A Proper Introduction

Hi y'all,

I've been working on IWH mostly in the background, but especially the main setting of the story: New Katla Khi.

Anyways, here's a cool conlang (Kját-ra Khí) translation of a scene in my story:

Yése, gjêw sa mèrnrún’ rwek ga? Yessei, is your daughter gone?

Gìnger tan’ sa rwéng… I feel for you…

rjě sêr ta-ra, I understand you.

San’ nweng da, You are hard-working

san’ vèr áp da. You are the witch.

Nrekkháp zásorn’ sêr, nga ga? You’re cursed by Zasor, right?

Nga tan’ sêr. I am not you.

Gjêw tan’ sêr, I have been you,

rwek san’ têr. you will be me

Nga-phâi sa-gjo jeśú, Your path is not easy

Dàk-phâi. but it is virtuous.

Gwók sêr wjék khjàk-na. You will err and move on many times.

Dàkmèr tan’ sêr, Zàkgrí tan’ sêr. I believe in you, and I love you.

I'll probably post a grammar for this conlang in a later post, because it's easily one of my most fleshed-out. I only have about 200 words, and my goal is to get to 2,000, before I'll call it "done."

Day 35 (1:05) of rewriting my novel

Today was a "bridge the gaps" day.

Yesterday, I wrote about Vimir. The day before that, I wrote about Taguchif. In order to bridge those scenes with what I already had, I wrote for, like, 4 hours and about 2,100 words piecing it all together. Now, Part Three is like 12,000 words, and I'm probably just over 1/3 of the way there? I'm staring down the barrel of probably 40,000 words necessary for Part Three.

To be clear, in no way is Meiste meant to be consumed in four parts. Later, I plan to block off chunks as chapters. But not until after I've gotten all four parts to places where they can reasonably be split off into chapters.

Part of what I mean by that is this: Part One was really rushed, comparatively. My "alpha" reader pointed out that the pacing is really rushed in Part One, and that's been on my mind this whole time, but that was really so I could work up the motivation to get through Part Two.

Part One is even, comparatively, short compared to parts Two and Three: it stands at just 12,000 words. And mostly as an introduction to the other three parts. That was a critical flaw in choosing what has become, essentially, in media res to start a fantasy novel.

I plan on adding a scene at the end, once this is all said and done, where Izi, Vimir, and his boss are all at church. With that I can do several big things:

Lay out Zenestian religion. While the Constitution of Zeneste is inherently a religious document, Zenestian government has strayed so far from its original intents to suck power from its citizens that the religion has almost become a sort-of government worship. This was one of the big reasons my "alpha" reader was confused in the first chapter by everyone just accepting that "the Constitution said Izi is Emperor, so Izi is Emperor." It's a level of Orwellian brainwashing that is crazy deep.

Lay out what Izi's world even looks like. At this point in the story, he's just an eighteen-year-old worker in a rice farm taking a single evening of rest to go and worship with his community, including his best friend and most loyal ally.

Set up the windows scene in Part One. In Part One, Izi's astounded by the lack of designs in the Old Chapel of Zeneste, and when he finds the old windows in the attic, he hires somebody to come and replace the windows for him. Since the reader doesn't have context for this, it might make Lozerief's outburst even more confusing.

Foreshadow his mom being the Hero of Life. Like, the Hero of Life appears everywhere, and I don't wanna give away Izi's mom being the Hero of Life too early, but I can afford to drop more hints.

This, alone, would add probably 2,000-3,000 words.

In addition, she recommended changing the pacing so Izi has more like a month in the palace (instead of the 3 days that I wrote in originally.) I definitely could use this to illustrate what the Zenestian government is like: a bunch of corrupt politicians figuring out how they can get more power (Lozerief is an exception).

This has mostly become me ranting about novel plotting, and what I have to do later, but feel free to let me know your thoughts! I'm always open to hear other peoples' opinions (except when they necessitate the disenfranchisement of others.)

Enjoy the show

Was wishing there was a positivity post for original fiction writers since I see so many about how fanfic writers are doing so much for their communities even when they're not actively writing, and then I thought:

Be the change you want to see in the world.

So this is a positivity post for the writers out here who are working very hard on stories with no established community. Who can't talk about their blorbos and plot lines and brainstorming to anyone and expect them to know what any of it means. Who don't have much to share publicly, but are hoping they will one day.

You're doing a lot of hard work, and I recognize and appreciate what you're putting into the world, even when you're resting.

Cursed Low Zeneth Translations

Consider this a makeshift guide to how Low Zeneth works.

Overview

Low Zeneth is a language and group of dialects spoken Southwestern Zeneste (the state of Tolftorrijv.) Its last common "ancestor" with Ipol was Classical Zispoel, but it had already started to diverge before the time of the Hero of Life. Low Zeneth is radically different than Ipol in many ways, though it's been influenced substantially by Ipol, too.

I will focus here on the prestige variety of Low Zeneth: the kind spoken in the city of Tolftorrijv.

Phonology/Romanization

Rendered Phonemically:

Stops: /p/ /b/ /t/ /d/ /k/ /g/

Nasal Stops: /m/ /n/

Affricates: /t͡s/ /t͡ʃ/

Fricatives: /f/ /θ/ /s/ /ʃ/ /h/

Approximants: /w/ /l/ /j/

Tap/flap: /ɾ/

Trill: /r/

Vowels:

/iː/ /i/ /yː/ /y/ /uː/ /u/

/eː/ /e/ /øː/ /ø/ /oː/ /o/ 

/ə̃/ /ə/

/a/ /ɑː/

That makes 34 total phonemes broken down from 20 consonants and 14 vowels.

Romanized:

p, b, t, d, k, g

m, n

ts, q

f, th, s, sh, h

w, l, j

r

rr

ij i üü ü uw u

ee ê öö ö oo o

v e

a aa

If you can't tell, I had fun deriving this phonology from the restrictive, Classical Zispoel phonology. Maybe a little too much, but oh well.

Morphology and Syntax - Grammar

Technically Low Zeneth is a VSO language, but that's not the full picture.

Basically, auxiliary verbs get sucked up into the (head-initial) tense-phrase. The tree below describes the translation "fijsesê bv hijfrê" which literally translates to "have I money" and means "I have money."

The result is that most subordinate clauses have the structure SVO, while the main clause has structure SV(A)O.

Low Zeneth has very slim morphology, only inflecting for a simple plural in nouns with -o, and no morphology at all in verbs. A series of sound changes rendered the T/A distinctions of Classical Zispoel basically indistinguishable, so to compensate, speakers of Low Zeneth employ heavy periphrasis.

Cursed Translations from Today

Fijatsia bv io dv luw êraanva ijrenva

Phonemic: /fi.ˈja.tsi.a ˈbə̃ ˈi.o ˈluː e.ˈɾɑː.nə̃.a ˈiː.ɾe.nə̃.a/

Lit. Translation: Will I give you of news urgent.

Meaning: I will give you urgent news/I must give you urgent news.

Üümen ijnvth Dvrr Ilaajote hijthen-luwario

Phonemic: /ˈyː.men ˈiː.nə̃θ ˈdə̃r i.ˈlɑː.jo.tə ˈhiː.θen.lu.wa.ɾi.o/

Lit. Manages Zeneste Emperor Tolftorrijv fight-people.

Meaning: The Emperor of Zeneste (now) manages the Tolftorrijv army.

Conclusion

I just figured I'd talk about Low Zeneth today because I haven't talked about it a lot but have been producing a bunch of translations. I realize only now that I didn't go over forming questions in this post, but maybe later I will. Feel free, as always, to request that I translate random words/phrases into this language.

Gang, I might make a YouTube video about Javanese (from the perspective of an American conlanger) because you can't make this shit up.

(Tl;dr: Javanese register is very complicated and very fascinating. Also, what's up with slack-voiced consonants?)

after working on my (now finished) WIP after so long, i forgot how it feels to hit milestones like this

Dear Conlangers making A Priori, Naturalistic Languages...

Specifically those that use a protolanguage... please write down your sound changes before you copy-paste them! I've been struggling for several months to remember which sound changes happened from Old Ipol -> Modern Ipol and I cannot, for the life of me, find the file where I saved them. Please write them down I'm begging you.

Average person: how does writing work

writer: Well u type an u delete. You rethink. Then u do 187 min of research and correct it. You reread and wonder if u hav a grasp of english. Then u revise

person: then ur done with the book?

writer: then u move onto the next sentence

“The characters in my novels are my own unrealised possibilities. That is why I am equally fond of them all and equally horrified by them. Each one has crossed a border that I myself have circumvented.”

— Milan Kundera