#language creation

Trigger Warning: Allusions of self-harm.

I don't know what to say, other than I just had the inspiration to come up with a conlang that has no vowels, trills, and trill allophony, among other things. It was supposed to be a fun mini-lang. A purposefully unfinished sketch with nothing much associated with it. Then, it hit me. There would also be a grammaticalized harmony across the trilled consonants in an utterance, universal harmony if you will, that would indicate something about the surrounding environment. I then realized that this felt a lot like another conlang sketch that I was drafting up for my version of the Monkeys' Monklish for a Bloons fan project.

Thus, the formerly unrelated lang became the in-universe con-register for one of the Monkey Towers. Specifically, the Ice Monkeys. The trill harmony became an indicator of physical surrounding temperature and, metaphorically, the hostility and indifference of that same environment.

There are some other features, like rounding on uvular trills and velarization on bilabial ones that could act like intensifiers, "Blizzards" being a curse word, and the fact that I can't roll my Rs making the alveolar trill a liquid instead. But that's all that I got for now.

Masterpost will be edited for new sections.

Nemesese Goals

Basically, Nemesese is supposed to be my version of Car Slam in that it is, as the creator of Car Slam puts it, a language of false cognates. As in I will be taking English words and grammatical structures and reinventing how they work. To be Frank, I have no idea how this conlang will turn out and never attempted anything like this before. So, it will be a journey for me, the creator of this fanlang, and you, the person reading through these posts.

That said, I want Nemesese to capture Nemesis's strange, almost elegant, entirely nonsensical phrase structures and, maybe, be composed of mostly multi-syllabic words. Unlike the current iteration of Car Slam, this language will be based on the spellings of English and not it's phonology. Also, that this conlang may be partially nonconcatenative in how words are derived.

With all that said, I hope you all have a good experience with this fanlang project and that I hope it inspires you fellow conlangers in turn.

0 = nol

1 = lir

2 = ren

3 = kor

4 = tae

5 = len

6 = tora

7 = siv

8 = veln

9 = soth

10 = ave

11 = aevlir

12 = aevren

13 = aevkor

14 = aevtael

15 = aeven

16 = aevsura

17 = aevnira

18 = aevlan

19 = aevsoth

20 = renaev

30 = koraev

40 = taelaev

50 = venaev

60 = suraev

70 = niraev

80 = lanaev

90 = sothaev

kaev = hundred

100 = lir kaev

200 = ren kaev

300 = kor kaev

400 = tael kaev

500 = ven kaev

saekaev = thousand

lir saekaev = 1000

ren saekaev = 2000

kor saekaev = 3000

tael saekaev = 4000

ven saekaev = 5000

sel = point / split / division marker

1.5 = lir sel ven

3.25 = kor sel ren ven

6.02 = sura sel nol ren

vel = negative

vel lir = -1

vel ven-aev = -50

vel kor sel ren = -3.2

sael = part / portion / divided piece

ren sael = half / 1⁄2

(literally “two-part”)

kor sael = third / 1⁄3

tael sael = quarter / fourth / 1⁄4

ven sael = fifth / 1⁄5

Maths

kaeven = addition

nolven = subtraction

saelen = division

koren = multiplication

aevmark = equals

lir kaeven ren aevmark kor = 1 + 2 = 3

ven nolven kor aevmark ren = 5 - 3 = 2

tael koren ren aevmark velan = 4 × 2 = 8

Singular:

vi=I / me / my

vae=you / your

se=he/she/they (general singular third person)

sen=they/them

Plural:

len=we/us

vaen=you all

thaen=they all

selae=they/them

Conjugation

(cause I didn’t add it and I figured it would be good to add cause someone asked so I’ll just update this)

pronoun + tense marker + verb

Examples:

mora = sleep

vi mora = I sleep

vae mora = you sleep

se mora = they/he/she sleeps

len mora = we sleep

The verb NEVER changes.

Then tense markers get added.

vi tha mora = I slept

vi vea mora = I will sleep

vi lae mora = I am sleeping right now

vi nae mora = I am not sleeping

It does not change with possessive either

soren vi = my name

soren vae = your name

soren se = their name

“Soren vae?” = “Name you?” = “What’s your name?”

Possession isn’t conjugated, it’s implied by association.

Same thing with family:

ama vi = my mum

selor se = their brother

loren len = our partner/beloved

No apostrophes, no possessive endings, no conjugation changes. Just:

Common: s, v, l, r, n, m, k, t, d, h, y, f

Less Common: z, th, g

Rare: b, p

Almost Absent: j, q, x,ch

Vowels: a, e, i, o, u, ae, ai, oa

Most common syllable structures:

CV

CVC

CVCV

Current established sound changes:

th > s

e > ae / #_

t > r / V_V

{k,p,b} > ∅ / _#

o > oa / _r

Questions are usually formed through:

Tone

Context

Word order

Possession tends to be implied/contextual:

“Soren vae?”

means:

“Name you?”

Tense Markers

Tha=past/already/before

Vea=future/will/soon

Lae=active ongoing emphasis

Nae=negation/not

Examples:

“Vi mora.”

I sleep / I’m sleeping.

“Vi tha mora.”

I slept.

“Vi vea mora.”

I will sleep.

“Vi lae mora.”

I’m sleeping right now.

“Vi nae mora.”

I’m not sleeping.

“Vae tha etha?”

Did you eat?

“Len vea sorae.”