/r/conlangs Chat Network Relay Game - Discord Inauguration Any-Lang-Goes Relay

⇐ Previous step (Østfold Norwegian) | Full Relay | Next step (Bondish Scandinavian) ⇒

#4Nockije by Sascha
NockijeEnglish

Šax to ʔeosʔena ƛ sesnas-noc.
Noc keoʔe ƛ hekeo šuce ƛ to, šax noc šun;
Juač hešiaskeo pux hešiasšu keole ƛ senʔeos,
Hij heʔeonnako sentošian.

Grief does not have a destiny.
It is a rug that covers everything that exists, not anything else;
the flag of hope tears and breaks when trust blossoms.

NOT exist destiny SUB grief-TOP.
TOP rug SUB cover everything SUB exist, NOT TOP other
CONS tear and break flag SUB hope,
PROP blossom trust

  • hekeo - to cover, clothe
  • hešiaskeo - to tear
  • hešiasšu - to break
  • heʔeonnako - to blossom
  • hij - PROP
  • juač - CONS
  • keole - flag
  • keoʔe - rug, carpet
  • noc - TOP
  • pux - and
  • sesnas - grief
  • sentošian - trust
  • senʔeos - hope
  • šax - NEG
  • šu - thing
  • šun - other (thing)
  • šuce - everything
  • to - to exist, there is
  • ƛ - SUB
  • ʔeosʔena - destiny, fate

Word order is governed by one important rule that is strictly followed: Everything is head-initial. This means that the word order is VSO, in noun phrases the noun goes first, the language has prepositions and so on. The only things that can precede verbs are conjunctions.

Words do not inflect for anything. Any markings are done paraphrastically or via derivation (derived terms are included in the provided lexicon).

Nockije does not have a copula, predicates clauses are constructed as [NP] [NP] with no verb involved. There is also no verb "to have", instead possession is constructed as "there's X of Y".

The negator conjunction šax simply negates a clause.

The subordinator ƛ (pronounced /tɬɛo̯/) can have several meanings:

  • [Noun] ƛ [Noun]: genitive marker ("of")
  • [Noun] ƛ [Sentence]: relativizer
  • [Verb] ƛ [Sentence]: subordination ("that")

The topic marker noc marks a noun as the topic by being suffixed to it. Afterwards, "noc" is used as a pronoun referring back to the marked noun.

The proposition and consequence markers hij and juač connect the sentences they precede together to a "zero-conditional". This is best explain through example: "When it rains, I stay inside" would be rendered as "PROP it rains, CONS I stay inside". The two sentences can be rearranged.