Bikalyo

Bikalyo (Bq'alio in its own language) is an a priori conlang created by William Ellison.

Bikalyo Bq'alıo
Spoken in:	(N/A)
Timeline/Universe:	(N/A)
Total speakers:	(N/A)
Genealogical classification:	Constructed languages  Artistic languages   a priori languages    Bikalyo
Basic word order:	VSO
Morphological type:	Agglutinative
Morphosyntactic alignment:	Nominative/Accusative
Created by:
William Ellison	2006

In creating the language, Ellison wanted to create something at once human and yet alien, something that might seem like a language created by a society, but one also something that might seem to be created by an alien civilization light-years away.

Phonology

 Main article:  Bikalyo phonology

Orthography

 Main article:  Bikalyo orthography

Writing

Ellison elected to use the Roman alphabet, albeit with some modifications, to represent the sounds of his language. Some letterforms used in Bikalyo are quite common in Eastern European languages, such as "ś," "ŗ", and "š," but others stem from Scandinavian languages, such as "þ" and "å." Here is the complete alphabet:

 Aa Åå Bb Dd Ee Ff Gg GH/Gh Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Ńń Oo Pp Qq Rr Ŗŗ Ss Śś Šš Tt Þþ Uu Yy Zz

Grammar

 Main article:  Bikalyo grammar

Bikalyo is a VSO language in most uses, but the occasional rhetorical usage might be accomplished in SOV, and some grammatical constructions are more easily expressed in SOV.

Verbs conjugate for mood, tense, and positive/negative, rather like some aspects of the Japanese verb.

Postpositions can indicate the functions of some words, if such a distinction is needed. These postpositions can indicate certain senses of the word being modified, or they can indicate what might be indicated by prepositions in English. An example:

In English, of course, possession is indicated with an apostrophe or an apostrophe followed by the letter "s." In Bikalyo, however, this is accomplished by affixing an apostrophe plus the letters "gh" (or "igh" after a consonant) which come from the postposition "igh," meaning "of." Bikalyo nouns do not inflect, however -- they agglutinate, as the noun itself does not change, and the endings (or prefixes, as some markers are prefixes) only attach without any change in the noun (although the affix might change for orthographic reasons). Further, the only way to detect whether something is a subject (i.e., a nominative) or a subject (i.e., an accusative or a dative) is by word order.

Sample texts

[The first paragraph of the GNU General Public License, v2.0]

"The licenses for most software are designed to take away your freedom to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free software -- to make sure the software is free for all its users. This General Public License applies to most of the Free Software Foundation's software and to any other program whose authors commit to using it. ... You can apply it to your programs, too."

Ql'myren g šimlåŗ q'pomaq'miq maq'liþå'gh ghirykoeś malgh'šik biq'qal'gh gu'qlam qat' yuz yuq'talam qat'. Kykan, muzaśen ig „GNU Publik Lisense“ (Šimlåŗ t'pomaq'milš t'alyik GNU'gh) yiq'aliyqam malgh'šik biq'qal'gh gu'qlam yuz yuq'talam ig maq'liþå malgh'šik -- yiq'aliyam maq'liþå ql'myrå malgh'šik pomaq t'met. Tuqmalken qil Šimlåŗ T'pomaq'milš T'alyik GNU'gh q'pomaq'muq ig maq'liþå „Free Softåare Foundation“'gh (Maq'tyqal't malgh'šik maq'liþå'gh) yuz pomaq maq'liþå yl'gh t'maq'liþå liþam qat' miq'taq'men. ... Tuqilyšen maq'qil biq'qat tuqmalkam qat' [maq'liþå biq'qat'gh]'met.

[Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights]

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Ql'myren pomaq'qyt þališoeś malgh'šik yuz yqit'yqit guikiśal'yuq yuz halinåm'yuq. Ql'myren maq'niqat' donašioeś eþinal'miq yuz miliþana'miq; yikazen maq'niqat' ališalam maq'niqat'upi in miliþ'yuq tyagaliþa'gh.

For the sake of the language, the latter (shorter) passage will be explained, sentence by sentence.

 Ql'myren pomaq'qyt þališoeś malgh'šik yuz yqit'yqit guikiśal'yuq yuz halinåm'yuq.

The sentence begins with Ql'myren, which is the main verb of this sentence. The pronoun pomaq'qyt means "everyone" and stems from the word for "all," "pomaq," combined with the masculine and feminine markers "q-" and "y-", which are added to "it," the word for "person." Þališoeś is the adjectival form of the verb "þališam", which means "to be born." Malgh'šik is Bikalyo for the adjective "free," in this sense, intellectual or political freedom instead of its financial counterpart. Yuzis simply the conjunction "and." Yqit'yqit means "equal." Following that is the construction guikiśal'yuq yuz halinåm'yuq. Guikiśal is Bikalyo for "dignity;" halinåm, "rights." The postposition yuq, added to each word in this construction (as is the rule; see Bikalyo grammar for details) means "in."

 Ql'myren maq'niqat' donašioeś eþinal'miq yuz miliþana'miq; yikazen maq'niqat' ališalam maq'niqat'upi in miliþ'yuq tyagaliþa'gh.