Sajem Tan

Common Honey Sajem Tan
Pronounced:	/sæjem tæn/
Writing system:	Alphabet
Typology
Morphological type:	Agglunitating
Basic word order:	OVS
Credits
Creator:	Collaborative
Created:	Sun, 29 Nov 2015 18:34:14 GMT
Links
homepage

Sajem Tan or Common Honey is a non-naturalistic artistic colllang started in November 2015 by members of the CONLANG mailing list.^[1] It currently has the beginnings of a geofictional setting associated with it and the team has created a sort of quasi-culture around the language. As of 30 May 2016 the phoneme inventory, orthography, morphology, and syntax were fully functional or nearly so. The lexicon is growing rapidly and various writing and translation projects have been undertaken.

As the language and its documentation grow, we will separate these sections into subpages.

Culture

As stated above, Sajem Tan has a fictional world (Sajem Dasnan) and a culture built around it with several myths and mythical animals/plants. However, these are in their rudimentary stages, and many important things, such as the geographic layout of Sajem Dasnan, are not yet determined.

Myths

Creation Myth

The Sajem Tan community is based on the following creation myth, posted by Shanoxilt Cizypij on 30 November 2015^[2]:

So very long ago, during gray and overcast days past, Thunder rumbled. From the shaken sky tumbled Thunder's noises and with them Rain. By the fallen Rain, Flower was nourished and River was filled. Upon its web, between Flower and Stone, Spider gathered Rain. When Rain ceased and Thunder silenced, Bee gathered Flower's pollen. Bee then flew away to its hive to make our Common Honey. Upon the hive came Bear who so loved our Common Honey that it shared with all who would sample. Witnessing all this, from atop Stone, Bird declared, "May this recur until all our tribe partakes of Common Honey."

Snymmeht keh slnuhm znolkah sno slet kemfeh dulc Divolm. Kem zhasikzheh metfeh dulc Divolmvmeh dolnah keh zloahkahm Telzlnoln. Znim Telzlnolnvah gulslimumsun Jidolk keh jelkzhutumsun Shelsheln. Zlovmeh zathelndin navnyc, Jidolk keh Thefam sholmak, Telzlnoln znolcfeh Zatheln. Vaslnulmfeh Telzlnoln keh simemzhutfehsun Divolm zult, Jidolkvmeh zhetam znolcfeh Kizhult. Zhuhzhuhmfeh Kizhult zlovmeh kizhultdin seln dehahvmeh Sajem Tan fmyvuhkfehjahk. Kizhultdin dathnycfeh Thefnolm. Dehahvmeh Sajem Tan zhejulnmunfeh Thefnolm tyk zo vesneneht zlo shasholcfeh fnit xyt duahkahm. "Kasynsho sin duah Sajem Tan shasholcum xyt dehahvmeh molm taznoln" tanzlulcfeh xyt duah duldoltfeh Thefam navnyc Vithit.

Other Myths

The above myth only describes the first nine tribemembers; however, several more have joined since the original team was established. An effort has been made to write a myth discussing tribemember origins. Myths may also de

Wind / Thethat

One day, as Common Honey was becoming bigger and more complex, the tribe decided they needed someone to keep track of it all. Because of this, they called upon Bird. Bird contemplated this for a while but thought of nothing. He decided that maybe going for a short fly would do some good. As he was flying, Beneath his wings, Bird noticed Wind, an ancient force who had watched our Common Honey’s creation. Upon Wind's flowing trail, Thunder's echoes, the words of the past, were heard. Feeling that Wind was up to the task, Bird invited him to the tribe. Wind set to work immediately, keeping a record of how Common Honey was created. Our Common Honey finally had a history!

Dûtšo düc Sajem Tan jo möm šyn [Sajem Tanvmê fmyvûkţnužê jiküfinšo] jam möšnem sacetum düc duâ jo Viţitkâm tanfê düc duâ. Mömvmê xexen xifemfê düc Viţit smâ femekfê mût. Žûžûmfê düc Viţit žo zyšenumjâk. Rovmê röfitâ navnycukmun Ţeţat Viţit sežüfendâ. [Sajem Tanvmê madam düdötšo] düm fûdet zanfê düc. Ţeţatvmê xidat navnyc [Madamvmê cesikâ zanfê düc] Divömvmê dönâ Viţit vöjamfê düc. Femekšo düc Ţeţat jo möm javem Ţeţat zenfê düc Viţit. Vûxümfê süt Ţeţat. Jiküfinšo düc zo Sajem Tanvmê fmyvûkţnužê. Madamfê süt Sajem Tan.

Fictional Creatures

Several fictitious plants and animals have been devised for usage in Sajem Tan mythology, which you can find in their own articles. The tetanah -- kitten-sized telepathic flying snails with laser eyes (?) that fix the universe by singing in Sajem Tan, and the colmekah -- bonsai trees that recieve information from inanimate tribemembers such as Star and Wind who can easily interface with them and telepathically send that data to any creature willing to accept it. They are said to have created the roots of plants so that they can more easily talk through them to other colmekah. Then there's the Pit of Bad Ideas, a place where awful ideas, including different creatures, go to die.

Roles

Each member's name is, ideally, associated with a role which that person takes in developing, using, or describing the language or the conculture. A list of tribemember names follows; a more detailed one can be found here.

Should we delete this since we have the Miraheze page?


Thunder	phonology	Samantha Tarnowski	Active
Rain	morphology	Asher Drummond	Inactive
Spider	syntax	Jim Henry	Inactive
Flower	semantics	Brett Williams	Inactive
Stone	orthography	Daniel Swanson	Active
River	pragmatics	James Constable	Inactive
Bee	corpus	Jim Henry	Inactive
Bear	pedagogy	Jon Michael Swift	Retired
Bird or the swift feathered one	supervision	Shanoxilt Cizypij	Active
Ants	other members of the community	Scott Hamilton, Mia DeSanzo, Noelle Morris et alia	Inactive (?)
Tree		James Hyett	Inactive
Dust		Steel-kun	Inactive
Wind	etymology	Reuben Staley	Active
Star	idioms	Géoldreng	Inactive
Lightning	music	Emmaline Tarnowski	Active
Fern	mathematics	Malimacx	Inactive
Kummaline		Ștefan Alecu	Inactive
Fog	translation	Andrew C.	Active

Each of the roles has certain taboos as well as responsibilities for the development of the language. For instance, Bee cannot refer to the swift feathered one by name, Thunder must never rhyme, and River must always mark tense. Animate roles (Bird, Bear, Bee and Spider) must speak in the third person, and vegetal roles (Flower and Tree) in the second. This last taboo concerning animate and vegetal members only affects tribemembers; an animal or a plant who does not belong to the tribe would refer to himself in the first person as normal.

Phonology and orthography

Reformed Phonology

This is the most current version of the phonology, built off of the original phonology (see below) and romanization, with some minor changes: namely, /ʎ/ became /j/, /ɵ/ became /ʊ/, and /ɤ/ became /o/.

Consonants

		Labial	Dental	Alveolar		Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar
		Labial	Dental	central	lateral	Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar
Nasal	voiced	[m]		[n]
Plosive	voiceless			[t]				[k]
Plosive	voiced			[d]				[ɡ]
Affricate	voiceless			[t͡s]
Fricative	voiceless	[f]	[θ]	[s]	[ɬ]	[ʃ]		[x]
Fricative	voiced	[v]		[z]	[ɮ]	[ʒ]
Approximant	voiced						[j]

Vowels

	Front		Central	Back
Close	i	y	ʊ		u
Close-mid	e	ø			o
Open-mid	ɛ	œ		ʌ
Open	æ			ɑ

Original Phonology

This is the old phonology and its romanization. It was created by Thunder at the beginning of the project, and it was used until the Age of Great Reforms.

Consonants

		Labial	Dental	Alveolar		Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar
		Labial	Dental	central	lateral	Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar
Nasal	voiced	[m]		[n]
Plosive	voiceless			[t]				[k]
Plosive	voiced			[d]				[ɡ]
Affricate	voiceless			[t͡s]
Fricative	voiceless	[f]	[θ]	[s]	[ɬ]	[ʃ]		[x]
Fricative	voiced	[v]		[z]	[ɮ]	[ʒ]
Lat. Approximant	voiced						[ʎ]

Vowels

	Front		Central	Back
Close	i	y			u
Close-mid	e	ø	ɵ		ɤ
Open-mid	ɛ	œ		ʌ
Open	æ			ɑ

Orthography

Sajem Tan has two systems of romanization: the Old Orthography and the Reformed Orthography. The Old Orthography was created by Ţefam (Stone) with the intention of being able to be typed with only ASCII-compatible characters, avoiding diacritics. The Reformed Orthography, however, uses diacritics. Below is a chart depicting the characters of both orthographies with IPA equivalents, in proper alphabetical order.

Old Orthography	d	g	x	j	f	v	th	s	z	sh	zh	sl	zl	m	n	a	el	e	ol	i	y	uh	ul	c	t	k	ah	eh	o	u
Reformed Orthography	d	g	x	j	f	v	ţ	s	z	š	ž	l	r	m	n	a	ë	e	ö	i	y	û	ü	c	t	k	â	ê	o	u
IPA	d	g	x	j	f	v	θ	s	z	ʃ	ʒ	ɬ	ɮ	m	n	æ	œ	e	ø	i	y	ʌ	ʊ	t͡s	t	k	ɑ	ɛ	o	u

Phonotactics

The only allowed coda consonants are voiceless plosives and voiced nasals (/t/, /k/, /ʦ/, /m/, /n/). Any consonant by itself is allowed in onset; the only attested clusters are fricative + nasal, e.g. /vm-/, /zn-/, /ʃm/.

Sajem Tan morphemes are grouped into two groups: roots and particles. Roots consist of zero or more C(C)V syllables followed by a C(C)VC syllable, containing a restricted subset of vowels: /æ/, /œ/, /e/, /ø/, /i/, /y/, /ʌ/, and /ʊ/. Particles are mostly used for derivational and inflectional suffixes as well as pronouns, postpositions, ideophones, interjections, and conjunctions. They consist of one (C(C))V(C) syllable using the other vowels not used in content roots: /ɑ/, /ɛ/, /o/, /u/. debatable

If a syllable begins with a consonant cluster, the first consonant must be a fricative and the second a nasal at more or less the same point of articulation. E.g. fm-, vm-, sn-, zn-, šn-, ţn-, etc.

To the right is a flowchart explaining the syllable structure in case you're still confused.

Grammar

Sajem Tan has _ parts of speech: nouns, verbs, describers (which corresponds to adjectives and adverbs in English), postpositions, conjunctions, interjections, and other particles such as ideophones and lexemicizers.not sure about this, what parts of speech dothe particles break up into? The part of speech of a word is not as fixed as in English; zero-derivation is much more common. For instance, the noun ţnamök "pizza" can also be used as a describer or a verb. This is common in stative constructions; the copula zan is often omitted: Ţnamök zanum zo "It is pizza" becomes Ţnamökum zo "It is pizza".

Under the category of describers are evidentials. Sajem Tan is a very head-final language. For instance, in noun phrases, the head noun comes last, after the describer (adjective) and genitive argument. In postpositional phrases, they

OVS word order
oblique case verb arguments can go before the object (normally) or after the subject (for emphasis/topicalization) (?subject to change)
genitive nouns before head nouns
relative clauses before their head nouns (?subject to change)
auxiliary verbs after main verbs
adverbs before main verbs
adjectives before nouns
postpositions (for whatever we aren't marking with case, including some weird stuff that other languages mark with verbs); postpositional phrases precede what they modify
several grammatical particles that introduce neologisms and their initial definitions, or words being used in new senses

Word Order

Sajem Tan's OVS word order requires some explication. Typical, high-agency transitive verbs put the object first, then the verb, then the subject; neither subject nor object gets case marking because they're marked by position. E.g.,

Zlnathnyn xafolmdah  Thefnolm.
chimaera  attack-PFV bear
Bear attacked the chimaera.

Intransitive verbs put an agent or force-like subject after the verb, but an experiencer or patient-like subject before the verb. E.g.,

Thekfeh   Thefam.
write-DUR stone
Stone is writing.

Slin  kasynfeh   set.
fight happen-DUR begin=PST
A fight broke out.

Experiencer verbs which would have a direct object in English generally put the experiencer before the verb, and the thing experienced before that, in the focus case:

Jidolkzheh kizhult nelmfeh.
flower-FOC bee     see-DUR
The bee saw a flower.

The copula "zan" is an exception to the rules of experiencer subjects and invariably places the subject after the verb, even though it would typically resemble an experiencer much more than an agent.

Adjective Clauses

When making a relative clause, additional information is placed in square brackets before the noun being modified. Take the example sentence "thnamolk kygykfeh zeh." (He eats pizza). When modifying this to say "He eats the pizza that I made", one must provide "that I made" in brackets before "pizza." This would be written "[fmyvuhkfeh seh] thnamolk kygykfeh zeh." (He eats pizza [I made]). Square brackets are pronounced /mu/ for the left bracket and /om/ for the right bracket.

Adverb Clauses

Adverb clauses are made simply by combining a dependent clause and an independent clause and reading them left to right. For example "sesuhtfeh zhu" (you sing) and "mahn telzlnolnfeh thehvmeh tulnah" (when I cry) can be combined into "sesuhtfeh zhu mahn telzlnolnfeh thehvmeh tulnah." (You sing when I cry).

Noun Clauses

(Stone will write this part)

Morphology

Self-segmenting morphology
Agglutinating
Dependent marking
Case endings for oblique roles
Lots of applicatives
No noun classes
Minimal declension/conjugation classes
Minimal irregularity
Modifier before head in compounds

Verbs

Marked on the verb (agglutinating suffixes)

aspect
valency changing operations (voice, applicatives) (optional)

Template: root-aspect-(valency)

Aspect markers for verbs are obligatory. If you want to explicitly mark tense, then you have to use a mood auxiliary.

perfective	continuous	gnomic	habitual
-feh	-sho	-um	-eht

Auxilliary verbs

Nonpast	ol	i
Immediate past	el	e
Mid past/indeterminate past	y	a
Remote past	uh	ul

That is, the nonpast dictionary form of an auxiliary verb would have "i" or "ol" while inflected past forms would keep the same consonants but change the vowel as above.

Agent, force, patient and experiencer marked by word order (agent and force after the verb, patient and experiencer before the verb)

Morphological cases

-zheh	focus/source
-thot	recipient/beneficiary
-gu	instrumental I -- tools that fit in the hand
-vah	instrumental II -- tools too big to hold in the hand, and intangible tools like software
-kahm	comitative
-vmeh	genitive
-veh	comparative
-o	vocative
-teh	causative

For examples on how these are used, refer to the lesson on the Sajem Tan wikiversity page https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Sajem_Tan/Morphological_cases

Lexicon

See Sajem_Tan/Lexicon or http://mr-martian.github.io/Sajem_Tan/lexicon.html

Suffixes

-ah	plural
-ahah	infinite
-jahk	in order to (valency suffix)
-ku	interogative suffix
-sun	passive voice
-xeht	lacking
-uk	not
-mun	maximum
-ukmun	anti
-so	-having one
-zhum	pet
-zhut	cause to be
-mahk	improver
-meht	having a surfeit or plenitude of something
-mon	a group of
-noc	the end state of a product or action
-tu	to be more than
-tuc	part of
-tutu	to be the most
-kah	energetic
-ku	interrogative
-ok	exceedingly awful
-thnu	the act of
-zhnu	patient suffix (as opposed to agent suffix, i.e. English -er)
-moc	follower or descendant of
-nem	in the class of __
-nah	partitive plural (some but not all)
-no	partitive singular (some)
-ehc	marks the name of a language

Various derivational suffixes can be found in the lexicon.

Numbers

	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
Decimal	tim	dec	fam	vulc	sluht	zlik	shen	zhat	kulk	guhn
Senary	tyt	dolk	felt	vyk	slolc	zlelc

Decimal multipliers:

10	znek
100	thnolt
1000	vmelt

Senary multipliers:

6	xek
36	folt
216	zhelt

Decimal point (both): nolk

Senary numbers are used in formal or poetic registers, for items naturally occurring in groups of six, and for units of time smaller than an hour.

Examples:

360₁₀ / 1400₆ = vulcthnolt shenznek / zhelt slolcfolt
π ≈ 3.142₁₀ / 3.0503₆ = vulc nolk dec sluht fam / vyk nolk tyt zlelc tyt vyk

Shapes

Sajem Tan has two words to denote a shape: "duhfnet" for 2D shapes, and "golduhn" for 3D shapes. To say how many sides a shape has, you add the word for that number in front of the word.

Examples:

vulcduhfnet	triangle
decznek shenduhfnet	hexadecagon
sluhtgolduhn	tetrahedron
znekgolduhn	decahedron

There is an exception, however. If the final syllable of the number has the same vowel sound in it as the first syllable in the dimension marker, that syllable takes the onset of the final syllable of the number and the coda of the dimension marker.

Examples:

sluhfnet	square
guhfnet	nonagon
thnolduhn	zoccihedron (100-hedron)

Pronouns

Singular:

	1st person	2nd person	3rd person
inanimate	theh	vu	zo
vegetal	thu	vo	zeh
animate	seh	zhu	zlo
neutral	deh	do	du

Plural pronouns are regularly formed by suffixing -ah. These specialized plural pronouns are all archaic:

	1st person	2nd person	3rd person
inanimate	thehs [archaic]	vuzh [archaic]	zozl [archaic]
vegetal	thuzl [archaic]	vos [archaic]	zehzh [archaic]
animate	sehth [archaic]	zhuv [archaic]	zloz [archaic]

Animacy in Sajem Tan does not depend on any notion of personhood. Instead, animate pronouns are used for those beings in the kingdom Animalia, vegetal for all other living beings, and inanimate for everything else. The neutral series may be used in cases of mixed, unknown, or undisclosed animacy.

All the personal pronouns can be used as demonstratives. Confer with the reference grammar for more information.

Evidentials

voln	understood through the reversal of a previously deep belief
thec	deduced from sensory evidence
thmak	known through context
tholk	direct sensory evidence
snat	learned by secondary/tertiary sources
shan	hearsay via a living person
slet	traditional knowledge
sluln	based on faith/beliefs/subjective experiences
kic	carefully discerned through protracted study
zolt	seems to

Evidentiality is marked with adverbs. Evidential adverbs may be compounded normally, e.g. "femek" (mind) + "tholk" (known from direct sensory evidence) = "femektholk" (discovered by telepathy)

Evidentials express the way the *speaker* knows about the content of the sentence; knowing-verbs (or knowing-adpositions, such as we have in Sajem Tan) express what the *experiencer* of the sentence knows about its *focus*.

Colors

The primary colors in Sajem Tan are orange, green, and purple, the same as English's secondary colors:

orange	snitin
green	gazhyn
purple	nyfuln

Creating the secondary colors (red, yellow, and blue) is done using a portmanteau system. Take the first syllable of one word and combine it with the second syllable of the other word. It doesn't matter which order you put them in, they will always yield the same color.

yellow	snizhyn or gatin
blue	gafuln or nyzhyn
red	nytin or snifuln

But in the standard color wheel, there are steps in between these colors, such as blue-purple or red-orange. To say these, you'd simply duplicate the first syllable depending on what color it is closer to. For a more orange red, you'd add an extra "sni"; for a purpler blue, you'd add an extra "ny"

orange-yellow	snisnizhyn
green-yellow	gagatin
green-blue	gagafuln
purple-blue	nynyzhyn
purple-red	nynytin
orange-red	snisnifuln

Here's a chart that sums up everything in case you don't care about the logistics of the colors.

Script

Stone created a script for Sajem Tan. The original Listserv post is here.

The gallery is formatted as such: Stone's original orthography guide, (not in alphabetical order), Wind's orthography guide (in Sajem Tan alphabetical order), then a whole bunch of things written in Sajem Tan.