Commonthroat: a language that only a dog could probably pronounce

[lurker]

the word gdcrg /short low weak growl, short falling strengthening whine, chuff, short low weak growl/ is a title given to a hearthkeeper similar to father or rabbi. It comes from the possessive phrase g dcrMr meaning my dam, but is rendered in English as my dame with an E. Another common honorific used to address either clerics or healers is rDqg /chuff, long high weak whine, huff, short low weak growl/, of uncertain etymology. Honorifics can either be used as nouns on their own or can come after a proper name like an adjective, in which case the deictic suffix is removed.

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BCqqMNrsd-qn rDq
Sunshine-2   doctor
Doctor Sunshine

One may append an honorific to one's name when introducing oneself (BCqqMNrsdl rDq, I'm Doctor Sunshine) but using honorifics with first person deixis is otherwise considered haughty.

[lurker]

While it's normally pretty obvious when to use alienable possession and when to use inalienable possession, in some Commonthroat dialects words describing relationships between two people can take either form depending on how strong the relationship is according to the speaker.

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g sFsFl
g   sFsF-l
POS friend-1
my friend

and

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g sFsFMr
g   sFsF-Mr
POS friend-3P
my friend

are both grammatical, but the first example indicates a closer personal bond.

[Visions1]

the word gdcrg /short low weak growl, short falling strengthening whine, chuff, short low weak growl/ is a title given to a hearthkeeper similar to father or rabbi. It comes from the possessive phrase g dcrMr meaning my dam, but is rendered in English as my dame with an E. Another common honorific used to address either clerics or healers is rDqg /chuff, long high weak whine, huff, short low weak growl/, of uncertain etymology.

When speaking to a male religious figure (Yinrih or human), how wold they be referred to? What about government positions (kings, presidents, representatives, lords, dictators, generals, etc.)?

[lurker]

the word gdcrg /short low weak growl, short falling strengthening whine, chuff, short low weak growl/ is a title given to a hearthkeeper similar to father or rabbi. It comes from the possessive phrase g dcrMr meaning my dam, but is rendered in English as my dame with an E. Another common honorific used to address either clerics or healers is rDqg /chuff, long high weak whine, huff, short low weak growl/, of uncertain etymology.

When speaking to a male religious figure (Yinrih or human), how wold they be referred to? What about government positions (kings, presidents, representatives, lords, dictators, generals, etc.)?

Male religious leaders are very rare among yinrih, its as taboo as female soldiers. Having said that, I suppose gqhqg, from g qhqMr, my sire will be an analogous coinage to refer to human priests, which yinrih refer to as qhqsLg or soul sires. Rabbis would be addressed by the calque gsKJmg, my teacher.

There are also as-yet-unrealized honorifics analogous to "Mr." and "Mrs.", which indicate whether one is in a childermoot or not. Those will depend on the pheromones that communicate childermoot status. One scheme distinguishes between immature, sexually mature but not in a moot, and mature and currently or formerly in a moot. Or there may be a simple distinction between pre and post egg laying status.

[lurker]

The word sHshr /yip, long low strong growl, yip, short low strong growl, chuff/ is a form of address that is used by a customer to an employee. It's another loan from Outlander, where it's related to the word for to trade or barter.

On Moonlitter it's considered extremely rude to address an employee without this honorific if you don't otherwise know them. In fact the variety of Commonthroat spoken at Wayfarers' Haven has a word rFplrmg, from rFg (name) + -plr (transitive verb suffix) that means one who calls someone by name, and is a gender-neutral equivalent to the English pejorative Karen.

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n sPlqBdqn sHshr lNq qcDqN
n    sPlqBdsk-qn  sHshr     [0] lNq-0     qcD-qN
INST wet.nose-2   HONORIFIC [I] seek-AUTH fruit-3M
With your help, Mr. Wet-nose, I seek fruit.
or
I'm looking for the produce, can you help me, Mr. Wet-nose?

n /short high weak grunt/ is a preposition indicating means or instrument, and is usually translated with the help of ____ when its object is a person.

Told you we'd see old Wet Nose again.

[lurker]

Cbq

/late low strengthening whine, huff/

Verb

To brachiate (move by swinging hand over hand).

Vulpithecins (yinrih and tree dwellers) are built mostly for arboreal movement. The densely forested river basin they started out in floods annually. During the dry season, yinrih would spend time both on the ground and in trees, and remain in the trees during the wet season. They can achieve surprising speeds while brachiating, similar to Terran gibbons.

This verb is also used to describe the hand over hand movement that spacers use to get around in zero-G. In this case, the forepaws are used for propulsion and the rear paws and tail are free to hold onto objects. Linemen also brachiate along power lines, using inert paw cabling below or well above the hot transmission lines.

[lurker]

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FDp shk DC g kgql
FD-p    shk  DC    g   kgq-l
sand-3D cool under POS palm-1
That's cool sand under my palms.

That's a relief or That's a load off my back. A phrase stereotypically associated with Hearthsiders.

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rpLqfdg shk bd g qFdql
rpLqfd-g  shk  bd     g   qFdq-l
breeze-3I cool around POS ear-1
A cool breeze around my ears. 

That's good news or happy to hear that.

[lurker]

...It's where you keep your cows, of course!

The particle f /short high strong whine/ indicates that the noun or noun phrase is metaphorical. The following sentences play off of this simple template.

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sfc-p  lpr-0      HJq-p
pup-3D climb-AUTH tree-3D
The pup climbed the tree.

The metaphorical particle can appear before the subject or object like so.

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sfc-p  lpr-0      f   HJq-p
pup-3D climb-AUTH MET tree-3D
The pup climbed it as though it were a tree.

The noun that the particle modifies can take any deictic suffix.

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sfc-p  lpr-0      f   HJq-qn
pup-3D climb-AUTH MET tree-2
The pup clambered over you as though you were a tree.

The particle may be omitted altogether if the noun is inanimate and inflected in the first or second person.

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sfc-p  lpr-0          HJq-qn
pup-3D climb-AUTH     tree-2
The pup clambered over you as though you were a tree.

The phrase associated with the particle can act like a traditional prepositional phrase modifying the main noun phrase.

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sfc-p  lpr-0      g   dcr-p  f   HJq-p
pup-3D climb-AUTH POS dam-3D MET tree-3D
The pup clambered over his dam as though she were a tree.

This construction avoids the ambiguity of English metaphors. The phrase He ate it like a pig could mean either he ate it like it were a pig or he ate it like a pig would eat it.

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f   sfc-l lpr-0      HJq-p
MET pup-1 climb-AUTH tree-3D
I climbed the tree as though I were a pup again. 

[lurker]

smrNlrCb

/yip, short low strong grunt, chuff, late falling weak grunt, chuff, late low weakening whine/

from sm- (un-) + rNlr (good) + - Cb (cause to become) "ungooden"

To ruin something that was once considered good, especially while trying to make it better (usually for oneself at the expense of others).

This is a narrower term than to worsen as it implies a fall from greatness.

Phenomena that this term encompasses might be

- A beloved media franchise being milked to oblivion.
- The makers of a once reliable product cut corners to save costs, ruining what made the original product great.

[lurker]

Been thinking of turning the script into a reverse abjad. The vowels are letters and the consonants are diacritics. There are way more vowel letters compared to the 3 consonants, and those consonants show up a lot, making the shape of words repetitive.

Another way I could solve this problem is by having different forms for the consonant letters depending on their position in a word, like Arabic or Hebrew.

Don't know about this one...

[Visions1]

It could work as a shorthand.

[lurker]

qKJ: to command
qKJHGg: A commandment, ordinance
qKJHGDFp: The Great Commandment, the foundational goal of the Bright Way, to find other sophonts among the stars

smrBFq: To uncover, reveal
smrBFqHGDFp: The Theophany (literally "the great revelation")

[lurker]

The words sksk /yip, short high strong growl, yip, short high strong growl/ and sjsj /yip, short high weak growl, yip, short high weak growl/ mean dad and mom respectively. Like other honorifics, they can be used as nouns on their own, or they can be treated like adjectives placed after a name.

rBFrrnqsdqn sjsj, Mama Fourpaws

sPlqBdskqn sksk, Papa Wetnose

When using the honorific as a noun, pups indicate which sire or dam is being referred to by clipping the parent's name and attaching the clipped form as a proclitic to the honorific noun. How much of the name is clipped is culturally dependent.

It can be the whole first syllable:

rBFr'sjsjqn, sPl'skskqn

or the first part of the syllable:

rB'sjsjqn, sP'skskqn

or even the first mora, meaning if a syllable has a late contour, it's reduced to a short plain vowel:

rb'sjsjqn, sp'skskqn

[lurker]

sc

/yip, short low strong whine/

Interjection

Hey, Lo, hark

---

CDr

/long falling weakening whine, chuff/

Adjective

Not in torpor
Alert
Energetic
Attentive
(of humans) Awake, conscious

---

gqJ

/short low weak growl, huff, long high weak whine/

adverb

At last
Finally

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sc, gqJ CDrqn.
sc  gqJ     CDr-qn
hey finally alert-2
hey, you! You're finally awake.

[Khemehekis]

This construction avoids the ambiguity of English metaphors. The phrase He ate it like a pig could mean either he ate it like it were a pig or he ate it like a pig would eat it.

I've never thought of this before, but it's true! He ate the wub the way you'd eat pork.

[lurker]

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h  qgKql cBr dqp fc rnL dqp cBr h qgKql.
h  qgKq-l   cBr-0      dq-p      fc  rnL dq-p      cBr-0      h  qgKq-l
PL yinrih-1 leave-AUTH forest-3d but not forest-3D leave-AUTH PL yinrih-1
We yinrih have left the forest, but the forest has not left us.

An assertion that, however civilized they may appear, deep down yinrih are still tree dwellers driven by the same base instincts as all other animals. The cruel joke of being a sophont is not that you're selfish and violent, all animals are, but that sophonts alone are cursed to follow the fool's fires called virtue and righteousness.

And for all that, they're still saddled by the knowledge of their mortality and insignificant place in the cosmos. Better then not to know that stars shine beyond the forest canopy.

[lurker]

If you don't want your host to offer you more food, don't say qhgl I'm full. That means I have to pee. While you're at it, don't say qhgqn you're full, either, as that means You're full of it. If you actually want to say I'm full, that's

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bf rCFq.
0   bf-0        rCFq-0
[I] finish-AUTH eat-AUTH
I finished eating.

(This uses the coverb bf to finish, which indicates the completative aspect.)

If you want to be nice and thank your host, you'd say L sFDr g rfcqN literally May [The Light] bless your viscera, or simply sFDr bless.

Incidentally, if you really really need to pee, you can say g MLql gJq My teeth are swimming or g sGkl qbFq My eyes are leaking. (Yinrih don't exude tears from the eyes, they generate bright red lacrimal fluid that drips from the corners of the mouth. They also have a cloaca in the usual spot, so if their eyes are leaking that means their positively replete with liquid excreta.)

[lurker]

I still can't find more info on the "odor colors" I was talking about, but I can at least overhaul the color terms to fit my idea. So, Commonthroat now has no basic color terms beyond "bright" and "dark". They do have many words for describing colors, but they work like English odor words in that they're all references to objects that are so colored.

Many of these objects are fruits, and the color being referenced can be either the skin or the flesh of the fruit.

qfBqg, previously meaning red now refers to the fruits of two distinct species of tree. The two species are almost impossible to distinguish visually. One species uses its juicy bright red fruit to attract animals in order to spread its seeds. It's a favorite of tree dwellers, and was likely so for pre-sapient yinrih as well.

The other species evolved to mimic the fruit of the first species, but uses its fruit in a much more sinister way. Instead of using its fruit to attract seed dispersers, this fruit contains an extremely fast acting deadly neurotoxin. Smaller animals die before they can even finish the fruit, and larger animals are dead within a few minutes. Their dead bodies drop to the forest floor at the base of the tree, and the tree feeds off of their decomposing corpses.

The dangerous tree is counting on animals to mistake its fruit for that of the innocuous species in order to lure them into a deadly trap. So it's risky to eat red fruit because it may be tasty or it may be deadly. From there the concept of risk evolved into misfortune, and that's how red came to be associated with bad luck.

[Creyeditor]

Wait, I meant to mention this somewhere but I don't know if I actually did. The German Wikipedia has several classification systems for odor here: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geruch#Klassifizierung. The English Wikipedia only has one system but it still might help you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odor#Categorization.

[lurker]

Wait, I meant to mention this somewhere but I don't know if I actually did. The German Wikipedia has several classification systems for odor here: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geruch#Klassifizierung. The English Wikipedia only has one system but it still might help you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odor#Categorization.

I'll check that out thanks.

---

So Google Translate generated this gem:

The Carinthian Institute for Lakeland Research offers the following range of 21 odours on the form "Prose withdrawal protocol", valid from May 2010, for water investigation of water water

From the German original

Das Kärntner Institut für Seenforschung bietet auf dem Formblatt "Probenahmeprotokoll", gültig ab Mai 2010, zur Wasseruntersuchung von Gewässern folgende Palette von 21 Gerüchen an