Categorizing Etihus

[cntrational]

Let's see what Kankonian has words for . . .

"bootstrap", -- no word for this
"Hawking radiation", -- no word for this
"sandhi", -- nethudas (native Kankonian/Tze*ethik)
"binomial theorem", -- bavedam edkun (bavedam is native Kankonian/Tze*ethik, edkun is from the Ciladian, ed (two) + kun (name))
"Linux distro", -- they don't have Linux on Kankonia, so no word for this
"kaiju", -- no word for this
"cheddar cheese", -- tsheda (borrowed from English; Kankonians haven't domesticated the cow so they don't make cow's milk cheeses)
"Zeitgeist", -- goraya (native Kankonian/Tze*ethik)
"terminal emulator", -- no word for this
"non-standard analysis", -- maybe they can just say sughu (analysis) + tekliu (nonstandard)?
"Currywurst", -- no word for this
"tau", -- zhorah (arbitrary coinage) for the lepton, harozh (the tau lepton backwards) for the neutrino, tau (from Greek) for the Greek letter
"d-pad", -- no word for this
"poutine" -- no word for this
"dungeonpunk"? -- no word for this

You could coin conworld-external terms for some of these -- what the conworlders or yourself would use if they existed. Verdurian has a list of vocab for stuff like computers and Earth places, but they're obviously not "canon", as such.

Also, that's tau the number. I added links with every word so that there wouldn't be any disputes of what I mean in particular.

[Ahzoh]

Why would I need a separate word for poutine when I could just take the guy's name?

[HoskhMatriarch]

I don't understand?

Quite often, etymology ceases to have meaning when the compound becomes its own unit.

To pick an extreme example, the Danish word for 50 is halvtreds, literally "half-third". It ultimately derives from halvtredsindstyve, "half-third times twenty", that is, [(3 - 0.5) * 20].

Yet no Danish person thinks in these terms. They just think it's 50.

And this etymological forgetting is a good thing! It allows languages to coin words for new things that a literal use of old words cannot define!

You also get mad at English for loanwords and non-obvious compounds, but, your language, as it stands, would have great difficulty in describing most anything. If you dispute this, please answer the following questino with examples: how would you derive bootstrap", "Hawking radiation", "sandhi", "binomial theorem", "Linux distro", "kaiju", "cheddar cheese", "Zeitgeist", "terminal emulator", "non-standard analysis", "Currywurst", "tau", "d-pad", "poutine", and "dungeonpunk"? This isn't super-obscure shit, all of them are words and concepts that I regularly deal with and use. How does your language handle them?

Some of those are pretty obscure, even if you use them regularly. I don't expect people to know Chaoskampf, twelve-tone method, scramasax, phrasal compound, or Neo-Romanticism, even if I use these kinds of words fairly often. Also, my conworld doesn't even have very much in the way of science or technology (well, they have science, but it's things with practical uses to not-super-technologically-advanced people like geology and meteorology, not like string theory or cosmology), and I don't personally use some of those words you mentioned either, so why would my conlang have Hawking radiation, terminal emulator, or Linux distro? (I'm also pretty sure even if they had personal computers, they still wouldn't have Linux specifically.) My conworld is at the technology level where people walk around the streets of major cities at sunset lighting the gas lampposts with flames while people ride around on horses, and I like that fine... That also means that my conlang will have a lot of words for low technology, hand-to-hand weapons, and other things that other conlangs won't have, and I'm not going to go around freaking out because people don't have words for candlelight, horse riding, dragonslayers, or double-edged battleaxes in their space-faring alien conlang.

[qwed117]

I don't understand?

Quite often, etymology ceases to have meaning when the compound becomes its own unit.

To pick an extreme example, the Danish word for 50 is halvtreds, literally "half-third". It ultimately derives from halvtredsindstyve, "half-third times twenty", that is, [(3 - 0.5) * 20].

Yet no Danish person thinks in these terms. They just think it's 50.

And this etymological forgetting is a good thing! It allows languages to coin words for new things that a literal use of old words cannot define!

You also get mad at English for loanwords and non-obvious compounds, but, your language, as it stands, would have great difficulty in describing most anything. If you dispute this, please answer the following questino with examples: how would you derive bootstrap", "Hawking radiation", "sandhi", "binomial theorem", "Linux distro", "kaiju", "cheddar cheese", "Zeitgeist", "terminal emulator", "non-standard analysis", "Currywurst", "tau", "d-pad", "poutine", and "dungeonpunk"? This isn't super-obscure shit, all of them are words and concepts that I regularly deal with and use. How does your language handle them?

Some of those are pretty obscure, even if you use them regularly. I don't expect people to know Chaoskampf, twelve-tone method, scramasax, phrasal compound, or Neo-Romanticism, even if I use these kinds of words fairly often. Also, my conworld doesn't even have very much in the way of science or technology (well, they have science, but it's things with practical uses to not-super-technologically-advanced people like geology and meteorology, not like string theory or cosmology), and I don't personally use some of those words you mentioned either, so why would my conlang have Hawking radiation, terminal emulator, or Linux distro? (I'm also pretty sure even if they had personal computers, they still wouldn't have Linux specifically.)

New Words: building, skyscraper, house, space elevator, artificial satellite, moon base, propulsion, home, home planet, reentry, shuttle, ferry, tram, metro, train, subway. Those words should be commonplace for a space age civilization.

[HoskhMatriarch]

I don't understand?

Quite often, etymology ceases to have meaning when the compound becomes its own unit.

To pick an extreme example, the Danish word for 50 is halvtreds, literally "half-third". It ultimately derives from halvtredsindstyve, "half-third times twenty", that is, [(3 - 0.5) * 20].

Yet no Danish person thinks in these terms. They just think it's 50.

And this etymological forgetting is a good thing! It allows languages to coin words for new things that a literal use of old words cannot define!

You also get mad at English for loanwords and non-obvious compounds, but, your language, as it stands, would have great difficulty in describing most anything. If you dispute this, please answer the following questino with examples: how would you derive bootstrap", "Hawking radiation", "sandhi", "binomial theorem", "Linux distro", "kaiju", "cheddar cheese", "Zeitgeist", "terminal emulator", "non-standard analysis", "Currywurst", "tau", "d-pad", "poutine", and "dungeonpunk"? This isn't super-obscure shit, all of them are words and concepts that I regularly deal with and use. How does your language handle them?

Some of those are pretty obscure, even if you use them regularly. I don't expect people to know Chaoskampf, twelve-tone method, scramasax, phrasal compound, or Neo-Romanticism, even if I use these kinds of words fairly often. Also, my conworld doesn't even have very much in the way of science or technology (well, they have science, but it's things with practical uses to not-super-technologically-advanced people like geology and meteorology, not like string theory or cosmology), and I don't personally use some of those words you mentioned either, so why would my conlang have Hawking radiation, terminal emulator, or Linux distro? (I'm also pretty sure even if they had personal computers, they still wouldn't have Linux specifically.)

New Words: building, skyscraper, house, space elevator, artificial satellite, moon base, propulsion. Those words should be commonplace for a space civilization.

Building is not a new word, and house is especially not a new word... Very old civilizations have had buildings and houses... Also, I think space-age people might not even have houses or buildings, at least not if they just live on their spaceships... But yeah, every time I hear the word "building" and especially "house", I just can't help but think of Star Trek...

[qwed117]

I don't understand?

Quite often, etymology ceases to have meaning when the compound becomes its own unit.

To pick an extreme example, the Danish word for 50 is halvtreds, literally "half-third". It ultimately derives from halvtredsindstyve, "half-third times twenty", that is, [(3 - 0.5) * 20].

Yet no Danish person thinks in these terms. They just think it's 50.

And this etymological forgetting is a good thing! It allows languages to coin words for new things that a literal use of old words cannot define!

You also get mad at English for loanwords and non-obvious compounds, but, your language, as it stands, would have great difficulty in describing most anything. If you dispute this, please answer the following questino with examples: how would you derive bootstrap", "Hawking radiation", "sandhi", "binomial theorem", "Linux distro", "kaiju", "cheddar cheese", "Zeitgeist", "terminal emulator", "non-standard analysis", "Currywurst", "tau", "d-pad", "poutine", and "dungeonpunk"? This isn't super-obscure shit, all of them are words and concepts that I regularly deal with and use. How does your language handle them?

Some of those are pretty obscure, even if you use them regularly. I don't expect people to know Chaoskampf, twelve-tone method, scramasax, phrasal compound, or Neo-Romanticism, even if I use these kinds of words fairly often. Also, my conworld doesn't even have very much in the way of science or technology (well, they have science, but it's things with practical uses to not-super-technologically-advanced people like geology and meteorology, not like string theory or cosmology), and I don't personally use some of those words you mentioned either, so why would my conlang have Hawking radiation, terminal emulator, or Linux distro? (I'm also pretty sure even if they had personal computers, they still wouldn't have Linux specifically.)

New Words: building, skyscraper, house, space elevator, artificial satellite, moon base, propulsion. Those words should be commonplace for a space age civilization.

Building is not a new word, and house is especially not a new word... Very old civilizations have had buildings and houses... Also, I think space-age people might not even have houses or buildings, at least not if they just live on their spaceships...

extremely unlikely. They would almost surely build homes on their colonized planets

[clawgrip]

But yeah, every time I hear the word "building" and especially "house", I just can't help but think of Star Trek...

Can't help posting this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDrABWb9VIQ

[Sew'Kyetuh]

I'm going to try and respond to each person/concept in separate posts.

Maybe I'm just being dense, but...

how is it that there is no concept "8" (as you say, it does not exist), yet there is a concept "32768", which clearly demonstrates that they must have the concept "8"?

I think the term I was looking for is digit, which up until this moment, I thought was synonymous with number. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerical_digit

There is no "root/digit" for 7, 8, or 9, and also 11-14. But 15 has it's own glyph and word. In other words, when we write the digit 15 in English, it is technically 10+5 on a base system. Since the "highest" digit we have is 10, we have to represent numbers higher than that by putting the numbers 1-10 together (adding zeros to substitute placement in omission).

But Etihus just skips listing 7-9 and 11-14 as digits altogether. So to communicate the number 8 for instance, you have to use 2^3, or 6+2, etc. (So yes, by Etihus' system, there's multiple ways to write/speak several numbers).

The number 32,768 in Etihus as a digit is: (6+2)^5. Here's 2 more examples:

The number 98, written/spoken in two different ways. (So far I think these are the most practical... I might have messed up on the formula for the first but the digits are correct...)



The number 1,500. (In the most efficient way I could find.)


There's four ways to communicate the number 6, seven ways for number 11. I came up with the system much later than the conlang, and I built it by accident, so I'm not sure if it holds up just as well. All I know is that the Numberphile on YouTube who complains about conlangs using base-10 can't complain!

It might seem really odd, but the speakers of my conlang as I said are much more familiar with exponents and square roots than they are the times tables like we are.

.

In explaining to Mr. Gorenc, I used the term diacritic which seemed to click really well for him. On Wikipedia's article:

A diacritic /daɪ.əˈkrɪtɪk/ – also diacritical mark, diacritical point, or diacritical sign – is a glyph added to a letter, or basic glyph. ... Diacritical marks may appear above or below a letter, or in some other position such as within the letter or between two letters.

Just like the rest of the conlang, any digit can modify any other based on placement. So if you write the digit for 3 (in a smaller font like you would an exponent), on top of the digit 3, you get 3+3, or 6. But if you write a small 3 next to the number 3, you get 3x3, or 9. If you write 3 on top and on both sides, you get (3+3)x3 +3, which would be 21. Though that's pretty inefficient of course (you'd be saying "ki'ki-ki ki") there's better ways to communicate 21 in Etihus, but for the sake of the example.

[clawgrip]

In other words, when we write the digit 15 in English, it is technically 10+5 on a base system. Since the "highest" digit we have is 10, we have to represent numbers higher than that by putting the numbers 1-10 together (adding zeros to substitute placement in omission).

Just to note, the highest digit we have is 9;10 is a two-digit numeral made up of the digits 1 and 0. Remember that "digit" only refers to the graphemes, not the numbers as concepts. 328, CCCXXVIII, 三百二十八 all employ different forms of graphical notation and have a different total number of digits, but they all represent the same conceptual number.

[Sew'Kyetuh]

Great! Here's what we have then:

1. Syh kye sgh.
The girl hit the boy.

2. Sgh kye syh.
The boy hit the girl.

3. Cuffari tikhm.
The dog ducked.

4. Tikhm cuffari.
Dog-like falling.

An important observation here is that (3) and (4) do not have the same meaning; in (3), a dog performs an action, but in (4), an action happens in a dog-like way. So in order to talk about the noun doing the action, it has to go before the verb, in the same way syh did in (1) and sgh did in (2).

So far, all indications point toward nominative-accusative morphosyntactic alignment. In nom-acc languages, the same marking is used for the agents of transitive clauses and the subjects of intransitive clauses.

(A transitive clause has two participants, typically an "agent", the one doing the verb, and the "patient"—sometimes called the "object"—which is the one the verb happens to. With the verb "hit", you have the person doing the hitting and the person getting hit. An intransitive clause, however, has only one participant, called the "subject". "Ducked" has only one participant, so it is intransitive.)

The crucial observation, then, is that in Etihus intransitive clauses, the subject has the same marking as an agent: it goes before the verb.

You're correct on agent and patient, I believe that's SVO? So it looks like I do understand, and thank you for explaining. And that confirms to me that what I say: the agent is always the subject. But that's also not the whole story. This is where things have gotten really tricky and the spot I have the most difficult trying to explain, but you did say "so far".

In the examples of 1-4 you listed, only 3 has an actual verb. "Verb-action" in Etihus is its own morpheme added as a suffix to indicate it is a verb.


Perhaps what I have been trying to say is that Etihus does not make a usual distinction between "passive verbs" and other descriptives like adjectives and adverbs. Passive verbs are like a state of being and thus are used as descriptives. In English, we state, "I am cold." Because English requires a noun and a verb to be a grammatically complete thought. But for Etihus...

Spoiler:

vh = I/me
fess = cold, lack of energy
el = you
' = (apostrophe) short pause to link morphemes for compound words
- = Same as an apostrophe, but links [complex] words together
hm = modifies word into a verb when used as a suffix

ENGLISH: I am cold.
ETIHUS: Vh-fess. (or also) Vh'fess. (or also) Vhfess.
^ In this example of Etihus, there are no verbs, only 2 raw concepts, I/me described with cold. But it is a complete thought. In fact, vhfess as a single word also contains the complete thought, and is considered to be the preferred form to speak and write. This was where the linguist I mentioned was thrown off by arielmix. The morphology and syntax in Etihus largely share the same rules. (He was the same who suggested applying the term "pro-dropping" to verbs in Etihus.) Sometimes when people speak Etihus, it is difficult to determine if the person is speaking very long words, or if they are speaking whole sentences. But the end result is still the same intended information being communicated...


"Vh fess" could mean something different from "vh-fess" or "vhfess". By itself "Vh fess" means the same thing, but it would look unusual and sound childishly basic. The communication is grammatical, but it isn't necessarily complete. When you write these 3, you can easily distinguish what is being communicated because writing allows for spacing. But when you are speaking these 3, they sound exactly the same except for slight (if any) hesitations.


1."Vh fesshm el." -- I am colding you.
I [am] making you cold; cooling you off.
SVO, simple, nom-acc.

2. "Vh-fess el." -- I-cold you.
I [am] cold like you. Using "you" as a descriptive of I/me in the state of being cold.
Again, there are no verbs.

3. "Vh fess el."[/size] -- I cold you.
This was a lot harder to translate into English than I thought. You could say, "I am cold to you" as a comparison, but the order of words implies that there is cold (which also means lack of energy) between me and you, primarily from me or my point-of-view. You could say it is a translation of the phrase, "You are dead to me".

[Ahzoh]

Perhaps what I have been trying to say is that Etihus does not make a usual distinction between "passive verbs" and other descriptives like adjectives and adverbs. Passive verbs are like a state of being and thus are used as descriptives. In English, we state, "I am cold." Because English requires a noun and a verb to be a grammatically complete thought. But for Etihus...

So, you're describing a passive participle. Like "John is killed", where "killed" is a passive participle which is acting like an adjective:
"John is killed" = "the killed John".

[HoskhMatriarch]

Perhaps what I have been trying to say is that Etihus does not make a usual distinction between "passive verbs" and other descriptives like adjectives and adverbs. Passive verbs are like a state of being and thus are used as descriptives. In English, we state, "I am cold." Because English requires a noun and a verb to be a grammatically complete thought. But for Etihus...

So, you're describing a passive participle. Like "John is killed", where "killed" is a passive participle which is acting like an adjective:
"John is killed" = "the killed John".

I think he's describing a passive participle and copula-dropping. With copula dropping, "John killed" = "John is killed". I mean, in some dialects of English you can say "I cold" or "He a doctor", and in Russian that's just normal. Or, alternatively, it could just be verbs, but they could just not be conjugated at all. I'll have to read more examples first.

Also, I think the alignment is direct, not nominative-accusative. There's no case marking at all and verbs don't conjugate, so how could it be anything else?

Also, I don't think a lot of these examples are necessarily one word. I think there are just a lot of clitics in this language.

[Ahzoh]

I think he's describing a passive participle and copula-dropping. With copula dropping, "John killed" = "John is killed". I mean, in some dialects of English you can say "I cold" or "He a doctor", and in Russian that's just normal. Or, alternatively, it could just be verbs, but they could just not be conjugated at all. I'll have to read more examples first.

Also, I think the alignment is direct, not nominative-accusative. There's no case marking at all and verbs don't conjugate, so how could it be anything else?

Also, I don't think a lot of these examples are necessarily one word. I think there are just a lot of clitics in this language.

Yes, I was referring to the participle without the "be" verbs.

What he is saying is he wants "killed John" where "killed" is an adjective derived from, and functions like, a verb; a participle.

[Sew'Kyetuh]

(I know there have been some who have posted since, but I'm still replying to concepts and others earlier in the thread, thanks!)

And from the videos it looks like all the qualifying words follow their heads:

fox-quick-brown-the jumped-over dog-lazy-the

Cool.

Yes! Except in Etihus it would be: The-fox-brown-quick. "Sec" (the/this) is the only exception to that rule and comes before that which it describes to clarify specificity as an important factor first. And you are describing "this brown fox" that is"quick" (as opposed to that brown fox, which is fat and slow).

So that's how you describe it? Qualifying words follow their heads. That would have been useful for me to know 7 months ago. :)

Looks you're headed more or less right into philosophical language territory, though without the philosophical baggage.

Lol, that sounds really funny "without the philosophical baggage" I like the description, I assume you're talking about some of the other oligosynthetic languages? There is a bit of philosophy involved in Etihus (remember the alphabet lists them in a hierarchical order), but it isn't based on earth-like principles.

On to sounds:
I'm curious to know what you mean by "no consonants or vowels". I get that E speakers may not have a native conceptualisation of these things, but I think it's pretty clear that E (as she is spoke) is composed of just those things. In other words, they may not "recognise the existence of consonants and vowels", but they are certainly there all the same. After all, native English speakers don't recognise the existence of the glottal stop as an English "letter", yet we use the sound all the time in speech! (Consider the difference between "united" and "underwhelm".)
So, it looks like you've forty some symbols that combine in various ways to create more complex words/utterances. Oligosynthetic about sums that up. Looks you're headed more or less right into philosophical language territory, though without the philosophical baggage.

What do the forty-some semaphonemes/utterance-symbols mean on their own?

Yes, you are right by sounds. Clearly, by phonetics Etihus has consonants and vowels. But from what I observe most (... all?) languages start with consonants and vowels as a base, usually with some alphabet. There is an official chart to show the sounds they use, there is a note as the consonant/vowel inventory size and their ratio, and then there is description of CVC (consonant-verb-consonant), or CVVC, or "with the exception of..."

The Etihus' "semaphoneme" (letter and free morpheme and glyph) are the most basic grammatical units that cannot be broken down further for the building of the language, some of which have multiple syllables and even rhyme with each other. However the sounds in the semaphonemes can be merged/dropped when they are merged like contractions. This simply makes it faster/easier to write but grammatically serves no purpose.

Glyphs in Etihus (in the alphabet) represent what the Uhsey (who use Etihus in my conworld) think the voice box "does" instead of representing objects like natlangs. (If I remember correctly, the letter A is believed to have origins to the horns of an ox in some ancient languages.)

Spoiler:

Others that are used more frequently for descriptions or other markings (and a few concepts simply set outside the linear thinking of what "belongs" in the alphabet). So there are about 60 semaphonemes, 40 of which are in the alphabet.

[Sew'Kyetuh]

The member named "Marcus Teague" is a troll who is trying to pose as me and needs to be removed. The imposter is using my personal name for a user-name and my Youtube icon for an avatar. Probably someone from CWS.

[HoskhMatriarch]

(I know there have been some who have posted since, but I'm still replying to concepts and others earlier in the thread, thanks!)

And from the videos it looks like all the qualifying words follow their heads:

fox-quick-brown-the jumped-over dog-lazy-the

Cool.

Yes! Except in Etihus it would be: The-fox-brown-quick. "Sec" (the/this) is the only exception to that rule and comes before that which it describes to clarify specificity as an important factor first. And you are describing "this brown fox" that is"quick" (as opposed to that brown fox, which is fat and slow).

So that's how you describe it? Qualifying words follow their heads. That would have been useful for me to know 7 months ago. :)

Looks you're headed more or less right into philosophical language territory, though without the philosophical baggage.

Lol, that sounds really funny "without the philosophical baggage" I like the description, I assume you're talking about some of the other oligosynthetic languages? There is a bit of philosophy involved in Etihus (remember the alphabet lists them in a hierarchical order), but it isn't based on earth-like principles.

On to sounds:
I'm curious to know what you mean by "no consonants or vowels". I get that E speakers may not have a native conceptualisation of these things, but I think it's pretty clear that E (as she is spoke) is composed of just those things. In other words, they may not "recognise the existence of consonants and vowels", but they are certainly there all the same. After all, native English speakers don't recognise the existence of the glottal stop as an English "letter", yet we use the sound all the time in speech! (Consider the difference between "united" and "underwhelm".)
So, it looks like you've forty some symbols that combine in various ways to create more complex words/utterances. Oligosynthetic about sums that up. Looks you're headed more or less right into philosophical language territory, though without the philosophical baggage.

What do the forty-some semaphonemes/utterance-symbols mean on their own?

Yes, you are right by sounds. Clearly, by phonetics Etihus has consonants and vowels. But from what I observe most (... all?) languages start with consonants and vowels as a base, usually with some alphabet. There is an official chart to show the sounds they use, there is a note as the consonant/vowel inventory size and their ratio, and then there is description of CVC (consonant-verb-consonant), or CVVC, or "with the exception of..."

The Etihus' "semaphoneme" (letter and free morpheme and glyph) are the most basic grammatical units that cannot be broken down further for the building of the language, some of which have multiple syllables and even rhyme with each other. However the sounds in the semaphonemes can be merged/dropped when they are merged like contractions. This simply makes it faster/easier to write but grammatically serves no purpose.

Glyphs in Etihus (in the alphabet) represent what the Uhsey (who use Etihus in my conworld) think the voice box "does" instead of representing objects like natlangs. (If I remember correctly, the letter A is believed to have origins to the horns of an ox in some ancient languages.)

Spoiler:

Others that are used more frequently for descriptions or other markings (and a few concepts simply set outside the linear thinking of what "belongs" in the alphabet). So there are about 60 semaphonemes, 40 of which are in the alphabet.

So what are the other 20?

Also, I'm curious now as to whether they're be any differences between "charming man" and "feminine man", and "masculine woman" and "strong woman", or "bless you" and "release you"...

[Sew'Kyetuh]

Just to note, the highest digit we have is 9;10 is a two-digit numeral made up of the digits 1 and 0. Remember that "digit" only refers to the graphemes, not the numbers as concepts. 328, CCCXXVIII, 三百二十八 all employ different forms of graphical notation and have a different total number of digits, but they all represent the same conceptual number.

Ah yeah, that's what I meant.

So what are the other 20?

The other 20 are in the form of relative directions, the digits (and body parts they represent in sign), and other general concepts. I posted a PDF document on Scribd with everything I had of Etihus, except the numeral system: https://www.scribd.com/doc/274751140/Etihus-Layout

Also, I'm curious now as to whether they're be any differences between "charming man" and "feminine man", and "masculine woman" and "strong woman", or "bless you" and "release you"...

Not really. Each represents the whole of a base concept. The words in English describe the closest applied meanings.

So yhgh would be feminine/sweet described as strong or possibly capable. (Could be interpreted as endearing). By contrast, ghyh would be strength/masculinity described as charming (could be interpreted as attractive or indirect force).

- - -
- - -

What he is saying is he wants "killed John" where "killed" is an adjective derived from, and functions like, a verb; a participle.

I was reading Wikipedia's article on zero copula and found:

Standard English exhibits a few limited forms of the zero copula. One is found in comparative correlatives like "the higher, the better" and "the more the merrier". However, no known language lacks this structure (aside from the invented language Toki Pona),

This feature from Toki Pona is one of the ways Etihus is similar to it, and I have used Toki Pona to try and explain some of its elements.


- - -

If I missed anything or anyone, let me know. It looked like there's a rabbit trail in here (which is a fine an interesting discussion but I'll avoid comment).

[HoskhMatriarch]

Just to note, the highest digit we have is 9;10 is a two-digit numeral made up of the digits 1 and 0. Remember that "digit" only refers to the graphemes, not the numbers as concepts. 328, CCCXXVIII, 三百二十八 all employ different forms of graphical notation and have a different total number of digits, but they all represent the same conceptual number.

Ah yeah, that's what I meant.

So what are the other 20?

The other 20 are in the form of relative directions, the digits (and body parts they represent in sign), and other general concepts. I posted a PDF document on Scribd with everything I had of Etihus, except the numeral system: https://www.scribd.com/doc/274751140/Etihus-Layout

Also, I'm curious now as to whether they're be any differences between "charming man" and "feminine man", and "masculine woman" and "strong woman", or "bless you" and "release you"...

Not really. Each represents the whole of a base concept. The words in English describe the closest applied meanings.

So yhgh would be feminine/sweet described as strong or possibly capable. (Could be interpreted as endearing). By contrast, ghyh would be strength/masculinity described as charming (could be interpreted as attractive or indirect force).

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What he is saying is he wants "killed John" where "killed" is an adjective derived from, and functions like, a verb; a participle.

I was reading Wikipedia's article on zero copula and found:

Standard English exhibits a few limited forms of the zero copula. One is found in comparative correlatives like "the higher, the better" and "the more the merrier". However, no known language lacks this structure (aside from the invented language Toki Pona),

This feature from Toki Pona is one of the ways Etihus is similar to it, and I have used Toki Pona to try and explain some of its elements.


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If I missed anything or anyone, let me know. It looked like there's a rabbit trail in here (which is a fine an interesting discussion but I'll avoid comment).

I think they were saying that Toki Pona doesn't have a zero copula...

So, the words for "feminine man", "charming man", "attractive", and "indirect force" are all the same? That doesn't seem particularly functional to me, but then, Classical Chinese does this, so I'm not sure I'm the one to judge...

[Keenir]

Yes, you are right by sounds. Clearly, by phonetics Etihus has consonants and vowels. But from what I observe most (... all?) languages start with consonants and vowels as a base, usually with some alphabet. There is an official chart to show the sounds they use, there is a note as the consonant/vowel inventory size and their ratio, and then there is description of CVC (consonant-verb-consonant), or CVVC, or "with the exception of..."

alphabets come later. most natlangs don't have an alphabet...or they didn't have one until recently.

...unless the language was designed hand-in-hand with an alphabet (or the language was overhauled and revised and then was given an alphabet)


and the official chart (the IPA, I presume?), is so everyone knows what one another mean.

[clawgrip]

Yes, you are right by sounds. Clearly, by phonetics Etihus has consonants and vowels. But from what I observe most (... all?) languages start with consonants and vowels as a base, usually with some alphabet. There is an official chart to show the sounds they use, there is a note as the consonant/vowel inventory size and their ratio, and then there is description of CVC (consonant-verb-consonant), or CVVC, or "with the exception of..."

There are three things here that absolutely need to be recognized as distinct:

1. phonology: the actual sounds that the speakers pronounce;

2. phonetic notation: graphic signs written down (usually) in IPA that mark the sounds that speakers pronounce.

3. writing system: alphabets, syllabaries, logographies, etc. which are the graphic signs written down on surfaces that let people record language; this may or may not accurately reflect the pronunciation of the spoken language, but it is sufficient as a guide for the speakers to understand what sounds to make;

All spoken human languages have #1.

All spoken human languages have #2, if someone bothers to research the language and figure out the content of #1.

Not all spoken human languages have #3.

The terms "consonant" and "vowel" can apply to all three, with distinct meanings between #1/2 and 3.

Frankly, I am not clear what you mean by "languages start with consonants and vowels as a base, usually with an alphabet"

Specifically, do you mean conlangers start creating a language by providing consonants and vowels (i.e. #2, which indicates #1), and often supply a writing system (#3) used to write it all down?