Zompist Bboard Again

This is a new thread I have created for all things involving my conworld, Avdëtha (/avdəθa/)! (all posts involving Azoi can now be put here instead of the Phonemes for Azoi thread.) To start it off, I’ll put the lore behind Avdëtha, and then my progress so far on the oldest conlang in Avdëtha, Proto-Ohufëi.

Avdëtha Lore (Please note that all of the below applies only to Avdëtha):

Long ago, in a time before time and when the universe was still young, two wills emerged from the nothingness that was reality: Sheva, the will to serve others before the self, and Maron, the will to serve the self before others. Naturally, their blades clashed, and in their clashing, the elements were born. Water, Fire, Air, Earth, Storm, and Nature danced throughout the cosmos, and Avdëtha was born through their ethereal dancing.

(there is a lot more to this lore, but not very much of it is about conlanging (not that any of it is to start with), which is the main focus of this thread, so I won’t put it here.)

Proto-Ohufëi:

	Bilabial	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar
Plosive	p	t			k
Nasal	m	n
Fricative	f /ɸ/	s	hl /ɬ/
Affricate		ts	tl /tɬ/
Liquid		r /ɹ/	l	y /j/	w

	Front	Central	Back
High	i		u
Middle	e	ë /ə/	o
Low	a

(C)V syllable shape
Stress on the second-to-last syllable
OSV default word order
Adjective - noun
Noun - postposition
Possessor - Possessee

Personal Pronouns:

• anu - “I/me”
• yë - “you (singular)”
• hle - “He/She/it”
• ma - “we/us”
• yimë - “you (plural)”
• tu - “they/them”

Nouns:

• tsa - n. “person”
• mëli - n. “animal”
• kengu - n. “rock”
• hu - n. “a big thing”

Verbs:

• nu - v. “to be”
• tluna - v. “not”
• la - v. “to see”
• tho - v. “to sit, to be on top of (something)”
• kafi - v. “to give”

Tsa mëli hu këngu tho hle la.
“He sees the person and the animal on the big rock.”

Nice! And good tableage

You seem to have missed out /θ/ from your phonemic inventory.

/nɒtɛndəduːd/ wrote: ↑Mon Feb 17, 2025 5:41 pm Long ago, in a time before time and when the universe was still young, two wills emerged from the nothingness that was reality: Sheva, the will to serve others before the self, and Maron, the will to serve the self before others. Naturally, their blades clashed, and in their clashing, the elements were born. Water, Fire, Air, Earth, Storm, and Nature danced throughout the cosmos, and Avdëtha was born through their ethereal dancing.

(there is a lot more to this lore, but not very much of it is about conlanging (not that any of it is to start with), which is the main focus of this thread, so I won’t put it here.)

I really like this. It’s fine if you don’t want to discuss it here, but I have a few questions. Which came first, Sheva or Maron? What else was around when they arose? Why did they clash (why didn’t Sheva just serve Maron)? What language are their names in (it seems not to be Proto-Ohufëi)?

sasasha wrote: ↑Tue Feb 18, 2025 5:53 am You seem to have missed out /θ/ from your phonemic inventory.

the reason you see /θ/ used in /avdəθa/ and not in the consonant inventory for Proto-Ohufëi is, well, there really is no reason. but if I had to come up with something on the spot, I'd probably say something along the lines of the fact that the people who lived in the Ohufëra Plains of Urieura at the time of Proto-Ohufëi had no idea that they lived on a continent, let alone a planet, and Proto-Ohufëi was long out of use by the time they did. so the name is drawn from another language, albeit derived from Proto-Ohufëi, but in a later time.

/nɒtɛndəduːd/ wrote: ↑Mon Feb 17, 2025 5:41 pm Long ago, in a time before time and when the universe was still young, two wills emerged from the nothingness that was reality: Sheva, the will to serve others before the self, and Maron, the will to serve the self before others. Naturally, their blades clashed, and in their clashing, the elements were born. Water, Fire, Air, Earth, Storm, and Nature danced throughout the cosmos, and Avdëtha was born through their ethereal dancing.

(there is a lot more to this lore, but not very much of it is about conlanging (not that any of it is to start with), which is the main focus of this thread, so I won’t put it here.)

I really like this. It’s fine if you don’t want to discuss it here, but I have a few questions. Which came first, Sheva or Maron? What else was around when they arose? Why did they clash (why didn’t Sheva just serve Maron)? What language are their names in (it seems not to be Proto-Ohufëi)?

I like to idea that they came about at the same time, although you can never really know the nature of things, and Maron might've come a few seconds before Sheva, or vice versa, just by pure chance. as the manuscript details, the two wills emerged from nothingness, and so there was quite literally just nothing when they came about. as for why they clashed, the manuscript details each of them being able to hold a blade, but really they were no more than the urge to do as what their name details them in doing, and so because they were the urges to do opposite things, they clashed.

/nɒtɛndəduːd/ wrote: ↑Tue Feb 18, 2025 9:44 am

sasasha wrote: ↑Tue Feb 18, 2025 5:53 am You seem to have missed out /θ/ from your phonemic inventory.

the reason you see /θ/ used in /avdəθa/ and not in the consonant inventory for Proto-Ohufëi is, well, there really is no reason. but if I had to come up with something on the spot, I'd probably say something along the lines of the fact that the people who lived in the Ohufëra Plains of Urieura at the time of Proto-Ohufëi had no idea that they lived on a continent, let alone a planet, and Proto-Ohufëi was long out of use by the time they did. so the name is drawn from another language, albeit derived from Proto-Ohufëi, but in a later time.

Ah, right. What about the word tho in your word list? In other words, what does the ⟨th⟩ signify, as it is not listed in your phonemic inventory / orthography table?

/nɒtɛndəduːd/ wrote: ↑Mon Feb 17, 2025 5:41 pm Long ago, in a time before time and when the universe was still young, two wills emerged from the nothingness that was reality: Sheva, the will to serve others before the self, and Maron, the will to serve the self before others. Naturally, their blades clashed, and in their clashing, the elements were born. Water, Fire, Air, Earth, Storm, and Nature danced throughout the cosmos, and Avdëtha was born through their ethereal dancing.

(there is a lot more to this lore, but not very much of it is about conlanging (not that any of it is to start with), which is the main focus of this thread, so I won’t put it here.)

I really like this. It’s fine if you don’t want to discuss it here, but I have a few questions. Which came first, Sheva or Maron? What else was around when they arose? Why did they clash (why didn’t Sheva just serve Maron)? What language are their names in (it seems not to be Proto-Ohufëi)?

I like to idea that they came about at the same time, although you can never really know the nature of things, and Maron might've come a few seconds before Sheva, or vice versa, just by pure chance. as the manuscript details, the two wills emerged from nothingness, and so there was quite literally just nothing when they came about. as for why they clashed, the manuscript details each of them being able to hold a blade, but really they were no more than the urge to do as what their name details them in doing, and so because they were the urges to do opposite things, they clashed.

Their urges aren’t really opposite, and they’re certainly complementary. The one that wants to serve others, in the context of these two wills being the only things extant in the universe, would obviously want to serve the one who wants to serve itself. No conflict there, in fact it’s a harmonious system. But competition over how to use this blade makes sense. Perhaps the blade coming into being is the catalyst for the conflict to arise.

sasasha wrote: ↑Tue Feb 18, 2025 10:18 am

/nɒtɛndəduːd/ wrote: ↑Tue Feb 18, 2025 9:44 am

sasasha wrote: ↑Tue Feb 18, 2025 5:53 am You seem to have missed out /θ/ from your phonemic inventory.

the reason you see /θ/ used in /avdəθa/ and not in the consonant inventory for Proto-Ohufëi is, well, there really is no reason. but if I had to come up with something on the spot, I'd probably say something along the lines of the fact that the people who lived in the Ohufëra Plains of Urieura at the time of Proto-Ohufëi had no idea that they lived on a continent, let alone a planet, and Proto-Ohufëi was long out of use by the time they did. so the name is drawn from another language, albeit derived from Proto-Ohufëi, but in a later time.

Ah, right. What about the word tho in your word list? In other words, what does the ⟨th⟩ signify, as it is not listed in your phonemic inventory / orthography table?

oops. tho is supposed to be written as tlo, so it'd be Tsa mëli hu këngu tlo hle la. "He sees the person and the animal sitting on the big rock.".

I really like this. It’s fine if you don’t want to discuss it here, but I have a few questions. Which came first, Sheva or Maron? What else was around when they arose? Why did they clash (why didn’t Sheva just serve Maron)? What language are their names in (it seems not to be Proto-Ohufëi)?

I like to idea that they came about at the same time, although you can never really know the nature of things, and Maron might've come a few seconds before Sheva, or vice versa, just by pure chance. as the manuscript details, the two wills emerged from nothingness, and so there was quite literally just nothing when they came about. as for why they clashed, the manuscript details each of them being able to hold a blade, but really they were no more than the urge to do as what their name details them in doing, and so because they were the urges to do opposite things, they clashed.

Their urges aren’t really opposite, and they’re certainly complementary. The one that wants to serve others, in the context of these two wills being the only things extant in the universe, would obviously want to serve the one who wants to serve itself. No conflict there, in fact it’s a harmonious system. But competition over how to use this blade makes sense. Perhaps the blade coming into being is the catalyst for the conflict to arise.

Perhaps I do need to rework my story. the "blade" is only a metaphor used to emphasize the fact that Sheva and Maron are fighting, but perhaps the existence of Avdëtha could instead be the catalyst that causes fighting.

/nɒtɛndəduːd/ wrote: ↑Tue Feb 18, 2025 12:47 pm oops. tho is supposed to be written as tlo, so it'd be Tsa mëli hu këngu tlo hle la. "He sees the person and the animal sitting on the big rock.".

Ah, I see!

More: show

here is a reworked version of the manuscript detailing the coming of Avdëtha(again, please note that all of the below applies only to Avdëtha.):

Long ago, in a time before time and when the universe was still young, two wills emerged from the nothingness that was reality: Sheva, the will to serve others before the self, and Maron, the will to serve the self before others. Sheva, doing best for Maron, and Maron, doing best for itself, ushered in an era of harmony that ruled the nothingness that was the universe, and through their delicate relationship, the gifts of the elements were born. Water, Fire, Air, Earth, Storm, and Nature danced throughout the cosmos, and Avdëtha was born through their ethereal dancing. Mortals, beings born to the elements bearing the gifts of self-conscious and free will, became capable of following Sheva or Maron, because they were born to the elements, and the elements were born to Sheva and Maron. because of this, a great conflict came between Sheva and Maron. both wanted the mortals to follow them, Sheva believing that mortals should do good to each other, Maron believing that mortals should fend for themselves.

I like this, it makes more sense now, and overall it’s a nice philosophical idea to start a cosmos off with.

I'm back! (pay no mind to the fact that I was MIA for 15 some days, I got distracted doing other things.) I've come up with a few ideas involving Ohufëi, and here they are:

1st of all, I’ve decided to add <h> (/x/) to Ohufëi, not only because it took me the whole time I was gone to realize that there is no <h> in Ohufëi despite the fact that it is literally included in the language’s name, but also to round out the velars used in the language.

Also, there are tenses and cases now! Here’s a table:

	Perfective	Imperfective	Habitual
Present	-	-	+ fi
Past	+ letu	-	+ uwi
Future	+ wë	+ wë	-

Singular is unmarked and with aux. verb + mu it becomes plural.

I also came up with some common compounding affixes:

• An instance of X: X + -nu
• Person who does X: X + -tsa
• Typical object of X: X + -uwi
• Place where X happens: X + -so
• Tool used to achieve X: X + -rë
• Place associated with X: X + -so (same as place where X happens, relies on context for differentiation)
• Substance of X: X + -mi
• Group/collection of X: X + -ati

A rule revolving affixes is that word-final vowels are replaced with suffix-initial vowels and word-initial vowels are replaced with prefix-final vowels, and the suffix-initial or prefix-final vowel is then pronounced as long, unless the word-final or word-initial vowel in question is an /ə/, in which case the two vowels form a diphthong.

Here’s where of all those originated from:

• fi = to know
• letu = to finish
• uwi = to stay
• wë = to go
• mu = many
• nu = to be
• tsa = person
• so = place
• rë = tool
• mi = material/substance
• ati = group/collection

Next, I plan to make a phonological evolution for Proto-Ohufëi, so that it can evolve into Modern Ohufëi. Any suggestions for that or any else of the above?

(edit: fixed a spelling error)

One thing I should note is that commonly perfective presents are marginal, being used primarily for things like performatives or to express the future (!). Conversely, perfective pasts are extremely common, and are probably less marked crosslinguistically than imperfective pasts.