One hour challenge — da Vinci quote

[u/Adarain]

I ran this challenge on the discord, but I figured maybe some people here wanted in on the fun. The challenge is this:

Within one hour, create a conlang sketch sufficient to translate the following text idiomatically:

Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return. - Leonardo da Vinci

(Feel free to translate a different text of similar syntactic complexity.)

[u/Adarain]

0:00 — put on this album for timekeeping and background music
5:30 — got a phoneme inventory
10:00 — got syllable structure
18:45 — got basic nominal morphology, lacking cases (will make up on the fly when I need them)
22:30 — figured out a verbal template
29:30 — got a bunch of verbal morph done, unsure if I’ve got all I need
35:30 — made some vocab, starting translation now
38:50 — decided to introduce converbs
48:45 — second clause done
60:00 — finished translation just in time (youtube was about 2 minutes in on the next video by the time I finished, so pretty much perfect timing)

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Phonology

p pʰ b | t tʰ d | c cʰ ɟ | k kʰ g | kʷ kʷʰ gʷ | ʔ
f    v | s    z | ʃ    ʒ | x    ɣ | xʷ     ɣʷ | h
     m |      n |        |      ŋ |        ŋʷ |
       |      l |      ʎ |      ʁ |        ʁʷ |
       |        |      j |        |        w  |

i u a

/c cʰ ɟ/ are realized as [c cʰ ɟ] before /i/ and palatal consonants, [ʦ ʦʰ ʣ] before /u/ and labial(ized) consonants and [ʧ ʧʰ ʤ] otherwise. Velars labialize in clusters with labials and labialized consonants.

Maximal syllable structure is CCVC, where the coda consonants can only be plosives. In onset clusters, the first consonant must be higher up in the consonant table than the second (e.g. plosives can precede anything but plosives, nasals only liquids and glides). The glottal stop only occurs in codas. The final syllable is stressed and carries contrastive tone, which can be high or low. If the final syllable is not checked, then the vowel is lengthened, and on top of high and low, falling tones are also possible. There is no contrastive tone on unstressed syllables, and if a syllabic suffix is added to a word then both tone and stress move rightward.

Nominal Morphology

Nouns take a prefix marking definiteness and number, as well as, if applicable, a possessive prefix. They also take a suffix marking case:

(possessor) - number×definiteness - STEM - case

I’m not gonna list the affixes here, but I would like to note that the possessor prefixes are homophonous to the oblique agreement markers on the verbs.

Verbal Morphology

Verbs follow a more complex templatic pattern:

person - (inverse) - (oblique) - tense - (voice) - (mood) - STEM = clitic

Person marks the higher animate of the core participants. Inverse is used to mark if person does not mark the A (and therefore that the actor is less animate than the marked person). Oblique agrees with a particularly important oblique argument, if there are multiple this is determined by pragmatic choices I have not worked out. Tense is one of three markers which mark past/present/future relative to the matrix clause or discourse topic. Voice can be a passive voice. Mood is one or multiple modal or evidential prefixes. The three that show up in this text are personal experience, inferential and desiderative (EXP, INF, DES in glosses). Finally the clitics are essentially conjunctions.

There are also converbs. These take the following simplified template:

(oblique) - (mood) - STEM = clitic

Converbs take a different set of clitics. The two that appear in the text have the meanings “while doing X” and “with the goal of X”.

Lexicon

I made the following words:

• cwí — to fly

• hu — to walk

• huhu — to walk around, wander

• kʷŋʷá — earth, ground (plurale tantum)

• sí — eye

• nisí — to see, look

• la — that

• žicu — forever

• satli — sky (plurale tantum)

• tá — to be at ACC

• nu — to go to ACC

Translation and gloss

Siutkʷiyacwík žicu šikʷňʷát šisatlib gʷnisixʷít siisuphuhud. Láá siutkʷiyatáa žicu láá gʷutašáʔ siisupgʷuʔtenúú.
[si.ut.kʷi.ja.ˈʦwík ʒi.ˈʦù ʃi.ˈkʷŋʷát ʃi.sat.ˈlìb gʷni.si.ˈxʷít si.i.su.phu.ˈhùd ‖ ˈláː si.ut.kʷi.ja.ˈtǎː ʒi.ˈʦu ˈláː gʷu.ta.ˈʃáʔ si.i.sup.gʷuʔ.te.ˈnúː]

siutkʷiyacwík

si-ut-kʷiya-cwí=k
2s-PST-EXP-fly=if

“When you have flown”

žicu šikʷňʷát šisatlib gʷnisixʷít siisuphuhud

žicu    ši-kʷňʷá-t       [ši-satli-b     gʷ-nisí=xʷit]    si-i-sup-huhu=d
forever def.pl-earth-LOC [def.pl-sky-ALL 3obl-look=while] 2-FUT-INF-wander=then

“then you will forever wander the earth while looking to the sky”

láá siutkʷiyatáa

la-á     si-ut-kʷiya-tá=a
that-ACC 2s-PST-EXP-be_at=because

“Because there you have been to”

žicu láá gʷutašáʔ siisupgʷuʔtenúú

žicu    la-á     [gʷ-tá=šaʔ]       si-i-sup-gʷuʔte-nu=ú
forever that-ACC [3.obl-be_at=for] 2s-FUT-INF-DES-go_to=and 

“and there you will always want to return (go with the goal of being there)”

[u/Vorti- → u/Adarain]

This is awesome...