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 "AUM" or "FU".

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In the next three sections I mention the 3 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 typical of all the world languages.

C) It doubles the number of possible monosyllabic words.

Well these were the motivations. I later made the set of “question words” correspond to the equivalent “generic noun” by means of a tone change. Also I later made the ergative pronouns differ in tone from the absolutive ones in order to distinguish them more.

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My primary motivation in construction ‘’’béu’’’ was to make a language that would aesthetically please 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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..... The tense/aspect/evidential paradigm

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The second noteworthy thing about béu is its tense/aspect/evidential paradigm. This is shown below …

The column before r gives the subject. The r represents indicative mood. The next column gives the tense/aspect and the last the evidentiality (mostly).

For more information on the above go to section 2 in chapter 3.

Some might say this is a bit kitchen-sinkish. I would disagree : kitchen-sinkishness implies linguistic naivity. However I might let an accusation of over-engineering pass ... over-engineering is definitely in my DNA :-)

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".

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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 of ‘’’béu’’’ 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 ...

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

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

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

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

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

etc. etc. ............ etc. etc. and even a metaphysical world-view is presented. This is very briefly introduced below ...

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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". People seek to get 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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..... 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 3 June 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