update 2023: Yskarr is an absolute garbage bastard language that I threw together when I was 16 and haven't touched since. It has no tenses, it has no cases, it has one article. I need to redo the whole goddamn thing someday but it's too much work. Don't read this page, don't look at it. I'm keeping this on the website just as a little reminder to myself.
Phonemic Orthography
Pronunciation column is in IPA.
There’s not much to it.
“r” is pronounced like the Japanese ‘R’, like the D in ‘duh’ but a little less hard. The way Americans say “gutter” or “throttle”. It’s like that.
“e” is pronounced like the “eh” in “rent”.
“u” is pronounced like the ‘ooh’ in ‘pool’.
“y” is pronounced like the “eeh” sound in ‘screech’ or ‘leek’ or ‘breach’.
“S” is pronounced like the “sh” in “shell”, but with a breathy lisp.
“z” is pronounced like the “d” in “dark”.
“h” is pronounced like the English h, but raspier and more gutteral.
“j” is pronounced like the “dg” in “judge”.
The apostraphe is simply a glottal stop, but it is a full stop — it is simply shorter than the pause between words.
“v” is pronounced nothing like the English “v”. I can’t explain it, but you can get an approximation by watching this video — however, there is a hard “t” before the sound.
Also, there are no sounds that require closing the lips (m, p, f, vuh, b, and any other such sounds)
Sentence structure
The structure format is as follows:
(1) Verb, (2) noun as suffix connected to verb, (3) direct object
Example: “Srysk’y yry” means “I ate food”, (Syntax: Ate I food).
Sry = ate, sk’y = denotes self, yry = food.
Other possible spellings are Sry yl sk’y yl yry, and Srysk’y yl yry. (Syntax: Ate the I the food, and Ate I the food.)
‘il’ is a placeholder, similar to our word ‘the’. The only reason it is used is to separate the prefix from the suffix in order to make them easier to distinguish, or to remove ambiguity if it exists.
‘ol’ (explained in much more detail below) is a connector between related concepts; blue fence would become.
Properties of nouns are attached after the noun. If the property is three letters or less, it is tacked on with a glottal stop. If it is more, it is connected with “ol”. Example: Red fruit is “Tynyry’ary”. Loud speech is “Ur’ol yurur”
Format for prepositions
(1) Preposition, (2) noun. (may also be Preposition, “yl”, noun.)
Denotation of ownership
‘sky is tacked onto a noun to denote ownership. e.g. “karyl’sky – my pen”
NOTE: ‘sky is grammatically different than sk’y.
Oneself is sk’y. Ownership is ‘sky.
Placeholder for removal of ambiguity
As stated previously, ‘il’ is a placeholder, similar to our word ‘the’. The only reason it is used is to separate the prefix from the suffix in order to make them easier to distinguish, or to remove ambiguity if it exists. It can come by itself, or be tacked onto the noun with a glottal stop
Connection of separate concepts to form more complex concepts and statements
‘ol is tacked onto a noun after a glottal stop, and it is used as a connector between two concepts. It’s fairly flexible, you can tack nouns together to get a rough concept across. If you have too many glottal stops, you may want to put it in as a separate word between the two; either works, but if there aren’t any glottal stops the default is to tack it on as a stop.
Example 1: “ahy’ol ary” = “(I) see all black.”, or “ahy’ol loq” = “(I) see nothing.”
(Above example (1), notice how it is tacked onto the first noun as a glottal stop. Also, notice the absence of “sk’y”; the ‘y’ in this case is assumed based on context. This spelling can be used to denote lack of vision in general. If you want to make it first-person specifically, you tack “sk’y” onto the first noun or concept).
(Literal translations of the above example (1): “Sight/Vision [‘ol connector] black.” and “Sight/Vision [‘ol connector] absence-of-thing.”
Example 2: “ahy’sk’y’ol loq” versus “ahy’sk’y ol loq”
While technically correct, the former is a jumbled mess of glottal stops (“‘sk’y being the first-person “I” word, and “‘ol” being the connector.”) You can make it easier to grapple by just separating it.
Denotation of plural
Much like ‘ol, ‘hol is (typically) tacked on as a glottal stop, and is used to denote multiple of something. Tacked on by itself, it simply means plural/more than one. When tacked on with a number, it means that number of the thing. Hol is always put on after all other separators, other than “ol” — if tacked on with a number, ‘ol is used as a glottal stop to connect it to a number, and the number is connected immediately following ‘hol’ol.
Example 1: “Uvykaryl’hol’ol rys” = “Two books”
Literal translation: “Book multiple [connector concept] two.”
The above example (1) is a bit of a mess, but it gets crazier. Tack on a ‘ski to Uvykaryl (it comes immediately after, before ‘hol’ol) and you get “Uvykaryl’sky’hol’ol rys”. (Because it’s such a mess, you can cheat a little and write “uvykaryl’sky’hol ol rys”. Slightly better.
Glory to the glottal stop!
Numbers
The numbers are:
Rol = One (1)
Rys = Two (2)
Srol = Three (3)
Srys = Four (4)
Hys = Five (5)
Srysk = Six (6)
Srolk = Seven (7)
rysk = Eight (8)
Rolk = Nine (9)
Olkol = Ten (10)
Tenyly = 100
Arutol = 1,000
After you reach ten, you count the number of tens by putting the number (of tens) before the ten, with ‘yl’ between the numbers,
for example (1): “Rys yl olkol” = Twenty (20), “two tens”
Example (2): “Rolk yl olkol” = Ninety (90 ), “Nine tens”
To count one of the numbers between the current ten and the next ten, you just stick the number after the ten (without “yl”),
for example (3): “Srysk yl olkol srys” = Eighty-four (84), “Eight tens and four”, (or, more literally, “eight and ten four”, but it’s easy enough to intuit)
Example (4): “Rys yl olkol srolk” = Twenty-seven (27), “Twenty tens and seven”
From 10 to 19, you do not need to do “Rol yl olkol”, simply “olkol” is sufficient.
Example (5): “Olkol hys” = Five (5), “Ten and five”.
Lexicon
Lexicon temporarily removed while I rework some of the language after a recent update to the phonemic orthography. It’ll be ready when it’s ready.
back to home page