Schachar's Archives

The Kautsa speak about the past as behind behind them and the future as being in front of them, much like English, but unlike English, time is not a currency to be spent in Munya, it is more often likened to produce or food. Time cannot run out, but it can go bad, stale, or rot, meaning it must be renewed by traveling or moving on. You cannot buy time, but you can cultivate it or hunt for it. Myai na neme lyo. [mʲai51 na ne1me lʲo] day TOP stales CONT (this) day stales time grows short Expressions referencing time as "rotting" are similar to English's concept of "wasting" time. Mesane hiwa bol. [mes1sane5 xiwa pʰol1] time-1POSS give rot you let your time rot you wasted your time

Today we're naming people in Munya! I've decided that Kautsa names will have four parts: Given name (represents something desirable about them or their future) Birth Order Number Clan name Family name (surname, usually an occupation or quality By the way these are ordered, and by what information this culture has elected to include, you can learn much about them. Of course the most important piece of information used to identify a Kautsa person would be their given name, but the second most valuable piece of information to a Munya speaker is birth order. This feeds into a system of numerology that the Kautsa believe in that I may or may not go into depth with later. So with the parts of a name down, let's create a sample name! Mimi Ledyi Kaulahenyali Matolyai [mi5.mi5 le.tʲʰi kau.la.xe.ɲa1.li1 ma5.to.lʲai5] beautiful fourth they_herd_sheep hunter So this hypothetical Kautsa is Mimi Matolyai, fourth born of the Kaulahenyali clan.

Now that we have a good basis for the language, this is usually where I'd start worldbuilding more to create more vocabulary and flesh out the language. So today, let's name some places. Here's a slice of the world, Nome as Munya speakers would call it, with all of my previous worldbuilding factions and peoples put onto the map for reference. Serazara, the place with the Giants, Nimmen, Dragons, and Sioghaxx happens to be the most crowded at this time. The group of people who speak Munya need a name, so lets name them first. This language likes to use descriptive phrases, so I've decided on calling them the Kautsabuleno [kau.t͡sa1.pʰu.lə.no1] or the "they live on the steppes" or the Kautsa for short. The area where the Kautsa live is a mostly hilly terrain, wet, and cold with little tree covering. We have two words already [to5] and [fo] which are used to make place names, the former being used for mounds or hills and the second being a generic area term. So a...

In Munya, words for spaces and for times often share the same word, such as with the word [tʲi5] which can mean either "by/beside" or "co-occuring/at the same time as", the meaning must be implied by context or through the use of helper words. Its spatial and temporal "adverbs" are no different. I say "adverbs" because it mostly uses postpositional phrases in the place of adverbs in a similar way as a few entries ago when we created the phrase [tʲo so tʲi5] literally "by the foot" to mean "this". In this vein, I've created two new phrases. The first expresses "here/now" Bal so tyi [pʰal so tʲi5] which would literally mean "by/along the path", drawing a connection between being off the path as "here and now" whereas its counterpart Bal so hi [pʰal so xi], "on the path", meaning "then/there". We were on the path, traveling, but now we are talking so we are here, off to the s...

Happy Valentines day! Today is a super quick one, we're working on numbers some more. Nouns in Munya appear in their singular form when co-occuring with number, so instead of English's "one apple, two apples, three apples..." a Munya speaker would say "one apple, two apple, three apple..." Pa ba, nai ba, tsa ba... Now, what if a Munya speaker wanted to say "the first apple, the second apple, the third apple..."? They would use the superlative suffix -dyi to create a series of ordinal numbers. Padyi ba, naidyi ba, tsadyi ba...  I also want a way to make adverbial numbers like English's "once, twice, thrice...". I decided that a Munya speaker would simply have to put the number into the genitive case to create this distinction. Pa fa, nai fa, tsa fa... Right now a Munya speaker has no way to count above ten, so let's create some compound numbers. All numbers from 11 to 19 will follow the same pattern of "10 by x", for exam...

When I'm making a conscript, I always begin with a hand-sketch of a few shapes that I want to include in Inkscape. Just selecting a few nouns, drawing them, taking them on a test run to see how they look evolved into their final form. I usually create multiple forms of the same letter to see which one I like best. Here's my selection and their final cursive form.   This set of symbols covers Munya's entire inventory before secondary places of articulation, which I will mark with diacritics above the symbol like in this example:   Usually after I create a hand-drawn version of the writing system, I will then make a more official version. For Munya, I decided to do a blockier official version that may have been cut into stone, just to cover both sides. When going about making something not hand-drawn like this, I always start with a collection of shapes and letter "parts" that I use to the best of my ability represent the hand-drawn form. I think this gives it a mor...

When creating a conscript I always begin with researching real life scripts. I scan through a large selection of them, figure out how they work, their major visual motifs, and especially how they conform to the language they describe. A good question to ask yourself at this stage is "did the speakers of this language create this script, or did they borrow it?". If they created the script, its graphemes will usually match up really well, or even one to one with its phonemes. This is especially so in more recent scripts. For examples of this, take a look at Hangul or the many new Sub-Saharan writing systems. East Africa in particular is a treasure trove of these kinds of scripts. As a general rule the newer the script, the closer it will adhere to the language it was made for. If they did not create the script, its orthography will probably be more complex than that of the former, and the system will have more difficulty succinctly mapping graphemes to phonemes. English is the ...

Today we're talking about the passive voice in Munya~! As a topic prominent language, Munya doesn't exactly have a proper way to make a passive voice, nor does it need one because the topic of a sentence can be whatever the speaker so pleases; however, the helper verb [xiwa] can be used to specifically point out that the speaker is unsure about the identity of agent, or to avoid responsibilities. Lesle husa hiwa le. [les1.lə xu1.sa5 xiwa lə] mirror break give-PST RES (the) mirror broke . Munya does not require a dummy subject, but a generic word like "someone" or "person" can be used as a placeholder depending on the context. Balne pe hiwa fyama le. [pʰa1.ne5 pe5 xiwa ˈfʲa5.ma lə] fruit-1POSS eat give-PST person RES my fruit was eaten by someone . As for the causative, we don't need anything special to express that already in Munya, all we need to do is create a sentence like: Wa na ge wa ni pe ba. [wa1 na kʰe wa ni pe5 pʰa1] 2SG TOP tell PST 1SG eat fru...

Verbs in Munya are split into classes based upon their transitivity. This means a single verb may belong to multiple verb classes depending on the context. Kau kaassyi. [kau kaːs5.sʲi] 3SG.NOM kick-NEG They don't kick . Kau kaasmi dun so. [kau kaːs5.mi tʰun so] 3SG.NOM kick-NEG rock ACC They don't kick the rock . I've decided on three verb classes, one for impersonal verbs ("(it's) raining"), intransitive verbs ("he sleeps"), and one for transitive and ditransitive verbs ("he kicks the ball"). Verbs in Munya do not need to agree in person or number. The only differences between the verb classes are how they mark the imperative, negative, potential, interrogative, and subjunctive differently, all in the form of infixes. All other grammatical information is encoded in particles that follow the verb. So far I only have the particle [wa] for the past tense, so lets make some more. Kau kaasmi wa dun so. [kau kaːs5.mi wa tʰun so] 3SG.NOM kick-NEG...

 Hello again! Today I'm doing indefinite pronouns. I'm quite busy today, so let's do a few real fast. (some of these forms will share meanings with adjectives! That's ok!) all: [to5] few: [pʰei] big, much, a lot, great, strong: [tʲʰis1] (from "tight, narrow") small, little, some, not much, weak: [mil] none, nothing: [sʲiˈne1] (not + thing) each: [kʲon les1lə] ("in the mirror") nobody:[sʲi.tʰu] (no + person suffix) any, anybody: [ˈpa.ku1 lʲi5] (one + adj) not, no: [sʲi] And, unfortunately that's all the time I have today. Might come back later today to do a quick worldbuilding update, but I wouldn't count on it. Join me next time when I work on basic clauses and (maybe) verbs!

 Demonstrative Pronouns Welcome back. Today we're going to work on demonstratives. The lexical sources for demonstratives usually come from words like "here" and "there", but since Munya currently does have those words, I've decided that it will use phrases utilizing words I already have that will eventually be whittled down and grammaticalized as demonstratives. I want Munya to have a three way distinction in its demonstratives, proximal, medial, and distal. The first phrase I chose was [tʲo tʲi5] meaning "by (the) foot" for the proximal demonstrative. This is equivalent to English's "this". Tyotyi byu. [ˈtʲo.tʲi5 ˈpʲʰu] This dog . The second phrase  I came up with was [sʲoː15.lə] meaning "at (the) hand" for the medial demonstrative. This would be equivalent to English "that". Syo'le byu. [sʲoː15.lə pʲʰu] That dog . The final phrase I chose was [pʰal.xi]  meaning "on the path" for the distal demonstr...

Derivation So far I haven't put much though into how new words are derived in Munya, I only have three ways to derive new words, through CV reduplication of the first syllable for an augmentative, creation of a new root whole cloth, and compounding. In the spirit of my goals for this language, I want to create a few more derivation strategies today. I'd like to start with creating a meronymic derivation strategy. As per usual, we need to determine an already existing word to be grammaticalized. There are a few ways to go about this, I usually go with a word for "half" or "break", but for Munya I'm liking the idea of going for [ku1] "to cut" as in "a cut of something" in a food analogy sense. Because [ku1] is a verb, it will be suffixed onto the noun which it modifies. Byoku. [pʲʰo.ku1] n. a cut of a tree, a splinter, a branch This can also double as a resultative when used to turn a verb into a noun. Wahu. [wa1.xu5] v. to cry Wahuku ...

Had some extra time to mull over the magic system for Nome. Going with a relatively low power system with a focus on solving every day problems. In a later installment I'll create words for much of the magic system once it's all set in stone. Basics A Swiftsmith** crafts magical objects called fetishes that when put in contact with their blood through a process called bleeding, stores magical ability within them. Fetishes are useless to anyone but their creator and resist bleeding from other swiftsmiths, only beginning to slowly discharge their magic upon their creator's death. **name subject to change Bone - Empathy The element of Bone is associated with the number 2. It peaks in power during the spring, just before sunrise, and just after sunset. It represents tradition, spirituality, empathy, and vitality. Practitioners of this element tend to be curious idealists. They are generally of still, balanced mind; however, if they are provoked their emotions may swing wildly i...

Real quick one for today. Adpositions I'll start off today by listing out the adpositions we already have in Munya. [kʲon] from [kʲon.pʰa] "to swallow" as the adposition "in" [ŋoː] from [ŋoː.tos1] "to throw" as the adposition "away" and finally [lə] from [lə] "to finish" as the adposition for "at" Because these adpositions come from verbs, ultimately, they are postpositions that come after the noun they modify. Additionally, using these postpositions forces the noun they modify to take the accusative or dative case. The accusative case for movement and the dative case for static location. Ni ga laumi laufi so kyon. [ni kʰa ˈlau5.mi5 ˈlau5fi so kʲon] 1SG.NOM swim lake ACC in I swim in the lake .   Ni ga laumi laufi tyi le. [ni kʰa ˈlau5.mi5 ˈlau5.fi tʲi1 lə] 1SG.NOM swim lake DAT by I am at the lake . These are a good start, but lets make some more, shall we? On, on top of: [xi] from [xi.tʰe] "to ride". Before, i...

The World The world, called Nome by the Nomads looks something like this. The Nomads live in and around the red circle, a land of rolling hills, plentiful grasses, and cold temperatures. Religion Most Nomads believe in a monotheistic religion called Minism, where a single deity (Min) is split into five aspects each representing one of the five elements. Min is considered the "spirit of the world" or more literally the "breath" of the world. Minism is an animist tradition. Min is said to inhabit all things, especially those which were created to honor him, like idols and works of art. The Five Elements The five elements are a conceptual scheme used to explain natural phenomena and the human psyche. The principal elements are bone, incense, silk, glass, and ink based on the five sources of magic within this world. They are also known as the five virtues, empathy, truth, faith, rectitude, and wisdom. The Five Aspects of Min Tsabu Tsabu is the first aspect of Min. Tsabu...

Today is going to be all about nouns and noun classes and case marking! Because Munya is an analytic language all markings are going to be separate words. I have decided that Munya will only have one noun class to keep things simple. I do prefer simple languages, succinct ones most of all. I want Munya to play all of its cards up front and not hide much behind complex (synthetic) grammatical markers. Case Marking I've decided on seven cases; nominative (with a separate topic marker), accusative, genitive, and dative,. Each case will have its own marker that follows the noun it modifies. So, first, I'm going to take the word [ˈkʰa] "to make" and use it as the nominative marker. Byu ga demi. dog NOM run (the) dog runs. I've already decided the source of the topic marker in the previous entry, but I'll expand here. So far, Munya has two demonstratives [t͡se] for "this" and [na] for "that", so I took the word for "that" and used it as...

Word Order Today will be spent diverging a bit from conlang year to touch on word order and syntactic alignment in Munya. I have decided that Munya will be a topic-comment language where the topic or theme is stated first and then expounded upon. Sentences will be predominantly subject-verb-object, except for when the object is promoted to the topic on the sentence, in which case the predominant order would be object-subject-verb. Kana na ni tyi walu le. kana TOP I see PST RES As for Kana, I saw her already. Syntactic Alignment Taking a departure from my norm, Munya will have a nominative-accusative alignment.

This is it, the first words in this conlang! We'll be starting with some relatively stable words for body parts. I chose to keep these words relatively simple because they will be among the most basic roots in the language. Speaking of "the language", lets give it a name, shall we? First, lets create a word for "nomad". I always find taking inspiration from real languages help create believable etymologies. In English, the word nomad comes from the proto-indoeuropean root *nem- "assign, allot; take", referencing how nomadic peoples will travel from place to place "roaming" or "wandering" to find pasturage. I like the idea of using "wander" here, so lets begin there. I'm imagining these people would have an intimate relationship with craftsmanship, particularly weaving, so lets create a word for weaving, then use that to derive "wander" and then "nomad". I'm going to use one of the nonce words I ...

Day 3 came early because it is going to be a short one. Much of what will be included is up in the air and subject to change until much later in the process. After giving my consonant inventory some thought, I settle on a hard/soft distinction and an aspiration distinction instead of the voicing distinction I was originally thinking of using, winding up with an inventory that looks something like this: Its quite large, larger than I was expecting, but I wanted to fit in a few sounds I haven't used in a while like the affricates.  As for the vowels, I went with the classic five vowels with a length distinction caused by historical loss of weak consonants. This historical sound change creates two classes of syllables which will interface with the tones quite well. Allophonically there isn't much happening here. Most of the variations are in the vowels, which devoice between unaspirated consonants and a centralizing of /o/ because I like the sound (haha). I did decide to include t...

Today we will discuss the culture and appearance of the Nomads, the speakers of this conlang in universe. If you are following along this entry will mostly be covering my answers to questions posed by Quothalinguist on their "day 4" of conlangyear. Here are a few sporadic notes I've come up since the last post. All subject to change in future updates. What do they look like? What basic body parts do they have? The Nomads are unmodified humans. All the regular human body parts apply. Do they have any unique markings or characteristics? The Nomads often have long hair, pinned or tied up, regardless of gender. They wear many styles of clothes, but the one I've chosen to illustrate below is that which would be worn by the Nomad's "shaman" or spiritual leader. The color red is special to this people, they wear it in the form of bracelets, face paint, and even tattoo it into their skin. It represents life in reference to blood. Mothers have tattoos across the...

 Hot off the heels of my previous conlanging endeavor, Synkatokopa (Kopa), I want to create something brand new. For this project I will be (loosely) following along with Quothalinguist 's "conlang year" series. In that vein, day 1 will be all about intentions and goals. This is the most important part when starting a new project, any project not just a conlang, in my opinion. Setting a good foundation will not only springboard your progress on your journey faster and farther, but it will let you know when it's time to wrap up. So, no matter how excited I am, or you are, to start your own conlang, right now is the moment to ask a few important questions. Question #1 and the most important one, in my opinion, is "why do I want to create this language?". My answer? I want to create another language for a worldbuilding and ttrpg project I've been working on since 2018, one that will slot in next to Kopa. More specifically, I want to create a strictly CV str...

Hello and welcome, I am V, otherwise known as Schachar or Schachar's Familiar depending on where you find me. I'm an amateur conlanger, worldbuilder, author, ttrpg designer, and generalist. I'll be posting mostly about my main hobby, conlanging, with a little bit of worldbuilding and ttrpg design thrown in. As of this very moment you can catch me most frequently posting on my BlueSky account @schachar.bsky.social and very rarely on my reddit as u/schacharsfamiliar.  Thank you for stopping by my corner of the internet, hope to see you again soon.