Text
“Funda bas bvidiz xasŋewa”
Бenoy mau iλuiöndis dazyi. Iλuiöy tanya amyəs ya ləbwa ya oy. Umyi vaötsoä ya intensyon na ondaüsmoy [abəŋ rə miɹuyoy la [dꝛan iλuimoy]].
Dꝛan tsiloyats umyi keꝛa keꝛə βoŋ soyats mai. Egə pfewa kyouïs pan mapa səts maudaimis.
Γets zuïyoyats kala δə βutsa konis umyi benonda [taluyai maukalis kom yam]. Kom yam lantoyats [ləbwa mavin linsəts oy keꝛə morifaïs].
English Translation
“Descending into insanity”
I live without accomplishing much. I follow the weird decisions of my dreams. Regarding the purposes of intention, I hope to conclude from logical analysis that upon further consideration, I fail to imagine that which I seek to accomplish.
I tried to reason about the place I expected to be, but all the maps and guideposts were fake.
So I created a set of personal rules for surviving random events like that, and so allowed the nightmares to show me a place of absolute darkness.
English translation of Ithkuil text
“Descent into insanity”
I live accomplishing little, enacting the weird actions of my dreams. Regarding the purposes of intention, I hope to conclude from logical analysis that upon further consideration, that which I seek to accomplish I fail to imagine in my mind.
I attempted to realize my intentions and reason about the place I expected myself to be, but all the maps were fake and there was something wrong with the guideposts.
Therefore, I created a set of personal rules for surviving these random events, and so allowed the nightmares to guide me into absolute darkness.
Grammar and Vocabulary
- bviz (conj.) “towards”, “into”
- benonda (v.) “live”
- bas (adj.) “down”, “low”, “under”
- dꝛan (evid.) “attempt” to do sth.
- dazyi (adj.) “many”, “much”
- ya (conj.) “by”, “from”, “of”
- yam (pron.) refers to the topic of the preceding sentence or conversation, similar to English “that”
- pfewa (n.) “map”, “blueprint”
- pan (conj.) “and”, “also”
- tsilonda (v.) “reason”, “prepare” an argument
- taluyai (n.) “event”, “holiday”, “happening”
- tanya (n.) “action”, “decision”
- kyouïs (adj.) “every”, “all”
- kure (special) start of phrase
- keꝛə (special) locative marker
- keꝛa (n.) “place”, “location”, “position”
- kala (n.) “list”, “set”, “collection”
- kom (conj.) “like”, “similar to”, “in the spirit of”
- konis (adj.) “closed”, “restricted”, “private”, “personal”
- δə (conj.) “with”, “containing”, “of”
- linsonda (v.) “show”, “visualize”, “present”
- ləbwa (n.) “dream”, “dream world”
- la (pron.) 3rd person (“he”, “she”, “it”, “they”)
- lantonda (v.) “allow”, “let” someone do something
- iλuiönda (v.) “follow” (an order), “implement”, “practice”, “realize”, “accomplish”
- intensyon (n.) “intention”
- umyi (conj.) “about”, “regarding”, “concerning”, “for” the purpose of
- βutsa (n.) “law”, “rule”
- βoŋ (evid.) “expect” to do sth.
- rə (evid.) “fail” to do sth.
- vaötsoä (n.) “purpose”, “goal”
- zuïyunda (v.) “make”, “create”, “establish”
- γets (evid.) “so”, “therefore”
- miɹuyunda (v.) “imagine”
- mapa (n.) “directions”, “guidepost”, “route”
- mai (special) end of phrase whose start was marked with kure
- mau (special) negation
- maudaimis (adj.) “fake”
- maukalis (adj.) “random”, “inconsequential”, “unordered”
- mavin (adj.) “evil”
- moris (adj.) “black”, “dark”
- na (evid.) “in my opinion”, “hopefully” when combined with the imperative
- funda (v.) “go”, “travel”, “move”, “walk”
- sinda (v.) “be”, copula
- xasŋewa (n.) “insanity”
- egə (evid.) “but”, “however”, “instead”
- abəŋ (evid.) “on second thought”, “on second look”, “upon further consideration”
- amyəs (adj.) “strange”, “weird”, “unusual”
- oy (pron.) 1st person (“me”, “us”)
- ondaönda (v.) “conclude” (from logical analysis)
Abbreviations
- = adjective, adverb
- = conjunction (an adjective that takes another word as its argument)
- = evidential or other adverbial
- = noun
- = pronoun
- special = explained in the grammar notes
- = verb
Grammar notes
- The basic word order is subject-verb-object.
- Evidentials and other adverbs are placed at the start of the sentence.
- All adjectives can also be used as adverbs, placed either at the start of the sentence or after the verb.
- The subject is omitted when the verb is in the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd person. On the other hand, the 4th person is used whenever the subject is mentioned explicitly.
- There is no number marking on nouns or verbs, i.e. no grammatical distinction between singular and plural.
- Adjectives and conjunction phrases come after the noun.
- Phrases (such as an entire adjective phrase) may be enclosed in kure and mai (often written as [ and ]) for emphasis or to avoid ambiguities.
- The locative marker keꝛə may be used in a similar fasion (starting a locative phrase ending in mai).
- Verbs are inflected according to tense (present, future, past), modality (indicative, imperative, declarative), and person (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th).
- All verbs in this text are regular, using the following forms. The ə in parentheses is only inserted when required by the syllable structure.
| indicative | imperative | declarative | ||
| present | 1 | oy | usoy | uvoy |
| 2 | es | ues | uves | |
| 3 | a | usa | uva | |
| 4 | (ə) | us | (ə)fu | |
| future | 1 | (ə)moy | usmoy | uvəmoy |
| 2 | (ə)mes | umes | uvəmes | |
| 3 | (ə)ma | usma | uvəma | |
| 4 | (ə)m | um | (ə)fum | |
| past | 1 | oyats | usoyats | uvoyats |
| 2 | ets | uets | uvets | |
| 3 | ats | usats | uvats | |
| 4 | (ə)ts | uts | uvəts | |
- Adjectives are “augmented” (not to be confused with comparative and superlative forms, which don’t occur in this text) by inserting one of the following infixes directly before the nucleus of the adjective’s last syllable:
- id — definitely
- ist — very
- ifa — extremely
- The negation particle mau usually works like a preposition.
- The romanization uses the diaeresis to indicate a vowel cluster, so for example eu is a diphthong (one syllable) while eü is a cluster (two syllables).