Sorlóge: Lesser Dragonese [8.0 WIP]

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Miar
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Sorlóge: Lesser Dragonese [8.0 WIP]

Post by Miar »

Śia! A na [Miar] <Mér> sýnda. Ý nó ó [Sorlóge] osguóndar. An ge śónordaró uomŕórdarýuó huerendión.
Śia! A na [Miar] <Mér> sýn-da Ý nó ó [Sor-ló-ge] ios-guón-dar A-n ge śó-nor-daró uom-ŕór-da-rýuó huer-en-dión.
[tʃa. a na miɹ ‘sun.da. u no o sɚ.’lo.ge jʌs.’gwon.daɹ. An ge ‘ʃo.nɚ.da.ɾo. wʌm‘ɹoɹ.da.ɾu.wo hweɹ.’en.djon
Greeting! TOP 1p NAME=Miar PRON=Mér name-be. BEN 2p INS NAME=less.than-dragon-word thing.here-write-be.SIMP.PST. TOP.emphasis language nature-ADJ-be.NEG very-easy-be-however.NEG effective-become-be.ASUM.ABIL.FUT
Hello! My name’s Miar. I wrote this for you in Sorlóge. This particular language is neither natural nor too easy, [but] I’m confident It can become something workable.
(First lesson: <this> is comparable to Furigana, normally written above the word. Don’t read it aloud twice.)

Truth told, I’ve done baby-step projects over the last decade, and this is something of a culmination of them. Also, this is the first anything I’ve ever made this big and with enough confidence to put online (ambitious first steps) for whomever actually cares enough to read it. Thank you for that.

Updates’ll be a slow trickle, and questions may take a while to answer, since life pulls me away from internet for long periods, as has been demonstrated.

So without further delay, um... this thingy. [:S] Copyright nobody since 2018. Eighth edition + 39 edits as of 1/25/20.

The concept
Piece-for-piece: it’s pronounced “sir-LOW-geh”
Sor: Adj. “less; inferior”
Ló: N. “a dragon”
Ge: N. “words; language”

A good translation may be “Lesser Dragonese” This could be interpreted two ways: It’s both a “lesser” or false branch of Dragonese and the language meant for the animals “less than” dragon (the rest of creation).

This is also why it’s, at least to me, a bit “softer” than how Dragons would speak. I imagined a “True” Dragon language as being extra harsh, with lots of tones, guttural sounds, teeth gnashing and light firebreathing. Then I did the opposite when I made the accompanying story NOT about giant godlike reptiles, whilst still connecting the language back to them. In that world, this also a conlang (an auxlang at that), so it needed to be easier to speak. No tones, metal growling, or firebreathing. (Rodents can’t breathe fire, and everything else needs a special kind of soul to develop that power.)

From here on “Dragonese” refers to the “Lesser” language. I may also occasionally just use Sorló.

General Grammar Notes
  • Topic-prominent Nominative-Accusative
  • Synthetic mix of agglutination and fusion. This language loves compression and compounding, allowing for some run-on words.
  • SOV. Articles determine the part of speech, allowing for SOME variation, but the final OV is absolute.
  • Pro-drop through context
  • No specific words for “yes”, “no”, “it”, or “and”
  • As the first sentence shows, names are boxed and sometimes accompanied by pronunciation guides.
  • Head final, I think, except with prepositions. A phrase might be like: Prep. (Number[+Counter] Adj. Rel.)+Noun
    ** The + means the word is affixed. The final word of the description is actually directly attached to the root noun unless it’s a name.
  • Stress is on the first (frequently only) syllable of the nouns. For verbs, stress should fall on the root word of the verb.
  • No differentiation between adjectives and verbs. They’re all “[Noun] that is/does X”-type relative clauses.
Phonology

The importance in picking sounds was to be unambiguous, at least by my interpretation.
This language uses our oh-so-familiar alphabet because I couldn’t be bothered drawing the old runes. Reinventing the Chinese wheel ain’t practical at all! It’s not typeable, nor easy to read. I figured in a story the general reader's mindset would be, “Garble something—That's cool. Moving on."
If it were put in a comic or cartoon format or something, THEN you’d get your script.

m n < m n >
p b t d k g < p b t d k g >
f θ ɬ s ʃ χ h < f c ć s ś q h >
ɹ ɾ l < ŕ/-r r l >
semivowels j w < i u >
vowels a e i ɪ ʌ ɚ o ɯ~u < a e é i o or ó ý >
affricatives and diphthongs: tʃ au aɪ < śi- á y >

There is no natural aspiration or vowel lengthening.
Romanized alphabetical order: Aa Áá Ee Éé Oo Óó Yy Ýý Bb Cc Ćć Dd Ff Gg Hh Kk Ll Mm Nn Pp Qq Rr Ŕŕ Ss Śś Tt Uu Ii (This will matter later)
I DO have an idea of how the other in-universe languages’ scripts could be used to write the language, but… nah. “Keep it simple and typeable for now,” said the jerk who uses Ý for U and U for W

Phonotactics: (C)(S)V(F)
C: Consonant
S: Semivowel < i u >
V: Vowel
F: < m n c s ś r l >

Allophony
Vowels may at least theoretically be unrounded (Trying to be considerate to the bird people. In theory as long as they’re unambiguous it MIGHT be fine. In theory!)
<O> devolves into /ə/ when it’s the vowel of an unstressed suffix, but that too may be speaker-dependent.
<I> is only /ɪ/ when alone, which only natively appears in the spelled-out names of letters and numbers.

Final <R> is also [ɹ], basically General American rhotic.
* <or> devolves into /ɚ/ (as in “per”). <ir> never appears.
Labialization (w/ʷ): < ua uá ue ué uo uó uy uý >
* R and Ŕ can’t labialize.
Palatalization(j/ʲ): < ia iá ie ié io ió iy iý >
  • However, Ś changes to /tʃ/ (e.g. “śeé” sounds like “chi/qi”)
  • U /w/ COULD palatalize, but doesn’t.
  • No other consonant can be followed by <ié> without splitting the syllable. Speaking of…
Vowel hiatus is not allowed, even across separate words. (Across separate sentences, it’s OK.) In those instances, an unwritten /j/ is added between the vowels. Therefore <aó>, <a ó>, and <a ió> are homophones.
Miar
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Re: Sorlóge: Lesser Dragonese [8.0 WIP]

Post by Miar »

History Lesson:

This language is artificial to its core: a conlang even within the world I created alongside it. A world of civilized, talking animals (NOT anthropomorphic—I envisioned an action-heavy fantasy, not Zootopia). In-universe the language was discovered in prehistoric ruins built all over the world by or for the dragons (Don’t say Skyrim). The ancient written language is akin to hieroglyphs or Sino-Japanese. Dragons are telepaths, so there is no spoken “greater” Dragonese (a fact unknown to the lesser species), so I guess one could technically say the glyphs are ALSO a conlang.
It was revived from those ancient ruins just under a century ago by scholars who could barely communicate with each other so they could communicate. With so little to work with, some creative liberties were made in the reconstruction and modernization process. It’s functional, but has some unusual rules and sound choices.

TLDR it’s a linguistic Frankenstein built on misconception and some BS.

But there’re 2 reasons it’s held up so well: its historic connection and use by the elite.
Dragons are venerated in this world. All of creation considers them the most ancient and godlike of beings (Because, well… they are). Today this is the lingua franca mainly of the religious, who believe communicating in “their” language will win their favor, and of businessmen and leaders, who will swallow national pride to show faith in the Alliance the language was created for. Out of patriotism no country accepts Dragonese as its primary language, but it’s taught throughout the word, even outside the Zodiac Alliance.

Because of the varying societies, technology in this world is schizo. Simic and Canida (the nations of primates and dogs) are the most subjectively modern, though neither invented cars or Internet, while Murida (rats) was still in the Iron Age when the Alliance was created. Currently, through trade of goods and knowledge the world is in a steady process of equalization. You might thank this language in part for that.

Prepositions/Articles/Whatever they are

This took a while. I felt the need to have examples ready and that's harder than it sounds.
Prepositions determine the noun’s case, and are further tweaked for emphasis or plurality (not as straightforward as it sounds). Each one will be 1-3 letters long

- THIS IS IMPORTANT! The word “And” doesn’t exist. Multiple things/people/etc. being talked about must all be given the same marker.

The most frequent prepositions are:
A – Nominative, Topic (Japanese は). Also indicates contrast, if used across two sentences.
** While two topics in Japanese indicate contrast, in Lesser Dragonese this only holds true in separate sentences. Within the same sentence they’re equal and in agreement.
>> A na nuéýndare. A niala ýndar. = “I didn’t have a job, but my brother did.” (Brother = niala, “him.sibling”, shortened from “niardala/sibling that is male”)

Á – Ablative/Elative (From or out of X)
>> A lépués á [Tà Llo] handalua esandar. “This package is from my parents in Tallo.” (lit. TOP box-mail-here ABL NAME.Tallo live-be.PRS-parent place-here-go-be.PST/This package went here from parents who live in Tallo)

E – Nominative, Focus (JP が), when the topic isn’t the point of the sentence
>> A nia e ma ýnda. = “He has a pet dog.”
It also emphasizes the subject, demoting the “dog” to object. Good for answering nonbinary questions
>> E nia maýnda. = HE has a pet dog.” (answering “Who has a dog?”)
If you don’t do it this way, they get equal focus:
>> E nia e ma ýnda = He and the dog have it.

É – Dative (To/for someone)

O – Accusative (JP を) However! If the following is true:
1: the O would take none of the below codas
2: the object has no further descriptions (numbers, adjectives, etc.) except for noun declensions.
3: the verb isn’t adjective+copula. (which probably doesn’t have an object anyway, thinking about it.)
…then the O can be dropped. If it is dropped, and the object is not a proper noun, it’s demoted to adjective status and is affixed to the verb, as in the “Topic” sentence example.
>> A [サトシ] <Satośé>, カイリュー <Kyrý:ý> cýndar. = Ash caught a Dragonite. (No really. He actually did in the newest episode)
In this sentence, Dragonite is a name and needs a pronunciation guide (Again, handwritten they wouldn't have to be side-by-side)

Ó – Instrumental (with/using/via)

Y – Allative/Lative (To somewhere)
>> Bórsa a na a nó ó rahio y eś andan. = Tomorrow we’ll go there by boat.

Ý – Benefactive (For someone, esp. their benefit).
>> “Ýn na?” (“Just for me?”) means “Please?”
>> A [My Melo] ý [Uta] <:ýta> śiykardar. E nió oyndar. = “My Melo made (heated) Uta some tea and she liked it.”
* Jumping ahead a bit, names are exempt from the unwritten /j/. Also yes, tea is pronounced "chai"

There are others, mainly relating to space-time. I just haven’t got a complete list yet (I still get to make S up while I’m going. Woo!)

And the back half:
(no coda) any no. (A na = “I/Watashi wa/Regarding myself, I…”)

-N – Exclusively/namely
>> An na teuandar = “I got a rock.” – Charlie Brown
>> Un na tuycanduá? = “Do you want to give the salt for me?/Please pass the salt”
* Volition doesn't technically exist as an aspect, so some workaround is needed.

-S – Or
>> E nó os fardaquoria os śiókóquoria ýndý. = “You can have either vanilla ice cream (plain-be-milk-ice) or chocolate* ice cream.
* Literally “history-soul”, but phonetically “Choco”. Most animals can’t tolerate chocolate, so it’s a rare concept.

-Ś – All, collective
>> Aś riec N-sueda. = “All those children are eleven years old”

-C – Other (Differentiates two of the same thing. Otherwise it could be implied that X does Y to itself.)
-C – Also (When another subject agrees instead of contrasting. Japanese も)
>> E nió oc nió ćonder. = She just punched the other girl.

-L – Et cetera (replaces any other coda used here to end an incomplete list)
>> Uo suordasue ec na o banbió o guenbió ol ŕáguenbió kuandes. = When I was your age (lit. at equal-be-age), I hated math, literature class, geography, and such too.

-M – “Some of the” (Any number but not all of a finite number)
>> Ém na guóscandar sýbuandy to gendar = “[They] gave some of us this paper and told us to sign (name-write) it.”

-R – Null particle: Nor (List), Zero, none
>> Er ia esandar. = “Nobody came” (lit. No people here-went)
Last edited by Miar on 27 Jan 2020 20:58, edited 1 time in total.
Miar
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Joined: 08 Jan 2020 19:31

Re: Sorlóge: Lesser Dragonese [8.0 WIP]

Post by Miar »

Nouns

There is no gender or plural. Instead noun declension is about definitiveness and, by extension, physical placement relative to the conversation.
By default, the “dictionary definitions” are all the coda-less indefinite, which is used when position or number is irrelevant or impossible, or when context has already made its position known.
Compare to Japanese’s Ko-So-A-Do system.

Te – a rock/stone; or the many rocks.
Tes – This rock (near me)
Tec – That rock (near you)
Teś – That rock (yonder)
Tel – What/Which rock?

Written material can’t discern its own location, so it defaults to -c. In a list, anything farther away than -c is -ś.

There IS a method to the madness of choosing words, with in-and-out-of-universe reasoning, but that's an essay in itself.

Pronouns

Slightly less meaningful. Dragonese is pro-drop, skipping things made clear by context, so pronouns aren’t used as often. Nonetheless, they accept articles and decline like any other noun.

Na, “I, me.”
Nó, “You.”
Nia, “He, him”
Niar-, ADJ. “Male”
Nió, “She, her”
Niór-, ADJ. “Female”

There are no plural pronouns. “We” is “na nó (Me-You)” or “na ia” (Me-Them, not you), and “na na” (Me-Me, everyone). And similarly, multiple you’s and they’s can be paired just so.

While they SHOULD and usually ARE marked independently, it’s considered an acceptable break from the rule in informal speech (whose existence is a miracle, honestly) to just combine the two words as long as they would use the same article AND neither of them are the object. (This is where the “-c/other” article inflection comes in handy)

There is no single “it/they” but a lot placeholder nouns substituting for “it”
Pronouns also attach directly to adjectives or relative clauses. In this case, and if the sound doesn’t change, they drop their initial < i > via contraction.

ia/a, “Sapient animal, who.”
iá/á, “Reason (of doing), why.”
ie/e, “Place, where.”
ié/é, “Time, when.”
io/o, “Object, thing, what.”
ió/ó, “Action (Act of doing), how.”
iy/y, “Feral animal, who.”
iý/ý, “Concept (of being), how.”

Food (có) isn’t in any one class because lots of animals have different interpretations of food. In fact, some culture clash happens over whether the dead should be classified as “sentient” or “object”

Names and Loanwords

All names, particularly of people, should be written in the original language if able. Proper names’re always boxed when handwritten or typed in brackets [like so]. (Think the Egyptian cartouche.) If the name’s phonology does not match Sorló’s, you should also transliterate it with <these> after it, or you can place it above the name if handwritten. (Don’t actually read the name twice.) Then if its status is unknown (that is, if it’s an animal or place), you can follow it with some conjugation of “sýnda” (to name) and the 3P noun of whatever it is.

There are some extra letters and even clusters for foreign sounds, outside the native alphabet (more may come). Think of it as its own IPA for the paralinguistic stuff:

ŋ ~(nasal vowel) < ń -ñ >
q ɢ Ɂ ʁ ʬ < kh gh ı rh x > (*Working on a language in the same verse that uses whistles)
v ð ɮ z ʒ dʒ x < v ch ćh z ź źi qh >
(syllable-final)-tʃ -dʒ < -tś -tź > Other affricates (like ts) are spelled phonetically. Native words can’t end in –T, so it won’t be misunderstood.
æ eɪ ʌɪ oɪ < ah eh oh óh >

A colon serves four purposes:
1: As a regular colon would
2: To break any two different vowels WITHOUT the /j/ or a glottal stop. So Spanish “Dios” becomes <Dé:ós>.
However, names that start with vowels don't need this. The brackets already work as a sort of go-to rule-breaking marker.
3: For long vowels, put the colon between two of the same vowel.
4: For aspirated consonants, put it between the consonant and vowel.

Tones become numbered based on the language’s designation of tones, the same as Cantonese Romanization.
To dip into my second project, the name of the country Avesa originates from its own language’s [Ā Vhée Ssā], IPA [a˥ βe:s˧˥ sa˥], transliterated as <a1 ve:es31 sa1> (Details to come in the Avesan Conlang thread—watch for it.)
Miar
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Re: Sorlóge: Lesser Dragonese [8.0 WIP]

Post by Miar »

Verbs and The Copula:

This'd be WORLDS easier if I could straight-up copy my charts...
I feel this is the most distinguishing feature of the language: its copula.

D “be/do”

While some languages have no copula, this one is super-liberal with its usage. Every action AND every description must go through Da, and every possible D-syllable is its own verbal inflection, up to 4 morphemes in 4 letters.

Any active root attached to it makes that action a verb (“to do” or more directly “to be doing”). Anything else attached makes it an adjective or stative verb (“to be” or “that is”). And everything links together directly if able, but only one <d> can be in a word at a time. Two adjectives + one noun = two words (plus the article).

Dragonese is echo-responsive, too. The most basic “Da” and “Daró” are also the Yes and No.

** The end result sounds like vocal punctuation, but I designed the system this way to be future-proof. Even after the original dictionary is finished I can still directly compound words to create new concepts as the world better develops. Let’s say: ŕéćéndehio ([ɹi.ɬin.de.’hjʌ], a wagon/cart that’s moving by itself) vs. [ŕé]ćénhio ([‘ɹi.ɬin.hjə], [itself-]move-cart, which may be the word for cars when they’re invented.)

The glide following D conjugates for…frig, I dunno if it’s really a “mood”. We’ll call it “confidence.”
  • D- Indicative. The statement is a known fact (Unless the speaker is lying)
  • Du- Speculative. A giant “I guess” or “maybe.” The statement is based on probability or chance, and could be proven wrong. (A coin flip MAY land on heads). It’s also used for yes/no questions.
  • Di- Deductive/Assumptive. “I think,” infixed to the verb. The information is inferred or secondhand knowledge, or otherwise the speaker is confident in an unconfirmed statement.
* You don’t use assumptive with -é or -o, and you’ll see why in 5 seconds.

The vowel following D conjugates for aspect, though not all possible aspects can fit in just 8 vowels (details to come):
  • -a = Simple (do)
  • -á = Optative (want to do)
  • -e = Progressive (am doing)
  • -é = Simultaneous (while also doing)
  • -o = Infinitive (to do)
  • -ó = Abilitative (can/able to do)
  • -y Obligative (have to/must do)
  • -ý = Permissive (get/allowed to do)
Whether you use Simple vs. Progressive is based on indefinite vs. absolute time. Since d = be, they both technically mean “I’m doing.” If the action is ongoing but finite, or you can pin an exact point when the action took/will take place, you use “de”. Otherwise, you use “da”
>> Giobuandar = I wrote a book (I finished it)
>> Giobuander = I was writing a book (but then I stopped; or I just stopped now)
>> Giobuandár = I wanted to write a book

Some other aspects have roundabout methods. Optative can equal Volitional or Permissive, depending on if one is trying to get others involved.
Permissive works as Jussive (instead of “let him do it”, it’s “he’s allowed to do it.”)
Obligative is also roundabout Imperative. In business, if someone says you need do something, it’s probably for good reason.
The Infinitive means the action could not happen without the following action happening first, as well as other things (details later), while Simultaneous means the action happens at the same time as the following one. Since they’re always paired with another action, they can’t be in assumptive. (They can be in speculative.)
When there are two active verbs in any other (same) tense, they are treated as independent, sequential actions.

The coda conjugates tense. We’ll use the indicative simple “da” for example and also add the basic negatives.

Present
-da/daró = imperfect present (is/do; isn’t/doesn’t)
-dac/daceró = perfect present (have/haven’t done)
Past
-dar/dare = past (did/didn’t do) (Careful: This negative is different.)
-das/daseró = past perfect (had/hadn’t done)
Future
-dan/daneró = future (will/won’t do)
-dal/daleró = future perfect (will have done/will not have done)
Potential
-daś/daśeró = conditional/potential (would/wouldn’t do)
-dam/dameró = conditional perfect/Future past (would’ve done/not done; was going to do/not do)

>> Giobuandór = I could write a book (back then, but now I can’t)
>> Giobuanduós = I may have been able to write a book (a similar meaning, but this focuses on past chance over past ability)
>> Giobuandóś = I would be able to write a book (something prevents me from being able to)

TLDR:
-duan/duaneró = it might be/might not be
-dian/dianeró = it should be/shouldn’t be
-dan/daneró = it will be/won’t be
Xduameró = there was a chance it wouldn’t have done/wasn’t about to do X.

Passive Voice involves adding one of the verbs for “change/become” after the adjective or verb root

En = to change
>> A na BC-seda. = I’m 22 years old (22/BC = [bɪ.θɪ])
>> Sas a na BC-seenda = I became 22 today (It’s my birthday!)
** Not literally my birthday. Also yemember those /j/ sounds. It's [se.'jen.da]

Én = to change oneself
>> A nió-nió horneénda. = They (she + she) quickly became friends.

“Enda” is involuntary, natural, and/or otherwise without consent. People don’t willingly age, just like trees don’t willingly lose their leaves. Conversely, “énda” is willing or self-inflicted (You can pick your friends)

On that note of consent: Uenda = to cause a change in something/someone else
>> A gána e nió-nió neuenda. = The teacher (teach-person) made them become friends

Next time: Magic and Adjectives, both of which still need some polish. Also some questions answered, if any.
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