Sen
| Sen | |
|---|---|
| sen Sen | |
| Created by | Cárlẃmm Frinn |
| Purpose | |
| 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.
| 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.
| 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 lega o ciena pinka lega 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.
| 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.
| 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 lea
"the sun will rise again"
It may also take an object by using the object suffix -de.
sibici je legade sibiki ye legade
"the beast leads the man"
Nominal inflection
Sen nominal inflection is minimal—only three nominal suffixes are used.
| 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 lega ye lega
"the man's dog"
Locative and locomotive affixes
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.
| 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" |
| le le | near(by) | motion near | lesin lesin "near the house" sinle sinle "moving near the house" |
| i i | away from, distant | motion away | isin isin "distantly from the house" sini sini "away from the house" |