Introduction to Béu

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The development of "Harweng" and "Seuna" ground to a halt because I lacked linguistic knowledge (that is 15 years ago and 7 years ago respectively). béu is the third language that I have started to construct. I intend that it will be a fully formed language and have hopes to finish it in a four or five more years.

What interests me most in linguistics is the area where logic, grammar and semantics intersect.

I admire the languages and conworld created by Tolkien very much. Outside of his work I have not really studied many conlangs. Of the ones that I have come across I like CEQLI ... also the two languages by Dirk Elzinga ... TEPA and SHEMSPREG. I know a little esperanto and think Zamenhof did a great job considerings the resources he had available to him.

The script was devised before the name of the language was decided on. béu was the most visually appealing possible word in the scripts and hence was chosen as the conlang's name (actually I have named the whole constructed culture béu). The red symbol on black background which you can see at the top of this page (on the left and on the right) is the word béu. Pretty cool, eh ? I think it can hold its own when up against "om" or "fú".

Actually the script of béu was inspired by Mongolian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongolian_script . I started doodling around trying to get roughly the same affect and quite quickly my script solidified into its present form. I was surprised to learn years later that the Mongolian Script is ultimately derived from the Aramaic Script that was used to run the Persian Empire. A 90 degree shift in writing direction occured under the influence of Chinese.

I am thinking of adopting TAHANO HIKAMU as an alternative script (that is of course, as long as Carsten doesn't mind). The scripts of SEUNA (my conlang attempt prior to béu was inspired by the Tibetan scripts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibetan_alphabet : which in my humble opinion is the most delightfully gorgeous scripts ever devised by man. Well that was my opinion before I saw Carsten Becker's opus. Now that appellation must go to TAHANO HIKAMU http://benung.nfshost.com/alphabet .

Some modifications would be needed though. Possibly using the "tupasati" sign to indicate a diphthong as opposed to a long vowel. The one negative is that more trees would be destroyed in a TAHANO HIKAMU world. As its web page says ... "Due to the size of diacritics and the ability to stack them, the line height is usually much larger than in Latin typesetting." But I think the trade-off would be worth it : the loss of a few trees would be outweighed by the gain of having Carsten's script all around.

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In the next four sections I mention the things about béu which I consider the most interesting.

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..... The tone system

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The first noteworthy thing about ‘’’béu’’’ is the 3 tones. All monosyllable words have either a high tone or a low tone. All multi-syllable words have the neutral tone. There were three motivations for this …

A) Inevitably multisyllable words are built up from monosyllables. The total number of possible monosyllables allowed by the phonology of ‘’’béu’’’ are nearly all assigned a meaning. I did not want any hint of these meanings surfacing in multisyllable words so it seemed that a good way to distance a word from the monosyllabic words which could comprise it, was to have all multisyllable words in neutral tone and all monosyllabic words in high or low tone.

B) A good percentage of the words languages have tones. I wanted ‘’’béu’’’ to be representative of ALL the world's languages.

C) It doubles the number of possible monosyllabic words.

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My motivation in construction ‘’’béu’’’ was to make a language that would be aesthetically pleasing to me. Now the natural languages which I like tend to be simple … simple phonology, simple phonotactics and simple grammar. For example Swahili, Thai, Indonesian or Chinese. Now these four languages are not a million miles away from each other in terms of structure. They all have nouns, verbs and adjectives. They all sample reality with the same pixel size (actually I believe all natural languages are similar with respect to this parameter … the only outliers that I know to exist are the conlangs “Ithkuil” and “Toki Pona”, and maybe the natlang “Tok Pisin”). And they are all pretty isolating (the Swahili verb can incorporate a few elements … but there are no irregularities and very few portmanteau forms). It has been suggested that the reason that these languages (at least some of them) are so simple is that they were at one time creoles. Now that which comes before a creole is called a "contact language" … just a list of words taken from two or three languages. However very soon certain words are grammaticized to give some tense aspect information to the verb. Then rules solidify and other common words are grammaticization and become particles/affixes. The result is a creole. All creoles are very simple languages.

I was aiming for the simplicity of a creole ... but with a more “efficient” tense/aspect/evidential system than any creole could possess. Instead of diverse elements incorporated into the verb phrase willy nilly, I … as creator could design a compact, comprehensive paradigm from the get-go.

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..... My comprehensive paradigm

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The verb plus related elements is at the very heart of a language so it is worth a brief preview in this introductory section.

Below is the verb meaning "to walk" doika in its presentational? form. This is reduced to doik when in actual use. The seven terms in the next column show who does the action ... for example doika- means "I walk" and doiki means "you walk". The r is used with all active verbs. The five terms in the next column show the time the action ... for example doikeru- means "You lot will walk". The main use of the next column is to show on what evidence the clause is being declared ... for example doikorus- means "They say he/she will walk" ... or doikurun- means "I guess they will walk". They final column has on element. This indicated that the action is done and dusted ... doikurunyə- means "I guess they will have walked".

lói bù ?àn doikuris = Probably they were no longer walking ... so they say.

This can be analysed as "probably" = lói : "no longer" = bù ?àn : "walking" = doik : "they" = -u : "were" = -i : "so they say" = -s

It can be seem that the system compacts a lot of meaning into a small number of sounds, particularly the elements suffixed to the actual verb ... (for more information on the above go to Ch 1.2)

By the way, a "down stroke" over the first vowel of a word indicates "low tone" and an "up stroke", high tone. All multi-syllable words have a mid tone (usually called neutral tone). Also if you see a "question mark" in a word, it stands for a "glottal stop" sound.

Now I said in the previous section that I wanted ‘’’béu’’’ to be representative of ALL the world's languages. Now it so happens that grammatically the worlds languages can be considered to belong to one of two main camps ... those languages that have the verb before the object and those that have the verb after the object. Whether VO or OV has knock on effects for many other areas for instance VO tends to occur with prepositions and OV with postpositions ... (for more information see The Unfolding of Language by Guy Deutscher).

Now béu sometimes has VO order and sometimes OV order (it depends on the definiteness of the object). Also béu sometimes has prepositions and sometimes it has postpositions (well actually suffixes). This depends on whether it is a single word that is being preposed/postposed or a multi-word phrase.

So ... not only with respect to tone, but also with respect to grammar ... béu can be said to represent the whole of humanity.

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..... Beyond the language

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Apart from the above-mentioned tones and tense/aspect/evidentials, there is not much worth mentioning about the language of béu … the case system is really not much more than a short-hand convention. It does have the case marker to the left of the NP if the NP is multi-word. And it is suffixed to the word if the NP is not multi-word. I have never heard of any other language doing this but it is not THAT strange.

I think the 7 word classes are pretty neat : but again ... not really worth remarking on.

However it is worth remarking on how béu has expanded from a language to embrace all aspects of life.

I have a feeling that after the language itself is done and dusted, ‘’’béu’’’ will continue to expand in non-linguistic directions.

It is a bit similar to the 613 Mitzvot (laws) of the Torah (except there are many more than 613 ... and non of them are stupid). Actually there are 3 levels for "things you must do" and 2 levels of prohibition.

For example béu specifies "best practices" for many many aspects of life. For example ...

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* How to greet people when you meet them (and much more about how to talk to other people, about how far you should engage/encroach on them, etc. etc.)

* What an employee can expect from an employer and what an employer can expect from an employee are layed out in quite some detail.

* What help you are expected to give other people. How much time and what resources would be considered reasonable.

* The time of year and the manner of the five big yearly festivals. Also coming of age rites and death rites.

* Technical standards such as screw shapes and sizes, etc. etc are defined in detail.

* The duties of husband to wife and wife to husband are thoroughly defined.

* How to dispose of trash and what is an acceptable level of noise polution.

* The duties of parent to child and child to parent are thoroughly defined.

* What clothes to wear

and much more ...

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All these rules and habits* which pervade every aspect of life are set up so as to …

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1) strengthen the things that anchor us to the world and provide meaning

2) to satisfy the yearning for community

3) to give a feeling of “home” in the deepest sense

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It s necessary to interact with other people … if you do not, you start to loose “feeling of self” … it feels like parts of you are fading away. Other people being aware (caring … hopefully approving … but maybe disapproving) of you and your actions is needed to “reconfirm” that you are a whole person. A bit like if one had to regularly see oneself in a mirror in order not to dissipate into the mist.

As well as this interaction with people, there is a need to be supplied a fixed path through life. You might not be able to keep on this path exactly, but it is important that it should be there. It is “reconfiming” that one can orientate ones journey through life with respect to “the path” It is comforting to have a path to follow … a bit like if you were a child, and nothing bad will happen to you as long as you heed your mother and father.

For the above reason, there are many small rules/recommendations. These are learnt by heart and can be followed automatically ... without too much thought. Many situations that the “béu follower” comes across as they go through life (which otherwise would require thought and could be stressful) are rendered trivial by following the rules/recommendations which are laid down for nearly every contingency.

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* Some of these rules and habits are universal. They apply to every beume (follower of béu). Some rules and habits apple to only a single béu community. Some rules and habits apply omly to a single beume (in which case they are more like resolutions than rules). It also should be noted that these rules and habits are not set in stone ... there are mechanisms for reviewing them from time to time.

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..... The metaphysical world-view

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aŋgwa is the main concept. The closest translation to it is perhaps "harmony".

When used in relation to motion it can be translated as "grace" When used in relation to design it can be translated as "elegance" When used in relation to the written word it can be translated as "poetry"

The adjective corresponding to aŋgwa is aŋgwai

aŋgwa is made up of two sub-concepts ... honda "order" and aska "chaos". aŋgwa is the right balance between honda and aska.

honda and aska are considered two complementary rather than opposing concepts/forces ... a bit like YIN + YANG.

honda and aska are each associated with 4 further concepts. Two of these concepts being nouns (dark blue in the above schematic) and two adjectives (red).

Note ... ONLY these 4 concepts per pole giving 11 concepts in all for the scheme. Unlike YIN and YANG* where for every dichotomy in nature you have YIN claiming one pole and YANG claiming the other.

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The origin of angwa are lost in the mists of time. Probably the ancestral béu community just felt that it fitted. And even in these empirical times, the idea of angwa is still of central importance. For example if somebody shows you around a park, they will probably point out what features are honda and which are aska. Nowadays angwa and related concepts live alongside but separate from modern scientific ideas. By the way the béu flag can be seen at the very top of the page (centre). The flag reflects the aska/honda dualism that permeates the béu way of life.

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* According to the Taoist tradition ...

Yin is characterized as slow, soft, yielding, diffuse, cold, wet, and passive; and is associated with water, earth, the moon, femininity and nighttime.

Yang, by contrast, is fast, hard, solid, focused, hot, dry, and aggressive; and is associated with fire, sky, the sun, masculinity and daytime.

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..... Addendum

When talking about grammar I follow the lead given by R.M.W. Dixon in "Basic Linguistic Theory". I thoroughly recommend this trilogy. As well as giving a broad topological perspective of the World's languages, it puts the convoluted terminology that has grown up in the field of linguistics over the years, firmly in its place.

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..... Progress

Last updated on 4 Nov 2016 ................................................................. .....................................................................................................

..... Index

1. Introduction to Béu
2. Béu : Chapter 1 : The Sounds
3. Béu : Chapter 2 : The Noun
4. Béu : Chapter 3 : The Verb
5. Béu : Chapter 4 : Adjective
6. Béu : Chapter 5 : Questions
7. Béu : Chapter 6 : Derivations
8. Béu : Chapter 7 : Way of Life 1
9. Béu : Chapter 8 : Way of life 2
10. Béu : Chapter 9 : Word Building
11. Béu : Chapter 10 : Gerund Phrase
12. Béu : Discarded Stuff
13. A statistical explanation for the counter-factual/past-tense conflation in conditional sentences