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plaindealingvillainMaking words for a totally foreign language is *hard*. Especially when there isn't really any documentation of what very early protolanguages looked like to look at for reference. To get a sense of what words to make, I'm using a list of semantic primes here, and the universal language dictionary. I don't actually have a scanner near to hand, so I'll just ramble about what I have drawn and explain the hand signs and logic behind them.
Like most human sign languages, pronouns are pretty straightforward; they point to things. The sign for "I" is to direct your claws inward and move them in a short arc inward toward the chest; the sign for "You" is to direct the claws outward and move them in a short arc toward the second person. Him/Her/Them/It singular is done the same as you, only oriented in a different direction. All of these are written with a pair of curves; one represents the claw and the other the motion. In the singular, the two curves are parallel.
Plural has the same clawshape (in sign and writing) but a different motion; rather than sweep in the same direction, the motion is an arc to the sides, encompassing people nearby (whether or not those people are present). Reference to absent persons is done by pointing to empty space; the usual location is somewhere over the shoulder of the speaker, distinguished from referring to a person in the direction by not turning the head. This is written with a helical curve for the motion line. There is also a distinct dual case (for exactly two people); this is shown with a linear motion between the two people, and written with a straight line for the motion line.
All the signs for time (so far, at least) are based on the sign for day. Day is shown by a nearly-complete circle (open at the right edge) which is tangent to a broad inverted U, showing the arc of the sun in the sky. A long time is shown by changing the inverted U to a helix (looping three times), indicating several days. A short time is made by abbreviating the U to a small arc and drawing a horizontal line underneath it. In sign, a claw forms the almost-circle and the arc is the motion; for the short time, the other hand forms the line, moving in the opposite direction from the sun's arc.
Currently, 'high' and 'good' (which share a glyph) are formed by placing one hand flat above and the other in a point and driving it up to the flat. 'Low' and 'bad' are similar, but with the flat below the point and the moving claw driving down. I'm not enormously happy with these, though I'm pretty happy with the good/high, bad/low homonym pairs. (It's good to have unusual homonymies; that way you know you aren't just making your own language again.)
I stuck the glyph for 'person' through several iterations of simplification. The original sign was probably just pointing to other Shskle lazily and indicating 'nonspecific' by a shake of the head or equivalent (what is their body language like? I have no idea.), but the written form is a sketch of a Shskle, which as I drew it looks like this, only with slightly more legs. This becomes a part of more complex glyphs and gets smoothed down, though, so eventually it stops being drawn with distinct legs, more as an S-curve with a curved crossbar which represents the claws on one side and and the tail on the other. In short, rather like a stick figure of one of these. "People" as a general concept is written by two of these with a continuous crossbar, or signed by using the 'arbitrary person' pronoun reference with the plural handmotion, usually gesturing broadly at the sky.
So that's things I have done. What I'm currently trying to figure out is prepositions. The ULD starts with from,to,at,inside,outside, and I don't know how to derive these from more tangible signs or glyphs. Inside/outside could maybe use a cave? Do I even want to have prepositions? I'm going to be doing a lot of other things by essentially requiring a mini-sentence to sprout off from the main body when you would otherwise add a modifying expression, so maybe prepositions should be left out entirely and their role taken by comparative adjectives. That seems ugly, though.
While I'm thinking about it, here's the basic grammar outline. It's an extreme generalization of the topic-comment syntax; whatever is meant to be the focus of the sentence comes first (generally a noun or verb, but not necessarily), and the bare bones of the sentence follows it. Example: The main line of the sentence might be
>cat I chase
But this can be expanded. Maybe the cat was bright red
Or the cat yowls frequently
Or maybe the cat killed your hamster
With the latter two, there are other ways of writing it. Is the most important thing that your hamster was killed? Then write it this way:
As I envision it, these sentences can be stacked and weaved outward to arbitrary complexity. Shskle poetry is traditionally structured as one large sentence, with the artful arrangement of the branches just as important as the words chosen. When debating topics, the sentences are generally written starting from the most critical portion of the argument and spiraling outward, moving from branch to branch to add detail in order of importance.
Thus ends my braindump for the day. Hopefully soon I'll get a scanner working (or get to the local library) and show off some of the glyphs (and my terribly handwriting).
Like most human sign languages, pronouns are pretty straightforward; they point to things. The sign for "I" is to direct your claws inward and move them in a short arc inward toward the chest; the sign for "You" is to direct the claws outward and move them in a short arc toward the second person. Him/Her/Them/It singular is done the same as you, only oriented in a different direction. All of these are written with a pair of curves; one represents the claw and the other the motion. In the singular, the two curves are parallel.
Plural has the same clawshape (in sign and writing) but a different motion; rather than sweep in the same direction, the motion is an arc to the sides, encompassing people nearby (whether or not those people are present). Reference to absent persons is done by pointing to empty space; the usual location is somewhere over the shoulder of the speaker, distinguished from referring to a person in the direction by not turning the head. This is written with a helical curve for the motion line. There is also a distinct dual case (for exactly two people); this is shown with a linear motion between the two people, and written with a straight line for the motion line.
All the signs for time (so far, at least) are based on the sign for day. Day is shown by a nearly-complete circle (open at the right edge) which is tangent to a broad inverted U, showing the arc of the sun in the sky. A long time is shown by changing the inverted U to a helix (looping three times), indicating several days. A short time is made by abbreviating the U to a small arc and drawing a horizontal line underneath it. In sign, a claw forms the almost-circle and the arc is the motion; for the short time, the other hand forms the line, moving in the opposite direction from the sun's arc.
Currently, 'high' and 'good' (which share a glyph) are formed by placing one hand flat above and the other in a point and driving it up to the flat. 'Low' and 'bad' are similar, but with the flat below the point and the moving claw driving down. I'm not enormously happy with these, though I'm pretty happy with the good/high, bad/low homonym pairs. (It's good to have unusual homonymies; that way you know you aren't just making your own language again.)
I stuck the glyph for 'person' through several iterations of simplification. The original sign was probably just pointing to other Shskle lazily and indicating 'nonspecific' by a shake of the head or equivalent (what is their body language like? I have no idea.), but the written form is a sketch of a Shskle, which as I drew it looks like this, only with slightly more legs. This becomes a part of more complex glyphs and gets smoothed down, though, so eventually it stops being drawn with distinct legs, more as an S-curve with a curved crossbar which represents the claws on one side and and the tail on the other. In short, rather like a stick figure of one of these. "People" as a general concept is written by two of these with a continuous crossbar, or signed by using the 'arbitrary person' pronoun reference with the plural handmotion, usually gesturing broadly at the sky.
So that's things I have done. What I'm currently trying to figure out is prepositions. The ULD starts with from,to,at,inside,outside, and I don't know how to derive these from more tangible signs or glyphs. Inside/outside could maybe use a cave? Do I even want to have prepositions? I'm going to be doing a lot of other things by essentially requiring a mini-sentence to sprout off from the main body when you would otherwise add a modifying expression, so maybe prepositions should be left out entirely and their role taken by comparative adjectives. That seems ugly, though.
While I'm thinking about it, here's the basic grammar outline. It's an extreme generalization of the topic-comment syntax; whatever is meant to be the focus of the sentence comes first (generally a noun or verb, but not necessarily), and the bare bones of the sentence follows it. Example: The main line of the sentence might be
>cat I chase
But this can be expanded. Maybe the cat was bright red
| red | ||
| cat | I | chase |
Or the cat yowls frequently
| I | ||
| annoy | ||
| cat | I | chase |
Or maybe the cat killed your hamster
| hamster | I | possessive |
| past | ||
| cat | I | chase |
| past |
With the latter two, there are other ways of writing it. Is the most important thing that your hamster was killed? Then write it this way:
| possessive | chase | |
| I | I | |
| hamster | cat | kill |
| past |
As I envision it, these sentences can be stacked and weaved outward to arbitrary complexity. Shskle poetry is traditionally structured as one large sentence, with the artful arrangement of the branches just as important as the words chosen. When debating topics, the sentences are generally written starting from the most critical portion of the argument and spiraling outward, moving from branch to branch to add detail in order of importance.
Thus ends my braindump for the day. Hopefully soon I'll get a scanner working (or get to the local library) and show off some of the glyphs (and my terribly handwriting).
