#unurgwet

[polysprachig]

What was the first thing you did when creating your conlang? Did you start with the Latin alphabet or did you start with the cuneiform? Or something totally different?

The first thing I did when creating my conlang Ätchgö was to work on how the script would look. This was before anything but the name of the language, its literal meaning and a handful of key words were in my mind; I hadn't even fully worked out the sounds of it at that point, although personal verb endings and pronouns had been listed out (and later altered).

At the time it wasn't cuneiform, but it could be read from top to bottom or right to left. Some students at the uni I was studying at asked me if it was Chinese, but I think I was trying to make it look similar to Arabic back then. (I knew the region the Bronze-age Ätchgöans were from, plus there were signs all over the uni for free Arabic classes which had the alphabet on them.)

It looked laugh if you will like this:

Needless to say it was a D: idea when looking back on it now. Also, I just want to note that there was a strong Irish influence on the grammar at that time, and its since also been developed into something else.

Whereas this is the new cuneiform script:

The text on the left is an epitaph written in a hybrid semi-standard text which includes some traditional characters (often incorrectly), as it was written by a foreign travelling companion of an Ätchgöan kerim (traveller/explorer) upon the latter's death and buried with the kerim as a grave good.

The right shows the most recent grammatical additions (literally from this past week) to the Ätchgöan standard, which mean to clarify words by topic. Ex. a djjan is a 'tool' used for 'lemah' (building). It can become a 'long tool' with the adjective 'leh' (long), but if you add a 'sek' (content marker signifying 'death'), it changes from a long tool into a spear, sword, weapon, etc.

The cuneiform script can be read from top to bottom or left to right.

[polysprachig]

Hey you made a conlang?! That's so cool! Why did you decide to create one/what do you use it for? What's your favorite phoneme in your conlang? Is the language more analytic or synthetic? What's the word order? What's the cultural background of your conlang? How do you balance the influence of preexisting languages that you know with creating your own unique language? (Sorry for the bombardment of questions lol)

Why did you decide to create a conlang? I was taking an intro to linguistics course in Germany and was overcome with the desire to make a script and conlang.

What do you use it for? Characterising the people who spoke it and making their myths come to life through literature.

What’s your favourite phoneme in your conlang? Impossible to say.

Is the language more analytic or synthetic? I want to say it’s on the fusional side, but I’m reticent.

What’s the word order? V+S+O (except for when it’s not) ;)

What’s the cultural background of your conlang? Here, as described in the preface to my first dictionary:

wgwet ut gwetmet (regarding language and the words of a language)

The unique language of this Ancient Near Eastern nomadic people provides a brilliant time capsule of their way of life before they disappear from the historical record at the dawn of the Iron Age. Neither an empire with an extended hand of influence nor a war-winning hoard that ransacked the pages of history, this ancient society and its language have come to be known to modern man through a series of remarkable archaeological finds in, around and between the heltmarrjj : the Black, Mediterranean, Red and Caspian Seas. 

Unlike neighbouring civilisations whose writings were etched into great monuments, carved into stone, and housed on scrolls in libraries, kings’ chambers and to-do households, the Ätchgöan people recorded their language solely in what they referred to as the “traditional medium“ : clay tablets, whose production was, according to Ätchgöan oral tradition, taught to them by an unnamed wise one from the claypits of Uruk in the time before [the flood]. 

This method of recording would not in itself be unique - other contemporaneous civilisations in the Fertile Crescent region used wedge-shaped writing on clay to a far greater extent and for a much longer period of time - were it not for the fact that the Ätchgöan people did not build a continuous settlement, no one location to serve as the hub of life for their long-lasting civilisation. As such, the clay found in remaining literary tablets and rare shards of pottery attributed to this culture, while baring a distinctive Ätchgöan-cuneiform system of writing, does not hail from a singular region, but was rather sourced and baked at different sites throughout Northern Egypt and Mesopotamia, brought along on their wanderings and reproduced anew by subsequent generations. 

And so it is that the tongue of this ancient people has survived the test of time, until now waiting to be unearthed from the dust.

How do you balance the influence of preexisting languages that you know with creating your own unique language? The influence of these languages was more apparent in my first dabblings with the language, so that skriv (yes, like schreiben but spellt differently) simply meant to write. Luckily this does not affect more than a handful of proto-words. I am currently in the process of purging such obvious idiocies from the language, so that to write has now changed from skriv to kiva : kivashash met metasurr (we are writing the word onto the tablet). Now that the language has enough vocabulary and rules for me to be able to assess what can exist within it (outside of the occasional loan word) it is easier to create words and structures in context and immediately dismiss ideas that clash with the whole.

[polysprachig]

Your conlang: what parts/grammar rules do little kids accidentally mess up while they're still learning to speak? (e.g. Dutch toddlers will start off speaking in third person)

It’s hard to say, as ätchgöan literature only rarely uses examples of direct speech that might provide insight into how a typical ätchgöan conversation might sound. 

If I had to guess, I would assume that ätchgöan children 

would overly rely on the preposition tet (against, versus, in comparison to, to, for, between) which, while the most common preposition, is by no means suitable in every sentence where a preposition is needed …

… or add plural markers to words that are already plural but archaic, irregular or of foreign origin such as, for instance, taking göh = eye (pl: göha) and trying to express it as göhajj. 

Thanks for the question! I’ll have to consider this more in depth moving forward.   Although there are some key examples of ätchgöan texts that were noticably written by a non-native speaker... ;)

[polysprachig]

How do you say "language" "polyglot" "linguistics" "linguist" "vocabulary" "grammar" "pronunciation" "fluent" "native speaker" in Ätchgö?

shashshash! k’k’mettjj k’d : 

gwet - language

awkkäätgwetjjasjjm / awkgavwagwetasjjm - polyglot (lit: one who understand / speaks in many languages); interpreter, translator

khet - linguistics (language rules)

awknahumakhet  - linguist (lit: one who knows language rules deeply)

gwetmet - vocabulary (lit: language word)

khet - grammar (language rules)

shamet-et - pronunciation (lit: sound of a word)

There are currently no words for fluent or native speaker, but there are words for:

bögjj - foreigner

böhulet - foreign sound

[polysprachig]

Can we have an example? And one really interesting feature. If you please.

Excerpt from the ätchgöan flood myth:

setteah | in the past

dabgalah kehlutshash | into the darkness the people wandered

bajj’darjjmarjjat | the earth shook

delahejj delahäsat enlem | the road changed; the banks (of the river) turned into chalk

hajjatshash shakerim-sula | they lost the map (lit: the lines/instructions of travellers in a tablet)

tetgöhachöl’l erinätl | before our eyes it disappeared

ut a-wkishk’egöna a-wknahumshash | and that like there never was before, that which they knew 

berad be’teh | was lost to time

A (really) interesting feature:

A cuneiform script. :D

[polysprachig]

Ooooo have you ever written any poetry or anything in your conlang?

Yes! Ätchgöan writings predominantly come in three major forms: poems (epics), songs (lullabies, festival songs, etc.) and eulogies. Within the canon of known works, the most influential, well-preserved and reproduced texts are as follows: the dabgalah (flood myth), surrchlestavjj (the poisoning of lestavjj) and the pöenchkerim (the death of the traveller). While the last exists without copy, it was the first work written in the ätchgöan script to be discovered!

[polysprachig]

How often do you change/add words to your conlang? Like do you ever read something in a book and think "Oh, that's a great word, let me figure out how to write that one"? I know very little about conlangs, but they're so impressive!

Occasionally, perhaps twice per month, I’ll sit down and create a short list of “unmetmetjj” (essentially: non-word words) which fit the pronunciation rules of the language and could hypothetically exist in it. These words must be vetted over time, however, not automatically ascribed meaning, so I refer to them when I am in need of new word to see if they will fit. Of the current list of unmetmet - daheb, illen, mah and annet, only annet has been ascribed meaning (adj. wicked, cruel).

More frequently I work on writing the ätchgöan literary canon and set of core artefacts (songs, eulogies, writings on pottery), the works of which requires certain words/concepts. I then devise a list of words in English/German that will be needed later on in a specific text, ex: counsel, firstborn, serpent, judgement, chatter/gossip, etc. and actively construct these words based on the flow of the literature while in the process of writing it after first confirming that a suitable word does not already exist.

The only time I read things and think of how this would be expressed in my conlang is when I’m reading ancient literature, specifically from the Bronze Age Mesopotamia/Northern Egypt and previous. It is for this reason that an Ätchgöan retelling of the Gilgamesh story is known to have existed through several fragments. (:

[polysprachig]

How are the speaker's emotions and also questions conveyed in your conlang? Is it done through tone of voice, are there different conjugations, etc? :D

Key words will be emphasised (usually elongated) when sung in retellings of the core text to express the speaker’s emotions. In one particular line of the surrchlestavjj it is common for speakers to express:

al-wkbatchnim | he who is erased from history

as

aaaaaaaaaaaal-wkbaaaaaa-atchniiiiiim 

As for questions, you can simply place aç (i.e. atch) at the start of a sentence to change it from a statement to a question, as in the following:

ishgavsā böhulet | you said a foreign sound

aç ishgavsā böhulet ; | did you say a foreign sound?

[polysprachig]

What are your favourite words in Ätchgö?

My current top 5 would have to be:

hajjat (v) to lose something, mislay, misplace (hajjat sounds like ha.í.at) 

ahnem (n) symmetry

neslat (n) a heard of animals; (v) to fix something to another thing, attach, group together

hazak (n) athletic stamina

kurdmen (v) to pull, drag

They’re pretty common words - with all of the stress on the second syllable apart from kurdmen - but are also fairly useful in describing everyday activities and physical qualities of monuments and people. 

[polysprachig]

Sorry, this may be a stupid question but google didn’t help me much—what is ätchgö? Thank you :)

That’s actually an excellent question! (: Ätchgö is my constructed language, a fictional language like Dothraki, Elvish, and High Valerian, and I’ve been working on it since 2012, and posting about for almost just as long. 

To give some background about Ätchgö and its speakers, here’s an excerpt from the introducton to my Ätchgöan-English Dictionary (Version 1):

The unique language of this Ancient Near Eastern nomadic people provides a brilliant time capsule of their way of life before they disappear from the historical record at the dawn of the Iron Age. [The Ätchgöans were n]either an empire with an extended hand of influence nor a war-winning hoard that ransacked the pages of history […]

(:

[polysprachig]

errah - (n.) sand

ätchgöan core vocabulary

shirimöl umerrah - i shall walk on the sand

išbekeh senata’gakcherrah di’an k’d - the tool was lost in/under the sand pit 

bematal’l w’k uuġjjlat”teterrah - they sleep on their backs like bones in the sand

iškrital’l djjla išk’errah shnehe’murem  - they spat because there was sand in the wine

aç k’errah tach lem ; - is it sand or chalk?

[polysprachig]

sikken - (n.) door, wood

ätchgöan core vocabulary

nekeb tetsikken - quietly knock on the door (imp.)

išdaadal sikken jjsat k’d - isaac closed the door

k’nuutchdahh umsikken-sav - there is an image of fruit on the polished wood

išdejjtsuls’me tetsikken - dust has collected on the door due to the passage of time

ach iškebshash tetsikkenchkä-asjjm  - but we knocked on the door of many secrets

[polysprachig]

Shashash! This is just a small sample of the stone-related vocabulary that has appeared in ätchgöan texts, including both nouns and common adjectives. Enjoy!

ömmet:

öm - stone

slehöm - marble

lem - chalk

tabjjad - flint

ashat - gem, jewel

atten - lapis lazuli

fakatim - obsidian

döm - piece

hörum - slab

liit - obelisk

ömmet-:

el’a - erect

dadat - crushed

sav - polished

sleh - smooth textured

in - clean

lee - long

batchnim - defaced, scratched

vjjshjj - worn down

sheb - carved into

bit - cracked

[polysprachig]

h-Mâr'ja ! âr'x'öl k'gg ut ain, urhâuö'uchsâ k'd ^ᗜ^

ahh etlasjjnöl ! ishkivasā wshaöl-gwet ! n’sā alon-kegad egöna ! naruunal dabbimarrchsā kin-asjjm k’d ! 

(lit: Oh I’m wiping my eyes from crying (=sincerest thanks)! You wrote in my language! You have the character (alon) of a knowledgeable person (kegad) such as never existed (in a person) before (egöna)! Coursing (naruun) through (dab) your veins (bimaar) is the quality of paying attention to/remembering the words/stories of others (kin) without end (asjjm)! 

Note: the - is a newer addition used to denote a noun-adjective pairing in written ätchgö. Also, for convenience sake when typing, jj is now used to replace the previous ǰ and sh is used interchangeably with š. And in addition to possession being expressed using ch+personal pronoun after the object, sha+personal pronoun can be used before the object for emphasis or to stress a formal/poetic tone. The structure and orthography have developed a lot more as I’ve been working on creating a glossary and other side projects.

[polysprachig]

i heard you made your own language

urungwetchöl k’ätchgö k’d - my constructed language is ätchgö

I’ve been working on it since 2012. It is in no way complete yet, but it’s getting there, and it’s extremely fun to work on. (:

[polysprachig]

is there a pronunciation guide for your conlang? I'd love to learn how to read it

still working on it, cause I’m a lazy fuck. heavily considering making videos in ätchgö so people can hear the pronunciation though (: