Archive:Twitter - David J. Peterson Sangheili primer

This is an archive of the Sangheili Primer that David J. Peterson gave on Twitter, alongside some accompanying related Tweets.

Main Primer

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Follow up to the last RT, here are some photos of the short #Sangheili primer @tlacamazatl wrote up. I’ll provide some further explanation. #conlang #HaloSeries

The inclusive/exclusive distinction in the first person plural pronouns (i.e. “we”) signifies a difference between “you and us” vs. “us and not you”. This difference shows up quite a bit in the series, so listen for “riin” vs. “jaari”.

Cases are, in this case, little tags that let you know what role a noun plays in the sentence. Ergative and absolutive are grammatical; vocative is for direct address; the rest are locative. I’ll explain these.

The ergative “o” is placed directly after a noun that effects the action of the verb. For example, in K’uucho o domo ruuk’inatan, “The warrior attacks the human”, k'uucho “warrior” is followed by “o” because it’s the one that causes the attacking to happen. Domo gets no tag.

The locative cases are analogous to the following English prepositions:

• Ablative: wele ga “from the ship”
• Adessive: wele ni “on the ship”
• Allative: wele oni “to the ship”
• Elative: wele ba “out of the ship”
• Illative: wele zhi “into the ship”
• Inessive: wele me “in the ship"

Those familiar with cases may notice there are no possessive cases. This is because one uses various of the other cases for possession depending on the nature of the possessive relationship.

For example, K’uucho oni zhuro would be “the warrior’s weapon”. Presumably this is one the warrior owns. K’uucho ni zhuro would also be “the warrior’s weapon”, but the implication would be it was one they just picked up, or was an improvisational weapon—one they happened to have.

Now, let’s say the warrior has their father’s weapon. You’d probably say something like K’uucho oni nejo ga zhuro. That is, “the weapon FROM the father TO the warrior”.

You can also make fun distinctions like K’uucho me ik’o “the warrior’s eye(s)” (presumably still in there), and k’uucho ba ik’o “the warrior’s eye(s)” (which, regrettably, have been removed for some reason).

There is a distinction between dynamic and stative verbs. The understanding of the tenses will change depending on the type of verb. This should be familiar to English speakers, as we do the same thing. (Cf. “I like pizza”~“I’m liking pizza” vs. “I eat pizza”~“I’m eating pizza”.)

A dynamic verb is one where there has been some actual change in the world—where some action has taken place (e.g. “call”, “crush”, “send”). A stative verb is one that reflects more of an internal state (e.g. “understand”, “be useful”, “forget").

Sangheili has 8 tenses, but the meanings of those tenses vary depending on whether the verb is stative or dynamic.

The forms are relatively simple, except for the reduplicative, which enjoys a lot of use. For dynamic verbs, it’s the present tense; for stative verbs, the emphatic.

Here are some examples:

• ch'in ~ ch’injin “stab”
• naya ~ nenaya “fertilize egg"
• opkho ~ pkhaapkho “bend"
• pkhungo ~ pkhubungo “sleep"
• qkhoso ~ qkhoghoso “walk"
• satkha ~ sasatkha “be sure"
• tkhop’o ~ tkhaadop’o “name”
• zaya ~ zaazaya “expand"

Gave @tlacamazatl fits trying to remember what the correct reduplicated forms were… Ugh.

Something that’s missing from these are the question forms. When asking a yes/no question, there are special forms for the verbs used with a reduced set of tenses (4). You’ll hear them when questions are asked.

For example, in the last episode, Make says Jan o tkha q’unqijaga, k’e daaghajahe? “Are you worried I’ll forget?” Before the comma is the “I’ll forget” part. K’e is “you”. Daagha is “worry”, and the -jahe suffix is the one you’ll hear with questions.

(Incidentally, that suffix was my favorite part. Really wanted it. Loved the sound of it. Works well with the regular antepenultimate stress, as stress always falls directly before -jahe.)

Oh, whoops! The reduplicative is the IMPERFECT for dynamic verbs, not the present. My bad! The imperfect is like “I was x’ing”.

The other big table up there has less to do with grammar than the lexicon. The instrumental prefixes are used to derive new verbs from verb bases. It’s a little like how we have verbs like “deduce”, “produce”, “induce”, “adduce”, etc.

A basic verb would be duje “to molt”. From that, we derived the following:

• moduje: lose track of
• juunduje: make look good
• gaiduje: sully

Another example using ghaina “to hear”:

• banghaina: sense
• t’ighaina: understand

This is khawa “to say”:

• gaikhawa: guess
• khekhawa: respond
• juukhawa: claim
• t’ikhawa: chat

If you compare the prefixes and their original meanings plus approximate uses, then combine them with the original verbs, you can get a sense of how we built these words, and came up with meanings for them. It was a lot of fun!

The demonstratives are more or less explicable (this, that, yonder, at an unknown place, nowhere).

But yeah, this is what @tlacamazatl and I have been working on and with since April 2019. :) Hope you enjoy it. #HaloSeries #Sangheili #conlang

Btw you can find the #conlang dialogue for #HaloSeries here after each episode airs: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2828287

Accompanying/Related Tweets

Response chain

Faber of Will and Might: Just realised there is no f or th. It wonder how names from the books like Fal or Thel would be pronounced.

Peter J. Peterson: P and T. Wasn’t too concerned. After all, München becomes Munich in English; Köln Cologne, etc.

Faber of Will and Might: I was just wondering because pkh and p' also exist. Would also V turn to W or B? Like would Thel 'Vadamee become Tel' Badamii or Tel 'Wadamii.

David J. Peterson: B, I’m that case.

Prefix chain

Christian Thalmann: What can you do with the «back» prefix? Turn «cut» into «saw» etc?

C. Buck:

• bit’a - to bear, to carry, to hold
• bambit’a - to promise s/t to s/o, to hold in reserve or specially s/t for s/o
• k’utkho - to fight
• bank’utkho - to defend, to resist (bank’utkho literally means “to fight with the back” and by metaph. extension, “to fight back”)

Statement that got a response

Faber of Will and Might: I assume it has to do with what rolls better on the tongue too. I just saw examples in other languages and it seems the vowels sometimes change because they can?

David J Peterson: Varying proto-forms, but also some are irregular.

C. Buck Retweet

Gave @tlacamazatl fits trying to remember what the correct reduplicated forms were… Ugh.

I can confirm. They're not always intuitive. :]

Parenthesis question

Faber of Will and Might: Hi. A quick question regarding the language. In the primer k, p, t, q, e, o are in parentheses. What do these parentheses indicate? Also congrats to the cast for learning and pronouncing it.

David J Peterson: They’re allophones that don’t occur on their own. Stops are only voiced or ejectives, but two ejectives can’t occur in a row, so sometimes an ejectives surfaces as plain.