141 lines
4.9 KiB
Markdown
141 lines
4.9 KiB
Markdown
|
---
|
||
|
|
title: "ReConLangMo 8: Storytelling"
|
||
|
|
date: 2020-05-29
|
||
|
|
series: reconlangmo
|
||
|
|
tags:
|
||
|
|
- conlang
|
||
|
|
- lewa
|
||
|
|
---
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
In the [last episode][rclm7] of [ReConLangMo][reconlangmo], we covered
|
||
|
|
conversational discourse as well as formality and other grammatical moods. I
|
||
|
|
also covered my goals for the gender system of L'ewa. Here I will cover the
|
||
|
|
closest thing L'ewa has to culture, the storytelling and poetry norms. L'ewa is
|
||
|
|
also a language designed for [spellcraft][spellcraft] and [sigil
|
||
|
|
magick][sigils], so those norms will be covered too. This is a response to [this
|
||
|
|
prompt][rclm8].
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
[rclm7]: /blog/reconlangmo-7-discourse-2020-05-25
|
||
|
|
[rclm8]: https://www.reddit.com/r/conlangs/comments/gszhy9/reconlangmo_7_storytelling_and_poetry/
|
||
|
|
[reconlangmo]: /blog/series/reconlangmo
|
||
|
|
[spellcraft]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incantation
|
||
|
|
[sigils]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigil
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
## Stories
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Stories are told as statements that happened in the past. Stories are structured
|
||
|
|
in the same way that you would structure them in English. There is a scenario, a
|
||
|
|
call to action, a refusal of the call, then the story goes on in the standard
|
||
|
|
way. Casual retelling of events is done without a narrative, and the events are
|
||
|
|
just relayed using casual sentences.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
The particle `qu` can be repeated at the beginning of a story to enable the
|
||
|
|
"story time" flag. Story time sentences can be figurative. Each sentence in the
|
||
|
|
story progressively builds up the narrative to explain the themes and lessons
|
||
|
|
that are trying to be conveyed.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Stories are told using the narrative present tense. Speakers also relay
|
||
|
|
secondhand information directly.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
## Poetry
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
One of the morphological side effect of L'ewa root words is that only the first
|
||
|
|
four letters of each word are unique. As a side effect of this, you can make any
|
||
|
|
word rhyme with any other word if you want it to. L'ewa can become l'ewi, l'ewo,
|
||
|
|
le'we or l'ewu if the poetry demands it. Poetry can be done in any meter or
|
||
|
|
rhythm depending on the mood of the speaker. Poetry can also be formatted using
|
||
|
|
fixed-width text. Here are a few examples:
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
```
|
||
|
|
le l'ewa de kirta
|
||
|
|
xi firga to renma
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
The language of Creators
|
||
|
|
is beneficial to all people
|
||
|
|
```
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
```
|
||
|
|
a'o ro zimpu ti
|
||
|
|
e'o so vorto
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
I hope you understand this
|
||
|
|
How many words?
|
||
|
|
```
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
I don't think I have enough vocabulary to make any more yet.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
## Spellcraft
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
These poems are worked into sigils by interlocking the words together into a
|
||
|
|
larger figure. Here is an example based on the first poem:
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Ideally this would would include the letters spiraling around things, but my
|
||
|
|
current tools are limited in what they can do. Sigils don't need to follow
|
||
|
|
normal grammar rules. They can bend and break them as much as they want or need
|
||
|
|
in order to flow nicer. If they need to, they can also make up words that don't
|
||
|
|
normally exist in the dictionary. These words should be documented in the
|
||
|
|
dictionary at some point, but there is no big rush.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
## Gender and Third Person Pronouns
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Previously, I haven't gone into details about the third person pronouns in
|
||
|
|
L'ewa. This was done very, very intentionally. One of the goals of L'ewa's
|
||
|
|
handling of gender is to abolish the gender binary as much as possible. This
|
||
|
|
means that any content word can end up being used as a pronoun. In order to
|
||
|
|
avoid ambiguity, only part of the content word is used to form something
|
||
|
|
matching the particle rules I was vaguely gesturing about in the post that had
|
||
|
|
details about colors. To recap:
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
> Compound words still need to be fleshed out, but generally all CVCCV words
|
||
|
|
> will have wordparts made out of the first, second and fifth letter, unless the
|
||
|
|
> vowel pair is illegal and all CCVCV words are the first, third and fifth
|
||
|
|
> letter unless this otherwise violates the morphology rules.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Let's say that your gender is the word for "is meat", or `dextu`. This would
|
||
|
|
mean the third person pronoun form would be `de'u` (`eu` isn't a valid vowel
|
||
|
|
pair so the glottal stop is used to break it).
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
```
|
||
|
|
de'u qu tulpa lo l'ewa
|
||
|
|
They (de'u) built a language.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
mao qu madsa lo spalo
|
||
|
|
They (mao) ate an apple.
|
||
|
|
```
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
If you want to declare your gender, you can declare it with the word `zedra`:
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
```
|
||
|
|
lo spalo xi zedra
|
||
|
|
An apple is (my) gender.
|
||
|
|
```
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
This would then make their pronoun `sao`.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
You can ask someone what their gender is with the gender question particle
|
||
|
|
`zei`:
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
```
|
||
|
|
<Mai> xoi
|
||
|
|
<Cadey> xoi ro zei
|
||
|
|
<Mai> lo mlato xi zedra
|
||
|
|
<Mai> zei
|
||
|
|
<Cadey> lo 'orka xi zedra
|
||
|
|
```
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
From then Mai would be referred to using the pronoun `mao` and Cadey would be
|
||
|
|
referred to using the pronoun `'ka`.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
If you need a generic third person pronoun, use `ke'o`.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
---
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
This seems to be the end of the ReConLangMo series in /r/conlangs, but I will
|
||
|
|
definitely continue to develop this on my own and post about it as I make larger
|
||
|
|
accomplishments. This has been a fun series and I hope it gave people a high
|
||
|
|
level overview of what is needed to make a speakable language from nothing.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Be well.
|