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Neologisms and Word Building in Arusian

· 2 minutes de lecture
Andrew Nation
Andrew Nation
Software Engineering Student and Polyglot

Arusian root system is extremely flexible, therefore you can build your own words for things that the Arusian dictionary still doesn’t have a name for. Despite the flexibility, there are a few rules you should follow to make your words sound native and natural. With less than 600 roots, you can describe anything in Arusian, although, sometimes, some speakers might prefer borrowings. In Standard Arusian, however, there is a preference for native roots over borrowings, given that borrowings are hard to adapt due to the restrictive nature of Arusian phonology. There is a limited set of syllables/moræ based on the initial consonant + rhymes structure, similar to many Asian languages, like Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, only to name a few.

1 - THE ORDER OF THE ROOTS DOESN’T MATTER EXCEPT FOR…​

The order of the roots doesn’t change the meaning, so you can place them in any order. However, in some cases, as will be shown in the following sectiions, the phonological structure of the roots matter when placing them side by side.

2 - ROOTS ENDING IN A CONSONANT​

Roots that end with a consonant usually go last:

NAI and VEK > NAI-VEK

Remember that the dash is just for pedagogical purposes, given that it is absent in the Semlek script.

3 - ROOTS ENDING IN A VOWEL AND ROOTS WITH SHORT RHYMES​

Roots ending in a single vowel or roots with short simpler rhymes precede those with heavier rhymes.

LA and JUWA > LA-JUWA

4 - VERBS USED AS NOUNS​

Verbs (intransitive ones ending in -ei) precede all other roots.

KAAI and KET > KAAI-KET

5 - THE PREFIXES SU- AND SO-​

The roots SU and SO always precede other roots (but they stay after nominalised intransitive verbs).

SU and DELRA > SU-DELRA

SO and SEMRA > SO-SEMRA

6 - ROOTS THAT ALWAYS GO FIRST​

A handful of roots like KLUWA , ARA , UMU ,PAI , and TEK always precede other roots (but KLUWA precedes ARA when both are present).

KLUWA; ARA > ARA-KLUWA

VAI; KLUWA > KLUWA-VAI

NUT; PAI > PAI-NUT

LO; UMU > UMU-LO

BNA; UMU > UMU-BNA

ARA; VEK > ARA-VEK

SAM; TEK > TEK-SAM