AMARBWI: "Makál"

"Makál" kaf Stephen Crane

"Makál," ekalta-el uru-kuv'raku,

"Sa uru-gam, ara-akbát koskate,

Urók ré-el ek-lev,

Okt fenta tá-mitzkil-ek-uzu-lev,

Kestig-etz a-gita kalta éswar."

"Makál," ekalta-el uru-kuv'raku,

"Sa uru-háfke, ara-serset,

Uru-nákte, uru-kapez;

Okale mesé-el ek,

Pé ne'kat teté-el

A-vit kuv kaskel-ek-uzu."

I make-el u-kuv'raku taf-té,

Elek makál sa-el la-lev,

Uru-háfke, ara-serset,

Uru-nákte, uru-kapez;

I ne'kat teté-el

A-vit kuv kaskel-ek-uzu.

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"Truth" by Stephen Crane

"Truth," said a traveller,

"Is a rock, a mighty fortress;

Often have I been to it,

Even to its highest tower,

From whence the world looks black."

"Truth," said a traveller,

"Is a breath, a wind,

A shadow, a phantom;

Long have I pursued it,

But never have I touched

The hem of its garment."

And I believed the second traveller;

For truth was to me

A breath, a wind,

A shadow, a phantom;

And never had I touched

The hem of its garment.

AMARBWI: Pronouns and "Esh"

Presently, Amarbwi is an extremely underdeveloped conlang. I would love to say I was using "1st person singular," "2nd person plural," etc. in place of the pronouns to sound like I know more about what I'm doing than I actually do, but the truth is, I hadn't invented them yet. So I thought up some pronouns and a new verb a few minutes ago, because that's what I like to do to relax--I make up words and share them with people.

ESH ("TO HAVE")

La eshé     I have

Ev esha     You have

Les/Las/Ek eshk     He/She/It has

Ika shesh     We have

Vila eshi     You all have

Wosk eshek     They have

And, of course, the prefixes and suffixes are the same.

Les eshk-el a-renka.

He had a book.

AMARBWI: A Break from RIjan

Rijan is not the only conlang I've been working on. There are others, including Tyr-Alta, Nevaki, Rofniri, and Amarbwi, although Rijan has been taking up the majority of my time. As I start focusing more on these other conlangs, I'll preface the title of each non-Rijan post with the name of the language in caps (as I've done here). I've started translating Genesis 11:1-9 (the Tower of Babel excerpt) into Amarbwi, but I decided that that isn't the best way to introduce the fledgling language (especially since I've not recorded much of what I've been doing, and I need to write some things down somewhere or I'll forget them).

Amarbwi is the vernacular* language spoken in Amarbwa**, a region of Rijavvid. In its most basic form, it's a series of mono- and disyllabic sounds with prefixes and suffixes tacked on (we'll be using ? for glottal stops between vowels). For instance, let's look at the conjugation of the verb "to be."

TO BE (SÁT)

1st person singular:  SE
2nd person singular: SAK
3rd person singular: SA
1st person plural: SÉVU

2nd person plural: SAKVU
3rd person plural: SÁVU

SUFFIXES DETERMINE TENSE:

Preterite: -EL
Imperfect: -AIK
Future: -KU
Command: -AK
Conditional: -Ét


ARTICLES ARE PREFIXES:

A (m): URU-
A (f): ARA-
The (m): U-
The (f): A-

I ka a-gita sa?el kuv itz e'res'vu. ~Genesis 11:1


*Rijan is the standard trade language spoken across Rijavvid; each country/region has its own vernacular.
**I'm still working on that geography lesson I promised a while back.