Cum
The city for conlangs
CUM is the language of the the planet CUMIN
Contents |
[edit] ALPHABET
A B C D E F G H I L M N O P R S T U
The names of the letters are as follows:
A - ailm
B - beith
C - coll
D - dair
E - eadha
F - fearn
G - gort
H - uath
I - iogh
L - luis
M - muin
N - nuin
O - oir / onn
P - peithe
R - ruis
S - suil
T - teine
U - ur
[edit] How to Type
Accents are very important in written CUM, oftentimes the only difference between two words is an accent mark, yet the words can have very distinct meanings.
The easiest way to type them is by using the international keyboard layout through the Windows control panel. If you do not know how to set this up, or don't feel comfortable tinkering with system settings, don't fret, you can still type the accents without the need for altering your system's configuration.
To type each individual character, just hold down the alt key, and press the numbers that follow them on the list below, in succession, on the number pad (to the right of the arrow keys).
À - 0192
à - 0224
È - 0200
è - 0232
É - 0201
é - 0233
Ì - 0204
ì - 0236
Ò - 0210
ò - 0242
Ó - 0211
ó - 0243
Ù - 0217
ù - 0249
That is the extent of accented characters used in CUM. Actually, the acute accents on the E and O have been abolished, but they may still be seen in older texts.
[edit] BASICS
CUM is a wonderful language, but don't expect it to be like learning other languages, as it is very distinct from many of the commonly studied languages. One of the most noticeable differences is in word order. Whereas in English, we always begin a statement by stating the subject, or the one performing the action, CUM always begins the sentence with the verb, the action being performed. This may sound odd at first, as this is how questions are formed in English.
Let's start with an example conversation. Background: Iain MacLeoid is introducing himself to an elderly gentlemen; Seumas Greum.
Iain: Là math dhuibh. Is mise Iain MacLeoid. Dè an t-ainm a tha oirbh?
Seumas: Là math. Is mise Seumas Greum. Iain: Tha mi toilichte ur coinneachadh a Sheumais. Ciamar a tha sibh?
Seumas: Tha mi gu math, tapadh leat. Ciamar a tha thu fhèin?
Iain: Glè mhath, tapadh leibh.
Now the translation:
Iain: Good day to you. I'm Iain MacLeoid. What's your name?
Seumas: Good day. I'm Seumas Greum.
Iain: I'm happy to meat you, Seumas. How are you?
Seumas: I'm well, thank you. How are you (yourself)?
Iain: Very good, thank you.
A few key phrases and points to remember. Greetings: There are many ways of greeting people in CUM. Iain said to Seumas: "Là math dhuibh." which means, "Good day to you."
Here are some other greetings.
CUM English
Hallò Hello
Madainn mhath Good morning
Feasgar math Good evening/afternoon
CUM has two ways of addressing a person. One way is used informally, with friends or people younger than you are. The other is more formal, used when addressing people you don't know, the elderly, or people to whom you should show respect.
When Iain wanted to ask how Seumas was, he said "Ciamar a tha sibh?" because he was addressing an older person. Someone whom he should respect. Whereas Seumas, when he inquired the same of Iain, said "Ciamar a tha thu...?" because he was addressing a younger person. This differentiation of formal and informal "you" is shown in many other expressions.
Iain used an idiomatic way of asking someone his name. The phrase "Dè an t-ainm a tha oirbh?" literally means "What is the name that is on you?" this sounds odd to English ears, but in CUM it is quite correct. The form that Iain used was the formal, or sibh form. The informal, or thu form, would be "Dè an t-ainm a tha ort?". If you ever have any doubts as to which form to use, your best bet is to go with the sibh form.
Another useful expression from the dialogue is "Tha mi toilichte ur coinneachadh." This means "I am happy to meet you." This is the sibh form. The thu form is "Tha mi toilichte do choinneachadh."
Did you notice when Iain addressed Seumas by name, his (Seumas') name changed a little bit. That's because in CUM, when you want to address a person by his or her name, you must put the name in the "vocative" case. Here's how you do it, it's rather simple.
Male names:
Lenite the first consonant. This simply means to insert an H right after the initial consonant. That's why Seumas became "Sheumais". If the name begins with a vowel, an N, R, L, or an H, you need not lenite the word in writing, although pronunciation of N, R, and L are affected.
Slenderize. This means you add an I before the final consonant to make it slender. If final consonant is already slender, you don't have to worry about it.
Female names:
The same as male names, only you don't have to slenderize.
In both cases, Male or Female, the name is preceeded by the word "a."
[edit] pronouns
Personal Pronouns
Here are the CUM subject and direct object pronouns, along with their equivalents in English. Pronouns CUM English
mi I
thu you
e he
i she
sinn we
sibh you
iad they
Take note: CUM has two forms of the word "you." They are not interchangeable. Thu is an informal version of you. You use this with people you are on a first-name basis with, a child, or someone who is otherwise your subordinate. Sibh is formal. You would use this with people for whom you should show respect. The elderly, a police officer, your boss. Anyone whom you would address as "sir" or "ma'am" in English. Sibh also is always used whenever you are addressing more than one person, regardless of their status.
CUM also has special versions of each pronoun which are used when you want to give it a special emphasis. These are called the "emphatic forms." For example, I could say: "I went, but he didn't go." In CUMGaelic, I would say "Chaidh mi, ach cha deach esan."
Here they are, along with their English equivalents.
CUM English
mise I
thusa you
esan he
ise she
sinne we
sibhse you
iadsan they
The same rule applies with thusa and sibhse as applies with thu and sibh. It also applies with all words derived from the two.
Another way CUM has for adding emphasis is to use the word fhèin. This word is equivalent to the English suffix -self. So mi fhèin would mean myself, sibh fhèin; yourself and so forth.
[edit] Verbs
You may find CUM verbs to be simpler than verbs in other languages, because unlike English, Spanish, French, Italian, and a whole slew of other languages, Gaelic verb forms are identical regardless of person. There is one exception, the conditional tense. Remember that in Gaelic the verb is always the first element of the sentence.
Let's start with one of the most widely used verbs in CUM, tha, it is also one of only 11 irregular verbs.
Tha is translated as am, is, or are, depending on the subject. As I said above, the same form is used for each person. The Verb: Tha Gaelic English Tha mi I am
Tha thu You are
Tha e He is
Tha i She is
Tha sinn We are
Tha sibh You are
Tha iad They are
The information above is not very useful, as what you have above will not make a complete sentence. So how can we use the verb tha? We can use this verb together with adjectives to describe people, places, or things.
For example: Tha e caol. He is thin.
For more on adjectives, see Adjectives
We can also combine tha with other verbs to say what people are doing at the current time. We simply add the word ag if the verb begins with a vowel, or a' if it begins with a consonant. This is how Gaelic forms the present tense, as there is no simple present in CUM.
I could say, Tha iad ag ithe. They are eating.
These forms that follow the word ag are called verbal nouns. They function similar to the gerund in English. By the way, even tha has a verbal noun form, a' bith.
Some common verbal nouns: ag iarraidh wanting
ag ràdh saying
a' bruidhinn speaking
ag ionnsachadh learning
a' smaoineachadh thinking
a' dol going
Questions
You might be wondering how you might ask a question. With tha, you simply replace it with a bheil. So A bheil e caol? would mean Is he thin?.
(Bh)eil is the dependent form of tha. The question, negative, and negative question moods are all formed with the dependent. What this means is that it has to be used with another word to have meaning. In this case, the word a. Other verbs use an. If they begin with b, f, m, or p, they use am instead of an.
Negation
Negation is how we say what something is not. In Gaelic, we use the word cha or chan if the word begins with a vowel.
With tha we use chan eil. Chan eil e caol. He is not thin.
You can negate a question using nach. Again with tha, this would be nach eil. So Nach eil e caol? would mean Isn't he thin?
Tenses
You already know that the present tense is formed with tha and the verbal now. But not every tense is formed with tha. Gaelic also has past, future, and conditional tenses.
Past tense
The past tense of tha is bha. The dependent form is robh. For the moods above, this gives us: bha, an robh?, cha robh, and nach robh?. With the irregular verbs, you'll have to memorize the forms.
Regular verbs form their past tense by leniting the root. So if I take the root of a regular verb, say buail (to hit), the past tense is formed by lenition, which is to add an H after the initial consonant in writing. This changes the sound slightly in spoken Gaelic. So the past tense of buail is bhuail. The question, negative, and negative questions are formed using the word do between an, chan, and nach and the verb. This gives us Cha do bhuail, an do bhuail, and nach do bhuail.
The past tense of verbs beginning with a vowel or the letter f + a vowel are formed by prefixing the word with dh'. Example: Above we had the verbal noun ionnsachadh. The root form is ionnsaich. Therefore the past tense is dh'ionnsaich. The other moods are form the same way as if the verb began with a consonant, with one exception. The question form changes from an do to na. So we have cha do dh'ionnsaich, na dh'ionnsaich, and nach do dh'ionnsaich.
Future tense
The future tense of tha is bidh or bithidh when emphasis is wanted. The negative, interrogative, & negative interogative are cha bhi, am bi, and nach bi respectively.
The future tense of other verbs are formed by adding the suffix -idh to the root if the last vowel of the root is slender, or -aidh to the root if the last vowel is broad. The other moods are formed by adding cha, an, and nach respectively. Remember that cha causes lenition. Cha also changes to chan before words beginning with a vowel. An, for the interrogative mood, changes to am before verbs beginning with b, f, m, or p.
Conditional tense
The conditional tense is used when talking about things that would take place, or things that used to take place regularly.
The conditional of tha is bhiodh. The other forms are cha bhiodh, am biodh, and nach biodh.
The conditional tense also takes two special forms in the first person singular and plural forms. The first person singular form of bhiodh is bhithinn (I would be); the plural form is bhiomaid (we would be). The pronouns mi and sinn are omitted, as the endings tell who the subject is.
Regular verbs form the conditional tense by taking the root, leniting the first letter, and then adding the suffix -eadh if the last vowel is slender, or -adh if the last letter is broad. Verbs beginning with vowels cannot be lenited, but add dh' to the beginning of the word. Questions, negative questions, and negative statements are formed in the same way.
The first person tenses substitute the normal ending for -inn in the singular (the "I" form) if the last vowel is slender; -ainn if the last vowel is broad. The plural ending (the "we" form) adds -eamaid if the last vowel is slender and -amaid if broad. As with bhithinn and bhiomaid the pronouns mi and sinn are unnecessary. Insert non-formatted text here
