ʞ / fiction / Anve /

Speaking Beladanese, Chapter VI

by Lexi Summer Hale (@velartrill)

This time we're going to take a break from the practical exercises and learn how to fully conjugate a Beladanese verb. Every verb has four stems (here called Stem I, Stem II, Stem III, and Stem IV). Stem I and Stem II are the basic forms of the verb on from which the other stems derive. For most verbs they're the same, but Stem II and Stem I aren't always strictly predictable from each other — verbs where they differ are called stem-changing verbs.

Here are some examples.

This seems really complicated at first and a lot to memorize, but really you only need to memorize Stem I and Stem II, which are usually the same. These changes happen to aid pronunciation in certain verb forms, so getting into the habit of making them automatically shouldn't be difficult.

Next, let's look at a conjugation chart, so we can tell how these stems are actually useful. Note that in the chart below, the symbol V represents the vowel at the end of the base form.

Okay, that was one hell of an infodump. Don't worry, you don't need to memorize all of this right away; it's just provided as a reference - and to give people who already know the jargon a head start. Now that we've gotten that out of the way, let's practice with some important verbs and talk a little about relationships in Beladan culture.

In general, Beladanese doesn't have nouns for relationships. Social roles like "mother," "father," "child," and "slave" have nouns associated with them, but there are no nouns meaning "friend" or "enemy." (Technically this isn't quite true; you can derive nouns carrying these meanings, but you'd get very odd looks for using them.) Instead, Beladanese uses verbs. To analogize with English, it's like saying "I friend her" instead of "She's my friend."

The first of these verbs is lige, a Class A verb which describes a relationship of choice, without professional, political, or familial boundaries - the sort of person you'd use the pronoun is around if you're a woman. Let's take a poke at translating some examples - don't worry if you can't guess them all, but note how each form of the verb is being used.

1. Asmari lige te tama Chirachande.
   I'm friends with Chirachande's uncle.
2. Ascarna ligitte te ar ras.
   I used to be friends with your mother.
3. Enna ras ligencue!
   I'm not your friend!
4. Asmari ras ligirinne.
   We weren't friends (and we still aren't).
5. Is ras ligiritte.
   We weren't friends (but we are now).

Note the difference in (4) and (5). In (4), the negative past imperfective is used, which codes a state in the past that continues into the present. In (5), the past negative past perfective is used, which codes a state that has finished or is no longer true. The difference in pronouns is also critical. In (4), the speaker uses the respectful first-person singular asmari, which you likely wouldn't use with someone you had ligestue with.

Let's take a look at the adverbial form now. The -i ending in Beladanese works a lot like -ly in English, except it can be applied to any verb, not just descriptive ones.

1. Ligi chanda fasta.
   She speaks in a friendly way, casually.
2. Parni rasuendi fastam.
   Y'all speak fuckily, hornily.
3. Meclistachi cuala fasta.
   I speak beautifully.
4. Cardastachi corde te gabra.
   The goat is fashionably dead.
5. Parna te ar is te tigal archi.
   Maternally, my mother fucks my father.

Adverbs can be placed at the beginning or end of a clause. If you place the adverb at the end, its meaning affects the whole sentence - "It is fashionable the goat is dead," "It is beautiful that you speak." Otherwise, the adverb describes the performance of the verb. "The goat is dead in a fashionable way," "It is beautiful how I speak.

There's another verb we use for "family friends," people who aren't relatives but who you know because your family has some sort of political or business relationship with. This verb is gefta. Note that this is never interchangeable with lige. In English, "friend" is a basic meaning that we qualify with other words, but geftastue is not a subset of ligestue. They are two very with distinct concepts.

Finally, we havesuenca, a Class C verb. You use this verb to talk about neighbors you're on good terms with.

So how do you say "A friend of mine" in Beladanese? Generally, you don't. In English, we might say things like "A friend of mine got kidnapped by Shan slavers," but in Beladanese, you would generally split this up into two sentences, one to introduce the friend, the second to say what happened to them. "Chirachande is a friend of mine. She got kidnapped by Shan slavers."

However, if you really need to, you can use a relative clause. Come back next time to learn how those work!