[Proto-Ñyqy] Begin English translation
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# -*- eval: (require 'org-ref) -*-
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#+title: The Proto-Ñyqy People
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#+subtitle: Their Culture, their Language, and what we know about it
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#+setupfile: ../headers
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#+html_head: <meta name="description" content="The Culture and the Language of the Proto-Ñyqy people" />
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#+html_head: <meta property="og:title" content="The Proto-Ñyqy people" />
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#+html_head: <meta property="og:description" content="The Culture and the Language of the Proto-Ñyqy People" />
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#+macro: nyqy (eval (conlanging-proto-nyqy-to-org $1))
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#+options: auto-id:t
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#+subject: Proto-Ñyqy Culture and Language
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#+uid: https://langue.phundrak.com/en/proto-nyqy
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#+latex_header: \linespread{1.15}
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#+latex_header: \makeglossaries
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#+latex: \printglossaries
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* Foreword
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:PROPERTIES:
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:CUSTOM_ID: Introduction-Foreword-d22hjv20e5j0
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:END:
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Redistribution or sell of this document is strictly prohibited. This
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document is protected by French law on copyright and is completely
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owned by its author[fn:3] (myself, Lucien “Phundrak” Cartier-Tilet).
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This document is released for free in various formats on the author’s
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website[fn:1] and is released under the CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 licence[fn:2].
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If you got this document by any other mean than a website on the
|
||||
~.phundrak.com~ domain, please report it as soon as possible. There is
|
||||
currently no agreement with the author to redistribute it by any mean
|
||||
possible. If you wish to redistribute it, please contact the author.
|
||||
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This document is about a gls:conlang I created. However, it will be
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written as an in-universe document would be. Therefore, any reference
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to other works, documents or people will be completely fictional. If
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there is somewhere written that there “needs to be more research done
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on the subject” or any similar kind of expression, this simply means I
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haven’t written anything on this subject, and I may not plan to. As
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you might notice, the style of writing in this document will be
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||||
inspired mainly by the book /Indo-European Language and Culture/ by
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Benjamin W. Forston. Go read this book if you haven’t already, it’s
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extremely interesting (except for the part with the Old Irish and
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Vedic people and what their kings and queens did with horses, I wish
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to unread that).
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This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead,
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||||
to any real event, or any real people is purely coincidental.
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* Introduction
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:PROPERTIES:
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:CUSTOM_ID: Introduction-z8wgna40e5j0
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:END:
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** Language Evolution
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:PROPERTIES:
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||||
:CUSTOM_ID: Introduction-Language-evolution-mpo10x50e5j0
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:END:
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We are not sure which was the first language ever spoken in our world.
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Was there even one primordial language, or were there several that
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spontaneously appeared around our world here and there? We cannot know
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for certain, this is too far back in our history. Some scientists
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estimate the firsts of our kind to be gifted the ability to speak
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lived some hundred of thousand of years back, maybe twice this period
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even. There is absolutely no way to know what happened at that time
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with non-physical activities, and we can only guess. We can better
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guess how they lived, and how they died, than how they interacted with
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each other, what was their social interaction like, and what were the
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first words ever spoken on our planet. Maybe they began as grunts of
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different pitches, with hand gestures, then two vowels became
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distinct, a couple of consonants, and the first languages sprung from
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that. This, we do not know, and this is not the subject of this book
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anyways.
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What we do know is, languages evolve as time passes. One language can
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morph in the way it is pronounced, in the way some words are used, in
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the way they are shaped by their position and role in the sentence, by
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how they are organized with each other. A language spoken two
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centuries back will sound like its decendent today, but with a
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noticeable difference. Jumping a couple of centuries back, and we lost
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some intelligibility, and some sentences sound alien to us. A
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millenium back, and while the language resonates, we cannot understand
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it anymore. Going the other way around, travelling to the future,
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would have the same effect, except that we would not necessarily
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follow only one language, but several, for in different places,
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different changes would take place. As time goes by, these differences
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become more and more proeminent, and what was once the same langage
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becomes several dialects that become less and less similar to one
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another, until we end up with several languages, sister between
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themselves, daughters to the initial language.
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** Relating Languages Between Themselves
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:PROPERTIES:
|
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:CUSTOM_ID: Introduction-Relating-languages-between-themselves-7qp10x50e5j0
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:END:
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We are not sure who first emited the theory of language evolution;
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this has been lost to time during the great collapse two thousand
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years back, and only a fraction of the knowledge from back then
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survived the flow of time. We’re lucky even to know about this. It’s
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the Professor Loqbrekh who, in 3489, first deciphered some books that
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were found two decades prior, written in Énanonn. They described the
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principle of language evolution, and how language families could be
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reconstructed, how we could know languages are related, and a hint on
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how mother languages we do not know could be reconstructed. The
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principle on how historical linguistics are the following:
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#+begin_quote
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If two languages share a great number of coincidentally similar
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features, especially in their grammar, so much so that it cannot be
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explained by chance only, then these two languages are surely related.
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#+end_quote
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By this process, we can recreate family trees of languages. Some are
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more closely related to one another than some other, which are more
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distant. Sometimes, it is even unsure if a language is related to a
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language tree; maybe the language simply borrowed a good amount of
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vocabulary from another language that we either now of, or died since.
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The best attested languages are the ones we have written record of. In
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a sense, we are lucky: while we do know a vast majority of the written
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documents prior to the great collapse were lost during this sad event,
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we still have a good amount of them left in various languages we can
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analyze, and we still find some that were lost before then and found
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back again. The earliest written record we ever found was from the
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Loho language, the oldest member of the Mojhal language tree attested;
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the Mojhal tree has been itself linked to the Ñyqy tree some fifty
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years ago by the Pr Khorlan (3598).
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** Principles of Historical Linguistics
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:PROPERTIES:
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:CUSTOM_ID: Introduction-Principles-of-historical-linguistics-woq10x50e5j0
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:END:
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So, how does historical linguistics work? How does one know what the
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mother language of a bunch of other languages is? In historical
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linguistics, we study the similarities between languages and their
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features. If a feature is obviously common, there is a good chance it
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is inherited from a common ancestor. The same goes for words, we
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generally take the average of several words, we estimate what their
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ancestor word was like, and we estimate what sound change made these
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words evolve the way they did. If this sound change consistently works
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almost always, we know we hit right: sound changes are very regular,
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and exceptions are very rare. And this is how we can reconstruct a
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mother language that was lost to time thanks to its existing daughter
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languages.
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But as we go back in time, it becomes harder and harder to get
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||||
reliable data. Through evolution, some information is lost --- maybe
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there once was an inflectional system that was lost in all daughter
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languages, and reconstructing that is nigh impossible. And since no
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reconstruction can be attested, we need a way to distinguish these
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from attested forms of words. This is why attested words are simply
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written like “this”, while reconstructed words are written with a
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preceding star like “{{{recon(this)}}}”. Sometimes, to distinguish both from
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the text, you will see the word of interest be written either in *bold*
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or /italics/. This bears no difference in meaning.
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** On Proto-Languages
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:PROPERTIES:
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||||
:CUSTOM_ID: Introduction-On-proto-languages-qtr10x50e5j0
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:END:
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As we go back in time, there is a point at which we have to stop: we
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no longer find any related language to our current family, or we can’t
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find enough evidence that one of them is part of the family and if
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they are related, they are very distantly related. This language we
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cannot go beyond is called a proto-language, and it is the mother
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language of the current language family tree. In our case, the
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Proto-Ñyqy language, spoken by the Ñyqy people, is the mother language
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of the Ñyqy language family tree and the ancestor of the more widely
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known Mojhal languages.
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There is something I want to insist on very clearly: a proto-language
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is not a “prototype” language as we might think at first --- it is not
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an imperfect, inferior language that still needs some iterations
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before becoming a full-fledged language. It has been proven multiple
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times multiple times around the world, despite the best efforts of the
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researchers of a certain empire, that all languages are equally
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complex regardless of ethnicity, education, time, and place. Languages
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that are often described as “primitive” are either called so as a way
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to indicate they are ancient, and therefore close to a proto-language,
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or they are described so by people trying to belittle people based on
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incorrect belief that some ethnicities are somehow greater or better
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than others. This as well has been proven multiple times that this is
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not true. A proto-language bore as much complexity as any of the
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languages currently spoken around the world, and a primitive language
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in linguistic terms is a language close in time to these
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proto-languages, such as the Proto-Mojhal language (which is also in
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turn the proto-language of the Mojhal tree). The only reason these
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languages might seem simpler is because we do not know them and cannot
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know them in their entierty, so of course some features are missing
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from it, but they were surely there.
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Note that “Proto-Ñyqy” is the usual and most widely accepted spelling
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of the name of the language and culture, but other spellings are
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accepted such as “Proto Ñy Qy”, “Proto Ñy Ȟy”, “Proto My Qy”, or
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“Proto My Ȟy”, each with their equivalent with one word only after the
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“Proto” part. As we’ll see below in
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§[[#Phonology-Consonants-crlb9nn0h5j0]], the actual pronunciation of
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consonants is extremely uncertain, and each one of these orthographies
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are based on one of the possible pronunciations of the term
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{{{recon(ñyqy)}}}. In this book, we’ll use the so called “coronal-only”
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orthography, unless mentionned otherwise. Some people also have the
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very bad habit of dubbing this language and culture as simply “Ñyqy”
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(or one of its variants), but this is very wrong, as the term “Ñyqy”
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designates the whole familiy of languages and cultures that come from
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the Proto-Ñyqy people. The Tiltinian languages are as much Tiltinian
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as they are Ñyqy languages, but that does not mean they are the same
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as the Proto-Ñyqy language, even if they are relatively close in terms
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of time. When speaking about something that is “Ñyqy”, we are
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generally speaking about daughter languages and cultures and not about
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the Proto-Ñyqy language and culture itself.
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Note also we usually write this language with groups of morphemes,
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such as a noun group, as one word like we do with {{{recon(ñyqy)}}}.
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However, when needed we might separate the morphemes by a dash, such
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as in {{{recon(ñy-qy)}}}.
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** Reconstructing the Culture Associated to the Language
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:PROPERTIES:
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||||
:CUSTOM_ID: Introduction-On-the-culture-associated-to-the-language-oa3g5660e5j0
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:END:
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While the comparative method described in
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§[[#Introduction-Principles-of-historical-linguistics-woq10x50e5j0]] work
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on languages, we also have good reasons to believe they also work of
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culture: if elements of different cultures that share a language from
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the same family also share similar cultural elements, we have good
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reasons to believe these elements were inherited from an earlier stage
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of a common culture. This is an entire field of research in its own
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right, of course, but linguistics also come in handy when trying to
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figure out the culture of the Ñyqy people: the presence of certain
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words can indicate the presence of what they meant, while the
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impossibility of recreating a word at this stage of the language might
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indicate it only appeared in later stages of its evolution, and it
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only influenced parts of the decendents of the culture and language.
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For instance, the lack of word for “honey” in Proto-Ñyqy but the
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ability to reconstruct a separate word for both the northern and
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southern branches strongly suggests both branches discovered honey
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only after the Proto-Ñyqy language split up into different languages,
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and its people in different groups, while the easy reconstruction of
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{{{recon(mygú)}}} signifying /monkey/ strongly suggests both branches knew
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about this animal well before these two groups split up. More on the
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culture in §[[#Culture-of-the-Proto-Ñyqy-People-keflq2i0g5j0]] below.
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* Culture of the Proto-Ñyqy People
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:PROPERTIES:
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:CUSTOM_ID: Culture-of-the-Proto-Ñyqy-People-keflq2i0g5j0
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:END:
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While the Proto-Ñyqy is the most well attested cultural and linguistic
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family, the temporal distance between the Proto-Ñyqy people and us
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makes it extremely hard to reconstruct anything. The various branches
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of the Ñyqy family evolved over the past eight to twelve past
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millenia, and some changed pretty drastically compared to their
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ancestors. Therefore, do not expect an in-depth description of what
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their society was like, but rather what could be considered an
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overview compared to some other culture descriptions.
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** The Name of the Language
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:PROPERTIES:
|
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:CUSTOM_ID: Culture-of-the-Proto-Ñyqy-People-The-Name-of-the-Language-cknak9n0h5j0
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:END:
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First, it is important to know where the name of this language came
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from. Since it has such a wide spread in this world, giving it a name
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based on where its daughter branches went would give it a very long
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name, or with a shorter one we would have very boring or limited names
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--- the “Proto-Northern-Southern” language doesn’t sound very good,
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and the “Proto-Mojhal-Andelian” language leaves other major branches
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out, such as the Pritian branch which we cannot ommit, just as the
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Mojhal and Andelian branches. So, researchers went with the
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reconstructed word for the inclusive /we/: {{{recon(ñyqy)}}}. It itself is a
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coumpound word made up of {{{recon(ñy)}}}, which is the first person
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pronoun, and {{{recon(qy)}}} which is sometimes used as a grammatical
|
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morpheme indicating a plural --- it also means six, as we will later
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on, the number system of the Proto-Ñyqy people was a bit complex.
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** Geographical Location
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:PROPERTIES:
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:CUSTOM_ID: Culture-of-the-Proto-Ñyqy-People-Geographical-Location-fmfkumo0h5j0
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:END:
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It is often very hard to find the location of very old reconstructed
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languages, such as the Proto-Mojhal language itself which location is
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still not clearly known despite its name. But when it comes to the
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Proto-Ñyqy people, we have a surprisingly good idea of where they
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were: in the hot rainforests of the northern main continent, most
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probably near nowadays’ Rhesodia. We know this thanks to some of their
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reconstructed words which are typical for the other people that lived
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or still live in hot rainforests, and these terms are older than the
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split between the northern and southern groups. For instance, both
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groups have a common ancestor word for /bongo/, {{{recon(zebac)}}}, as well as
|
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for the /bonobo/, {{{recon(pawac)}}}, which are only found in these
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rainforests.
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** Society
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:PROPERTIES:
|
||||
:CUSTOM_ID: Culture-of-the-Proto-Ñyqy-People-Society-g29i52n0h5j0
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:END:
|
||||
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** Religion and Beliefs
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:PROPERTIES:
|
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:CUSTOM_ID: Culture-of-the-Proto-Ñyqy-People-Religion-and-beliefs-31mj52n0h5j0
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:END:
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** Personal Names
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:PROPERTIES:
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:CUSTOM_ID: Culture-of-the-Proto-Ñyqy-People-Personal-names-8ymj52n0h5j0
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:END:
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* Phonology
|
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:PROPERTIES:
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||||
:CUSTOM_ID: Phonology-imgb9nn0h5j0
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:END:
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** Vowels
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:PROPERTIES:
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:CUSTOM_ID: Phonology-Vowels-uvkb9nn0h5j0
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:END:
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** Consonants
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:PROPERTIES:
|
||||
:CUSTOM_ID: Phonology-Consonants-crlb9nn0h5j0
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:END:
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* Dictionary
|
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:PROPERTIES:
|
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:CUSTOM_ID: Dictionary-y2icocp0h5j0
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:END:
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** B
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:PROPERTIES:
|
||||
:CUSTOM_ID: Dictionnaire-B-ae79d268
|
||||
:END:
|
||||
|
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** C
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||||
:PROPERTIES:
|
||||
:CUSTOM_ID: Dictionnaire-C-29dc766b
|
||||
:END:
|
||||
|
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** E
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||||
:PROPERTIES:
|
||||
:CUSTOM_ID: Dictionnaire-E-54360434
|
||||
:END:
|
||||
|
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** G
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||||
:PROPERTIES:
|
||||
:CUSTOM_ID: Dictionnaire-G-5a9af03c
|
||||
:END:
|
||||
|
||||
** I
|
||||
:PROPERTIES:
|
||||
:CUSTOM_ID: Dictionnaire-I-a81a4697
|
||||
:END:
|
||||
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** J
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||||
:PROPERTIES:
|
||||
:CUSTOM_ID: Dictionnaire-J-88f57f6a
|
||||
:END:
|
||||
|
||||
** M
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||||
:PROPERTIES:
|
||||
:CUSTOM_ID: Dictionnaire-M-cccfd958
|
||||
:END:
|
||||
|
||||
** N
|
||||
:PROPERTIES:
|
||||
:CUSTOM_ID: Dictionnaire-N-0ef6f2af
|
||||
:END:
|
||||
|
||||
** Ñ
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||||
:PROPERTIES:
|
||||
:CUSTOM_ID: Dictionnaire-Ñ-ff7a574f
|
||||
:END:
|
||||
|
||||
** O
|
||||
:PROPERTIES:
|
||||
:CUSTOM_ID: Dictionnaire-O-cf8f0e3f
|
||||
:END:
|
||||
|
||||
** Ø
|
||||
:PROPERTIES:
|
||||
:CUSTOM_ID: Dictionnaire-8fcb6e1e
|
||||
:END:
|
||||
|
||||
** Œ
|
||||
:PROPERTIES:
|
||||
:CUSTOM_ID: Dictionnaire-Œ-0c780f53
|
||||
:END:
|
||||
|
||||
** P
|
||||
:PROPERTIES:
|
||||
:CUSTOM_ID: Dictionnaire-P-2b7ab301
|
||||
:END:
|
||||
- {{{recon(pawac)}}} :: {{{def}}}
|
||||
1. (n) bonobo
|
||||
|
||||
** Q
|
||||
:PROPERTIES:
|
||||
:CUSTOM_ID: Dictionnaire-Q-b1ec8323
|
||||
:END:
|
||||
|
||||
** S
|
||||
:PROPERTIES:
|
||||
:CUSTOM_ID: Dictionnaire-S-e9e187ae
|
||||
:END:
|
||||
|
||||
** U
|
||||
:PROPERTIES:
|
||||
:CUSTOM_ID: Dictionnaire-U-fa109e34
|
||||
:END:
|
||||
|
||||
** Ú
|
||||
:PROPERTIES:
|
||||
:CUSTOM_ID: Dictionnaire-Ú-c35e6434
|
||||
:END:
|
||||
|
||||
** W
|
||||
:PROPERTIES:
|
||||
:CUSTOM_ID: Dictionnaire-W-ea0cd36f
|
||||
:END:
|
||||
|
||||
** Y
|
||||
:PROPERTIES:
|
||||
:CUSTOM_ID: Dictionnaire-Y-a217cb68
|
||||
:END:
|
||||
|
||||
** Z
|
||||
:PROPERTIES:
|
||||
:CUSTOM_ID: Dictionnaire-Z-144a2853
|
||||
:END:
|
||||
- {{{recon(zebac)}}} :: {{{def}}}
|
||||
1. (n) bongo
|
||||
|
||||
* Private Data :noexport:
|
||||
:PROPERTIES:
|
||||
:CUSTOM_ID: Private-data-4kqa1530e5j0
|
||||
:END:
|
||||
#+name: glossary
|
||||
| label | name | description |
|
||||
|---------+---------+------------------------|
|
||||
| conlang | conlang | A constructed language |
|
||||
|
||||
* Footnotes
|
||||
:PROPERTIES:
|
||||
:CUSTOM_ID: Footnotes-uybi3030e5j0
|
||||
:END:
|
||||
|
||||
[fn:3] [[https://phundrak.com][phundrak.com]]
|
||||
|
||||
[fn:2] [[https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/][creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/]]
|
||||
|
||||
[fn:1] [[https://langue.phundrak.com][langue.phundrak.com]]
|
||||
@ -68,3 +68,4 @@
|
||||
#+macro: end-largetable @@html:</div>@@
|
||||
#+macro: def @@latex:\hfill@@
|
||||
#+macro: defnl @@latex: \hfill\\@@
|
||||
#+macro: recon *@@html:<i>$1</i>@@@@latex:\emph{$1}@@
|
||||
|
||||
@ -11,4 +11,5 @@
|
||||
\newunicodechar{’}{'}
|
||||
\newunicodechar{…}{\ldots}
|
||||
\newunicodechar{ }{~}
|
||||
\newunicodechar{ }{~}
|
||||
\newunicodechar{ }{~}
|
||||
\usepackage{glossaries}
|
||||
|
||||
Reference in New Issue
Block a user