Thinking about rewrites and sequels

2022/05/13 Lee Lacaille-XingLeave a comment

I’m thinking about rewriting The Land of Two Moons. I’m also thinking about writing a sequel to it. And I’m also thinking about writing a sequel to The Book of Immortality.

These aren’t new thoughts. I’ve been thinking about writing sequels to The Land of Two Moons and The Book of Immortality since I finished the first drafts. Every once in a while, the thought pops into my head. I don’t actually have plots that could be used for sequels, just brief scenes and snippets, but plots are something that take quite a bit of work for me. If I wanted to write a sequel, I’d have to spend quite a bit of time outlining a plot.

As for rewriting The Land of Two Moons…there are a lot of things that didn’t make it into the story. And since it starts off as a comic and makes the transition to prose after chapter 6, it’s inconsistent. There’s no real way for me to make a collected version of the story if I wanted to.

But is it worthwhile to do any of these things? I have so many other stories I want to tell, and time spent on these is time I can’t spend on others.

I think I’ll re-outline The Land of Two Moons and see if I can stuff everything I had to take out back into it. That’s the first step of a rewrite anyway, and once I’m done with that, I can see if I still actually want to rewrite it.

Language of Meitsung: Zarya Heul

2021/11/122021/11/06 Lee Lacaille-XingLeave a comment

Introduction

Zarya Heul is a conlang I originally created in 2015. I’d been reading about the Tocharian languages and was inspired, so Zaryaheul /zarja.heɯl/ took some influences from Tocharian and was intended to be spoken by a fictional Central Asian people. It had some extreme vowel harmony (syllables could only contain front vowels or back vowels, not both) and consonant assimilation, which I thought was impressive at the time but probably contributed to me losing interest in the conlang after a few months.

When it came time to write The Book of Immortality, I decided to revamp Zarya Heul. I dropped the vowel harmony, greatly simplified the consonant structure, and decided that words wouldn’t compound/stick together like they previously did. This brought it from a somewhat synthetic language to a more analytic one.

Information relevant to The Book of Immortality:

Zarya Heul “silk language” is a language spoken in the homelands of the Zarya Tel people. These homelands comprise the entirety of the West Zarya Wa Province and the majority of East Zarya Wa Province in the Meitsung Empire, as well as some lands to the north and west of the Empire.

Phonology

Zarya Heul‘s consonant inventory is fairly “normal”. The 2015 version of the conlang had voiced and unvoiced versions of each consonant (not just stops), but that was dropped in the final version.

	Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	m	n		ŋ
Stop	p b	t d		k g
Fricative		s z			h
Affricate		ts dz
Approximant		l	j	w
Trill		r

Originally, the conlang had diphthongs; they were all removed. All vowels are now pronounced separately. Each vowel also had rounded and unrounded counterparts, but since vowel harmony was removed, there was no longer any need for them.

	Front	Back
Close	i	u
Mid	e	o
Open	a

Syllable structure is CVN, where:

V = any consonant
V = any vowel
N = any voiceless alveolar, /n/, and /ŋ/

Stress usually falls on the first syllable. Words are rarely longer than three syllables.

Nouns

All modifiers (adjectives, numbers, etc.) precede nouns and case markers follow. Nouns are not inflected as Zarya Heul is an analytic language. The resulting “noun phrase” is NUMBER ADJECTIVE NOUN CASE.

There are six numbers: singular, dual, general plural, small plural, large plural, and all. As the singular is default, it is unmarked.

	Marker	Meaning
Singular	–	One thing
Dual	et	Two things
General plural	as	Things
Small plural	wo	A few things
Large plural	yi	A lot of things
All	apa	Every

Examples:

kin astar mawu “one black cat”
men kiye gung et “two red houses”

Nouns have multiple case markers: nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, and instrumental.

	Marker	Meaning
Nominative	–	Subject
Accusative	len	Direct object
Genitive	sil	Possessor
Dative	ra	Indirect object
Instrumental	neng	With, using

Zarya Heul also has a series of locative markers, which can be understood as cases:

	Marker	Meaning
Ablative	din	Away from
Allative	ku	To, toward
Adessive	gat	On, on top of
Inessive	hera	In, inside
Elative	long	Out of
Illative	yo	into

Pronouns

Pronouns are treated the same as nouns: they are preceded by modifiers and followed by case markers.

Person	Singular	Meaning	Gen. Plural	Meaning
1^st	yel	I	as yel	We
2^nd	sen	You	as sen	You
3^rd	daru	It	as daru	They

Reflexive pronouns are followed with the marker nar:

Person	Singular	Meaning	Gen. Plural	Meaning
1^st	yel nar	Myself	as yel nar	Ourselves
2^nd	sen nar	Yourself	as sen nar	Yourselves
3^rd	daru nar	Itself	as daru nar	Themselves

Verbs

Verbs have two types of markers: auxiliaries which express modality, and tense. Auxiliaries precede the verb and tenses follow it. If the verb is negated, the negation particle is first in line.

There are five tenses: far past, near past, present, near future, and far future.

Tense	Marker	Meaning
Far past	esa	A while ago
Near past	arza	Recently
Present	toku	Currently
Near future	ker	Soon
Far future	lau	A long time from now

The far past is used for actions that happened a significantly long time ago. What is considered a long time is fairly flexible, and usually up to the speaker.

Yel weki esa zarya heul len.

I spoke Zarya Heul a long time ago.
1SG speak FAR-PAST zarya heul ACC

The near past tense is used for actions that happened recently. It is similar to a perfect aspect.

Yel woan arza as kisang len.

I recently saw snakes.
1SG see NEAR-PAST GEN-PL snake ACC

The present tense is only used for actions that are currently occurring.

Yel miya toku.

I’m running right now.
1SG run PRES

The near future tense is used for actions that will happen soon. Like with the far past, what is considered “soon” is up to the speaker.

Yel penke ker as sare len.

I will buy eggs soon.
1SG buy NEAR-FUT GEN-PL egg ACC

The far future tense is used for actions that will happen far in the future.

Yel penke lau as sare len.

I will buy eggs at some point.
1SG buy FAR-FUT GEN-PL egg ACC

Verbs that are not marked for tense can be used for general statements:

Yel miya.

I run (for exercise, as a hobby, in general, etc.).
1SG run

Yel penke as sare len.

I buy eggs.
1SG buy GEN-PL egg ACC

Verbal auxiliaries are used in place of mood:

Auxiliary	Marker	Meaning
Can/could	dur	be able to
May/might	king	possibly
Must/shall	tenai	Requirement, obligation

Dur is used to indicate that an action can be carried out:

Yel dur miya.

I can run (I am capable of running).
1SG can run

King is used to express that an action could possibly occur:

Yel king penke as sare len.

I might buy eggs.
1SG might buy GEN-PL egg ACC

Tenai is used to express that a verb is an obligation or requirement:

Yel tenai penke as sare len.

I have to buy eggs.
1SG must buy GEN-PL egg ACC

Negation is indicated with the particle tu:

Yel tu miya toku.

I’m not running right now.
1SG not run PRES

Other Parts of Speech

Zarya Heul has two determiners: ngas “this”, which is used for objects close by, and keyu “that”, which is used by objects further away.

There are two locative adverbs: poku “here” and tsung “there”. Location can also be expressed with the constructions ngas kilar “this place/here” and keyu kilar “that place/there”.

Zarya Heul has multiple question words. Interrogative phrases start with a question word and end with the question tag mat:

Location	Word	Meaning
Beginning of phrase	lang	how
Beginning of phrase	garas	what
Beginning of phrase	muka	when
Beginning of phrase	liya	where
Beginning of phrase	yar	why
Beginning of phrase	tuwe	who
End of phrase	mat	Question tag

Examples:

Yar sen miya toku mat?

Why are you running right now?
Why 2SG run PRES question-tag

Liya sen penke as sare len mat?

Where do you buy eggs?
Where 2SG buy GEN-PL egg ACC question-tag

Languages of Meitsung: Célis Zisun

2021/11/082022/11/19 Lee Lacaille-XingLeave a comment

<< Languages of Meitsung: Mayu lháni & Meitsung soré

Introduction

Of the conlangs I created for the the story that eventually became The Book of Immortality, the dragon language was always the most fleshed out. It had to be, as it was used as a magic language and there were going to be passages written in it. I didn’t have to expand the grammar much.

Also, this conlang didn’t have a real name until earlier this year. Célis zisun means “mountain language”, and it’s one of the two dragon languages spoken in Greater Meitsung – primarily in East and West Rhécare. The other dragon language, mízha zisun “island language”, is spoken on the island of Mízharos.

Phonology

The original dragon language contained /ɲ/, /ɸ/, /β/, /x/, /ɣ, and /ʍ/ in addition to every consonant listed in the table below. The number of fricatives was truly ridiculous, and it made no sense to have /ɸ β/ and /f v/ as well as /h/ and /x/. Those consonants weren’t even allophones or anything – they were independent phonemes.

	Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	n (ɱ)		n
Stop	p	t d			k g
Fricative	f v	θ ð	s z ʃ ʒ			h
Approximant			l	j	w
Rhotic			ɾ r

In contrast, I added one vowel – /e/. The original dragon language only had /ɛ/ as a front mid vowel.

	Front	Central	Back
Close	ɪ i		u
Mid	ɛ e		o
Open		a

Diphthongs are /iu/, /io/, /iɛ/, and /ia/. Syllable structure is CVF, where C is any consonant, V is any vowel, and F is /n/, /l/ or /s/. There are no words that start with vowels. Primary stress falls on the first syllable of a word, and secondary stress falls on following odd syllables.

Orthography

Since this conlang was first developed when I was still obsessed with Irish orthograph, there are some influences – namely, using <c> to represent /k/. That also immediately distinguishes it from the other languages of Meitsung.

Letter	a	c	d	dh	e	é	f
Sound	/a/	/k/	/d/	/ð/	/ɛ/	/e/	/f/
Letter	g	h	i	í	l	m	n
Sound	/g/	/h/	/ɪ/	/i/	/l/	/m/	/n/
Letter	o	p	r	rh	s	sh	t
Sound	/o/	/p/	/ɾ/	/r/	/s/	/ʃ/	/t/
Letter	th	u	v	w	y	z	zh
Sound	/θ/	/u/	/v/	/w/	/j/	/z/	/ʒ/

Nouns

Nouns (and adjectives) are marked for case, number, and definiteness; those markers are suffixed in the form case-number-definiteness with the exception of the vocative case, which is a prefix.

There are six cases: nominative, genitive, accusative, dative, instrumental, and vocative. For some strange reason, there were originally separate possessive and genitive cases. I’m genuinely not sure why.

Case	Marker
Nominative	–
Genitive	-in
Accusative	-ul
Dative	-eta
Instrumental	-we
Vocative	a-

Célis zisun has two numbers: singular and plural. The singular is unmarked, and the plural suffix is –le. Nouns are assumed to be indefinite by default. The definite ending is –(a)ne.

Why is there even a definite marker in this conlang. I’m not sure. Perhaps I was thinking of the Scandinavian languages at the time.

Pronouns

Pronouns are marked for case and number in the same way nouns are – not definiteness, because…that wouldn’t make any sense.

	Singular	Plural
1^st	len	riv
2^nd Informal	rhal	rhale
2^nd Formal	van	vanle
3rd	dhas	dhasle

Verbs

Verbs are marked for tense, mood, and person/number. There are three tenses: past, present, future, and three moods: indicative, subjunctive, and imperative. The 2nd person formal and informal are not distinguished in verbs.

		Singular			Plural
		1^st	2^nd	3^rd	1^st	2^nd	3^rd
Past	Indicative	-esan	-esva	-esica	-esrí	-essi	-esne
Past	Subjunctive	-eson	-esonva	-esonica	-esonrí	-esonsi	-esonne
Present	Indicative	-an	-va	-(i)ca	-rí	-si	-ne
	Subjunctive	-onan	-onva	-onica	-onrí	-onsi	onne
	Imperative	-lion	-liova	-lioca	-liorí	-liosi	-lione
Future	Indicative	-inan	-inva	-inica	-inrí	-insi	-inne
Future	Subjunctive	-inonan	-inonva	-inonica	-inonrí	-inonsi	-inonne

Numerals

Célis zisun‘s number system is base ten. To form numbers in the teens, the word lemu “ten” is followed by a numeral. For example, lemu fari is 15. To form multiples of ten, a numeral (2, 3, 4, etc.) is followed by the plural form of ten. Heda lemule is 40 and pel lemule wora is 68.

Other Things

There is a copula, hen, that’s much more irregular than other verbs. Adjectives follow nouns, and adverbs follow verbs. Word order is Subject-Object-Verb, and has been through all forms of this conlang.

Despite this conlang being more fleshed out than the previous two, it’s still largely a naming language. Perhaps sometime in the future I’ll come back and work on it more, but for now this is all there is.

Languages of Meitsung: Mayu lháni & Meitsung soré

2021/11/012022/11/19 Lee Lacaille-XingLeave a comment

Introduction

In the very first, 2014 version of The Book of Immortality, there were five languages, four of which descended from a single proto-language.

The four languages descended from the proto-language were separated into two families: dragon and tiger. The dragon languages were the language of patience (an ancient language, akin to Latin, which was used in the modern day for casting magic spells by dragons and elves) and the river tongue, which was the modern language spoken by the dragons (akin to the modern Romance languages). The tiger languages were the language of passion (again, an ancient language akin to Latin, used in the modern day for magic exclusively by the tigers) and the white language, the modern tiger language.

The fifth language was “Common”, spoken by elves and humans. It was represented by English.

Once The Book of Immortality reached its current form, I revamped the dragon and tiger languages and also created a conlang for the humans and elves: meitsung soré. The dragon language is much more fleshed out and requires a blog post of its own, but the tiger language and meitsung soré are fairly basic naming languages.

Mayu Lháni

Mayu lháni literally means “tiger language”. It always contained /ɬ/, but the uvular consonants were added in the final version of the conlang.

	Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular
Nasal	m	n			(ɴ)
Stop	p b	t d		k g	q
Fricative		s ɬ		x	(χ)
Approximant		r l	j	w

The white language had /e/ and /o/ and no vowel length distinction. I decided that mayu lháni would have three vowels to distinguish it more from the other conlangs.

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i iː		u uː
Open		a aː

Syllable structure is CVC. Mayu lháni is agglutinative, and word order is Verb-Subject-Object. Since I never actually fleshed out anything other than nouns, this doesn’t matter much.

Nouns have four cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative) and three numbers (singular, dual, plural).

Case	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	–	-pe	-ma
Accusative	-ge	-pege	-mage
Genitive	-a	-pea	-má
Dative	-ih	-peih	-maih

I also created some numbers:

Numeral	Number
1	tús
2	pín
3	har
4	qina
5	nálhi
6	ísa
7	wara
8	lhuyu
9	táki
10	kata
100	talhi
1000	qin

Meitsung soré

Meitsung soré means “splendid language”. Since I knew from the beginning that all I needed was a naming language, all I created was the phonology and orthography. There’s no actual grammar in this conlang.

I spent some time wondering if I wanted to have both /r/ and /l/. I ended up liking enough of the words with /r/ in them that I kept them both.

	Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	m	n		ŋ
Stop	p	t		k
Fricative		s	ɕ		h
Affricate		t͡s	t͡ɕ
Approximant		ɹ~ɻ l	j	w

Having both /e/ and /ɛ/ was also something I deliberated on for a while. But I didn’t want to change the pronunciation of Lisel /lisɛl/ and I wanted /e/ in the language, so…I kept both.

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid	e	(ə)	o
Open-Mid	ɛ
Open	a

Syllable structure is CVF, where C is any consonant, V is any vowel, and F is /ŋ/, /l/, /n/. I know it seems pretty random that /l/ is mixed in with the nasals, but again…it’s because I wanted Lisel’s name to work in the language. I’m not sure why I didn’t allow the other approximants to be finals as well.

Languages of Meitsung: Célis Zisun >>

The Book of Immortality: Origins

2021/10/252022/11/19 Lee Lacaille-XingLeave a comment

The first inklings of this story started in 2014 when I decided to combine Western & Chinese mythology. The elves and elemental magic came from the Western side, and the dragons and tigers came from the Chinese side. There was a fairly even mix between the mythologies, but I didn’t have much of a plot, so I set the story aside until I had a burst of inspiration in 2017 and started work on The Book of Immortality.

I create three different maps for the original setting. The first has been lost entirely, but I still have images of the other two.

This is the second map, which was created in August 2014. “Resunishe” was the city where the story started. This obviously became Resuni, the capital of East Meitsung in The Book of Immortality.

The third map is much more similar to the final map of Meitsung. The Kingdom of Flames (tiger territory) and Dragon Mountains (dragon territory) are in roughly the same areas.

Unfortunately, I seem to have deleted most of my notes. The only character name I remember is Sirilrhis. He was in the story from the very beginning, as were his kids (though Vidhas had a different name and Zhivasu’s name was spelled differently).

Lisel existed from the very first draft. She was always an elf, but she had a different name (Rensel, possibly) and a much different personality. There was a female tiger character who was some kind of guard. She didn’t make it into The Book of Immortality. There was no equivalent to Kiyaska – I don’t remember if there were any human characters.

The story actually started off in the same way: Rensel attacked Sirilrhis so her people could get him to help them. However, Rensel was an archer who used a bow. She also wasn’t a leader – she was super insecure and genuinely not the best at what she did. This was actually she was picked to shoot a dragon: so they wouldn’t lose anyone actually valuable if she failed and died.

I also write two short stories. They were posted on this blog in 2014 and I took them down some time later, likely when they became irrelevant.

Thoughts of a Paper Dragon

Speculative fiction, art, conlangs

Tag: The Book of Immortality

Thinking about rewrites and sequels

Language of Meitsung: Zarya Heul

Languages of Meitsung: Célis Zisun

Languages of Meitsung: Mayu lháni & Meitsung soré

The Book of Immortality: Origins