DRAQA OVERVIEW

This is not a complete work-up, but should provide some interesting insight into the beautiful language of the Draqa people. You can also view the better-presented:

* draqa home page *

consonants vowels speech acts evidence reality pronominals number intensity proximity c' dan word compounds generalization/specification locatives conjunctions negation and/or cweo aspect deriving active roots numbers expressions duration usage colors more later

Consonants

Vowels

Draqa vowels can be rhoticised: ar, er, ir, ehr, or

Draqa vowels can be pitch accented: á, é, í, éh, ó, ú

Pitch accented vowels are pronounced at a higher pitch than normal, and tend to change the pitch contour of the rest of the phrase.

The dipthong 'ehi' is ALWAYS pronounced like the vowel in English "fight" (but not like the vowel in English "fried"). It is sometimes spelled 'ei'. One exception to the pronunciation of 'ei' is the prefix 'hei-', which is pronounced like English "he".

Speech Acts

Evidence

Reality

Without a speech act, evidence or reality morpheme at the beginning of the sentence, you do not have a complete Draqa sentence. At best you will be looked at a little funny ; at worst, your motives and credibility will be highly suspect (depending, of course, on the content).

'Fo' is used to introduce any sentence where the truth value is unascertainable due to the nature of the sentence. It roughly translates to "if", but introduces wishes and commands as well as conditional, speculative and other irrealis statements:

ámina sokorc'nayu "(I taste that) the food is good (well-prepared, high quality)"

fo sokorc'nayu

In the last two meanings, there is an implied outcome ("If the food is good [it will comply with my wishes/ it would be best]"), thus the use of the indefinite reality morpheme.

Pronominal Roots

These can be found bound or unbound (except for '-xan', which is always bound). They are the foundation of Draqa:

*(1. '-wiax' and '-xan' are usually interchangeable, choice is a matter of style 2. In daily speech, the 'x' in 'wiax' is often left unpronounced 3. '-mehi' and '-moi' are likewise usually interchangeable. This interchangeability will be reflected throughout.)

As you can see, there is no distinction between nouns, verbs or adjectives. The valency of the word 'jaka' gives the seemingly un-intuitive reading of "violence that happens to me" for 'jakaxan' rather than "violence that I perpetrate".

* 'fehi', the pronominal reference to "The Universal" is a concept foreign to Western thought. In draqa world-view, all things in existence exist as a unity, the aggregate of which they call 'xemba'. This relates roughly to the Western concept of God, but is actually much closer to the Native American concept of Manitou. This 'xemba' is not worshiped, per se, but is considered sacred. As all of existence is contained in 'xemba', anything, including 'xemba' itself can be referred to with the pronominal 'fehi' when used in the proper context. When appearing without context, however, it usually refers to either the 'xemba' as an entity in and of itself, or the part of 'xemba' that is considered its 'consciousness'.

Number

All of these can be found bound or unbound. Thus:

The distinction involved is that when bound, 'sía' is a modifying number, i.e. the number of her friends in question is zero. This is similar to a plural (friend -> friends), but it puts the number under discussion at less that one rather than more than one.

When unbound, 'sía' is a root that can be translated as meaning something close to 'zero-ness', where 'her friends' is the modifier. Thus, while the first sentence vaguely means "There are none of her friends.", the implications of which would be furthered clarified through context; the second sentence is simply "She has no friends".



* "She" is used here throughout as the translation of 'mehi / moi'. In reality, 'mehi / moi' can actually mean "he", "she" or "it", as well as "you" - depending on context.

Intensity

These can also be found in bound and unbound forms:

Proximity

These are prefixes that can be attached to any root to indicate proximity:

Joining Words with c'

This co-joining "c'", is pronounced /c/ in front of consonants, and /c'/ in front of vowels. It introduces a genitival relationship between the words connected, the word following being the "owner" of the preceding word:

c' is actually a contraction of the prepositional locative 'co-' which means "originating from". When pronunciation is difficult, c' often becomes 'ceh'. In daily speech, c' is often left unpronounced.

c' is not necessary before pronominal roots or certain other words, however, it is often inserted before 'mehi / moi', 'mak', 'fehwa', 'faho' and 'fehi', especially following perceptual attributes:

Joining Ideas With 'dan'

The last two sentences above are grammatically possible, but stylistically gauche as far as draqa is concerned. There is a word 'dan', which means "about; with regards to; concerning; as far as", which is used to join ideas. This word is used quite freely:

The last two sentences are not quite accurately translated, because context can radically alter their meanings (e.g. a síac'hoimoi dan piaclan = "She has no friendly relationships with a city") and also because English really can't provide good translations. Hopefully, however, by their presentation here, you can get a slightly better feel of the true meaning of 'dan'.

The lack of a good English translation is something to get used to with draqa, because except for the most basic sentences, there are few sentences that can be well translated in either direction. Even the word 'taiac' above (translated here as "realization") has more of a meaning that includes "searching; discovery". You may have also noticed the problems with the word 'fama'.

Xanamehskwai - Word Compounds

Taking as examples the three sentences above :

They can be transposed as follows:

These are not sentences, but complex single words that can be used within a sentence. The draqa term for these constructions, 'xanamehskwai', exemplifies this process:

Perhaps more familiar to the English speaker would be the following xanamehskwai:



Specification and Generalization with '-ba' and '-be'

'-ba' makes any root specific. It roughly means 'the, this, that; the one under discussion; the one that (I) would be obviously referring to'. That is to say, it functions similarly to the English definite article, but usage of course varies. Applied to some of our above examples:

'-be' makes any root general. It roughly corresponds to the generalizing usage of the plural in English:

There are a few constructions where '-ba' and '-be' become '-ba-' and '-be-' respectively. One example is pronominal roots. In draqa you won't find 'kwaiba' or 'moibe', but rather '-bakwai', '-bemoi', etc.

Locatives

To express location, direction or motion, draqa uses bound particles known as locatives:

They are used like this:

Note: This is one of the instances where 'wiax' and 'xan' are NOT interchangeable. 'xan' can never stand alone (it appears only in bound form), and is usually never directly prefixed by a locative (iehwiax, etc.) There is ONE exception to the latter rule.

As you can see, there is much expressive power in the use of these locative forms. This power is exploited in the metaphorical formulas that provide the basis for another crucial draqa construction:

Note: 'saga-' does not imply on whose part (if anybody's) the effort was made; it merely emphasizes the unsuccessfulness of the effort. 'i mehi sagafwaxan' is an example of how a good English translation can be impossible.

The other prominent construction that draqa uses its locatives for are to describe parts of a whole:

* In rapid speech, 'hr' often sounds like 'or'. This is especially the case with this construction.

Note: Another example of the difference between 'xan' and 'wiax'. 'xan' is generally preferred (but not mandatory) in these constructions and even appear with locative prefixes: iehxan-hrta 'successfully to my eyes, i.e. I see it'.

Another kind of locative is also found in draqa. This is a 3-part construction as shown in the chart below:



ehyeh Inside of neh Structure
wehi Just outside/ inside of mor Boundary
waseh Outside of loi (Immersive) substance
fwea Above (')a Touching, Attached
juka Below soi Not touching, Not attached
dio Level with da General direction
kawa Behind (')a Touching, Attached
kubo In front of soi Not touching, Not attached
daya Beside, Next to da General direction


These are constructed in the form: I + II + Root:



These locatives can also be combined with those described above:

Connectors

Intersegmental connectors are among the most important particles in the draqa language. You have already run into 'dan' above, which indicates a very general type of relationship. As you will notice, it is typical of draqa to sequence rather short phrases whose relevance lies in the nature of their relationship to one another:

Sometimes these are used in ways that you might not expect:

Negation

In the examples above, we introduced another particle, 'sehi-'. This is an always bound particle which negates the root it is prefixed to. It can be applied to any root:

And / Or

When combining roots in a list, draqa makes use of a structure quite different from that of English's simple 'and' and 'or'. The structure is composed of a particle that describes the group's structure and a particle that describes the inclusion status of the items:

Group Structure

Inclusion

Together, they are used:

'cweo-' : Together With

'cweo-' is a bound particle with a literal meaning of "together with". The usage of this particle emphasises the concept of the group as a unit, rather than a itemized listing:

Temporal Aspect

When locating an event in time, draqa finds a unique way of dealing with the concepts. All aspectual words appear as roots. There are 4, however, that are often found as bound particles also:

When bound, they appear:

When unbound, they are used as any other root:

There are other unbound roots dealing with temporal relationships:

These are also used as any other root:

They are also used to form these idiomatic expressions:

A couple other roots that could be helpful:

Active Derivational Particles

There are a number of particles which alter the meaning of a root. Some of the most common add an active component to the meaning of a root:



Numbers

The draqa number system is base 30:
feh -- 1 xeh -- 6 fad'a -- 11 fean -- 16 cor -- 21 fmna -- 26
na -- 2 hia -- 7 faw -- 12 cofan -- 17 com -- 22 behdeh -- 27
d'a -- 3 foi -- 8 fm -- 13 nabi -- 18 cox -- 23 hyaweh -- 28
weh -- 4 be -- 9 fax -- 14 minakwe -- 19 coih -- 24 xomi -- 29
meh -- 5 koe -- 10 ofo -- 15 cod'eh -- 20 mehmeh -- 25 xofeh -- 30

The xo- in 'xofeh', marks the value in the '30's' place:
xofeh 30 xoxeh 180 xofad'a 330 xofean 480 xocor 630 xofmna 780
xona 60 xohia 210 xofaw 360 xocofan 510 xocomwa 660 xobehdeh 810
xod'a 90 xofoi 240 xofm 390 xonabi 540 xocox 690 xohyaweh 840
xoweh 120 xobe 270 xofax 420 xominakwe 570 xocoia 720 xoxomi 870
xomeh 150 xokoe 300 xo'ofo 450 xocod'eh 600 xomehmeh 750 xóa 900

'keh' (meaning, "and") is used to give more complete numbers:

*Note: The draqa number is realized in numeral pairs, considered to be a single number between 1 and 930. These can be strung together with 'wehi' : e.g. 106*810,000 wehi 889*900 wehi 750 (xod'ak'fean wehi xoxomik'minakwe wehi xocoiak'xofeh = 86,660,850).

**Note: The draqa number system may be easier to follow when their mathematics is considered:

Given 0, 1-9, a-j [i.e. 10 - 19], A-J [i.e. 20-29] and X=30 - the draqa system gives: 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i,j,A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J,X,11,12,...,JJ,JX,X1,...,XX,111

This explains 'xóak'xofeh' and 'feh wehi xofehk'feh' above. It may be seen, however, that the draqa also do recognize the multiplicative properties of placeholding.



To use numbers to modify a root, they are attached finally, along with a classifaction suffix:

The classification suffix '-tal' indicates that individual objects are being counted. There are also suffixes to use with numbers indicating that groups of objects, types of objects or dates are being enumerated.. '-fal' and '-nal' are commonly used contractions of '-fehtal' and '-natal', respectively:

'-lotal' is an affected way of saying 'sía-':

Ordinals would be expressed in what to a draqa would be the obvious way:

Another way to express number in sentences:

Useful Expressions

More Extensive List Here

Duration

Actual Usage



-a, -u, -r -c -k -n -l -s -o, -i
-wiax / -xan -xan (c-> k) -ix -xan -ix -ix , -ac -wiax / -xan
-mehi / -moi -mehi / -moi -in -mehi -in -moi , -oi -mehi / -moi
-fiehwa -fiehwa -fiehwa -c'fiehwa -afeh -fiehwa -fiehwa
-coi -coi -coi -joi -coil (l -> 0) -coi -coi
-kwai -kwa -kwai -kwai -okwa -kwai -kwai




Colors

Colors in draqa, as you have seen, are roots that behave as any other. They, however, have acquired over time particular significances and connotations which have led them to become useful word-building tools. Each of the basic color terms has assumed a "personality" and a shortened form, which when prefixed to another root enhance its meaning:

* 'tias' and 'síar' have their connotations, but do not have corresponding shortened forms for word-building.



Here's an example of how the colors are used to make new ideas:

Much More To Come:

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