Lisun Ar-Luyuqii

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Isfendil
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Lisun Ar-Luyuqii

Post by Isfendil »

Alright, please be gentle with me, as this is the first time that I am going to post a conlang onto this site. I have filled out the basics of the grammar and am building up the lexicon in a very unfriendly, disorganized google document, but posting to this forum forces me to organize my thoughts, so I finally decided to do it. I will try to do my best to explain "from the beginning", so to speak, but some stuff may be written on assumption.

Some Background
The Lisun Ar-Luyuqii (Which roughly translates to "Tongue of the Drowned") is a Semitic language spoken by a race of religious dissidents and pariah folk collectively known as the Drowned, so named because they live in a cold, turbulent archipelago called the Drowned Isles. The conworld in which these speakers inhabit is geography/astronomy wise completely different from our own world, but this world is still populated by human beings (and their myriad valences), and it has some familiar language families thereby (such as Semitic and Indo-European). It will also, occasionally, have familiar *languages* in those families- there is a wayward dialect of English spoken in a kingdom of this world, for example, and an unusual form of Arabic as well, although neither of these are widespread(ironically though they are geographically adjacent to each other, but that's not relevant yet).

The subject of this thread, the Lisun Al-Luyuqii, is not entirely familiar. It is neither descended from nor closely related to major semitic languages such as Arabic, Aramaic, Akkadian or Hebrew, and while it does have a very small amount in common with South Semitic languages (OSA mostly), Luyuqii has many peculiarities of its own, both in phonology and morphology, that set it apart from other members of the semitic family. (It has a similar definite article to Arabic but this is the only similarity and is coincidental in-universe).

Phonology

Phonological Shifts
Several major shifts have occurred between the hypothetical Proto-Semitic and Luyuqii. Some of these are predictable and have been observed in other Semitic languages while others are unique shifts. A dramatic, presumably early shift is the merging of many of the laryngeal consonants [ħ, ʕ & ɣ] (formerly known as gutturals, if you're confused) into a single phoneme [ʁ]. [x], as well, has been absorbed into [h]. The PS phonemes /ð/ and /θ/ front into /v/ and /f/ resepctively, in an unusual case of labialization. The shins also undergo wild changes. /ʃ/ merges into /s/, much like in Arabic, and /ɬ/ shifted into /z/ while the original phonemic /z/ palatalized. The emphatic consonants /ṣ́, ṣ, ṭ, θ'/ have all shifted into different positions as well. /Ṣ́/ delateralized and then became voiced, turning into /d͡ʒ/, while ṣ underwent the commonly attested shift to /t͡s/, although it palatalizes into /t͡ɕ/ when preceding fronted vowels. Some spoken dialects have seen it shift into /t͡ʃ/ altogether. The /ṭ/ and /θ'/ merge into a depharyngealized /θ/, which is more on the /s̪/ side than anything else.

Phonemes & Allophones

Consonants
/p b t d k g q ʔ/ <p b t d k g q '>
/m n ɾ l j w/ <m n r l y w>
/f v θ s z ʒ ʁ h/ <f v þ s z j x h>
/t͡s t͡ɕ ʧ/ <ç>
/d͡ʒ/ <dj>
/ð/ <d>

/ð/ is an allophone that occurs when /d/ precedes stops and nasals.

Short Vowels
/a ɪ ʊ/ <a i u>
/ə i u/ <a i u>
Long Vowels
/ɐ: i: u:/ <aa ii uu>
Diphthongs, Monophthongs, and the "ä"
/ɑ y o/ <ä ü o>
/aj/ <ay\ai>

There are eight phonemic vowel positions in Luyuqii, which echo the eight proto Semitic phonemic vowels /a, i, u, ā, ī, ū, aj & aw/. The "a" "i" and "u" are /a ɪ ʊ/ respectively when preceding a consonant, /a ĭ ŭ/ when preceding a vowel, and /ə i u/ word-finally. The long vowels except for "aa" are the same in most environments, while one of the PS diphthongs, /aw/, has monophthongized into /o/. /au/ has also undergone this process. "Ä" and "ü" are peculiar cases. The former is what happens when /ɐ:/ is word initial or stressed word final, while the latter occurs when a /ŭ/ becomes adjacent to an /i/ or /j/. Occasionally unstressed, non word-initial /ɪw/ will also become /y/, but this is rare, usually not represented in the orthography.
Spoiler:
Occassionally I will have no choice but to transcribe þ using the arabic letter ث because I do tend to work from mobile a lot and many characters are not available. If you see this and are confused, it's just þ, but if you have trouble reading, don't worry, I will try to replace the ث with þ whenever I can access a computer.
From this point on I will be using the orthography for description and will only be using the IPA sparingly, and in square brackets [].

Phonotactics (?)
Luyuqii's syllable structure is fairly similar to that of Aramaic, in that it can, to some extent, tolerate initial and final two-consonant clusters (many semitic languages only tolerate final). The series of permissable structures is as follows:
(C)CV(C)
(C)VC(C)

However, there are exceptions to this. For one, liquids can never actually be in word-initial position in consonant clusters (an unwritten schwa would be inserted in stems that appear to do this in the orthography). Schwa prefixing or insertion also occurs when a cluster shares both the same place and manner of articulation. This rule also applies to the second and third consonants in a CvCCCV cluster, on the rare occassion that loanwords call for it.

Example Words
Birþus (Magic) - This is a standard CVC-CVC pattern, the underlying form being "Birþ"(CVCC) with a nominative noun case ending "-us".
Sbaatum (Swimming, gerunditive adjective) - CCVC-VC with a valid consonant cluster.
Rwaayum (Social) - in this case there is an untranscribed schwa between the /r/ and the /w/.
Rüyus (Friend) - This is a less-than obvious case of monophthongization- the triliteral root for friendship is RWY, but the stock vowel is a short /i/. The basic Semitic nominal pattern is CvCC-(case ending), so the /iw/ in Riwyus becomes /ü/.
Bolus (A herding domesticate, similar to a bovinesque Ibex) - The actual root is BaWL but in this pattern the theme vowel <a> precedes the <w> and makes <o>.
Last edited by Isfendil on 27 Sep 2016 17:40, edited 5 times in total.
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Re: Lisun Ar-Luyuqii

Post by Isfendil »

I will be posting an intro to nominal patterns next. Is anyone interested in this?
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Re: Lisun Ar-Luyuqii

Post by Iyionaku »

I am interested, and so are many others who don't comment. Usually you do not get very much feedback on your conlangs when they are good and don't raise too many questions. That does not mean, however, that people are not interested. [:)]
Wipe the glass. This is the usual way to start, even in the days, day and night, only a happy one.
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Re: Lisun Ar-Luyuqii

Post by Isfendil »

Iyionaku wrote:I am interested, and so are many others who don't comment. Usually you do not get very much feedback on your conlangs when they are good and don't raise too many questions. That does not mean, however, that people are not interested. [:)]
And here I was feeling utterly demoralized [xD].
But am I not breeching etiquette? Or comitting an organizational faux pas? I mean this is most certainly not my first conlang but it is the first time that I'm making a conlang thread.

At any rate, I will continue at a steadier pace. Thank you very much for responding.
Last edited by Isfendil on 21 Sep 2016 00:11, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Lisun Ar-Luyuqii

Post by Davush »

This looks interesting! It's Semitic yet it doesn't feel very Semitic due to its peculiarities - /y/ being one of them and the loss of pharyngeals/gutturals.

The use of <þ> in a Semitic language strikes me as kind of out of place, I would personally just go with <th> but fair enough if you want to keep this.

I'm also interested to know what a 'gerunditive adjective' is?

Looks good so far.

As an aside, you might already know about Alashian - another Semitic conlang which is cool. https://www.veche.net/alashian
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Re: Lisun Ar-Luyuqii

Post by Isfendil »

Davush wrote:This looks interesting! It's Semitic yet it doesn't feel very Semitic due to its peculiarities - /y/ being one of them and the loss of pharyngeals/gutturals.

The use of <þ> in a Semitic language strikes me as kind of out of place, I would personally just go with <th> but fair enough if you want to keep this.

I'm also interested to know what a 'gerunditive adjective' is?

Looks good so far.

As an aside, you might already know about Alashian - another Semitic conlang which is cool. https://www.veche.net/alashian
Yes, I've heard about Alashian! As I understand it, it's alt semitic from Cyprus, written in the Greek script, which is really cool. Seeing Alashian's stems was what made me take the final plunge into starting Girzôth a few months ago (may it rest in peace), but then I learned how the stems actually worked, and that the noun patterns were anything but random, so I had to abandon it and start from scratch (luckily, Girzoth had a cousin in the lore of the world I put it in, hence why we are here!).

/y/ and /o/ are sort of this language's unique answer to weak roots. I was not particularly fond of how the conjugations of certain weak root nouns (especially weak final) treated the roots as if they didn't exist, so I made this language both a bit more conservative and headed in a different direction than that. If I am told that this is incredibly unrealistic, however, then I can add in the weak stem manipulations, but I am taking a few liberties with this language.

<þ> I decided because it plays nice with most fonts and I didn't want to confuse conjugations of þ with roots that actually have t & h in them. It's more a personal choice of mine, really, given that Luyuqii is not written with the latin script in-universe anyway.

As for the gerunditive adjective, at the moment it is a special pattern that adds an adjectival case ending to the verbal noun.
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Roots as Names Part 1

Post by Isfendil »

Roots as Names

This section is a bit of a primer to the triliteral roots, and the system applied to them for nouns and adjectives (collectively called Samuu, or names) found in Luyuqii, and the particles which are applied to them.
As many of you probably know, Semitic languages are famous for structuring themselves around infixing, prefixing, and suffixing V and CV units into preset triliteral roots. These roots are a combination of three (occasionally more or less, depending on the word's age and etymology) consonants that represent a concept, and then vowels+affixes are added in and around these three letters to make nouns, adjectives, and verbal conjugations, all of which are somehow tied to that underlying concept. The thing that surprised me about Semitic languages- none of the patterns, not even those for nouns, are actually random. Well, that's an over-generalization, but weird is certainly the exception, not the rule. Of course there is a lot of variance as to the purpose of a pattern, to the point where you will only be right perhaps 30-40% of the time if you try to apply a pattern to a root and assume its semantic meaning unless, perhaps, you are a native speaker.

Basic Nominal Pattern
The most basic of the nominal patterns found in all semitic languages (albeit with a variation in system from language to language) are the cat(V)l, cit(V)l, and cut(V)l patterns (the fake root CTL is being used as a dummy here). Different languages may treat this differently, but the pattern generally forms the most basic substantive of the concept that a Semitic root represents. In Luyuqii, this is still true. When in absolute form (more on this later) this pattern is applied to a root and coupled with a case ending.

GLT - the concept of writing.
Giltus - Writing (on a page, on a wall, just physical writing).

'VN - the ear, but also hearing.
'Uvnus - Ear (body part).

And so on.

Understanding the Case System
Proto Semitic had case endings and two grammatical gender inflections for each noun declension (Masculine and Feminine), as well as a slightly modified version of each declension for adjectival cases. Luyuqii has... innovated, in this regard. Owing most likely to its origins as a liturgical language, there are three differing declensions, one of which is only sparingly used, but each type of declension can actually change the meaning or role-in-speech of a word, and in addition to this innovation, the question of gender in Luyuqii has become a bit of a complicated mess. The gender inflections did not fully collapse in Luyuqii, but the semantic value of them has. This is more true of the pronominal system than of the nouns, wherein pronouns that would recognizably be bound to masculine or feminine gender in other Semitic languages (by etymology) have been scrambled, and their semantic value now pertains more to politesse vs. familiarity rather than masculine and feminine.

The case system's treatment of gender has not entirely dissappeared but it has become quite strange.
Luyuqii's case system has three different paradigms in it- two are for noun inflection, while the third is for adjectives. It has three noun/adjectival cases- Nominative/agentive, accusative, and genitive. It inflects for three numbers, as well- Singular, Dual, and Plural.
The two nominal declensions were originally the Masculine and Feminine declensions who's equivalents can be found in other semitic languages such as Classical Arabic or Akkadian (more Akkadian when employed, but that's just a Point of Reference for you).

Take the undeclined form for the Luyuqii word for land, 'Ardj (Root: 'RDj). The formerly masculine nominative suffixes (they're now called the "unmodified" suffixes) for the nominative case in Luyuqii are as follows:

-us, NOM.SG
-un, NOM.DUA
-uu, NOM.PL

So 'Ardjus would in theory be "a land", 'Ardjun would be "two lands", and 'Ardjuu would be "lands".
Now let us suppose that 'Ardj used to be a feminine word (which it actually was. The above words are technically wrong). The formerly feminine (now called "t-infix") nominative suffixes in Luyuqii are as follows:

-(a)tus
-(a)tun
-uu

So the actual word for land in Luyuqii is 'Ardjatus.

Here comes the difficult part. One would assume that animate nouns such as the word for child or adult could take on endings from one of the two declensions in order to show their gender(this is true in almost all other semitic languages). There are of course exceptional words in all semitic languages that break this rule- the word for "mother" in Akkadian takes a masculine ending, for instance- but in Luyuqii, this is not just the exception. There is, in fact, no longer a rule (I'm over-generalizing), nor has there been one for long enough that unique, innately gendered words have been innovated to make up for the gender semantic value of the cases having broken down- and just as well, there are words which have fossilized their feminine t-infix as part of their root (effectively splitting a single tricon root into two separate ones) to retain feminine vs. masculine gender inflection. Example: BN - was and still can mean child, but it split into BYN "son" and BNT "daughter" after this change. The <y> in son simply generated, but the <t> in daughter was copied from the t-infix case ending.
The t-infix declensions gained several new, and eventually more widely recognized uses which were probably related to the Familiar vs. Polite shift in the pronouns- as an honorific for respect or reverence in definite noun phrases (ar-'iltus "the God", the ending shows that the specific god referred to commands respect in the speaker's eyes) and to actually demonstrate a difference in meaning between a prestigious term and a non-prestigious or even stigmatized one (Baariþus, witch, hedge-magus as opposed to Baariþtus, Sorcerer, 'Priest-Magician'). Many terms that were inherently prestigious (the words for members of the religious heirarchy, the word for the rulers of one's own country) are now only declined with a t-infix ending. They did not fossilize it though, like with the word for daughter, as the t-infix does not appear when the root is used for something other than a noun( 'Ardjatus is one such word, for example. The speakers still consider the root to be '-R-Dj but the substantive noun always takes a t-infix ending)

Up next will be a table with the three declensions and an explanation of adjectives, along with some more basic patterns.
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Re: Lisun Ar-Luyuqii

Post by DesEsseintes »

I'm enjoying this. As someone else said, Semitic and not-so-Semitic at the same time.

Two nitpicks:
- it would be nice to see your phoneme inventory arranged strictly according to MoA
- you term the feminine morpheme -(a)t an infix. As a derivational ending that comes before inflectional endings, it would be more natural to call it a suffix, as it is postpended onto the basic stem to form a feminine stem. Inflections are then further suffixed. I hope that makes sense. (An example of an infix would be for example the -t- of Class VIII verbs in Arabic, whereby k-t-b becomes iktataba, etc.)
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Re: Lisun Ar-Luyuqii

Post by qwed117 »

DesEsseintes wrote:I'm enjoying this. As someone else said, Semitic and not-so-Semitic at the same time.

Two nitpicks:
- it would be nice to see your phoneme inventory arranged strictly according to MoA
- you term the feminine morpheme -(a)t an infix. As a derivational ending that comes before inflectional endings, it would be more natural to call it a suffix, as it is postpended onto the basic stem to form a feminine stem. Inflections are then further suffixed. I hope that makes sense. (An example of an infix would be for example the -t- of Class VIII verbs in Arabic, whereby k-t-b becomes iktataba, etc.)
I think he was referring to the t- circumfix (of Berber, the only Afro-Asiatic language I have an understanding of) , or a historic infix
Spoiler:
My minicity is [http://zyphrazia.myminicity.com/xml]Zyphrazia and [http://novland.myminicity.com/xml]Novland.

Minicity has fallen :(
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Re: Lisun Ar-Luyuqii

Post by Isfendil »

DesEsseintes wrote:I'm enjoying this. As someone else said, Semitic and not-so-Semitic at the same time.

Two nitpicks:
- it would be nice to see your phoneme inventory arranged strictly according to MoA
- you term the feminine morpheme -(a)t an infix. As a derivational ending that comes before inflectional endings, it would be more natural to call it a suffix, as it is postpended onto the basic stem to form a feminine stem. Inflections are then further suffixed. I hope that makes sense. (An example of an infix would be for example the -t- of Class VIII verbs in Arabic, whereby k-t-b becomes iktataba, etc.)
Sorry about that, when I was saying t-infix case ending I meant the case ending that has t-infixed into the case ending (between the extra helping vowel and the actual case ending itself).

Also, what is MoA an abbreviation of and how would I arrange the inventory thus? Manner of Articulation? Is that what you mean? That can certainly be amended in the morning.
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Re: Lisun Ar-Luyuqii

Post by All4Ɇn »

Really digging this so far! Hope to see more on the grammar and some sample texts
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Roots as Names Part 2

Post by Isfendil »

All4Ɇn wrote:Really digging this so far! Hope to see more on the grammar and some sample texts
That's the plan! Also, I just hope everyone knows that messages like this are very motivating for authors. At least they are for me. This is why I was so unsure in the beginning and kept asking about interest.

Samuu: Pronouns and the Nominal Declensions

The Three Declensions (I may not be using declensions right, please inform me)
Image

These are the three nominal declensions. As promised, two for nouns (regular and t-infixed) and one for adjectives. As aforementioned, Semitic languages generally used a slightly modified variant of their nominal patterns for adjectives. They usually match their adjective to the noun in case, number, and gender (Usually. As Davush will tell you, in some dialects of Arabic disagreement will occur). They then place the adjective adjacent to the noun being qualified/quantified (which position, whether preceding or following, depends on the individual language). Luyuqii matches cases and number with the noun, it does not have gendered adjectival cases, and the position of the adjective is usually following but there is a fair bit of fluidity. A normal, simple noun phrase:

ar-'Ubbus 'Aradjum|"The loamy blossom."
DEF-blossom-NOM.SG earthy-NOM.SG.ADJ

A slightly more complex one.

Bars-wdjaarum ar-Xaaliþis|"The quivering belly of the mayor."
belly-quiver-NOM.SG.ADJ DEF-mayor-GEN.SG

This fluidity is because of something that you may have already noticed- the adjectival patterns are entirely different from the nominal. Those of you unfamiliar with Semitic may see this as the 'slight variation' that I mentioned, but it really isn't. Usually, semitic adjectives and nouns are or are almost identical. They are normally derived (presumably!) directly from the nominal declensions. Luyuqii's adjectival cases are borrowed- they are a gender-collapsed form of the noun cases from another language known as Mesarian (Lašn Mešarim in their own tongue), a now-extinct "east" semitic language spoken by a people who's literature was very popular in the society where the Luyuqii lived pre-exile("east" is in quotes because it refers to our world's classification, and not the geographic location in the conworld's). The popularity of spoken poetry specifically had a great effect on the speakers of nascent Luyuqii, especially on the religious shamans who's descendants would formally write the liturgy of the Luyuqii's religion and inadvertently standardize Luyuqii's grammar because of it (the liturgical language anchors the spoken and literary language due to high prestige).

The Construct Forms

Before we learn about the Pronouns and the other nominal patterns, a staple of the semitic languages' nouns is the construct form. The nuances vary from language to language (as I understand it) but generally this is a fusing of a nominative word to a genitive word to form a bound constituent(I think I'm getting the terminology wrong). This constituent can even look like agglutination in some semitic languages (hebrew is what comes to mind for me). Luyuqii has two systems that pass as construct arrangement- one is a type of irregular pattern for singular nouns, while the other is meant for adjectival phrases. The former is evidenced in the name of the language itself:

Lisun is in a nominative construct pattern {CvCuC} that is used to show that the noun is definite, singular, and is bound to the genitive noun which follows it. The actual basic substantive noun (with a case ending) for "tongue" is lisnus. The full phrase is the title of this thread, Lisun al-Luyuqii, or Tongue of the Drowned (Luyuqus is one who is drowned, from LYQ, meaning "to cough"). The <u> in CvCuC can be interchanged with an <a> to make an accusative construct. Plurals are never in construct form.
Luyuqii has another construct state that it employs, and once again, you've already seen it ("The quivering belly). It is called the adjectival construct, and it is formed by taking a noun that has an adjective bound to it in a genitive phrase, and removing its case-ending. Number and case can be extrapolated from the adjective. Definiteness can be specified with one of the definite articles (you've not seen the second kind) although generally it is left to context. This is essentially a removal of an extraneous case ending but in Luyuqii these words are now considered bound to each other. Furthermore, the adjective can no longer be moved, it must always follow the noun in such form.

Nominal Patterns Showcase

This is probably the Spiced Meat and Potatoes that some of you've been waiting for. These are some of the basic, most regular nominal patterns that Luyuqii applies to its roots in order to bring forth derived forms. You have already been expose to the CvCC (citl catl cutl) form, which as aforementioned is pan semitic and expresses the most basic semantic noun value that the root's concept can produce. There are many more forms than the ones that I am about to describe, some of which are arguably as regularly applied as they (as far as they can be, remember what I said about 30-40%) but this is so that you can get the gist of how Semitic languages derive their nouns*1.

For Nouns->
>CvCaaC: This is a basic pattern, but ironically is probably the least regular one on this list. It's generally used to express a physical object or technique associated with the verbal expression of the concept (see why it's so unpredictable?). It is one of the most common patterns. When in NOM.SG or NOM.DUA, it does not receive a case ending.
Lisaan - A taste or flavour of something. From LSN, which has to do with the tongue.
Gilaat - A book. From GLT which is writing.
'Ubaab - A blossom that is blooming, or a stem of a blooming plant. This is what they call their verbal stems, by the way. From 'BB, which has to do with blossoms.
Subaat - Fins. Any kind of them. From SBT which has to do with swimming.

>maCCvC: This is a fairly regular pattern, and very productive. This may actually go above that 40% mark. It is called the Instrumentative pattern, and has to do specifically with objects that perform tasks which are heavily associated with or simply are the root concept. These will always take a case ending save for construct forms.
Mabriþus - A magician's staff. From BRþ, which is general magic.
Mabrasus - A belt. From BRS, which has to do with the belly.
Maxliþus - Town Council. This one's weird to you, but it is as I said before. From XLþ, meaning neighbours and neighbourhoods.
Madjxulus - Hammer. From DjXL, meaning "to break".

>CaaCvC: This is sometimes called the Do-er pattern. It applies to roots whose concepts have people actively working with them. When in NOM.SG or NOM.DUA, it does not receive a case ending.
Çaariq - Spitter. One who spits. It's, predictably, used as an insult. From ÇRQ, which has to do with spit.
Naadun - Giver. From NDN, "to give".
Baariþ - Sorcerer. From aforementioned BRþ.
Zaarrus - Magistrate, Governor. Hah! Thought it would be easy, did you? Well it still is, I'm just joking. The only quirk here is that many roots with a double glide or rhotic at the end omit their theme vowel and thus the case ending returns to compensate. This word is from ZRR "to govern, to ordinate" (not "to rule"!).

For Adjectives->
>CaCvC: This is to adjectives what the CvCC pattern is to nouns. Understand, however, that the meaning of the noun pattern does not necessarily transfer to the adjectival, nor does the presence of one pattern for any given root imply the existence of the other. Some roots are even entirely just for adjectives (or just adjectives and verbs but not nouns). Adjectival patterns almost always get a case ending.
'Asiyum - Visible (in a social sense). From 'SY, having to do with the concept of witnessing.
Lafiyum - Historical (in a non-academic sense). Sort in reference to the past version of someone. From LFY, which has to do with the concept of the past.
Nawaxum - Deep. "This is a deep well". From NWX, which deals with the deep, which is one of those exclusively adjectival patterns I was talking about.

>CuCCuC: This is the transitive intensive adjective (I know it's a mouthful, but the title is apt. Pay head to it). It, like many adjectival patterns in semitic languages, is derived from a verb stem. A verb stem is a pattern or collection of related patterns applied to a root to make one component of a verb conjugation (more on this later). The stem that this is derived from is the Intensive stem, which creates a word with an intensified verbal meaning, but the internal vowels are different from the verbal form of the intensive stem.
Wudjdjurum - Quaking. Vibrating to an extreme degree. From WDjR meaning "to shake".
Djuxxulum - Obliterated. From aforementioned DjXL.
Burruþum - Ensorcelled, enchanted. Specifically for ancient and important incantations, fixtures, or objects. From aforementioned BRþ.

>CCaaC/CvCaaC: This adjectival pattern is called the gerunditive adjective. This is also a nominal pattern when given a nominal case ending but is employed more as an adjective with the adjectival case ending. It is only applied to roots with verbal semantic possibilities (these usually have an <i> or <u> vowel in their CvCC basic substantive). It gerundizes the verb, then applies it as an adjective. You've seen it already. Notice how there is a variant? The second form, CvCaaC, is used when the initial consonant is a liquid, glottal stop, or an affricate.
Sbaatum - Swimming. Context is like "The swimming otters" and so forth. From aforementioned SBT. This is regular.
Glaatum - Writing. This can also mean studious or scholarly but specifically is to do with qualifying someone with the act of writing. From aforementioned GLT.
'Isaayum - Discovered. The semantic value is questionable. The form has a word initial glottal stop. From aforementioned 'SY.

Closing Remarks: This is limited information, but despite what I told you, see if you can't try and derive more adjectives and nouns that I may not have added to these examples, just as a fun personal exercise. I'm fairly certain that semitic speakers will try this tactic at least once. Or you can not do thatand then accuse me of patronizing you fine folks.

The Pronouns
Image

Each pronoun corresponds to the role given in the paradigm. IND is independent, and functions as its own word. Independent pronouns are also used in copula phrases. ACC is accusative for passive and verbal sentences in which a pronoun stands in for the subject, and ENC is enclitic. Enclitics suffix themselves to other words and can denote possession, agency, or the accusative or dative case, and so on. The exact purpose varies depending on whether it is attached to a noun, adjective, or individual verbal stem, but these variances are regular (for example, it is always a possessive when attached to a noun: Gilaatni "My book").

The polite versus familiar/vulgar divide is very strict in this case. One uses polite pronouns to refer to those who command respect or, again, a person in a prestige position. Places in the Polite Pronoun tab that are empty refer to the lack of use/collapsing of that pronoun with the familiar one to make a common form (use the familiar for those cases).

Alright! Next we will learn about copular phrases, prepositional phrases, and the definite articles. Questions are answerable in the meantime. (Ask them, University is heating up for me so the next part may be a while).

*1:
Spoiler:
(If you want to learn more about this, try and wrap your head around Semitic Nominal Patterns by Joshua Fox, which was indispensable. I have a pdf if you wish it. Also, thanks is in order to Davush, who helped me understand just how much freedom one can have with these
protondonor
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Re: Lisun Ar-Luyuqii

Post by protondonor »

This is cool! The look and feel is quite different from other Semitic languages that I'm familiar with but still obviously Semitic.
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Isfendil
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Re: Lisun Ar-Luyuqii

Post by Isfendil »

protondonor wrote:This is cool! The look and feel is quite different from other Semitic languages that I'm familiar with but still obviously Semitic.
I am so glad people are interested. What semitic languages are you familiar with, if I may ask?
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Re: Lisun Ar-Luyuqii

Post by protondonor »

Isfendil wrote:
protondonor wrote:This is cool! The look and feel is quite different from other Semitic languages that I'm familiar with but still obviously Semitic.
I am so glad people are interested. What semitic languages are you familiar with, if I may ask?
I'm (sadly) not fluent in any Semitic languages but I've had some exposure to Modern Hebrew and Maghrebi Arabic. I was also thinking of Tamasheq for some reason when I made that post, although it is of course not a Semitic language. (It was early on a Monday morning, is my excuse.)
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Re: Lisun Ar-Luyuqii

Post by Keenir »

very nice work. the Drowned sound like an intriging folk and place.
Isfendil wrote:
Iyionaku wrote:I am interested, and so are many others who don't comment. Usually you do not get very much feedback on your conlangs when they are good and don't raise too many questions. That does not mean, however, that people are not interested. [:)]
And here I was feeling utterly demoralized [xD].
But am I not breeching etiquette?
nope: its a common concern.
Or comitting an organizational faux pas? I mean this is most certainly not my first conlang but it is the first time that I'm making a conlang thread.
kudos! and welcome.
At work on Apaan: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4799
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Re: Lisun Ar-Luyuqii

Post by Davush »

Looking good so far! ُEnjoying watching this develop.

The development of adjectives and a politeness marker strike me as the most 'divergent' aspect of this section. Also just for reference, in your example of "The quivering belly of the mayor" the Arabic word order would be 'belly-the.mayor-the.quivering'. The construct state seems to work quite differently from the Arabic as well, which is interesting.

Regarding the nominal root patterns - are these the only forms that exist? While Semitic languages tend towards certain root patterns as you know, I think there's also quite a lot of room for 'rarer' patterns and loanwords, etc. which may not comply exactly with the more common patterns?

Your gerunditive adjective is a bit unclear, it seems to correspond to the Arabic present participle:
i.e. kaatib - writing, one who writes
al-rajul al-kaatib - the man who is writing/writes

naaʔim - sleeping, one who sleeps
al-banaat al-naaʔimaat - the sleeping girls

What would the difference between say saabit and sbaatum be?
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Re: Lisun Ar-Luyuqii

Post by Isfendil »

Davush wrote:Looking good so far! ُEnjoying watching this develop.

The development of adjectives and a politeness marker strike me as the most 'divergent' aspect of this section. Also just for reference, in your example of "The quivering belly of the mayor" the Arabic word order would be 'belly-the.mayor-the.quivering'. The construct state seems to work quite differently from the Arabic as well, which is interesting.
Thank you for the praise!

Given that gender, a trait found in all semitic languages, collapsed to produce that marker relationship, I should hope that it seems incredibly divergent. As for the word order in the construct, there is some fluidity to be had. It working differently is because apparently it can work differently- when you told me about construct in Arabic and I looked it up, then compared it to Akkadian, the two turned out to be rather different in execution. This is simply another difference. I thought it ought to be given that this is a unique branch of the family with other radical differences.
Regarding the nominal root patterns - are these the only forms that exist? While Semitic languages tend towards certain root patterns as you know, I think there's also quite a lot of room for 'rarer' patterns and loanwords, etc. which may not comply exactly with the more common patterns?
I mentioned this in the introduction to the nominal patterns that these are just a small sample of even the most regular patterns and that there are many more. I am unfortunately not following in W. von Soden's grammar-writing footsteps quite yet. Also in most grammars I see, the wordlist is at the very end.
Your gerunditive adjective is a bit unclear, it seems to correspond to the Arabic present participle:
i.e. kaatib - writing, one who writes
al-rajul al-kaatib - the man who is writing/writes

naaʔim - sleeping, one who sleeps
al-banaat al-naaʔimaat - the sleeping girls

What would the difference between say saabit and sbaatum be?
There is little difference, they are almost like etymological cousins. I simply call mine the gerunditive adjective because it is considered an adjective and actually changes when it's used as a noun to that very CaaCvC.
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Re: Lisun Ar-Luyuqii

Post by Ahzoh »

This language is appealing as a lover of Semitic languages.
It also gives me inspiration for Vrkhazhian.
Image Śād Warḫallun (Vrkhazhian) [ WIKI | CWS ]
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Re: Lisun Ar-Luyuqii

Post by Isfendil »

Ahzoh wrote:This language is appealing as a lover of Semitic languages.
It also gives me inspiration for Vrkhazhian.
This is insiring something in Vrkhazhian? How? I thought Vrkhazhian was a fully realized language, superior in age and development to Luyuqii. I am very pleased. Or do you mean that you're inspired to pick it back up again?
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