Truth and Bird Baths

Because of my diary method of conlanging, I regularly have to create fairly mundane vocabulary for things I haven't yet talked about. That can sometimes lead to unexpected places. I recently wanted a phrase for "bird bath" for Kílta. I decided I was probably going to get that word out of something related to a word for "pond," in particular an artificial sort of pond/lake thing. But I didn't even have a word for that ready to go. So, I created a word for "pond" — paipa — and then I wanted to talk about a beaver pond as one of the examples. Naturally, I didn't already have a word for beaver. I'm even less likely to talk about beavers than I am bird baths, but here I am today, with a word for beaver — kiulon (which means something like "tree-associated red-brown guy") — and I still haven't gotten to "bird bath." Maybe today.

This sort of fairly routine vocabulary is where most of my creative time goes. Sometimes, though, concepts without simple English words get my attention. I've documented a few of them in Segments issue #4. Recently I have been exasperated by the lack of good words to describe things surrounding generative AI, in particular the "language" models, like ChatGPT. The core aspect of these that is so vexing is that they are bullshit machines. I am using "bullshit" here in the Harry G. Frankfurt definition, which defines B.S. as "speech intended to persuade without regard for truth." That is, these models have no meaningful relationship with questions of truth or falsity. ChatGPT just produces a stream of characters that is statistically likely given the prompt. Similar models are known to not always cope well with negation, for example, which is a fairly important thing to get right if you want to talk about the real world reliably. I will end my rant on these models here, and rely on what I've said so far to set the stage for some recent new vocabulary.

As you might imagine, I've been wracking my brains to come up with ways to talk about "true" vs. "false" in a situation where those concepts aren't particularly related to the real world, but are located within the weight matrices of these AI models. It's always nice if new words can be developed on existing models or metaphors, and, luckily, Kílta already has the word húrusakin "theory/worldview internal," an adjective for words, ideas, etc., which won't necessarily make sense to people unfamiliar with a particular theory or worldview. This is a compound of húr "border, boundary" and saka "idea, thought, notion." This immediately suggested húrutásin and húrusikkarin for contextually bounded ideas of "true" and "false," from already existing tásin "true" and ikkarin "false" (itself derived from ikko "to lack").

While the starting place for these words is my vexations when trying to talk about ChatGPT and related tools, these words, húrutásin and húrusikkarin, have application in other areas. We can use them to talk about true vs. false in computer programs, for example, or in any other sort of modeling technology or methodology. Something might be true in one system of formal logic, but not in another. Similarly, some more totalizing worldviews might have judgements about true and false that are at variance with the worldviews of others. These words will let me talk about truth judgements in particular systems that may or may not correspond to other systems, or my own ideas about the world (Kílta is somewhat optimized to make it easy for me to editorialize about things).

Obsidian Words

A few weeks ago I added the word miusma obsidian to Kílta. I knew it would get some sort of metaphorical or metonymic meaning at the time, but hadn't settled on the details. I focused on the long use of obsidian as a weapon-making material—go take a look at a macuahuitl—to extend the meaning.

As of yesterday, miusma can be used metonymically to represent violence, organized violence in particular, though it doesn't have to be state-organized. It is normally used as an attributive:

Rëtu korá miusma vë kinta kwan uttimo.
many people obsidian ATTR night during die-PFV
Many people died during the obsidian night.

The phrase "obsidian night" refers to some sort of group violence that took place at night.

Orávës në miusma vë lár si mítët, kwál si salkësto.
fanatic TOP obsidian ATTR word ACC speak.CVB.PFV, riot ACC put.INCH.PFV
The fanatic spoke obsidian words and started a riot.

The implication of "obsidian words" is that they were meant to provoke violence.

This is probably enough baggage for the word for now, but I wonder if other ways of using it will present themselves.

Covert Grue

There is extensive literature on basic color terms. Since Kílta is a personal language for speaking in the modern world, it has a fairly wide color vocabulary, and does distinguish blue and green (pikwautin, ralin), unlike a grue (green-blue) language which unifies those colors under one term.

One thing I've done in Kílta, inspired in part by the articles in The Aesthetics of Grammar: Sound and Meaning in the Languages of Mainland Southeast Asia (Jeffrey P. Williams, editor), is to pay a lot of attention to how words are intensified. English of course has plenty of intensifying collocations — hopping mad, deeply concerned, etc. — but in Kílta there are quite a few intensifiers which only intensify. They have no independent meaning, and are often (apparently) root words.

A new intensifier I recently added is mó. It is only used with hichínin black, pikwautin blue, and ralin green. So, even though Kílta is not a grue language, I've hidden a grue tendency in the use of this intensifier.

Ummul në mó ralin no.
forest TOP deep green be.PFV
The forest is a deep green.

Mó hichínin mika në ël si alincho.
deep black stone TOP 3SG ACC shun
The jet black stone slipped from her grasp.

I extended mó in one other direction. Even though it is rather adverb-like, I permit it with kinta night to mean something like in the dark of night, for in a temporal adverb sense.

Ha në mó kinta otta si cholat oto vukai.
1SG TOP deep night sound ACC hear.INF fall.PFV DISAPPR
I happened to hear a sound at darkest part of the night.

Covert boundaries can be a useful way to think new things through.

Unknown Riches, Episode 3

I recently created a word for trout, mirëlcha /miˈɾəltʃa/ (no etymology). I probably don't need very many example sentences for food-related words — their usage is generally pretty clear — but examples for every new word is a habit now. I knew almost instantly that the phrasing of the obvious sentence was going to encode a distinction English doesn't make easily.

Ton në mirëlcha si chuvët akkalo tul?
2SG TOP trout ACC hunt-CVB.PFV capture-PFV Q
Did you catch any trout?

The center of the matter is the converb form of the verb chuvo pursue, hunt. In my part of the world, at least, people don't usually catch trout by accident, but have gone out specifically for trout. So, this sentence is able to encode that the speaker thinks the person they're talking to was out for trout, not just fishing in general. If I left out chuvo, the sense of the question would suggest that the trout was caught by chance, not the specific goal of the fishing.

By making Kílta primarily a V-language (according to the typology of Talmy), I set myself up for a pattern where events can regularly be decomposed a bit, with co-events or "activating events" encoded as converbs. Sometimes this leads to nuances that aren't simple to express in my native language, which is always fun.

Unknown Riches, Episode 2

I recently produced a sentence that made my friend learning Kílta ask which section of the grammar explained that use. Then I realized that not only was it not described in the grammar, I hadn't really thought about it explicitly.

Hakán ésamét kwan kwailo.
arm vaccine INST hurt.PFV
My arm hurts from the shot.

He wanted to know why the instrumental kwan was used here, when he would have gone for nós due to, on account of.

I have talked before about using a diary as a conlang tool. I am quite sure this sort of use of kwan started a while ago, but because the diary is handwritten, I can't easily search it to look for the first such use of kwan. Nonetheless, it was established early that kwan would indicate inanimate agents for passive verbs. The use of kwan in the example above is allied to that. It shows up in plenty of example sentences in the lexicon, chisanta kwan uttimo died from cancer, mata kwan atenko dissolved in the water, koska kwan haivo drown in shit, etc.

With a little thought it became clear that I was using kwan to indicate inanimate or indirect agents in patient intransitives (also known as "unaccusative verbs," an excessively cute and confusing bit of terminology). These are intransitive verbs where the grammatical subject doesn't have much agency in the situation, die, fall, be sick, happen, hurt, etc.

The detransitive suffix -is-o generally results in verbs with more patient-like subjects, so it, too, can take kwan in this sense, 

Chátis në mëtaula kwan kwitiso.
window TOP storm INST break.DETR.PFV
The window broke in (due to) the storm.

So here was a bit of Kílta grammar that was (probably) created in the diary, got used all over the examples, but hadn't been expressed explicitly until I got asked about what was going on. This is normal in the diary process. Certain use patterns develop because they seem right at the time, and over time take on semantics that can be hard to explain at first. In this case, I'm lucky enough to have someone ask me what I was up to with kwan. And now it's explained in the grammar.

Aka në rínchat no më - I will not fear

Years ago I started in on a Kílta translation of the very famous Litany Against Fear from Frank Herbert's Dune books. But I ran into a few problems I wasn't finding easy to work with, and rather than force it, I put the translation aside to marinate. I realized a few days ago I finally have the tools to address it in a naturally Kílta way.

Aka në rínchat no më.
Rínchot në, michumokës no,
Nekin uttimës no,
Mantin emémmiëtta no.
Rínchot si chérat no.       (5)
Aka si in hotekat in aimánat huitat no.
Rínchot në ohëchët, aka keta si michiëkan rinkat no.
Rínchot vë issa nen vura rokat no më.
Aka në anui vëchat no.

1) The canonical opening line is "I must not fear." Because the rest of the recitation uses the future a lot, I just put it in the future here. The film and TV adaptations of Dune all make their own modifications to the Litany, and the TV show used the simple future as well. I also use Kílta's high-agency first person pronoun, aka, which is more an aspiration if you're reciting this, but I find it a nice touch here.

2) I topicalize rínchot fear, and talk about it a bit. The word michumokës is a transparent compound, mind-killer.

3) Again, close to the original, "it is the little death" (no, not that one).

4) This is trickier. The original is "that brings total obliteration." I went with structural parallelism with line (3), [ADJ N no]. Emémmiëtta is a rather odd word, and means "that which causes destruction," in an instrumental sense. Often nouns derived like this are physical items. "It is a terrible instrument that causes destruction."

5) The closest equivalent to "I'll face my fear" in Kílta is rather aggressive, which I don't think is quite in keeping with the following lines. I use instead "I will acknowledge my fear," or even "I will feel my fear." The construction ADJ + chéro is normal for internal feeling expressions, which is supposed to be in mind for this sentence.

6) "I will allow it to go over and go through me." Very close to the original.

7) I use a converb clause for sequencing, rather than the nominalization of the original, "the fear having passed." Then I get to break out michiëkan with mind (attention) turned inward. There is a not often used suffix, -iëkan, which generates adverbs meaning in, inward, towards the center. The meanings are often idiomatic, as here. Michiëkan came out of some other vocabulary work I was doing, and once I had it I knew immediately it would work for this. I also use keta footprint, trace of passage, trace of existence.

8) "On the fear's path there will be nothing." Very close to the original, though again avoiding a nominalized relative clause.

9) A final declaration of agency, using aka, with the line very close to the original.

Translated out of Kílta:

I will not fear.
Fear, it is the mind-killer,
it is the little death,
it is a terrible cause of destruction.
I will feel my fear.       (5)
I will let it go over and go through me.
The fear having passed, I will see (its) trace by turning my mind inward.
On the fear's path there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

This remains quite close to the original, while accepting a few changes to meet Kílta's usual way of doing things, and few tweaks to make the style work better in the language. The last line lands a little flat and obvious in Kílta, and might still get some pragmatic refinements in the future.

Sending a Message

I have an ever-growing backlog of concepts for which I want to create new Kílta words. It gives me all the stress you expect from a todo list. One benefit of the delay, however, is that I regularly think up better derivations, or better nuance, if I have time to let a concept percolate a while before I commit to it.

One concept I've been thinking about is a way to indicate if a state of affairs communicates some other message. For example, if someone stops answering your phone calls, that says something. Often we can rely on Grice and experience to help us figure out when other messages are being communicated by someone's actions, but I wanted a way to be a bit more explicit about it. This sat on my todo list quite a while, and then just yesterday a good way to handle this presented itself: an auxiliary with a converb.

The verb ráno means signal, make a sign, as well as point out.

Eman në tátiën mai ráno.
child TOP dog LAT point-out.PFV
The child pointed at the dog

But yesterday it occurred to me that my send a message sense matches with this nicely. Now, a general converb followed by ráno marks that the state of affairs also communicates some other message.

Ha kë mës mítët ráno.
1SG DAT NEG speak.CVB.PFV signal.PFV
She didn't talk to me (which makes some other point, too)

Often an overt translation of this into English is going to be a bit clunky, but I've got growing pile of those in Kílta, too.

In any case, rather than creating a new clause-final particle or entirely new lexeme, I've just added to Kílta's substantial battery of auxiliary verbs.

Unknown Riches

A few weeks ago I was chatting with some conlangers, and we were talking a bit about some deeper issues in conlanging, especially around personal conlangs. I was extolling the virtues—not entirely coherently— of keeping a diary in your conlang. I said that you don't always know what resources you already have available when you want to create something new, but that inhabiting the language even a little, such as in a diary, will open up possibilities that might not otherwise occur to you.

One of Kílta's riches that occurred to me very recently, based on only a few uses of the diminutive, was that I could use to mark what is effectively first person possession when referring to direct line family relationships (grandparent, parent, sibling, child, grandchild):

Ommira në erniënto.
omm-ira në er-niënt-o
mother-DIM TOP TRANS-leave-PFV
My/our mother left.

With a little more thought I decided this could extend out to non-direct relations (cousins, nieces, etc.), if you grew up seeing them nearly every day.

Finally, I decided that with possession, you could use the diminutive to refer to family members very close friends you spent a lot of time with, especially while growing up.:

Ton vë ommira në erniënto.
2SG ATTR omm-ira në er-niënt-o
mother-DIM TOP TRANS-leave-PFV
Your mother left.

Since Kílta is a personal language, there aren't many opportunities for me to make use of the construction in this second example, because none of my childhood friends are ever going to learn the language. Nonetheless, I sometimes create things for Kílta to establish a general ambience, to suggest the full meaning of a construction, even if marginal functions of a construction aren't going to get much use.

When a conlang needs something new, it's easy to just create something entirely new, and often enough that's necessary. But I always enjoy finding preexisting material ready to be used to create some new construction or nuance.

Kílta Lexember 31: lamerun "in due course, in good time"

It's the last day of Lexember, so a time expression.

lamerun /læˈme.ɾun/ in good time, in due course, in/at the right time < lamerin round, plump, ripe + -un temporospatial suffix

The adjective lamerin covers a wide range of meaning, but one primary sense is that of culmination after a waiting period. Thus, ripe, plump, right time, etc. The suffix -un derives adverbs of place or time. It's not incredibly common.

Ton në lamerun katihëstat no re.
ton në lamerun katih-ëst-at n-o re
2SG TOP in.due.course understand-INCH-INF be-PFV PTCL
You'll understand in due course.

Here's another example of Kílta using the inchoative where English would be content with a simple verb. I could, I suppose, translate this "you'll start to understand in due course," but a lot of the time it's clunky to capture Kílta's inchoative too fastidiously in the English.

Lorátin Naram mëli rum!
Happy New Year!

Kílta Lexember 30: omulutta "earthquake"

I'm not entirely thrilled that today's word comes out looking a bit like breakfast, but these things happen sometimes.

omulutta /o.muˈlut.ta/ earthquake < om earth + lúto move + -ta nominalizer

Kílta has two entirely different stems for English move, one transitive, one intransitive. I've used the transitive one here, focusing on the effect (the earth moves things), rather than the merely describing the event in isolation.

Luikin omulutta vima si tuëmo.
heavy earthquake city ACC pound.PFV
A terrible earthquake struck the city.

This is exactly the sort of example sentence I like best, if I can pull it off — it gives two collocational usage hints. First, a bad earthquake in Kílta is luikin heavy, and second, the verb for earthquake destructive activity is tuëmo pound.

Kílta Lexember 29: tetila "joint, knuckle; inch"

I already had the word tetila with just the meaning joint. I've decided to extend the meaning to knuckle — a common enough polysemy — and through that to also mean inch (the measurement).

Tetila has no etymology. You can specify knuckle if you have to by using ol hand:

Pácha si chokët, ol vë tetilur kwalo.
table ACC hit.CVB.PFV, hand ATTR joint.PL hurt
After I hit the table my knuckles hurt.

To measure precipitation (the occasion for today's Lexember efforts), a secondary predicate construction is used:

Hëru tetilur mai mechuhítat no re.
hër-u tetil-ur mai me(ch)-uhít-at n-o re
8-PL joint-PL LAT CIS-snow-INF be-PFV PTCL
It will snow eight inches here.

Time and measurements are my hardest time learning natural languages, and not my favorite part of language invention. I'll get to the metric system eventually.

Kílta Lexember 28: oléla "gloves"

More winter weather vocabulary today.

oléla /oˈleː.la/ gloves

This is an eccentric reduplication starting from ol hand. A few pieces of paired clothing get not entirely predictable forms like this.

Samma vë oléla në vurël no?
fur ATTR gloves TOP where be.pfv
Where are the wool gloves?

Even though I've taken up weaving as a rage-absorbing hobby during The Covidities, and have added weaving vocabulary to Kílta, I hadn't yet committed to a word for wool. The polysemy I picked, from the already existing samma fur, is a common one. Two words settled with one example sentence.

Kílta Lexember 27: káhutiëha "bureaucracy"

Nearly all Kílta words are internally generated, either from derivation of existing vocabulary, or generated from scratch using my word shape generator. I do have a few borrowings, though, and those are confined to two main domains: places, especially country names; and very ancient cultivated plants and foods, with a few ancient technologies. Most of the borrowings that aren't contemporary place names come from languages of the ancient Near East, such as Sumerian via Akkadian, and some Egyptian. A few terms from from the Silk Road, for which I usually turn to Sogdian. Monta or something like it for dumplings, for example, shows up all along the silk road.

Today's word starts with káha paper, which is from Sogdian:

káhutiëha /kaː.xu.tiˈə.xa/ bureaucracy < káha paper + tiëha authority, power, rule

Tiëha is a usual compound element for -cracy words.

Iminachin káhutiëha katama si útauno.
RED-big bureaucracy workplace ACC dominate.PFV
A huge bureaucracy dominates work.

A representative of the bureaucracy is of course káhutiëhil a bureaucrat, the original word with the agent noun ending -il tacked on.

Finally there is káhutiëkkis, a piece of bureaucracy, piece of bureaucratic work, which could be paperwork or one of the many procedural rituals that warms the hearts of the process-oriented. A light verb construction with salko put, place generates the meaning assign someone a bureaucratic task:

Hiëmma si tirëtiu, nalaiku káhutiëkkisá si salko.
hiëmma si tir-ëtiu, nalaik-u káhutiëkkis-á si salk-o
revenge ACC give/1-PURP.CVB.PFV, further-PL bureaucratic.task-PL ACC put.PFV
To get revenge, he gave me more bureaucratic tasks.

There are a few arguments in the English translation that aren't explicit in the Kílta. Because the verb tiro give is only used when the recipient is a first person argument, that sets up the reasonable interpretation for the rest of the sentence.

Kílta Lexember 26: aroccha "boots"

Another seasonally appropriate word for people living in the temperate regions of the northern hemisphere.

aroccha /aˈɾot.tʃa/ boots, by default the full pair; no etymology

I entertained a few etymologies (relating to: foot, leg, to wrap), but nothing was satisfying, so I ultimately decided on an altogether new word.

Mechuhítirë so! Aroccha si relësti re.
me-uhít-irë so! aroccha si rel-ëst-i re
CIS-snow-IPFV ASSEV! boots ACC carry-INCH-IMP PTCL
It's snowing! Put on your boots.

The particle re is used to make imperatives less face-threatening.

Except for an attributive to maybe define the purpose or other qualities of them, there doesn't seem to be much call for special vocabulary around boots.

Kílta Lexember 25: ësta "gift"

Kílta has two separate roots for give, one when the recipient is the first person (me, us), one when the recipient is the non-first person (you, him, her, it, them). When terms are derived from a give word, though, the non-first person recipient one, ëcho, is the one used.

ësta /ˈəs.ta/ gift, present; bribe < ëcho give + -ta nominalizer (with some sound changes)

Emanur në rëtu ëstur si niëmo.
child.PL TOP much.PL gift.PL ACC receive.PFV
The children got many presents.

The usual give verbs, ëcho and tiro, can be used for giving a gift, but the light verb expression ësta si salko (lit., "put/place a gift"), is also regularly used, especially if the gift is not a physical object. With dative for recipient, ablative for the gift.

Ha në ël kë vúkur si ësta si salko.
1SG TOP 3SG DAT silver.PL ACC gift ACC put.PFV
I gave her some money (as a gift)

The adjective luikin heavy is used for a big gift that possibly incurs reciprocal social obligation, and lapin empty for a "small token," a minor gift.

Given the appropriate context, ësta also means a bribe.

Válekos në ëstur së si niëmirë hír.
sinecure-holder TOP gift.PL also ACC receive.IPFV PTCL
The sinecure-holder was of course also taking bribes.

The clause-final particle hír indicates that the statement follows naturally from what has come before.

Kílta Lexember 24: sussorë "woolgathering, abstracted, absorbed"

A simple but useful adverb today:

sussorë /susˈso.ɾə/ woolgathering, abstracted, absorbed, no etymology

This is almost always used with a posture verb (sit, stand, lie, hang), whether as a predicate or an attribute.

Ton në huchë sussorë sunko tul?
2SG TOP again wollgathering stand.PFV Q
Are you woolgathering again?

Ha në sussorë rinërin mauta si auttët, auníta si chaso.
1SG TOP wollgathering sit.PCPL.PFV cat ACC touch.CVB.PFV, startle ACC do.PFV
I touched the abstracted cat and startled him.

Kílta uses participles for things like relative clauses, "the cat that was woolgathering."

Kílta Lexember 23: lurusanil "parasite"

Another charming word today:

lurusanil /lu.ɾuˈsæ.nil/ parasite < lur breath, "energy" + sano eat + -il agent noun 

The breath, lur, in Kílta is also used idiomatically to refer to one's personal energy. Usually this is for the personal feeling, but I've grabbed it here for a more general sense.

Maras në lurusanilá si kacho tul?
kitten TOP parasite.PL ACC suffer.PFV Q
Does the kitten have parasites?

Kílta prefers kacho suffer to possession when referring to parasite infestation.

The adjective is lurusanohin parasitic.

Lurusanohin ús mácha si chuvët, akkalët, errelo.
lurusanohin ús mácha si chuv-ët, akkal-ët, er-rel-o
parasitic wasp spider ACC hunt-CVB.PFV, capture-CVB.PFV, TRANS-carry-PFV
A parasitic wasp hunted, captured, and carried away a spider.

Kílta Lexember 22: mënsekwa "restroom"

More household vocabulary today:

mënsekwa /mənˈse.kʷa/ restroom, bathroom < mënso wash, clean + -e/ikwa room/building suffix

An altogether transparent derivation.

The verb nuto means impel, urge, set in motion. It's used in the detransitive form, with a middle-like sense, to express the need to visit a restroom:

Ha në mënsekwa mai nutiso.
ha në mënsekwa mai nut-is-irë
1SG TOP restroom LAT impel-DETR-IPFV
I have to go to the bathroom.

In normal daily usage, absent other context, just nutiso by itself means the same thing.

Kílta Lexember 21: kwailëmës "sadist"

Kílta has a family of derivations centered on -ëmës "caretaker, cultivator." The word for doctor (or veterinarian) is esëmës, from es health. Today's words start with that:

kwailëmës /kʷaɪ̯ˈlə.məs/ sadist < kwailo hurt + -ëmës "caretaker" derivation

Kwailëmësá útan si ontirë.
sadist.PL matter ACC conduct.IPFV
Sadists are running things.

The light verb expression útan si onto is a fixed idiom meaning "run things."

The standard adjective derivation for -ëmës nouns is -ëmarin. For both the noun and the adjective form, the intensifier word is ívin (adv. ívui) savage.

Ívui kwailëmarin íhamal si ruiso.
savagely sadistic law ACC bind.PFV
They passed a deeply sadistic law.

Kílta Lexember 20: kuima "snail"

I realized that I didn't have a word for snail, which, I'll admit, isn't a word I use a lot, but sometimes you need to translate a conlanging meme.

kuima /kuˈi.ma/ snail, no etymology

Kuimur rëtu sotur së ën tuimata nen vëcho.
snail.PL many kind.PL also this swamp LOC remain.PFV
Many kinds of snail live in this swamp.

A word I do use more often, however, is slug, which is just lapin kuima a naked snail.

Lapu kuimur në ekiccha si sanár vëcho vukai!
naked.PL snail.PL TOP cabbage ACC eat.CVB.IPFV remain.PFV PTCL
The slugs keep eating the cabbage!

A converb + vëcho is a light verb expression that means continue to, keep on, etc. The post-verbal particle vukai indicates the speaker's displeasure about the situation.