Saturday 21 November 2015

The Shesti



The Shesti
2500 years ago, the Earth passed through a region of space packed densely with asteroids – effectively like walking through a minefield blindfolded, since any one of these meteors could have destroyed human society. An alien culture who happened upon the planet decided to take action to preserve the human species. Using a myriad of technologies, they removed and transplanted part of the Caucasus Mountains (the region that today forms the basin of Lake Sevan, Armenia) with a thriving community aboard a giant ship, and later to a separate, uninhabited planet. The people who inhabited the region developed their own, distinct culture, and gradually became the Shesti.
Today, the Shesti people number almost three million, most of whom live near their home island (the transplanted landmass) in an area little bigger than Great Britain, but several groups have founded settlements around their planet. They are decidedly pre-industrial, and live an agricultural-based life – however, they have a primitive writing system and a remarkable knowledge of natural processes. Their language is heavily related to Indo-European, but bears some marks of Kartvelian influence – for example, the complicated verb and noun system.
The Shesti Language

Shesti orthography
A a
/a/
H h
/x/
N n
/n/
Š š
/ʃ/
B b
/b/
I i
/i/*
O o
/o/
T t
/t/
C c
/ts/
J j
/dz/
Ó ó
/ɑ/
U u
/ə//ʊ/
D d
/d/
K k
/k/
P p
/p/
Ú ú
/u/
E e
/ɛ/
L l
/l/
R r
/r/
Z z
/z/
G g
/g/
M m
/m/
S s
/s/
/ʔ/











*Before another vowel, /i/ becomes /j/ and /u/ becomes /w/.

Shesti morphology

Shesti has seven cases for all nouns:

-          The nominative is the subject noun.
-          The accusative is the direct object noun.
-          The dative is the indirect object noun, or a noun with the preposition “to” in English.
-          The perfective is the direct object of a completed action. Its use is equivalent to the perfective aspect of verbs in most Slavic languages.
-          The genitive is the possessive noun, or a noun with the preposition “of”.
-          The superessive is a noun with the preposition “on” or “onto”.
-          The inessive is a noun with the preposition “in” or “into”.

There is also the vocative case, showing direct address, used in animate nouns and given names. 

Each noun case also has a dual form, marked with “eni”, and a plural form, marked with “i”.

There are two types of declension – animate and inanimate.

Example of declension

Šgaú = wolf, hound (animate declension)


Singular
Dual
Plural
Nom
Šgaú
Šgaúeni
Šgaúi
Acc
Šgu
Šguni
Šgai
Dat
Šgan
Šgani
Šgani
Per
Šgamek
Šgamekeni
Šgameki
Gen
Šgag
Šgageni
Šgagi
Sup
Šgaiu
Šgaiuni
Šgaiui
Ine
Šgaie
Šgaieni
Šgaiei
Voc
Šgai!
Šgaiei!
Šgaiei!

The accusative and dative cases are commonly ignored in favour of the nominative, since these are determined by sentence position (Shesti uses SVO, like most Indo-European languages).

Features of Shesti verbs

Verbs are not conjugated on quantity, but only person. Here is some vocabulary:

-          Lyrical: A tense which describes events which took place before the speaker’s memory, or in a mythical sense.
-          Instrumental: A set of verb forms which describe an action completed using another noun. For example, “I cut the bread with the knife” – cutting the bread involves using the knife, so in Shesti, the verb “to cut” would take the instrumental, and the noun “knife” would immediately precede it.
-          Dependent: A verb in a subordinate clause.
-          Reflexive: A verb with a reflexive noun as its subject, e.g. “I wash myself”

Shesti verbs – 1st (medial) class

These are verbs to do with thoughts and emotions (note that the dash refers to the bare verb form).
For example, “es”, meaning “to be/ to feel an emotion”.


Standard
Instrumental
Dependent/Reflexive

Present
Past
Lyrical
Future
Present
Past
Lyrical
Future
Present
Past
Lyrical
Future
1st
-
i-
o-
-ce
i-ce
o-ce
-úc
-e
i-e
o-e
-úe
2nd
-
i-
o-
-có
i-có
o-có
-úc
-e
i-e
o-e
-úe
3rd
-o
i-o
o-o
-co
i-co
o-co
-úc
-i
i-i
o-i
-úe

Shesti verbs – 2nd class

Example – “ler”, “to go to”.


Standard
Instrumental
Dependent/Reflexive

Present
Past
Lyrical
Future
Present
Past
Lyrical
Future
Present
Past
Lyrical
Future
1st
-
i-
o-
-je
i-je
o-je
-új
-e
i-e
o-e
-úe
2nd
i-ó
o-ó
-jó
i-jó
o-jó
-új
-o
i-o
o-o
-úe
3rd
-a
i-a
o-a
-jo
i-jo
o-jo
-új
-i
i-i
o-i
-úe

Shesti verbs – 3rd class

Example – “ur”, “to go from”.


Standard
Instrumental
Dependent/Reflexive

Present
Past
Lyrical
Future
Present
Past
Lyrical
Future
Present
Past
Lyrical
Future
1st
-
i-
o-
-c
i-c
o-c
-úc
-e
i-e
o-e
-úe
2nd
i-ó
o-ó
-ca
i-ca
o-ca
-úc
-a
i-a
o-a
-úe
3rd
-o
i-o
o-o
-co
i-co
o-co
-úc
-i
i-i
o-i
-úe

Imperatives

For imperatives, use the pronouns “Do” and “Denu” for the nominative second person.

“Dzó”, “Dzo”, “Na” and other particles

All Shesti particles, other than those specifically stated otherwise, come before the main clause.

“Dzó” means “No”, and forms the negative with all verbs. 

“Dzo” is the conditional, equivalent to “could/would”.

“Na” forms the affirmative mood, e.g. “Na me ler shoba” “I do go to the town/I definitely go to the town”.

“Sha” and “shi” express the verb “to want”, and come between the subject and noun. “Ta” and “ti” express “to need” in the same way.

The article “stó” means “and”, and “e”, when before the accusative, means “except for/but”.



Pronouns

The basic pronouns only cover the nominative, accusative, dative and genitive cases. For the superessive and inessive cases, the article “e” follows the pronoun. This changes the meaning to:

-          Dative -  Superessive
-          Genitive - Inessive


Nominative
Accusative

Sing.
Du.
Plu.
Sing.
Du.
Plu.
1st
Me
Meni
Mi/Ni
Ma
Mai
Nai
2nd
De
Deni
Di
Da
Dai
Dai
3rd
Ce
Ceni
Ci
Ca
Cai
Cai

Dative
Genitive
1st
Maú
Maú
Ame
Amin
Ami
2nd
Daú
Daú
Ade
Adin
Adi
3rd
Caú
Caú
Ace
Acin
Aci

Numerals

0 = Dzón 1 = Ine 2 = Tare 3 = Tó  4 = Úr 5 = An 6 = Shets 7 = Sher 8 = Ka’ 9 = Khai 10 = Dedi
11 = Dedine 12 = Detare 13 = Detó 14 = Dedúr 15 = Dedan 16 = Deshets 17 = Desher 18 = Deka
19 = Dekhai 20 = Tas 30 = Tós 40 = Úrs 50 = Ans 60 = Shes 70 = Shers 80 = Kats 90 = Khais 100 = Olú
101 = Olú ine 200 = Olta 300 = Oltó 400 = Olúr 500 = Olan 600 = Oshets 700 = Osher 800 = Olka
900 = Olkhai 1000 = Dedolú 2000 = Olta dedolú 10000 = Olilú   100000= Dedolilú   1000000 = Olililú

To form ordinal numbers, put the number into the genitive case.

Prepositions & sentence position


Before verb/direct object
“da”
“ke”
“e”
Dat
To
At, beside
For
Across, along
Gen
Of
From
Against
Sup
On
Up
Above
Onto
Ine
In
Down
Under
Into
Behind, beyond, past

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