#Ixaili Language

[ixaili]

Ixaili Terms -- Races and Beings

Traditional Name (Colloquial/New Ixali name) -- Definition (New definition)

Âñiz (Tsupuâi) -- Firbolg (lit. Friend of the Cows)

C'œn' -- Goblin

C'ɵmei -- Vengeful spirit, Revenant 

Câñonu (nguoāzi) -- Vampire (lit. One who Bloodlets. Also the term for a bad physician)

Chuācecunāu -- Illphai Fey, lit. “Dark Fey”

Chuāce -- Fey/Isneaqian

Chuācengâni -- Archfey, also term for the Ancient Fey, lit. “Ancient Fey”

Chuāceshāuh -- Ixaili word for their race, literally translates as “Celestial Fey”

Chuācesico -- Ja’qín Fey, lit. “Knowledge Fey”

Chuācewiñochl -- Viezan Fey, lit. “Corrupt Fey”

Chuācezāuuz -- Xhorán Fey, lit. “Crystal Fey”

Citeni -- Aarakocra/Bird folk

Cunāutsxmixi -- Dark elf/Drow

Iñeil -- Zombie

Inuâi -- Demon

Jepāla (Chuācâi) -- Aasimar/Angel (lit. One of Heaven)

Lichɤ -- Demigod

Luh (Tɤn’lepuātchl) -- Human, (lit. Quick [fast dying] Mortal)

Ngâño (Pumetshau) -- Tiefling/Devil folk (lit. pretty devil)

Ngici -- Orc

Ngipuā -- Half-Orc

Nɤtlwán (Jotâni) -- An Ixaili that lost their magic (lit. One of The Corrupt. Also a term for politicians)

Pume -- Devil

Shichlâi -- Djinn, lit. “One of Fire”

Szeichlt -- [a] god

T'âchlyœ -- Giant

Tseilochl cinen' -- Ghoul, ghost, lit. “lost soul”

Tshox -- Spirit

Tshuchitchl -- Triton

Tshuchl’cetchl’shichlâ’uāi (Ngiñitchl) --  Elemental, lit. One of Air, Earth, Fire, and Water

Tshuxli -- Catchall term for non-Ixaili humanoids, lit. One of Flesh

Tsouti (Wuāngiñitchl) -- Genasi (lit. Half Elemental)

Tsuâ -- Siren

Tsúchuāchlt (Puez) -- Shifter (lit. One who changes)

Tsuhqix (Wuāt'âchlyœ) -- Goliath (lit. Half giant)

Tsxmixi (Wuāchuāce) -- Elf (lit. Half-Fey)

Tsyœnuchl (Ngâcheli)-- Merfolk (lit. One of the Sea)

Tsziniun’ -- Gnome

Túli -- Changeling

Tɤn -- Mortal

Uācuâtu -- Taxabi/Cat folk

Wuātsxmixi -- Half-Elf

Xúpuāhi -- Lizardfolk

Xɵchy (Tuxl) -- Dragon

Xɵchyi -- Dragonborn (lit. One of the Dragons)

Zueituātshuz (Witœ) -- Lycanthrope, Werewolf, lit. Wolf of the Moon

Zɤcecā -- [The] God(s)

[the-eldritch-it-gay]

In Ixaili, there are frequently 2 words when it comes to titles/professions. Commonly, this is attributed to the differences between the two major dialects, Ixaili Kiolâel and Ixaili Kȳi. Ixaili Kȳi is the dialect spoken from the western islands of Xáou Lūá, the islands that conduct the most trade. The most trade and regular contact with outsiders an area has, the more likely Ixaili Kȳi is spoken. The main reason for this, is Ixaili Kȳi tends to simplify words, use shorter words and words with more direct translations, which was seen as necessary when dealing with outsiders who did not speak Ixaili natively.

While in Ixaili Kiolâel, the title/profession of painter would be sheei pemiez nge totyi, or shepemiezetotyii. Which literally would translate to One of catching color of truth, (though its understood as “One who captures the colors of reality”). A direct translation from an outsider may interpret the title as something judicial, someone who investigates and finds the truth.

To avoid misinterpretations like this, Ixaili Kȳi takes a more literal approach. Painter would be ngietyuz, ngietyu means paint (both as a verb and noun), and the -z indicates “Someone who does [x]”. So the literal translation would be “Someone who paints”. The same way that wiáu is hunt, and wiáuz would be hunter.

Ixaili Kȳi serves almost as a bridging language between Ixaili ( Ixaili Kiolâel ) and outsider language. It also aids in brevity, so Ixaili workers on a job can communicate quicker in environments where speed may be needed.

The dialects are mutually intelligible, as they use the same root words and many Ixaili on Xáou Lūá can speak both dialects and change between them as necessary. Thus you could view them akin to the differences in languages when speaking formally and when speaking casually, or view Ixaili Kȳi as an audible version of “texting” language in the way it reduces the length of words and phrases for more succinct communication.

The purpose Ixaili Kȳi serves largely though, is that it allows the Ixaili to preserve their language. Instead of changing their language to communicate with outsiders, they create a version of their language that can be simplified enough for outsiders to grasp, without the giving outsiders a chance to change or disrespect their actual language, Ixaili Kiolâel. After all, Ixaili Kiolâel translates to Heart Ixaili. Ixaili Kȳi is the ribcage protecting the heart, but still part of the same body.

[the-eldritch-it-gay]

I looked up the language bc i saw your video and it just brings up ffxiv ixali everywhere

Ixaili is a language I created! I first started working on it 6 years ago and over those years I've worked on getting a working language done along with creating an entire fantasy world complete with cultures, religions, and maps! I've only recently started making videos with me speaking the language because I thought it would be fun and also more interesting for people than reading a bunch of words that are gibberish to them.

I would imagine not much comes up when you google it unfortunately since everything about the language is just tidbits I've posted on tumblr and the tiktok videos I've been doing recently :"D

If you do want to know more about the world/language/culture I love talking about it! My current tag with random bits of info is "untitled ixaili project" and includes stories I've been working on taking place in the world (I originally planned on making a novel but I am simply unorganized lol)

[the-eldritch-it-gay]

How did you decide how many letters/sounds to put in your conlang?

Honestly I didn’t have a particular method lmao. Personally, I work with sounds (using IPA transcription) over letters, partially because I always feel limited by roman letters lmao. For my conlang, Ixaili, I took some of the sound inventory of a couple languages as inspiration and added some sounds i liked and tried that, then fiddled with adding/removing until it felt right. (For testing and creation stuff, vulgar is a good resource, I bought the full version ages and ages ago, like, long before 90% of the current features were implemented lmao. There used to not be any save feature at all for the longest time)

I spent a lot of time looking at the phonology and sound inventories of a lot of language to try and get a feel for it, but honestly it was largely trial and error. With a conlang, there is some room for creativilty and the only downside of having too many sounds would probably be documentation and having to type out those sounds a lot. I think though if there’s too much variation between words since the inventory is so large, the language feels less... cohesive? I guess its a personal preference, but I like when you can recognize the words as being from the same language.

Which, how I accomplish that is generally by coming up with common groupings of sounds and common syllables, which sometimes I then treat as one character/sound when creating words. Most of the sounds in my original documentation of the Ixaili language was grouped sounds instead of the individual sounds because of that. I still do that a lot, currently because I’m reworking the character system and so I’m figuring out what sounds/sound clusters would be a single character. The best show of clustering in sounds is in the /t/ section

Clustering in the orthography (spelling) is more common, common pairs hq, sh, sz, ts, tz, ch, ll, rr, tl, xl, n’, qu, ng, lt.

The consonant inventory for Ixaili is about 22 I think? (I have a couple consonants that have an aspirated and unaspirated version which I’m excluding along with the clusters), for vowels... there’s a lot lmao, I don’t think I’ve done a proper count in a while, probably at least a dozen lmao, at least one at every spot in the vowel chart. But then again sometimes I’ll look at the german vowel chart and feel better (below is monophthongs in standard german)

I think the only Ixaili vowel chart I have was from a while back so it’s possibly not entirely accurate to the current version

So yeah, I suppose the way I figure out how many sounds to use is look to real languages but mostly just to go with whatever and have fun and if I messed up, change it later on lmao.

[the-eldritch-it-gay]

I saw @butchniqabi do this and I thought it looked fun, so I made a couple covers for my two short stories, Tszashou and Lechuza

Tszashou (2021) – A short story following Lâii, a young girl as she grows up at the Great South Temple, finding her way with her faith and her heart. Set in the world of Ngiachpaun, featuring the Ixaili Language.

Lechuza (2021) – A short horror story about a young man searching for answers of what happened to his father. Set in the world of Ngiachpaun, featuring the Ixaili Language.

I used this generator here

[the-eldritch-it-gay]

Verb Phrases in Ixaili

Background Information

A verb phrase is the part of a sentence that contains a verb. A sentence consists of a Noun Phrase and a Verb Phrase. For example, the English sentence “The Girl kicked the ball”, the noun phrase is “The girl” and “kicked the ball” is the verb phrase. In a more complex sentence, “The girl should not have been running in the hallway”, the entirety of “should not have been running in the hallway” falls under the verb phrase.

The construction of an English VP can be written as follows:

VP → (mod) (per) (pro) V (NP) (PP)

Or, alternatively:

VP → (mod) (per) (pro) V’

V’ → V (NP) (PP)

Anything in parenthesis is optional. Negation is not listed as in my syntax courses negation was treated a transformational rule. This grammar allows for verb phrases as simple as simply a verb “The girl ran” or more complex “The student could have been eating some lunch in the café”

Ixaili Verb Phrase Structure

Ixaili follows a SOV (Subject Object Verb) word order. English uses SVO word order. In English one might say the sentence “They sent a letter”, but the Ixaili word order would be “They a letter sent”. So while Ixaili grammar could be boiled down to the same Sentance = NP + VP, the order and composition of those phrases differs.

For the purposes of this post, we will only be looking at the verb phrase, and not details of the larger sentence structure.

The construction of an Ixaili VP can be written as follows:

VP → (NP) (PP) (per) (pro) V(neg) (mod)

Or,:

VP → (NP) (PP) V’

V’ → (per) (pro) V(neg) (mod)

Firstly, while the subject of an English sentence comes at the end, in Ixaili the subject and its prepositional phrase occur before the auxiliary and main verb.

Secondly, the modal auxiliary occurs at the end of the phrase, instead of preceding the perfect and progressive auxiliaries.

Thirdly, the negation is a fixed part of the order, this is because in Ixaili, verb negation is done by adding a suffix (-ah) to the verb.

Lastly, it should be noted, that with the perfect and progressive auxiliaries they work slightly differently than English. In English, for example, the progressive auxiliary can be any form of the verb “be”, such as be, am, are, is, was, were, been. However, in Ixaili, the progessive auxiliary is a single word that is used in any tense, which is “zu”. The perfect auxiliary is always “zue” which literally translates to “finished”.

Ixaili Verb Phrase Examples

Let’s use the same examples from above [note, Ixaili does not use articles typically, so “the girl” becomes “girl” and so on]

The girl kicked the ball

Ngiah zun sailuùheze [Lit. (the) girl (the) ball kicked]

The girl should not have been running in the hall

Ngiah wâh paul zue zu pináuah wia [Lit. (The) girl in (the) hallway finished [progressive] not running should]

As you can see, beyond simple sentences, literal translations of sentences get more confusing.

Exceptions

As previously discussed, formality and respect in the Ixaili language is often shown by not using the name of an elder/superior as the subject. This transformation changes the order of the subject and object. When using this transformation, traditionally suffix (-k) is added to the object indicate that a formality transformation has occured. Along with this, to show formality in simple sentences that lack an object, a null object is introduced, á.

While this does not change the structural rules of the sentence, it is an important addition when discussing the composition of sentences.

[the-eldritch-it-gay]

tell us about your original stories :DD

Currently I have 2 entirely original short stories, Tszashou and Lechuza!

Tszashou is a really kinda soft piece just about Lâii, a character of mine, growing up and her relationship with nature and faith and love. I originally wrote it for a short drabble prompt and I really liked it so I edited it and posted it in its own post. The piece also nicely features the Ixaili language which I created and a bunch of worldbuilding I did about the Ixaili people.

Lechuza takes place in the same place as Tszashou, actually, the same island. Xáou Lūá is a small set of 5 major islands

The green island on the right is the setting for both stories, actually, just in Very Different parts.

Lechuza is more horror-based, following Ciríaco, a young adult who cares for his younger half-siblings following his mothers death. Ciríaco's father is presumed to be dead, after he disappeared when Ciríaco was a child during La Caza de Las Lechuzas (The Hunt of the Lechuzas), the day of the year where there's a total eclipse. In his searching for answers about his father's disappearance, Ciríaco follows in his footsteps.

Lechuza was actually the story which incited the creation of Ngiachpaun and the Ixaili language, the original version years back was intended to be part of a characters backstory of mine for a game and I ended up growing that into so much more and also a university degree minor in linguistics.

Lechuza is also based on the stories I grew up with about Lechuzas. Lechuza translates to barn owl, but its a common belief/superstition in some parts of mexico and the south-west united states that Lechuzas are evil shapeshifting witches and/or omens of death and illness.

My Untitled Ixaili Project has a handful of posts about the Ixaili language and bits of worldbuilding. I have a bunch of old documentation on my computer and various online archives that I haven't gotten around to organizing and posting to Tumblr, so I always appreciate questions that give me a chance to post some lore I have or to ponder and create new bits of lore.

[the-eldritch-it-gay]

Hi! I have a question about Ixaili, if you don’t mind: I know you’ve already answered questions about your tools and process, but I’m curious how you store information about language versus culture. Do you organize words in a dictionary-like format? How much historical and cultural context is included with linguistic information, and how much is kept separate? Hopefully that question makes sense. Thank you so much for sharing your amazing and thoughtful worldbuilding!

Generally I have like, 4 major types of documentation

A dictionary -- This is just basic words that Vulgar helped me generate, simple nouns, verbs, etc.

Additional Words -- These are words that I create to supplement the dictionary, because the words used by the average Ixaili speaker aren't words vulgar included. This list includes fantasy-esque words (Evocation, charm, curse, aura, realm, vampire, etc) and just typical words that weren't included by vulgar (candy, cheetah, devotion, guilt, hallucinate, incense, etc)

Cultural words -- I have a couple documents that focus on words that don't have perfect English equivilents and/or have cultural background. Terms such as Ne Puin (literally "clear eyes", refering to a young Ixaili who has not gone through the coming of age ceremony) or Qumáu (akin to a monk or nun, Ixaili who have choosen to be sequestered at temples and focus on serving the gods and ensuring religious and magical traditions are passed on to the next generation).

Word Bank -- This is just a neat hack I have. I used a mix of a conlang word generator online and one I made years ago to just give me a bunch of potential words. Then, when in my worldbuilding or writing, I come across something I need a word for, I can quickly grab something from the list. Often I'll also change the word slightly based on vibes alone to make it better bit the context. Once I grab a word from there, I delete it from the word bank

There is also a secret 5th documentation which is solely cultural documentation, I have random snippets saved and posted that explain some cultural practice or belief and they use the associated words from the Ixaili language. Ideally I should better document these but up to this point when I need a cultural word sometimes I find the story I wrote behind the word instead of looking in the dictionary or other documentation.

[the-eldritch-it-gay]

What inspired you to start making a conlang? And what resources did you use/could you maybe share a little bit about your process? (I absolutely love conlangs and Ixaili is so, so, so cool!! <3)

So originally, years ago, I was playing a like, romance visual novel, and since it was a kinda fantasy visual novel it meant like, everything was fantasy-european lmao, and I wanted my MC to Not Be fantasy European bcuz I couldn't relate to that. So I came up with a fantasy place, and well, they have to have a culture there, right? and I mean if there's people there and a culture, they need a language. And then I started making a language, and quickly dropped the visual novel and instead focused on making my own lil fantasy world. Now, like here I am 5 years later, with a linguistics minor, about to present about linguistics research, and looking into grad school for linguistics.

As for the process, I basically didn't have one in the beginning lmao. I used Vulgar a bit, but not as much as you would think bcuz I bought it like, before you could even save a language using it, back when I would like, get emailed a HTML to download to use Vulgar. Vulgar can be a great resource for anyone, if you have no linguistics knowledge you can just hit generate and then you have a language.

As I said though, I bought Vulgar when there wasn't a way to save a language, so largely I used vulgar to get some like, words and formatting but then I took those scraps and had to put together a language myself. I used a fair amount of conlang word generators, I even codes one for my first programming project freshmen year of college.

So I kinda ended up just, teaching myself about linguistics as I went, constantly updating the language and coming up with words and grammar and trying to piece together IPA and syntax. Then I started minoring in linguistics and that gave me a lot more insight to what I was doing, so I basically just took the haphazard language I had constructed with no language knowledge and started fixing it with my newfound linguistics knowledge.

As I mentioned before, also, I used consonants/vowels from Mandarin and fro Nahuatl for a basis of what sounds I wanted, and then added and removed sounds on a whim as I pleased lmao.

And on a more granular scale, the first step went on with Ixaili was figuring out the vowels, and then creating consonants categories (initial consonants that occurred at the beginning of a word, consonants that occurred in the middle, and consonants that occurred at the end) so then I could easily generate words by slamming together like (V) [Initial C] V (Mid C) (V) Final C (V).

Apologies if that's a bit all over the place! Honesty my creation of Ixaili was also all over the place.

[the-eldritch-it-gay]

hello!! I come bearing a few questions- first, what are some parts of the worldbuilding/writing process for Tszashou and Lechuza that you've really enjoyed? conversely, what has challenged you the most? do the residents of Xáou Lūá typically stay on their respective islands, or do they travel between them regularly? if the latter, how? 👀

hmm.. what else.. OH! I remember you've explained before that Ixaili is primarily a spoken language because it takes a lot of effort and skill to write the language. Do the people who write in Ixaili (there's a more concise word for this 😭 sorry for my clunky writing!) typically learn these skills from those who are more experienced around them, or are there dedicated schools for the art?

also! I think you explained the meaning behind Lâii's name in the past- is there a story and Ixaili meaning behind Ciríaco's name, too? and/or behind Tszashou?

apologies if you've answered these before!! and thank you for sharing your work on here! the thought that goes into your work, whether it's written down or drawn (or both!), shows through every time and it's really awe-inspiring. take care!!

Honestly with Tszashou, my favourite part in making it was the whole thing. I just really loved weaving the tapestry of culture and the setting and feelings, and I have a soft spot for Lâii and Zchá. With Lechuza my favourite part was the horror dream-sequence-y part while Ciríaco is running around in the darkness and everythings confusing and doesn’t make sense.

With both of them, though, I think the hardest part was the use of the Ixaili language for a few reasons. One, obviously, is the complexity of creating a working language, but the other part is I often struggle with balancing the imperfection of translation. Translation in itself isn’t often perfect and often require a degree of interpretation, and with the Ixaili writing I do, I want to make it feel like something that was written in Ixaili and translated to English, rather than something that was written in English then translated to Ixaili. While that’s a hard thing to describe, as someone who’s bilingual and has studies linguistics (especially sociolinguistics), it’s just something I’m particular about.

Though with Lechuza I also had the struggle which was, Lechuza was a short like 1000 word piece I wrote in like 2017, which I then turned into what it is today. And rewriting that was difficult, especially since I didn’t want to entirely scrap the original piece.

Travel

Travel between the islands of Xáou Lūá is very common! The most common method of travel is via ship, and there’s almost perpetually ships going between the major cities of the islands.

Some of the voyages are quite short, as the distance between islands at some points is quite small. As such such places are quite the hub of activity. With the most common routes, you can get between the islands pretty easily with a couple short voyages. However, there are also longer and less common routes to supplement the major routes to allow for direct paths between certain islands to avoid constant stops.

There is another less common form of travel which is teleportation. While very efficient, there are a fair few reasons why it’s not incredibly common. Firstly, teleportation magic is really only practiced and perfected by the Ja’aqin of the Qafrin Dominion, which, while being one of the closest to Xáou Lūá is still a grip away.

[While you can see that a colony of Ixtahua (the yellow landmass on the right) is closer than the Qafrin Dominion, the Ixtahua's lack of teleportation makes the distance more of an obstacle]

There are a handful of Ja’aqin who live on Xáou Lūá, though most Ja’aqin on Xáou Lūá are merely visiting or working. The Ja’aqin and the Ixaili have an amiable relationship, more so than with any other groups, and as such Ja’aqin have been called on to provide teleportation for certain scenarios or to aid higher ups and dignitaries. So the only times teleportation is used generally is for official business, for Ja’aqin to travel to and from the islands freely, and perhaps casually by the few Ja’aqin residents of Xáou Lūá and their friends.

Written language

Qilūpiaun is the written language of Ixaili, and due to it’s difficulty it’s not widely taught and used. There are two main paths of learning Qilūpiaun though, apprenticeship and the path of the Niá’kaupù.

Apprenticeship can be undertaken by any Ixaili dedicated enough, and it’s as simple as finding a current Zehân’zuzazi (writer of Qilūpiaun, literally “one with musical hands”) and getting them to take you on as an apprentice. In their life, a Zehân’zuzazi only takes on a few apprentices, and they work closely with their apprentices to pass on the knowledge and skill necessary to become a Zehân’zuzazi themselves. Different Zehân’zuzazi focus on different mediums, such as ink, clay, and wood, and within those there are those who focus on creation for the sake of art and then those who focus on copying holy texts or official documents.

The other path is the path of the Niá’kaupù. I briefly mention this in Tszashou, as Zchá is on the path to become a Niá’kaupù themselves, and I define Niá’kaupù in the footnotes:

Niá’kaupù – (Nia-kaow-poo) Literally translates as “Keeper of the past”. While qumáu duties are religious and spiritual and about the preservation of those traditions, Niá’kaupù duties are similar, but instead of religious, the history and traditions they preserve are those outside of religious contexts. They similarly live in a quasi-isolation, living at the archive and devoting their life to their position.

As one might assume, Niá’kaupù need to know how to write and read Qilūpiaun in order to perform their duties. Traditionally, this is learned first in their first year as a Niá’kaupù. During the first year, new Niá’kaupù spend the time in total isolation within the archive/library they have been assigned to. They spend their days going through the books and scrolls and scripts and are expected to use them to teach themselves how to write and read Qilūpiaun as well as learn the way to organize information and the way to record things. Once the year is finished, they come out of isolation and can join their fellow Niá’kaupù to further hone their skills and supplement their knowledge, but being taught initially through the writings and records of their ancestors is an essential part of being a Niá’kaupù.     

Names

Ciríaco’s name isn’t Ixaili, purposefully. Ciríaco is a name of Spanish and Portuguese origin, which in itself comes from the Greek name Kyriakos, meaning “of the Lord”. As mentioned Ciríaco’s lack of an Ixaili name is purposeful. While I haven’t had the time to fully detail it in stories, much of Ciríaco’s character comes from the fact that he is mixed race, and specifically has a parent from colonizers and an indigenous parent, and the trauma and identity issues caused by that.

It's touched on in Lechuza, but Ciríaco’s father disappeared when he was a child and thus he was raised by his Ixtahua mother and given and Ixtahua name (as the Ixtahua are Spanish-speakers) and Ciríaco grew up with a lot of Ixtahua influence.

Despite this, Ciríaco does in fact have an Ixaili name, which is Quñaii (Ku-nyah-eye). As a three syllable name, this name is one he would be awarded upon reaching adulthood and completing the coming of age ceremony. The reason why Ciríaco has a pre-chosen name is in part due to both the fact that his father was part of the council of leaders and the Ixaili belief in reincarnation.

As a behind the scenes, much like how Lâii was originally a name in the first draft of the Ixaili language, Quñaii was also a word. Originally, Quñaii meant “orphan”, which while fitting because by the time the stories start his mother is dead and father is presumed dead, it does feel a little mean but funny. Main characters named Lesbian and Orphan.  

Also, with Tszashou, the story behind it is that I was trying to come up with a name for the piece, as I originally published it as an untitled prompt fill. I considered trying to create a compound word because that’s something I often do with Ixaili, and then by chance I happened to notice that the word for lesbian “shazhou” was similar to the word for rest “tsâshou” so from that, I created Tszashou and made the little intro to explain the word.

Tszashou: v. An Ixaili play on words due from the similarity of the characters in tsâshou, meaning rest, and shazhou, meaning lesbian. First seen in a poem by 4th Century Ixaili poet Lialiaxl Szuñuo’pȳ:

Zázez ngue we titl shi kimeinū Ngue wâh xuol zah zeluoz Ka zaih ngue we yáñunū Ngue wâh title nuâ tszashou

[My lover is like the sun I bathe in her warmth The light kisses my skin As I rest in a sunny field]

[the-eldritch-it-gay]

hi hi hi!! im new here but ive been going through your blog and im soooo fascinated by your ocs and also the language you’ve created!!!! if you want to/feel like it/have the time could you mayhaps tell us more about something you really really love abt either of those? 💕💕

Glad to have you here! Since I'm someone who loves sociolinguistics and the influence culture has on language, here's a fun thing that involves the Ixaili language and culture! It has to do with colors!

First some background, in Xáou Lūá, there's 5 islands. When it comes to regalia colors, each island and region within the island has slightly different colors.

In this map, the colors shown are the colors of the regalia. Ngechyoh regalia is green, Tzachuatl is red, Szùqie is blue, Xañeih is brown/tan, and Pùhqouxl is purple. Each state itself has a different hue. Regalia generally is paired with gold, like we see with Zchá

But leaders pair the regalia colors with silver.

Language comes into the words for each color. As stated, Ngechyoh regalia is green, so you would use the Ixaili word for green, right? Well, no! Regalia colors have their own word.

If you're talking about the color of grass, you use tsou (green). If you're talking about the color of Ngechyoh regalia, you use Shiálueinguâtli.

Normal color words:

Green - Tsou

Brown - Tunin

Red - Kiz

Blue - Toun

Purple - Tsúh

Gold - Xun

Silver - Telu

Regalia color words:

Green (regalia) - Shiálueinguâtli ["(a color) like the leaves and grass"]

Brown (regalia) - Tuipicheinátli ["(a color) like the soil and trees"]

Red (regalia) - Qūñezaianatli ["(a color) like the flesh and blood"]

Blue (regalia) - Zauzūtiñetli ["(a color) like the rain and skies"]

Purple (regalia) - Tszuhqiáutli ["(a color) like the spirit"]

Gold (regalia) - Nioutūnshauhatli ["(a color) like the people of mortals and gods*"]

Silver (regalia) - Ziáumiáun'âniotli ["(a color) like the chosen crown"]

* "The people of mortals and gods" is a way the Ixaili refer to themselves, coming from the story of their creation.

The difference is pretty apparent! Calling regalia colors just "green" is seen as less respectful and inaccurate, because the colors have meaning. A lot of formal names in Ixaili are longer because they're more descriptions than simply a name.

[the-eldritch-it-gay]

i would like to say, im always down for ppl to ask about the ixaili language! sometimes my brain is dumb so i can’t be super eloquent but i’ve put way too many years into this language, i like to talk about it lmao

[the-eldritch-it-gay]

Ok, i hope this isn't a dumb question, but i was curious about Ixaili swearwords. I just think it's an important part of any language, how you might unknowingly be rude to someone. So i guess it's also a question of what is considered a rude thing to say, like omitting some special politeness-forms towards your elder in Japanese, or is Ixaili more flexible in that regard. Sorry if you already answered this, i guess tumblr just wasn't working for me this week

It's not a dumb question! This is also a fun question because it has some to do with the Ixaili Culture, and the intersection of language and culture is my favourite. (My linguistics professor said once I had a flare for sociolinguistics). This is also a bit of an easier one than some more technical stuff I'm working on for the language, though the rudeness involves some technical language stuff!

Swear words!

Here are some basic ones (and rough equivalents)

Qitexl: Ass

Lâtleh: Bitch/bastard/asshole

Tlârro: Fuck off/get lost

Wityi: Fuck

Xazul: Shit

Ziále: A promiscuous or flirty person

There's also some curse words that are a bit more specific to Ixaili or don't have a perfect translation but are all considered expletives

Xȳlū: General expletive one might shout, like damn/fuck

Shȳlū: Damn (generally an intensifier, like "that damn thing"/"that fucking thing")

Xiumu: Technically means something like "sadist", though is exclusively a curse word, something you would call someone who you think is fucked up and evil

Nguoñál: Another word for someone evil, Ixaili is full of ways to call someone fucked up. This specifically would be something like "leech"/"parasite"/"bloodsucker". Like a landlord.

Lots of insults in Ixaili actually are pretty fun and many carry cultural aspects. For example Ne Puin can be considered a grave insult, as its the term for children who haven't yet passed their initiation into adulthood (the term literally means clear eyed). Calling an adult Ne Puin is thus a grave insult as it is akin to calling them a child and refers to them like they have not completed their important initiation into adulthood.

Rudeness!

Formality does play a big part in Ixaili! Notably, basically every pronoun to refer to a person has a formal version. You can make "I" formal, and "You" formal, as well as formal he/she/they. Even neopronouns have a formal version.

The basic rule of pronouns is that you take the pronoun, for example, shū (they). The formal version simply takes the first sound and makes it a z. So the formal they is zū.

Using informal pronouns for someone deserving of formality (elders, qúmau, council members, etc) is a major faux pas and is seen as incredibly disrespectful. Though its important to note that using formality where it shouldn't be used is also a faux pas, though to a slightly lesser extent.

Another fun aspect where you could accidentally offend is how you talk about other people! Not just like, talking bad about them, because this applies to any way you talk about someone. Lets say you have a friend Maria painted a picture. You might tell someone, "Maria tuopa ngietyuu" (lit. Maria (a) picture painted). This is fine. Lets say instead, you're talking about your boss, Naomi who also painted a picture.

You might think you can say "Naomi tuopa ngietyuu", but that actually considered rude and you should instead say "Tuopak Naomi ngietyuu" (A picture naomi painted). The idea more or less is that for Maria, you can directly address her because she's an equal you are familiar with. But with a boss or an elder or anyone above you, you're not supposed to use their name as the subject of a sentence. The ending of the object (tuopa) with a k indicates this change (this is colloquially sometimes omitted when it is clear the actual subject. Like in this case, its clear even without that -k that the picture did not paint naomi as the picture is inanimate)

The technical details are Ixaili word order is Subject-Object-Verb. When talking about someone above you, you can't use them in the subject so instead you swap the subject and object and give the object the -k suffix to make it clear that swap has occurred. In simple sentences without an object, such as just "Naomi painted" the placeholder "á" is used as an object, "á" carries no meaning as it only serves as a null object for these scenarios.

[the-eldritch-it-gay]

i love seeing more of the grammar and syntax of Ixaili!! i'm curious, since most of your informative posts are written comparing it to english, if spanish influenced the language's design as well? would you ever consider writing about Ixaili in spanish the same way you write about it in english (or have you and i just missed it)?

Generally I think I tend to use English as a comparison for 2 reasons:

It's the language most people following me would be familiar with. I have historically forgotten that not everyone speaks Spanish, I once posted a story with all the dialogue in Spanish (since both my ocs speaking were Latino and spoke English as a second language and so in my brain seemed weird for them to speak in English together when alone) and had to be reminded by people like “damn this looks great I wish I knew what they were saying”

Because of how America is, my education is linguistics for the most part has looked at English. While my linguistics classes have absolutely used other languages as examples and for analysis, the deep-dives into things like syntax and morphology and pragmatics are English-based. Even courses about language that were quote “decolonizing language” were, you guessed it, exclusively talking about colonial language. Honestly in my experience the linguistics field I’ve been exposed is horribly eurocentric and absolutely awful about non-english languages for the most part.

The later of which is a bit dark, sorry about that. I could rant A Lot about the issues I’ve come across in the linguistics field but I’ll spare you from that for this ask.

Anyways!

I hadn’t thought too much about comparing Ixaili to Spanish rather than English, and I do think it would be something interesting. For one, I do feel they have a little more in common than English, in part because I grew up speaking Spanish (alongside English) and my speaking Spanish definitely influenced my creation of Ixaili I think when it comes to language use. Even in early stages when I’ve tried to figure out how the language works, I would find myself defaulting to Spanish rather than English which is interesting. I’ll definitely add Ixaili and Spanish Influence, and Ixaili vs Spanish to my list of posts to write up!

[the-eldritch-it-gay]

Im trying to do more Ixaili content so working on doing a word of the day series since it could be fun and maybe not so daunting to people who don’t know about language and linguistics.

Im working on a couple more complex looks at linguistics of Ixaili on here, as well. So if you want to know about the Ixaili language, culture, or my creation process you can hit me up on here or tiktok!

Im eldritchsalamat on tiktok if you want to follow and interact on there

[As usual, I do want to make clear that this is a language I created myself, as well as the culture, it’s a project of fantasy worldbuilding I started years ago and it accidentally lead to me studying linguistics. It’s something I’m proud of and love to share]

[the-eldritch-it-gay]

hi! you said there were no dumb questions about ixaili - so, uh, here goes! if you haven't answered a similar inquiry before, are there any petnames/terms of endearment in the language? not just equivalents of dearest/beloved/honey, but maybe some "odd" ones? some non-romantic ones, maybe used for friends or children? i'm curious!

There are plenty! First here's some general relational words

Xál - Boyfriend

Yuihɵ - Husband

Xie - Wife

Ngil - Girlfriend

Shueihueiz - Partner

Chūñá - This one doesn't really have a neat translation, but its for someone more than friends but not an outright romantic partner

Zázez - lover

Shúñânuh - friend

Xuálū - brother

Kuelo - sister

Mūtyil - sibling

And we have some general ones

Taiyú - sweetheart

Kuui - darling

Ngieyoxl - love

Lyilxl - dear

Ngue we záz(ez) - My love, my lover

Ngue we kuola - My heart

Some more unsual ones that are common in Ixaili:

(romantic)

Ngue we semo - my guide (seeing your love as someone who helps guide you through life)

Ngue we zui qú - my twin thread (referring to the idea of soulmates, souls being two threads of fate woven together)

Ngue we titl qú - my twin sun (referring to the story of Ápū and Izâl)

(platonic)

Timiounutli - literally means birthmark, used for childhood friends who are seen as inseparable.

Tou - literally means tree, there is a saying in Ixaili that roughly translated to "A tree for a bird", meaning someone who is always there for you.

(for children)

tuzúñū - literally "young earth", meaning full of possibilities and futures.

Ne puin - While this is a grave insult to adults, ne puin is considered an affectionate way to refer to children. Literally means "clear eyes"

Púluli - Lit. one of (our) future. A sweet and respectful way to refer to kids, very commonly used by elders.