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.

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	Plain	f f /f/
	Sibilant			s s /s/
Trill or tap					r r /r~ɾ/
Approximant	Plain		w w /w/			j y /j/		(w w /w/)
	Lateral				l l /l/

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"

cara ciena kara kiena "edible fire"

ciena en cara kiena en kara "the food heats up"

Word order and head direction

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

lega o ciena en pilca lega o kiena en pilka

person OBJ food PRED cook

"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 el / 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"

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"

Verbs

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 using the predicate marker en.

lea en timuon lea en timuon
"the sun will rise again"

It may also take an object by using the object marker o.

je o lega en sibici ye o lega en sibiki
"the beast leads the man"

Particles

There are three main particles in Sen: en en, the "predicate marker," introduces a verbal phrase, o o marks the direct object of a verb, and u u serves as a benefactive ("for (the sake of)") or causative marker ("because of").