Welcome to Gaia! ::

For now, here is like, all the crap I have just typed up for Halsuralangu. Please forgive the Notepad formatting... I'll fix all this and format it later once I have more complete notes. And don't worry, I'll separate things into different posts!

-- Description --
An extremely simplistic language with many English loanwords. Could almost
be considered a pidgin of English and an old, aborted conlang of mine.
"Halsuralangu" means "Language of Halsu." The outdated name would be
"Halsumanuralangu" which meant "Halsu peoples' language," but this form has
been dropped as it is considered redundant. In English you can call this
language "Halsish."

-- Development Notes --
*Avoid diglyphs and two-letter sounds
*Some sound shifting allowed (see R)
*Suffixes possibly "particles following a word"


-- Pronunciation Notes --
a - ah
b - b (may sound like p)
c - ts
d - d (may sound like d)
e - eh
f - f
g - hard g
h - h, aspirated
i - ee
j - zh
k - k
l - l
m - m
n - n
o - oh
p - p
q - tsh (ch)
r - English R/Spanish R #
s - s
t - t
u - oo
v - v
w - w
x - unvoiced th ##
y - voiced th/dh ###
z - z

# The R letter is pronounced as English R (smooth) when preceded or followed by a
consonant, but is a Spanish R (tapped) when preceded by a vowel or diphthong. Thus
"skris" is pronounced with a smooth R similar to English "crease" but "paperu" is
pronounced more like "papedu." Also, smooth R when start/end a word.
Some may find the R more similar to Japanese R, but it NEVER has an L-like sound.

## The X letter is pronounced as a typical English unvoiced TH as in "bath" or

"theory."

### The Y letter is pronounced as a typical English voiced TH as in "the" or "scathe"

NOTE ON DIPHTHONGS:
Diphthongs are pronounced 'logically' with each letter retaining its basic sound, but
smoothed into a continuous sound. Thus "aiu" is pronounced like "ai-yu" not "ai-u" or
"a-yu," unless a word is specifically noted to be pronounced otherwise.

-- Articles (Artikiulu) --
at - a, an (indefinite)
tet - the (definite)


-- Pronouns (Pronounu) --
*ALL pronouns end with -n
*All singular personal pronouns end with -n
min - I, me
iun - you
hin - him, her, it (nonspecific)
man - him (specifically male)
ern - her (specifically female)
tin - it (specifically neutral)

*All plural personal pronouns end with -nen (Singular +en)
minen - We, us
iunen - you (pl), y'all
hinen - them, they (nonspecific)
manen - them (male)
ernen - them (female)
tinen - them (neutral)

*Indefinite pronouns
non - none
son - some, a few, a couple
mun - many, several, a bunch, a lot, much
in - both, each, every
an - all
yen - other
ien - any
bon - either

NOTE: "sonen" or "plural some" simply pluralizes a noun

*Demonstrative pronouns
*These can take an +al suffix to function as adjectives
*Do NOT take a +en plural suffix, but works with "sonen"
sen - this, these
tan - that, those
yan - that, those (over there)

*Interrogative pronouns used only when asking a question
hun - who (interrogative, person)
wen - when (interrogative, time)
tuan - what (interrogative, thing)
duin - what (interrogative, action)
cin - which (interrogative, clarification of options (?))
ren - where (interrogative, place)
wain - why (interrogative, purpose)
fon - why (interrogative, intent/"for what")
haun - how (interrogative, means)
maun - how many (interrogative, how many/quantity)
qen - how much (interrogative, how much/amount)
cin - which (interrogative, clarification of options (?))

*Pronoun suffixes, added to an -n ending only
+en - plural form; emphasis to some pronouns (?)
+er - possessive form


-- Prepositions --
*All end with -b (?)
ab - by (passive subject marker?)
narab - near, by, nearby (location)
sanab - soon, nigh (time)
tub - to (used transitively with an object)


-- Nouns (Naunu) --
*All lemmas end with -u
paperu - paper
handu - hand
aiu - eye
malu - man
felu - woman
manu - person, human
nuru - food, nourishment, sustenance
muviu - movie, film, DVD (etc)
jovu - joy, happiness
partu - part, piece
vivu - life
langu - language

*Noun suffixes
+ra - possessive form


-- Adjectives (Ajektivu) --
*All end with -al
*Add L to an adverb to use it as an adjective (be wary of interpretations)
gual - good
bal - bad
hapal - happy
sadal - sad
anral - angry, enraged
contenal - content
hahal - spicy
ikal - bitter
upal - loud
serkal - round
senal - this
tanal - that
yanal - that (over there)
nesesal - necessary

nonal - none; not any
sonal - some, a few, a couple
munal - many, several, a bunch, a lot, much
inal - both, each, every
a**l - all
yenal - other
ienal - any
bonal - either


-- Adverbs (Adverbu) --
*All end with -a
*Remove the L from an adjective to use it as an adverb
gua - well
ba - badly

nona - none; not at all
sona - somewhat, some
muna - very, much, rather, quite, really
ina - individually
ana - all, wholly, altogether, completely
yena - otherwise, differently
iena - any
bona - either


-- Verbs (Verbu) --
*No differentiation between transitive/intransitive
bis - to be, copula
manqes - to eat, to consume
skris - to write
vius - to view, to look at, to see
ius - to use, to manipulate
tals - to talk, to speak
dus - to do
gos - to go
fus - (nonvulgar) to have sex with, to ******** - to have
hols - to hold, to reserve (hold back)
enqas - to enjoy, to like
apres - to appreciate, (to show thanks to)

*Verb tense suffixes
-s - present tense, infinitive
+i - past tense/preterite
+o - future tense; planned or assumed action

*Special tense adverbs
hasa - used with present verb: "am ___ing" (in progress)
used with past verb: "was ___ing" (was ongoing)
used with future verb: "will be ___ing" (will be ongoing)
used with verbal adjective: "a ___ing thing"

kisa - used with present verb: "is ___ed" (passive?)
used with past verb: "was ___ed" (passive?)
used with future verb: "will be ___ed" (passive?)
used with verbal adjective: "a ___ed thing"

tolsa - used with present verb: "have ___en/ed" (present perfect?)
used with past verb: "had ___en/ed" (past perfect?)
used with future verb: "will have ___en/ed" (future perfect?)
used with verbal adjectives: "a ___en/ed thing" (careful with this!?)


-- Miscellaneous --
ah - exclamation particle (always pronounced distinctly)
eh - confirmation particle (rising intonation)
nu - question particle (rising intonation)
..., iun eh? - personal inquisition ("..., what do you think?")
..., iun nu? - response request ("..., how does that sound?")


-- Examples --
Iun dus duin? - Lit. "You do what?" Trans. "What are you doing?"
Malura handu bis hiner aiu. - Proverb "A man's hand is his eye."
Tanal felu bis hapal. - "This woman is happy."
Tan bis hahal, ah! - "This is spicy!"
Tan bis hahal, eh? - "This is spicy, huh?" or "This is spicy, right?"
Tan bis hahal, nu? - "Is this spicy?"
Tan bis hahal, iun eh? - "Is this spicy, what do you think?"
Minen goso vius muviu, iun nu? - "We'll go see a movie, how about that?"
Min fusi iuner felu, iun nu? - "I ******** your woman, whatcha say to that?"
Min hasa fuso iuner felu, ah! - "I'll be ******** your woman!"
Min hasa bis bal, nu? - "Am I being bad?"
Min tolsa bis bal. - "I have been bad."
Nonal manu bis ilanu. - "No man is an island."
Bis hapal bis has jovu. - "To be happy is to have joy."
Min tolsa talsi tub iuner felu... - "I had talked to your woman..."
Man tolsa manqesi munal hahal fus. - "He had eaten a lot of spicy food."
Iun hasa manqesi muna hahal fus. - "You were eating very spicy food."
Senal sonen hasa skris bis nona gual, ah! - "These writings are no good!"



-- Usage and part-of-speech conversion notes --
EXPLICIT Cases (word MUST change):
Adjective as an adverb (drop the L)
Adjective as a verb (Add an S; prefer just using a verb with the adj.)
Adverb as an adjective (add an L)

IMPLICIT Cases (word can change, but almost never necessary)
Adjective as a noun (add N after the L; OR use an article)
Noun as an adjective (add L to the U; adding L is RARE)

ILLEGAL Cases (word cannot be converted)
Adverb as verb: Must use the adverb befor a verb such as "dus"
Noun as verb: Must use noun with verb such as "bis"
Verb as noun: Must use one of the special adverbs

Reserved (Post #4)

To say "reserved" as an adjective as in "This is a reserved post" you could just take the verb for "to reserve" which would be "hols" (literally "to hold"), then you would explicitly turn the verb "hols" into an adjective by adding "al" to the end: "holsal postu" (NOTE: using "post" in "postu" as a loanword).

But you're not done yet! Because "holsal" really has little meaning... I mean, really, what would "a hold post" mean? Kind of ambiguous. So, you should add "kisa" before the whole thing, making it "kisa holsal postu" which quite literally means "post being held." "Kisa" is a sort of adverb...

You can indeed just say "kisa holsal" which just means "being held" but using "held" as an adjective. This is because if you just say "kisa hols" it means "is held" as a sort of passive verb. In that sense, you'd say something like "Paperu kisa hols ab min" meaning "Paper is held by me."

One more thing! If you want to go alllllll the way and say "This is a reserved post" you would say "Sen bis kisa holsal postu." That's literally, "This is held post." If you want to be even more specific, you can say "Sen bis at kisa holsal postu" which just includes "at" which means "a" or "an" -- it's the indefinite article, but it's only used when being just a little specific about the noun, but the noun isn't referring to anything previously referenced (which would call for the definite article "tet" if you choose to use an article at all).

Reserved (#6)

So then, you could just as easily say "Sen bis at reserval postu." But of course, the connotation of using "reserval" instead of "kisa holsal" would hopefully be noticeable even if it is minimal.

You know, the former case (kisa holsal) would mean more like "I'm holding on to this post for now."

But the latter case (reserval) would mean "I'm setting this post aside so that you may not have it (or have it yet, at least)."

Makes sense, right? Pretty logical? Hope so!

Reserved (#8 )

I think 8 is plenty. I don't think I need a "misc" post, or an "updates and plans" post or whatever.

SO, now feel free t post! (Although I doubt anyone will have much to say yet, if ever)

Nice! XD

But "iun, nu?" only comes at the end of a sentence, it isn't used by itself or anything. I guess technically, it would just mean "You?" literally.

It's more of an idiomatic thing. If you said/typed "Min hasa skris, iun nu?" you would be saying "What do you think of the fact that I'm writing?" or "I'm writing, what would you say to that?"

I know I haven't clarified it well, but just a note here for now...

"iun eh?" is used when you just want a simple answer like "Cool!" or "Sure!" or "Nah!"

"iun nu?" is used when you actually want the person to reply with information, like, "Actually, that's a really good idea and I'm glad you mentioned that!"

Hmm. I guess by that logic, you kinda did use "iun nu?" in the right context, just not grammatically correct. XD


I'm definitely pleased that Halsuralangu is logical enough that someone other than me can finally make sense of one of my conlangs. domokun

I'm glad you like it! XD

So yeah, you pretty much did use "iun nu?" the way I intended it to be used. There'll be another, more verbose way, to just ask straight out "hey, tell me _blah_." But I'm not that far yet...

I do have a word for language, it's "langu" as in the name... "Halsuralangu" which is just a compound noun of "Halsura" (of Hals) and "langu" (language). And I'll just make up the word for "to like" right now *drum roll* "enqas" from English "to enjoy"

So then you could just say "Min enqas senal langu, ah!"

Or, you could elaborate just a teeny bit and say "Min muna enqas senal langu, ah!" which just means "I really like this language!"


Also, be careful, I'm bound to change things on a whim, and I've already made a few significant changes as a I realize what I've gone down is not what I really meant (or if I left something out and it compromises the whole system!).

Well, most of my conlangs are very dear to me... Anzer Pex, Danga, Maccetu, etc.

I want so badly to make progress on a conlang, but I end up preoccupied with making sure everything is just right. Each word has to fit perfectly, each grammatical concept has to work exactly how I want it to, and this often means more Research than actual Development.

So I decided... I'm gonna make a language that will WORK. That I can make PROGRESS on, even if it means I have to pull some silly tricks like cheating for the vocab (since most of it is and will come from English even if I have to twist it around so it's not just a cypher). This way, I have a reliable, easy way to crank out vocabulary as necessary, without the nagging feeling that I'm making "stupid words" that will "ruin" my conlang.

This conlang isn't mean to be some epic language handed down from the gods like Anzer Pex, or a natural-like descendent of Anzer Pex as Danga is supposed to be. I get to throw away all my usual inhibitions and just do whatever the heck inspirations I get and go with it.

What you see here is all there is to learn so far, but like I keep mentioning, this conlang is pretty much as easy to work on as it is easy to speak, so I'll be adding to this constantly, rather than tiny yearly updates like Anzer Pex gets. What you see here is all stuff I've come up with since about 10 AM today (my time... USA Central time).


Oh, and coffee energy drinks are a big boon to my creativity! *spaz*


EDIT:


It's more like just a really breath letter A. You don't have to make the breathy H sound after it, but it helps with the emphasis. There is no German CH in this conlang, but you could probably say, "..., ak!" with a hard K sound and still get the point across. :b