Trokh (for ship and people naming)

[robject]

...most Aslan words are an entire phrase of meaning...

Some preliminary syntax.

HIGHLY SYNTHETIC. Aslan "words" as written represent entire phrases. So for example, if a sentence has a subject phrase, an object phrase , an indirect object phrase, and a verb phrase, then each of those is written as one word.

Sounds messy, so keep it in mind that the more web we spin, the more we're caught.

Vowel Mashing. Prefix vowels may change to adapt to a stem's vowel:

A + A => EA
I + I => EI
I + IY => IY
O + O => O

NOUN CLASS. Each class of noun uses a certain set of prefixes to indicate number and relate the noun to its verb and auxiliary clitics.

Format: Class ?: (SINGULAR PREFIX/PLURAL PREFIX) Classname. Notes.

Class I: [A]-/LA- Female. Technology and business/industry roles. Nouns with no obvious class prefix are considered female.
Class II: AO-/WAO- Male. Martial and exploratory/SAR roles. EKA- is a less common prefix for martial ships.
Class III: YA-/KTI- Prey and Parts. Things falling outside of male and female classes. Also body parts and components of things.
Class IV: TRAU. This is a class with only one word: Land.
Class V: E'-/FE'-. A "leftovers" class of gathered imports, loans, archaics, and so on.
Class VI: TR-. Not to be confused with TRAU. Languages.


COMPOUND NOUNS. E.g. Using Genitive and possessive words links nouns together into compound nouns.

Genitives are great for ship names, and okay for people names, too. So, how are genitives constructed in Trokh?

A Kzin stereotypical example would be "Traitor's Claw". This is a genitive construction, where Traitor describes Claw. Claw of the traitor. Claw of A traitor, any traitor. Some particular claw that's associated with treason. You get the idea.

Wikipedia tells me that English modifies the descriptive noun: so "traitor" becomes "traitor's", so we know it's modifying "claw". Fine.

Afro-Asiatic languages modify the HEAD noun; in other words, they'd morph to the word "claw" and leave "traitor" alone. It's called "putting the head noun into construct state." (And sometimes even the modifying noun is altered too.) That sounds sufficiently foreign to me that I'd like to go down that path and see if it looks nice and Aslan-y.

VOCABULARY

/ya-faoraea/, dewclaw.
/ao-uoauye/, traitor.

Adding a /-yrh'/ to the end of a noun (or converting a final vowel to a /-yrh'/ if that looks better), puts the head noun in "construct" state. So for example, CLAW-ryh' TRAITOR is Traitor's Claw or "yafaoraeyrh' aouoauye". Let's drop the AO- prefix for traitor, since it's directly attached to the head noun, for "yafaoraeyrh' uoauye".

And don't forget that Trokh, being synthetic, would write those as one word[FONT=arial,helvetica]:[/FONT] yafaoeaeuyh'uoauye.[FONT=arial,helvetica]
[/FONT]
But since this is a martial ship, its prefix changes from YA- to the masculine AO-:

aofaoeaeuyh'uoauye.

VERBS. Verbs have prefixes for tense and subject noun class. Tenses:

        Verb Initial Letter
           C      V                        
past       e-     ekh-
future     wa-    ahf-
active*    -      -
eternal**  ui-    yt-
perfect    oi-    et-

* present progressive
** indefinite present

Example: ktyul, to pounce, referring to The Traitor's Claw ship above, whose Noun Class Prefix is AO-:

ao-e-ktyul, it pounced
ao-wa-ktyul, it will pounce
ao-0-ktyul, it is pouncing, it pounces
ao-ui-ktyul, it pounces [for a living]
ao-oi-ktyul (conflated to aoiktyul), it pounced

Full sentence:

Aofaoeaeuyh'uoauye aouiktyuil. The Traitor's Claw is a Pouncer.

Person. To inflect a verb for person, rather than noun class, follow this guide:

ra-  I, me
fi-  I, me (negative)
ua-  you
urh- you (negative)

Example: Using ktyul again:

raktyul, ra-0-ktyul: I pounce.
fiktyul, fi-0-ktyul: I do not pounce.
uaktul, ua-0-ktyul: you pounce.

With other tense modifiers:

raektyul, I pounced.
rawaktyul, I will pounce.
rauiktyul, I pounce [for a living].
raoiktyul, I pounced.

Pronoun Suffixes
Good for direct and indirect objects.

-0     3rd person (it/him/her/them)
-fiya  reflexive  (me/myself/ourselves)
-fere  2nd person

Indirect Object Prefixes

hweha-  around/near/to/towards (indefinite location and movement)
htaa-   at (definite location)
hwehi-  containment (within/in/inside)

[FONT=arial,helvetica]


[/FONT]
aea little (adj - remember to inflect to agree with head noun!)
[FONT=arial,helvetica][FONT=arial,helvetica]aieaeyeye [/FONT][FONT=arial,helvetica]No[/FONT][FONT=arial,helvetica]
[/FONT]eya And
toieaiyea Attack
ftiai But[/FONT]
[FONT=arial,helvetica][FONT=arial,helvetica]htuiiya Yes
[/FONT]kharl Understand
***ryukhioi Planet (But what's its noun class?!)
tailaoue Pardon me
(tr)arlaaya Anglic
(tra)warliiya Vargr [any Vargr language]



[/FONT][FONT=arial,helvetica]A[/FONT][FONT=arial,helvetica]ofaoeaeuyh'uoauye aoe'toieaiyea hweha'ryukhioi. The Traitor's Claw attacked [it] near the planet.
Rakharl trokh. I understand Trokh.
Eya rakharl trawarliiya. And I understand "Vargr" (probably Gvegh).
Ftiai fikharl trarlaaya. But I do not understand Anglic.


QUESTIONS

Emphasis is used for questions and emotional content. When transcribing question sentences, just stick a question mark at the end. Trokh speakers will know what to do with it.

Tailaoue uakharl trokh? Pardon me, do you understand Trokh?
Aieaeyeye urhkharl. No, I don't understand [it].
Htuiiya uakharl trokh tr'aea. Yes, I understand Trokh a little.

RELATIVE CLAUSES

yeiae- relative pronoun or relativizer (that/which)[/FONT][FONT=arial,helvetica]

[/FONT]
[FONT=arial,helvetica][FONT=arial,helvetica]A[/FONT][FONT=arial,helvetica]ofaoeaeuyh'uoauye hweha'fere. The Traitor's Claw [is] near you.
[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=arial,helvetica][FONT=arial,helvetica][FONT=arial,helvetica][FONT=arial,helvetica]A[/FONT][FONT=arial,helvetica]ofaoeaeuyh'uoauye yeiae'hweha'fere [/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][FONT=arial,helvetica][FONT=arial,helvetica][FONT=arial,helvetica][FONT=arial,helvetica][FONT=arial,helvetica]aoe'toieaiyea. [/FONT][FONT=arial,helvetica]The Traitor's Claw, which is near you, is attacking.[/FONT][/FONT][/FONT]

[/FONT][/FONT]

 

[Quint]

LOL! I know you haven't gotten a response on this, and I don't have much to add other than it spurred a humorous memory of a reoccurring NPC in IMTU.

Captain Dinty Moore (Human) of the Aslan Free Trader Dangerous Toes. The story of how he came to own the Dangerous Toes is unclear and Captain Moore has told various different versions over the years. aAt least one of which involves him married to former, female Aslan, owner while another has him married to former male Aslan captain due to a Shakespearean comedy of gender-errors. Whatever the case, Dinty has kept the Shrine of Heroes intact as either a matter of respect, or luck, or whatever and is known for having at least one Aslan crew member at all times.

In any case I always pictured "Dangerous Toes" as the literal translation of a much more impressive and meaningful phrase in Trokh.

D.

 

[Jame]

I would think that either ships are gender-neutral, i.e. "the vessel on *its* shakedown cruise," or gender based on role, such as military, exploratory or SAR vessels are male while commercial, scientific/medical or industral ships are female.

 

[elbmc1969]

Jame, ship gender depending on role is just brilliant. I can see this applying to all sorts of things.

 

[Xerxeskingofking]

I agree the gender changing with role fits quite well, and it could be expanded to cover items in general.

what I think could be intresting would be a ship or object name that is a aslan Idiom, like say a ship whos literal name is the midnight stalker, but takes its name form the aslan version of "the early bird gets the worm". ("the midnight stalker will catch the mornings prey", perhaps?)

imagine the fun that can be had trying to explain the nuances to an aslan of a ship called the early bird, or an arm and a leg (as in "cost me a _")?, or thinking up a few for aslan to use ("oh, you won't find Atsk'ksh here anymore, he's looking at the grass form the other side!").

 

[Jame]

Jame, ship gender depending on role is just brilliant. I can see this applying to all sorts of things.

That'll be 50000000000000000000 Imperial credits PLEASE! :devil:

Glad you like it.

 

[Quint]

Jame, ship gender depending on role is just brilliant. I can see this applying to all sorts of things.

Agreed, I am going to steal this immediately.

D.

 

[robject]

Thread resurrect.

Jame hit on the usefulness of grammatical "gender", a way of classifying nouns based on how they are managed. Gender can define a separate set of conjugation rules, for example.

Aslan might have more than two grammatical genders, all based on role... Or the lack of, if there are a class of things which don't fit into roles well. And there are always some things which sit in a unique gender for some long-forgotten reason.

There could be degrees of female and male grammatical "gender".

In other words, I'm aiming at Swahili for half of Trokh's grammar.

 

[aramis]

Thread resurrect.

Jame hit on the usefulness of grammatical "gender", a way of classifying nouns based on how they are managed. Gender can define a separate set of conjugation rules, for example.

Aslan might have more than two grammatical genders, all based on role... Or the lack of, if there are a class of things which don't fit into roles well. And there are always some things which sit in a unique gender for some long-forgotten reason.

There could be degrees of female and male grammatical "gender".

In other words, I'm aiming at Swahili for half of Trokh's grammar.

Many terran languages have 3... a few have 4.

 

[robject]

I would think that either ships are gender-neutral, i.e. "the vessel on *its* shakedown cruise," or gender based on role, such as military, exploratory or SAR vessels are male while commercial, scientific/medical or industral ships are female.

Some preliminary syntax.

HIGHLY SYNTHETIC. Aslan "words" as written represent entire phrases. So for example, if a sentence has a subject phrase, an object phrase , an indirect object phrase, and a verb phrase, then each of those is written as one word.

Sounds messy, so keep it in mind that the more web we spin, the more we're caught.


COMPOUND NOUNS. E.g. Using Genitive and possessive words links nouns together into compound nouns. (See OP)

And don't forget that Trokh, being synthetic, writes each phrase as one word[FONT=arial,helvetica].[/FONT][FONT=arial,helvetica]


[/FONT] VERBS. Verbs have prefixes for tense and subject noun class. (See OP)

NOUN CLASS. Each class of noun uses a certain set of prefixes to indicate number and relate the noun to its verb and auxiliary clitics. (See OP)

 

[aramis]

Some preliminary syntax.


COMPOUND NOUNS. E.g. Using Genitive and possessive words links nouns together into compound nouns.

VERBS. Verbs have prefixes for tense: past, future, present progressive, indefinite present, perfect. They are also prefixed based on subject noun class, explained below.

NOUN CLASS. Each class of noun uses a certain set of prefixes to indicate number and relate the noun to its verb and auxiliary clitics.

Class I: Female. Technology and business/industry roles.
Class II: Male. Martial and exploratory/SAR roles.
Class III: Body parts, and by extension, components.
Class IV: This is a class with only one word: Land.
Class V: A "leftovers" class with words of unknown provenance and imports.

Class IV should include a variety of land-forms... for a people as land obsessed as the Aslan, it wouldn't stay one word only.

There also should be a class for prey-species; anything qualifying for this is excluded from classes I & II. They are, after all, primary hunters.

There also should be a class for things that are neither gendered nor sub-parts, nor prey... it is from this class that borrowed words would draw their conjugation.

Plus I recall some fiction mentioning an insult by reconjugating one's job title as if prey... it's a great way to insult, and I can't see their twitchiness failing to retain that kind of nastiness..

 

[aramis]

Coming at this another direction, I'd think the genders should be

Male
Female
Prey
Tools
Landforms - using the land conjugation on a male or female thing would imply land used by that thing. So starport simply being starship using the landform cognate patterns.

 

[robject]

Since the reasons for forming a class are seldom in lock-step with the sophont people speaking a language, I don't have a problem with this, nor do I assume that all nouns will fit neatly into their categories: some nouns may appear to be in the wrong place entirely.

However, I do think the prey category would be useful.

The Land "category" is based on an idea from Swahili, which has this one odd-man out noun "place" that forms its own class. It was a loanword with an unusual provenance. While this would suit the Aslan, their language isn't (and shouldn't) always be that clear.

I suppose Trokh is a highly "synthetic" language, if I recall right.

Swahili, on the other hand, has about the same level of synthesis as Romance languages: inflections and cases.


Vilani, while perhaps not "highly" synthetic, does have a complicated verb. We'll have to avoid that in Trokh, and I think spreading around the synthesis to all phrases in a sentence -- and not piling up on the verb more than we already have -- will accomplish that.

 

[robject]

Trokh and Starship Names

Using Jame's quite awesome explanation for noun genders, I'm going to revisit the Aslan starship names I know about and see if some of them might need tweaking.

In both classes, it looks like the ships will be re-prefixed - or at least explained - in most cases.

FEMALE

The main requirement is that these ships not have a prefix from another class. They don't even necessarily need the A- prefix.

L-DS14 Hkiyrerao Lab Ship.
A2-DS12 Eakhau Far Trader. This might be taken as a change. Supposing it's A + AKHAU => AAKHAU, which morphs to EAKHAU.
R-FB22 Khtukhao Merchant.
RF-KS13 Taori Class Frontier Merchant.
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MALE

S-AS22 Hraye Exploratory Scout. If this takes the AO- prefix, then it would more properly be Aohraye.
S-BU72 Stayow Combat Scout. This would probably need the AO- prefix, so Aostayow.
G-DS41 Khosaa Frigate. This would be Aokhosaa.
T-KS33 Aositaoh Clan/Military Transport. The AO- is the "male singular" class prefix.

E-HU44 Ekawsykua Escort. Assume EKA- is an "imported" martial prefix.



OTHER

S-BS43 Ktiyhui Clan Courier. One might say that this is KTI + IYHUI, a plural "components" noun. It might make sense as a Courier, if it travels in a "pack" which have assigned territory.

J-BS22 Kteiroa Prospector. If this is taken as a change from KTI + IROA = KTE-IROA, then this also hints that the ship is travelling in a pack (or else is considered a "bucket of bolts").


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[maksimsmelchak]

Very cool!

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

 

[robject]

Added pronouns to the OP under the VERBS section.

 

[robject]

I haven't thought much about marking objects and indirect objects. To be consistent, they would have their own noun cases/prefixes. For example, a case for general location (around/near/to/towards - ), one for definite location (at - ), and one for containment (within/in/inside - ).

But we'll see.

 

[maksimsmelchak]

I haven't thought much about marking objects and indirect objects. To be consistent, they would have their own noun cases/prefixes. For example, a case for general location (around/near/to/towards - ), one for definite location (at - ), and one for containment (within/in/inside - ).

But we'll see.

*** Rob, do you have a template for developing languages? A sort of Con-Lang layout? ***

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

 

[robject]

I'm pretty scatterbrained about it: I pick two languages and try to mash their syntaxes together. For Trokh I'm mixing Kiswahili with more general proto-Semitic elements (genitive "case"). Not a very complete mixing at this state, but there's room to grow.

...maybe I'll put direct-object pronoun suffixes on verbs. Dunno.

 

[maksimsmelchak]

I'm pretty scatterbrained about it: I pick two languages and try to mash their syntaxes together. For Trokh I'm mixing Kiswahili with more general proto-Semitic elements (genitive "case"). Not a very complete mixing at this state, but there's room to grow.

...maybe I'll put direct-object pronoun suffixes on verbs. Dunno.

I think you and I need to talk. My efforts combined with yours could really bear fruit.

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.