Culture and a Point of Word Usage in Kílta

One of the things I have tried to do with Kílta, though it is a personal language intended for use in the here-and-now, is to assemble an invented legendarium I can use to expand the range of expression beyond the nakedly literal. Stones, for example, are associated with a (completely undefined) oracle system, allowing the creation of idioms like ëkin mika si autto she touched another stone, to refer to someone altering their fate in a notable way.

Within this legendarium are váchur, semi-personified representations of certain forces and entities in the world, not gods, but certainly beyond the human. Perhaps like genius loci but expanded beyond just locations.

Kílta already has a word for plague, epidemic: vós [ˈβoːs]. But it entered my mind that a vácha for that might be useful. After a bit of percolation my brain, the vácha Hësas [ˈxə.sas] has entered the legendarium. It is represented by flies, who in Kílta already have associations with the more remorselessly brutal parts of the natural lifecycle.

In Kílta, many things that move in the air tunáko hang there. Because Hësas is represented by flies, I have decided that when expressions of location are used with the plain old word vós epidemic tunáko will be used.

Vós në méka nen metúnakësto.
vós në méka nen me-túnak-ëst-o
plague TOP America LOC CIS-hang-INCH-PFV
The plague is now in America.

Normally using a posture verb for location is confined to people and animals, but I've extended it to vós because of the association with Hësas and flies. This is probably the most subtle result of using the legendarium to drive Kílta expression to date — a single usage note in the lexicon entry for vós.

Words of Immiseration

You never know what's going to lead your conlang to new grammar.

More than a month ago I was reading a bit by and about Hannah Arendt, and I realized Kílta was lacking a few bits of vocabulary I'd need if I wanted to convey some thoughts on my reading. In particular, I was looking to be able to describe ways in which communities and societies immiserate and even kill people. In particular, I was struck by the notion of entire populations being essentially ignored to death (refugees, mostly, come in for this sort of treatment).

But to say someone has been ignored to death is actually a fairly complex bit of grammar. The to death part here is a resultative secondary predicate. I had been considering secondary predicates ("I painted the wall red," for example) in Kílta for a while, and had some notes from a little research I had done on the topic, but hadn't committed to anything yet. If I wanted my immiserable expressions, I'd need to make a decision, to go with secondary predication, or pick some other method. Not all languages use secondary predication, after all.

In the end, I decided to use secondary predication, and picked a slightly unusual (but attested) way to do this: an adverb immediately before the verb can be interpreted either as a manner adverb or as a secondary predicate. Given Kílta's love of argument dropping, some ambiguity is possible, but I try not to let potential ambiguity stop me, especially if I can convince myself context will clear things up (most of human communication is context, anyway). At any rate, here's an example:

Tërta si mámui tëlpo.
meat ACC soft.ADV cook.PFV
They cooked the meat (until) soft.

The secondary predicate here is the adverb form of the adjective mámin soft.

Postpositional expressions in the shape [N mai] (the lative), can also be used preverbally as secondary predicates:

Këchar në vós mai këkíno.
government TOP plague LAT ignore.PFV
The government ignored its way into a plague.

Note here that, while in standard English secondary predicates can only refer to the object, in Kílta the subject (or topic, as here) can also take secondary predication. For more possibilities and subtleties of Kílta secondary predicates, see the grammar (section 10.6, as of July 2020).

So now I had constructions for secondary predication, but I did not just create a schematic way to handle all these expressions of immiseration. While Kílta is not a rigorously naturalistic conlang, I do consider plausibility an important part of its esthetics. A too tidy chart always makes me wince a bit. In any case, in a few places result converbs are used rather than secondary predication. That said, I did concoct a small number of rather specific adverbs for use as secondary predicates.

For example, I already had the word ína outcast, exile, pariah. I needed an adverb for this, and decided to use an "archaic" derivation to produce an unused intermediary form *ísa which was then turned into the adverb ísui in the way of an exile, outcast, and as a secondary predicate, into exile:

Ámatulásilur si ísui pëcho.
refugee.PL ACC into.exile oppress.PFV
They oppressed the refugees into exile.

On the other hand, I simply conconcted a new root adverb, méstë, which means something like harming the household or family. It turned out to be surprisingly easy to find uses for this outside secondary predicates.

Vós në méstë memúlo.
plague TOP harming.family CIS.arrive.PFV
The plague reached us, harming the household.

As a secondary predicate:

Símur në mélá si méstë túkwilo.
3PL TOP parent.PL ACC harming.family humiliate.PFV
They humiliated the parents until the family took harm.

Finally, I needed to death. I did not simply want to use the verb die or some expression too like English here. Kílta already has a strong association in other expressions of os dust with the entropic effects of time, and it was only a little stretch to push this into dying territory. I used a special locative adverbial derivation, which means down(ward) to, giving ostorë:

Avur në ámatulásilur si ostorë këkíno.
1PL TOP refugee.PL ACC to.death ignore.PFV
We ignored the refugees to death.

Not the lightest topic, to be sure, but I've now filled out a parts of a sadly useful semantic field, and acquired a useful piece of new grammar as part of the bargain. On my phone I have a document that's just an ever-growing list of expressions I want to add to Kílta. Most of the time I get new words out of this, but once in a while a whole new corner of grammar appears.

Kílta metaphor: SALT IS VITALITY

One standard feature of my current grammars for new languages is a separate section after the dictionary where I focus on particular areas of interest or difficulty. For example, copulas and verbs of existence in Kílta have a few complications, so there's a section on those. This lets me limit cross-references in the dictionary definitions to something reasonable, while still being able to give a thorough overview later.

A subsection on conceptual metaphor (Conlangery Podcast #66) is now standard in my grammars. I've recently been working out the metaphor SALT IS VITALITY (for some reason, conceptual metaphors are often given in all-caps like this). 

When I first thought about this metaphor, I spent a little while first thinking through the implications. In this instance, I already had an idiom involving salt that would interact a bit oddly with it —

Ches si tirat vuëtiso.
salt ACC give.1R-INF try-PFV
They tried to bribe me. (lit., "they tied to give me salt")

I decided this wasn't a vital problem, and in fact slightly enhanced the idiom and the conceptual metaphor I was about to develop.

Kílta has a modest set of derivational affixes, so I first thought about how some of those might work:

• chesámin - "saltless," has the standard meanings of dull, lifeless, with an additional sense of mildly ill
• chesëtin - "salty, having salt" is the core sense, but also means vital, lively, vigorous

For now, no other derivational elements have suggested themselves for this metaphor. In general, I try to take these metaphorical derivations only if they have a clear literal use, too.

Next, Kílta, as a verb-final language, favors N-V combinations for creating new verbal senses from nouns, rather than derivational affixes. These are more obviously idiomatic, with less clear-cut literal use:

• ches si raho - literally, "throw (the) salt," has the same basic sense and tone as the English idiom "kick the bucket," but is a touch less respectful than the English
• ches tëníto - literally, "(the) salt is gone," matches the idea of being dejected, or "the life has gone out of him/her/it"
• ches si kwilë relo - literally, "carries too much salt," is for someone who has too much nervous energy, or a pet having the zoomies

That's as far as I want to take things for now with a new metaphor. I've made a notation in the dictionary entry for ches salt which reminds me of this sense if I add new examples to that headword, in addition to the conceptual metaphors section after the dictionary. Maybe that's as far as this metaphor will go, but it's always nice when a new metaphor-based idiom suggests itself.

Lexical Exploration: "bruise"

The English bruise is related to words for "crush, injure, cut, smash." The usage for blemished fruits is first attested in the 14th century.

In Ancient Greek, several words related to the core sense of "crush" are also given the definition "bruise:" θλάω, τρίβω. There is also the rare-appearing word μώλωψ, "mark of a stripe, weal, bruise" which generates a denominal verb.

In the Dravidian family, again, quite a few words related to "crush" or "(strike a) blow, beat," and occasionally "press," are also glossed "bruise." See for example, naci and tar̤umpu.

In the Austronesian family color terms seem to be a popular source domain, as in the color root, -*dem, which generates a term in one daughter language, and the root *alem, also related to color, does in another. Also *baŋbaŋ₈, which generated terms related to a range of skin discolorations. There are other source domains, however, such as baneR, which in addition to "bruise, weal" also generates a specific term for blemishes on fruit.

In Mbula, -berebere across dialects means "be bruised and swollen, itch and burn, have blisters."

Mandarin has a large collection of terms glossed "bruise," most of which seem to be polysemous with more generic injury terms, "wound, abscess, bump," or the aftermath, "scar." The term 烏青 wū qīng refers to the color ("dark/black" + "grue/grey"), and can be used alone as a color term.

Somba-Siawari's yöhöza covers all of "bite, sting, rub, hurt, bruise, weigh down."

In Malayalam the terms are all polysemous with other injury terms, of which ആഘാതം āghātaṁ is most flush with meaning: "stab, stroke, beat, trauma, blow, waft, bruise, bump, impact, poke, push, shock."

Other dictionaries consulted: Maori, Turkish, Angave, Swahili, Arabic, Wolof, Korean, Armenian, Malay.

Summary: the cause of bruising ("hit, crush, pound, press," occasionally "abrade" or "dent") is a common source domain. In some families, the word is polysemous with other kinds of injuries, "weal" and swelling, in particular. Color terms are an occasional source. It's hard to tell history from some dictionaries, but there may occasionally be root terms for a polysemous injury word that includes "bruise." Finally, languages that are robustly reduplicating seem happy to use it in "bruise" terms (but this might be due to the stative sense rather than specific semantics).

The Ultimate Dictionary Database System

Is text. End of post.

Ok, it's not quite that simple. You probably want some sort of structured text, semantically marked up if possible. But at the end of the day, all you can really rely on is text.

Why Spreadsheets Suck

First, the format is proprietary and often inconsistent across even minor version changes. You will be in a world of hurt if you want to share your dictionary with anyone else.

Second — and this is the biggest problem by far, assuming you're trying to make a naturalistic conlang — a real dictionary for a real language does not look like this:

• kətaŋ sleep
• kətap book
• kətəs hangnail on the left little finger which interferes with one's needlework
• kəwa tree
• kəwah noodle
• kəwe computer
• kəweŋ hard

A few words between two languages might have (nearly) perfect overlap, and the early history of word in a conlang might start as a simple gloss, but a simple word-to-word matching is profoundly lying to you for a real language, and in a conlang signals a relex.

A real dictionary entry looks like this: δίδωμι. It has multiple meanings defined, examples of use, collocations, grammar and morphology notes, references, etc., etc.

The spreadsheet format forces you into a very limited structure for each word. That structure can never hope to cope reliably with all the different words of a single language, much less the variety of things conlangers come up with (to say nothing of natlang variety). A spreadsheet is a too rigid format to grow the meaning and uses of a word over the lifetime of your conlang.

Why Databases Suck

First, they share the same problems with spreadsheets with respect to format. Technically, SQL is a standard. In reality, all but the most trivial of databases tend to use non-standard SQL conveniences offered by the database server software the software author decided to use. So, you may get something almost portable, but often not.

Second, and again like the spreadsheet problem, a truly universal dictionary tool, a piece of software that could handle everything from Indonesian to Ancient Greek to Navajo — or Toki Pona to Na'vi to High Valyrian to Ithkuil — is going to require a very complex database structure. The SIL "Toolbox" dictionary tool has more than 100 fields available (Making Dictionaries), and all those possibilities need to be in both the database design and the software that talks to the database.

I have, over the years, spent some time trying to design a database that could really be a good language dictionary. The schema for even a simple design was quite complex, and I would not have wanted to write the software to control it. There's this huge problem in that different languages vary wildly in their definitional needs. For Mandarin, for example, you need to cover all the usual purely semantic matters — polysemy, idiom, collocation, multiple definitions, examples, etc. — but there aren't too many morphological worries. But once you add morphological complexity you've got a whole new layer of issues. The Ancient Greek example I link to above is for a fairly irregular verb, with dialectal worries to boot. And for Navajo and related Athabaskan languages the situation is so dire that people write papers called things like Making Athabaskan Dictionaries Usable and Design Issues in Athabaskan Dictionaries (do look at those to get a feel for the issues).

Any truly general dictionary database, one capable of handling enough sorts of languages to be genuinely useful, would have vast tracts of empty space to accommodate information not needed in many languages, with these fields of whitespace in different places for different languages. Even if you target your database and software design to something like Ancient Greek, there will be lots of fields left blank most of the time. It's not like all the verbs are irregular, though it may sometimes seem that way to beginners.

If you had a very good team of developers, you could probably overcome these problems, assuming the users were willing to configure a complex tool to make it easy to use for only the things your language needed. But it's never going to be a money-making venture. I don't expect to see such a tool in my lifetime.

Enter Stage Right: Text

So, we're back to simple text. The benefits:

• the file is still readable if Microsoft/Apple/Whoever releases a New and Improved (tm) version of this or that proprietary bit of software; a file you find from 10 years ago will still be readable
• there are zillions of text editors, usually with built in search functions, which will work on the file
• if part of the file is destroyed, the rest of the file will generally be recoverable (proprietary formats tend to be brittle when bitrot sets in)

Bare text, of course, is not very attractive. The way around this is to use a text-based markup of some sort. You could use HTML. Or even XML with a little more work. I strongly favor LaTeX, which requires more typing than I might like, but it gives me maximum flexibility to change my mind and spits out very attractive results. The point of this is that even though HTML and LaTeX are presentation formats, the underlying basis is still just plain text. If something goes horribly wrong, you'll have a modestly ugly text file to read, but all your hard work will still be recoverable.

If you are disorganized, a computer will not help you. If you can impose a little order on yourself, though, a computer can make your life a lot easier. And a little thought can make even a plain old .txt file into the best dictionary tool you could ever want.