Constructed Floran Language

[*Emelia K. Fletcher]

so the Florans are a race in Starbound and i wanted to create their language so i began doing that



http://puu.sh/fV10j/7496241d9c.txt here's the current wip
http://puu.sh/fV2sN/ffafc245e8.png here's some glyphs

here's the entire text file in case you're fine with broken formatting: show

_______
PREFACE|

Floran culture is effective, brutal and simplistic, and the language reflects this. Sibilance in words is extremely common, explaining why Florans appear to elongate "S".



_________________________________________
NOTES FOR REMEMBERING AND OTHER WIP STUFF|

Florans are not antisocial.
Greenfinger has banned writing after it went awry (Florstab).
The bar of "violation of peace" is extremely low (destroying plant life, refusing raw meat, Hylotl).
Florans are focused on being "the best" (Florstab incident, goal being to get best kill, "winning" all Florans).
Florans hate fire, and are susceptible to heat.
Drysap lets Florans survive with near to no water, but the more intellectual, the higher chance it will be rejected and Florans will be antisocial and subjected to nightmares.
The Greenguard appears to be an army, amassed of typically low-intellect individuals.
Drysap appears to have affected much of the Greenguard, leaving them insane and physically twisted.
Ancient code says: all kills are good kills
hunting is good, establishes superiority and is integral to Florans
there is no "cheating", only a lack of failure
everything can be treated as a weapon, Florans have own inherent strength
Time is measured in "day cycles".
Florans seem to have an understanding of strategy; can engage in deception.
"Trial of Saplings" appears to be a coming-of-age ritual, involves tactical thinking and a lot of stabbing.


lasset: planet/world
lyss: meat

boredom/ennui/inertia: sholos

wishing to/wanting to: possla
not wishing to/wanting to: solpa

allowed/have permission: an-luhssyr
disallowed/don't have permission: an-su

Greenguard: synnasehyrssa

food/meal/feast: kassam



_________________
FUNDAMENTAL TERMS|

Have/take: isa
Not have/lose: kisha
For example:


wishing to/wanting to: possla
not wishing to/wanting to: solpa

allowed/have permission: an-luhssyr
disallowed/don't have permission: an-su



________
PRONOUNS|

Floran pronouns are typically all translated into English as "Floran", largely because most perceive them to be so uncivilised. As can be noted, Floran pronouns exist in terms of allies and enemies; an indicator of how Floran social standing works.


Floran ("I"): assa

Floran ("you" in sense of encountered friendlies): soso
Floran ("you" in sense of encountered enemies): kassaio

Floran ("them" in sense of absent friendlies): synna
Floran ("them" in sense of absent enemies): yrssa

Floran (in sense of species/race): soran
[derivative of "Floran"]


Other species are referred to only by their species' name, disregarding amount, gender and any other factors. Putting "soiah" and the respective term together (in either order) creates the compound word for that species; e.g. a human would be either soiah-kusuurlasset or kusuurlasset-soiah. This complication of foreign names is partly out of childlike reverence, something the Florans are all too susceptible to. (Do note that the Hylotl don't

Non-Floran/outcast/weird: soiah (used for both foreign species and Floran outcasts)
Human: kusuurlasset
Apex: lyssyrssa
Hylotl (same word for "fish"): hylossl (typically not recognized by -soiah, thus treating and calling them as simple fish)
Avian: prikossynna
Glitch: prissasynna
Novakid: kssyrssa



______
TITLES|

Many titles are present in Floran culture, for different roles and different facets of Floran life. Some titles are named by related concepts, and are translated into English as so.
Titles are formed by appending the suffix to the pronoun.

Sapling [young Floran]: loiss
Tribesmaster [leader of a tribe]: soranmens [lit. "floranfive", five being the highest digit]


________
COUNTING|

The number system finds little use. All numbers are quinary. Only 1-5 and 11-15 are typically used, with further numbers falling out of use in favour of "many".


None/0: su

1: surn
2: kynys
3: rokys
4: kalys
5: mens

11: surn-surn
12: kynys-surn
13: rokys-surn
14: kalys-surn
15: mens-surn

Many: luhssyr

[ 21: surn-kynys
22: kynys-kynys
23: rokys-kynys
24: kalys-kynys
25: mens-kynys

31: surn-rokys
... ]

Everything/all: alassys



_____________________
CULTURE-CENTRAL TERMS|

All Floran culture shares the same undertones.


In terms of combat, the obligatory and a few others are present:

Stab (verb, or noun describing event): seh/sheh
Shoot, gun (", ", noun): shoss

For example:



Severity of injuries and wounds are described by association to the numerical scale; various numbers may have various connotations (e.g. "mens" in context may be interpreted as a heavy threat).

Killed/dead entity (noun): kusuur
Kill (verb): oss

Wound - scratch: lus-surn
minor cuts/gashes: lus-kynys
moderate injury: lus-rokys
heavy injury (e.g. deep gash): lus-kalys
severe injury (e.g. amputation): lus-mens


Social status is two-tone; one will be superior or inferior to another. Issaso and kishasso are simply more informal terms, typically used when talking someone down (e.g. "you're the worst").

Superior: isiieh
Inferior: kishoeh
Better/best: isaso
Worse/worst: kishasso

Folowing this, the words "like" and "dislike" refer somewhat to respect, a concept far more intuitive in the Floran system.

Like/respect: isnoa
Dislike/disrespect: kishnoa

However, the word for "fire" has come into idiomatic use to describe a negative, hostile, or otherwise dislikeable situation.

Bad (lit. fire): kss


Hunting is an activity tied to your standing in a tribe, so its term follows that vein - winning and losing are analogous to superiority and inferiority respectively.

Hunt/hunting (concept, event): iishoseh
Fight (physical): olosseh (can be chanted)
Prey: ysni-kusuur (lit. future-dead)
Threat/danger: isiieh-yrssa (lit. superior-enemy)

Win/triumph/victory/etc: isiieh
Loss/defeat/failure/etc: kishoeh



__________
TECHNOLOGY|

Technology is considered a gift. The term we recognize as reverse-engineering has a meaning more towards "rerealising and repurposing for Florans", since Florans cannot be expected to think of everything in the exact same way humans would. Thus, Florans see technology not for how it works, but for what it can do - and "magic" is a misleading translation of their attitude towards the former.

Technology (word means gift): prissa
Reverse-engineering (poor translation): prisseh
Magic (poor translation): prikos





-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------




_____________
SAYING THINGS|

Sentences in Floran are extremely easy, since sentences are constructed simply by stringing words, and words are simply vessels for meaning. Floran conveys meaning, and it doesn't need any particular structure to do so, making it a very loose language.


With regards to tenses and times, two modifiers are present:
suuni: used to signify past
ysni: used to signify future

For example:
Sunni prisseh prissa rokys.
I repurposed three [pieces of] technology.
Yrssa kusuur ysni.
They will be corpses.


With regards to opinions, "isnoa" and "kishnoa" typically serve the purpose well:
Prikossynna-soiah kishnoa soran.
[The] Avian[s] dislike Floran[s].




________
EXAMPLES|

Assa oss kassaio.
I['ll] kill you.

Iishoseh!
[There is a] hunt!

Synna lus-kalys.
They [have a] bad injury.

Soran seh, seh, seh.
Florans stab, stab, stab.

"Ysni assa oss yrssa?" "Solpa."
"[Are] you going to kill them?" "No. [indicating not wanting to]"

"Ysni synna oss yrssa?" "Synna oss an-luhssyr."
"[Are] they going to kill them?" "Yes."/"They['re] allowed [to] kill [them]."

Soran isaso, lyssyrssa-soiah kishasso.
Florans [are the] best, Apex [are the] worst.

[#4715]

Hylotls 4 lyf

[Oranjui]

> base 5 counting system
holy ♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥
(also if you didn't know, generally base 5 would mean 0 to 4, then 10 (5) to 14 (9), 20 (10) to 24 (14)... but it doesn't really matter)

also was intentional

anyway



A good place to start would be to do some research on the building blocks of language. Read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Part_of_speech and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_case, as well as others.

Pronunciation-wise, consider syllabic stress and stuff, such as whether to have concrete rules or to have accent marks in each word and stuff.

Do you have a zero placeholder for your numbers, or

Oops I didn't read the .txt puush until just now. It looks like you already have a good foundation for stuff so I don't really know what else you could do other than just translate words. Maybe find someone and just try to converse with them in the language, and as you do that I assume you would encounter common words that haven't been translated?

Would the words just be transliterated from their romanizations into glyphs, or are you planning to create characters and stuff for morphemes/words?

[*Emelia K. Fletcher]

i'm not translating words, i'm creating words as they would exist within Floran society because it is not a good idea to base an incomparable culture's language on English

the romanisations are themselves slightly inaccurate and the glyphs would be a more accurate representation - small pictograms may be part of writing for the lower intellectual Florans to convey meaning

[GrandPiano]

So I come back to check on this site again and suddenly a conlang.

I will take a look, I know a thing or two about linguistics that could help.

EDIT: In your romanization, the /i/ sound (as in eve) can be represented with either <i> or <y>. When do you use which, and why?

In your romanization, the /ɛ/ sound (as in sell) can be represented with either <e> or <eh>. When do you use which, and why?

The letter <r> can represent a lot of different sounds. It is a voiced alveolar trill /r/ or an alveolar tap /ɾ/ in Spanish, a voiced alveolar approximant /ɹ/ in English, a voiced uvular fricative /ʁ/ in French and some German dialects, a voiced uvular trill /ʀ/ in some other German dialects, etc. Which one is your romanization's <r>?

You say "Sibilance in words is extremely common, explaining why Florans appear to elongate 'S'". The <sh> sound is also a sibilant, so why doesn't it also get elongated in this manner?

I haven't examined it too deeply, but those are a few things that popped out.

[*Emelia K. Fletcher]

In your romanization, the /i/ sound (as in eve) can be represented with either <i> or <y>. When do you use which, and why?

either, and because romanisation is a stylistic choice

In your romanization, the /ɛ/ sound (as in sell) can be represented with either <e> or <eh>. When do you use which, and why?

either, and because romanisation is a stylistic choice

The letter <r> can represent a lot of different sounds. It is a voiced alveolar trill /r/ or an alveolar tap /ɾ/ in Spanish, a voiced alveolar approximant /ɹ/ in English, a voiced uvular fricative /ʁ/ in French and some German dialects, a voiced uvular trill /ʀ/ in some other German dialects, etc. Which one is your romanization's <r>?

any that is recognisable as "r" within English - i am not writing a language in accordance to IPA, i am writing a language for a completely incomparable alien race

You say "Sibilance in words is extremely common, explaining why Florans appear to elongate 'S'". The <sh> sound is also a sibilant, so why doesn't it also get elongated in this manner?

because correcting for semantics is not in my interest - "s" is elongated and that's enough to qualify as sibilance in my book

[GrandPiano]

either, and because romanisation is a stylistic choice

Romanization is a systematic way of representing the sounds of a language in the Latin alphabet. The choices for what letter to represent each sound per each romanization is stylistic, yes, but there's no reason for a romanization to represent a single sound multiple ways. I suppose there's nothing necessarily wrong with it, but... How, exactly, do you decide whether to use <i> or <y> or <e> or <eh> in a word? Is it just arbitrary, or do you have any sort of basis for determining which to use?

any that is recognisable as "r" within English - i am not writing a language in accordance to IPA, i am writing a language for a completely incomparable alien race

For a completely incomparable alien race, the sounds are shockingly similar to the sounds that human mouths can make.

because correcting for semantics is not in my interest - "s" is elongated and that's enough to qualify as sibilance in my book

So, what does the word "sibilance" mean to you, then?

---

Have/take is "isa"; not have/lose is "kisha".
Wishing to/wanting to is "possla"; not wishing to/not wanting to is "sopla".
Allowed/have permission is "an-luhssyr".
Disallowed/don't have permission is "an-su".

I'm not really seeing the pattern here. How does negation work in the Floran language?

[#4715]

For a completely incomparable alien race, the sounds are shockingly similar to the sounds that human mouths can make.

First, that is one of the most randomly nitpicky things you could have complained about. Second, it isn't that unlikely that in an infinite universe that one species would evolve to have speech capabilities similar to that of a human's.

[GrandPiano]

For a completely incomparable alien race, the sounds are shockingly similar to the sounds that human mouths can make.

First, that is one of the most randomly nitpicky things you could have complained about. Second, it isn't that unlikely that in an infinite universe that one species would evolve to have speech capabilities similar to that of a human's.

OK, it was a bit nitpicky, but... MK was claiming that the Florans were incomparable to the human race. It's fine if he chooses to ignore the fact that alien races are likely to have different speech organs than humans, but then "I am writing a language for a completely incomparable alien race" can't be his explanation for not specifying what <r> sounds like. "It doesn't matter to me what it sounds like" would be fine.

Since I'm worried that everything I'm saying might be coming off as sounding somewhat grouchy, I will note:

i'm not translating words, i'm creating words as they would exist within Floran society because it is not a good idea to base an incomparable culture's language on English

It's definitely good that you thought of that, because that's true in many ways even amongst most Earth languages. Basing any aspect of your conlang too heavily on English is definitely a thing you'll want to avoid, and that applies whether you're creating a language for an alien race or a fictional Earth society.

[*Emelia K. Fletcher]

Romanization is a systematic way of representing the sounds of a language in the Latin alphabet. The choices for what letter to represent each sound per each romanization is stylistic, yes, but there's no reason for a romanization to represent a single sound multiple ways. I suppose there's nothing necessarily wrong with it, but... How, exactly, do you decide whether to use <i> or <y> or <e> or <eh> in a word? Is it just arbitrary, or do you have any sort of basis for determining which to use?

arbitrary, and because romanisation is a stylistic choice

For a completely incomparable alien race, the sounds are shockingly similar to the sounds that human mouths can make.

there have been cases of Florans learning other languages (seemingly English), so there is no reason not to believe they can't make sounds similar to humans

So, what does the word "sibilance" mean to you, then?

"s" is elongated and that's enough to qualify as sibilance in my book

How does negation work in the Floran language?

you are assuming an existing language feature would also exist in an alien language, something you don't appear to condone
there is no concept of "negation" as such