The Great Exposition of Ruykkarraber

[Arayaz]

The Great Exposition of Ruykkarraber

I'm finally doing a full writeup of Ruykkarraber! I'm gonna post it section-by-section here.

Table of Contents:

• Consonants
• Vowels

• Nominal Inflection

• Verbs 1: Tense and Nominalization
• Verbs 2: Auxiliaries Kra, Kruy, and Ig

• Talking about Mark Rosenfelder

[Arayaz]

Phonology

Consonants

Ruykkarraber has ten phonemic consonants, one of them marginal:

/b t d k/
/s/
/m n/
/ɾ j/

/m/ occurs very rarely, and by pure coincidence, it has no minimal pair with /n/.

All consonants other than /j/ and /m/ may be geminated; geminate /ɾ/ becomes [r]. It is generally theorized that /m/ only lacks a geminated form due to its limited occurrence and that /j/ refuses gemination due to the fact that it is a glide. In fact, there is evidence that /jj/ was historically a valid form, but later merged with /j/: naday "sparse" and yesu "land" compound as nadayesu "desert," with a single /j/, rather than *nadayyesu.

Consonant Allophony

The voiced stops /b/, /d/, and /g/ may lenite to [β, ð, ɣ]. Geminates never lenite.

The sequences /sb/, /sd/, and /sg/ assimilate to [sp], [st], and [sk]. [p] does not occur otherwise.

[Khemehekis]

In fact, there is evidence that /jj/ was historically a valid form, but later merged with /j/: naday "sparse" and yesu "land" compound as nadayesu "desert," with a single /j/, rather than *nadayyesu.

Oh, I love these sort of "playing God, but not quite playing an omniscient God" things. "There is evidence . . .", but then again, "We don't know for sure".

[Arayaz]

Vowels

Ruykkarraber phonemically distinguishes only four vowels: /a e i u/.

In addition to these, there are six diphthongs: /aj ej uj aw ew iw/. /ej/ is more often realized as [ɛj].

The offglides of the diphthongs often alternate with high vowels in suffixed forms. Take, for instance, the past tense morpheme: it appears as -ir after a consonant or diphthong, but -yr after a single vowel. (Since /ij/ and /uw/ are not valid diphthongs, there are repair strategies: iy becomes ey in a syllable nucleus, but uw simply becomes u.

[Arayaz]

Nominal Inflection

Ruykkarraber is very noun-centered in a lot of ways. It has four noun cases, and also distinguishes two numbers.

The plural is a suffix -i after a consonant or -y after a vowel. It may only be applied to natural nouns (i.e. not to nominalized verbs).

The four cases may be labeled 1, 2, 3, and 4 due to their wide range of uses; however, I have opted for the more mnemonic terminology nominative, accusative, ergative, and absolutive. Please note that these are not by any means their only uses.

The subject of a transitive verb is its agent, and its object its patient; an intransitive verb's subject is the agent in a non-nominalized clause and its patient in a nominalized clause or participle.

Thanks to WeepingElf for correcting my previous faulty terminology.

The Nominative
The unmarked form of the noun. Used for the agents of non-nominalized verbs.

The Accusative
Indicated with a suffix -(e)n. Used for the patients of non-nominalized verbs.

The Ergative
Indicated with a suffix -(e)s. Used for the agents of nominalized verbs and participles, the objects of some prepositions, and may be used for possessors when expressing relationships.

The Absolutive
Indicated with a suffix -(e)g. Used for the patients of nominalized verbs and participles, the objects of some prepositions, and the indirect objects of ditransitive verbs (in some dialects only).

[WeepingElf]

Please don't use the word "experiencer" for 'intransitive subject'. It's WRONG. Rather, "experiencer" is a semantic role that may or may not be an intransitive subject. Many, in fact, most intransitive subjects aren't experiencers.

[Arayaz]

Please don't use the word "experiencer" for 'intransitive subject'. It's WRONG. Rather, "experiencer" is a semantic role that may or may not be an intransitive subject. Many, in fact, most intransitive subjects aren't experiencers.

Thank you; I've looked it up, and of course, I was misinformed, as usual. Thanks again; I'll update my original post.

[WeepingElf]

Please don't use the word "experiencer" for 'intransitive subject'. It's WRONG. Rather, "experiencer" is a semantic role that may or may not be an intransitive subject. Many, in fact, most intransitive subjects aren't experiencers.

Thank you; I've looked it up, and of course, I was misinformed, as usual. Thanks again; I'll update my original post.

This error is common enough; even Mark Rosenfelder did it in his grammar of Old Skourene. I think the source was a web site by Justin B. Rye which tried - but failed - to explain ergativity, but I cannot find it on his web site, so he may have taken it down after being told that he had done things wrong there.

[Arayaz]

Please don't use the word "experiencer" for 'intransitive subject'. It's WRONG. Rather, "experiencer" is a semantic role that may or may not be an intransitive subject. Many, in fact, most intransitive subjects aren't experiencers.

Thank you; I've looked it up, and of course, I was misinformed, as usual. Thanks again; I'll update my original post.

This error is common enough; even Mark Rosenfelder did it in his grammar of Old Skourene. I think the source was a web site by Justin B. Rye which tried - but failed - to explain ergativity, but I cannot find it on his web site, so he may have taken it down after being told that he had done things wrong there.

And Mark Rosenfelder is of course where I learned the term...

[WeepingElf]

Please don't use the word "experiencer" for 'intransitive subject'. It's WRONG. Rather, "experiencer" is a semantic role that may or may not be an intransitive subject. Many, in fact, most intransitive subjects aren't experiencers.

Thank you; I've looked it up, and of course, I was misinformed, as usual. Thanks again; I'll update my original post.

This error is common enough; even Mark Rosenfelder did it in his grammar of Old Skourene. I think the source was a web site by Justin B. Rye which tried - but failed - to explain ergativity, but I cannot find it on his web site, so he may have taken it down after being told that he had done things wrong there.

And Mark Rosenfelder is of course where I learned the term...

I see. Actually, what he wrote shows that he had not really understood ergativity when he wrote it. Actually, I think Mark Rosenfelder is a vastly overrated conlanger - his Eastern languages (the family Verdurian belongs to) are nice, but not very original (it's basically a rip-off of Indo-European, and Verdurian itself is clearly the work of a teenager who pillaged the major modern languages of Europe for words), while all the others are mediocre and do not feel realistic to me. Yet, his conworld is impressive for the amount of detail he has worked out, and few of us can proudly profess to have created more than 20 well-rounded conlangs.

[Knox Adjacent]

Finally someone says it.

[Arayaz]

I see. Actually, what he wrote shows that he had not really understood ergativity when he wrote it. Actually, I think Mark Rosenfelder is a vastly overrated conlanger - his Eastern languages (the family Verdurian belongs to) are nice, but not very original (it's basically a rip-off of Indo-European, and Verdurian itself is clearly the work of a teenager who pillaged the major modern languages of Europe for words), while all the others are mediocre and do not feel realistic to me. Yet, his conworld is impressive for the amount of detail he has worked out, and few of us can proudly profess to have created more than 20 well-rounded conlangs.

I was going to say something along the same lines, but didn't want to risk starting a debate ─ but yes, I'd agree. I can't imagine why Verdurian won a Smiley Award (well, I can: it's famous). I do greatly respect Mark Rosenfelder, of course, just not for his conlangs.

There are many people who try to do conworlding, writing, and conlanging ─ it's something of a trinity. I do all three, at least I try to. Mark Rosenfelder is excellent at conworlding, and while I haven't read his novels, I think he's a good writer, too; conlanging is just the one he is the least good at. (Meanwhile, I'd say that conlanging is my strong suit of the three ─ not necessarily because I have skill in it, but I at least have motivation, which I often don't for the other areas.)

[WeepingElf]

To be fair, one has to consider two things.

1. Almea started as a setting for a Dungeons & Dragons game when Mark Rosenfelder was in high school. This shows in a number of points, you can even recognize the D&D playable races: elcari are essentially Dwarves, flaids are essentially Halflings, and ilii are essentially Elves, even if all of them are superficially quite different from their standard D&D versions. Verdurian originally wasn't a diachronic conlang; Rosenfelder pieced it together from various modern European languages. Later, he worked backwards from Verdurian to Cadhinor and then from Cadhinor to Proto-Eastern; doing that is never easy, and it explains why some of the sound changes seem so contrived.

2. The Almean languages are technically exolangs. Almea is an alien planet, and even the dominant species, the Uesti or "Almean humans", are different from us, even if they are extremely similar to Earth humans. And of course, we know nothing about what kind of languages may have evolved on an alien planet, so anything is possible (as long as it works). Yet, cases like the Old Skourene grammar show that Rosenfelder sometimes used features he did not understand well, which he should have better avoided.

[DesEsseintes]

Charming thread of conversation. This is basically how I read it:

"Mark Rosenfelder is WRONG and doesn't understand transitivity because he called intrans subjs Experiencers!!! I also hate all his conlangs!!!!"

But idk. I’m just strange like that.

[Khemehekis]

Personally, I don't hate Verdurian. I think it would be a pretty cool language if it weren't for just one thing -- namely, that this is supposed to be an extraterrestrial language, yet too many of the native words to be explained by a coincidence sound just like their equivalents in some well-known European language for suspension of disbelief.

I mean, think of it this way: if some guy told you that he had made contact with an alien race light-years from Earth and learned their language, yet after a few minutes, he told you that the word for "heart" was korazon, the word for "to exaggerate" was eksadjerar, the word for "to reciprocate" was reziprokar, and the word for "to incentivize" was inzentivizar, would you believe him?

Here's a guy who claims to be the contactee of people from the planet Korendor:

http://berkshire.net/~brenaud/HTML/KorLangNdx.htm

When I asked Bob in email why so many of his body parts sounded like their Latin equivalents, he told me that Latin and Korendian were both descended from the same cosmic language. Really? I thought Latin was descended from PIE. Also note the alpjabet: letters for most of the sounds of English, but no non-English sounds (not even the SF&F staple /x/!) And the conjugation of "to be" relexes English's forms?

[Arayaz]

Charming thread of conversation. This is basically how I read it:

"Mark Rosenfelder is WRONG and doesn't understand transitivity because he called intrans subjs Experiencers!!! I also hate all his conlangs!!!!"

But idk. I’m just strange like that.

If you have a different opinion, feel free to state it.

I'd say the conversation was more as follows, though:

Mark Rosenfelder misused several terms regarding ergativity when he wrote his Old Skourene grammar and some other resources, and that misuse misinformed future conlangers, including Arayaz. Also, his conlangs are overrated and mediocre, Verdurian especially since it's a euroclone.

[WeepingElf]

I'd say the conversation was more as follows, though:

Mark Rosenfelder misused several terms regarding ergativity when he wrote his Old Skourene grammar and some other resources, and that misuse misinformed future conlangers, including Arayaz. Also, his conlangs are overrated and mediocre, Verdurian especially since it's a euroclone.

Yes, that's how I meant it, And I wouldn't say that Mark's conlangs were actually bad - they are just not as good as some people believe, and as I said, the whole shebang has rather juvenile beginnings (a teenage boy's D&D campaign setting), and that shows. That said, Almea is an impressive creation, even if it has some weak point, and Mark Rosenfelder comes close to being "the Tolkien of our time", at least he is IMHO a better candidate for that title than George R. R. Martin who is frequently adorned with that title. (And there are issues with Tolkien's world and languages, too! For starters, how much sense does hereditary monarchy make in an immortal people? And how does language change work with them? Not to mention the problem of racial stereotypes.)

But we have strayed quite far from the topic here.

[Khemehekis]

And let's not forget that not every conlang or conworld teen-agers create is bad. I was a teen-age boy when I started Kankonian and Shaleyan, and invented the planet Kankonia and drew many of the sapient species of Lehola with their planet names. And Arayaz has done some impressive work (like with her color language) at 13 or even 12.

I should note, though, that I've never played Dungeons & Dragons nor similar games, nor did I have any friends who did, so my conlanging and conworlding weren't based on a D&D world. If anything, I think the biggest influence for my teen-age conworlding was SimEarth. Carniferns! Trichordates! Planets that aren't Earth evolving many of the same species as Earth! Sapients arising from many dieferent taxonomic lines (sapient cetaceans, parrots, cephalopods, etc.)!

[Arayaz]

And let's not forget that not every conlang or conworld teen-agers create is bad. I was a teen-age boy when I started Kankonian and Shaleyan, and invented the planet Kankonia and drew many of the sapient species of Lehola with their planet names. And Arayaz has done some impressive work (like with her color language) at 13 or even 12.

Oh, certainly! Several other people on the CBB are teenagers ─ Flavia and GoshDiggityDangit, I think, and Sketch.

Edit: There's an account on here that is sketch, and one that is _Just_A_Sketch ─ I don't think they're the same person? The former said he was a teenager, and I think the latter is too, but am not sure.

[Khemehekis]

Oh, certainly! Several other people on the CBB are teenagers ─ Flavia and GoshDiggityDangit, I think, and Sketch.

Edit: There's an account on here that is sketch, and one that is _Just_A_Sketch ─ I don't think they're the same person? The former said he was a teenager, and I think the latter is too, but am not sure.

_Just_A_Sketch is a transgirl, so if Sketch is a boy, they're probably different people -- unless Sketch was her older account from before when she transitioned.