“Live shamed, and die empty.” – Camina Drummer

 I felt like this needed to be translated into Valthungian for some reason:

“Live shamed, and die empty.” – Camina Drummer 

“Kuiži skamiða, sljutu lēsa.” – Kamina Ǧamma

28 Ǧulis, 1612

I’ve been trying to make myself practice writing in Valthungian a little more, so I started keeping a journal with just a few lines a day. Here’s today, where I found myself very excited to have to make a distinction between thermometer and thermostat, and invent words for various types of gauges!

28 Ǧulis, 1612

Itma ist avrave klaþ hisdagis, ekiðo nī swē klaþ līka gistradag, þenis anstœuðins hehláþ -17°. Hisdagis sō hǭðuremi skal rǣkna 6°, eki sā winǧ, sā snǣjus, sā slǭta, þat rignu dōnþ þet·itm·avrava klaðiža þynča. Sā winǧ gœ̄žiþ! Itma ist windahuœuti:

‹ Windas avra, ižis magun gaslīðinins dōn, gitnaþ usbíðna, ǣða ǧuðan skegunþ.

Hǭðagustas: sunþǭstra 80 unsta 100 km/h.

Gastáþs: Skōte Njuge.

Huīlins: His undranis hitm·anþanǣča.

Inmēlinis: Windagustas avrista gitnaþ in gœ̄žim hǭðižam jā anþatma sǣjubanka usbíðna. Itma gitiþ usbíðna, þeti windas minǧnan hižis nātis fram wista ǭsta tō. Gaslīðins gatímbrinaro mag skegun, frisātis þrōvaskīvnaro ǭgadoraru. Gustas avra magun wǣtins lǭsans vrepna, ǣða astnas brečin. ›

Ik ǧukua þō vremin inþatm·ambǣča mīnin gā, eki gitnik tuismitan þī s·uremisčurins þatǣn þrjuþ siža. Ǭðagins ǣðik hātuskrœčin!

The original:

Rough translation:

January 17, 2022
It is very cold today, though not as cold as yesterday, which started out at -17°. The high today will be 6°, but the wind and snow/sleet/rain makes it seem much colder. The wind is wailing! There is a wind warning:

“Strong winds that may cause damage are expected or occurring.
Maximum gusts: southeasterly 80 to 100 km/h.
Locations: Nova Scotia.
Time span: this afternoon and this evening.
Remarks: Strongest wind gusts are expected over higher terrain and along the coast. Winds are expected to diminish from west to east tonight. Damage to buildings, such as to roof shingles and windows, may occur. High winds may toss loose objects or cause tree branches to break.”

I have turned up the heat in my office, but I suspect that the thermostat may be merely decorative. Fortunately I have a hoodie!

WotM Valthungian: šāþ

Šāþ [ʃɑːθ] n. chess.
 

WotM Valthungian: agiþǣša

I’d like to start posting a regular “Word-of-the-Day,” but I’m still getting settled on a decent format to use. Actually, it will be more of a “Word-of-the-Moment,” because I know I’m not disciplined enough to put something up consistently every day.

Please bear with me while I get some of the technical stuff sorted out and figure out the best way to post and keep this updated! In the meantime, here’s the first take:

Aesop's Fables: The Goatherd and the Goat

I haven’t posted about Maltcégj in a while, so here’s a little translation I did today:

aknatcéi ulaðrói’l ei natcéi’l

dydgiksá’m natcéi mrástanaho nétcni, rakfák pul zatcínt uğmína. dydbjýn badtcǫ́c nem aknatcéi ulaðrói’l pʌ́a, mal márdjal wirb. bleg dydnagɮatnúc pʌ. dydbrán nos pul éþryla, ei dydẏakt pul pája, ei dydnaxád paj ubícta natcéi’l. dydék cax aknatcéi ulaðrói’lok.

“vreiblegðák laðvéiǧulað,” dyðbrám pul natcéi’la.

“blei,” dydðák natcéi’l, “patáx ðak mes bict raknaxáduli péibji.”

blegnagkanrakstafád akólks.

The Goatherd & the Goat

A Goat strayed away from the flock, tempted by a patch of clover. The Goatherd tried to call it back, but in vain. It would not obey him. Then he picked up a stone and threw it, breaking the Goat’s horn.

The Goatherd was frightened.

“Do not tell the master,” he begged the Goat.

“No,” said the Goat, “that broken horn can speak for itself!”

Wicked deeds will not stay hid.

Lexember 2019 Kickoff

For Lexember this year I’m hoping to continue working on my gradual translation of Le Petit Prince into Valthungian. A lot of things have changed since last year, though, and the grammar has gotten a lot more solidified. There’s also been a minor sound change that I’ve been fighting with for many months. Before we jump into the vocab, I wanted to outline a few of those changes.

Adjective Phrases (with a few exceptions) are now mainly N-A. Pretty self-explanatory. This may eventually end up changing the way I handle strong and weak adjectives (or get rid of them completely), but so far those are the same.

The one sound change is that the i-umlaut of ‹ō› ([au̯]) is now ‹œu› ([œy̑]) instead of ‹œ̄› ([ø̞ː]), which is now exclusively the umlaut of ‹ǭ› ([o̞ː]). This contrasts with ‹au› ([au̯]), the umlaut of which is (and has always been) ‹eu› ([ɛu̯]). This is largely the result of all the futzing I was doing last year trying to settle on a pronunciation for ‹ō› and ‹ē› in the first place, which have been troublesome ever since I decided to get rid of the Stressed Long Vowel Raising rule a year or so ago. Anyway, that’s irrelevant here. The practical result of this is that the spelling of many noun, verb, and adjective forms has changed slightly.  Some examples:

• mōðra [mau̯.ðrɑ] ‘mother’; plural mœuðris [mœy̑.ðris]
• dōms ‘doom’; sundradœumin ‘to decide’
• sœučin ‘to seek’; sōfta ‘sought’

Along the lines of phonology, I also codified a rule that I had been applying subconsciously, but haphazardly – an extension of a rule already present in Gothic for creating compounds. In the simplest terms, when the first element is a u- or w-stem, ‹u› separates the words, e.g. alo ‘ale’ + katna ‘cup’ = alukatna ‘stein’. For an i- or j-stem, use ‹i›: e.g. hauge ‘hay’ + mēnaþs ‘month’ = haugimēnaþs ‘August’. Plain a-stems take no vowel unless the first word ends in a syllabic.

I hammered out a complex system of passive verbs in which different auxiliary verbs are used depending on whether the verb is intentional or unintentional by both the agent and the patient:

• gečin: deliberate agent and patient. E.g. Ik gatiða fergilðiþs forðat work. ‘I was paid for the work.’
• gitna: agent deliberate, patient inanimate or unintentional. E.g. Ik gat þis weris slaguns. ‘I was hit by the man.’
• þiǧin: patient deliberate, agent inanimate or unintentional. E.g. Ik þagiða þižas fœuðinis nutriškiþs. ‘I was nourished by the food.’
• werðan: inanimate or unintentional agent and patient. E.g. Ik warþ þis þljuðis angǣsiþs. ‘I was startled by the noise.’

On the subject of auxiliary verbs, I also decided to relegate skulna to the specific realm of obligation, while the contrived causative genǧin (from gangna) exclusively forms the future tense.

For Lexember this year I plan to place most of my entries into Contionary on Linguifex, and then link them here (probably with some additional explanation) and on Twitter and the FB Conlang groups and the usual places. I would encourage other Linguificers to do the same – especially if, like me, you’re bad at TeX formatting and just need something quick ‘n’ dirty. (If you’re a CWS person, they have their own unique Lexember format, but I still haven’t even figured out how to post my phonology on that monstrosity.) 

In case anyone is interested, I’ve also just completed work on the 2019 Valthungian calendar, which is brooding and complex, as you might expect.

Finally, I wanted to officially announce that there is a Facebook group for the Valthungian Language!  Actually, it’s been there for a while, but I wanted to wait a bit to make it public. So far it’s really mostly a place where I bounce around thoughts about things like changing the umlaut of ‹ō› to ‹œu›, but as the language becomes a little more stable and usable and the vocabulary grows, I hope that it will soon be a place where I can roll out lessons, texts, maybe even videos… we’ll see! Anyway, it’s here if you’re interested: https://www.facebook.com/groups/greytongue/. (There are a few questions to answer in order to join. This is mostly because an extraordinary number of people seem to be under the impression that the Valthungian Language, a.k.a. Sō Grējutungiška Rasta, is a secret language spoken by Rastafarian priests, and somehow, therefore, the group must be full of people who can tell you where to get weed. To the best of my knowledge, neither of these things is correct. Anyway, if you’ve read this much, you probably know the answers to all of the questions, and even if you don’t, that’s usually okay too, as long as I can figure out from your answers that you know which tree you're upbarking.)

Translation: Le Petit Prince, Chapter I

As a way to beef up some of my Lexember vocabulary, I decided to start translating Saint-Exupéry’s Le Petit Prince into Gutish.  I’ve completed the first chapter, and I thought I would present it here as a sort of Lexember supplement – if you look back over the last couple of weeks of Lexember entries, you’ll be able to see where most of the words come from! – and just to level up some of my nerd street cred, I’ve interspersed it with some random vocabulary, glosses, grammatical footnotes, and other language candy. Enjoy! 

- BPnJ

PS – I’m totally counting this towards Lexember Day 16… maybe Day 17 too, since I’ve been working on this for many hours and I’m well into the 17th by now!

Sā Līta Þjuðnils

Þenik¹ inþatma sǣstin wintra² mīnin was, saguok³ silðalikat biliþ in bōkan frāðatma forðumin walða swī «Insǣtis Dōviða» hehǣt. Þat gakátniða boaworm iži ǧus slǭk. Þarusǣjo galīkin þižas urǣtins:

1 No apostrophes when contracting inverted verbs or conjunctions with ik, is, or it, even if there is elision.
2 Age is measured in “winters” rather than years. If you are 30 years old, you are said to be in your 30th winter (even if it is summer).
3 The irregular past tense of sǣjun is such that it undergoes h-verschärfung in the preterite singular: saƕ → /sahu/ → /sagwu/ → saguo), but saƕt → /sahut/ → /sagwut/ → /sagūt/ → sagut in the second person.

Inþiža bōka þag kwiðnas⁴: «Þǣ Boans slūknaþ atlenǧa hantiǧuža iža inu īja kingun. Þanasīðis nī kutnanþīs wigna, jaþan īs slēpnaþ miðni þiža iftumina sǣs mēnaða disētinis.»⁵

4 Passive construction: þiǧin + past participle. 5 “Quotation marks” in Gutish are represented (in transliteration, anyway) as double-guillemets.

Þanu⁶ ǧupave mitaðik frāðos nenþins þis frumwalðis. Jaþan, avruðna lītis šugitœ̄ǧis, langok at skepin þō frumista urǣtin mīna. Þ’ōrǣtin mīna Reþia Ǣna. Sī swē galǣk⁷:

6 Þanu is roughly equivalent to jaþan. There is no semantic difference; only stylistic. 7 Galǣk, from galīkna, originally a weak class 3 verb (Got. galeikan < Pgmc. galīkāną), reanalyzed as strong class 1.

Ik ǭgiða þat ogumwerk mīn þǣm uswāsanam, jā im frā⁸ iva⁹ mīna urītni im gǣsiða.

8 Frā, past singular of frǣnan ‘to ask’, not to be confused with the preposition frā ‘about’. 9 Iva, a conjunction meaning ‘whether’, is the complement of java, the equivalent of ‘if’.

Ekīs¹⁰ andworðiðun, «Hū uns gǣšiþ hǣča?»

10 ekīs = eki īs.

S’ōrǣti mīna nī was biliþ hǣčis. Sī was biliþ boawormis iži disētiða ulvando. Þā urǣtik þō indǣl þis boawormis, duþa nī kunþun īja freþin þǣ uswāsnas. Īs þorvun sintīna skīrinin. S’Ōrǣti Mīna Reþia Twō galǣk swē:

Mik rerōðun þai uswāsnas þetik skyǧa bilīðna þos boaworma urǣtins, upnaža ǣða slutnaža, jā mik andaþrýsčin frā landwīsin, forgāftwīsinu, rǣninu, tungawīsinu. Jā inþis, bī sǣs wintrum, hindralǣðik hwā ī māte wisna wisnas¹¹ silðalika livansmēri pinguris. Ik was koroherts þiža dislínguna mīnan urǣtina reþia ǣna reþia twōžu.

11 This sentence is an excellent example of one of two ways that the perfect is formed in Gutish. Intrasitive perfects are formed much as they are in English, German, or French, by using an auxiliary verb (in Gutish, always wisna) followed by the past participle. So hwā ī māte wisna wisnas means ‘what might have been’.

Þǣ uswāsnas nījo wǣt hun sundra nī 

Þǣ	uswāsnas	n-ījo	wǣt	hun	sundra	nī
The.nom.msc.pl	adult.pl	not-ever	thing.acc	any.prt	separately	neg
Les grandes personnes ne comprennent jamais rien toutes seules

freþinþ, jā þat ist þǣm barnam afmœ̄ǧinþ, 

freþinþ,	jā	þat	ist	þǣm	barnam	afmœ̄ǧinþ,
understand.3pl.pres.ind	and	that	is	the.dat.pl	children.dat.pl	exhaust.cau.prs.part
et c’est fatigant, pour les enfants

in ǣjugins atlawǣtis at skīrin dū im.

in	ǣjugins	atlawǣtis	at	skīrin	dū	im.
in	eternity.acc.pl	all-thing.acc.pl	inf	explain	ben	them.dat
de toujours leur donner des explications.

Þā kǭsik anþra bihǣtan, jā ik lǣs luftuskipa drīvna. Ik im þlugnas fǭ atlaþaðu þis miǧingarðis, jā it ist sanþ þeti landwīsi ist mis wisnas bōta. In braugo ǭgins kan ik sundradœ̄min Čīna Arisōnu. Java sist frafáriþ in nāta, swalika kynþi sīja avrave galǭva.

In rynia mīnažas livanis gakwímik filo managas mœ̄tins wiðra filo managa swēgnilǭsa ljuða gā. Ik im filo managa dūlnas¹² miþem uswāsnam. Ik sǣjo im filo nēfua gā. Jā þat nī filo managa gabœ̄tiþ mīna mitan frā im gā¹³.

[In ˈryni.ɑ ˈmiːnɑʒɑs ˈlivɑnis gɑˈkwimˌik ˈfilo̞ ˈmɑnɑgɑs ˈmøːtʰins ˈwiðrɑ ˈfilo̞ ˈmɑnɑgɑ ˈswei̯gniˌlo̞ːsɑ ˈljuðɑ gɑː. ik im ˈfilo̞ ˈmɑnɑgɑ ˈduːlnɑs ˈmiθe̞m usˈwɑːsˌnɑm. ik ˈse̞ːjo̞ im ˈfilo̞ ˈnei̯fu.ɑ gɑː. jɑː θɑt niː ˈfilo̞ ˈmɑnɑgɑ gɑˈbøːtʰiθ ˈmiːnɑ ˈmitʰɑn frɑː im gɑː]

12 When regular processes cause /wu/ to occur in a closed syllable, it collapses to /uː/ (‹ū›). In the case of some class 2, 3, or 4 strong verbs with ‹w› immediately before the ablaut vowel, such as dwilna or swimna, this will occur in the past participle, e.g. dūlnas or sūmnas. 13 The other way perfects are formed in Gutish is represented here. Transitive verbs do not use an auxiliary; instead, the perfect is formed much closer to how the perfect was expressed in Gothic (although there was never a real Gothic perfect tense). The verb is conjugated normally in the tense most appropriate to the time being expressed, and the adverb gā is tacked onto the end of the clause – no awkward mucking about with participles or auxiliaries.

Þishwanu mœ̄čik ǣnan iži mis þūfta atlis šunskīr wisna, kǭsiðik þ’ōrītin¹⁴ mīna reþia ǣna, þō ī sintina wēriðik gā. Þarmiþ sōkiðik at finþna iva his ljuþs syninins kynþis was. Eki mis andhōvun sintina: «Þat ist hǣča.»

14 When a feminine singular noun that begins with /u/ follows the nominative or accusative definite article, sō+u or þō+u become, respectively, s’ō or þ’ō, hence þō urǣti → þ’ōrǣti. This is one of very few allowed instances of two subsequent long vowels.

Jaþan nī miðrœ̄ǧik nījo¹⁵ miþatma ljuða frā boawormam, nē forðumin walða, nē sternans. Jaþan mik anþnǣjugiðik þiža hœ̄þin is. Jaþan rœ̄ǧik miðitma frā briǧin, golvu, rīkiwitiu, halsgerðažu. Jaþan gabǭriða sā uswāsnas at mœ̄čin swē andaþāftna wer gā.

15 Double negatives! Oh no! While not obligatory, they’re also not wrong, and are sometimes preferred in phrases with negatives other than the explicit negative particle nī.