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Cursed Low Zeneth Translations

Consider this a makeshift guide to how Low Zeneth works.

Overview

Low Zeneth is a language and group of dialects spoken Southwestern Zeneste (the state of Tolftorrijv.) Its last common "ancestor" with Ipol was Classical Zispoel, but it had already started to diverge before the time of the Hero of Life. Low Zeneth is radically different than Ipol in many ways, though it's been influenced substantially by Ipol, too.

I will focus here on the prestige variety of Low Zeneth: the kind spoken in the city of Tolftorrijv.

Phonology/Romanization

Rendered Phonemically:

Stops: /p/ /b/ /t/ /d/ /k/ /g/

Nasal Stops: /m/ /n/

Affricates: /t͡s/ /t͡ʃ/

Fricatives: /f/ /θ/ /s/ /ʃ/ /h/

Approximants: /w/ /l/ /j/

Tap/flap: /ɾ/

Trill: /r/

Vowels:

/iː/ /i/ /yː/ /y/ /uː/ /u/

/eː/ /e/ /øː/ /ø/ /oː/ /o/ 

/ə̃/ /ə/

/a/ /ɑː/

That makes 34 total phonemes broken down from 20 consonants and 14 vowels.

Romanized:

p, b, t, d, k, g

m, n

ts, q

f, th, s, sh, h

w, l, j

r

rr

ij i üü ü uw u

ee ê öö ö oo o

v e

a aa

If you can't tell, I had fun deriving this phonology from the restrictive, Classical Zispoel phonology. Maybe a little too much, but oh well.

Morphology and Syntax - Grammar

Technically Low Zeneth is a VSO language, but that's not the full picture.

Basically, auxiliary verbs get sucked up into the (head-initial) tense-phrase. The tree below describes the translation "fijsesê bv hijfrê" which literally translates to "have I money" and means "I have money."

The result is that most subordinate clauses have the structure SVO, while the main clause has structure SV(A)O.

Low Zeneth has very slim morphology, only inflecting for a simple plural in nouns with -o, and no morphology at all in verbs. A series of sound changes rendered the T/A distinctions of Classical Zispoel basically indistinguishable, so to compensate, speakers of Low Zeneth employ heavy periphrasis.

Cursed Translations from Today

Fijatsia bv io dv luw êraanva ijrenva

Phonemic: /fi.ˈja.tsi.a ˈbə̃ ˈi.o ˈluː e.ˈɾɑː.nə̃.a ˈiː.ɾe.nə̃.a/

Lit. Translation: Will I give you of news urgent.

Meaning: I will give you urgent news/I must give you urgent news.

Üümen ijnvth Dvrr Ilaajote hijthen-luwario

Phonemic: /ˈyː.men ˈiː.nə̃θ ˈdə̃r i.ˈlɑː.jo.tə ˈhiː.θen.lu.wa.ɾi.o/

Lit. Manages Zeneste Emperor Tolftorrijv fight-people.

Meaning: The Emperor of Zeneste (now) manages the Tolftorrijv army.

Conclusion

I just figured I'd talk about Low Zeneth today because I haven't talked about it a lot but have been producing a bunch of translations. I realize only now that I didn't go over forming questions in this post, but maybe later I will. Feel free, as always, to request that I translate random words/phrases into this language.

Ik nobody's gonna see this but this is my first digital art I've done in forever #homestuck

This idea was too cool not to reblog, especially from my nerdy combinatorics perspective.

Had an idea for a conlang in which instead of pronouns having the standard person/number setup (basically the cartesian product of {1, 2, 3} and {SG, PL}), it uses only the persons of the referents, not caring about how many there are (basically the powerset of {1, 2, 3}).

For example with this you would get a second person pronoun I'll gloss as just 2, but all it means is that the referents are a subset of the audience, independent of whether there are one or many people in that audience. However you'd also get another “second person” pronoun 2.3 which just means the referents include the audience but also people elsewhere (this is definitionally plural).

You'd end up with one third person pronoun (3, can be either plural or singular), two second person pronouns (see above), and four first person pronouns (1 – just singular, 1.3 – exclusive plural, 1.2 – partially inclusive plural, and 1.2.3 – inclusive plural). Additionally you'd also get an empty pronoun ∅, which could be used as an indefinite or impersonal pronoun like “one” or the dummy “it” (perhaps adding an animacy distinction to the system could help here).

It's interesting that the only thing you lose in this system compared to English at least is equivalents to the non-epicene third person singular pronouns “he/she/it”; because both “you” and “they” can refer to singular and plural they map directly to equivalents here. In first and second person you're purely gaining distinctions.

REVERSE TROPE WRITING PROMPTS

Too many beds

Accidentally kidnapping a mafia boss

Really nice guy who hates only you

Academic rivals except it’s two teachers who compete to have the best class

Divorce of convenience

Too much communication

True hate’s kiss (only kissing your enemy can break a curse)

Dating your enemy’s sibling

Lovers to enemies

Hate at first sight

Love triangle where the two love interests get together instead

Fake amnesia

Soulmates who are fated to kill each other

Strangers to enemies

Instead of fake dating, everyone is convinced that you aren’t actually dating

Too hot to cuddle

Love interest CEO is a himbo/bimbo who runs their company into the ground

Nursing home au

Foreshadowing is so fun! Even though I'm still on draft one of my novel, I may list which of these elements I've incorporated so far below.

Lozerief knows stuff she shouldn't. How did she know Izi's dad? If she knew his dad, did she know his mom? (Spoilers, yes, she did, duh.)

Colors. Everywhere. Lozerief wears black, foreshadowing her role as Hero of Earth. Izi wears white, foreshadowing his role as Hero of Cognition and her antithesis. Hota wears teal for their role as Hero of Mind.

I (mostly) know how this will end.

Not a Checkhov's gun but I repeatedly bring up Izi's old home for more reasons than just trauma.

I keep track of what I put in languages that I create so that only I (and the characters who speak those languages) know what they're saying. (I foreshadow the rise of the White Army this way.)

Names with meanings is a big one for Lozerief...

I realize only now that Lozerief is the character who hides the most, and it's amazing she doesn't spoil it all right away. Maybe she's bound by some old agreement...?

subtle ways to include foreshadowing

one character knowing something offhandedly that they shouldn't, isn't addressed until later

the crow rhyme

colours!! esp if like, blue is evil in your world and the mc's best friend is always noted to wear blue...betrayal?

write with the ending in mind

use patterns from tragic past events to warn of the future

keep the characters distracted! run it in the background until the grand reveal

WEATHER.

do some research into Chekhov's gun

mention something that the mc dismisses over and over

KEEP TRACK OF WHAT YOU PUT. don't leave things hanging.

unreliable characters giving information that turn out to be true

flowers and names with meanings

anything with meanings actually

metaphors. if one character describes another as "a real demon" and the other turns out to be the bad guy, you're kind of like...ohhh yeahhh

anyways add anything else in the tags

Introducing: Néndisfas

Consider this post a very brief introduction to my in-progress conlang, Néndisfas.

In summary, Néndisfsho is a fusional language with phonemic pitch-accent, personal agreement in verbs, and split-ergative based on animacy.

Phonology

Consonants

/p/, /b/, /m/, /t/, /d/, /n/, /k/, /g/, /ŋ/, /kʷ/, /gʷ/

/f/, /v/, /s/, /ʃ/, /z/, /xʷ/, /h/

/w/, /j/, /ɾ/, /l/, /ʎ/, /ʟ/

Not much to say here but for the three way /l/, /ʎ/, /ʟ/ distinction held-on from the protolanguage.

Vowels

Five-vowel system with length distinction, making 10 vowels. Not interesting at all here.

Phonotactics

Max syllable: CV(C)(C)(C) / CV(C)#

Indeed, this means that the maximum size of a consonant cluster could be 4-consonants long,

Morphology / Syntax: Grammar

Verbs

Verbs (and predicative adjectives) are simple, comparatively, to the syntactic nonsense going down with nouns.

Verbs take a prefix for perfective and passive, and a suffix for past or present and to agree with the subject in gender (animate, inanimate).

Due to sound changes, verbs fall into one of six categories, but classes II, III, and IV all have alternate forms.

Nouns

Néndisfsho nouns take on one of two genders: Common or Neuter. Common nouns were derived from old animate nouns, and neuter nouns were derived from old mass nouns. The nouns which didn't fit with either were grandfathered in.

Due to sound changes, nouns take on one of six endings depending on their class. Classes I, III, and V have alternate forms.

Nouns also inflect for one of 5 cases: Nominative, Genitive, Accusative, Allative, and Commitative. The Allative, though, is beginning to be used like an Ergative, marking an animate subject of an intransitive verb, and an animate object of a transitive verb.

Take, for instance, the following sentences:

Yés-e váw-i ve-kát-ur-o.

Yessei.C-NOM car.N-ACC PRV.drive.PST.ANIM

"Yessei had driven the car."

Since the car is not animate, Yessei is rendered in the nominative, and the car is rendered in the accusative. In the following sentence, however:

Yés-ivā búm-pe kéht-us

Yessei.C-ALL dark.N-NOM hate.PRES.INAN

"The dark hates Yessei."

Here, the nominative case is reanalyzed as an absolutive, and the allative as an ergative.

This structure could be rewritten with a passive, like

Yés-ivā (búp-ko) ver-kéht-o

Yessei.C-ALL (dark.N-GEN) PASS.hate.PRES.ANIM

"Yessei is hated (by the darkness)."

Here, the genitive marks the agent, and the allative (ergative) marks the subject. Yessei, in this context, is treated as the object of a transitive verb, rather than the subject of an intransitive verb.

The reason this is so messy right now is because the language is in the middle of evolving the ergativity.

Other Notes

Néndisfas has no "true" 2nd or 3rd person pronouns, because pronouns are a completely open class in Néndisfas. The general 1st person pronoun is "gémse, géra, gésho" (I, me, my).

This is probably a language I'll wind up using as a meme language throughout my writing. It originally started as a language used in the deserts of Southern Atepsi, but now it's Yessei's first language, so I decided it can be both. In the context of Meiste, though, this is a long-dead language.

Paging the usual suspects: @quillswriting @oldfashionedidiot @ominous-feychild

Also if y'all have translation suggestions don't hesitate to drop them in my asks or as a reply/reblog to this post lol.

To get inspiration from con-sports (only tangentially related) I watched sports like rugby and cricket, which I knew nothing about and just tried to follow along. If your character knows nothing about baseball, perhaps they learn about it at the game?

I have been notoriously stuck in my story because of a section involving baseball. One of my main characters has his character development during a baseball game, but

clears throat

Baseball who?

I don't watch, play, or am interested in most if not all sports.

I only know baseball because of my mom lol.

So, question. What do you all do when you're writing about something you have little knowledge in, but can't just search it up?

Y'all, I just got curious at one point, and I hope this isn't a repeat of a previous post. So, if you don't mind:

Wiktionary

orange - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

Wiktionary has a couple of recordings if you're curious about the difference/don't know linguistics and can't read IPA.

Follow-up question:

What words/phrases (if any) rhyme with orange?

This is a hotly-debated topic in the English language. I sincerely believe that in my dialect, no single word is a true-rhyme with orange that isn't also either a portmanteau or explicitly related to the word "orange." (E.g. blornge does not count for me, even though it does rhyme, because it is a portmanteau of blonde and orange.)

Reblogs are appreciated!

If Tumblr shuts down, we should all move to github. We can make github pages and fork each others' repos as an alternative to reblogging.

~WIP Intro~

What's up guys! Recently I started a new WIP and I'm honestly really vibing with it, so I thought I would take some time to do a proper introduction before I started talking about it elsewhere!

Title: Starstruck

Genres: science fiction, fantasy, action-comedy

Progress: just started first draft! (as of July 2024)

Synopsis

The story is written in first person from the perspective of a person called Miffy, a semi-organic being created to hold unimaginable amounts of energy. Via a series of unfortunate events, she is infused with the most powerful energy weapon in the universe, and finds herself at the centre of a galaxy-wide manhunt. Eventually she ends up joining a small crew of travelling adventurers dedicated to helping anyone that needs them, and becomes embroiled in a plot on a nearby planet that might be more personal than it first appears...

I got the first ideas for the story while reading Frankenstein, so there are some similarities with the creator/creation subplots. It also has kind of Treasure Planet-ish vibes, with the big 18th century pirate ship in space and all. It's a bit hard to accurately describe in a synopsis, so if you're interested, setting/characters ect are under the cut, since it's a little long :)

(oh, and. minor warning for blood, though it's only once and in a cartoon style)

Setting

The story has two main settings: the first one is a station that is essentially a space university, except only for like, really smart people. It's the main base of the Fellowship of Gifted Individuals, and the residency of those applying to graduate into the FGI. Our main character Miffy is born here, as she's the creation of one of the students as part of his thesis project.

However, she quickly joins a crew of space explorers and travels to our second location: the planet Oduseus. This planet is relatively backwater, and stays out of the galactic loophole, with somewhat outdated technology... at least, that's what the travel books say. In reality, the crew finds the planet powered by some mysterious, renewable energy, filling the city with beautiful light. But something darker lurks beneath the surface, as citizens keep dying under mysterious circumstances...

The general galaxy is obviously space and therefore draws inspiration from many traditional sci-fi tropes, but I've also tried to include some older elements to it, for example the ship they travel in, and some hints of celestial mythology as well, like the starmaids that swirl around in the vacuum.

Content/themes

In terms of adult content, the WIP is actually pretty tame. There's no sexual (or romantic) content, and minimal swearing. The only thing I would say is there's moderate violence, mostly fantasy (like, throwing magic lasers at each other and stuff) but there are a couple of deaths that might be a bit gruesome.

The main themes of the novel are finding who you are in a world that you don't recognise and choosing to help others even when you don't have to. Other themes dealt with include responsibility, loss, rebellion against an unjust monarchy, found family and unsafe scientific practices.

Cast of Characters

(I've added Picrews to this that I made a while ago, credit goes to @elena-illustration, it's her little guy maker if you're interested)

Miffy

Name: Miffed, nicknamed Miffy

Age: physically? 19. time-wise? 3 days. mentally? unclear.

Pronouns: she/they

Miffy is the main character, and the story is told from her first-person perspective. She was created in a lab by Bikuta, but soon leaves home to explore the galaxy, and satisfy her need to help others. Due to the vast amounts of energy contained within them, they are incredibly powerful, and hunted by many, especially the malicious Dark Eyes Society. She is not particularly emotive, and can be blunt, although once she discovers the concept of lying, she uses this to her full advantage. Her sense of humour is mostly only funny to her.

Strength: 20

Stealth: 6

Intelligence: 12

Wisdom: 8

Social Skills: 5

Fun Facts!!!!!

- she has no intestines

- she chose her own name based on a random word she heard once (because she thought it sounded cool)

- her hobbies include hitting things with a big stick and not being able to read

Cecilia

Name: Cecilia

Age: 15 (it's complicated)

Pronouns: she/her

Cecilia is the youngest member of the crew, and loves to have fun. She smiles a lot, and enjoys making friends, although I must admit, she doesn't fully understand the concept of personal boundaries. Her signature weapons are two silver daggers that she keeps on her at all times.

Strength: 14

Stealth: 17

Intelligence: 9

Wisdom: 9

Social Skills: 7

Fun Facts!!!!!!

- she has a teddy bear named Bookaloooka

- she enjoys stealing her crewmates' clothes (and is VERY disappointed Miffy for only having one outfit)

- whenever she feels sad for no reason, she tells herself that it's because she's been assigned to mourn the death of a stranger

North

Name: North (unclear if this is his legal name)

Age: 25

Pronouns: he/him

North is a member of the crew, and wields incredible mystical powers. He is very serious, and tends to keep himself to himself, preferring to meditate in solitude. He likes playing board games. You get the sense that he's running from something...

Strength: 18

Stealth: 12

Intelligence: 15

Wisdom: 10

Social Skills: 3

Fun Facts!!!!!!

- he's deathly scared of children

- occasionally he will just make the worst pun possible, because he knows that it's good to be funny he just doesn't know how

- coincidentally, said puns are the only things Miffy will laugh at

Reginald

Name: Reginald Bleaks

Age: 38

Pronouns: he/him

Reginald is another member of the crew, and their main source of information. He's very British (despite the fact that Britain doesn't exist), and is knowledgeable about the more criminal aspects of society. He can be pretty salty sometimes, but also cares deeply about his family.

Strength: 15

Stealth: 10

Intelligence: 19

Wisdom: 12

Social Skills: 10

Fun Facts!!!!!!

- his hair is #D2B48C

- Raven and North found him in a dive bar

- the entirety of the FGI hates his guts with a passion. They deeply loathe him. They wish he was pushing up daisies

Raven

Name: Raven Shimmerseat Hortensia Twinkle the Third

Age: 39

Pronouns: she/her

Raven is the unofficial leader of the crew, and the owner of the ship. She's very caring and empathetic, and has a special fondness for collecting strays, opening both her ship and her heart to anyone that wishes to join them. She is, however, from a very wealthy background, and can sometimes struggle to connect with others due to her wildly different upbringing.

Strength: 13

Stealth: 9

Intelligence: 11

Wisdom: 15

Social Skills: 9

Fun Facts!!!!!

- sometimes she and Reginald just sit on a bench throwing shade at passerbys

- she has six younger sisters

- when she was in her early twenties, she released a rap album full of songs about interstellar economics. It won a space grammy. She doesn't like to talk about it

Bikuta

Name: Bikuta Ashikaga

Age: 21

Pronouns: he/him

Bikuta is the man who created Miffy. He's working towards his acceptance into the Fellowship of Gifted Individuals, and gets very upset when Miffy leaves him, since he needs them to complete his thesis project. He is highly unethical and willing to do almost anything for science. He refers to Miffy as his sister, since he claims to be 'too young to be a dad'.

Strength: 4

Stealth: 7

Intelligence: 19

Wisdom: 7

Social Skills: 6

Fun Facts!!!!!!!!

- his hair is actually black, he dyes it midway through the story so that he can match Miffy

- he specialises in semi-organic matter and its potential as a vessel for renewable energy

- he unironically uses uwu when texting

Cobalt

Name: code named Cobalt

Age: 42

Pronouns: he/him

Cobalt is a bounty hunter who spends most of the book trying to kidnap Miffy. He's part of an elite Guild and highly professional, stopping at nothing to complete his assignment. While not exactly the most innocent person in the book, he's not necessarily amoral, and views Miffy as a job rather than an enemy.

Strength: 17

Stealth: 14

Intelligence: 13

Wisdom: 11

Social Skills: 9

Fun Facts!!!!!!!!!!

- now, dear reader, you may not have noticed this, but he is, surprisingly, a little bit fond of swords

- he has beef with not one but two feral teenagers

- these two teenagers happen to be a) his best friend's son and b) his boss

Aaand that's it! I hope y'all enjoyed :) feel free to ask me any questions, I will take literally any excuse to ramble lmao