We realized earlier today that Fay, Tempest, Negarahn, and Djao'Kain don't really have an accurate term for their gender. Finding an accurate term has proven difficult. The only really accurate human term we've found so far is "hermaphrodite," but that's a word the intersex community doesn't like people using.

Of course, the conversation on gender goes a little weird at times. Recently, one of us was like "Okay so what would the AKB of Traipah call their gender?" Fay was like "They wouldn't. They only have the one sex." But then Tempest countered with "Yeah but once they met the humans, they might come up with a term for it, it would be their version of "cisgender." And they have something like intersex as well, so gender terms for them might come in handy. So what would the AKB call their majority gender?"

Fay thought a moment, then said, "Well gender would be a new concept for them. So they'd probably use some variation on the English word 'gender.' Considering most AKB are just the one sex, I think they'd call it AhKHoi'djender (ah-ḥoy ʒen-der."

Derived, of course, from the Ah'Koi of "Ah'Koi Bahnis" and the word "gender."

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I realized today that my constructed language Trai'Pahg'Nan'Nog didn't have a word for "cute." As I was trying to decide what word to pick for that role, I realized that the word "cute" is itself cute. Cute, pronounced kyoot, is a cute word. So the TPNN equivalent should be cute, too. This is what I came up with:

Cute = nyao'ni'mi

Pronunciation guide: "nyao" rhymes with "cow," and the i's in ni and mi say the E name, so nyao'ni'mi rhymes with "cow see me." "Nyao" was also inspired by "nyan" of "nyan-cat."

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Sahnailah [sawn ail ah] = A word for "beautiful" that only applies to people with lots of fat. The word is said with reverence bordering on worship, as it usually applies to deities like Duenicohn or Morshenda, but can apply to mortals as well.

Ziishraal [zeesh rahl] = Abnormally thin, gaunt and starved in appearance.

Ziishraalailah [zeesh rahl ail ah] = Zishraal, but possessing terrible beauty. (Terrible in the "intimidating/scary" sense.) Unlikely to be applicable to mortals.

Vah'zyahl-maak [vah zyahl mock] = The state of having multiple minds in a single body. From "vahzii" meaning "many" and "ahl" meaning "one."

Vah'zyahl-bahn [vah zyahl bon] = An individual body possessing multiple minds.

Urah'HKah [u: rɒ xɒ] = The dominant sex for Ah'Koi Bahnis, which is "true hermaphrodite" in English.

Drexyah [dreks yah] = The state of having incomplete, unusually-formed, and/or missing reproductive tissues; similar to "intersex" in English, except that AKB, as true hermaphrodites, would be drexyah for other reasons, for example someone born without a grah'bihn (equivalent to a penis). [One of my stories contains a passing reference to one such person, who is the romantic partner of one of the foreground characters.] It is generally considered mildly unfortunate, but if it isn't posing a threat to the person's health, then any cosmetic surgery is left to them to decide for themselves later in life, as it is considered a grievous crime to violate the bodily autonomy of anyone for any reason other than saving their life. (And even then as well, if they gave clear instructions to the contrary.)

~

It is also a grievous crime to deny somebody necessary medical attention for any reason other than their own wishes, or to unduly punish them for needing those services by - for example - charging absurdly high prices for it (they would take one look at the USA's "health care" system and declare us all unrepentant savages). Traipahni people are big on bodily autonomy - it's your body, as such it is sacred, someone defying your will about your body is sacrilege. But you can |do what you want to/have done what you want to| with your own body and it's nobody's business but yours.

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Sometimes, the combination of using TPNN for prayers with the fact that there's a LOT of gaping holes in TPNN's vocabulary, makes for some very interesting work-arounds. In a prayer I just did, I made the TPNN term " woi'jiijii-kursh," which basically translates to "re-healthful." (Woi- prefix = "full of-", jiijii = from jiijiinahr, meaning "health," and the "-kursh" suffix means "again.") So it literally means "full of health again," but one rule I've recently come up with for TPNN is that compound words like that are generally read backwards (IE, kursh jiijii woi in this case), which means "re-healthful" is a better translation. (Well, not literally read backwards. Constructed backwards? Yeah, constructed backwards. Like, if you did it in English with that rule, instead of "re-healthful," you'd have "fullhealth-re."

Plus, I kinda like "re-healthful" as an English neologism. :-)

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In another attempt to make my daily stretches more bearable, since I can't really turn them into rituals all the time, I came up with a little song to sing. It's a simple song, counting from 1 - 10 in TPNN and then in Dvencoilii for the second and fourth sets (so it's not the same thing for all four sets). Which means I had to come up with Dvencoilii numbers, but whatever. Oh, and both number systems are base 6, so 6 is called ten.

Just a couple notes before I go on to the lyrics. In TPNN, all the "-ahl" numbers rhyme with the English word "ball." "Ors" rhymes with "horse." In Dvencoilii, the "Hk" phoneme is like clearing your throat. "Ohl" phoneme kinda rhymes with "bowl," but not really. My mouth is much more O shaped and my lips are a bit lower when I make the Dvencoilii "oh" sound. And the "r" is always rolling, a bit like a growl, in Dvencoilii.

Lyrics:

Ahl tahl zahl kahl mahl, ors,
Mahl kahl zahl tahl ahl.
(Repeat 6 or 7¹ more times)

Hkehl, shahth, Hkohl, vaath, Hkreht, ohl.
Hkreht, Vaath, Khohl, shahth, Hkehl.
(Repeat 6 or 7 times)

Translation is fairly simple for both:

One two three four five, ten.
Five four three two one.

And here is a link to the song recording I made: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1847428/stretch%20song.mp3

1 = I know that to get to 60, I only need to count to 11 about 6 times, but sometimes I sing the song faster than I ought to, so I add stanzas if I think I need them.

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Wow! I just found that the English language DOES have the "dj" sound of TPNN, and IPA has a symbol for it:

ʒ = pleasure, vision

( IPA symbols/sounds here: http://www.antimoon.com/how/pronunc-soundsipa.htm )

So here are some words from TPNN, in IPA:

Shao'Kehn = ʃaʊ-ken
Djao'Kain = ʒaʊ-keɪn
djai = ʒeɪ
djair = ʒeəʳ
Shyao'Shyo = ʃjaʊ-ʃjoʊ
Shoi'kiin = ʃɔɪ-ki:n
shyeh'hyeh'gahr [ʃje-hje-gɑ:r] (word for "element.")

Only thing I can't find is a symbol that represents the throat-clearing sound I borrowed from Arabic for TPNN. Oh, and a symbol for the cross between R and L that appears sometimes in TPNN.

This was cross-posted from http://fayanora.dreamwidth.org/1191825.html
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I like having things to say to start rituals, like calling the elements and directions to cast the sphere. (I use 9 elements/directions and cast a sphere rather than a circle.) But I keep forgetting them, or having to read from a paper, and then messing up even when it's on the paper.

So I came up with a solution. I came up with what I call a "Mad Libs" ritual. IE, the thing I say at each direction is always the same except for three words, which are fill-in-the-blank. Maybe not immune to issues, but it lends itself well to memorization, I think.

Anyway, here's what I came up with:

( Under the cut because it is long.Collapse )

1 = "Shyo" may look like "shy-oh," but it is a single syllable and rhymes with "go." Like in the name Shyao'Shyo, which is two syllables, and the "Shyao" bit rhymes with "wow." This is because Y is always a consonant in TPNN. Since I sometimes have to use y as a vowel in the Latin-letter versions of some words, this can get a bit confusing. I may have to learn the international standard phoenetic alphabet and write words out in that.

This was cross-posted from http://fayanora.dreamwidth.org/1191444.html
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Earlier today I came up with an interesting word for my constructed language, Trai'Pahg'Nan'Nog, which is noteworthy for three reasons.

First: It is four syllables long (or three, depending on your POV) and is composed entirely of vowels. Not a single consonant in it. Best I can do to write it out in Latin letters is:
ah-ah'ee'ah'eye though I think I'll use an alternate spelling ah-ah'ii'ah'i
The ah-ah part looks, when spelled out, like two syllables, and kind of it but kind of isn't. The two syllables are conjoined in a way I don't have good words to describe. Instead of being like "OOO (nano-pause) OOO", it is more like ooOOooOOoo. (Or "AH AH" and "aaAHaaAHaa" if you prefer.)

Second: Its meaning. The best English translation is "pre-industrial revolution." But it is NOT interchangeable with "primitive." The word that the Traipahni people would translate "primitive" into is considered a derogatory word. Ah'ah'ii'ah'i is NOT a derogatory word, merely descriptive. It covers any civilization that either has not had an industrial revolution, or has abandoned industrial civilization. So both Amazonian rain forest tribes and the Amish would fall under ah'ah'ii'ah'i. So too would Renaissance-era Europe.

Third: The strange conjunction of the two initial AH's, combined with the aesthetics of the word when written in TPNN characters, prompted me to make a new symbol for the written language for TPNN. I don't have a name for the symbol, nor a picture I can share, but the symbol denotes the kind of conjunction in "ah-ah'ii'ah'i."

If anyone knows words to help me describe some of the things I've come up with, I would greatly appreciate it if you let me know.

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I pray to the departed spirits of my food, thanking them and wishing them peace. But it's usually just the TPNN equivalent of "Many thanks, spirits of my food; You Are The All." I decided to write one a bit more formal, and more in line with the strong Left Hand Path leanings of my path. It is, in fact, inspired by a poem I wrote over a decade ago, called "The Dinnerplate of Life." Anyway, here's the new prayer:

I participate in the Circle of Death.
I participate in the Circle of Life.
I participate in the Circle of Spwii'ny'ky.¹
All living beings are my siblings;
We are all children of Life,
And Life is a cruel mistress.
Before me are some corpses of my siblings,
Who have been slaughtered so I may live.
I pray their spirits find peace,
As I devour their corpses, become One with them.
Many thanks, spirits of my food, for your sacrifice.
Koh Soh Lah Kohrain.²


1 = Spwii'ny'ky means both "life" and "death" at the same time in TPNN, my constructed language.
2 = Koh Soh La Kohrain means "You Are The All" in TPNN.

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Taken from an entry I posted at conlangs:

In my Traipah storyverse, I have an interesting thing going on: the Ah'Koi Bahnis, who by human standards would all be considered to have Asperger's Syndrome, have a bunch of languages in their culture that are constructed languages in that culture. Even Trai'Pahg'Nan'Nog, my main conlang for that storyverse, is a constructed language in canon. They constructed TPNN as a trade language, and it had the kind of success that Esperanto can only dream of. Other conlangs had great success there as well.

1. The language called Krai'Ahd is a constructed pidgin-ish tongue used to help AKB and Duenicallo¹ communicate with the Shaokennah, because Shaokennah language contains sounds that the other two species can't even hear, let alone say. So Krai'Ahd is an extremely simplified version of the Shaokennah language.

2. The Yahgahn culture's sacred language, Yahgahnii, was constructed back during that culture's early days. It is a musical language, and was in fact designed to be sung.

3. A third language exists, the name of which I have forgotten. That one was constructed as an extremely precise scientific language, using operational language. It lacks any form of the words "be" or "is," and any translation into English would sound like hyper-Spock, because the idea was inspired by Operationalism, E-Prime, the Copenhagen Interpretation, and related things.

Though the only one of these languages I have any words for is my conlang Trai'Pahg'Nan'Nog.

So I was wondering if anyone else has works of fiction - theirs or otherwise - in which conlangs feature.

1 = There are three sophont species that evolved on Traipah: The humanoid Ah'Koi Bahnis, the saurian Shaokennah, and the four-legged predatory Duenicallo. (Duenicallo can stand upright, and walk upright, but can only run on all fours.)

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