Owlbread/Dwarfhoplite Proposition

Introduction

This is a fairly old language proposition dating back to the original "Edification of a Dwarven Language" thread on the suggestions board. It is essentially the culmination of lots of long discussions between a number of users, though the original framework was created by myself (Owlbread) with lots of edits and suggestions from Dwarfhoplite.

It is a very, very simple language that was actually designed so that it would be easy for speakers of Indo-European languages like English to learn and speak fluently as a conlang, rather than just a language for the Dwarves in the game. Grammar is based on the Scottish Gaelic, Russian, English and German languages, relying heavily on particles, word order and repetition to show meaning. The language is obviously very Indo-European centric, but that is largely because we couldn't find anyone who spoke a non-Indo-European language like Mandarin Chinese or Arabic to help us. Dwarfhoplite may have included some inspiration from his native Finnish, though I am unsure if you can identify the influence.

There is currently no phonology associated with this proposition; we thought that the community should really make the decision on that and it wouldn't really be our place to determine how Dwarfish should sound in someone's head. This is obviously still a work in progress; we only got so far with it before we eventually gave up, but there's still a lot in this suggestion to work on. You will also see that we were amateurs without much knowledge of linguistic terminology, but we have done our best.

Some Basics

To introduce you to the language, I have an example sentence written here in the formal register:

Amavalkoroz abod akber - "I love to strike the earth."

And an example sentence written in a very familiar/insulting register:

Undrosh ererfath azreked azanglinem - "You are a corpulent, red faced sack of butter."

The first thing you will notice when you read sentences written in the language may be that there is a lot of meaning packed into 4 words or even less. That is because this language relies heavily on the use of little linguistic particles like "am" or "az" or "-tun". The language still relies mostly on Toady's established Dwarven vocabulary, so we haven't tried to add any more words in besides ones that we absolutely had to.

The most significant is the verb "to be", which does not currently exist in Toady's Dwarfish. Our proposition is below:

To be - "Un"

Negative – Ba. This is used when you want to say "I am not". If you wanted to say "I am not a cat a cat, you are a cat" you say "Banunkorozkun undarozkun". Notice how it would have been hard to say "ba-un", so for a verb that begins with a vowel you just add an "n".

To say Yes and No;

Yes – Uth
No – Bath

It is equally possible however to just use the verb in the positive or negative, as is done in Irish and Scottish Gaelic, as well as Russian.

An example:

Are you a cat? - "Undarozkun?" - Questions are currently formed with a question mark as a placeholder, though that will eventually be solved with some kind of particle prefix/suffix.

Yes, I am a cat. - "Uth unkorozkun."

Or, as an alternative:

Are you a cat? - "Undarozkun?"

I am a cat. - "Unkorozkun."

The same applies to the negative:

"Bath banunkorozkun" - No I am not a cat.
"Banunkorozkun" - I am not a cat

Pronouns

Pronouns are gender neutral (i.e. no masculine/feminine) and are divided into formal, informal categories.

These are the formal pronouns:

singular 1st person = koroz
singular 2nd person = daroz
singular 3rd person = beroz
plural 1st person = koroztun
plural 2nd person = daroztun
plural 3rd person = beroztun

These are the informal pronouns:

singular 1st person = kroz
singular 2nd person = droz
singular 3rd person = broz
plural 1st person = kroztun
plural 2nd person = droztun
plural 3rd person = broztun

If you want to show affection/familiarity with a person, this is done through another mechanism. Simply change the harsh "z" sound to "sh" in the pronouns. This can be done to both formal and informal nouns, meaning that if a child is speaking to an elderly relative and want to show affection for them without showing them disrespect, they will use formal pronouns with the familiar mutation.

These are the familiar formal pronouns:

singular 1st person = korosh
singular 2nd person = darosh
singular 3rd person = berosh
plural 1st person = koroshtun
plural 2nd person = daroshtun
plural 3rd person = beroshtun

These are the familiar informal pronouns:

These are the informal pronouns:

singular 1st person = krosh
singular 2nd person = drosh
singular 3rd person = brosh
plural 1st person = kroshtun
plural 2nd person = droshtun
plural 3rd person = broshtun

The "-tun" particle is used to show plural and can be applied to any nouns.

Depending on the tone of your words, informal and familiar register together can either mean you are very close to a person, or you are insulting them.

Here are some example insults:

"Ulorkroz akmabdug azdrosh" - "I drank your ale"
"Urzatkroz akertun azdrosh" - "I will stab your eyes"
"Urdebuthgurtun akunol azdrosh" - "Demons will eat your soul"
"Urarrosnomtun akdrosh mol(?) dum azmamgoz" - "May the gods throw you into the mouth of a dragon"
"Zurgastdrosh aktig aglibash azmonom" - "Cleave a s*** with a paper axe".

Verbs

Verbs conjugate in tense, subject and in count.

To tell the subject of the verb, the pronoun is used as a suffix. To emphasize the verb, the verb body is simply repeated.

love = aval
we = koroztun

we love = aval-koroztun - avalkoroztun
we love a lot/we really love = aval-aval-koroztun - avalavalkoruztun

To tell the tense of the verb we use special particles as prefixes; the "general form" and the "continuous form".

present tense general: -unga (I strike the earth = ungabodkoroz) note that the other "a" disappears.
present tense continuous: -un (I'm striking the earth = unabodkoroz)

imperfect tense general: -ulga
imperfect tense continuous: -ul

perfect tense general: ? (incomplete)
perfect tense continuous: ?

pluperfect tense general: ?
pluperfect tense continuous: ?

future tense general: -urga
future tense continuous: -ur

Adjectives

Adjectives are placed at the end of the word that the adjective is describing, like in French or Celtic languages.
To emphasize the adjective, it is repeated (much like verbs).
In plural words the plural suffix "-tun" is placed after the adjective.
The "-il" suffix is used to make adjectives from nouns (blood = nazush) (bloody= nazush-il)

bloody dagger= urist-nazush-il - uristnazushil
very bloody dagger= urist-nazush-il-nazush-il - uristnazushilnazushil
bloody daggers= urist-nazush-il-tun - uristnazushiltun

cat = kun
white = volal

white cat - volal-kun - volalkun
very white cat - volal-volal-kun - volalvolalkun
very brave and very white cat - atast-atast-volal-volal-kun - atastatastvolalvolalkun
very white and very brave cat - volal-volal-atast-atast-kun - volalvolalatastatastkun

One question you may have is "how do I say very white and brave cat? Rather than very white and very brave?"

That is easy. Simply repeat the adjectives in the correct order:

very brave and white cat - atast-volal-atast-volal-kun - atastvolalatastvolalkun
very white and brave cat - volal-atast-volal-atast-kun - volalatastvolalatastkun

Grammatical cases

The "case endings" as they're often called are actually "case prefixes" in Dwarfish, so you would have:

nominative: *none*
accusative: -ak
dative: -am
genitive: - az
vocative: -af
instrumental: -ag

I also recommend using the dative for the indirect object i.e. "I give the book to you", "book" is the direct object and takes the accusative and "you" take the dative because you are the indirect object. That's what they do in German anyway, and I think it really frees up the sentence structure.

The dative case is used to show the indirect object of a sentence, just like in German.

Examples

Accusative:

They love bloody daggers: avalberoztun akuristnazushiltun

Dative:

They sing a song to them: osalberoztun akosal amberoztun

Beroztun - "they" osalberoztun

Genitive:

The book of lies: thikut azostun

Vocative (as seen in Celtic languages):

Urist!: afurist

Urist, you are very brave: unafurist atastatast

Instrumental:

Geshud walks with Monom: berdangeshud agmonom

Conclusion

That's about as far as we got, I'm afraid. Maybe I will add some more features to this as time goes on, hopefully you can read this and find some inspiration for your own work on languages.

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