#sumric

[themerch]

A Crow, a Bat and some Rats

It was on a fine sunny day that the weather of Macu (the human world in Sumric mythology) presented a beautiful and calm day to those that dwelled in that realm. The blue sky battered the ground and caused the ice to recede for a short while, the strong sky even shown bright light into the rocky realm above it where the trickster crow god Żponja lived. Blue beams of light snuck through some cracks in the ceiling of the world and the ground of the world above. This caught the attention of Żponja who was entranced by the beauty of the beam. This inspired him to fly down into Macu to enjoy the lovely weather. There he flapped his wings gently as he soared over the land, the sun giving his black feathers a bearable and pleasant warmth. The weather was so pleasant that he dozed off while he was gliding in the sky.

When he woke up, Żponja found that he had glided a great distance over many horizons. The crow was now far to the south and headed directly for the sickly realm Bësowirmau, the land of death. When the trickster god saw the foul mist that smothered Bësowrimau, he flapped his wings to halt himself, in doing so he created a great gust of wind which blew away a chunk of mist to reveal the land and beasts that it covered. Suddenly a bat was exposed but quickly it fled to the nearest cover. Not exactly one of the barbaric and bloodthirsty bats said to live in the land of the dead. By this time the day was growing old and the sun had nearly finished her journey across the sky so Żponja flew back home to his own realm.

The next day the crow god returned to the same spot and once again he wafted a great deal of wind to move some of the foul mist, this time on purpose. Once again he saw the same bat. This time the bat didn't flee for cover, rather she flew further into her realm so that she could observe the strange corvid god from a safe distance. "Such a timid creature" Żponja thought. Once again the sun was setting and once again Żponja flew home for the night.

The next day the crow god returned to the same spot and once again he wafted a great deal of wind to move some of the foul mist. Once again he saw the same bat as she was exposed. This time she didn't retreat, rather she hovered in the sky and looked curious at the crow. Żponja gave out a croak and a caw and he asked what her name was. "I am Cylpirhtic (devastated claw)". By this time once more the sun was setting and once again Żponja flew home for the night.

The next day the crow god returned to the same spot. He had been thinking of Cylpirhtic, compared to what he had heard about bats, how they spread their filthy scent as they slithered through the air, and how they harassed any innocent being that dares to exist, that this one bat seemed quite meek in comparison. Rather it seemed she was a poor soul among bad company, such that Żponja pitied Cylpirhtic. This day he decided he wouldn't leave her in that filthy land, that instead of using his deception and trickery for mischief (as he would usually do), he would use it to rescue Cylpirhtic. So Żponja flew North this time and he found the most bountiful forest that stood on the land, and he plucked a single berry from a bush, ripe and red. The crow squished the berry with his beak and he rubbed the juices over his feathers, giving him the appearance that he was bleeding. Next he flew south to that same spot and once again he wafted his wings. When he found Cylpirhtic exposed from the mist once again, he called out to her for help. "Cylpirhtic! Oh please help me, I was attacked by a horrific tiger and I am wounded! I would clean this blood myself but I can't preen my feathers in this wounded state, could you come here and lick the blood for me?". The bat perked up this time, both excited at the prospect of blood and at the chance to help. She flew to the trickster god and she licked every feather clean, unknowingly swallowing berry juice instead of blood. She let out a single sentence before flying back to her usual spot, "Why, what sweet blood you have". But when she tried to enter her realm she was met with an invisible wall keeping her out, no matter how hard she flapped she couldn't penetrate the mist. The crow's trick had worked. For the berry wasn't pluck at random, it was plucked from Erotru's own bush. Any being to eat the fruit of that bush becomes a subject of Erotru, and in turn...banished from the land of the dead.

Leaving Cylpirhtic no choice to return to her putrid home, the two flew North where Żponja showed the bat what a wonderful and pure home she now had. The bat was amazed with the sight of green forests, blossoming flowers and juicy fruits. With the help of Żponja the bat had become a peaceful and pure spirit, and soon the two became enamoured by each other and Cylpirhtic fell pregnant. While they were together, each night Żponja had to return to his own realm in the sky, while Cylpirhtic was forced to remain in Macu as she was now a subject of Erotru. This was no issue for the pair however as they visited each other every day.

This was an issue for Emesdât...Żponja's wife. Emesdât became deeply jealous and enraged when she discovered her husbands unfaithfulness. Such so that she sought to take her anger out on Cylpirhtic. As Emesdât was a crow herself she looked very much like her husband, even Cylpirhtic thought that the angry wife in the sky was her own lover so didn't dare to flee. Emesdât took advantage of this, she flew right up to the bat and pinned her to the ground, using her sharp beak she tore Cylpirhtic's wings off so that the bat would be grounded forever, so that she could never meet her husband in the sky. The angry wife then flew back home in a rage.

Cylpirhtic, now wingless, scurried on the ground to seek cover. Now she was a small wingless furry being, she had become the first rat. Soon after she gave birth to four children, each of them rats like herself. They were Abegël the goddess of persistence, Madylain the goddess of invasion, Muildŕ the god of cunning, and Scyli the goddess of obstacles. And so rats had come into the world.

Thanks to @confabconlang and her rats for inspiration of the names!

[themerch]

The fucking king

In Vougerå there are two registers of formality. The higher register, used to speak to anyone of a higher social standing, originated from a register used with the king only. The registers are used unidirectionaly, so when someone is spoken to in the higher register, they respond in the lower. As the king is the highest social standing he uses the lower register to everyone.

But if someone who is not a king, especially if they have a low standing in society, uses the lower register to everyone then he is called a nåjår "fucking king" which is from nå "king" and -eår "pejorative suffix". So named because he speaks like only the king should.

[themerch]

Causality in Hajec

Hajec is the often forgotten sister of Old Sumrë and Old Tuura, the runt of the family, having gone extinct and leaving no descendants behind. Hajec is the most conservative of the Proto-Sumric daughters as it diverged from Early Proto-Sumric whereas Old Sumrë and Old Tuura diverged from Late Proto-Sumric and share innovations such as umlaut. However even in Hajec we can observe interesting changes. In this post we’ll look at the various words for “because” in Hajec. 

Early on in Hajec there were many ways to mark causality, often with expressive phrases to mark very specific instances of “because”. At this point they could be analysed as discourse particles rather than conjunctions. I’ll list them here: 

easnuzǫz “that which emerges from jealousy” - when an action was done because of the subject’s jealousy. From easu- “that which emerges from” + zǫz “jealousy”. 

tsioest ilasf napfo easnuzǫz

refuse-3S.ANIM.PST submit king-DAT.ANIM that emerger-jealousy

“he refused to submit to the king because he was jealous (of him)”

kitis “with intimidation” - when an action was done because the subject was forced to or had no choice in the matter. From k- “supine prefix” + it “to intimidate” + -is “with”. 

ilasfest napfo kitis

submit-3S.ANIM.PST king-DAT.ANIM SUP-intimidate-with

“he submited to the king because he was forced to to

kativokōis jirt “with imitation upon” - when an action was done because someone or something else had already done it. From kativokōis “imitation” (from k- “supine prefix + ativokō “to intimidate” + -is “with”) + jirt “upon”. 

ilasfest napfo kativokōis jirt klesmir

submit-3S.ANIM.PST king-DAT SUP-imitate-with upon friend-3S.POSS

“he submitted to the king because his friend did so (also)”

ḥvēris “with the opinion” - when the subject did the action because he thought that he should. From ḥvēr “opinion” + -is “with”. 

ilasfest napfo ḥvēris 

submit-3S.ANIM.PST king-DAT opinion-with

“he submitted to the king because he thought that he should have”

vexil ezvetér “out of the mist” - used as a general “because”. From vexil “out of” + ezvetér “the mist”. 

ilasfest napfo vexil ezvetér vrāōvestsāt ilasf

submit-3S.ANIM.PST king-DAT out of DEF/mist want-3S.ANIM.PST=SUB sumbit

“he submitted to the king because he wanted to”

exskį́ji “from the seed” - Also used as a general “because”. From exskį “seed” + -ji “from”. 

ilafest napfo exskį́ji vrāōvest ilasf

submit-3S.ANIM.PST king-DAT DEF/seed-from want-3S.ANIM.PST submit

“he submitted to the king because he wanted to”

Later on in Hajec each of the above become causal conjunctions which always followed the verb. However the conjunction exskį́ji fell out of everyday use and survived only in flowery speech. vexil ezvetér became lez which was the default causal conjunction. Kativokōis jirt became kōisjirt, a causal conjunction for an action that someone else did or an action done in revenge or retaliation. Kitis became a conjunction for a verb where the subject was forced to do it, but also as a discourse particle insinuiting disapproval. Easnuzǫz became restricted to stories of romance where a subject done something out of love or infatuation. 

[themerch]

This post is a little introduction to a new Tuuric language which has become heavilly influenced by a Sumric language. 

Ökiestans is the Tuuric language spoken in Kiujéçpdlasan, a region which lies at  the most northern reaches of the Naumes Territory of the Memoicha country. The language is referred to with the name Ökiestlans in the Naumes language, and natively with mutiple names such as Jekjijiez̃tānas, Sweruss and Zosas. The name Jekjijez̃tānans is cognate the placeme Kiujéçpdlasan, indeed it is derived from it. The placename is originally form the Naumes language which was then borrowed into Ökiestans as Kjijez̃tān, as later areal feature was a sound change between both Naumes and Ökiestans which inserted an epenthetic [ɵ] at the begining of words beginning in clusters which gave Ökjejez͂tān. The Ökiestans attached the animate ending -as onto the placename (placenames can be made animate to derive language names) to create ökjejez͂tanas. The word ökjejez͂tanas was then borrowed into Naumes where it became the word for Ökiestans in the Naumes language. The placename and language name then changed to Jekjijez̃tān and jekjijez̃tānas respectively. The name Sweruss is the oldest native term for the language. It comes from the older form swerōss which itself is from the Old Tuura tuuruoþṡi which was the dative form of tuura, the native term for the Old Tuura language (a cognate can be found in the language name Tjȁr which also comes from the word tuura). However the name sweruss is now mostly reserved to poetic use. The name Zosas is also from a placename. This time it is from the placename Zos, which is from Middle Naumes Ēzos which means “small mountain next to a large mountain” (compare Modern Naumes eeos “hillock”). Among academics the name Ökiestans is the most used.

The speakers of Ökiestans, albeit dwelling in a Sumric country, are ethnically and culturally Tuuric, originally comming from the mouth of the Giegawowi Sea much further to the north. The population arrived to their current location during the 42nd Century in the year 4100AN. During this period there was a religous cleansing happening in the area where followers of the Ssålt cult sought to drive away followers of other cults. When a comet landed which seemingly came from the planet named after Ssålt and is said to be made from his body, his followerers wanted to drive away “heathens” to appease him. At first the other populations refused to move and battles ensued but the Ssåti followers proved victorious. So the surviving non-Ssåti followers fled south unti they came to the sparse and emtpy Odihvsohô region, there they made canoes and travelled south along the Cuyluti River until they came to the mouth of the Hlabɫo Sea, from there they hugged the coast and rowed south where the encountered the sea lake Jûgḿ. The rowed further south into Jûgḿ and upstream along the many small rivers that flowed into it to reach Kiujéçpdasan. There they settled into villages and there they came into heavy contact with the Naumes culture and language. Over the next millenia their Sweruss language became heavily influenced by Middle Naumes, and later on Modern Naumes. Such so that their language became signigantly different from the language of those who remained in the north whose language became Swarât.

The original refugees were speakers of a southern dialect of Swerōss, a Tuuric language spoken around the shores of the Giewgawowi. As such Ökiestans is closely related to Modern Swarât and the other Tuuric languages, and more distantly to the Sumric languages such as Naumes, all stemming from Proto-Sumric.

After the migration from the Giegawowi Sea, the language experianced prolonged contact with Naumes. Although the first generation of incomers remained mostly monolingual in Swerōss, their children learned the Midde Naumes language and in time intermarried with native Naumesx speakers and it became the norm for all Swerōss speakers to be proficient in Naumes. With this prolonged contact, Naumes influence is rife and can be seen in many aspects of the language, in the vocabulary with loanwords such as jevbaflas “sniper” (from Middle Naumes vbafl “sniper bowman”, compare Modern Naumes vöbaf “sniper”), in the phonology with je-epenthesis which inserts an epenthetic je- word intially on words beginning with clusters (from the Middle Naumes ö-epenthesis, in Modern Naumes metathesis obscured this), and in the grammar such as borrowing Naume’s comparitive suffixes -ason, -asoda plus the superlative -nason which attach to adjectives borrowed from Naumes, and any non-native adjective. A rather extreme example of this is suppletion where one stem in from Ökiestans and another stem in the same paradigm is from Naumes e.g tar͂ol “good” with the supplantive comparitive sēusn “better” (from Naumes sedeusn “better”). The most commonly known loanword is jelttyr̃as “girl” from Midde Naumes Ölttylöz “female forename” (compare Modern Naumes Löttylöz) All nominal loanwords into Ökiestans take on the appropiate gender endings, -as for animate nouns and -uss for inanimate nouns. These endings derive from dative case suffixes in Old Tuura. 

[themerch]

Origin of the epistemic in Vougerå

In Proto-Sumric there was the word *spḿf- “to predict”. In Old Tuura it became the verb sbo͂fti “to predict”. In Old Tuura, its inflected form coud be inserted at the end of a clause to show that the subject believes that the verb (inflected for the future tense) will happen, often the clause will subordinated e.g: 

nam donåṡṡyd jåguovüüssuod, sbo͂ffåṡ

king make-3S.ANIM-FUT book-ACC.INAN=SUB, predict-3S

“That the king will write a book, he predicts”

sulṡmmyd samwasåssuod, sbo͂fṡm

see-1S-FUT moth-ACC.INAN=SUB, predict-1S

“That I will see a moth, I predict”

By Late Old Tuura the verb “predict” had become more of a discourse particle. It no longer agreed with the subject of the clause and now only inflected for the 1st person. e.g: 

nam donåṡṡyd jåguovüüssuod, sbo͂fṡm

king make-3S.ANIM-FUT book-ACC.INAN=SUB, predict-1S

“That the king will write a book, I predict”

sulṡmmyd samwasåssuod, sbo͂fṡm

see-1S-FUT moth-ACC.INAN=SUB, predict-1S

“That I will see a moth, I predict”

In Soura, Old Tuura’s daughter, the discourse particle had become the deontic modal particle sbom to express that it is important for the verb to be carried out, or to insinuate expectations. The verb need not be in the future tense, now it will usually appear in the present but it can be used with other tenses with the deontic, neither does the verb phrase need to be subordinated anymore. 

nam jagvovnoås sbom

king book-make-3S DEO

“the king should write a book”

lusm mavaså sbom

see-1S moth-ACC.INAN DEO

“I should see a moth”

In Vougerå, Soura’s daughter, the deontic modal particle had become the epistemic suffix -sbu which attaches to verbs to insinutate that the verb must be carried out. 

lissbu måvåso

see-1S-EPIS moth-ACC.INAN

“I must/have to see a moth

It also became an imperative in the “royal” register when speaking to the king. The “royal imperative” is formed with subject being refered to in the third person (the indirectness is seen as more polite). It is considered rude to use the usual imperative (discussed here) with the king. 

nå jågvuvnuosbu 

king book-make-3S-EPIS

“write a book”  (addressed to the king)

Over time the roya register came to be used with anyone of a higher social status than the speaker, so a man wi use it with his gran, his gran would use it with the local chieftan, the local chieftan would use it with the king. The royal register is mostly unidirectional in that no two speakers use it with each other. If two speakers are on the same social standing (such as two chieftans) then they use the normal register, which of course no one uses with the king. 

[themerch]

Origin of Vougerå’s imperative

The imperative in Vougerå is quite different from that of the other Tuuric languages. While Tjȁr has -ji, -ci, -ī, -či and Miõrra has -ggje, -že, -je, -jaì both from Old Tuura -je and in turn Proto-Sumric -ję (compare Old Sumrë -je). Vougerå has the imperative prefix smou- which attaches to the supine form of the verb unlike any of it’s relatives. The reason is due to grammaticalisation in Soyra (the mother of Vougerå and daughter of Old Tuura). 

Soyra in general was pretty innovative, shedding many of it’s Old Tuura feathers and gaining new ones, such as a total pronoun reform and a wave of grammaticalisation bringing many new derivational morphemes into the language. The Old Tuura imperative -je was dropped and was replaced by a construction meaning “you allow there to be X-ing” where the supine form of the verb was used alongside an existential construction. For example “soothe!” was dar rotys må emti kvjes (you allow-2S it.INAN be-INF SUP-soothe) “you allow there to be soothing”. The verb “to be” was optionally dropped giving the more common construction dar rotys må kvjes. If the imperative had a subject and another verb such as “let the frog hop” then the construction would be “you allow there to be hopping from the frog” where the object would have the postposition jån “from” e.g dar rotys må kmarågg lamg jån “let the frog hop” (you allow-2S it.INAN SUP-hop DEF/frog from). Eventually the verb rotys “you allow” (second person present of the verb rosi “to allow”) became cliticised as s- onto må (third person singular inanimate pronoun) which was itself cliticised onto the supine verb giving småkvjes “soothe!” (compare with the infinitve vjessi “to soothe”)

However since these clitics were still identifyable as contractions of rotys “you allow” and må (3S inanimate pronoun) because the uncontracted forms were still attested. It wasn’t until Late Soyra that små- could be anaysed as a new imperative prefix. This is because of a major pronoun reform where older pronouns were dropped and new pronouns were derived from verbs meaning “to be self”, for example the pronouns dar and må fell out of speech as the second person singular and third person singular inanimate pronouns and were replaced by ječjyhså (literally meaning “you who are yourself) and jemåråsådå (literally meaning “I’ve never heard of a functioning pronoun”…just kidding it means “that which is itself”). Then verb inflections were eroded by sound changes which left the s- from rotys (-ys being the second person singular present suffix) also as being unanalysable. With these reanalysations the construction was no longer identifyable as “you allow there to be X-ing” and so the construction “you allow there to beX-ing from Y” when the imperative verb had an object no longer made any sense. So a sentence like “let the frog hop” was then structured as småkrot kmarågg lamg jån (IMP-allow SUP-hop DEF/frog from) or “allow hopping from the frog”. Notice that in this case the imperative suffix attaches to the very same verb from which it was (partially) derived from!

This rendered the clitic cluster små- unanalysable as as contracted pronouns for those pronouns no longer existed, and so it is then reasonable to analyse it instead as an imperative prefix which attaches to supine verbs. Then sound changes from Vougerå caused the prefix to become smou- ([ɑ] had been raised by Ungeish Raising, the presence of [u] being due to the sound change where [o] broke into [o̯u] before velars which was triggered by the supine prefix k- which always occures after the imperative suffix). If I derive further daughters from Vouregå then I may analyse the g- (a consonant shift caused [k] to become [g])as part of the prefix resulting in smoug- if I switch the supine verb with an infinite one which would leave the g- to attach to the prefix before it. 

Vougerå had some more fun with grammaticalisation in imperatives when it derived new imperative prefixes which mean “to allow” and “to make, to cause” such as “let the frog hop” or “make the frog hop”. These derive from the Soyra imperatives småkrot “allow!” and småkiss “cause!,  make!”. In Vougerå these became smougrut and smougess. These two words then became the prefixes grut-  and gess- which attached to verbs. Since a later sound change in Vougerå deleted word final consonants the supine verbs from which the prefixes derive from became gru and ge (as supine forms of rusi and esi). As the final consonants in the prefixes were preserved it’s reasonable to analyse them as prefixes. More grammaticalisation occured when the postposition jån “from” (now jo) attached itself to the object of the imperative verb, causing it to become a suffix for objects of imperative clauses. As such I name it the imperative accusative.  The prefixes attach to infintive verbs instead of the supine. So “let the frop hop” is now gessmarrogse lajo (CAUS.IMP-hop-INF frog-ACC)

An example of the imperative in Proto-Sumric, the Tuuric languages, Hajec and Old Sumrë

“Make the frog eat the mushroom”

Proto-Sumric: Tar istję bəlmkə́ njak atyókəw   ( you cause-IMP DEF/frog-ACC.ANIM eat DEF/mushroom-ACC.INAN

Hajec: Tar ist bilmké njak atiokō (you cause DEF/frog eat DEF/mushroom)

Old Sumrë: Tar ñacisče bálmcü aduócû (you eat-CAUS-IMP DEF/frog-ACC.DEER DEF/mushroom)

Old Tuura: Dar ihhtje bålmkå njakti adyogüü (you cause-IMP frog-ACC.ANIM eat-INF DEF/mushroom-ACC.INAN)

Tjȁr: Dra uči bòlmkò jnaktu aduòg (you cause-IMP frog-ACC eat-INF mushroom-ACC)

Miõrra: Tar išče pežkmaì oñakči ačoaaìkuà (you cause-IMP DEF/frog-AC.ANIM eat-INF DEF/mushroon-ACC-INAN)

Vougerå: Gessjågse lajo ådiougöü    (CAUS.IMP-eat frog-ACC mushroo-ACC.INAN)