Ring A: 7/20: Kontaxta

Kinetic

[ Kontaxta | Smooth English | Phonology | Grammar | Vocabulary ]

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Kontaxta

Ama kaivi kosta: samexumma taxte.

Loitai!

Teula taxte:

Eselo si esela yneavo zoesela lekie.
Iqapepy eselama eki teuloki yneava volne.
Lyvelaesela volnes kotoy,
vakataeselama kuta katanuvonoo.
Intana eselama anateina matu lase.
Sylonaeselama sylona meu teine.
Vuilaesela vuila volne niko mesa ny saleza xiyle.
Tuykaesela zuvea volne kutoki vysia askane.
Leitaesela kutai leita volne.
Aliaesela eki teulai alia volne.
Kyli teula lisva zouke, kolome,
ina aliame,
eki meno kotoy leite.

Smooth Translation

Next, the second part: the Shaman speaks.

Let's sing!

A person speaks:

The spirit-spirits receive your spirit of brightness.
The spirit Iqapepy gives brightness for everyone.
The fire-spirit won't attack them
as long as the plant-spirit gives.
The spirit Intana works until it gets dark.
The sea-spirit takes like the sea.
The wind-spirit gives wind, making heads and clothes wave.
The tree-spirit gives shade and protects them from danger.
The good spirit gives them goodness.
The loving spirit gives love to everyone.
Small people lead children, and they are calm,
They love one another,
They are good people, for all time.

Phonology

Kontaxta uses moraic timing. Possible morae are V, CV and C. (C may only occur in medial position and may not be a stop. Also, there are restrictions on the diphthongs and consonant pairs that are allowed.)

Phonetic values of the letters:

t /t_d/
k /k/
m /m/
n /n_d/
v /f/
z /T/
s /s/
x /S/
l /5/

i /i/
e /E/
y /@/
a /a/
o /o/
u /u/

The unvoiced fricatives v, z, s, x generally become voiced intervocalically.

Also in the text are:

p /p/
q /N/

These do not exist in native words, but are common enough in transcriptions of words from other languages that I have a standard representation for them.

Grammar

Head-final / left-branching. General word-order is SOV. The direct object is normally unmarked, and generally comes last, just before the verb itself, and after any other verb modifiers. The subject can be marked to enhance clarity, but this is optional. Subject and direct object can be omitted if they can be inferred from context.

Nouns are not marked for number. Compound nouns are common; they work in a left-branching way too (i.e. the last element in the compound is what the word actually /is/, the previous ones qualify it in some way). These are normally written as a single word, except under certain circumstances, such as when one of the words is a proper noun.

Since a verb always marks the end of a clause, two clauses can be (and often are) run together without any kind of separator. This is used in a similar way to how English connects related clauses with a semicolon or the word "and".

I've simplified things for the vocab section. Word classes such as "noun", "verb" and "adjective" don't exist as such, but I've pretended that they do, listing forms as they appear in the text and labelling them appropriately. No need to complicate matters!

Some suffixes make nouns into modifiers - basically, adverbs and adjectives. (As the language is left-branching, these modifiers precede the things they modify.) Nouns drop their final -a when appending a suffix which begins with a vowel.

A few idioms:

A verbal noun in the allative acts as a first person plural imperative (e.g. "to talking!" means "let's talk!").
"In <X>'s time period" means "during <X>"; if preceded by a verb in irrealis, it means "while".
"To prevent <something> for <someone>" means "to protect <someone> from <something>".

Vocabulary

alia	n. love
aliame	v. love
ama	conj. and then...; and now...
anateina	n. "start of the night sky", i.e. nightfall
askane	v. prevent
eki	adj. every; all
esela	n. spirit
ina	pron. each other
kaivi	adj. second (as in ordinal)
katane	v. fight against; attack
kolome	v. be calm
kosta	n. part; section
kotoa	n. period (of time)
kuta	pron. 3rd-person, number unspecified, demonstrative
kyli	adj. small
lase	v. work (as in labour)
leita	n. goodness
leite	v. be good
lekie	v. receive
lisva	n. child
loita	n. singing
lyvela	n. plant
matu	adv. until
mena	n. time
mesa	n. face; head
meu	adv. like; in the manner of
niko	conj. therefore; so that; implies
ny	conj. and
saleza	n. clothing
samexuma	n. performer of magic (used here for "shaman")
si	Corruption of esi "some", used to explicitly mark plural
sylona	n. ocean
taxte	v. speak
teine	v. take
teula	n. person
tuyka	n. tree
vakata	n. fire
volne	v. give
vuila	n. wind
vysia	n. danger
xiyle	v. wave; flap
yneava	n. brightness
zouke	v. direct; lead
zuvea	n. shadow; shade

"Iqapepy" and "Intana" are proper nouns that were in the Torch I received. I've simply transcribed them. Pronunciation for these should be as expected, except q = /N/ and y = /@/ (however the latter is only very lightly pronounced, and is only there to avoid having a stop in final position).

Noun affixes

-o	genitive (of X)
-oki	benefactive (for X)
-y	locative (in X)
-ai	allative (to(wards) X)
-ma	subject marker
zo-	2nd person possessive

Verb forms

-e	present indicative
-es	irrealis
-uv-	negative infix
-onoo	future conditional