Earthy Language » Past http://www.earthylanguage.com Sat, 22 May 2010 23:59:35 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 The Ancestral Culture http://www.earthylanguage.com/2010/04/the-ancestral-culture/ http://www.earthylanguage.com/2010/04/the-ancestral-culture/#comments Fri, 23 Apr 2010 00:51:00 +0000 Brent http://www.earthylanguage.com/?p=691 Continue reading →]]> The Ancestral language was, of course, the creation of the Ancestral culture, that prehistoric but in no way primitive civilization which lies at the root of mankind’s modern family tree. It displays, for the most part, the characteristics of any earthy language, but the unique circumstances of its development undoubtedly explain several of its more unusual features.

First and foremost, the Ancestral language was a work of art that was, like music or dance, consciously and/or unconsciously shaped by its creators to reflect its native habitat — prehistoric South Asia. I believe this fact explains, for example, Ancestral’s very large consonant inventory, which could be used to convey (within the limits of the human vocal system) many of this environment’s unique sounds.

Second, the Ancestral language developed in isolation, with no apparent influence from any other human language. I believe this fact explains Ancestral’s high degree of regularity. Fortunately for us, this makes Ancestral a relatively easy language to learn.

Last but not least, at the time South Asia was very much a hunter-gatherer’s paradise, not without its dangers but with fairly few day-to-day challenges. I believe this fact explains Ancestral’s semantic preoccupation with the natural cycles of evolution, growth, and decay, as expressed in its vocalic patterns.

All this is not say that Ancestral was a static creation, fixed and unchanging. My initial attempts at the internal reconstruction of Pre-Ancestral suggest, for example, that it had three vowels, not five. Like any other natural language, Ancestral evolved over time in response to its speakers’ ever-changing circumstances. And thereby hangs a tale.

]]> http://www.earthylanguage.com/2010/04/the-ancestral-culture/feed/ 0 The Ancestral Sentence http://www.earthylanguage.com/2010/01/the-ancestral-sentence/ http://www.earthylanguage.com/2010/01/the-ancestral-sentence/#comments Tue, 19 Jan 2010 21:42:23 +0000 Brent http://www.earthylanguage.com/?p=532 Introduction

The usual order of the Ancestral sentence is SVO:

  • Mood
  • Indirect Subject
  • Direct Subject
  • Verb
  • Direct Object
  • Indirect Object
]]> http://www.earthylanguage.com/2010/01/the-ancestral-sentence/feed/ 0 The Ancestral Verb Phrase http://www.earthylanguage.com/2010/01/the-ancestral-verb-phrase/ http://www.earthylanguage.com/2010/01/the-ancestral-verb-phrase/#comments Tue, 19 Jan 2010 21:03:26 +0000 Brent http://www.earthylanguage.com/?p=639 Continue reading →]]> Introduction

The canonical Ancestral verb phrase consists of the following three elements in this specific order:

  • Role
  • Qualifier
  • Verb

Role

  • Indirect Subject /i/
  • Direct Subject /e/
  • Verb /a/
  • Direct Object /o/
  • Indirect Object /u/

Qualifier

  • Place
  • Possession
  • Number
  • Size
  • Shape
  • Motion
  • Color
  • Sound
  • Scent
  • Feel
  • Relationship
  • Gender

Verb

  • Preverb
  • Verb
  • Dependent Clause
]]> http://www.earthylanguage.com/2010/01/the-ancestral-verb-phrase/feed/ 0 The Ancestral Noun Phrase http://www.earthylanguage.com/2010/01/the-ancestral-noun-phrase/ http://www.earthylanguage.com/2010/01/the-ancestral-noun-phrase/#comments Tue, 19 Jan 2010 20:58:32 +0000 Brent http://www.earthylanguage.com/?p=635 Continue reading →]]> Introduction

The canonical Ancestral noun phrase consists of the following three elements in this specific order:

  • Role
  • Qualifier
  • Noun

Role

  • Indirect Subject /i/
  • Direct Subject /e/
  • Verb /a/
  • Direct Object /o/
  • Indirect Object /u/

Qualifier

  • Place
  • Possession
  • Number
  • Size
  • Shape
  • Motion
  • Color
  • Sound
  • Scent
  • Feel
  • Relationship
  • Gender

Noun

  • Prenoun
  • Noun
  • Dependent Clause
]]> http://www.earthylanguage.com/2010/01/the-ancestral-noun-phrase/feed/ 0 The Ancestral Adverb http://www.earthylanguage.com/2009/12/the-ancestral-adverb/ http://www.earthylanguage.com/2009/12/the-ancestral-adverb/#comments Tue, 15 Dec 2009 20:03:31 +0000 Brent http://www.earthylanguage.com/?p=516 Continue reading →]]> The Ancestral adverb typically precedes the verb it modifies and is normally introduced (or marked) by one or more  classificatory particles.

In Ancestral, an adverb is in origin a noun to which the head verb is being compared.

He runs like a deer.

]]> http://www.earthylanguage.com/2009/12/the-ancestral-adverb/feed/ 0 The Ancestral Adnoun http://www.earthylanguage.com/2009/12/the-ancestral-adnoun/ http://www.earthylanguage.com/2009/12/the-ancestral-adnoun/#comments Tue, 15 Dec 2009 19:34:23 +0000 Brent http://www.earthylanguage.com/?p=514 Continue reading →]]> The Ancestral adnoun typically precedes the noun it modifies and is normally introduced (or marked) by one or more classificatory particles.

In Ancestral, an adnoun is in origin a noun to which the head noun is being compared.

‘sky eyes’ i.e. ‘blue eyes’

]]> http://www.earthylanguage.com/2009/12/the-ancestral-adnoun/feed/ 0 The Ancestral Particle http://www.earthylanguage.com/2009/12/the-ancestral-particle/ http://www.earthylanguage.com/2009/12/the-ancestral-particle/#comments Mon, 14 Dec 2009 22:17:05 +0000 Brent http://www.earthylanguage.com/?p=507 Continue reading →]]> Every Ancestral verb, adverb, noun, or adnoun is normally introduced (or marked) by one or more particles. These particles (which might also be referred to as function words) create the framework of an Ancestral sentence and perform the work of English conjunctions, expletives, interjections, prepositions, pronouns, suffixes, etc. To date, I have tentatively identified the following Ancestral particles:

  • The Adpositional Particle
  • The Affirmative Particle
  • The Agentive Particle
  • The Augmentative Particle
  • The Collective Particle
  • The Commissive Particle
  • The Coordinative Particle
  • The Correlative Particle
  • The Demonstrative Particle
  • The Diminutive Particle
  • The Dual Particle
  • The Evidential Particle
  • The Expletive Particle
  • The Feminine Particle
  • The Interjective Particle
  • The Interrogative Particle
  • The Masculine Particle
  • The Mirative particle
  • The Modal Particle
  • The Negative Particle
  • The Patient Particle
  • The Paucal Particle
  • The Prohibitive Particle
  • The Pro-Adnoun Particle
  • The Pro-Adverb Particle
  • The Pro-Noun Particle
  • The Pro-Verb Particle
  • The Quotative Particle
  • The Singulative Particle
  • The Subordinative Particle
  • The Trial Particle
]]> http://www.earthylanguage.com/2009/12/the-ancestral-particle/feed/ 0 The Ancestral Verb http://www.earthylanguage.com/2009/09/the-ancestral-verb/ http://www.earthylanguage.com/2009/09/the-ancestral-verb/#comments Mon, 14 Sep 2009 22:55:48 +0000 Brent http://www.earthylanguage.com/?p=215 Continue reading →]]>

Introduction

The canonical Ancestral verb is composed of two distinct but interlocking elements:

  1. A biconsonantal semantic root
  2. A bivocalic stative transfix (infix/suffix)

In other words, the basic Ancestral verb takes the form C1 + V1 + C2 + V1 where:

  1. C1 _ C2 _ denotes the meaning of the verb
  2. _ V1 _ V1 denotes the state of the verb

The Ancestral verb also makes extensive use of various forms of reduplication.

An interesting feature of Ancestral is that every noun is in effect a “frozen” verb, that is a “being” (animate or inanimate) at a particular moment in time or space.

]]> http://www.earthylanguage.com/2009/09/the-ancestral-verb/feed/ 0 The Ancestral Noun http://www.earthylanguage.com/2009/09/the-ancestral-noun/ http://www.earthylanguage.com/2009/09/the-ancestral-noun/#comments Mon, 07 Sep 2009 22:42:28 +0000 Brent http://www.earthylanguage.com/?p=209 Continue reading →]]>

Introduction

The canonical Ancestral noun is composed of two distinct but interlocking elements:

  1. A biconsonantal semantic root
  2. A bivocalic stative transfix (infix/suffix)

In other words, the basic Ancestral noun takes the form C1 + V1 + C2 + V1 where:

  1. C1 _ C2 _ denotes the meaning of the noun
  2. _ V1 _ V1 denotes the state of the noun

The Ancestral noun also makes extensive use of various forms of reduplication.

An interesting feature of Ancestral is that every noun is in effect a “frozen” verb, that is a “being” (animate or inanimate) at a particular moment in time.

]]> http://www.earthylanguage.com/2009/09/the-ancestral-noun/feed/ 0 The Ancestral Vowel http://www.earthylanguage.com/2009/09/the-ancestral-vowel/ http://www.earthylanguage.com/2009/09/the-ancestral-vowel/#comments Mon, 07 Sep 2009 16:00:31 +0000 Brent http://www.earthylanguage.com/?p=183 Continue reading →]]> Introduction

In contrast to its unusually rich consonant system, the Ancestral vowel system is the picture of simplicity. It consists of the five most common vowels /i e a o u/, pronounced (I believe) in more or less the Spanish manner.

The truly remarkable thing about the Ancestral vowel is lexical, not phonological. Each vowel expresses one aspect of a single natural and metaphorical semantic sphere, namely “to be, to evolve, to grow, to live, to progress”. The nearest equivalents in today’s languages are (to my knowledge) the “sing, sang, sung” pattern of Modern English (an artefact of the Proto-Indo-European ablaut system), the vocalic transfix of the typical Semitic triliteral root, the sound-symbolic vowel hierarchies of the Tai language Zhuang, the onomatopoeic vocabulary of Japanese, and the demonstrative system of the Uto-Aztecan language Shoshoni.

The base vowel of every Ancestral word will have one of these five realizations, each of which indicates the specific “growth state” (literal or metaphorical) of that word.

The five cardinal vowels can be combined into twenty-five transfixes (the combination of an affix and a suffix), each of which can be used, for example, as a wonderfully compact tense marker.

Phonetic Analysis

  • [i] high, front, unrounded vowel
  • [e] mid, front, unrounded vowel
  • [a] low, central vowel
  • [o] mid, back, rounded vowel
  • [u] high, back, rounded vowel

Phonemic Analysis

  • /i/ high, front vowel
  • /e/ mid, front vowel
  • /a/ low, central vowel
  • /o/ mid, back vowel
  • /u/ high, back vowel

One Vowel Semantics

  • /i / the unforeseeable future, far ahead, the dreamtime, the mythological future
  • /e/ the foreseeable future, ahead, young, growing, waxing, living
  • /a/ the present, here, now, peaking, mature, climax
  • /o/ the remembered past, behind, old, fading, waning, dying
  • /u/ the unremembered past, far behind, the dreamtime, the mythological past

Two Vowel Semantics

  • /i_i/ the distant future > the distant future
  • /i_e/ the distant future > the foreseeable future
  • /i_a/ the distant future > the present
  • /i_o/ the distant future > the remembered past
  • /i_u/ the distant future > the distant past
  • /e_i/ the foreseeable future > the distant future
  • /e_e/ the foreseeable future > the foreseeable future
  • /e_a/ the foreseeable future > the present
  • /e_o/ the foreseeable future > the remembered past
  • /e_u/ the foreseeable future > the distant past
  • /a_i/ the present > the distant future
  • /a_e/ the present> the foreseeable future
  • /a_a/ the present > the present
  • /a_o/ the present > the remembered past
  • /a_u/ the present > the distant past
  • /o_i/ the recent past > the distant future
  • /o_e/ the recent past > the foreseeable future
  • /o_a/ the recent past > the present
  • /o_o/ the recent past > the recent past
  • /o_u/ the recent past > the distant past
  • /u_i/ the distant past > the distant future
  • /u_e/ the distant past > the forseeable future
  • /u_a/ the distant past > the present
  • /u_o/ the distant past > the recent past
  • /u_u/ the distant past > the distant past

Two Vowel Chart

i_i i_e i_a i_o i_u
e_i e_e e_a e_o e_u
a_i a_e a_a a_o a_u
o_i o_e o_a o_o o_u
u_i u_e u_a u_o u_u
]]> http://www.earthylanguage.com/2009/09/the-ancestral-vowel/feed/ 0