Old Zubonic is the language that quickly emerged and stabilized among the humans who arrived from Earth on the the newly prepared planet Zubos in approximately 16,000 B.C. The language is a creole of unknown and probably only loosely related antecedents spoken by various contributing groups from Earth. Both the language itself, and how (if?) the humans were assisted with its use and recordation, is presumably known in detail to Ionians, but is not a part of recorded history known to the Zubonians. It is, however, generally inferred that the writing system which emerged essentially immediately after landfall on Zubos was suggested or at least initiated by Ionians, despite the fact that it is not related to the writing systems the Ionians themselves used. It was apparently invented specifically to represent, reasonably accurately but without fussiness, the phonemes of the humans' language.[*]
The writing system is alphabetic; with the vowel open-a assumed, and other vowels indicated by marks above or below the “letters.” The writing system long predates any human writing on Earth. It has changed stylistically, but was well enough suited to the language right from the start that its essential elements remain more or less unchanged, despite the passage of more than 15,000 years and the later introduction of electronic communication displacing actual writing on fiber sheets or other forms of inscription, in a transition now lost to the mists of memory, if not history.
Old Zubonic later evolved into quite distinct dialects, but has remained in use as a literary and ceremonial language, and the language of ancient texts still widely read and understood. Of the twelve major modern Zubonian languages (all of which derive from Old Zubonic, and are relatively closely related to it), the language of the Maril region, Marilic, is the most widely spoken, being the birth language of approximately half the planet, as well as the worldwide language of commerce and science. The Eight Daughter Worlds all use this language, although each has developed, to a greater or lesser degree, variant dialects of its own. An educated denizen of Zubos can easily read, and speak after a fashion, both Old Zubonic and Marilic, and can generally make himself understood to anyone on Zubos or any of the Daughter Worlds, even if Marilic is not his first language.
The basic form of all the Zubonic languages is governed by the fact that Old Zubonic originated as a creole, but its grammar, although basic, is well fixed. The word order is rigidly SVO (Subject-verb-object). More specifically, the grammar can be plotted as [Subj]+[postposition/modifier/modifying phrase]•[Verb]+[adverb/modifier/modifying phrase]•[subordinate clauses]•[Object noun/postposition/modifier/modifying phrase], with the second two elements dispensable. The verb “to be” in the present tense is frequently simply inferred, and thus omitted. There is no definite article. Definiteness can be indicated by adding the the word zet, 'this,' when necessary, or by other means which vary from one dialect to another.
Here is an example of a modern Marilic sentence, using an approximate transliteration designed to use only ordinary Latin letters:
Hoskenme badhosken errezilks bohlmeplese bade olotsarulmse zorbtsarhin sero olomashantese emkeiwui.
Trees forest adorned leaves-with many golden sunlight-in evening country-high-in latest.
“The trees of the forest are adorned with many golden leaves in the latest high-country evening sunlight.”
The entire sentence can be transformed to past tense ('the trees of the forest were adorned...') by the addition of the past modifier after the verb to be ase, inserted between S + O.
Hoskenme badhosken asiks errezilks bohlmeplese bade olotsarulmse zorbtsarhin sero olomashantese emkeiwui.
"Trees forest were adorned …
Note that nouns can modify nouns, and the first noun is always the one modified in a series. Badhosken 'forest' modifies hoskenme 'trees.' The first word of the object phrase contains the suffix plese 'with' after bohlme 'leaves,' which is in turn modified by 'many golden' and 'sunlight-in,' which is in turn modified by 'evening country-high-in,' which itself is modified by 'latest.' Generally the modifiers come second in any sequence. Noun modifiers come before modifying phrases or adjectives. Nouns can modify in sequence. Hoskenme badhoskenme olomashante: 'trees of the forests of the high country,' literally: trees forests high-country; the modifier status and what is modified is position-determined. Tiny pauses between words and vocal intonation make ambiguities clear. Compound nouns are distinguished from modified nouns, for example, by the speech rhythm and intonation. Generally, however, there is no confusion. Rhythm and dropped voice for the second part of the compound, symbolized by writing them together (both in the Zubonic script and the transliteration here), distinguishes Trolktoh 'hammerhead' from trolk toh, 'hammer head,' i.e., 'chiefly-used hammer.' This is clear enough in most instances, but can sometimes lead to double entendre, which is exploited for literary purposes frequently.
No comments:
Post a Comment