Vreleksá

Eccentric Iconoclast · Joined: 22 Apr 2007 Posts: 36

(Mostly copy-pasting this from the ZBB)

Before you ask, I am aware of the similarity in name to Tolkien's "Quenya." I assure you that this was accidental; I hadn't read LotR or The Hobbit when I started creating Aquénandi.

Aquénandi was my first conlang, and is by far my most complete. I started inventing it at 12, when I didn't really know what I was doing, so some of that wonkiness and borrowed words got rather stuck. I'm honestly surprised that it makes sense, but it does; I can write something and come back a while later and still read it.

The best way to describe it would be to say that it's Proto Indo-European's schizophrenic cousin.

Now that we've got that cleared up, onto the language. Mr. Green

Vowels: /a { e i 1 O 2 u/ {a ä e i y o ö u}

Nasal: /m n N/ {m n ŋ}
Plosive: /p b t d c k g/ {p b t d c k g}
Fricative: /f v T D s z S Z x h/ {f v þ ð s z š ž x h}
Approximant: /w j/ {w j}
Trill: /r R\/ {r q}
Lateral Approximant: /l/

Pretty standard, I know.

For the most part, what I've written is a more formal, older version. The speakers tend to pronounce {ä} and {e} almost identically, as /{/, and both {x} and {h} as /x/. The letter {c} is weird; quite often pronounced as /ts/ or /tS/. {C} only rarely takes its more formal form.

{A} and {o} often become /@/ when they're not important. The language's name is generally pronounced /@kw}'n`@nd_hi/ (I apologise sincerely if I just killed X-SAMPA, really). Keep in mind, however, that {o} is very rarely considered unimportant.

The only really notable rule of phonotactics is that you can NOT have two vowels in a row in the same word. Ever. Period. Whenever you're agglutinating (and this language is made of agglutination) and run into a place where there would be two vowels in a row, you add {h} between them. So the word for "God" (sort of; all translations are "sort of," which will be explained later) is {Ahestamirdi} instead of {Aestamirdi}.

All diphthongs are thus formed with {w} and {j}.

It's an OSV language, but that shifts fairly often to SOV. Other word orders are acceptable (usually), but they sound goofy without the verb at the end.

Now onto the more interesting stuff.

There are no set words beyond the basic morphemes. The same word can mean "arm" or "branch," depending on the context (the basic morpheme for that is {ruc}, which means more "sticky-outy-thing" than anything). If you want to clarify, you stick things that clarify what you're talking about onto the word. The order doesn't really matter. So, if you were talking about arms and wanted to clarify that you didn't mean branches, you'd say "human-{ruc}" ({ninruc-}) or "tree-{ruc}" ({gäldruc}), except it's not quite so clear.

These basic morphemes are limited to having one syllable, and thus one vowel. There are some majour exceptions (like the morpheme for the name of the Aquenandi speaking people, {lisfir}), of course.

If you insist on using, say, {gäldruc} and don't drop that down to {ruc} once the thing's been established, the Lisfirim will take that as an insult to their intelligence.

Also, if you don't stress the right syllable, there are hundreds of ways that what you say can be misconstrued. For instance, if you are trying to talk about someone's cooking and say {ŋawncvergemim} (peas) with the {gem} stress, you're telling the person that the peas weren't cooked well enough because you're stressing the plant part of it all. If you stress the {ver}, you're telling them that their peas are...too green (haha! see the IE root?). {ŋawnc} is the stem to be stressed; it means "eat."

Aquénandi is a very sarcastic language. Very. The way one says "happy birthday," for instance (pretmrajanja) means, more literally, "congratulations, you were born."

There are eight grammatical cases in Aquénandi:

nominative
accusative
genitive
dative
instrumental
locative
ablative
vocative

and they each have their own endings. Dative and vocative are considered separate cases only in the plural, and this distinction is relatively new.

An interesting thing about the nouns is that they distinguish between general and standard moods. The conditional is formed by adding {ir} in the middle of the verb, and the subjunctive is formed by using both the general and conditional formations at the same time. Wonky, I know. Nouns can also distinguish between negative and positive, although this is usually left to the verbs.

The verbs aren't really overly notable. I'll put some stuff up about them later, though.

eldin raigmore · Posted: Mon May 14, 2007 4:27 pm Post subject:

I like it. I'd like to see the script, too, when you get that far.
Can you say deeply sincere things, too? Like, "My God, I love Thee, not because I hope for Heaven thereby, nor yet because who love Thee not must die eternally, but solely because Thou art my God and my eternal King". Is there any way to say that in Aquenandi (sorry for the spelling) that doesn't come across as sarcastic?

halyihev · Posted: Mon May 14, 2007 4:43 pm Post subject:

eldin raigmore · Posted: Mon May 14, 2007 11:51 pm Post subject:

Eccentric Iconoclast · Joined: 22 Apr 2007 Posts: 36

The problem is the culture; the Lisfirim are a bunch of jerks. xD
And there's a whole history behind this, but that probably belongs in the Conworlds forum.

You can say things sincerely; however, the attitude behind it makes you sound foreign.

However, to translate that text that you gave me in the least-sarcastic manner possible...

Estamirde, te ši relje; prakovoj alaste qulje vi lim ki te relve ki dumyrje, ni toloj ko estamirdi i amadi ti je.

God.VOC, you.DAT I love.POS; not-because high-truth wish nor they who you.DAT love.NEG who must-die.POS, but only that God and maker you are.

Very concise; one of the better features of the language. ;D

They always refer to God as "Estamirde," which is the abstract form of (roughly translated) "that which creates possibility." It's possibly one of the most sincere words in the language. The word for "ruler" translates more to "one who is to be blamed" than anything, so I chose not to use that. xD

eldin raigmore · Posted: Wed May 16, 2007 7:48 pm Post subject:

Eccentric Iconoclast · Joined: 22 Apr 2007 Posts: 36

eldin raigmore · Posted: Thu May 17, 2007 4:50 pm Post subject:

Serali · Posted: Fri May 18, 2007 2:24 am Post subject:

I'm confused on that one.

_________________

Tobo deu ne lenito sugu? - You kissed a frog?!

eldin raigmore · Posted: Fri May 18, 2007 6:53 pm Post subject:

Serali · Posted: Fri May 18, 2007 7:03 pm Post subject:

You got me on that one. I like the name of the forum btw!
_________________

Tobo deu ne lenito sugu? - You kissed a frog?!

StrangeMagic · Admin Joined: 18 Apr 2007 Posts: 640

Good! I like the name as well! lol

Serali · Posted: Fri May 18, 2007 7:28 pm Post subject:

lol!
_________________

Tobo deu ne lenito sugu? - You kissed a frog?!

Tsiasuk-Pron · Joined: 28 May 2007 Posts: 20 Location: Long Island, USA

"My God, I love Thee, not because I hope for Heaven thereby, nor yet because who love Thee not must die eternally, but solely because Thou art my God and my eternal King".

Itlani:

"Eéy Uramún zhoya, ra varari ta miaraey Geydanese Bashova varemyaru, ras var ta ravaremarú Basha beneynya sheytá cheykopyaren, ruzay murnizhe var zhoyit Uramún vey zhoyit sheytait Dar onyarad."
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Ta Miara, ta Varem vey ta Parem!