The language of Hi

Hi is the indigenous language of Great Ardel (Ardellia and Indonardel).

It's developed by /u/diesmaster

 

Background
Hello fellow conlangers,

I started conlanging because I was playing a lot of Pathfinder. I’m a DM and I had an ancient civilization that left some text for the players to read and I thought, ”Wouldn’t it be cool if they had their own language?” So I started looking stuff up on youtube and then a youtuber I was a long subscriber of, Xidnaf, made his video with Artifexian about conlanging and that got me started for real. I had a winter break at the time so I had enough time to make a conlang. The languages that influenced my lang are: Dutch, my native language, Latin, which I have for 2,5 years now in school, Ancient Greek, which I have for 2 years in school, Korean, of which I followed classes for a month at the time and Japanese because my cousin whom I’m really close with has a major in Japanese and I watched a lot of anime. I made this lang not naturalistic at all but just how I wanted to be because I would probably be the only one using it.

 The person that help me making this lang, J. Casteel, is my Latin teacher who answered all my ridiculous questions and replied to (most) of my spam mails. She is also part of the reason why the grammar is so similar to Latin and Greek, so big credits and thanks to her.

Introduction to Hi
Hi is an ArtLang created for personal use, so some things may make no sense but they are probably there because I wanted them. As mentioned before: Latin, Ancient greek, Korean, Japanese and Dutch, my mother tongue. With all the grammatical rules there will be examples in romanised script and translations to English. It’s suppose to sound Asian and island -ish because the people that spoke this lived there. In their time where my story takes plays there are no speakers left only texts. It is like Latin taught in schools and some sentences are still spoken in Hi.

Phonology
  The phonology is based on Korean and Japanese to get the Asian island feel. I still dropped a lot because the writing system they use and grammar is syllable based so if I made too many options that would be a mess. Not all these sound are included in the Korean or Japanese phonology, but I put them there for symmetry.

Consonants:
'''

Most words consist of only voiced consonants. Only sometimes voiceless consonants are used, mostly for grammar purposes. There is an aspirated version of each consonant too, but it’s only used in the polite form.  "Zjani - you	zjhani - polite you (thou, vous, Sie, u)" 

Vowels:
/a,o,i/, which can be half long vowels too, and /u/, but it can’t be long and when it is in a syllable it can’t be aspirated or voiceless spoken. That’s why u is very rare in words. This is represented by a greater than sign. A ‘ sign means that the stress is on this syllable instead of the normal first syllable."dzimi - see, da<zino - make a decision, zjo<da - scare, zjimuda - revealed"Notice: That it has one high vowel one low vowel and two back vowels so it’s okay with the vowel law.

Romanisation:
The romanisation is based on me going to the IPA website and listening to it and writing down what I thought I heard with the Dutch phonetic system as a basis.

Nouns
Roots. Words that have something in common look alike."Dzimi - see 	dzi<da - feel"Notice: Both start with dzi and express sensations. 

Classes
There are no classes in Hi. It’s just words of which the first syllable has a /a/, /o/, /i/ and /u/ in it. This does only matter with adjectives though."Djo" 

Cases
All cases are represented by a particle. In the roman version of the alphabet you put a dash between the the noun and particle. A particle is the same for all classes. This system is based on Korean and Japanese but the cases are almost identical with Latin and Greek grammar.

The end of the sentence particle
A sentence in Hi needs to end in a particle that shows the sentence ends. I took this from Korean but put some Greek words that normally are somewhere in the sentence at that slot. 5b  it was raining for a long time but it stoped now.
 * 1) Could you do this for me? (request)
 * 2) Shouldn’t you do that? (suggestion)
 * 3) It will stop raining in a minute.
 * 4) That you expect a yes or a no
 * 5) It’s still raining

6.   This makes sense, right?

7. 	This doesn’t make sense, he?

8.	If I were you.

Tenses
In Hi there are 4 tenses future, past, present and atemporal tense. Most of the tenses are perfect, to make them imperfect, you can add the and and particle zgjo."Zjadi-mi dinjo-o zjo<di zgjo."Literally: you still fear him"Zjandi-mi donjo-o a-zjo<di zgjo."Literaly: you feared him for a while but not any more

Notice: that the past is like the imperfect of latin and the present a uncompleted present form.

Only the atemporaltense is neither complete nor incomplete because it’s not a tense tense.

group a:

The class of the verb doesn’t really matter now but the last syllable of a verb is the syllable that represents the verbs class.

Moods
There are two voices in Hi: Passive/active "zjadi-mi u-djoda-no"Literally: you are dead.

Notice: The passive is used when something is in a state as in the door is open, you are dead, etc.

And the verb is automatically intransitive in which we will dig deeper in a sec.

and causative."I-mi djoda-no zjadi-o"Literally: i got killed by you

Notice: there the accusative is the one acting in this sentence.

Then there are the moods in the sentence anding system for instance: "Zjadi-mi dinjo-o u-zjo<di njo."Literally: do you fear him?

The rest of the moods are handled with auxiliary verbs for instance:"I-mi u-zjodini-nji-djo<zo"Literally: I can fight

Notice: that it’s made with a infinitive which we will discuss next.

Infinitive
You make the infinitive by adding nji to a /a,u,i/ verb and zo to a /o/ verb

The infinitive in Hi is used in 6 ways:

Handling auxiliary mood verbs"I-mi u-zjodini-nji-djo<zo"Lett: I can fight

An infinitive + The particle da mean even though this is happening, I am going to do this."Zjadi-mi dinjo-o zjo<di-nji-da da-djo<zo zgjo."Lett: even though i still fear him, i’m going to fight him

An infinitive + the participle of a noun means participium."I-mi dzimi dzi<da-nji-mi bu."Lett: i see while i feel

An infinitive + a (the past tense augment) befor it makes a perfectum particpium passive."I-mi dzimi a-dzi<da-nji-mi bu."Lett: i did see while i feel

An infinitive + o(the augment of the future) before it makes a futurum participium active. "I-mi dzimi o-dzi<da-nji-mi bu."Lett: i’ll see while i feel

And an infinitive can also mean a compound verb.

I haven’t made any compound verb jet but I will make it like that. In englis you have the compound verbs stir-fry and head-start for example.

Transitivity
Transitivity is handled by adding a syllable at the end of a verb, but if something is transitive you don’t do it. "I-mi u-djoda-zju"lett:I kill"I-mi zjadi-bo djodo-o u-danjizo-djo"Lett: i give dead to you

Adjectives
There are two ways to go about adjectives in Hi, one is to put a particle in between the noun and the adjectives the other way is let it to congregate with the noun. You do this by putting the nouns particle after the adjective.

Independent adjectives
If you want to make a adjective independent you give it the particle of a noun without it congregating with a noun.

Comparing adjectives
In Hi there is no cComparing because they think that that’s disrespectful to the person that’s worse. There is a superlative case you make it by adding dza to the adjective. 

Notice: zja makes everything future, regardless of the actual time and has the word stop in it even though it’s not in the text. Njo makes it automatically a question.

 

Clauses
There are 2 kinds of cases in Hi: Involve actual clause and normal cases. 

Involve actual clause
This is created by using the word zgji and adding the particle of the sentence part it involves with. They also automatically come with a form of “to be”."a-zjo<da-bo dinjo-mi nizjoma-o djuma<-o zjimi-o djodo-nizjoma, sgji(voicless)-mi dinjo-mi i-dzja-mi njizjuvo-zgja zo."Lett: Frightened it people only 5 to death, is it my best not.

 

Clauses
A normal clause is created by using zgji + the practice of the sentence part it replaces.

If the sentence part doesn't have a particle you use: '''

Nominative being the accusative at the same time

In a sentence where a person or thing is the nominative  and the accusative  you just add a nominative for and acc for of the same person to the sentence.

'''

Demonstrative pronouns
The demonstrative pronoun conjugates with a noun as with:  "Buzja-di djidja<-di"Lett: That stone"Buzja-mi njinja<-mi"Lett: At that stone"Buzja-mi zgjizgja<-mi njizjuvo-du"Lett: That stone is good"Buzja-mi dzjidzja<-mi dzjivuzjo-du"Lett: That stone is bad

 

Prepositions
In contrast to most Latin-based languages, the prepositions adjust to the noun’s case and not the other way around. "I-mi djodo-du dzja<-zjo< zjado-zjo<"Lett: I’m dead without you

 

Relative Pronouns
In contrast to other romance languages they congurate in case to the relative noun and the use they have in the sentence. You add the relative nouns particle with a h to the RP  

Personal pronoun
In Hi, you don’t have verb endings that conjugate with the subject, but you need to put either a subject or a personal pronoun in a sentence.

  '''

Notice: 3/2b is a small group of people it can be 3 person but it can also be 2 person

Nouns Plural sigle
All nouns are neither singular nor plural. To make it plural you need to add a number and boda like a adjective (but then boda instead of nji/zo). To make something singular you add the word for 1 and boda.

'''"Djidja<-di zjimi<-boda-Buzja-di"Lett: Those 5 stones"djidja<-di zjinj0<-boda-Buzja-di"Lett: That one stone

 

Example Sentences
"1. Zjadi-mi u-didji djidja< i-bo ba.""2. Zjadi-mi u-djidji djidja< djo.""dzjo<mi-bu abo-mi  bu. zji<dzja-bu mabu-mi, zido zji<dzja-mi u-zjo<di dzjo<mi-o zja."Lett: they are the few, we are the many, and when the many stop fearing the few…"Zjadi-mi dinjo-o u-zjo<di njo."Lett: do you fear him?"Zjadi-mi dinjo-o zjo<di zgjo."Lett: you still fear him"Zjandi-mi donjo-o a-zjo<di zgjo."Lett: you feared him for a while but not any more"I-mi danobi<-nja dza."Lett i’m strong right"I-mi danobi-nja o<mi"Lett i’m strong right?"I-mi zjandi-du na."Lett if i where you

 "zjudani-bu dzja< modo-dami, zgji(vl)-mi dzja<-mi zodji-mi u-odo, zjinjo<-boda-zjudani-mi,""dzju< zodamo<zi-dami, zgji(vl)-dami u-dzodi.""dzja< damo<zi-dami, zgji(vl)-dami u-djozjo" lett: that(1) without flaws has, one world(1) world is without life,

with no one that sins

without anybody that wages war

waits a few seconds(makes statement)" u-zi<modju-zju i-mi zo, ni(vl)da djimozjo-zju damo<zi-mi, zgji za<vo-nja zjini<-boda-da<moni-vo, dzjivuzjo-nja o<mi-domi’. zjini<-vo za<vo-nja donji-mi da<moni-vo hi. " lett: know i not, why say people, that sword with 2 sides bad (thinks listener doesn’t agree)-(thinks that is utterly stupid). two sword is it edges (makes statement). " njizjuvo-dzo-u-dazji<mo u-dabo<di zjani-dzja-o zo<ba-o, zgji-du zjadi-mi u-zadimu dinjo-o hi. "lett: the best way destroy your enemy is to become friends with him (statement)