Sen

Sen
sen Sen
Created by	Cárlẃmm Frinn
Purpose	Constructed language Sen
Sources	Phyrean, Woru languages, Vuru, Toamts, Ragham, among others

Sen (sen /sen/) is a constructed language created by writer and novelist Cárlẃmm Frinn throughout the 1650s to 70s as a personal exercise in linguistic neutrality and minimalism, with great liberties taken. The objective, to her, was to make a language able to form short, concise and understandable sentences with a small vocabulary. Modern linguists are still debating as to whether this goal was achieved by the time Sen reached completion around 1678, with the release of the last personally published book by Frinn, Sen: A Complete Guide, shortly before her death in 1679. It derives most of its vocabulary from several natural languages such as Phyrean, Vuru, North and South Woru, Toamts, Ragham, among many others, modified to suit the language's phonology, along with some words formed a priori. Sen has amassed a large community of learners and speakers of varying fluency along the years, many of whom propose the language as a candidate for international communication.

Philosophy

Sen began as a personal pet project by Frinn aiming to create a language with a small lexicon, which could create meaningful sentences using the least amount of "lexical" elements necessary (i.e. nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs). Sen achieves this through a modest repertoire of derivational affixes, including ones for verbal and nominal inflection, nominalisers, verbalisers, adjectivisers, location and locomotion. It also removes strict categorisations of parts of speech in favour of lexemes, words which may fill the roles of different parts of speech simultaneously while referring to general concepts, e.g. un un generally means "black, dark," but may also mean "absence of light, shadow; hidden, secret, shaded, enshrouded; to hide, to conceal, to shade, to darken," among other more specific meanings deducible from context.

Sen was inspired by Frinn's Heranist studies, attempting to incorporate its ascetic and minimalist values into the very core of the language, as well as its communitarianism in creating her own group of early followers, all students of culture, logic and linguistics from the Magistral University of Eswarry, which she attended. She encouraged deliberately experimenting with the language and developing personal idiolects, a concept she would refer to as creating one's own sibiki (sibici Sen for "way, direction").

Phonology

Consonants

Sen makes use of a small set of 15 phonemes.

Sen consonants

	Labial / Labiodental		Alveolar		Palatal	Velar
	Unvoiced	Voiced	Unvoiced	Voiced		Unvoiced	Voiced
Nasal		m m /m/		n n /n/
Plosive	p p /p/	b b /b/	t t /t/	d d /d/		c k /k/	g g /g/
Fricative			s s /s/
Trill or tap				r r /r~ɾ/
Approximant		w w /w/			j y /j/		(w w /w/)

Vowels

Sen uses 5 vowels.

Sen vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i i /i/		u u /u/
Mid	e e /e/		o o /o/
Open		a a /a/

Vowels may never form diphthongs or long vowels, at least phonemically. Sequences of vowels contacting are always broken up by a hiatus−even two of the same vowel.

Grammar

All "lexical" words (i.e. not purely grammatical, like pronouns) in Sen may take the role of verbs, nouns, adjectives or adverbs depending on the context.

ciena cara kiena kara "hot food" or "the fire consumes"
cara ciena kara kiena "edible fire" or "the food heats up"

Word order and head direction

Sen word order is flexible, but for general statements it tends to be Verb-Subject-Object.

pinca rega cienade pinka rega kienade

cook person food-OBJ

"the person cooks the food"

It is also usually head-initial, and lexical words may be modified concatenating other words after them.

Pronouns

Sen has three pronouns, displayed below.

Sen pronouns

First / Proximal	Second / Medial	Third / Distal
eḷ en / Ø	os os	an an

These pronouns are appended at the beginning of verbs to mark person. Usually, a verb by itself with no marked person will tacitly carry the first person.

mea mea "to know" or "I know"
anmea anmea "she knows"

A pronoun may also be appended at the end of a noun to indicate possession or deixis, depending on context.

cienaan kienaan
"(it is) his food" (as opposed to ankiena "he eats") or "(it is) that food"

Verbal inflection

Verbs in Sen are conjugated by appending affixes at either ends.

Sen verbal inflection

Conjugation	Affix	Example
Non-past	Unmarked	muon muon "I (will) rise"
Past	-en -en	muonen muonen "I rose" or "I have risen"
Imperative	-ebi -ebi	muonebi muonebi "rise!"
Iterative	ti- ti-	timuon timuon "I (will) rise again"
Passive	-iri -iri	muoniri muoniri "I will be risen"
Reflexive	-mẹ -me	muonme muonme "I rise myself"
Optative/Hortative	-is -is	muonis muonis "please rise" or "I wish to rise"

A verb may take a non-pronoun subject by directly preceding it.

timuon lea timuon rea
"the sun will rise again"

It may also take an object by using the object suffix -de.

sibici je legade sibiki ye regade
"the beast leads the man"

Nominal inflection

Sen nominal inflection is minimal—only three nominal suffixes are used.

Sen nominal inflection

Suffix	Uses	Example
-de -de	Direct object marker	tece nide teke nide "I chase you"
-we -we	Dative, indirect object marker	danebi cienade niwe danebi kienade niwe "Give bread to us"
-ere -ere	Adjunctive, attributive marker (marks a noun being modified by a preceding noun)	sin pinpuroere sin Pinpuroere "the ruins of Filfuro"

Genitive constructions are done through noun concatenation.

je rega ye rega
"the man's dog"

Locative and locomotive affixes

Locatives and locomotives in Sen.

Sen makes use of an extensive array of locative and locomotive affixes used either in their literal sense or for derivational purposes. They are pairs of identical affixes appended either at the beginning of a word for their locative meaning or the end for their locomotive meaning.

Sen locatives and locomotives

Affix	Uses		Example
	Locative	Locomotive
no no	outside	out of, outwards	nosin nosin "outside the house" sinno sinno "out of the house"
muon muon	above, over	upwards	muonsin muonsin "above the house" sinmuon sinmuon "up from the house"
moi moi	behind, after	motion behind	moisin moisin "behind the house" sinmoi sinmoi "moving behind the house"
be be	inside, within	into, inwards	besin besin "inside the house" sinbe sinbe "into the house"
can kan	in front, before	motion in front	cansin kansin "in front of the house"/"opposite the house" sincan sinkan "moving in front of the house"
goi goi	below, under	downwards	goisin goisin "below the house" singoi singoi "from under the house"
con kon	exactly at	motion to	consin konsin "at the house" sincon sinkon "towards the house"
re re	near(by)	motion near	resin resin "near the house" sinre sinre "moving near the house"
i i	away from, distant	motion away	isin isin "distantly from the house" sini sini "away from the house"