The Release of Sesnezóne into the Wild

I spent the second half of January looking for jobs and trying to get into grad school for the fall, so I didn't make much more progress with Sesnezóne. I had said, however, that I would release it on February 1, regardless of the condition it was in, and I will stick to that. It's just supposed to be a seed, anyway.

HERE IT IS! (Google Drive)

Word of the Day #4: Snow

Nevashi/Asheaél: sibó
ea-luna: nuti
Sesnezóne: sibzan

Word of the Day #3: Spider

ea-luna: ama
Nevashi (Ianea): noshodupu
Nevashi (Ashea): shodu
Laozhea: ebetsa

Word of the Day #2: Seed

English: seed
Nevashi: bov
Laozhea: esumena (edible), usumena (inedible)
ea-luna: mapu
Sesnezóne: sesne

Word of the Day #1: Frog

English: frog

Nevashi: kuka

Laozhea: elena (small, inedible frog), ulena (large, edible frog), eluna (toad)

ea-luna: mawa

...Time to go create a word for frog in Sesnezóne.

Things to Translate.

Translation is one of the best ways to find and patch the holes and weak spots in your conlang. But what to translate? This is your lucky day! I am going to post some links to things you might consider translating. 

One of the standards is the "Babel text" or the story of the tower of Babel from the Bible. That's Genesis 11: 1-9. I am going to link that from Bible Gateway because you can switch between English translations there pretty easily, and that can be useful in deciding how to translate it yourself. LINK OF BABEL

If you aren't into the Bible so much, you might try The North Wind and the Sun. It is one of Aesop's fables and there are several slightly different versions floating around out there. Here's one of them: NORTH WIND AND THE LINK

Looking for some sentences of increasing complexity to have a go at? How about Graded Sentence for Analysis? SENTENCES FOR LINK

If that's not your cup of hot caffeinated beverage, you might try the American Book Review's 100 Best First Lines from Novels: NOVELLINK

But what if you're well beyond translating sentences or short passages? Project Gutenberg to the rescue! Two popular choices are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and The Tale of Peter Rabbit. If that's too juvenile for you, perhaps you could try Metamorphosis -- nothing is more Kafkaesque than Kafka. If that's not your style, perhaps you'd like to have a stab at Pride and Prejudice. Still not your style? Check your bookshelves! You've undoubtedly got something good there!

Sesnezóne: A Seed Language. A Language Seed.

I had intended to use Lexember to work on a one-month, one-off, minimalist conlang, but that didn't work out due to finals and family, so I was excited when I saw Languary on Tumblr. We're half-way through the month, and my languary project is coming right along. It has some of the same basic ideas I am using in Shelis/Shellese, another project I've been working on, but it's certainly not the same language by any means.

My vision for this project is as a "seed language" for some collaborative conlanging. I'd like to put it out there on the February 1 for people to expand, remix, and use as they see fit, preferably with each other. It's a sort of Play Auxiliary Language-- a linguistic toy I am sharing with other kids on the playground, so to speak. I don't know if anyone will play along, but I'll offer it up, anyway. I certainly hope that someone better than me at designing writing systems comes along.

In the meantime, there's a lot more work for me to do to get it into shape before the official release date. I am having a good deal of fun with it, and I hope other people will too.

Sesnezóne: A Seed Language

Vowels: a æ e i ɔ o u  <a á e i ó o u>  Diphthongs: ai au
Consonants: b p t d k g l m n h s z ʃ ʒ f v j <b p t d k g l m n h s z c j f v y>

Syllables: (C)V(C) ; Stress (TBD—penultimate?)

Flexible SVO; [S(InO/Oblique)VO]; pronouns are obligatory.

Nouns and Pronouns use the same case and number markings in the order: root-number-case.   Pronouns: 1^st  ye / 2^nd  tó / 3^rd  ku

Plural: -se

Cases: Nominative (null), Accusative (-mim), Ablative (-ken), Locative (-bai), Instrumental (-vif), Dative (-tui), Genitive (-sis)

Articles:  definite: yi ; indefinite: go (=one) /Demonstratives: cu (this), ze (that), jen (that over there); Articles and demonstratives occur to the left of the noun.

Adjectives follow nouns they modify. Cardinal numbers come before the noun, but ordinal numbers follow the noun. Adverbs usually follow the verbs they modify. Relative clauses follow the noun and begin with cue.

Verbs: Every verb contains one of the 7 verb roots, which can be used alone or as part of a compound or derived word. Verbs are not marked for person or number. Adverbs/Adverbial phrases follow the verb, before the Object [in the usual word order].

The 7 verb roots:  Be, si; do/make, fa; have, ge; go, lá; say, zó; think, tu; perceive (physical senses), ko

Past  -na, Historical  Past -nana; Future -cá

Causative ke- , Potential an-, Conditional pe-, Imperative -zu; Perfect is expressed by putting “manu” (“already”) before the verb, rather than in its usual place following the verb; Inceptive prefix ses- (before other prefixes) Hearsay-evidential omne-

Negation: Double negation with negation (lo) at front of sentence and as the last element of the verb: lo… verb(lo), except with the imperative, where it appears only at the end of the verb.

Questions:

Polar (Y/N): Begin with question particle, gá.  Gá tó si go bayen? (Gá you are a person? = Are you a person?)

Interrogative words appear where they would in a declarative sentence. Who= gába What= gáne Where= gáhe When= gáhá  Why= gádón How= gáko

Prepositional phrases appear directly after the thing that they describe. (As in English: the book on the shelf)

Other Affixes (often also used as roots):

Toward/Together hu-

·         kehusi, attach, combine

·         hulá , go to

·         huculá, come

Away from/Apart va-

·         kevasi, separate

·         kevafa, cut off, slice (causative+apart+be)

·         kelá, to leave, go away from

Tool -fi

Person -ba

Person (Participant/Occupational) –fása

Place –hema

Thing (concrete/observable) -ne

Thing/Idea (abstract/unobservable) -ua

Time (of/for) -hánu

Group of  -dos

·         fiendos, toolset

·         hemados, area

Hard/Solid dó

·         dótu, believe (as a sort of “hardened” or more concrete thought)

Soft/Liquid  mai-

·         maitu, feel (emotionally, or gut feeling about something, a “softer” thought)

Nominalizer(General) –(y)en [insert ‘y’ following vowels except i.]

·         dosen, group

·         bayen, person

·         fien, tool

Adj  -(y)ec (y following vowels except i)

·         dóyec, hard, solid

·         maiec, soft, liquid, fluid

Adv -mu, -nu

·         vamu, apart, separately

·         humu, together

·         vanu, from, away from

·         hunu, to, toward

dón, because

sua, if  (…fia, then)

kinca, although

hádo, since

lona, despite, in spite of

ses begin (root); inceptive when prefixed to another verb

sesne: seed, starting point

sesua: (a) beginning

sessi, to become

sesfa, to begin, start (to do something)

seslá, to begin (to move)

zóne – language

lázófi – (mobile) telephone 

Sesnezóne by Mia DeSanzo is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.