Teliya Nevashi

513 and rising. Seasons.

2011-10-19T07:29:00.000-07:00

I made some changes to a couple of affixes that has resulted in yet another revision to the vocabulary list. Here is the link to the Revised Revised version.

I will get around to changing the link on the right. (It is on the right, isn't it? I always get that wrong.)

There are 513 entries in the document now. This isn't a full listing of all Nevashi words. The pronouns aren't there, for instance. Despite some omissions, I am glad I've kept it almost complete and updated regularly. Now I just need to get that other document re-written. I am working on it, but it has been extremely slow going because my personal life hasn't been especially conlanging-friendly lately.

Nevashi is the first conlang I've done that has never had a paper version. This was one of my goals for the project; I wanted to begin to work in a searchable and more shareable format. Of those two things, searchable is by far the more important of the two. The charm of looking for things in hand-written documents wears off pretty quickly when you're doing a lot of translations.

We've moved on to the half of the year during which I accomplish the most in my creative pursuits. This season is called kana in Nevashi. It's autumn and winter taken together. The same word can be used to mean cold weather in a general sense too.

Autumn is kana gwisot, "cool kana". Winter is kana gwisel, "freezing kana".

Although I didn't make any notes on it, it would appear that the good people of Nevash measure the two seasons from equinox to equinox. The word for "south" is pakana, or "toward kana" and north is palora, "toward lora". (Lora is the other half of the year.) I will have to assume that they've generalized north/south as being "that direction on this side of the east-west line", based on where the sun is rising and setting. (I can only assume that's what I was thinking, since I didn't write anything down.)

In any case, kana is the season during which I do most of my conlanging, writing, painting, and so on. I get introspective and spend a lot of time thinking about life, the universe, and everything. During lora, I'm too busy running around outside and chasing kids. It's my care-free season.

Do y'all have a conlanging season? Or am I just a freak?

Out-of-date documentation

2011-09-27T07:16:00.000-07:00

The grammar I have linked over there on the right is terribly, terribly out-of-date. I plan on working on that a little bit today. It's still going to be very informal. Writing it all out in a conversational tone helps me get over my aversion to writing it out at all, and it makes it easier reading for my friends who aren't really all that interested in languages but are curious about what it is that I do.

In any case, whatever comes out of the revision will be better than the best available documentation for ea-luna. For instance, the ENTIRE documentation for ea-luna verbs is this:

(ma/buna) (ae/ewe) (ema/ide) (eni) (uma/punu/bana)

That makes perfect sense to me, but it really doesn't tell anyone else much of anything useful. That's what I am working from on my end, though, for most of my languages-- just a cheat sheet for my own benefit that needs to be expanded and explained before it is fit for public consumption.

On an different, but perhaps not wholly unrelated, note, the Nevashi word du jour, newly minted just this morning, is semosva, "procrastination" (or, more literally, "not-doing-ness"), which is just shy of simosva, "laziness".

Play!

2011-09-02T11:59:00.000-07:00

Recently there was a post I replied to on the Conlangs group on Facebook that asked for verbs that mean "play" or "have fun". I shared and then offered a brief explanation for voya and lon, which mean "play (pretend or with toys)" and "play (a game or sport)". I was questioned about which verb would be used for playing with a ball. I offered a non-explanation that there was some overlap and that the meaning could be shaded in different ways. Now I am going to offer a better explanation.

Voya is open-ended play. If you're out throwing a ball back and forth, that's voya. Lon is competitive play, or any game where score is kept. If you and a friend are throwing the ball and seeing who hits a target more, that's lon. If you're throwing the ball at the target by yourself, it's lon if you're counting hits and trying to improve your numbers, but it is voya if you're just throwing the ball at the target for fun and not even keeping track.I have voya listed with ta, the sense of which is "doing" or "acting". (When I am showing the most likely combinations, I list them in first person singular and present(non-past) tense for the sake of simplicity and consistency, so ta voya is "I play".) Lon is listed with ka, the sense of which is "moving" or "going". On the other hand, if I am building with blocks, that might actually be fa voya, since fa indicates making, building, creating, and that sort of thing, while playing chess would probably be ta lon, since chess isn't particularly active. It might even be sa lon, since it is a thinking game.

I stink at chess. Playing against me is ti lon. Playing against someone good may be si lon. (I put these in 3rd person, since I don't normally play chess against myself. That would be reflexive anyway.)

Very few of my existing verbs have been stretched out as far as they could go. Most have one suggested usage. Some have two. I'd like to see more of them expanded along the lines of nedh, which defined this way: "pray (ca); meditate (sa); carry out a religious ritual (fa); worship (ta)".

If you wanted to shade the meaning of a verb a particular way, you might find this list handy:

be m/b
do, act t/d
make, create, build f /v
go, move k /g
receive, have, feel, perceive (senses) p /b
give, think s/z
bodily functions, music, speech c/j

The former is the non-past, the latter is past. Yes, the past tense of both ma and pa is ba. That wasn't a mistake. I like my languages a little messy.

A vocabulary installment

2011-08-07T14:13:00.000-07:00

Earth now has a name in Nevashi. It's Ashea, which comes from ash, "land, earth, dirt". That's not terribly original, but I do like the way it fits together with Ianea, which comes from iane, "water". It should probably have been Asha, but I like the matching forms.

Two other recent words are tuzhel and benaséd. They both mean "pregnant". The former would literally be something like "in an active state of being heavy" and the latter means "with child".

Tuzhi, the ordinary word for heavy, is also new.

And there's a word for "human" now, jenve, which combines jen ("person") and ve, which is the common part in "animal" and "pet", which must have to do with living beings.

The recently revised vocabulary list is at https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Amki62P0cV4cdGpPVXJxcFdORUVhbkZlUEJNbmhnMVE&hl=en_US&authkey=CMu26uYM, if that link works.

Tinkering, Aesthetics, and Carving Up Time.

2011-07-16T08:22:00.000-07:00

I will have to do a significant re-write of the documentation for Teliya Nevashi in the near future. There are many sweeping changes coming along.

I am making some changes to the whole phono-mess. I am going to collapse my two r's (rh /R/ and r /4/) into one, which will be /r/ or /4/, and x /x/ will disappear into h /h/. Both changes affect the word xirhos ("how many"), which will become hiros. I do think that's an improvement. Part of me will miss rh and x though. Having those in addition to r and h was just asking for trouble from the start, and that was not an accident.

I also don't see the point in actually writing in the glottal stop when the most common place it occurs is between two identical (consecutive) vowels, and it always occurs in that case. There are a few other places I've put it, but it really wouldn't be missed from those places.

As described in the previous entry, I am making changes to the way nouns work, and I am scrapping the entire set of personal pronouns for new ones. (I will probably keep de for 2nd person, but the rest are history.)

All of the examples will have to be rewritten for these changes. That alone could take a while. It will give me a chance to get a feel for how the changes work out in practice. There's quite a lot of work to be done, and that's not counting things not written anywhere that need to be documented. All of this tinkering is good for my mental health, though, since it keeps me from worrying about other things going on in my life.

~~~~

I have something to confess about the aesthetics of my conlangs: sometimes I make things ugly on purpose. And I don't mean, "This is an ugly concept, so it should have an ugly word." I mean that I quite often create things that aren't necessarily pretty to me because they are ugly in an interesting way or because a certain amount of ugliness makes a language feel more well-rounded to me. Otherwise, every word ends up sounding like "fishery" or "lilacs", words that I particularly like in English. For every "lilac fishery", there has to be a "salt water" (which sounds ugly to me, especially in my native dialect).

~~~

Teliya Nevashi has two verb tenses: Past and Non-Past. The non-past covers present and future, but it also covers the very recent past. If something happened an hour ago, that's still non-past. If it happened last week but *feels* like it just happened, that's non-past too. This recent past bleeding into the present that's bleeding into the near future reflects how I carve up time in my own mind, and tends to be a thread running through my various conlangs, even when they have more tenses. What's "present" is a little fuzzy for me.

Nouns: A Progress Report...

2011-07-12T07:02:00.000-07:00

I decided to completely scrap my set of personal pronouns and to revise how nouns are marked for number and case. It's taking me a while to come up with the set of pronouns that I really like, but in the meantime, I can share this much about nouns:

Nouns & Pronouns (Again.)

I’ve never been ecstatically happy with the noun and pronoun systems of Nevashi, so this seems like a good time to try something new.

Currently, there are a set of declensions based on suffixes. This proposal is for a system that parallels the way that verbs work, as suggested (by David Peterson?) at one point when I was kvetching on CONLANG-L about how unhappy I was with my nouns. While I am overhauling nouns, pronouns are getting reworked too.

The genitive has shifted to -i, which is also the most common adjectival ending. This was a change that mainly had to do with sound, but it is also consistent with the established (alternative) practice of using adjectives to show possession.

There are two sets of things that can precede nouns that can carry number and case markings. The first set is for use in any case where the noun, like the cheese, stands alone. The second set is case-and-number-marked definite article, demonstrative adjectives, and prepositions:

singular dual plural
Nom. (Optional) i il in
Genitive i’i ili ini
Accusative im ilim inim
Dative it ilit init

(I had thought, at first, that the nominative and genitive singular would be the same, but the glottal stop just isn’t getting enough play, so there it is, where it will suddenly become extremely common.)

Ya (The definite article, now with fabulous new marking)
Singular Dual Plural
Nominative ya yal yan
Genitive yai yalai yanai
Accusative yam yalam yanam
Dative *etc* yat yalat yanat

(And, of course, it butchered the tables in the copy & paste. Y'all are bright. You'll figure it out.)

Everything else will likely follow the pattern of ya there, except for some vowel changes as necessary. As usual, any ending that requires a vowel will echo the last vowel before it.

There's the possibility, under this system, of an empty, placeholder noun (similar to the magical verb an.) I am not sure what that would be or how it would be used, but the possibility is intriguing to me.

These changes will require me to change (or at least provide the alternative using this system) for every example in the documentation. I haven't decided if I will simply replace the existing noun-related section or present this as an alternative scheme.

Nevashi has always had alternate versions, which is one of the things I've lost in the existing documentation online. This is a shame because I've always enjoyed that aspect of this particular project. At one point, I had been working on a Babel text translation, and three versions emerged that were radically different in terms of structure, using exactly the same vocabulary set. I wish I had kept that, because it would give some insight into the overall development of Standard Teliya Nevashi, and also demonstrate how broad the shadow grammar really is.

(I can't think of a better way to describe the undocumented or underdocumented alternative grammars than "shadow grammar".)

Bits & Pieces

2011-07-02T16:53:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time, I had a chat on Facebook about what kind of gender system a race of insectoids might have. I had a thought or two on that matter that turned into this, which I found in a file oh-so-descriptively named "notes.txt":

Animate/Edible (most plants and animals, water, and enemies)
Inanimate/Edible (meat; grains, cooked, processed or manufactured foods)
Animate/Inedible (people, poisonous plants and animals, spirits, emotions, fire)
Inanimate/Inedible (Most concrete, inanimate objects)

The difference between 'pig' and 'pork' is one of gender-- a pig is A/E and pork is I/E.
Abstract concepts are assigned gender according to where they seem to best fit metaphorically. Animate and inanimate could also be seen as moving/stationary-- “Murder” is probably A/I because it is an action (moving) committed by living things (animate), while “neglect” might be I/I, because it is a sort of non-action.

Also in this file was a paradigm showing what I will assume is the present indicative of a verb tos or tosva. I know what tosva is ("there is, there are"), so I guess I was just working back from there to coax a more useful verb out of it.

Anyway, I thought I'd post some orphaned bits and pieces while I work on a potential overhaul of Nevashi nouns, which is taking me longer to write up than I initially thought it would. (It's actually two different possible alternatives to the system in the documentation now.)

Do fwata an.

2011-06-21T14:09:00.000-07:00

Do fwata an is "because I can."

This is a bit of grammar I've used before, but never put into the grammar document explicitly. An is just there to complete all the required parts of the verb, since "can" and "do" are both contained in fwata.

I was giving some thought to another blog (as if I kept up with the ones I already have) of translations and compositions in Nevashi, and maybe with guest appearances of ea-luna, Myjador (or however I was spelling that last), and that unnamed conlang I've been secretly working on. I thought I'd call it either "Do Fwata An" or "Mufmuf".

If you've ever needed to say that someone writes too much, mufmuf is your verb, modeled on tel/teltel. Si mufmuf. ("S/he writes too much.") And isn't that fun to say?

Visiting Nevash: Travel from the Mainland

2011-05-16T19:18:00.000-07:00

I've been having mixed feelings about Teliya Nevashi recently. I am not in love with it right now, but I am not in loathe with it either. I think some sweeping changes to the phonology will do a lot to make me happier with it, and there are still few enough words that I could apply the changes manually.

On top of that, I've got a new conlang pecking at the windows of my brain like that obnoxious raven from the poem. I would like to develop a conlang that's specifically a 'personal auxiliary language' for actual, general use by me. That's probably going to be my major summer project.

In the meantime, I've decided to work on a phrasebook for tourists visiting Nevash. I thought I'd put it here in installments as I go, since it will probably take me a long time to complete. Here's a small installment, some useful phrases for the boat ride to Nevash from the mainland:

Where is the boat?
Ya omo, mi dev alos?

I am seasick. I am very ill. Please kill me.
Ca omosivek. Ca sisivek. Gorhemixi lat, so pe net.

Don't vomit on my boat!
Seya sinashish omot laz!

~~~
Only one new word here: so ("if")
I didn't have an expression for "please" that I could find, so I went with "if you choose". I am not sure what sort of verb "choose" is. I was thinking pa (for the 'recieve'/'have' aspect) or sa (for the 'think') aspect. I think that sa net might be closer to "I decide" and pa net is perhaps closer to "I select". Anyway, I have rendered please as so pe net, "if you choose."

'Seasick' is 'boatsick' (omosivek). Hanesivek, literally 'seasick', refers to the symptoms of drinking sea water. It is also used to mean "crazy" or "stupid". (Or both crazy and stupid. Or reckless.)

Shmalon

2011-05-10T14:37:00.000-07:00

Vlaca nash xixirhuzh shmalonam.
I have eaten too many marshmallows.

Xirhuzh -- a large quantity of. Xirhos existed as a question word meaning 'how much/many', and looking at the other question words, I can only assume that 'xirh' means 'amount, quantity, number (count of items)'. Xixirhuzh, then, means a very large amount of something, or too much/many.

Xirhot -- a small quantity of. Xixirhot would mean a tiny amount, or too little of whatever it is.

Shmalo -- A word derived from the English, presumably because the Nevashi, upon first encountering this strange food, misheard the name as "my shmalo". The mistake dug itself in and refused to be turned out.

I had a dream and woke up with a new Nevashi word in my head. It was something that ended with the -séd suffix, and contained an entirely new root... but I don't even remember what the general topic might have been. Maybe it will come to me while I take a nap to sleep off the marshmallow binge.

A Word For Today

2011-05-06T19:44:00.000-07:00

I don't think I can commit to a word a day, but I do have a word for the day, along with its relatives.

Ora, true (adj); to tell the truth (v. with sa); to act honestly (v. with ta)
Oram, a truth, something that is true (n.)
Orabwa, truth (n.)

I can imagine ora'el as an emphatic form of the adjective, but I'll have to let that roll around in my mind for a while before I can divine the specific connotations of it. It might mean "honest" or "correct"... But ora'el hasn't quite landed yet.

Google docs doesn't want to cooperate with this particular laptop, so it will have to wait until later to join the official document.

Translation exercise from the CONLANG list

2011-03-15T20:35:00.000-07:00

The following is from the CONLANG list. (I hope Amanda doesn't mind being quoted here.) I was pretty happy about this translation for a few reasons. The first is that it plugged a couple of glaring holes in my vocabulary ("cook" and "enjoy").

As I was looking through the words I do have, I found "fire (n), burn (v)" and related words, and also "warm (n, v)", but decided to go with something completely different for "cook". It gives me something else to build new words with. (For instance, "pwenulam" (fire+cook) could be used for grilling or barbecuing.)

Anyway, here's the post with the quoted part in italics and my response in bold:

On 3/12/2011 10:50 PM, Amanda Babcock Furrow wrote:
> I've been meaning to put out this translation exercise ever since Penzey's
> sent my husband the bumper sticker he couldn't resist "fixing" - from
> "Love people. Cook them tasty food." to "Love people. Cook them. Tasty!
> Food!"
>
> So, the exercise is: show us how different these two sentences are IYCL!
>

In Teliya Nevashi:

Hulishi jenenam. Ulamishi nashiyam anási vonesh.
Like(neighborly love)-IMP people-ACC. Cook-IMP food-ACC delicious them-DAT.

Jemishi jenenam. Ulamishi vonet. Anási! Nashiya!
Enjoy-IMP people-ACC. Cook-IMP them-ACC. Delicious! Food!

I was really torn about whether or not to use the imperative here, since
I also have an optative (which would suggest that it is desirable to do
these things) and a couple of varieties of 'should' that vary by the
degree of obligation (or the degree to which you'd feel guilty if you
didn't). In the end, I think I am happy with the way it turned out. And
they are pretty fun to read aloud too. (And I do need the practice
speaking the language aloud.)

Update. No New Content Today... Yet.

2011-01-27T07:12:00.000-08:00

I received a Kindle for Christmas from my son and his wife. (Actually, I am pretty sure that it was mostly from my daughter-in-law. She's sweet like that.) I am excited about the prospect of getting the grammar of TN into a Kindle-friendly format so that I can have an easily portable reference.

I need to update the grammar, and then I might create a "cheat sheet" version for the Kindle.

This afternoon, I plan on working out a simple Teliya Nevashi phrase book in order to have some useful conversational items together in one place.

I've been having a strong urge to start a new conlang, one that has the explicit purpose of being a personal auxiliary language (i.e. a conlang designed for everyday use in the real world by me... and anyone else interested). All my languages have this purpose, to some extent, but this is what I've been thinking about specifically for a new conlang now.

I'll try to resist, planning to redirect that energy toward TN, but I am not making any promises.

The Fourth Annual State Of The Language

2011-01-03T19:26:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year! Welcome to 2011!

Let's get right into this, shall we?

This year was another slow one for TN. I've actually spent a lot of time thinking about it, but not very much time actually writing those thoughts down. I feel like my current documentation of the grammar is really out-of-date and in need of revision, but still usable, if not particularly user friendly. The vocabulary continues to grow. It is up to almost 450 words, although this total number also counts alternate forms of the same word and words derived from other words. But, hey, I never turn down a good number!

I have come to the conclusion that I need to approach the language differently. Neglecting it really isn't doing much to improve it.

This is going to be the year of translations and composition for TN-- to work out the bugs in the grammar, expand the lexicon, and get myself a lot more comfortable with using it. I had wanted to post some audio files in 2010, but that idea fell through the cracks. This year, I am going to make some recordings, and hopefully have some other people make recordings as well. I predict some fairly major revisions coming to the grammar, and possibly to the phonology as well, as the language gets used more on paper and aloud.

I realize that this is pretty much exactly what I said last year, but it didn't pan out in reality, and it all still needs to happen if the language is going to get up off the paper and get some life into it, if you know what I mean.

On a completly trivial note, this blog (which is also the "official site" for the language) is getting a new look. I am tired of the old one, and the light green on dark green has been getting a little hard on my eyes.

And that's pretty much all I have to say about where TN is at and where it is going. Now it is time for me to go take a nice hot bath as a reward for getting in here for the fourth year in a row to post a "State of the Language". And on time, too!

Nashvi: A Vocabulary Installment

2011-01-03T18:15:00.000-08:00

I have had this stuck among my draft posts for a while, so now I am winding it up and posting it. I have spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about the Nevashi words for flatware (nashvi), mainly because I think of the words I want to use when I am walking to the store or in the shower or washing dishes, and then I forget them before I get a chance to write them down, so I have to invent them all over again later.

keb, to cut, slice
kebvi or kevvi, knife, blade
kebviozh or kevviozh, dagger, sword, machete (Anything in the large-to-very-large blade category)
vankebvi or vankevvi, scissors

The two forms shown are a matter of indecision on my part. It's my gut feeling that the 'bv' in this combination would eventually become 'vv', but I haven't decided if it is really going to do that at all, or if it would be spelled kebvi and pronounced kevvi, or be both spelled and pronounced kevvi. I haven't decided if this is some sort of general rule that might apply to other cases (e.g. would a hypothetical word kekxi become kexxi also?), if it is specific to that affix, or if it is sort of a weird thing about words for cutting-related tools. I haven't even formulated what the rule might be. That's something bubbling away on the back burner.

mek, to skewer or impale
meknash, fork
mekvi, skewer, spear

tum, to shovel or spoon (lift and move or measure with a shovel or spoon)
tumvi, shovel
tumviet, spoon

erhush, stir, mix together

luca, plate, disc
svado, bowl, dish
kalo, cooking pot, pan
iozina (or, alternately/more properly, iotzina), table (or board or plank; literally, "flat wood")

When I went to add these to the lexicon file, I found that I already had a word for "dish, bowl" (svado), which left kalo an orphan, so now it means a pan or pot for cooking. I was going to use it for table, but it sounded more bowl-shaped to me, so I decided to go the board=table route for table. I had to make a word for "wood" and then "flatwood" (because that sounded better than "cutwood" when I looked at both) and (SHAZAM!) we have a word for table.

Ohazishi ath vensháo

2010-05-13T20:11:00.000-07:00

It's very late. I am very tired. This is not enough to keep me from posting here, is it?

There was a much earlier entry about greetings, but it failed to have some common expressions like "Good morning" and "Good night". I am ready to tackle those now. Here's one:

Ohazishi ath vensháo ("Keep yourself safe tonight") -- This is a departure version of "Good night". It's just what they'd say. It might even be what you'd say to someone going to bed, but I will have to think on that more when I am more awake.

I am going to bed now. Ca mer noa.
Ohazishi ath vensháo

Hrmph

2010-05-11T17:08:00.000-07:00

In the previous entry, I'd translated the first 28 lines of McGuffey's First Reader. I had started working on more, but nothing is ready to post yet. Instead, I will address a problem in what I've already done.

13.Fwipi sul ya tase ya valtem adadi.
This is supposed to mean:
The man can see the boy run.

Adadi would be a adjective out of the verb, "adad". I was thinking at the time that it would be something like a present participle in English and that ya valtem adadi would mean "the running boy" which would seem close enough. It's not right though. It doesn't mean that he's running now, but that he's a boy who runs a lot, runs habitually, or likes running, something like that.

Let's have another go at it...
Fwipi sul ya tase ya valtem kwe ki adad lia.
potential-nonpast-3rd-sing-(perceive) see the man the boy (acc) that(relative clause opener) nonpast-3rd-sing run (relative clause closer).
The man can see the boy that runs/is running.

I think that's close enough.

In a later edit:
On the other hand, I could just let "adadi" mean what I intended in translation *and* also have those other meanings as well. Now that I am giving it a second thought, I think I'll just leave it as is.

(So now you get to see some of my process in action. Things change, change back, and then change again all the time.)

McGuffey's First Reader Translation

2010-04-19T15:49:00.000-07:00

Gary Shannon recently posted that he was going to translate McGuffey's First Reader as a method of language construction. I decided to apply Teliya Nevashi to the same text.

I haven't checked these over, but here we go:

1. Ca sul levtem. (The boy and girl in the illustration looked like they were probably in that 5-12 year old range.)
2. Ca sul levtam.
3. Ca sul levtem wa levtam.
4. Fwici sul ya levte ya levtam.
5. Fwaca sul ya levtam wa ya levtem.
6. Fwaca sul ya levtam.

7. Sulishi ya tasem!
8. Sulishi ya valtem wa ya tasem. (The boy in the illustration looked like a teen to me.)
9. Pi def ya tase cakom.
10. Pi def ya valte cakom, pi seya?
11. Fwiki adad ya valte.
12. Fwiki adad ya tase, ki?
13. Fwipi sul ya tase ya valtem adadi.

14. Pa def cakom.
15. Pa def voyabenam.
16. Sulishi voyabenam laz!
17. Fwici sul voyabena, ci seya?
18. Fwaca sul voyabenam laz.
19. Pi def ya voyabena cakom, pi seya?
20. Pi def voyabena laz cakom. (Alternately, Pi def laz voyabena cakom. OR Pi def ya voyabena laz cakom.)
21. Pi def levta voyabenam wa cakom.

22. Fwiki lon ya levte, ki?
23. Fwiki lon wa adad ya levte.
24. Fwiki lon ya levte lonosham ulai.
25. Fwiki lon ya tase lonosham ulai, ki seya?
26. Fwipi sul ya tase ya levtem loni.
27. Fwipi weyat ya tase ya ulam, pi?
28. Fwipi weyat ya levte ya ulam.

That was fun. I might do more in a few more days. Or months. You know how it goes around here.

And a special request translation: Mi gan sanzomo laz go ambo-ambo. My canoe is very large.

Clarification on Questions

2010-03-15T12:11:00.000-07:00

This morning I woke up thinking about how a "why" question fits into the forms I posted yesterday, and then I realized that it might not be clear how a "how" question works. To be clear, the topic is in the nominative, followed by the question part.
Here's the sample I put in the grammar document:
Dha fiosa, ve ano weros? (That house, 2nd-singular-past build how?; "How did you build that house?")

"Why" questions would be similar. I don't have an example off the top of my head, but you might even go as far as "About the civil war, you-wrote why?" ("Why did you write about the civil war?") -- this includes a topic phrase.

Addendum from the Comments:
Thomas said...
I notice that in your other questions, the topic stands alone at the beginning of the sentence; what about wording it as "the civil war, you wrote about [it] why" (rather than "about the civil war, you wrote why")? Just a thought.

March 15, 2010 1:52 PM

Mee-ah said...
I think that's what I originally had in mind. I ended up writing my clarification between errands today, and I may have failed at clarifying.

Either would probably be allowed, grammatically, but your example is less awkward. Thanks. :)

March 15, 2010 2:55 PM

You've Got Questions? We've Got Grammar!

2010-03-14T22:07:00.000-07:00

Yes/No question tagging had been addressed previously in the grammar, but now it is possible to ask other kinds of questions too!

Questions in Teliya Nevashi are formed by mentioning the subject or topic first, followed by the verb and usually ending in one of the 7 interrogative words. Those words are jenos ("who"), eyos ("what"), kios ("why"), alos ("where"), lumos ("when"), weros ("how") and gedos ("which (one)").

For instance:
Ya kawunar, mi dev alos? (The bathroom, 3rd_person-s is-located where?; "Where is the bathroom?")
Amá dez, mi an gedos? (Mother your, 3rd-singular is which one?; "Which one is your mother?)
Dha Sheshet, mi an jenos? (That young-woman, 3rd-sing is who?; "Who is that girl?")

Kawunar is generally the bathroom in someone's home, since it is the "bathing room". A public bathroom would be iane'ar, the "water room", or thusar, the "urination room".

I've labeled thusar as vulgar in the vocabulary document, but I don't think it is strongly vulgar. It's just not as euphemistic as iane'ar. Do the Nevashi have those kinds of taboos about bodily functions? I am not sure yet.

I noticed something about the name of the world, Ianea, recently. It is called "Ya Ianen", "The Waters" by the Nevashi who live there, and I had thought that "Ianea" was the same thing, but I think it actually means something closer to "Flow" or "Flowing".

Small Advancements, Big Plans

2010-03-08T19:32:00.000-08:00

Nevashi gained a number of words for body parts and clothing tonight. Those are the small advancements.

The Big Plans? I plan on starting to keep a diary in the language to help advance it further. I hope that actually using it will result in a lot more advancement. I may start posting entries here in Nevashi, when I feel a little more comfortable using it.

I also plan on fleshing out the conculture a little more, paying particular attention to the differences between the cultures of Nevashi speakers on the island of Nevash and on the mainland, and also between Ianea Nevashi and Earth Nevashi. (I might like to start by coming up with some story to explain how some Nevashi people ended up on Earth, since Ianea is their home world.)

I am also trying to start a little collaborative conlang project at ~~http://conlangery.freeforums.org/~~ http://colla.conlang.org. (It has moved!)

The Third Annual State of the Language Address

2010-01-18T16:04:00.000-08:00

It's that time of the year again, when I take a look what happened in the development of Teliya Nevashi over the last 12 months (+/-) and set a course for the coming year.

The development of the language has continued to be slow, in fits and starts, but there are now over 300 words in the vocabulary file. There have been quite a few developments in colloquial/idiomatic usage over the year. It has been used in status messages on Facebook and for about half of my cards for the Conlang Card Exchange. (The other half were ea-luna cards.)

Onward to the future!

There are three things I hope to accomplish with this language this year:

1. I'd like to write some lessons. I've had a couple of people ask, for one thing, and it might be a good thing for developing the language.

2. I'd like to do more translations and writing, for the sake of developing the vocabulary and grammar, as well as getting more practice using it myself.

3. I'd like to revise and expand the grammar.

I am cautiously hopeful about my chances of accomplishing substantive progress this year.

Regarding my other conlangs, I'd like to finish the vocabulary file for ea-luna and try to recreate as many of the lost compound words as possible. If I get around to it, I'd like to try to describe the grammar, or at least collect enough model sentences together in one place that someone else could, if they felt some strange, burning need that the antibiotics didn't fix.

I would also like to start another language using the ideas that have been coalescing in my head for the last 6 months or so. This would be a collaborative project, in theory.

And, lastly, regarding other conlangs that are not mine, I plan on spending the next few months really learning to use Esperanto, and then going to the Landa Kongreso, which will be in Washington, DC-- conveniently close! I just think it would be a fun life experience.

One small adjustment to a single word

2009-12-15T20:45:00.000-08:00

Marigold, the flower formerly known as tajíta, is now called tají.

Somewhere in an earlier entry, when I was translating sentences, there was someone called "Little Marigold"--
Was: Tajítsha
Is: Tajísha

This is a legitimate name for a Nevashi girl-- both Tají and its diminutive, Tajísha-- although there is probably some teasing around how close it is to taje ("husband") by the meaner children.

Nevashi In Action: Congratulations

2009-12-15T18:52:00.001-08:00

I had an occasion to congratulate someone, but Nevashi came up short. I have since remedied that.

First, I looked up the etymology of "congratulation" and then searched out and considered how other languages handle congratulations. In the end, I found that I already had the words I wanted: Anta jeya! ("There is happiness!" or maybe "It is a joy!")

So, there is no verb "to congratulate", but you might say something like, Za twen ea-jeyam voz. (1st+past+give share happiness-acc his/her.), "I shared his or her happiness.") or perhaps just ja tel vosh, "anta jeya" (1st-past-speech speak (3rd person-epicene-dative-pronoun), "There-is happiness".; "I told him/her "congratulations".)

A note in passing...
There are not separate words for 'speak', 'talk', and 'say' in Nevashi at this point. There are variations on the one word, tel, that mean to talk loudly, to whisper, or to talk a lot, and there are different words that specifically mean "shout" (magan), "tell a story, recite, or make a speech" (hlal) and "pray" (nedh), but there is yet no distinction as made in English for the three words above. I think it might stay that way unless I see a pressing need to change that.

There are other parts of even the limited vocabulary it has already developed that are a lot more specific than English. (See gwelva, the variations on "love", and/or the words that might be covered by "healthy" in English.)

Holiday Greeting Formula, Shufshevél Customs

2009-12-02T17:12:00.000-08:00

I have been working on cards for the conlang card exchange, and the greeting I have settled on is Pa imev yevam, vekum, wa imlam dez gyet Shuf-shevélat! This builds on the previously formulated "pa imev...dez" ("I wish for your...") formula created for birthday greetings.

I think I might keep this as a set greeting/blessing/cursing formula and work on some grammar to handle more complex thoughts about what one person wants another person to be/do/whatever.

Shuf-shevél or Shufshevél is the Nevashi fish celebration, which is exactly that the name means. Once mainly a fishing and seafaring island culture, fish represent prosperity and fertility for the Nevashi. The symbolism remains, even for mainland Nevashi, who are mainly farmers, traders, and merchants, far removed from their roots. Blue, green, and gold are the traditional colors of this holiday, carrying much the same significance as the fish.

On Nevash, the custom is for each household to buy or make an unfired clay pot in the shape of the fish. Small token offerings, such as coins or bits of food, are placed in the mouth of the pot. There is a procession down to waterside in the morning of the first day of the celebration, where the pots are tossed into the water. Those inland on the island may go to the nearest river or lake instead. With that out of the way, the real festivities begin-- there's a lot of feasting, drinking, singing, and gift giving. Fish-shaped jewelry is a popular gift, widely believed to bring good luck.

Originally, the festival was held after the trees had lost their leaves but before freezing temperatures set in, on whatever day the local temple declared auspicious. It has become loosely associated with the winter solstice due to contact with cultures that celebrate that occasion, and the increasing centralization of religious and civil authority has led to more and more towns and villages holding their festival on the same day as the capital city. The length of the festival is determined by either the local temple or the temple in the capital city, as determined by the same sort of augury that sets the date of the start of the celebration.

Mainland Nevashi, removed from the island culture, still celebrate the festival, but with customs that have evolved to fit their circumstances. It is still a celebration with a lot of feasting, drinking, and gift-giving, with slightly different details. Those communities in close contact with solstice celebrating cultures may have both night or sun themes, in addition to the traditional fish motif, but they still call it Shuf-shevél.

Almost every mainland family owns a fish-shaped vase, which tends to be very ornately decorated in the colors of the holiday. A fish festival vase is often the gift of choice to a newly married couple from the bride's parents-- either an heirloom or a newly purchased one. Wishes are written on pieces of paper and put into the vase on the first day of the festival, which tends to run a full 5 days on the mainland. On the last day of the festival, the wishes are thrown into a fire unread-- it's considered very bad luck to read anything that goes into the vase.

The second day usually involves a blessing of tools of work, in order to bring prosperity. The remaining days each have a different theme, such as "gratitude" or "remembering Nevash", etc, varying from community to community. Every day involves parties and feasting, with menus varied to fit the theme of the day. On the last day of the festival, the wishes are thrown into a fire unread-- it's considered very bad luck to read anything that goes into the vase.

Misc.

2009-10-15T18:51:00.000-07:00

I posted this as a Facebook status:

Eki kyudit ya hoan sanzonaz wera, cora, wa moci.
3rd-pl-go change-toward the leaves trees-gen yellow, red, and brown.
(The leaves of the trees are turning yellow, red, and brown.)

I was really unsure where to put the colors in the sentence because it felt a little weird to have the subject between the change-to verb and the things that are being changed to. 'Change' (to, from, or unspecified) is a motion verb in Nevashi, so I will have to meditate on exactly how it works with the "destination" part, and whether or not that part works differently depending on whether or not it is a noun or an adjective.

The vocabulary file is up to 297 entries. A lot of those words are related to one another, though. I am looking forward to generating a lot more useful words soon. (More in both quantity and quality.)

I made a few changes to the vocabulary file as well, adjusting the meaning of some words, and replacing 'fiosfis' with 'fiosa', still allowing 'fiosfis' as an alternate choice, along with a few other possibilities. (Fiosa, "house")

I will likely be posting the grammar as a web page soon. I just haven't decided where I will have it hosted and how I will present it. Most likely it will look just like the current document with a few changes and editing. I have more things to add to the grammar yet, but it is coming along a little at a time.

I have been working on yet another project, but it's not ready for public viewing of any sort yet. I guess I am experimenting with method at this point. This other project ('Ezedani' or 'Ezedan') is not as interesting as Teliya Nevashi, in terms of features, so far, but it has a different purpose, and I've learned a little bit about faster development through consistent use already. There's just not a lot of 'there' there yet. (That last sentence made me smile.)

Need to do updates

2009-07-07T19:11:00.000-07:00

I have created some additional vocabulary on paper that needs to make it into the lexicon spreadsheet. I have some grammar that's evolved that needs to be described. I am promising myself to do all that on Thursday.

I have also been working a little bit on ea-luna, as well. I'm reconstructing it from what I can find and what's in the notebook. The grammar was never written down beyond sets of sample sentences showing the solutions to problems I encountered. There's a pretty set formula for sentences (that is also mirrored in clauses within sentences), so it's not really difficult to learn. It's either made simpler or made far more complicated, depending on your point of view, by all the things that can potentially be omitted if the speaker believes they are reasonably obvious from the context. Not to mention the things that are usually omitted!

Anyway, in the midst of all of this, I've been giving some thought to my methods, what has worked and what hasn't worked so well for me. My efforts may be changing a bit as I move toward producing more language-in-use rather than spending too much time producing more desciption of how it should work in theory.

6 days short of a year later...

2009-04-23T06:52:00.000-07:00

When I make changes to the Nevashi grammar, I include the date of the addition or change. Today I added the causative+imperative in order to make "start the car" and "turn on the light" possible with the vocabulary that already exists, and I noticed that I added the regular imperative on 4/29/08. That's where the title of this post comes from.

And here's the new bit:

Imperative+causative. -(i)xi, s.; i- -(i)xi, pl., e.g. "muzhuxi ya otomom", "start the car" (run+causative_imperative the car-acc.)or "isivixi ya ombam", "Turn on the lamp, y'all." (pl-be active-causative_imperative the lamp-acc.)
Unlike the -shi imperative, the final i is never dropped. [Added 4/23/2009]

I haven't had time to work on the language much lately. I hope I'll get some work done on it this week. I'm going to continue doing translations and addressing grammar issues as they arise. I've got tentative solutions to a few problems I've encountered that also need to be documented and road tested.

Also, I'll be working on creating new words, both in the course of translation and by categorical lists. While I am at it, I need to find a way to work zabli and ovni into the language. Zabli is a nonsense word my 10-year-old daughter was saying recently, and then I was flipping through channels on the TV and passed a show about UFOs, which made me think (one meandering path of thought later) that ovni sounds like a Nevashi word. So does "ufo" for that matter.

Six more sentences

2009-03-22T17:10:00.000-07:00

The next 6 sentences yielded more new vocabulary. They were also a little trickier than the first 8, but I guess that's the general idea of the graded sentences.

I will have to recheck this one and the previous entry with eight sentences to fix the grammatical errors I've almost certainly made, but in the meantime, here's a stab at the next six:

9. School began again. Ludi siv rakesh ya tholfis.

Lu-di siv rakesh ya tholfis.
inceptive-past-3rd s. be-in-session(active/on) again the school.

I don't know exactly why the definite article is required here, but it is. Siv may turn out to be really useful, since it can be used in sentences like, "All the lights in the house are on."

And it just made it really obvious that I need a way to use the causative and imperative together, in order to get it around to being useful in sentences like "Turn on the TV!" Back to the drawing board on that one.

10. The child ran quickly. Gi adad nisas ya mishtu.

Gi adad nis-as ya mishtu.
Past-3rd run quick-adv the child.

There's that mishtu again. Nis is quick or fast, -as makes it an adverb.

11. Yellow daffodils nodded gaily. Egi henaf jeyas denduloran wera.

Egi henaf jeyas dendulora-n wera.
3rd pl.-Past nod happy-adv daffodil-pl yellow.

Henaf, dendulora, and wera are new words. From henaf are hen (up) and naf (down). (Too precious? Deriving those from "nod" or vice versa. Probably. So is talala for 'laugh'. But I like the sound of those, so they are staying.)

12. Little Marigold cried bitterly. Ji pluva le'osias Tajítsha.

Ji pluva le'osi-as Tajítsha.
Past-3rd-s. cry bitter-adv Marigold-dim.

I had to assume that Marigold (Tajíta) is used as a name here, since it is capitalized, so I just put the diminutive on it. Tajítasha probably would have been equally correct, and I might have gone that way if TN was a penultimate-syllable-stressed language, but since it isn't, I thought Tajítsha sounded nicer.

Le'osi is a new word. I sort of felt like the glottal stop was underused, so there it is. I decided to go with a pretty literal English>TN rendering, with "bitterly" being translated exactly. I can easily see flavors being used not only for that sort of emotion, but expanded far beyond where they might appear in English, and with the flavors assigned to different emotions than you might expect if you speak English. (I tend to associate emotions (and words) with flavors and smells anyway, so this is appropriate for Nevashi from the "culture of Me" point of view.) I rather I briefly considered "sourly" for this particular translation, but "sour" has more melancholy and less anguish in it.

13. All the people shouted. Eji magan ya jenen shen.

Eji magan ya jenen shen.
3rd pl-Past shout the people all.

"All the people" gave me fits. I considered "Shena kye ya jenen" ("All(n) consisting-of the people") and several other alternatives before settling on just using "all" as an adjective for "the people". It also means "total" or "complete", so I think it implies "all of this".

I thought about telozh for shout, but I think magan represents a higher volume than that. It (the word) sounds bigger. Telozh is your Uncle Danny talking over everyone else at Thanksgiving. Magan is your Aunt Betty telling him to "SHUT UP!" when she just can't take any more.

14. I recited twice. Ja hlal ravan.

Ja hlal ravan.
1st s.-past recite twice.

Ravan comes from ra+van (ra+two). Cf. Rakesh, again. ra+more.

Hlal is a new word. There are a lot of initial consonant clusters permissable that I haven't been using, and I love hl and hr, so there it is. This word means "to tell a story, give a speech, or recite". Derived from it is hlalim, "story, speech, recitation".

First 158 words of Language X

2009-03-21T14:29:00.000-07:00

I found a bit of a conlang in a little notebook that was at the bottom of one of my totebags. It's mostly just a word list, and now it is HERE. There are no notes about grammar to accompany the list. WYSIWYG.

I was able to tease some of the intended phonology out of notes with that were with certain entries on the list. |c| = /tS/, |x| = /S/, |j| = /Z/, as noted in many of the entries.

The pronouns have two forms-- the first is an honorific form you might use with someone you perceive to have authority or to be of a higher social status. That much surfaced in my memory when I was putting it all into that spreadsheet.

There are two words for "book", and I really don't know that there's a difference between them, except that one seems derived from "read" and the other from "write", so I guess it depends on whether you see books primarily as something written or something read.

Some of the words were obviously begged, borrowed, or stolen from English or Spanish. There seem to be some derivational affixes in there (mostly prefixes), but I haven't broken them down to see what, if anything, they contribute to the meaning.

It's not much of anything, but I've come to the conclusion that more documentation is better than less. I've been toying with the idea of a collaborative language project, so I wonder if this would work as seed vocabulary for such a thing.

I've been involved in a few collaborative conlangs that eventually fizzled (some sooner than others). I've been wondering if a collabolang (which is REALLY fun to say) might be more successful if it were built for a specific purpose-- for instance, as an in-game language for a guild in some massively multiplayer online RPG.

And with that, I now return you to your regularly scheduled Teliya Nevashi...

Eight sentences

2009-03-20T17:40:00.000-07:00

Teliya Nevashi has no marking for collective/mass plurals like "birds", nor does it have marking for habitual actions, so these first ones were pretty straightforward...

Sort of.

1. Birds sing. Eci selis shanan.

2. Children play. Eti voya mishtun.[1]

3. Dogs bark. Eci buf kevrin.

4. Bees hum. Eci zhun mintan.

5. Baby laughed. Ji talala Bene.[m]; Ji talala Bena. [f.]

6. The sun shines. Si donu ya cea.

7. The wind blows. Si feyu ya shushu.

8. The car started. Luti muzhu ya otomo. [2]

[1] Speakers of Nevashi are apparently much more age and gender conscious than speakers of English, because there are words for boy and girl at different age ranges (infant, toddler, preschooler, school kid (5-11), teenager (12-17)) that would be in far greater circulation than mishtu, which is a gender neutral word for a minor (non-adult). And though some people might consider it sexist and awful, the male form would probably be used for mixed groups and mass plural as well. So, while this is a correct and straightforward translation, a native speaker might well say "Eti voya levten." (Levte = boy, 5-11.)

[2] Ha! A use for the inceptive! Muzhu refers to the running or working of engines, motors and machines, so this could be translated back as "The car began to run."

Weekend Conlanging Plans

2009-03-20T15:08:00.000-07:00

Since I won't be at the Language Creation Conference this weekend, except through the magic of Internet simulcast, I thought I might actually do some conlanging this weekend instead. To that end, I've printed the first two lists of graded sentences from Gary Shannon's site -- this one and this one -- to translate, in order to work out some grammatical knots and expand the Nevashi lexicon.

I am hoping to develop a more comfortable relationship with the language on my way to fluency, and that's the other part of why I will be translating all those sentences. I start every language with the intention of becoming fluent in it, but those good intentions usually fail to produce the results I'd like.

I was able to use ea-luna to some degree once upon a time, but that was a long time ago. I've got an urge to translate those sentences into ea-luna at the same time that I am working on the Nevashi translations, but that would probably be counterproductive in several different ways. I will give ea-luna some attention in the near future, but for now, I am working mainly on TN.

Speaking of what projects I am working on (or not working on), I opened a little notebook that was in the bottom of the totebag I've been using to carry my books around and discovered the beginnings of yet another language. I am going to take a little time this evening to document the vocabulary and grammar notes from that. It's not much of anything and it doesn't even have a name, but it might yet have words I can steal, or it might later develop into something more than what it currently is. In any case, if there's one thing I've learned from ea-luna, it is that having a single hardcopy of any given bit of conlang documentation is a bad idea. Multiple electronic copies FTW.

Tiny little updates

2009-03-09T22:28:00.001-07:00

There have been a few new vocabulary items added to the dictionary, and the grammar has had a derivation section added back into it.

That is all.

Pa an gwisel, and other notes to myself.

2009-02-06T09:47:00.000-08:00

This particular entry is mainly for my own benefit, to remind myself to make some changes to the grammar later.

'To be' covers a lot of ground in English. Nevashi has a few different words for concepts that are covered by "be" in English, notably separate words for "to be located in a place" (e.g., as in "I am downtown.") and "to be in a given mood" (e.g., as in "I am happy.") Those are dev and vok, respectively.

"Pa an gwisel" would mean "I am cold." It uses an, which limited pretty strictly to connecting one noun with another in other circumstances, but here it is accompanied by the feeling/perceiving verb bit (pa) instead of the ordinary, default "be" one (ma).** This represents an extension of an to express the experience of physical sensations.

Also, this includes a new way of deriving adjectives from verbs (and probably nouns as well), using -el.
Gwis, "to freeze" > Gwisi, "frozen, icy"
...> Gwisel, "cold, freezing"

Pwen, v.,"to burn"; n., "fire" > Pweni, "burnt"
...> Pwenel, "hot, fiery, burning"

Also, I must remember to add numbers > 100 and new vocabulary.

Later this evening, I hope to write an entry outlining the differences between pa vok jeya vs. pa jeya vs. pa gan jeya. No promises though.

(**As a bit of trivia, the distinction would disappear in the past tense, since both of those particular bits would become "ba"...)

The State of the Language, February 2009

2009-02-06T09:07:00.000-08:00

Teliya Nevashi (hereafter, Nevashi) grew slowly in 2008. There was some minor vocabulary growth and a few grammar tweaks. It was mostly neglected. There wasn't even a lot of undocumented, behind-the-scenes development. On the positive side, the online documentation for Nevashi remains up-to-date. If I make a change offline, I am documenting it online fairly reliably.

My goals for 2009 include further fleshing out the grammar, building a large amount of vocabulary, and to create some texts in Nevashi, both translated and original. The first vocabulary advances will be in numbers and covering the domestic sphere, plus a long list of verbs I've put together.

I've got some ideas about creating an introductory level instructional text (or multimedia presentation of some sort). I don't really expect too many people to take that much interest in it, but I think putting it together may help me clarify some issues for myself, as well as being fun for me.

For right now, I am going to concentrate on Earth Nevashi (or, perhaps more whimsically, Nevashi-In-Exile), as a personal language, rather than Ianea Nevashi, the language as it exists within the fictional world of Ianea. There are two reasons for this. The first is that all of my conlangs are ultimately personal languages, even if I try to do something else with them. I just can't help myself. The second reason is that I am reevaluating where the Nevashi people and culture fit into the world. Development of Ianea continues, very slowly, but the geography is undergoing some radical changes.

So that's where we are right now and where we're going. Onward and upward!

Greetings, 2 New Suffixes, and a brief note on the future of adjectives.

2008-04-26T11:11:00.001-07:00

First, the Teliya Nevashi weather report from Johnstown, PA: Anta ketsa'ozh. We're having a rainstorm.

You can now greet people in TN... That's Teliya Nevashi and not Tennessee. Unless you know someone in Tennessee who happens to speak Teliya Nevashi, in which case you can now greet people in TN in TN.

Upon encountering someone, you can say, "Yeva!" ("Peace!"). The typical response to this is "Wa jeya!" ("And happiness!"). The idea is that the person responding is wishing the first person peace and also happiness. Those Nevashi, they aren't people to be outdone. They don't call, they don't fold, they always raise the bet.

When a person leaves, the people who are staying would wish the person leaving, "Veku!" ("Health!", which also may mean physical safety, in addition to wellness). A typical response to this would be "Wa imla!" ("And prosperity!")

There might be other variations of good things people might wish on each other, but these would be the normal ones that people just say without thinking too much about it. If you were trying to impress your future in-laws, you might try out something more elaborate.

"Cia fis" would be "good morning", and "dona fis" would be "good evening", but those would be an imitation of greetings in (European) Earth languages rather than expressions native to Nevashi as spoken on Ianea. (I don't actually have words for "day" or "night", it appears.)

I am not going to open the can of worms about Ianea TN vs. Earth TN right now. I am not ready to go fishing in that pond.

Ok... I promised 2 new suffixes! They are -(V)séd ("with") and -(V)dún ("without" or -less). (Where, as usual, (V) is the vowel of the preceding syllable, in the event that a vowel is needed to make the word flow better.) I even have some examples of these in action.

First, these can be used in place of "with" and "without" in most places that you'd use those. You can order your hamburger kecapaséd or kecapadún (with or without ketchup, that is). Another example, since I need the practice anyway:

Anta ianash osalanaséd aldhá. (There-is mud rock-pl.-with over-there. "There's mud with rocks over there.")

Some words might have extended meanings with these suffixes as well:

imlaséd : rich, or having money at the moment
imladún : broke, or not having any money at the moment

This also introduces a new use of an, with pa instead of ma. It still means "to be", but implies "having" or "being with".

ma an imlaséd. I am rich.
pa an imlaséd. I have money on me.
seya pa an imlaséd. I don't have money with me.

ma an imladún. I am poor.
pa an imladún. I am broke, or I don't have money with me.
seya pa an imladún. I am not without money. I've got money. (For instance, when your friend offers to pay for something, but you want to pay for it yourself.)

In the past tense, ma and pa would both become ba.

ba an imlaséd. I was rich OR I had money.

You are, of course, still free to say "Pa def imlam.". ((1st-singular-have-aux) have money-acc., "I have money.")

Re: The Future of Adjectives:

I may be changing how predicate adjective are handled, which may change some of these examples. Most likely, I will change the verb used to connect a subject to its adjective-- last night I was thinking gan would be the new verb:

Mi gan cora. ((3rd-singluar-be-aux) is red; "It is red.")

Along with this change, I have a few other fun ideas in mind, such as using the definite article with the adjective to mean "very":
Mi gan ya cora. It is very red. ("the red")

Also, I already made a change regarding augmentation by reduplication for colors. The whole word is duplicated, rather than just the first syllable in the case of colors (and possibly other cases yet to be determined).
Mi gan cora-cora. It is very red. ("red-red").

And then there are the usual suffixes:
Mi gan coragyu. It is very red. (cora+gyu)

I haven't yet really nailed down when which suffix is used where among the diminutives and augmentatives... It's pretty much a free-for-all at this point. I used -gyu because I think it has been neglected thus far.

It's pretty clear that there's a lot more work to do. And I need more nouns. I am feeling very conlangish lately, though, so there's hope that there will be more good stuff coming sooner rather than later.

Small advances in vocabulary

2008-03-14T22:13:00.000-07:00

I added some new words that have been on my mind. There are some more words and some new affixes I want to add. I hope I get that done tomorrow. I have some pre-existing words to document in the vocab list too.

I haven't forgotten Nevashi. Our business has really take off and has been far more successful than we could have ever imagined it would be at this point. That, and all the usual kid stuff, has me crawling a little more slowly than I'd like.

Just a note

2008-02-07T21:02:00.000-08:00

I made some adjustments and corrections to previous blog entries, the grammar, and the vocabulary. Now I am going to bed!

Minor notes

2008-02-06T12:17:00.000-08:00

The current Teliya Nevashi vocabulary list is viewable here. I still need to comb through the grammar to see if I scare out any other words used-but-not-listed, and I have a few other words scattered around to add. I will just republish as I add things.

A State of The Language Address

2008-01-31T14:48:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I updated this blog, and just about as long since I did any real work on Teliya Nevashi. Things are settling down now that 2008 is well underway, so I am going to be devoting a fair amount of time every week to this language and related conculture, as well as a little side language project I am trying to get off the ground. I have quite a bit of time on the weekends that I could use for conlanging, so you can expect to see more regular updates from now on.

Today I updated my template here and added a creative commons license, which I want to clarify right here-- it applies to the Teliya Nevashi language background materials (grammar, vocabulary, any orthography that crops up) specifically. Any composition or speech *in* Teliya Nevashi belongs entirely to the author, for whatever purpose. (That is to say, I am staking some claim on the language, but not on original thoughts expressed through the medium of the language.) Anyway, the license I chose is pretty open (for non-commercial use)-- feel free to tweak, improve or remix and share what you find here (with attribution for the original work) under similar licensing. I did this because the topic of conlang ownership and use has come up a few times on the CONLANG list, and I thought I would be explicit about the material presented here. I'd been thinking about it for a while, but just got around to it today.

I mean to make the entire existing Teliya Nevashi vocabulary available in the next couple of days. I've got some side projects related to the world of Ianea stewing on a sideburner too, which I'd like to get on the Net and linked here.

Stay tuned for "2008: A Conlang Odyssey"!

No changes for now

2007-11-28T08:19:00.000-08:00

I've decided against making any major changes to the noun/pronoun systems of TN at this time. It works. It might not always produce the prettiest results with every word, but I've gotten over my objections now that I've lived with it for a while.

Updates, Personal and Linguistic

2007-09-27T16:39:00.000-07:00

Since mid-August, we've been wrapped up in pre-moving, moving, and post-moving activities. I think things are starting to settle down and I can pick up where I left off. I'd been working on a Babel Text translation. Actually, I'd been doing two versions simultaneously, trying out two different styles.

An excerpt-- the first verse:
1. And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.
a. Anda teliya emas pa ya ianenat shen wa ebi def jenen shen em telam.
there-was language one in the waters-dat. all and 3rd-pl-past(have) have people all one speech-acc.

b. Bi def ya ianea shen em teliyam wa em telam.
3rd-s.-past(have) have the world all one language-acc. and one speech-acc.

In practice, my nouns aren't working out the way I'd hoped. The plural accusative of veci is vecinam, for instance. Yuck. Veci is just right, but once the rest gets tacked on... Yuck. Just... ewwww.

Compare (a.) above to the same version with case markings stripped out:
a2. Anda teliya emas pa ya ianen shen wa ebi def jenen shen em tel.

I don't know if that's better. I think I may be a little iffy on the -n plural as well. Bah. I'll have to push it around until I am happy. I just hope I don't fix it til it breaks completely.

2007-08-17T09:26:00.000-07:00

Colloquial Teliya Nevashi

This is going to be another entry that gets updated over time, in the same way that the grammar entry is always changing and evolving.

Xu! is a multipurpose interjection, meaning "Listen!", "Come on!", "Let's go!", "Get busy!", etc.

Sul! is also a multipurpose interjection, meaning "hey!", "Look here!"

The world in Nevashi is called both Ianea and Ya Ianen. The latter literally means, "The Waters". The Nevashi see the world as an endless expanse of water with a little bit of land in it, rather than as the land with water around it.

Quit bothering me! (lit, Get out of my eyes!) Rogomishi det sululat laz! (Put-away+IMP you+acc. eyes-dat. my; broken down into morphemes: Ro+gom+ishi de+t sul+ul+at la+z) It might be possible to do this with the reflexive prefix also: orogomishi sululat laz! (EDIT, 2/7/08: Corrected error-- "sulul" should be the dual of sul, not "sulel"; -el was from a very early version of the language. Not sure why I didn't catch this before. Anyway, I think sululat is easy to say than sulelat.)

O- is also the passive prefix, but it would have to be the reflexive when used with an imperative. (Note to self, add this to the grammar, for the sake of clarity. 2/7/08)

There's another "remove" verb, other than rogom, which is sigom. Sigom means to "un-put", which might actually be better. (EDIT: I'd previously declared that the correct verb for this idiom was rogom, but I am going to say that sigom and rogom are interchangeable in this saying.)

2/7/08, New Idiom: ti osa posham ti'iz. Literally, "He (or she) licks (a) cat's fur." As mentioned in another entry on the blog, this means that he's the sort of control freak who has to do everything himself. This is the boss who gives out assignments and then does the work himself anyway (or re-does the work done by his subordinates, even if they did it right) to make sure it is done right.

Wrestling with the passive and other design considerations

2007-08-02T07:29:00.000-07:00

For several days I wrestled with the question of how (or if) I wanted to do the passive for TN. I eventually settled on a verb prefix. I don't feel like this is all that interesting as a solution, but it is functional. I am actually pretty happy with the way it sounds, in practice.

TN incorporates a lot of features that were in various conlang doodles (not even sketches) that I'd come up with over the last few years. I am trying to keep a grip on what goes into it, though. It is not my goal to include every interesting feature I can think of. It is my goal to create something functional, learnable, and aesthetically pleasing (to my personal tastes). It would be really easy to come down with Everything-But-The-Kitchen-Sink Syndrome, but I don't think that would be a very good design choice, given my purpose.

I think the grammar is complete enough to allow me to get started translating and writing. I need to make sure all the vocabulary is getting documented as it is being invented. As it is, I believe I have some words used in the grammar that aren't in the dictionary yet. I just want to try to keep things as consistent as possible across the board through good documentation.

Small changes & notes

2007-07-29T08:27:00.000-07:00

Made changes in the grammar today re: demonstratives. There are some previous examples that I need to go back and fix-- pretty much all previous instances of "alath" need to be changed to "aláth" to show the irregular stress.

I bought a new notebook, since my son thinks my old notebook may have gotten packed. The new one is like the one I already had, except a different color. It's a 2 subject, college ruled Five Star (by Mead?)notebook that has plastic covers on front and back PLUS a nylon fabric cover for the spiral binding and a plastic holder for 3x5 cards in the front. The plastic covers and the cover for the binding make it really durable as a go-everywhere, portable conlanging notebook. I think I bought the first one either at the grocery store or at Happy Harry's (aka Walgreen's-- they were a local chain that got bought out and kept the old name). The second I bought at Wal-Mart today. They should be pretty readily available (in the US), in any case.

My other all-around great notebook for dragging around is a Moleskine large reporter's notebook that I picked up at Waldenbooks while I was working in the mall. It's really nice, but it is also REALLY expensive, as notebooks go. It was my treat to myself that week.

Many more changes and additions to the grammar later this week. Lots to do over the next few days, so I don't know how much I'll get done, but you know I'll be thinking about it. Relative clauses should be popping up as a topic soon, and then I'll start some translations.

I've got a couple of idioms for the language planned:
a.)"to be in someone's eye, " meaning "to be getting on someone's nerves" ... Complete with the exclamation, "Get out of my eyes!"
b.) "to lick the cat's fur" -- a person who licks the cat's fur is the kind of person who has to do everything themselves because they are such a control freak. This is like the boss who gives you a job, then pushes you out of the way to do it himself. Needless to say, the connotations are on the negative side.

Thursday update

2007-07-26T09:23:00.000-07:00

The notebook I'd been using to develop Teliya Nevashi (Hereafter, "TN" or "Nevashi") is still missing. I've decided to forge ahead with what I recall and make up the rest as I go. There's a lot of new material in the grammar, some of which is going to require revision of previous examples. The new stuff is subject to change as I actually work with it, since it is mostly straight out of my brain without any testing.

There are a few changes that I need to document-- my notebook had a rather ugly system for indicating sex on pronouns, but I've come up with something a little more elegant (I think), in the form of using selected noun sex suffixes as prefixes on pronouns. The hideous "vo'utu", ("him", acc.) from the system documented in my notebook and used previously in one of the examples, would become "uvot" under the new rule. The new rule is simpler to remember too: a- for female, u- for male, and they can be used (optionally) on any pronoun. I will add this into the Gender and Sex section when I get half a chance.

I am going to go over to my mother's house and see if my notebook is over there. Wherever it is, it is in the company of my copy of Describing Morphosyntax. If I don't find the notebook, Nevashi will go on. If I don't find the book, I'll be very sad.

In other news, I've eliminated SVO from my possible word orders. Now VSO and VOS are battling it out for galactic supremacy... Oh, wait... that was a different movie.

I sort of stopped rather abruptly. I have been getting kids dressed and ready to go since then. They have shoes on now, and are looking at me impatiently, so I'm going to go. I'll be back very soon. I promise.

EDIT: Threw in the new rule and I think I fixed all the instances of "vo'utu"... I didn't use "find & replace", but rather ran my eyes down the document looking for it, so I may have missed a couple. There are some formatting issues in the current publish of the grammar as well. I'll fix those sooner or later.

Notes on A Wednesday

2007-07-18T09:43:00.000-07:00

I am going to keep republishing the grammar doc as I work on it in Google Docs, and also post notes on the side about what's going on around the language.

I am revising the pronouns across the board, so the few examples used in the grammar so far will have to be fixed when the dust settles. Pronouns have cases and I was planning on transferring those directly to the nouns (lock, stock and barrel, as they say) but I am not entirely sure right now.

I have SO much work to do in the next few hours, it may be a day or so before I get back to it.

Teliya Nevashi Grammar

2007-07-17T08:57:00.000-07:00

Introduction/Overview

This language is called Teliya Nevashi, ("Nevashi Language", or just "Nevashi"). It's gone through several names over the last 6 months or so, but I think I am going to stick with this one, now that the world it comes from (Ianea, previously the language name, now the whole world) has started crystallizing in my mind. It is spoken on Nevash, a tiny island nation off the east coast of a major continent that still remains officially nameless.

At heart, this is a personal artlang for entertainment purposes. I am imagining the land and people to go along with the language as the primary creation, rather than the other way around. My end goal is to have a language that is learnable and usable by Earthling humans (i.e., me) and generally pleasant to my ear. I will likely make up stories around it as I go. I just do that. It's mostly a priori. It is likely to have borrowings, outright stolen words, and inside jokes imported from Earthish natlangs. I just do that too.

It's generally VSO, although case markings make flexible word order possible. All verbs have an auxiliary component. It's turning out to be pretty complex, but I really am trying to avoid throwing in everything but the kitchen sink. It prefixes more than it suffixes, I think. So far.

I am writing and re-writing this introduction as I go.

Teliya Nevashi is still in the turbulent early stages of development. Expect changes, large and small, without warning, as I discover which things work and which things spend an awful lot of time hanging around the break room. Also, right now, this document is mostly my attempt to put my handwritten notes into some sort of sensible order, so some parts may need more polishing and explanation. The terminology may not be exactly right in some places. Corrections, literal glosses, and other details will hopefully appear in the next iteration of the grammar, after I get this rough draft out there.

Phonology and Roman Orthography

a /a/ ([a]. [@])

b /b/

c /tS/

d /d/

dh /D/

e /e/ ([e], [E])

f /f/

g /g/

h /h/

i /i/ ([i], [I])

j /dZ/

k /k/

l /l/

m /m/

n /n/

o /o/

p /p/

r /r/ ([r], [4])

rh /R/

s /s/

sh /S/

t /t/

th /T/

u /u/

v /v/

w /w/

x /x/ ([x], [G])

y /j/

z /z/

zh /Z/

' /?/

Syllables are (C)(C)V(C). I have a really long list of allowed initial consonant clusters which should basically be C+r, C+rh, C+l, C+w and C+y. The first syllable usually carries the primary stress. Irregular stress is marked with an acute accent on the vowel. Double consonants are pronounced long/both pronounced.

We'll see how this plays out in practice. Phonology is one of the things I am least interested in, and I'd rather write it descriptively after the fact than try to formulate it ahead of time just so that I can break the rules in the first 5 minutes. I think I've got a plan here that is flexible enough that I can stick to it.

Please forgive me if the orthography is a tad inconsistent in the rest of this document. I am trying to get it fixed, but the truth is that it has changed a lot over time and I am still not particularly happy with it. This language needs a native writing system so that I don't have to feel so bad about how ugly it is in the Latin alphabet.

Verbs

General Sense of the Auxiliary	Present, Future (Non-Past)	Past
be	m	b
do, act	t	d
make, create, build	f	v
go, move	k	g
receive, have, feel, perceive (senses)	p	b
give, think	s	z
bodily functions, music, speech	c	j

These don't necessarily translate very directly to English, and the "general sense of the auxiliary" as given above may just indicate what sort of content verb it is usually associated with. Varying the auxiliary can change the sense or meaning of the whole verb phrase.

For example:

pa sul lat.

1st-sing.-present-aux(perceive) see it-acc.

I look at it. (i.e. purposefully in order to see/perceive)

vs.

ca sul lat.

1st-s-pres.-aux (bodily function) see it-acc.

I see it. (i.e. light bounced off of it and landed on my eyes and has entered my awareness)

Person & number

Person/number	Form (affixes)	e.g.
1st singular	-a	ma
1st plural inclusive	e- -a	ema
1st plural exclusive	i- -a	ima
2nd singular	-e	me
2nd plural	i- -e	ime
3rd singular	-i	mi
3rd plural	e- -i	emi
4th singular (3²*)	-o	mo
4th plural	e- -o	emo

*4th person is a 3rd person, 2nd party, e.g. "John (3rd) saw him (4th) and he (4th) said he (3rd) was lying." Any additional parties also take 4th person verbs/pronouns. ("... and he (4th) said the lawyer (4th) was calling for him (3rd).") ...This is subject to change, depending on how I feel about it after I've lived with it for a while.

Affixes (for the auxiliary, in no particular order)

inceptive lu- (luma, luima)

perfect vl(V)- (V inserted before a consonant = the next vowel. e.g. vlaba, vlidi, vleze; vlime for vl+ime)

(coercive) causative* -v ("olugav adad", "I made myself begin to run"; "jav lutel uvot", "I made him begin to speak".)

causative* -x ("Jax nash vot", "I fed it.")
potential fw(V)- (V inserted before a consonant = the next vowel. e.g. fwama, fweme; fwemo for fw+emo )

optative zhu- (zhuma, zhuema)

conditional ne(y)- (nema, neyema)

deontic (mild/guilt motivated or unwilling-but-obligated) sl(V)- (slama, slema; sleme, slime)
deontic (strong/duty or pleasure motivated) b(V)- (bama, bema)

mirative (surprise!) c(V)- (cama, cema; "ciji tel", "surprisingly, he spoke")

verity/"anti-mirative" (really, truly, as expected, "of course!"-- by context. The "I told you so" affix) rh(V)-
reflexive o- (always the first element when present) ("oca tel"; "I talk to myself")

Affixes (for content verb)
Imperative (s) -ishi , e.g., "telishi!", "speak!"

Imperative (pl) i- -ishi, e.g. "itelishi!", "Speak, you guys!"

(second person aux. is usually omitted, but can be added for emphasis, e.g. "ce telishi!" )

Passive o- (ji onash ya nashiya. (3rd-past-AUX passive-eat DEF food), "The food was eaten.")

Down/toward kyu- (gi kyuadad. He came running. He ran (to here.) )**

Up/Away ro- (gi roadad. He left running. He ran away.)**

Un-, reverse si(') (glottal stop before a vowel) (ano, "make, create, build, put together"; si'ano, "take apart, disassemble, unmake")

O- is always reflexive when it appears on an imperative.

Affixes can be "stacked", e.g. "zhuluka adad", "I want (or wish) to begin to run." Different combinations and/or differently ordered sequences will have different meanings or connotations, but I don't know what those are yet.

Affixes normally used on the first (auxiliary) part of the verb may move to the second (content) part of the verb under the following circumstances:

(a) in the case of either causative, when the meaning of the affix applies to the object (the actual doer of the action) rather than the subject (the coercer): "zhucav tel uvot", "I want to make him speak" vs. "cav zhutel uvot", "I make him want to speak."

(b) the affix load of the auxiliary becomes awkwardly heavy.

*The grammar for these is always the same. What applies to one applies to the other. The coercive causative implies that one party compelled the other to do something by physical force or force of authority, while the other causative simply says that someone made something happen or made it possible for something to happen: "Ci nash" ("it eats") > "Cav nash vot" ("I make it eat", or possibly "I forcefed it.") > "Cax nash vot." ("I feed him/her.") OR "Ji gorem" (It died.) > "Jev gorem vot" ("You killed it." implying murder or execution(?)) > "Jex gorem vot." ("You killed it." Judgement neutral. Maybe "it" was the chicken for dinner, for instance.)

** kyu- and ro- imply motion, either literal or metaphorical, and can be used to add motion to an otherwise motionless verb. "Ca roselis", "I go away singing."

The copula is an with the 'be' aux. ("Ma an tikit.", "I am a squirrel.") An could be used across the board as an "empty" verb, but I haven't really explored that yet. The subject and the predicate part of a sentence containing an as the verb are both in nominative case and separated by go: Mi an Julie go tikit. "Julie is a squirrel."

Other things that are "To Be" in English

dev = be located at a place (place in acc.) (k-aux.: ka dev Johnstownam. I am in Johnstown.)

Anta

Anta is a special (aux.) verb used in cases where there is no subject. It is used with weather, for example, and to indicate the existence or location of something. The part that follows anta is treated as part of the verb, even if it would otherwise normally be a noun.

"anta sibó.", "It is snowing", "It will snow".
"anta ti'i aláth", "There is a cat here."

The past tense is "anda". Affixes apply as usual, allowing for such classics as "Vlanda kyuti'i", "There had been a cat coming this way." (Or, more literally perhaps, "There had been catting toward (us).")

Negation, Yes, No and Yes/No Question Tagging

For all verbs except anta, seya is added before the verb. (Seya ma an tikit.,"I am not a squirrel.")
Yes/no questions can be tagged with seya, or the basic form of the auxiliary (i.e. stripped of affixes) of the main verb of the sentence, or with both:
Gi adad, seya?
PAST-3rd-aux run, no?

Gi adad, gi?
Gi adad, gi seya?

No is "seya". To answer "yes", repeat the basic form of the auxiliary as above (or the whole verb): "gi" or "gi adad" to answer the example questions.

The negated form of "anta" and "anda" are "seanta" and "seanda". The question tagging is done in the same way and is answered with anta/seanta (anda/seanda):
Anta nashiya aláth, seanta? (There is food here, no?)
Anta nashiya aláth, anta?
Anta nashiya aláth, anta seanta?

The definite article is ya. There is no indefinite article. Ya has many uses, including sitting out in front of wordds that aren't even nouns, such as predicate adjectives. It is the odd. It is also used with inalienable possessions (mainly relatives and body parts) when it is clear to whom they belong. (Examples to follow soonish. I promise.)

Here and There, This and That (Demonstrative stuff)

Demonstrative adjectives come before the noun. The pronouns and words for "here" and "there" are based on these, and there are four, as follows:

Ath -- This, these -- near both speaker and addressee -- aláth, "here (by us)" -- athis (pronoun)

Kas -- This, these -- near speaker but not addressee -- alkás, "here (by me)" -- kasis (pron.)

Dha -- That, those -- near neither speaker nor addressee -- aldhá, "there (away from us)" -- dhas (pron.)

Sa -- That, those -- near addressee but not speaker -- alsá, "there (by you)" -- sas (pron.)

The pronouns can optionally take the sex-specifying suffixes when referring to people, animals, spirits, and/or other things perceived to have a natural gender. (athise, athis+e, "that male one")

When used to refer to something previously mentioned and/or not physically present, use ath/athis for "this" and dha/dhas for "that".

Nouns, Pronouns, and Adjectives

Number

Nouns and pronouns have dual and plural forms, marked with suffixes. Dual counts as singular for purposes of conjugating verbs. (Believe me, I agonized over whether dual was singular or plural for verbs for minutes and minutes. This feature is subject to change if I feel differently about it after lunch.)

Dual: vowel final, -l. teliya> teliyal, "2 languages"

consonant final, -(V)l where (V) is the vowel of the preceding syllable. tikit > tikitil, "a couple of squirrels"

Plural: vowel final, -n. teliya> teliyan, "(more than 2) languages"

consonant final, -(V)n where (V) is the vowel of the preceding syllable. tikit>tikitin, "squirrels (>2)"

Personal pronouns

Person	singular	dual	plural
1st	la	lal ("you and me")	lan (inclusive)/ilan(exclusive)
2nd	de	del	den
3rd	vo	vol	von
4th	xo	xol	xon

The cases for noun and pronouns, as of this morning, are:
Nominative

Accusative

Genitive

Dative (prepositional, locative, etc., by usage.) -- Just calling this "dative" for convenience, since that's one of the things it does and might be seen as its primary function.

These are marked with suffixes that are added after the number marking, as follows:

Markings on Pronouns:

Nominative (null)

Accusative -t, -et (following consonant)

Genitive -z, -ez

Dative -sh, -esh

Declension demonstrated on 1st person pronoun, la:

Case	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	la	lal	lan / ilan
Accusative	lat	lalet	lanet / ilanet
Genitive	laz	lalez	lanez / ilanez
Dative	lash	lalesh	lanesh / ilanesh

Other pronouns follow the same pattern. It might be noted that subject pronouns are usually dropped, as person and number are marked on the verb.

Markings on Nouns:

Nominative (null)

Accusative -m, -am (following consonant)

Genitive -z, -az (following consonant)

Dative -t, -at (following consonant)

Sample declension paradigms for tikit, "squirrel" and teliya, "language":

Case	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	tikit	tikitil	tikitin
Accusative	tikitam	tikitilam	tikitinam
Genitive	tikitaz	tikitilaz	tikitinaz
Dative	tikitat	tikitilat	tikitinat

Case	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	teliya	teliyal	teliyan
Accusative	teliyam	teliyalam	teliyanam
Genitive	teliyaz	teliyalaz	teliyanaz
Dative	teliyat	teliyalat	teliyanat

The genitive is used regularly on pronouns, but often is replaced on nouns with the adjectival suffix, -i:

Nashiya Jonaz ("Jon's food") and Nashiya Joni ("Jon food" or "Jonnish food") are equivalent, and the latter may be more common. (We'll see how it pans out as I write in and translate into the language.) The genitive form is probably more formal. Regardless of which form is used, they follow the possessed noun.

Gender and sex

(I suspect this heading is going to get me a bunch of hits from folks who will be disappointed to see that this is a conlang grammar.)

There is no grammatical gender in Teliya Nevashi. There are, however, a set of derivational suffixes that relate the root to one or the other sex. These can be used on animate creatures (cats, dogs, lawyers) to indicate the sex of the creature(s) in question, or on inanimate objects to specific sex-related usage. For this, we're going to drag out that poor squirrel as an example of the first. (Yes, I am paying the squirrel overtime.)

Female: -a, -sha (diminutive connotation), -i

Male: -e, -we (diminutive connotation), -u

A female squirrel would be "tikita" or maybe "tikitsha". A male squirrel would be "tikite" or "tikitwe". (Tikiti is an adjective, but might also have an unknown usage as a noun. Tikitu* doesn't currently exist, but is conceivable as another squirrel-related noun, or perhaps as a personal name.)

These endings can also be used to derive nouns from non-nouns, by some very mysterious and irregular process that has nothing to do with their function as suffixes for specifying sex on neutral nouns.

Sex-specific pronouns

If it is desired or necessary to indicate sex on a pronoun, a- can be prefixed for females, or u- for males. For example, avo, ("she") and uvo ("he").

Diminutive and Augmentative

Diminutive suffixes can be used on nearly any noun, verb, adjective or adverb.

-et, -ot, -sha (f), -we (m)

Ex.: tel, "speak" + -et = telet, "whisper"

In the event that the addition of an

Augmentation by suffix:

-gyu, -uzh, -o, -ozh

Ex. tel, "speak" + -ozh = telozh, "speak too loudly for polite company"

Augmentation by reduplication:

Reduplication of the first syllable, or of an affix, intensifies the meaning of that word or affix:

ex: teltel (tel, "speak"), "talk too much"; teletet, (tel+et (dim) +et (dim)) = "whisper very softly", "barely audible whisper"

In certain cases, whole words may be reduplicated: cora-cora (Red-red, or "very red"). [I'll try to narrow down what cases those might be as I figure that out. Right now, colors are the only case I have imagined falling into this category. 4/26/08]

Adjectives

Most adjectives follow the noun they modify. There is no noun-adjective agreement.

Nouns and many verbs can be rendered into adjectives with the addition of the suffix -i

Comparative and Superlative & More Stuff

comparative: kesh

superlative: kekesh

These are equivalent to "more" and "most" when referring to a quality (i.e. with adjectives or adverbs). Keshi and kekeshi are used for quantity (i.e. with nouns.) In either case, they follow the word they modify.

Redder grapes

Adyen cora kesh

Grapes red more(quality)

More red grapes

Adyen keshi cora

Grapes more(quantity) red

Relative Clauses

A relative clause is opened with kwe and ended with lia. Kwe could be seen as more-or-less equivalent to "that" at the beginning of an English relative clause, but lia is purely grammatical and has no equivalent. If there are a number of relative clauses all nesting together like sleeping hamsters, lia is save til the end and not repeated in the middle.

ex.: ca sul ya ti'im kwe ji nash ya tikitam kwe jo nash ya nashiyam laz lia.

1st-pres-aux see def cat-acc that 3rd-past-aux eat def squirrel-acc that 4th-past-aux eat the food-acc 1st-pron.-gen REL-closer

I see the cat that ate the squirrel that ate my food.

This construction can also be used as a sort of verbal parentheses to allow you to insert remarks or additional information into a sentence. (Example to be added, along the lines of "I gave my book (the one that Jack gave to me) to my sister."

Numbers (Cardinal, Ordinal... maybe counters...)

Ordinal numbers are formed from cardinal numbers in a nice, simple way: -ad is added to the ordinal number.

Bi an Teliya Nevashi go ya teliya emad ano'i.

AUX COP Teliya Nevashi pred. the language first created.

Teliya Nevashi

Cardinal numbers in their unaltered form precede the noun they are counting. When they follow the noun, they take the suffix -as. An example of this might be when the number counts a noun that is currently part of an "anta" verb. Since nothing (generally, so far) comes between the auxiliary and the main verb, and the noun following anta acts as a verb, its number has to follow it as an adverb.

Anda teliya emas.

There-was language one.

There was one language.

In most cases, "one language" would be "em teliya", but someone might choose to use "teliya emas" in cirumstances where it isn't grammatically necessary for purposes of rhyme, meter, or style.

Numbers from 1-...whatever

1 em

2 van

3 od

4 kud

5 nosh

6 nosh-em

7 nosh-van

8 nosh-od

9 nosh-kud

10 vannosh

11 vannosh-em

12 vannosh-van

13 vannosh-od

14 vannosh-kud

15 odnosh

16 odnosh-em

20 kudnosh

25 noshgyu

26 noshgyu-em

30 noshgyu-nosh

35 noshgyu-vannosh

40 noshgyu-odnosh

45 noshgyu-kudnosh

50 vannoshgyu

74 vannoshgyu-kudnosh-kud

75 odnoshgyu

100 evrat (** I should work out an etymology for this. Otherwise, I am going to reuse it in a mainland language that the Nevashi people (will have) borrowed it from.)