Trokh
Trokh is a language that is primarily used by the Aslan.
- It is a supercentral language.
- Please see the Aslan Dictionary for more information.
Description (Specifications)
The Aslan language is known as Trokh and is spoken by nearly all Aslan.
- Although the Trokh language is spoken by nearly all Aslan, few non-Aslan can claim to have mastered it. Difficult to pronounce, split into gender-specific dialects, and weighty with formalisms, it causes foreign speakers to open themselves to embarrassing blunders in conversation.
- Trokh is three languages at once: a base language of shared, neutral gender terms, along with two separate languages for males and females, each having different emphases of vocabulary. While a typical male will understand many words of the female dialect, it would be a grave dishonor for him to utter one, and vice versa.
History & Background (Dossier)
The Trokh language can be traced back to Kusyu (Dark Nebula 1226), where it developed into its present form about 4,000 years ago. Since then, Trokh has changed little. In fact, some scholars insist it has decreased in the number of words it contains and is more formalized.
Trokh in 1900
After the Wave, Trokh splintered, but before Imperial year 1400 the language was tightly controlled by the Tlaukhu, and remained almost entirely free of offshoots, local dialects, or corruptions. In 1900, the Republic of Regina is host to an Aslan population who speak a variant that is recognizably Trokh, though separated from the original by 700 years. As a ritual language today, it serves as an Aslan interlingua.
Structure
Trokh is a polysynthetic verb-based language. This means that the Trokh verb has a number of classes of prefixes and suffixes (nineteen classes, to be specific) which modify the verb stem in a way that can fully express a wide variety of concepts, often without the need for supporting noun phrases. Trokh also has separate grammars based on the gender-role of the speaker: martial-male and economic-female.
By necessity this overview is only a brief sketch. In addition, many elements of the Trokh verb – a highly daunting construct – have not yet been recorded, or are only indicated but not translated or itemized here. The documenting of Trokh is a continuing work.
The extant example from Alien Module 1 is a fragment, a noun phrase:
Example #1
Hlyueawifiy Ahroay'ifiy Wahtoi Layeauiwahfeakteli hlalikhtyeiteyahahtateisiyu
Unmarried first son of the third son of the grandfather of the head of the pride which holds the valley in the fork of the Iwahfea River part of clan Wahtoi which is a vassal of clan Aroaye'i itself a vassal of clan Hlyueawi.
Pulling out patterns, this format emerges:
Hlyueawi-fiy + Ahroay'i-fiy + Wahtoi + Lay-eau-iwahfea-kteli + hlali-khtyei-teya-hahta-teisi-yu
[clan] Hlyueawi-over + [clan] Aroaye'i-over + [clan] Wahtoi + [pride] river-valley-Iwahfea-fork + head-grandfather-third son-first son-unmarried
Morphology
Morphology is the study of the internal structure of words (morpheme, inflection, paradigm, declension, derivation, compound, etc).
Characteristics:
- affixally polysynthetic language
- ergative language both in nominal and verbal morphology. It has obligatory polyagreement on all verbs with subject and object but not with the theme of a ditransitive verb.
- nonconcatenative morphology
- triliteral roots with heavy fusion of internal affixes
Phonology
Phonology, the study of the sound systems of a language (phoneme, allophone, segment, mora, syllable, foot, stress, tone, etc).
Trokh sound inventory:
Vowels: A AE AO E EA I O U YA YE IY YO YU Consonants: F FT H HF HK HL HR HT HW K KH KHT L LR R RL S ST T TL TR W ‘ Note: the ‘ is a glottal stop.
Characteristics:
- Distinct phonotactics
- Pseudo-mora-timed language
- Limited dialecture
The complexities of Trokh pronunciation hamper foreign speakers. One human "expert" wrote:
"The tongue spoken by the Aslan is both attractive and repellent to the Anglic ear, combining sonorous and melodic vowel sounds with throaty snarls and animal growls, all accompanied by a fair amount of spitting when spoken at any volume."
Proper pronunciation of vowels has often proven the most difficult aspect of the language for humans, as some are pronounced while inhaling rather than exhaling. A Trokh speaker can talk faster than a human; he doesn't need to pause for breath in the midst of his speech. Instead, the language itself paces the speaker's breathing, necessitating rapid movement of the diaphragm to change the direction of breath. Indeed, the word trokh means "belly," referring to the motion of the Aslan stomach when speaking.
Trokh phonetics further divides the sounds of the language into "flat" and "round", depending on whether the lips are used. For example, the vowel diphthong ea and the initial consonant kh would be flat; the vowel u and the final consonant w would be round. There is an Aslan expression, Firuah ftasour wui, "Singing a song with flat sounds". The point is that when all the sounds are flat (wui'), the lips can be held back, baring the teeth in a challenging grimace.
Grammar
Grammar is the structure of a language.
- tense, aspect, mood and modality, grammatical number, grammatical gender, case, etc.
Characteristics:
- Extensive aspect particle usage
- Many cases
- Extreme verb perfective and imperfective distinction
- "person"-enclitics
Verbs
Trokh verbs have sets of modifying prefixes and suffixes, ordered by type. For example, the initial, mandatory prefix modifies the tense, aspect, or mood of the verb. Most classes have a few affixes in them, most common of which are aspect, pronoun, and tense. Some are singletons, with only one affix. A few classes have a dozen or more affixes. (This type of construction is called a templatic verb structure.)
There is one affix which can show up anywhere in the verb: the Negativizer affix I’. It negates the sense of the element after it. Think of it as the English word “not”. For example, I’ at the front of the entire verb essentially sticks a “not” in front of its meaning.
While Trokh vocabulary is often gender-neutral, the verb template itself is gender-specific, resulting in two completely different verbal constructions for the exact same meaning.
Trokh verb morphology has a rich set of productions that lets people create new verbs within its own grammar rules.
A verb stem can be turned into a noun.
Suffix Meaning Examples -le Gerund, -“ing” ftierle, a gathering -leao Quality, nature, culture, -ness ftierleao, Aslan culture; ftaeileao, strength -khto. Event ktirkhto, a pouncing -tyu Land ktirtyu, pouncing grounds -sea Land, uncultivated ktirsea, wilderness pouncing grounds -stea. Land, conquered ktirstea, newly acquired pouncing grounds -khau. People ktirkhau, a pouncing people -ir, ua Honorable actor ktirir or ktirua, honorable pouncer person -‘hao. Dishonorable actor ktir’hao, dishonorable pouncer person
Adjectives
Prefixing ua’ to a verb stem often makes it an adjective. Adjectives (and other nouns) modify nouns in the same manner as English (ice box, house cat, rubber band, broken arrow).
Examples:
Verb Adjective Haloia (shine) Ua’haloia (bright) Ktyaea (jump). Ua’ktyaea (jump-capable) Hwarls’e (split) Ua’hwarls’e (broken)
Nouns
Nouns can modify other nouns, in the same manner as English (ice box; house cat; rubber band).
An optional class of prefixes can nuance the meaning of nouns.
Prefix Meaning Example Ahk- Honorable Akhuaeuhrekhyeh, rite of passage Ekh- Honorable disagreement Akya- anti; a threat Akyafteirleao, a heresy or threat to Aslan culture Tah- without; lacking Tahwihteakhau, barbarians lacking civilization Khih- with
By the strictest rules of Trokh literary style, a noun can hold only one (or occasionally two) adjectival meanings -- but the other meanings are there just the same. This allows an Aslan speaker to engage in firukhteahruear, or "masked insult". For example, the word aulryuiysai translates to "desert", and when used adjectivally almost always has the formal meaning of "vast" or "expansive". However, using this word to refer to an Aslan male's landholdings implies that his farms are barren and worthless -- should the male in question choose to acknowledge the unspoken insult. A back and forth conversation in this style gradually escalates both the number and nature of insults, until one of the males offers the phrase yedika'! ("I challenge you"), or khaofiya'! ("I submit to your strength").
Syntax
Syntax is the study of how words combine to form grammatical sentences (phrase, clause, grammatical function, grammatical voice, etc.)
The structure of the Trokh sentence is: Verb – Object – Indirect Object, with the subject (and sometimes the applicative object) embedded into the “Person” slot of the verb, or its pronoun.
Meaning
No information yet available.
Lexicology
A lexicon is the word supply of a language.
- word, lexeme, lemma, lexicon, vocabulary, terminology, etc.
See Trokh Dictionary
Semantics
Semantics is the study of the meaning of words (lexical semantics), and how these combine to form the meanings of sentences.
- meaning, sense, entailment, truth condition, compositionality, etc.
- Perhaps easier to grasp than spoken Trokh are its written forms. Many humans have come into contact with yoyeaokhtef –the ornamental designs along the edges of Aslan ships, buildings, and devices. To the Aslan eye, these are not random abstracts, but a combination of poetry, drama, and calligraphy, exciting the mind, the eye, and the ear. Yoyeaokhtef patterns are composed of multiple, blended tao-Trokh ideographs. To Aslan, the result is akin to grand opera in its combination of visual, aural, and dramatic elements.
- For more basic purposes, textbooks or shopping lists, for instance, Aslan use the tleftuawaoirlouheei, or "female script", which denotes individual sounds with discrete symbols. A typical Aslan tank will have its control panel labeled with ornate, male-oriented yoyeaokhtef. The tank computer's software, however, will have been entered by a female technician with a keyboard configured for the female tleftuawaoirlouheei.
Pragmatics
Pragmatics is the study of how language is used by its speakers (presupposition, implicature, deixis)
Trokh is a formal language, with highly regulated rules of expression. Novice speakers lack the option of putting together words to create more complex statements. There are so many formalisms in Trokh that the student must simply learn them all by rote, if he expects to be understood without being challenged.
Worlds & Sectors (Astrography)
This language is primarily in used in the following areas:
Charted Space:
References & Contributors (Sources)
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- J. Andrew Keith, Marc Miller, John Harshman. Aslan (Game Designers Workshop, 1984), —.
- John Harshman, Marc Miller, Loren Wiseman. Library Data (A-M) (Game Designers Workshop, 1981), —.
- Peter G. Celella, James Holden. Solomani & Aslan (Digest Group Publications, 1991), 56.
- Gary L. Thomas, Joe Fugate. The Travellers' Digest 17 (Digest Group Publications, 1989), —.
- Marc Miller. Referee's Companion (Game Designers Workshop, 1988), .
- Frank Chadwick, Dave Nilsen. Traveller: The New Era (Game Designers Workshop, 1993), 70.
- Loren Wiseman. GURPS Traveller Core Rules (Steve Jackson Games, 1998), —.
- Andy Slack, David Thomas, David L. Pulver. Alien Races 2 (Steve Jackson Games, 1999), —.
- Gareth Hanrahan. Aslan (Mongoose Publishing, 2009), —.
- Aslan Dictionary on TML
- Pasuuli's Tools: Trokh Language Generator