Sajem Tan

Sajem Tan or Common Honey is a collaborative conlang started in November 2015 by members of the CONLANG mailing list.[1] [2] As of 29 December 2015, the phoneme inventory and romanization have been decided along with some of the phonotactics, a few words have been coined and a few simple sentences written; work on the native script, syntax and morphology are proceeding.

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

Creation Myth

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

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."

Roles

The characters in this myth are also the titles or roles of members of the community:

Thunder	phonology	Samantha Tarnowski
Rain	morphology	Asher Drummond
Spider	syntax	Jim Henry
Flower	semantics	Brett Williams
Stone	orthography	Daniel Swanson
River	pragmatics	Samantha Tarnowski
Bee	corpus	Jim Henry
Bear	pedagogy	Jon Michael Swift
the swift feathered one	supervision	Shanoxilt Cizypij
Ants	other members of the community	Scott Hamilton, Mia DeSanzo, Noelle Morris et alia
Tree	.	James Hyett

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. Bear and Bird must speak in the third person, and Flower in the second.

Phonology and romanization

IPA	romanization
i	i
e	e
ɛ	eh
æ	a
u	u
ɑ	ah
ɤ	ul
ʌ	uh
y	y
ø	ol
ɵ	o
œ	el
ts	c
t	t
k	k
m	m
n	n
f	f
s	s
ʒ	zh
ɮ	zl
x	x
ʎ	j
θ	th
v	v
z	z
ʃ	sh
d	d
g	g
ɬ	sl

The only allowed coda consonants are voiceless plosives and nasals. Any consonant by itself is allowed in onset; the only atttested clusters are fricative + homorganic nasal, e.g. /vm-/, /zn-/.

See below under "self-segregating morphology" for more restrictions on the forms roots and affixes can take.

Syntax

• default OVS word order (probably variable if we have case marking)
• relative clauses before their head nouns
• auxiliary verbs after 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

Morphology

• Self-segmenting morphology
• Agglutinating
• Dependent marking
• Case endings for oblique roles
• Lots of applicatives
• No noun classes
• Minimal declension/conjugation classes
• Minimal irregularity

Rain's proposals for self-segregating morphology, as amended by Bee and Stone:

1. Root words are to consist of zero or more C(C)V syllables followed by a C(C)VC syllable, containing a restricted subset of vowels: ol, e, el, i, a, ul, uh, y

2. Suffixes and particles are to consist of one (C)V(C) syllable using the other vowels not used in content roots: o, ah, eh, u

3. The final consonant of a syllable can only be a nasal or unvoiced plosive.

4. 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-, shn-, thn-, etc.

Rain's verb morphology proposals of 30 December:

Marked on the verb (agglutinating suffixes)

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

Template: root-aspect-(valency)

Auxiliary verb (following the verb, as per the Spider's weave - i.e. syntax)

• optional
• root indicates mood
• optional suffixes for tense

Template: mood-(tense)

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

Aspects:

• durative (this includes instantaneous actions)
• continuous
• gnomic
• habitual
• perfective

-fe would be durative

Tenses:

• remote past
• mid past/indeterminate past
• immediate past
• non-past

Later, the swift feathered one proposed vowel mutation for tense. Bee suggested this vowel mutation chart:

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:

- focus/source

-zheh

- recipient/beneficiary

-thot

- instrmental I -- tools that fit in the hand

-gu

- instrumental II -- tools too big to hold in the hand, and intangible tools like software

-vah

- comitative

-kahm

- genitive

-vmeh

Lexicon

cehsh -- particle indicating the following is a neologism or nonce word [needs phonotactic fic]

culjim -- ant

culjimdin -- anthill

din -- home, hive, etc.

divolm - thunder, phonology

dolnfeh -- to make a loud, deep sound; to grumble, to rumble

fmyvufe -- to make, to create [archaic, xref "fmyvuhkfeh"]

fmyvuhkfeh -- to make, to create

gamyk -- tree, one that produces

jelk -- full

ke -- and [archaic]

keh -- and

kemfeh -- to shake, to cause to vibrate; (with no explicit subject) to shake, to vibrate (intransitive)

kizhul -- bee [archaic, xref "kizhult"]

kizhult -- bee; harvester [xref "znolcfeh"]; storyteller

kizhultdin -- beehive

mafe -- to thank [archaic, xref "manfeh"]

manfeh -- to thank

muhzl - that which cities, forests, and hives have in common, a community [needs phonotactic fix]

shasholc - to partake

shelsheln - River, pragmatics

sajem -- common, communal, public

simem -- (adj) silent, quiet, calm, sleepy [xref "thneduht"]

slah -- particle indicating the following word is being used in a new sense

slnuhm -- (adj) gray, grey, dull, indeterminate, incomplete, boring, plain; numinous

snym -- cloud

snymmeht -- cloudy, overcast

solm -- fast, swift, quick (of moving objects, e.g. "the feathered one is *solm*") [xref "theln"]

sulslem -- nectar

tah -- honey, vomit, language; (with verb affix(es)) to speak, to vomit [archaic, xref "tan"]

tan -- honey, vomit, language; (with verb affix(es)) to speak, to vomit

tahzluv -- utterance, short speech, sentence, dollop of honey [archaic, xref "tanzlulc"]

tanzlulc -- utterance, short speech, sentence, dollop of honey

thefahm -- stone [archaic, xref "thefam"]

thefam -- stone; writing, orthography

thefammeht -- stony, rocky

thefnolm -- bear

theln -- fast, quick(ly) (of processes/actions other than motion verbs, e.g. "*Kizhul* coins words *theln*") [xref "solm"]

thekfeh -- to scribble, to scrawl

thneduht -- (noun) silence, ominous stillness, void

thofe -- to scribble, to scrawl [archaic, xref "thekfeh"]

thom -- particle linking a nonce word or word used in a new sense with its gloss or definition

vith -- bird [archaic, xref "vithit"]

vithit -- bird

vithitdin -- twig-woven home of the swift feathered one

zhasik -- (noun) sky, canopy of a forest, ceiling of a cave (but not of a house)

zhimahn -- feather [archaic]

zhiman -- feather; long lustrous hair

zhuzh - particle, indicating things that float or are airborn

zhuhzhuhm - to fly

zlulc -- lump, dollop (of a substance); instance (of something more abstract)

zlolzhit - poop (thanks, thunder's sister)

znolk -- day

znolcfeh -- to gather, to collect

znolsfe -- to gather, to collect [archaic, xref "znolcfeh"]

zhetam -- pollen, semen

Suffixes

-da -- perfective aspect

-eht -- habitual aspect

-fe -- durative aspect [archaic, xref "feh"]

-feh -- durative aspect

-meht -- having a surfeit or plenitude of something

-noc -- the end state or product of an action (suffixes to verb root, not to inflected verb)

-so -- derivational suffix: an entity having the thing referred to by the stem, e.g. zhiman "feather" > zhimanso "feathered one"

-sho -- continuous aspect

-um -- gnomic aspect

Corpus

[2015-12-25]

Kizhul mafe Vith.

ke solm Zhimahnso mafe Kizhul.

tahzluv znolsfe Kizhul.

[2015-12-29]

sajem tah thofe thefahm.

[2016-01-08]

cehsh sulslem thom "nectar" znolcfeh kizhult.

[2016-01-12]

thekeht Thefam.

sulsem znolcsho Kizhult.