard terms for describing languages is so we understand each-other when we talk about certain constructions.

Threr wrote: ↑Tue Aug 09, 2022 10:14 am Not surprising, without any synthesis, the target is a very broad concept. It can either be something that the fact impacts or a direction for the fact.

Some examples:

ti isprah' => I'm speaking with you.
ra kasiya' => It's raining on her.
kayéi kééna' => I'm closing the door so that it's colder.
rê isarya => I'm scared of him.
dèyrik isprah' => I speak Deyryck.
ivav ga => There is my sister. (this means "I have a sister")
ikûh raloko isarya => I'm scared that she might/does not like my family. (This one's bit a trickier, I'll have to talk more about the plumage)

Thing is, in some cases, there will be what is called a promotion. A promotion is when a word is getting closer to the goal.
Two examples :
métapa ik'a => I came yesterday. (Here métapa should be expected as a context but is indeed a target)
rakasiya' => It's raining on her. (Yup exact same sentence as earlier but "ra" has been promoted from target to part of the goal.)

Promotion are solely based on context, ask anyone (who speaks Deyryck) what "rakasiya'" means without any context, they'll answer "Shy's crying.". Because without context, they won't know it's a promotion. There are tools to make a promotion explicit. Which I'll get to soon enough.

Thanks for explaining! I’m having a bit of trouble figuring out the semantic basis of this category, but otherwise I feel I understand how it works now.

‘Guided’ and ‘guide’ phones are as you note vowels and consonants respectively

Yeah that's the thing, they are only when it comes to EAD. I chose to make them match with vowels and consonants. They really aren't sounds.

This isn’t necessarily a problem. In many languages ‘vowels’ and ‘consonants’ are best defined in terms of syllable structure rather than sound — consider e.g. the way [ɐ̆] patterns as a consonant and [m̩] as a vowel in German.

As for ‘not being sounds’, that isn’t necessarily a problem either. You can still have a phonological system without sound, the most common example being of course sign language phonologies. And even when sound is involved, phonemes can still be very abstract: the most famous example of this is Hale’s transcription of the Marshallese vowel system as / / (http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/tlir.2000.17.2-4.241), because he felt that its more usual transcription as /ɐ ɜ ɘ ɨ/ doesn’t properly reflect the degree of phonetic variation within each phoneme. (Personally, I prefer think the latter is fine, but you could argue it either way.)

On the other hand, it may well be that these terms are still entirely inappropriate for analysis of Deyryck ‘phonology’, in which case you should continue to use your current terms. But if this is so, then it is worth writing at least a few paragraphs on the precise meaning of your new terms, as well as exactly why the standard terms are inapplicable for this case. (Indeed, this is still worth doing even when your terms are entirely standard!) Not only does this help us as readers to understand what you’re trying to say, it will almost certainly help you as a conlanger to refine your ideas of precisely how your language works — or at least, this has been my experience whenever I’ve gone though this exercise.

I’m willing to guess that the ‘strength’ system involves some kind of consonant mutation or gradation.

The effect of strength on the sound does not matter. EAD make /z/ the weak of /s/ because it felt logical, could've been /d/ for all I care. The important part is how they are used to create new words and to transform existing ones. It is, for instance, used sometimes to make promotions explicit. "lagk'a" being a much more common way to say "I love you" than the previously stated "ti ilaka a".

This sounds very much like a consonant mutation system to me.

Threr wrote: ↑Tue Aug 09, 2022 5:15 pm

That might allow you to keep it interesting for yourself. For presenting the language to other people standardizing your description will help communicate the ideas much better than custom terms. If you're sharing the language here, I would assume that's a goal.

I don't need to keep it interesting for myself, it is no matter what. I'm doing this because there are people like me who find this more interesting. Not for my language, for all languages. The goal is to share the language, yes, not to share a skeleton. The story, the wording, how the language is designed at its core is part of its flavor. My opinion is that if you only want to bring every conlang to pure linguistic it is just plain boring. I am sharing my language the way I like language to be shared and the way I wish others would share theirs. If it is an absolute that people don't like that, fine by me, I'll be on my way. But I genuinely believe (well actually I know for a fact from other people) that I am not the only one that actually prefer that approach. One again, my opinion is that standardization is stripping the language of most of its flavor from the start. And that's exactly what I cannot abide by your previous statement:

I completely agree that the flavour of a conlang (or of any language, really) is most important, and a good description is one which makes this clear. But I strongly disagree that using standard terms ignores this aspect of language. On the contrary, it is only by comparison to other languages that we can fully understand exactly what is unique about each language.

For an example of this, I refer you to Pawley’s foundational chapter A language which defies description by ordinary means, about the Trans–New Guinea language Kalam. (It’s a bit hard to find online, so I uploaded a copy.) Note that Pawley uses entirely standard terminology: terms like ‘verb’, ‘vowel’, ‘switch reference’ and ‘serial verb construction’ abound. However, the language still comes across as entirely distinctive and unique, because we can compare it to other languages where similar concepts apply, and see exactly how Kalam is different to them. The flavour of the language shines through no matter what terms Pawley uses to describe it — indeed, it is all the more apparent when we can see just how well (or poorly) the standard terms fit.

Ok, I was preparing a very long answer and reached the conclusion it's not worth my time. This presentation is for users of this forum, not for me. You don't like it? Move on. So will I. I have made this presentation a lot and never had that kind of reaction, especially after I've put disclaimer about it.

Threr wrote: ↑Wed Aug 10, 2022 6:38 am Ok, I was preparing a very long answer and reached the conclusion it's not worth my time. This presentation is for users of this forum, not for me. You don't like it? Move on. So will I. I have made this presentation a lot and never had that kind of reaction, especially after I've put disclaimer about it.

Sorry, I didn’t mean to dissuade you from posting — please don’t take the criticisms personally! In general, we’re all very argumentative here; our standard response to any post on conlanging is to critique it. Despite it all, I at least am still very interested in reading more about Deyryck, and I’m sure many other people here are too. My criticism was related to the presentation alone, not the language. All I ask is that if you use non-standard terminology, it would be extremely helpful if you could explain exactly why the standard terms are not appropriate.