It’s been surprisingly fun, I used to hate creating conjugation for conlangs, lol, I guess I just got better at it.
bik: noun
1. The period of time that has already happened, in contrast to the present and the future; the past.
het: noun
1. The time ahead; those moments yet to be experienced; the future.
2. Something that will happen in moments to come.
him: noun
1. The current moment or period of time; the present.
The trouble was neverending until I made those three words. Before I made these words Doldaran conjugation was an ugly, nonsensical, and downright infuriating mess.
One day, I figured I’d have a much easier time with Doldaran conjugation if I just made some gaddang words for past, present, and future… So I did!
And I was right. :3
So I fixed my original four sets of conjugation and was satisfied for a while.
However, later while I was messing with Doldaran’s consonantizing (basically adding dialectal variations to it) I decided that its current conjugation just wasn’t complicated enough, lol.
So I now I've made a bunch of different sets of conjugation, like, twelve of them, lol. I ain’t quite done with them yet but when I am I’m gonna have to redo some of the conjugation in Flame of Abysm’s Doldaran dialogue, lol.
Oh well, that’s just what something one has to deal when one uses their conlang before it’s good and ready. :P
Well, I’ve recently begun dabbling into the world of XML tuning for Sims 3 lol
What I’m currently working on is a Doldaran name list…
Which I’ll probably end up having to redo a bit because I doubt Sims 3 is fond of letters like ǰ or ł… Especially ǰ since notepad hardly even likes that one! The caron in the capital ǰ sits off to the right as a separate letter instead of on top (I have to use a combining caron with J/j, fyi, otherwise it wouldn’t do that at all ‘cuz it’d be one letter)! It’s pretty silly looking. XD
Hopefully vowels with diacritical marks will be fine or else I’m in trouble (I think Sims 3 is OK with them but I don’t remember, lol).
I can get around most of the junk with the consonants easily but the vowels? Not so much.
Like: j becomes dz, ǰ becomes j, č becomes ch, c could stay as is or become ts, š becomes sh, ž becomes zh, ł could become ll… Stuff like that.
But wtf am I supposed to do with ä, ï, and ö? lol
I suppose I could use “w” as a semi-vowel for “ä” since “äää” in Doldaran letters is written as “äwä” in English letters and “ö” could become “oo” but I haven’t thought of anything for “ï” that makes sense. :/
(”Ä” becoming “w” makes sense in context of Doldaran orthography while “ö” becoming “oo” makes sense in context of English orthography. Seriously, lök and look are pronounced the same.)
Of course, I could also go for a full anglicization here. Like, “Šedärvak” didn’t become “Shedwrvak” in Flame of Abysm, it became “Shadervock”. I also didn’t write “Gavwlla” instead of “Gaväła” when I made my Terraria character (guess how Gaväła Skavafor came into being, lol), I wrote “Gavala”.
So “Qädöfor” could become “Ghadurfor”, “Hesïs” could become “Hessis”, “Ïlvageł” could become “Ilvagel”, “J̌algär” could become “Jalger”, “J̌örma” could become “Jurma”, “Xavara” could become “Khavara”, “Radnä” could become “Radna”, “Šalmidïn” could become “Shalmeedin”, “Sölgo” could become “Soolgo” or “Sulgo”, “Zrökär” could become “Zrooker”, etc. etc.…
This would also allow me to make certain names common as balls without it also being extremely visually repetitive. Basically, instead of there being a bajillion people named “Karak” there’d be a bajillion people named “Karak”, “Karock”, “Carock”, “Qarock”, “Carak”, “Caraq”, “Caraque”, “Karaque”, etc. (the -q and -que spellings will likely be reserved for the ladies, lol).
It’ll also make things much easier for me when I’m naming babies because then I’ll never have to tab out to copy-paste special letters I can’t just alt+0228 / 0154 / 0158 / 0246 / 0239 / etc. to write.
…
So yeah, I’ll likely end up having to rewrite everything without diacritical marks (especially since I just remembered that “ł” doesn’t/might not show in Sims 3 because I think I already tried the copy-paste thing with Zavreł but still ended up having to spell his name “Zavrel”, lol) but I’m still gonna write it down as I have been so far so I’ll have a big fat list of Doldaran names to copy and paste into a different file. XD
Or maybe I could just go ahead and do that NOW, continue writing names in that new file, and then write the anglicized ones in the sims name list file, lol.
“Meł ida!” wasn’t even in the right tense, lol derp, it’s supposed to in present tense not present participle! :P
It's correct now though, lol.
Anyway, I made a cursory check on the other Doldaran sentences so while I’m fairly sure there aren’t any more grammar mistakes and sure that I don’t need to change any more 3rd person verbs to those indefinite/abstract/impersonal ones I still don’t know for certain.
But yeah, it’s probably fine and I should work on the next chapter after taking care of some business I complained about yesterday.
About Doldaran Conjugation, Pronouns, and WTF Partner Consonants Are:
I’d been struggling with getting the Doldaran’s conjugation just right for while now and not only do I think I FINALLY got something I can be fully satisfied with but I also finally made an indefinite/abstract/impersonal set of conjugation so I don’t have to just settle for the 3rd person set every time I have someone refer to a “this”, a “that”, or a non-living “it”.
I also tweaked the pronouns a bit, thankfully only the ones I haven’t used in Flame of Abysm yet, lol. I only tweaked eastern and southern Doldaran pronouns and I haven’t used a lick of eastern and the only southern one I used (ïk) was one I didn’t change. I also added an archaic set of pronouns which’s vowels line up with the vowels used in their respective conjugation…
Though, there’s nothing so far explaining why some first person conjugations have “e” or its partner consonant (”x”) instead of “i” or its partner consonant (”p” or “y”). Or in non-el verbs, lack an added vowel or partner consonant entirely, lol.
And yes, there is a rhyme and reason to the partner consonants, I didn’t just pick random consonants, lol.
I was making a lot of weird sounds the day I worked that out, rofl.
And the reason they exist at all is that diphthongs and other vowel clusters were actively avoided in older Doldaran, especially if it sounded awkward. But instead of doing what Old Japanese did (which was drop a vowel, merge them into a separate vowel, or stick an “s” between them†), I did some weird thing.
But anyway, I’m still gonna have to edit a short sentence in there because when Gaväła said “Meł ïda!” she ain’t supposed to be saying “He’s/She’s great!” she's supposed to be saying “That’s great!” so yeah, lol, I’m gonna have to look for more “not-supposed-to-be-in-3rd-person-but-is-out-of-past-necessity” sentences just in case.
† And now you know why a lot of compound words involving the Japanese word for rain (ame), especially older ones, are a bunch of shikajikasame instead of shikajika’ame, lol.
Princes of Doldara have multiple TersVärdafornž and they are always working in groups divisible by five (that number pops up a lot in Barida Bay, lol).
Abirad is a special TersVärdaforn, a “TersaSver”. This will be referred to in my fanfics as “The Prince’s Sword”, which is its literal translation, for the vast majority of the time (some dialogue and all dialogue written in Doldaran being the most common exceptions).
The Prince’s Sword is a TersVärdaforn the prince trusts the most, whom accompanies the prince at most (if not all) public appearances, and sometimes acts on the prince's behalf in foreign territories (the prince rarely leaves Doldara, most often communicating through magical means, but sometimes a physical presence is required and the prince often cannot supply that presence. Like Zolavor: he only left Doldara twice or thrice (undecided, lol) during his 200+ years-long reign as prince).
And, as I’ve demonstrated with Zolavor and Abirad, the TersaSver is sometimes even a consort or concubine of the prince (Lusuva’s father, Korvasev, was a TersaSveršk consort). It’s more common for them to be close friends than romantic partners, though.
Thinking about TCT suddenly reminded me that I don’t have some very basic words for family, various family members, and what-not yet.
I do have words for mother, father, and child (these are always included in Swadesh lists and I started Doldaran by filling out a Swadesh list, lol) but that’s it.
I also have words for “family” and “family member” now but still none for sibling, aunt, uncle, etc. lol.
I think the hardest part might be the grandparents and grandchildren because I don’t want them to start tacking on their equivalent to “great” so few generations apart because of how long lived they are.
Shadrock is a great-great-great-great grandfather through his daughter and a grandfather through his son.
Zolavor is 69 years older than Abirad who’s 30 years older than Shadrock and 50 years older than Carock.
Carock is 120 years old in TCT.
Karaka was 633 years old when Zenor, her great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandson and Carock’s great-great-great-great grandfather, killed her… But she probably only had maybe a week left until she died naturally.
Anyway, I’m currently thinking that senescence starts becoming apparent and speeds up a bit at around either 250 or 300 on average for these guys, which is why Carock, Shadrock, Abirad, Zolavor, etc. all look so young.
It’ll start early for Zolavor, though, because he has a stressful job that he himself admits that he’s not entirely suited for (he’s good with the economics, though) and has had to deal with the worst, most evil Regent in the history of Doldara.
