Kalay kem tsa adiye! [Happily I green you!] Kem vre kalas ye tsara akei, qe tarey alisan sono tarem ekir arisa. Si kem vre desu tsu sagiris ste atra naray a. [With great happiness I write to you, such as the feeling which you will have soon. I have come to a great understanding of the world.] Key agiza: [My tale:] Kem ru kuvanar' vi amida ei. I toren ma Laki ste erasamay a, ten si ao ipey orem Luki ste erasa nai. Viya'laman te se'mravan no kem lirai. Tarem viya'laman ste kithlasand ariru? Avikir, Luki ma phiren dze verosarey a. Na key adand ore vi davrai, na orem iyama kem fidaran ye itey a sim ei. [I am a creature having two identities. The first is called Laki, the other small one is called Luki. I enjoy singing and dancing. Do you have fun from dancing? Meanwhile, Luki is sleeping without end. Because I share my peace with him/her, because he/she is one who I can be in a story.] Tarem viyakadast fumanamay yen? Si kem tsu, adast fumanay kua ei. Vre kamey a! [Are you not a person filled with joy? As for me, I am filled with peace. How good!] Dun si tarem katekay kitagiru. [May you be more and more blessed.] -Laki, livaorey [Laki, smiling.] Akeza do: Kem yo agiza min furind havdava. Kua iyama key ruele lu tarey rueler e agizand naravas ste esund akitey a. Tarem nan vasray eyin lo isjiyen? [After writing: I forgot one part of my tale. I can write by way of a person who changed this tale from my language to your language. Do you not see that it was not easy?] ------------------------------------ ON THE LANGUAGE: Airula is a conlang I have been developing since I was about eight years old (which gives it twelve years of evolution). I'm mostly happy with it at this point, though the lexicon is not yet terribly extensive, as I've concentrated more on making both the grammar and the writing system somewhat arcane. It's had many influences over the years, the grammar has been especially affected by Japanese, the writing is somewhere between Devanagari, Arabic, and Cyrillic scripts. I can't imagine ever trying to teach someone else how to speak Airula, due to its very existence being governed more by aesthetic appeal than practicality as a useful language. It should be pretty easy from the glossary and the notes, though. ------------------------------------ GLOSSARY (In English alphabetical order, I hope.) a (tensed cop.): am/is/are. used with predicate genitives. ada (n.): peace. adi (vt.): to greet. agiza (n.): a tale, story. ake (vt.): to write. akeza (n.): writing. alisan (n.): a feeling, emotion. amida (n.): animal, creature. ao (mod.): other. ari (vt.): to have (used for abstract objects). atra (vt.): to come/go to. avikir (adv.): meanwhile. davra (vt.): to share. desu (n.): the world. do (part.): after. dun: may, might it be that. e (cop.): to be. e (mod.): this. ekir (adv.): now (with present tense), soon (with future tense). erasa (v.): to call, to name. esu (n.): this thing. fidaran (n.): stories, ballads, fiction. fumana (vt.): to fill. furi (n.): part, portion. havda (vt.): to forget. i (art.): the. ipey (mod.): small. isji (vt.): to see. iyama (conj.): the one who... kalay (mod.): happy, happily. Noun form: 'kalas.' kamey (mod.): good. katekay (mod.): more and more. kes (pn.): first person singular personal pronoun, nominative form given by 'kem,' possessive by 'key,' accusative by 'xe,' and dative by 'xe-.' kitagi (vt.): to bless. kithlasa (n.): fun, pleasure. kua (n.): person. kuvana (n.): identity, persona. lira (vt.): to enjoy, to like, to prefer. livao (v.): to smile. lo (part.): one of the many forms of the accusative particle, occurs after independent clauses. A grammatical marker, and nothing more. lu (part.): from. ma (part.): the nominative particle -- marks the subject. Contracts to '-m' with nouns ending in unstressed vowels. min (num.): one. na (part.): because, for. na (aux. v.): the auxiliary part of a passive tensed verb, which carries the tense. ["ari" to have, "ari na" to be had.] nan (conj.): that. nara (vt.): to change. ore (pn.): third person singular pronoun. gender neutral. [orem, orey, or, or-.] phiren (n.): ending. qe (part.): like, as, following. ra (part.): to, at. Used for indirect objects. ru (num.): two. ruele (n.): language. sagiris (n.): an understanding. semra (v.): to dance. si (part.): a particle which precedes passive subjects. sim: doesn't exactly have an English equivalent, it is an auxiliary noun carrying a particle, and has no actual meaning. sono (conj.): that which, used for objects. e.g. "i kua sono tarem lirai," the person you like. ste (part.): by way of, using, by. tare (pn.): second person singular personal pronoun (informal). Nominative: 'tarem,' possessive: 'tarey,' accusative: 'tsa,' dative: 'tsa-.' te (part.): and (used for noun phrases). ten (conj.): and (used for clauses). toren (n.): first of a group. tsu (part.): across, about, on the subject of. vasray (mod.): easy. verosa (v.): to sleep. vi (part.): with, having. viyakada (n.): joy. viyala (v.): to sing. vre (mod.): very, great. ye (part.): in, with. ------------------------------------ PRONUNCIATION: Pronunciation isn't terribly important here. The vowels are between Spanish and Japanese in pronunciation, most of the consonants are the same as in english, where 'x' is a voiceless velar fricative, 'q' is its voiced counterpart, and 'sj' is equivalent to sh. 'ph' is a bilabial, where 'f' is a labiodental. Stress falls on the penultimate syllable unless marked by an accent (here by '). SYNTAX: Syntax is most commonly SOV, though SVO constructions do exist. Nothing terribly exotic happens in the above passage, though Airula uses the passive voice more often than English speakers usually do. (For information on passive constructions, see the section on verbs.) Basic sentence structure is "[noun phrase]-[particle] [NP]-[part.] [tensed verb]". PLURALIZATION: Pluralization in Airula is based upon the rhythm of the word and the vowels in the last few syllables. The details are unimportant, and most of the plurals, if they appear, can be gathered from context. Essentially, the plural shifts the stress of the word one syllable towards the end, and is sometimes accompanied by a vowel change in the prepenultimate syllable, but this is unimportant. PARTICLES AND CASES: Airula is a language with a complex system of relational particles which complement nouns and connect them to other noun phrases and verb phrases. NOTE: while these particles are postpositional more often than prepositional, the latter sometimes occurs if the noun phrase it complements occurs after the verb the phrase modifies (this should be somewhat clear from context). Oftentimes, noun-particle phrases can be thought of as nouns with cases, since the particles often contract with their noun complements. Here are a few of the more major particles in this passage: ma, -m: The nominative particle. Marks the subject. no, lo, -nd: The accusative particle. Marks the direct object. ste, -st: The instrumental particle. "By, by way of, through." tsu: "About, concerning, across, through." ra, -r: "Towards, at." ye: "Within, in, in a state of." yo, -y: The possessive particle. "Of." lu: "out of, from." te, -t: "and." dze: "without." vi: "with, having." na: "because, for." Here are a few contractions: "kes + ma = kem, tare + ra = tsara, kes + yo = key." Note that double particles are known to exist, such as "ma tsu," which is roughly equivalent to "as for." Personal pronouns have... interesting... contractions, but the important ones are listed in the glossary. ADJECTIVES AND ADVERBS: Modifiers are usually lumped together in Airula dictionaries, due to the fact that they are interchangeable, for all intents and purposes. VERBS: Here are the verb endings which are in the passage: -i: present affirmative. (does). -yin: present negative. (doesn't). -ru: present affirmative interrogative/subjunctive (does? would do, might do). -yen: present negative interrogative (doesn't? would do, might do). -rey a: present continuous (is doing). -ray a: present perfective (has done). -tey a: present potential (can do). -may a: simple passive (is done). -va: simple past. -man/-van: -ing, the action of. (doing). Note that if a verb's basic form ends in 'e,' there will be a change of vowel for the '-yen,' '-tey,' and '-rey' forms, such that "e" becomes "iyen," "itey," and "irey." Passive voice constructions can occur in two different ways. There is the simple passive construction as above, and the complex passive, which involves the use of the particle 'si' before the passive subject, and the tensed auxiliary verb 'na.' Both are used in the passage. Some verbs may additionally receive a '-s.' This is a grammatical marker which signals the end of a dependent clause, and its use is unimportant in context. AGREEMENT: Airula has no gender agreement, and there are no important tense or modifier changes associated with person, gender, or level of formality. ALPHABET: Oh ho ho. I am not evil enough to inflict my overly complicated writing system on you, just the overly complicated grammar. ;)