Departures

It turns out that Trushika must leave too soon after his arrival. Kinig says to him, A pohatshim kembí sedant sebio nidolgon?, can't you stay a little longer? Pohat means 'can', and nidolgon is a phrase meaning 'for a long time'.

Trushika cannot and replies Gúhú! Ten ítí chomú-dâ so kapena bodú chekant. Bodú mús tai redir, Sorry! There is someone who is waiting for me. I must return. Gúhú is an apology word. So is another way of making the relative clause. It means 'who is'. The verbal noun is governs, chekant, to wait, comes at the end of the clause. kapena here is used to mean 'for'. Mús, must, is followed by the voluntary particle tai before another verb redir, which is in the same form of the verb, in this case first person.

Then Trushika adds Úhim'na mikantie., don't get up! The word he uses for 'get up' is mikantie, which is an causative verb. The stem is mik, friend, and in ghostian cause-to-be-friends is used to mean to accompany someone. In ghostian the causative ending can only be added to a verbal noun, so another way of using it in sentences must be found. Here it follows an imperative úhim, do not be. The first verb and the verbal noun are joined by the reduced preposition 'na.

Kinig and Shirab reply with the polite phrase Talik e nena dât ishikuda!, where do such words come from. Talik means 'such' and the word following it must be in the genitive. Here the plural word nena, words, is preceded by the plural form of the accompanitive preposition e. Dât is the verb 'come', that is often used in combination with other verbs to mean 'here', or 'towards me'. This time it is being used as a verb on its own. The last word is a question-word. Ghostian likes its question words at the end of the sentence, the opposite way around to how we expect it in English. Ishikuda means 'from where'.

The last word farewells the dialogue, duabin, again-see, or see you again. A way of saying goodbye in ghostian.

Next time we move onto Dialogue 2: The Teacher arrives.

Drinking Tea

Once everyone is seated Kinig orders Shinuwin to make some tea. (Well, of course the servant shouldn't be sitting with the guests if the master of the house is there!) Kinig says Brobú gai! which means Brew tea! Very abrupt command as to be expected.

Shinuwin replies, Kembí dâguôt nena dok bodú dâ, you say the words as I come, or coming as you speak. The word dâguôt is a compound word come+speak because the words are directed at Shinuwin. Nena means words, and is a neuter plural noun by the ending. Dok is a conjunction meaning so or thus.

Kinig uses more polite language to Trushika and says to him Kulahú pihant gai, please drink some tea. Pihant is a polite word meaning to drink which is used in requests like this.

Next time, making a departure (oh, dear, I hope the tea didn't disagree with someone!)

Welcoming Mr Trushika

Trushika joins the people in the house and his host Kinig welcomes him, Moikorí Trushika ya, a ítí kembí duen ya? Hello Mr Trushika, are you well? Ghostians, it appears from this dialogue don't use greeting words. They acknowledge each other and move into conversation.

Trushika replies, Duen. Moikorí Kinig a meikoren Shiraba ya, a ítí ba sebio duen? Quite well. Are you, Mr Kinig and Mr Shirab, both well? Duen is an adverb meaning good or well. Note that Shirab's name changes form after Kinig's. It is joined by the accompanitive preposition which means 'and' or 'with' and after the pronoun the form of the title moikorí has become the oblique form meikoren, and the name Shirab has added the ending -a. Moikorí is made up of two words, and literally means 'my lord'. Both parts of the word change after prepositions. Also note that the word for you in this sentence after the word for both has become the reflexive pronoun sebio.

Kinig and Shirab assure Trushika that they are well and invite him to sit down, Duen, duen. Kulahú sedant sebio. The verb for sit down is to sit one's self. Reflexive verbs seem more courteous in ghostian. Trushika thanks his hosts, âriget.

Next time, let's have some tea.

Mr Trushika announced

Shinuwin announces the arrival of Mr Trushika Moikori Trushika ítí dâde, Mr Trushika is come. Ítí is used to make the past participle dâde into a past perfect verb.

Kinig uses polite language to let Trushika in, Kulahú tamum pendânt, ask him to come in. The word for ask in this case is the same imperative used previously as 'please'. Tamum is the object form of taní.

Next time let's make Mr Trushika feel at home.

Sentence 1.7

The next set of sentences have the servant Shinuwin talking to the stranger outside the door. Invoking probability I don't think I need to change these sentences.

Shinuwin asks the stranger his name: Moikorí ya, a tí kembí kakai sinú? Translated back into English this reads 'O mister, you are which clan?' Kembí is the usual word for you. It is used for addressing superiors and also among friends. It is used with tí as the verb. While sinú means tribe or clan, it is used here to mean surname.

The stranger replies Moi sinú tí Trushika. A ítí moikorí Kinig kú sebio? 'My name is Trushika. Is Mr Kinig at home?' At home is translated 'at one's own' Sebio is a reflexive pronoun referring back to the subject. It is used with most pronouns.

Shinuwin can say that his master is home. Íe, taní ítí kú sebio. Kulahú pendânt, Yes, he is home. Please come in. Shinuwin refers to his master, Mr Kinig, by the polite third person pronoun taní rather than the plain form ta. He uses the polite imperative for addressing Mr Trushika kulahú, which here means please or be invited. It is followed by the verbal noun pendânt, to come in.

Mr Trushika is happy to come in. He says âriget, thank you. Yes, this is a straight plagiarism from Japanese arigato. Arigato looks like a italianate past participle to me, and so does the ghostian word.

Next time, Mr Kinig and Mr Trushika meet.

Kodin and Shabinant

I went looking through my notes again and found I was using the wrong form for the indefinite negative article. Kodin will be the final form for now. It is a hybrid of German kein and Russian odin. While adjectives in ghostian have gender, it like the rules for strong and weak adjectives from German governs the form of the adjective. Kodin is what appears before masculine and neuter nouns. I think looking at the rules, the ending -í on adjectives is going to be more restricted in use than I anticipated.

I noticed in the sentence I revised yesterday I left out the verb 'to see'. I have decided to revise this verb. I have a verb-stem from Persian, bin, so I have decided to use that. So the definite verb, which is the more common version of it now will be shabin. The stem for the past tense is borrowed from Greek and is contracted to 'd. A rule from Bengali says the subject of the past tense is in the instrumental case. On top of that ghostian borrows dependent verbs from Irish, and the verb stem for that is waka.

So the sentence 'Go see who it is' reads Yirú shabinant kem tí ta chomú. Phew!

Kodní and Kem

I skipped July as I tried my hand in writing something original in a conlang over July. I got 1500 words into writing a story in my other language Brithenig before I stopped. The opening scenes were written, now I need to know how the adventures of Ill Peleirin and Daisy would move forward to its denouement. Perhaps I will come back to it.

Anyhow there are a couple of corrections that I need to make to ghostian. I have decided that the indefinite negative article will now be kodní so the phrase 'no need' is now kodní gieruk. Works for me.

And I found the word that introduces the subordinate clause would not be tai. Instead in the last sentence it is kem: Yirú kem tí ta chomú. There are other forms of the relative pronoun. In this case kem is used when there is no preceding noun or pronoun which the relative pronoun has to agree with in regards to case or gender. Tai will remain between verbs of wanting and a following verb.

Back in August to describing and updating more sentences in ghostian.