The translation worksheet for a conlang relay.

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Conlang Relay (Drsk)

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Text

gvᵉlmᵘfyďčtᵗdᵈŕtʲ

bcf ptʲ pþ nzŋrl
sˢltvᵉp bcfp dfp nzŋr rⁱsḱħ Ps
bcfp nzŋr dᵘħ Pl
dᵈd nzŋr pþ ktᵗszgʲsˢ þʲmᵘrⁱr
bcf nzŋr dlˡ kmᵘycnⁱt dlˡ
V tʲktlkl pþ Ps cᶜckʲ

Orthography and phonetics

Consult this phoneme table and this orthography table. Note that in this format I have superscripted any second letters in a digraph. Also consult a typical method of vowel (re)insertion.

Morpheme roster

All rosters are sorted in order of appearance.

Lexemes

Nouns

Nouns always have a gender that works more as a classifier à la the taxonomic system of old. They are separated from the root word with a dot in this roster. Furthermore, in any such rosters the case is always the dictionary form tʲ (but see below for other usages) except for names, where there is no suffix.

Compounds have one gender. Its gender may not necessarily be that of any of its components, but usually is the one of the last noun morpheme (the one that ends with one of the case endings). Any noun may change its gender to emphasise different aspects of the root, for which see link.

Where there is a gender and a suffix with no intervening root, take the definition of the gender as the noun.

g.dᵈŕtʲ

a song, poem or other rhythmic speech

klm.ďčtʲ

salt

sˢlt.vᵉtʲ

instant, point in time

nⁱ.szgʲtʲ

a surface, a horizontal boundary

k.čnⁱtʲ

(wild or to-be-collected) fruit, flowers

tʲk.tlk

A mythic land from Sumric lore. Note that tʲk is part of an alternate list of genders, known as CAT*. You don’t need to know any CAT* morphemes in this translation, but tʲk means “a mythical, divine country”.

A partial list of genders:

g

speech, writing

gvᵉ

a declaration of passion

k

geography

kl

natural, terrestrial, mineral

klm

common and useful

ktᵗ

the sea

p

animal

n

“Unit” (think “person”)

nz

Artificial intelligence, anthropomorphised object

sˢ

crops

sˢlt

time

nⁱ

flat objects

Quasinouns

Quasinouns have a suffix y but no gender. They generally clarify the exact usage of some following compound component.

lmᵘfy

the next word should be a title or topic.

mᵘy

emphasises amount (a large amount)

Verbs

No gender and for the purposes of this piece uninflected.

pþ

come/go, leave/arrive (depends on case suffix)

rⁱsḱh

swim, drown

dᵘħ

calculate, understand, derive

þʲmᵘrⁱ

yawn, breathe, soften, lose attention

dlˡ

create, get, capture, produce, collect

Non-lexemes

Suffices

These are letters at the end of a root that describe its function. They do two things: case and morpheme boundary marker.

For a listing see here and here. For the purposes of this translation ħ and tᵗ are identical.

Nouns that become dredge replace any suffix with -p.

Dredge and TAM

These are delocalised inflections — inflections that fall off and become free-floating within the sentence. Unless otherwise indicated, they change form based on the first letter of the verb they are inflecting: if it is a terminal, then place the terminal analogue of the final letter of the consonant of the dredge after it. e.g. dms hrt but dmst pþ, where dms is the root form of the dredge. If either or both letters are unpaired in the phoneme chart, then no change occurs.

Some dredge don’t change no matter what. This is a sign that it is an ownerless dredge and usually are connectives and conjunctions, for which see link for essential information about them.

A listing of those that exist in this word is:

<repeat verb>

exactly one of the arguments in this sentence is associative in number. This means that the argument consists of a “complete set” of elements.

Obviously, this dredge “inflects” on the verb by simply copying the verb entirely.

bcf

command, imperative (TAM)

df

along with a noun that’s become a dredge indicates a present tense, where “present” is defined by the noun. e.g. sˢltmḱcrlⁱp df means “present tense (today)”, because sˢltmḱcrlⁱp means “today” (though usually that is shortened to sˢcrlⁱp).

dᵈd

(ownerless) a chain of causation that is indirect i.e. has some “obvious” link that is missing in the causal chain. This missing link is usually through emotion, inspiration, instinct or similarly intangible behaviour.

cᶜckʲ

Desiderative

Sundry

These words have no gender unless marked (e.g. nP “I, a unit”) and usually have no suffix, again unless marked (e.g. Ps), implying a suffix of -t or -tʲ as context allows.

P

The author, the writer, the narrator, “I”

V

The listener, the reader, “you”

ŋ

The proword. This word replaces certain previously-mentioned words. As it name suggests it can replace either a noun or a verb. If the word is implied, i.e. not previously mentioned, it is written ŋr instead.

Word order

Nouns always appear in this order:

1. Any TAM dredge that acts like a noun
2. One of these:
   • Intransitive:
     1. Intransitive
   • Transitive:
     1. Ergative
     2. Accusative
3. Locatives
4. Exclamations

Verbs go anywhere in the list, as can dredge. However most dredge only appears at the beginning or end, and dredge that indicate TAM are usually placed at the beginning with the TAM nouns and the ownerless dredge.

Most remaining grammar should be available scattered within the roster. Good luck!