Ithkuil!

Qâq̌euţ, yŭkyal, attàwîl, and wattáu!
(The standard greeting in each of the four Ithkuils)

Thread for any and all Ithkuil discussion. Questions, translations, discussions, anything!

Edit: Corrected stress on Ilaksh (Ithkuil v2) greeting

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ithkuil laywoman here. just curious what the greetings gloss as, if anything beyond just "greetings!".

i'm capable of googling this so if you don't wish to take the time to explain that is fine but what are the major differences between the "four Ithkuils", are they like dialects or are they totally mutually unintelligible?

not op (nor a super in-depth ithkuil knower), but the four versions of ithkuil are completely separate languages. each of them is an iteration on the same idea, with each hopefully being better than the last. from what i've tried to learn, tnil/v4 is the most approachable (and the most pronounceable). afaict, most of the grammatical and semantic features are completely overhauled between versions.

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Nyx's explanation of the four Ithkuil versions is correct. As for the glosses:

qâq̌euţ: Root q-q̌ "Salutation/greeting/acknowledgement", Pattern 1 Stem 1 Formal "greet(ings) / salutation(s)"
-ţ (ILL affix) type 2 degree 4 = Declarative Illocution
"greeting"-P1S1/FML-ILL₂/4

yŭkyal: Root -kyă- (Same meaning as the first one)
y- Declarative illocution
-u- Formal
Penultimate stress (I had originally placed ultimate stress by mistake, which would indicate stem 2, meaning "formal welcome or farewell"): Stem 1
-al A whole bunch of default categories
DEC-FML-S1-"greeting"

attàwîl: Root -tt- (you'll never guess what it means)
a- Pattern 1 Stem 1
-wî- Declarative illocution
Final stress: Formal
"greeting"-DEC-FML

wattáu: Root -tt- has a different set of stems now because of changes to the morphology
wa- A shortcut for a large number of category defaults (equivalent to attaláu), including Stem 1 and Basic specification. Stem 1 BSC of -tt- is "a state/act of greeting, salutation; to greet, extend salutations toward, say hello to"
Final stress: This is an unframed verb
-áu Declarative illocution
"greeting"-DEC

a more simplified glossing is this:
STEM1-"greeting"-DEC

ithkuil forms words based on a root system where every root is a consonant or a cluster of consonants (it can mostly be anything ranging from -L- (HUMAN) to -LN- (TIME OF DAY) to even -BZGW- (THORACO-VERTEBRAL LIGAMENT I) or -MZZFR- (Maroteaux–Lamy syndrome) in extreme cases.

Each root has 3 "stems" defined in it. This is Ithkuil's way of conserving the amount of root words needed. So each root basically has 3 meanings packed into it. Here is the definition of the root -TT-:


As you can see, there are also four rows of different stuff. These are the four specifications: Basic (plain), Contentual (content), Constitutive (form), and Objective (thing). For example, if there would be a root for eating, its objective would be food.
But this gloss only uses the basic spec of the root -TT- (GREET)

There is also the declarative illocution (DEC) here which makes a verb in the form of "I hereby declare that ... (i.e. the words themselves are the starter of action)". So STEM1-"greeting"-DEC would be "I hereby declare that a greeting is occuring".

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This information is only correct for v4. In the first three Ithkuils, the method of deriving stems from roots is different, consisting of two Designations (Informal and Formal), three Patterns, and three Stems.

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Wattáu! A maţřëullaitëivẓüödá ru; yufhovļiháu tru!

Hi there! I've been researching New Ithkuil, and it's a pleasure to meet all of you!

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wow, i should really do some more ithkuil research sometime. thanks y'all! :3

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