Zompist Bboard Again

Cuvao is spoken in the western half of the island of Cuva, which is located in the Caribbean. This is a conlang for a future timeline based on a post-apocalyptic America that has regressed to feudal levels of technology. Cuvao is currently spoken in the 4th millenium, as is my previous conlang Biskainish, and is a descendant of the eastern Cuban dialects of Spanish.

Phonology

Nasals: /m n ŋ/ - <m n ng>
Plosives: /p b t d k g/ - <p b t d c~qu g~gu>
Affricates: /t͡ʃ d͡ʒ/ - <ch dj>
Fricatives: /f v s z ʃ ʒ h/ - <f v s z sh j~ll h>
Rhotics: /r/ - <r>
Approximants: /l j w/ - <l y~i w~u>
Short Vowels: /i u e o a/ - <i u e o a>
Long Vowels: /iː uː eː oː aː/ - <ih uh eh oh ah>

Allophones

• The phonemes /b v d g/ are pronounced as [β β ð ɣ] between vowels. An example is Cuváo "Cuvao", which is pronounced [ku.βa.ɔ].

• The phonemes /k/, /g/, and /h/ become /c/, /ɟ/, and /ç/ respectively when preceding the vowel /i(ː)/. An example is me quile "I want", which is pronounced [mɛ cilɛ].

• The short vowels /e o a/ are actually pronounced as /ɛ ɔ a/, and the long vowel /aː/ is pronounced /ɑː/.

• By default, /r/ is pronounced /ɾ/, but is pronounced as [r] when geminate or when at the beginning of a word. An example is parre "father", which is pronounced [pærːɛ].

• Cuváo has a phenomenon that is similar to the imāla of Classical Arabic. When followed by the vowel /i(ː)/ or the semivowel /j/, the vowel /a(ː)/ is fronted to /æ(ː)/.

Sound Changes

Changes from Standard Spanish to Cuban Spanish (up to 2020 AD)
Cuban Spanish to Old Cuvao (2020 CE to 2150 CE)
Old Cuvao to Middle Cuvao (2150 CE to 2450 CE)
Middle Cuvao to Early Modern Cuvao (2450 CE to 2700 CE)
Early Modern Cuvao to Modern Cuvao (2700 CE to 3020 CE)
Here is an example sentence inspired by JBR's Futurese. It's the same sentence I used when I posted about my other conlang, Biskainish:

Noh lloziho ti pizen, maitro, ca tu noh muhtre pa aulal cretto pocca noh tán iwmorant i noh aulan crutto...
/noː ʒoziːo ti pizen majtro ka tu noː muːtre pa aulal kretːo pokːa noː tan iwmorant i noː aulan krutːo/
[noː ʒɔziːo ti pizɛn mæjtɾɔ ka tu noː muːtɾɛ pa aulal kɾɛtːɔ pɔkːa noː tan iwmɔɾant i noː aulan kɾutːɔ]
1P.NOM DEF.MP-child 2S.OBL beg-IND.NPST.PL INDEF.MS-teacher REL 2S.NOM 1P.OBL teach-SUBJ.NPST.SG to speak-INF correct-MASC because 1P.NOM be.IND.NPST.PL ignorant-MASC and 1P.NOM speak-IND.NPST.PL corrupt-MASC
We children beg you, teacher, that you should teach us to speak correctly, because we are ignorant and we speak corruptly…

I'll put up an explanation of the grammar later.

Grammar

Personal Pronouns

	Nom.	Obl.	Poss. Adj.
1S	me	mi	mijV
2S	tu	ti	tujV
3S	ellV	li	sujV
1P	noh	noh	nurV
2P	teze	teze	dutezV
3P	ellVh	lloh	sujVh

Note: The "V" is a placeholder. If a pronoun is masculine, it becomes "o", and it becomes "a" if feminine. The only exception to this rule is the possessive adjective dutezV. The masculine form is dutez, and the feminine form is duteza. The pronoun dutezV came from the phrase de ustedes, and was conflated with other possessive pronouns, hence the feminine form duteza.

Cuvao still maintains the gender distinctions in its third person pronouns, but it has lost the distinction between formal and informal pronouns that Cuban Spanish had. The pronoun vosotros also fell out of use, but this is a trait shared with many other dialects of Spanish in Latin America, and it already fell out of use before the apocalypse. The current second person plural pronoun, teze, is derived from ustedes.

Nouns

In the 1000 years since the post-apocalyptic era began, Cuvao has innovated a new noun declension system that distinguishes between number, definiteness, and gender. Since /s/ in coda position fell silent in Cuban Spanish, it was often hard to distinguish between singular and plural nouns, and this was also the case with certain verb conjugations. For example, if someone said las manzanas /lah mansanah/, it could be hard to tell if they were talking about multiple apples, or just a single apple. As a result, indefinite and definite articles started to be used much more often, and were eventually prefixed to the nouns they were used with. The definite article prefixes were also conflated with the third person pronouns, which is why you see prefixes like llo- and llah-.
I'll put the verbs in the next post. By the way, if any of you have any ideas for what apocalyptic event could plunge the Americas into a Medieval Era without modern technology (or maybe only a little bit), please let me know.

	Indef. Sing.	Indef. Plu.	Def. Sing.	Def. Plu.
Masc.	0-	uz- (*u(m)oz-)	llo-	lloz-
Fem.	wa- (*u(m)a-)	waz- (*u(m)az-)	lla-	llaz-

Post-apocalyptic settings are entirely not my thing, but this language looks promising.

WeepingElf wrote: ↑Fri Jul 10, 2020 10:59 am Post-apocalyptic settings are entirely not my thing, but this language looks promising.

Thanks!

Grammar (cont.) - Verbs

Background

Verb conjugations in Cuvao are more simplified than they were in Cuban Spanish. They only conjugate for number, mood, and tense. The future and preterite tenses have been lost, leaving only a past and non-past tense. Cuvao's word order usually alternates between SVO and SOV, and there is no specific word order for interrogative constructions. The simplification of Cuvao verb conjugations is mainly due to sound changes that eroded the verb endings in Cuvao and its ancestors. By 2450, this is what the present and imperfect conjugations of the verb cantar "to sing" looked like in the indicative mood:

	1S	2S	3S	1P	2P	3P
Present	[kãto]	[kãtah]	[kãta]	[kãtamə(h)]	[kãtã]	[kãtã]
Imperfect	[kãtama]	[kãtamah]	[kãtama]	[kãtamamə(h)]	[kãtamã]	[kãtamã]

The similarity between all these verb forms is why Cuvao is not a pro-drop language like its Cuban ancestor. It got too confusing when using verbs without pronouns. If one decided to say [kãta ũa kãsjõ] "he sings a song", it could easily be misheard as "you sing a song" or as "they sing a song", unless they wrote down what they were trying to say. This is also why during this time period, there are many records of Cuban scribes conflating several verb forms. Here is an example of a story about Accajuco, a town in the Cuvan province of Pinal-Weht, which was written in 2500 CE. At the time, the old Cuban Spanish orthography was still used, making it an inaccurate representation of the phonology of Middle Cuvao.

Auque estás situado en medio delbosque, sindua están una comunidá vuyciosa llena de vida. Me recuerdo que cuando me pasaba po' lle pueblo po' primela ves ace 3 día, me notaban que mucha gente estaba reunida en lla plasa. Resultaba que ellos estaba tocando música y le estaban pasando de malvilla! Si algun ves tu vienes a nuestro reino ermoso, te recomiendo visitar ciudade má pequeña como Escayuco.

Reconstructed IPA: /aunkə ta sitwazo ẽ mejo dəlbohkə sindua ta ũa comuniza bujsjosa ʒena də biza mə rekuddo kə kwãdo mə pəzama po ʒəpwewlo po primela beh asə treh dia mə notama kə mut͡ʃə hẽtə tamã rewniza ẽ ʒaplasa rəzultama kə eʒoh tamã tokãdo musika i lə tamã pazãdo də məlviʒa si əlgũbeh tu vinəh a nuhtro rẽjo emmozo te rəkomĩdo bisital sjuzazəh mah pəkẽja komo əkkaʒuko/

Translation: Although [Accajuco] is situated in the middle of the forest, it is certainly a bustling community filled with life. I remember that when I first passed through the town 3 days ago, I noticed a lot of people were gathered at the town square. It turned out that they were playing music and having a wonderful time! If you ever come to our beautiful kingdom, I absolutely recommend visiting smaller towns like Accajuco.

This is an except from a book called Wagía pa Llomundo, which was written by the famous explorer Peiro Santoh Ferlánz, who was born in Pinal-Weht, and is known for traveling across the Americas, going to places as far as Alhettiya (modern-day Argentina) and Nuyosiri (modern-day New York City), and documenting what he saw in his travels.

Verb Conjugations

There are two different conjugations for regular verbs in Cuvao. There is the a-stem conjugation, which is derived from Spanish verbs ending in -ar, and the e-stem conjugation, which is derived from Spanish verbs ending in -er or -ir. Here are charts demonstrating each conjugation.

a-stem conjugation

	Ind. Sing.	Ind. Plu.	Subj. Sing.	Subj. Plu.
Non-Past	-a	-an	-e	-en
Past	-ama	-aman	-ase	-asen

Participle Past/Non-Past: -azo/and
Infinitive: -al

e-stem conjugation

	Ind. Sing.	Ind. Plu.	Subj. Sing.	Subj. Plu.
Non-Past	-e	-en	-a	-an
Past	-ía	-ían	-ise	-isen

Participle Past/Non-Past: -ezo/end
Infinitive: -el

As you've already noticed, Cuvao does not have any future tense verb forms. Instead, the future tense is formed with the verb il "to go". This means that if you want to say "I am going to speak", you would say "Me ba pa aulal." The future tense construction is as follows:

il "to go" + pa "to" + verb infinitive --> Me ba pa aulal. "I am going to speak"

And if you wish to add a continuous aspect:

il "to go" + pa "to" + tal "to be" + present participle --> Me ba pa tal auland. "I will be speaking."

Irregular Stem Changes

The vast majority of verbs in Cuvao are regular, but there are some that are slightly irregular, such as verbs with slight stem changes. One example is the verb pezel "to beg", which can become me pize "I beg" or noh pizen "we beg". I'll go through some examples of these irregular stem changes.

-e- > -i-

This change only happens when the verb is subjunctive, or when it is non-past indicative. Here are some examples:

pezel "to beg" > me pize "I beg" and me pezía "I begged"

repetel "to repeat" > me repite "I repeat" and me repetía "I repeated"

sewel "to follow" > me siwe "I follow" and me sewía "I followed"

-o- > -u-

This change only happens when the verb is subjunctive, or when it is non-past indicative. Here are some examples:

pozel "to be able to" > me puze "I can" and me pozía "I could"

dommel "to sleep" > me dumme "I sleep" and me dommía "I slept"

-ez- > -ih-

This change only happens when the verb is subjunctive. Here are some examples:

dezel "to say" > ella deze "she says" and (ca) ella diha "(that) she say"

contrezel "to contradict" > ella contreze "she contradicts" and (ca) ella contriha "(that) she contradict"

-uz- > -uh-

This change only happens when the verb is subjunctive. Here are some examples:

conduzel "to lead" > ella conduze "she leads" and (ca) ella conduha "(that) she lead"

trauzel "to translate" > ella trauze "she translates" and (ca) ella trauha "(that) she translate"

In my next post, I'll talk about the highly irregular verbs of Cuvao.

Grammar (cont.) - Highly Irregular Verbs

Many irregular verbs in Cuvao can be explained by a simple stem change, but there are about seven verbs in Cuvao that are highly irregular. Below, I will show the conjugations of each verb.

There Be

	Ind. Sing.	Ind. Plu.	Subj. Sing.	Subj. Plu.
Non-Past	ay	an	aja	ajan
Past	amía	amían	umise	umisen

Participle Past/Non-Past: awzo/amind
Infinitive: awel

To Be

	Ind. Sing.	Ind. Plu.	Subj. Sing.	Subj. Plu.
Non-Past	tá	tán	te	ten
Past	tama	taman	tumise	tumisen

Participle Past/Non-Past: tazo/tand
Infinitive: tal

To Do

	Ind. Sing.	Ind. Plu.	Subj. Sing.	Subj. Plu.
Non-Past	aze	azen	awa	awan
Past	azía	azían	izze (*izise)	izzen (*izisen)

Participle Past/Non-Past: echo/ajend (*aziend)
Infinitive: azel

To Go

	Ind. Sing.	Ind. Plu.	Subj. Sing.	Subj. Plu.
Non-Past	ba	ban	baja	bajan
Past	iwa	iwan	fuera	fueran

Participle Past/Non-Past: izo/yend
Infinitive: il

To Exist

	Ind. Sing.	Ind. Plu.	Subj. Sing.	Subj. Plu.
Non-Past	es	son	sha (*sea)	shan (*sean)
Past	era	eran	fuese	fuesen

Participle Past/Non-Past: sizo/shend (*siend)
Infinitive: sel

To Have

	Ind. Sing.	Ind. Plu.	Subj. Sing.	Subj. Plu.
Non-Past	tine	tinen	tega	tegan
Past	tenía	tenían	tuise	tuisen

Participle Past/Non-Past: tenzo/tenind
Infinitive: tenel

To Wish, Want

	Ind. Sing.	Ind. Plu.	Subj. Sing.	Subj. Plu.
Non-Past	quile	quilen	quila	quilan
Past	quería	querían	quisse	quissen

Participle Past/Non-Past: querzo/quilind
Infinitive: quelel

gokupwned5 wrote: ↑Fri Jul 10, 2020 10:27 am By the way, if any of you have any ideas for what apocalyptic event could plunge the Americas into a Medieval Era without modern technology (or maybe only a little bit), please let me know.

So many to choose from! I imagine your problem is not thinking of apocalyptic events, but choosing between them. I'll run down my shortlist of favourite apocalytpic scenarios.

Ignoring singularity / AI-related / nanotech options which might not leave you with medieval tech across a whole continent...

If you want single catalysts, the obvious ones are, well, obvious (nuclear conflagration, megavolcanism [i.e. Yellowstone] or asteroid big enough somewhere in the world to knock out most agriculture for long enough that most of the human population dies of famine, and those left over aren't numerous or specialist enough to repair global infrastructure; or disease leading to the same effect). Other real possibilities often not well explored in SF: solar flare storm or supernovae messing up electromagnetic equipment; global magnetic polarity switch.

You have to get to the 'most people dying stage' and the rest does itself: what good is a hospital or a factory farm without the people needed to run it? But the slower ways to get to 'most people dying' are more fun. You can 'knock out most agriculture' slowly through the various effects of runaway climate change. Economic collapse (perhaps partly due to resource depletion) could also get you there, since demand outstripping supply will eventially lead to famine. Anti-microbial resistance is a potential factor down the disease route, making bacterial diseases and infection once again forces capable of scouring the life from continents.

Then there is the political side: as Yuval Harari put it, when someone starves today it is because someone somewhere wants them to. The possibilities are too varied to list, but we all know that human folly and foulplay can lead to catastrophic scenarios.

Multiple factors coalescing is your best bet. Good old fashioned Yersinia pestis, eventually resistant to all antibiotics (with an honourable mention to skyrocketing HIV once prophylactics of all kinds have become scarce) plays the part of the catalyst in my apocalypse, but climate-related, economic and political features set all the dominos up in the right order. The world is more connected than ever, and this renders it susceptible to systemic, well, breakage. You just need to find a tipping point that feels right for you and poof. Here's the apocalpyse you ordered.

Grammar (cont.) - Tense Constructions

Given that Cuvao only has two tenses (past and non-past), there are several different constructions that can be used to form new tenses, and I will list those below.

Continuous
Present Continuous: present tense of tal “to be” + present participle of verb
Past Continuous: past tense of tal “to be” + past participle of verb
Future Continuous: present tense of il “to go” + pa “to, for” + infinitive of tal “to be” + present participle of verb

Perfect
Present Perfect: present tense of tenel “to have” + past participle of verb
Pluperfect: past tense of tenel “to have” + past participle of verb
Future Perfect: present tense of il “to go” + pa “to, for” + infinitive of tenel “to have” + past participle of verb

Conditional
Present Conditional: present tense of quelel “to want” + pa “to, for” + verb infinitive
Past Conditional: past tense of quelel “to want” + pa “to, for” + verb infinitive
Future Conditional: present tense of il “to go” + pa “to, for” + infinitive of quelel “to want” + pa “to, for” + verb infinitive

Conditional-Perfect
Present Conditional-Perfect: present tense of tenel “to have” + past participle of quelel “to want” + pa “to, for” + verb infinitive
Past Conditional-Perfect: past tense of tenel “to have” + past participle of quelel “to want” + pa “to, for” + verb infinitive
Future Conditional-Perfect: present tense of il “to go” + pa “to, for” + infinitive of tenel “to have” + past participle of quelel “to want” + pa “to, for” + verb infinitive

sasasha wrote: ↑Sat Jul 11, 2020 11:34 am

gokupwned5 wrote: ↑Fri Jul 10, 2020 10:27 am By the way, if any of you have any ideas for what apocalyptic event could plunge the Americas into a Medieval Era without modern technology (or maybe only a little bit), please let me know.

So many to choose from! I imagine your problem is not thinking of apocalyptic events, but choosing between them. I'll run down my shortlist of favourite apocalytpic scenarios.

Ignoring singularity / AI-related / nanotech options which might not leave you with medieval tech across a whole continent...

If you want single catalysts, the obvious ones are, well, obvious (nuclear conflagration, megavolcanism [i.e. Yellowstone] or asteroid big enough somewhere in the world to knock out most agriculture for long enough that most of the human population dies of famine, and those left over aren't numerous or specialist enough to repair global infrastructure; or disease leading to the same effect). Other real possibilities often not well explored in SF: solar flare storm or supernovae messing up electromagnetic equipment; global magnetic polarity switch.

You have to get to the 'most people dying stage' and the rest does itself: what good is a hospital or a factory farm without the people needed to run it? But the slower ways to get to 'most people dying' are more fun. You can 'knock out most agriculture' slowly through the various effects of runaway climate change. Economic collapse (perhaps partly due to resource depletion) could also get you there, since demand outstripping supply will eventially lead to famine. Anti-microbial resistance is a potential factor down the disease route, making bacterial diseases and infection once again forces capable of scouring the life from continents.

Then there is the political side: as Yuval Harari put it, when someone starves today it is because someone somewhere wants them to. The possibilities are too varied to list, but we all know that human folly and foulplay can lead to catastrophic scenarios.

Multiple factors coalescing is your best bet. Good old fashioned Yersinia pestis, eventually resistant to all antibiotics (with an honourable mention to skyrocketing HIV once prophylactics of all kinds have become scarce) plays the part of the catalyst in my apocalypse, but climate-related, economic and political features set all the dominos up in the right order. The world is more connected than ever, and this renders it susceptible to systemic, well, breakage. You just need to find a tipping point that feels right for you and poof. Here's the apocalpyse you ordered.

Thanks for the advice! I think I'll go the "multiple factors" route. As for my tipping point, I was thinking a nuclear war that ends up wiping out most of the population due to a nuclear winter, and impacts major cities worldwide, like New York, Tokyo, London, etc.

gokupwned5 wrote: ↑Sat Jul 11, 2020 11:47 am

sasasha wrote: ↑Sat Jul 11, 2020 11:34 am

gokupwned5 wrote: ↑Fri Jul 10, 2020 10:27 am ...

...

Thanks for the advice! I think I'll go the "multiple factors" route. As for my tipping point, I was thinking a nuclear war that ends up wiping out most of the population due to a nuclear winter, and impacts major cities worldwide, like New York, Tokyo, London, etc.

Happy to help. Bear in mind the study reported here https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2020/03/ ... al-famine/. Long story short, even a relatively small nuclear war between India and Pakistan would probably cause a nuclear winter severe enough to cause widespread global famine for decades.

sasasha wrote: ↑Sat Jul 11, 2020 12:28 pm

gokupwned5 wrote: ↑Sat Jul 11, 2020 11:47 am

sasasha wrote: ↑Sat Jul 11, 2020 11:34 am
...

Thanks for the advice! I think I'll go the "multiple factors" route. As for my tipping point, I was thinking a nuclear war that ends up wiping out most of the population due to a nuclear winter, and impacts major cities worldwide, like New York, Tokyo, London, etc.

Happy to help. Bear in mind the study reported here https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2020/03/ ... al-famine/. Long story short, even a relatively small nuclear war between India and Pakistan would probably cause a nuclear winter severe enough to cause widespread global famine for decades.

Wow. I can only imagine what a nuclear war on a larger scale would cause then.

gokupwned5 wrote: ↑Sat Jul 11, 2020 12:45 pm

sasasha wrote: ↑Sat Jul 11, 2020 12:28 pm

gokupwned5 wrote: ↑Sat Jul 11, 2020 11:47 am

Thanks for the advice! I think I'll go the "multiple factors" route. As for my tipping point, I was thinking a nuclear war that ends up wiping out most of the population due to a nuclear winter, and impacts major cities worldwide, like New York, Tokyo, London, etc.

Happy to help. Bear in mind the study reported here https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2020/03/ ... al-famine/. Long story short, even a relatively small nuclear war between India and Pakistan would probably cause a nuclear winter severe enough to cause widespread global famine for decades.

Wow. I can only imagine what a nuclear war on a larger scale would cause then.

Ell sellama poclissih pa warazon.

(Sorry, that was probably really poor Cuvao - and makes no sense anyway since apocalypse's etymology is so vanilla - but I was interested to try to apply some of what you've described. Following the linguistic description with interest.)

sasasha wrote: ↑Sat Jul 11, 2020 1:29 pm

gokupwned5 wrote: ↑Sat Jul 11, 2020 12:45 pm

sasasha wrote: ↑Sat Jul 11, 2020 12:28 pm

Happy to help. Bear in mind the study reported here https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2020/03/ ... al-famine/. Long story short, even a relatively small nuclear war between India and Pakistan would probably cause a nuclear winter severe enough to cause widespread global famine for decades.

Wow. I can only imagine what a nuclear war on a larger scale would cause then.

Ell sellama poclissih pa warazon.

(Sorry, that was probably really poor Cuvao - and makes no sense anyway since apocalypse's etymology is so vanilla - but I was interested to try to apply some of what you've described. Following the linguistic description with interest.)

It's alright, and I appreciate your interest! You actually weren't that far off. The only words I didn't understand were ell, which I'm assuming is a definite article or pronoun, and sellama. But poclissih and warazon are nearly on point for typical Cuvao words.