A Grammar of Leng

David Peterson, a conlanger who’s most well-known for creating Dothraki and Valyrian for HBO’s Game of Thrones, taught an elective class on conlanging for the linguistics department at UC Berkeley one summer. This was my final project, with some additions/corrections I did while preparing it for the web.

Over the course of six weeks, we were to create a conlang based on one of the unexplored regions of the Known World of the Lands of Ice and Fire. I chose Leng, one of the Jade Sea nations that is most definitely not based off Taiwan.

This document is based off the PDF I turned in; I’ve omitted the actual glyphs in the orthography section (but left the abugida rules in place) because I was really unhappy with them before and I’m really unhappy with them now, but this is otherwise a complete ported-for-web version of the original \( \LaTeX \) project. To make it look nicer with Leipzig.js, I’ve also devised a complete romanisation system for the language. It’s definitely a grammar document, but there are also fanfiction-y parts written from the point of view of an in-world linguist.

I have a lot of things I’m not content with in my version of Leng—mostly the phonotactics—but it’s still something I’m pretty proud of having done without much formal linguistics training at the time (being a cogsci major, I spent a lot of time in the psycholinguistics side of things and didn’t decide “hey, I really like just plain linguistics” until my final year of undergrad), so I’m presenting it as is. This is officially a retired project—but it is a fully fleshed-out conlang.

(The original conlang was completed July 3rd, 2017. The date on this post is when I updated and corrected the document. Some minor mistakes may remain.)

Backstory

Leng is an island nation that exists to the far east of Westeros. It is directly south of Yi Ti, northeast of Marahai, north of the Manticore Isles, northwest of Asshai and the Shadow Lands, and east of Great Moraq. The Westerosi name Leng comes from the Old YiTish /ləŋ/, from the Lengii word for the island, /ɬaŋ/.

The Lengii have a highly matriarchal society, influenced by the traditional belief that the Lengii god-empress was appointed directly by the hkemobi (/çamɔbi/, lit. ‘cold light’, rendered as ‘Old Ones’ in the Jade Compendium due to a poorly-translated Valyrian dictionary of YiTish) who live beneath the Lenyobi (/ɬaɲɔbi/, the Lengii name for the mysterious ruins in the middle of the island). Although there is a decent amount of class stratification in Leng, this concept of ‘mother as rock and leader’ permeates through all classes. Men have historically been charged with exploration, hunting, and manual labour while women stayed behind at settlements to build infrastructure and manage agriculture. Ancient Lengii trade routes were staffed mostly by men, with the occasional female owner of a smaller trade company personally captaining a ship and overseeing transactions; this caused outsiders to assume for many centuries that Leng was a mostly patriarchal society.

Due to Leng’s central location in the Jade Sea, it has had extensive contact with neighbouring civilizations despite long periods of isolationism that punctuated eras of booming open trade. These isolationist periods often began violently, as they were a direct result of the hkemobi supposedly dictating to the god-empress that non-Lengii must be eradicated from the island. Leng’s abundance of a rich variety of resources allowed technological advances to flourish in spite of isolationism, giving Leng a unique position of power among the various Jade Sea nations.

As Leng’s closest neighbour, Yi Ti and Leng have an especially long and deep history of trade and interaction. Both nations independently discovered several technologies, ensuring mostly peaceful relations for most of their shared history as neither nation had much leverage over the other. However, Yi Ti’s position on continental Essos south of the militant Jogos Nhai exposed the YiTish to greater varieties of conflict, resulting in a more comprehensive understanding of military strategy. Coupled with Leng’s desirable output of resources and convenient location, it was only a matter of time before Yi Ti boldly invaded Leng in retaliation after the god-empress attempted another culling of YiTish living in Leng. YiTish Colonial Leng spanned the northern two-thirds of the island, while Leng proper was pushed all the way to the resource-sparse south. Jar Har, the YiTish emperor who conquered Leng, sealed all entrances to the Cold Place, permanently altering the nature of the Lengii’s relationship with the hkemobi. The rebellion led by Khiara the Great four centuries ago was mostly politically-motivated, cementing the new status quo. Some ancient traditions, especially imperial traditions, remain in vestigal forms today, but they no longer carry the same weight of deference to the hkemobi that existed in ancient times.

Although modern YiTish enclaves tend to be in less-affluent areas of the northern cities due to systematic discrimination, many ethnically YiTish families are also part of the scribe and merchant classes, and YiTish culture continues to play a role in modern Lengii life. The northern dialect has noticeably strong influence from an extinct YiTish-Lengii creole, realized mostly through vocabulary differences with the central and southern dialects, but it remains mutually intelligible. However, dialectal differences rarely pose a problem as the southern dialect was standardized during the education reform of Manyaki the Wise’s reign three centuries ago.

This paper will mostly focus on literary standard Leng.

Grammar

Typological Specification

Leng is a head-final, nominative-accusative, mostly agglutinative language with an SOV word order. Modifiers can go before or after nouns due to case agreement, but the MOD-N order is slightly more dominant. Demonstratives follow a strict MOD-N order. Possessors, depending on emphasis, can go before or after the subject; for more emphasis, the possessor follows the noun. Relative clauses come after the noun and all of its modifiers. Locative adpositions are placed after entire noun phrases, including the relative clause.

Verbs follow a fairly strict IO-DO-V order, but this can be occasionally violated due to Leng’s strong case system. Adjectival adverbs come before verbs and true adverbs come after verbs.

Phonology

Proto-Phonology

Consonants

Vowels

Modern Phonology

Consonants

Vowels

While speakers produce many more vowels than these six, it is my belief that these are the vowel phonemes. I’ve arrived at this conclusion based off the orthography and speakers’ intuitions.

There are three possible dipthongs:

• ej (eyi)
• aj (ayi)
• ɔj (oyi)

Phonotactics

Syllables can only end in vowels, nasals, or fricatives. Borrows are repaired by reduplicating the preceding vowel at the end of the word.

Sound Changes

1. pʰ tʰ cʰ kʰ → p t c k / V_V
2. s → ʃ / _V[+high]
3. p t f s ʃ ɬ → b d v z ʒ ɮ / V_V
4. c k x → ɟ ɡ ɣ / V_V[-front]
5. j → ʒ / V_V
6. ɮ → d͡ʒ
7. d͡ʒ → ʒ
8. [-voice] → [+voice] / [+son]_
9. h → ∅ / #_
10. ʔV → Vː / #_
11. ʔ → l / V_V
12. Vh → Vː / _#
13. r → d / #_
14. r → ɾ
15. a ɛ ɔ → ə e o / σ[-stress]
16. ɛ → ej / _#
17. hu lu u → ∅ / σ[-stress]

Allophony

• x → ç / _V[+front]
• a ɛ ɔ → ə e o / σ[-stress]
• ɛ → ej / _#

Stress

For two-syllable words, the stress falls on the first syllable. For words with three or more syllables, the stress is always on the second-to-last syllable. The only exception exists with very basic nouns that had more than two syllables before sound changes, such as [ɬəˈlɔʒ] (*ɬaˈlɔ.ju) ‘sun’.

Morphology

Nominal Number

Leng has three basic numbers: singular, definite plural, and indefinite plural. When the definite plural form is used without a numeral, it functions like a paucal.

Singular

The singular is unmarked.

Definite Plural

The definite plural is formed through reduplicating the final syllable. If the word is consonant-final, the final vowel is reduplicated.

Indefinite Plural

The indefinite plural is formed through a suffix, -alɔ, that comes from *ʔaʔɔ ‘big’. In vowel-final words, the final consonant is reduplicated.

Nominal Case

Leng has four cases: nominative, accusative, genitive, and dative.

Nominative

The nominative is unmarked. It is used with the agent of transitive verbs and topic of nominal predicates.

Accusative

The accusative case is used with the direct object of transitive verbs. The marker, -kes, comes from *kuwes ‘to touch’. In consonant-final words, the final vowel is reduplicated.

Genitive¹

The genitive case is used with possessors and agents of passive transitive verbs. The marker, -wa, comes from *jewa ‘arm’. In consonant-final words, the final vowel is reduplicated.

Dative

The dative case is used with the indirect object of transitive verbs and locations. The marker, -din, comes from *tʰelin ‘to give’. In consonant-final words, the final vowel is reduplicated.

Verbal Tense

Leng has two tenses: non-past and past.

Non-Past

The non-past is the base root with an analogized /u/ (from *caju ‘to do’) if the root does not already end in /u/. If the proto form of the root was vowel-final, the final consonant was reduplicated. Only velar consonants are subject to intervocalic voicing.

Past

The past tense is formed by a suffix, -a, that comes from *fanan ‘to finish’. If the final vowel of the root is /a/, the suffix is realized as /-una/ instead. For the inceptive and cessative aspects, the suffix is realized as /-na/.

Verbal Aspect

Leng has three aspects, marked by suffixes: progressive, inceptive, and cessative.

Progressive

The progressive suffix, /-s/, comes from *sukun ‘to revolve’. It simply attaches to the infinitive form of the verb.

Inceptive

The inceptive suffix, /-i/, comes from *saɾi ‘to go’. If the final vowel of the root is also /i/, the suffix is realized as /-aɾi/ instead.

Cessative

The cessative suffix, /-ɔ/, comes from *rɔli ‘to stay’.

Verbal Modality

Leng has four modalities, marked by prefixes: subjunctive, potential, conditional, and imperative. There is no intervocalic voicing of the first consonant of roots, but aspirated consonants become deaspirated. The subjunctive, potential, and conditional modalities can stack on top of each other; conditional has the highest priority, then subjunctive after that, then potential.

Subjunctive

The subjunctive prefix, /du-/, comes from *rukɛ ‘to want’. The only irregular conjugation of this modality is of /duk-/ ‘to want’; it is /duɾuk-/ instead.

Potential

The potential prefix, /ni-/, comes from *ɲuwuŋ ‘strong’.

Conditional

The conditional prefix, /dɛ-/, comes from *rɛ ‘with’.

Imperative

The imperative prefix, /ca-/, comes from *caju ‘to do’. The only irregular conjugation of this modality is of /caʒ-/ ‘to do’; it is /aɲaʒ-/ (from the second-person pronoun *haɲa) instead.

Modifiers

Adjectives are required to have case agreement with the noun being modified.

Nominative

The nominative is unmarked.

Accusative

In vowel-final words, the vowel is replaced with /-es/. In polysyllabic words, the final vowel and everything following it is replaced with /-es/. Monosyllabic consonant-final words are declined by adding /-ɔkes/.

Genitive

In vowel-final words, the vowel is replaced with /-a/. In polysyllabic words, the final vowel and everything following it is replaced with /-a/. Otherwise, /-a/ is appended after the final consonant.

Dative

The dative is formed by adding /-n/ to vowel-final words or changing the final consonant to the closest nasal.

Copulae

There are three different verb-like stative particles used for nominal, adjectival, and locative predicates. All of them can take tense and modality, but not aspect. All conjugation rules apply exactly the same.

Nominal Predicates

The stative particle for nominal predicates is /caʒ/ (from *caju ‘to do’). Like /caʒu/, the imperative mode is irregular.

Adjectival Predicates

The stative particle for adjectival predicates is /luŋ/ (from *luneku ‘to emit’).

Locative Predicates

The stative particle for locative predicates is /keʒ/ (from *kejux ‘to see’).

Nominalization

Modifiers can be nominalized by adding a nominalization suffix, /-ʃi/ (from *ɾis ‘what; thing’). If the adjective is consonant-final, the final vowel is reduplicated.

Verbs can be nominalized by adding a nominalization prefix, /ɾi-/ (also from *ɾis ‘what; thing’).

Nominalized words function like mass nouns and can only take case, not number.

Adverbs

The only true adverbs are temporal words and the mutual action marker /deʒɔjn/ ‘both’ (from *rɛ ‘with’, *jalɔj ‘other’, and *sukun ‘to revolve’). When /dɛʒɔjn/ is used with a transitive verb, the nominative case marks the initiator of an action and the accusative case marks the returner. For ditransitive verbs, the returner takes the dative case. These words all come after the verb.

Adjectives can be made adverb-like by adding /-ɾesi/ (from *ɾis ‘what; thing’ and *rɛ ‘with’). Adverbial adjectives come before the verb.

Numbers

Number words can function as both adjective and noun without morphological distinction. The rules for forming modifier declensions apply to all numbers except for /jaː/ ‘one; unique’, which follows noun declension rules.

Syntax

Valence-Changing Strategies

Passive

The target of a transitive verb is promoted to the nominative case in the passive voice and the verb takes a suffix, /-ʒanej/ (from *kaʒaŋja ‘3-SG’ and *rɛ ‘with; by’). If the agent of the passive verb is reintroduced, it is demoted to the genitive class. For the progressive aspect, the suffix is realized as /-anej/.

Causative

Like all ditransitive verbs, the cause-ee of the verb takes the dative case and the causer takes the nominative case. The marker for the causative is a suffix, /-da/ (from *tasah ‘to move’). For the progressive aspect, the suffix is realized as /-ada/.

Causative in the Passive Voice

The cause-ee takes the dative case. If reintroduced, the causer takes the genitive case. The verb is marked with /-danej/. For the progressive aspect, the suffix is /-adanej/.

Polar Questions

The question marker, /ɲuː/, comes from *ɲuwu ‘or’. It is placed after a sentence to turn it into a polar question. Intonation is raised at the end of the sentence.

Interrogative Questions

Interrogative words replace the place of the thing the speaker is asking for in the sentence. They also take the same case as whatever thing is being replaced. Like polar questions, intonation is raised at the end of the sentence.

Colloquially, speakers—primarily adolescents—have begun including the polar question marker /ɲuː/ at the end of interrogative questions.

Colloquially, speakers—primarily adolescents—have begun including the polar question marker /ɲuː/ at the end of interrogative questions.

Relative Clause Formation

Relative clauses are expressed by adding /ɾis/ ‘what’ or /ɾisaŋ/ ‘where’ after the noun being modified. /ɾis/ and every adjective in the relative clause takes the same case as the noun being modified.

Explanation clauses (i.e. ‘because’) act like adverbial relative clauses in that they come after the verb and use /ɾisej/ ‘how’ to mark the clause.

Negation

Verbs are negated with a suffix, /-j/, which comes from *rɔʔi ‘empty’. For the stative particles and the progressive aspect, the suffix is realized as /-ɔj/; for the inceptive aspect and non-past tense, the suffix is realized as /-dɔj/.

Comparison

Comparative clauses are formed by declining the comparand to the dative case and following it with /ɾis/ and the nominalized form of the modifier that is being compared.

Orthography

History of Writing

Leng has two writing systems: the common script, an abugida, and the imperial script, a logographic system. Legend has it that the hkemobi bestowed writing upon the god-empress by showing her how to create writing implements and surfaces. The imperial script did evolve from etchings that the god-empress had made after this supposed revelation, but most historical evidence points to ink technology having existed for some time before both writing systems in order to record trade transactions, draw primitive maps, and write on giant bamboo stalks to denote landmarks for navigation.

The imperial script is only used during war communications and certain religious ceremonies, most notably the Pibalo, the beginning of the rainy season in which the god-empress and crown princess place a large stone brick enscribed with a historical record of the past year at the Lenyobi. It was originally written with bamboo reed in clay, now with chisel in stone for the Pibalo and inkbrush on bamboo slip for military purposes. It is said that the use of the imperial script was wholly responsible for turning the tide during the last Lengii-YiTish war and allowing the imperial family to reclaim the island. Both how to read and write the imperial script has since been a well-kept secret to the scribe class and the royal family; teaching it outside the palace is tantamount to treason and violators have both thumbs cut off in public. For this reason, not much else is known about the imperial script.

The common script was originally written with parakeet quills or brushes made from various mammalian hairs (typically goat or wolf) using ink created from soot, water, and glue created from fish and cattle bones. As bamboo stalks are vertical and ink smears when written from right-to-left, the common script is written top-down and left-to-right. There are no spaces between words, but horizontal dashes are used to denote both vowel-less glyphs and sentence endings. One YiTish glyph was borrowed to write /ʃ/, as it had not existed at the time of the development of the common script but entered the Lengii phonemic inventory after sound changes that took place during YiTish rule. Slabs of flattened and processed bamboo stalks tied together into pages and books remains the most common writing surface, but animal hide is occasionally used for special occasions.

Lengii literacy rates are very high, as education until the age of 15 has been compulsory since Maɲaki the Wise’s reign.

Glyphs

(omitted)

Diacritic Derivation

/a/ glyphs descend directly from their proto-glyph, as /a/ is the inherent vowel. The /ɛ/ diacritic is derived from the proto-glyph *cɛfo ‘mouth’; it is most often written as a vertical line from the top to the bottom of the glyph. The /e/ diacritic is derived from *jewa ‘arm’; it is most often a slightly curved line placed at the bottom of the glyph, but may also appear as a loop in strokes that already go downward. The /i/ diacritic is derived from *pif ‘fire’; it is usually written with two small dots or lines placed in a gap of the glyph, or one small dash on the outside of the glyph. The /u/ diacritic is derived from *pʰuɾi ‘mouse’; it descends directly from the tail of the proto-glyph, but will sometimes manifest as a loop in certain strokes like /e/ does. The /ɔ/ diacritic, a horizontal line, comes from the beak of the proto-glyph *sɔli ‘parakeet’.

Spelling

Unvoiced consonants almost always become voiced if it is not the first character of a word (see 2.2.4 for rules). Nasal-final and fricative-final words are both denoted by a single horizontal line under the character. The [j] in diphthongs is written as /ji/. Depending on the evolution of the word, double-vowel sequences are written with either a /h/ glyph or the now-empty consonant that comes descends from *ʔulu. In vowel-initial words that are written with the empty consonant, the vowel becomes long. The ends of sentences are marked with two horizontal lines under the final character.

Sample Lexicon

Nouns

(Plural case declensions omitted for space)

Verbs and Copulae

Adjectives and Demonstratives

Some fun etymologies

While some of the two-syllable words are basic, most multi-syllable words come from combining multiple basic words together. Here are some of my favourites:

• çadela (holdable light): çam (light) + tela (small)
• tʰemaː (woman): tʰem (person) + wa (mom)
• tʰemi (man): tʰem (person) + ja (dad)
• wadem (mother): wa (mom) + tʰem (person)
• jadem (father): ja (dad) + tʰem (person)
• ɬaʒan (older sibling): ɬa (older sister) + ɬan (older brother)
• ɬiʒin (younger sibling): ɬi (younger sister) + ɬin (younger brother)
• ɬaʒin (sibling): ɬa (older sister) + ɬin (younger brother)
• winu (child): wi (daughter) + nu (son)
• lubiɾa (night sky): lu (home) + piɾa (sky)
• ɬamaŋ (ginger): ɬaŋ (land) + maŋ (flower)
• luɾozɛ (shell; armour): lu (home) + ɾozɛ (turtle)

Sample Translation

Source Text²

Can I just take a moment here to talk about spoons?

SPOONS ARE THE SAME SIZE!

Spoons stack precisely because they’re the same size! If one spoon was actually smaller it wouldn’t stack! You can take two spoons and reverse the order at any time! THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS THE LITTLE SPOON!

That’s all.

Romanised Transcription

Anyalodin dezyalokes rimuwa o’mokes dumuzyu mudela. Rimuwa o’m dezyalo dang a’losyi kyazyu. Rimuwa o’m dezya kazyawa yaloyidin ris telasyi deelung kazya kazyadin kang nikezyoyi dezyoyin. Kulolo rimuwa o’mokes dezyalokes nitazahu dezyoyin risama ro. Ris dezyalo rimuwa o’m tela muzyu zyaneyi nikyazyoyi. Muzyo.

Gloss and Phonemic Transcription

Translation Notes

Cultural Notes

Structure

Beginning presentations with /aɲalɔdin {topic} dumuʒu mudela/ and /muʒɔ/ are part of the traditional structure of formally orated work and has carried over to writing. All words of the opening sentence signify respect. Both /aɲa/ and /aɲaɲa/ are too direct for formal use, but /aɲalɔ/ is acceptable due to its generalness. ‘Short while’ is said regardless of actual length, as it simply signals that the speaker understands that they will be taking up the listeners’ time. The use of the subjunctive /muʒu/ places the responsibility of the presentation on the part of the speaker, allowing the listener room to stop listening if they so wish. Ending with the cessative gives a clean end to the presentation. Luckily, the source text mostly follows this format already.

Utensils

Lengii have traditionally eaten with their hands, but utensils were imported to Leng during the colonial era. Because utensils are still considered something relatively un-Lengii, they are simply referred to as ‘tools for eating’, with specific utensils being differentiated through defining physical features. For spoons, this is their roundness. Declining /ɾimuhu/, the nominalized form of /muhu/ ‘to eat’, to the genitive case results in *ɾimuhuwa, which has since been reduced to /ɾimuwa/.

Grammatical Notes

‘To Switch’

Leng has no single word that means ‘to switch’, but /tazahu/ means ‘to move’; in conjunction with the mutual action adverb /dɛʒɔjn/, this results in ‘to move past each other’—effectively, ‘to switch places’.

‘Whenever’

Placing /ɾɔ/ ‘through’ next to an interrogative word gives it the same meaning as ‘all’. Because all interrogative words can stand in for an unspecified thing of their class, i.e. /ɾisaŋ/ being used as both ‘what place’ and ‘somewhere’, ‘all somewheres’ can also be rendered as ‘everywhere’. /ɾisama/ can mean both ‘what time’ and ‘time’ itself, so ‘all time’ is thus ‘whenever’.

“Little Spoons”

No articles exist in Lengii, so there are alternative strategies to refer to definite terms. In this case, because the speaker does not believe in “little spoons” as a concept, the only way to refer to it as a definite term is to say ‘what you call “little spoons”’.

Miscellaneous Notes

This is a literal translation precisely because it was funnier that way.

Acknowledgements

Thank you to the Moffitt 4th floor crew for all the memes, food, and company; the Ling 151+183 crew, for all the commiseration over our terrible decision to take these two writing-heavy, guideline-light six-week courses at the same time; and finally, David, for showing my former preteen confused nerd self and current twenty-something fake ling minor self how to properly do the conlang thing.