Feminine Lamps Must Die

This is, without any doubt, the nerdiest thing (that's saying something) I have ever done in my life and I'm rather proud of the endeavor. Once a week, (hopefully...) I will transcribe my adventures in creating an entirely new language. From the grammar, all the way to the alphabet. I'll try not to get too technical, but be sure to comment to tell me if you want more details!  Also, tell me if I'm boring you and now, you hate me.

Ah, stage one. Grammar. It's my least favorite part of this whole process and to be honest, I've been tempted to procrastinate more than once; to start with the lexicon or the general sounds of the language, but I'm forcing myself to start with this because if I don't, it won't get done.

First things first, I've decided my language is going to be isolating. Meaning, like Chinese there are no tenses, but instead added words to indicate when an action was completed or perhaps not at all. The reason? Because I'm learning Chinese, so it's only logical to put my limited knowledge of the language to good use. Also, I'm lazy and I shudder at the thought of an inflecting language that uses verb tenses like...Latin. Let's just say Latin and I have never been the best of friends. Feminine lamps? No thanks.
I'm very tempted to do something awesome and weird to add my own personal touch to the grammar, but I've decided the more simple the grammar is, the better. I barely have patience for English grammar.

Do not look directly at the evil. Your eyes will fall out. 4real.

Second things fourth, or wait...how does it go? Nevermind. Secondly, I'm getting rid of adjectives because adjectives scare me, along with cows. Cows are scary.

Cases, cases, oh cases how I despise you. For you seem simple, until it is time to create a language. For this, I had to look up what Ergative means....twice. I still don't get it.  There's a whole bunch of big grammar words involved and I'm not sure I have the patience to look all of them up because by the time I've looked them all up, I will have forgotten what they all mean. So, I'm just sticking to good 'ole English here and using a genitive case form. ("yours" etc.) I know this will cause me problems later because, like cows, English is evil.

Do my nouns have genders? Take a look at the title of this post, bucko. Heck no. I'll probably rethink this later, but at this moment, I'm still rather scarred by the female lamps. Of course, genders don't have to indicate feminine, masculine, and neutral, but we'll see...

 I'm a bit apprehensive about verb inflections, but if I'm not using genders for my nouns it might be helpful. I'm leaning toward a clitic (like in French: Je l'aime.) verb inflection because it's romantic! However, whenever I'm romantic things turn...strange. There are situations with grapes...and pancakes...syrup in people's hair, but that's for a different blog post on a different blog.

Personal pronouns require just a little bit of information about who the language is for. To put it simply, it's for elves! Because of the nature of the world of these elves, the personal pronouns are going to be based on formality and "she/he vs. it." They will be directly related. Calling someone an "it"= highly impolite.

As for numbers, I'm no good at math, and neither are my elves. The number system will be fairly simple, based on the classic "10, 10 and 1, 10 and 2" system.

Slang? Definitely. I'm working on developing some super cool slang. It's not exactly going to be scientific though.  It should be scientific, but I don't know how committed I am to the slang. Especially, if it means I have to spend more time on grammar. Also note: I am awesome, but I'm not cool at all. English slang is a challenge for me, so I tend to make up my own slang and force people to subject themselves to my will...I mean...and hope that they catch on?

That's about it, for now. I hope I didn't bore you to death. Next week, if it interests anyone perhaps I will have an elf highlight the most common grammar mistakes of...the language that I have yet to name officially. For now, we shall call it, "Hisito."

Also, a book was recommended to me...I haven't read it yet, but I hope to...soonish. It's called "Historical Linguistics" by Theodora Bynon. Link: Historical Linguistics.