Watch this page for the latest in furry, quasi-furry, and non-furry (but mostly furry) art from the Infinite Difursity series. August's feature is Language of the winged cats of Draconia.
Draconia, a planet revolving around a star in the constellation Draco, is the home of many unusual species. Besides the dragons for which Draconia is named, there are a number of distinctive kinds of fairies, unicorn-like animals, and many others. A few of these, such as the winged cats, are clearly derived from terrestrial animals, and may represent early attempts at genetic engineering. Many of these "enhanced" animals have their own languages, and therefore can be classified as "furry".
Ipsílikhthar, the language of the Ishling (Draconian winged cats), is primarily a written language. Although Ipsílikhthar seems to be derived from spoken languages, the winged cats themselves are incapable of pronouncing it. When spoken by elves, it sounds like this (click here).
Ípsil-in ín-ie-in káikhthis-in ist rokhát-in. Méd-ie-in yass Relní-yorva.
[ishling(NOM.)-PL. be-he/she-PL. relative(NOM.)-PL. the cat(GEN.)-PL. come-he/she-PL. from dragon(GEN.)-planet(NOM.)]
"Ishling are relatives of cats. They come from Draconia."
For a language created, I mean "documented", as early as 1982, when I was still in high school and didn't have access to many language-related books, Ipsílikhthar shows an unexpected degree of sophistication. Nouns have four cases, coincidentally the same four as German (nominative, genitive, accusative, dative), although I knew no German at the time. Although the language is mainly agglutinative, the genitive case is marked in an unusual manner: by changing the position of the stress to the final syllable (rélni "a dragon", relní "of a dragon"). The accusative suffix -mi and the dative suffix -tha are added to the end of the nominative form. Finally, plurals of all cases are created by adding the suffix -in (rélni-tha-in "to dragons").
Verbs are conjugated for person and number by simply suffixing pronouns. Verbs always agree with the subject in person and number (ist nénil íst-i rélni-mi [the elf(NOM.) see-she dragon-ACC.] "the (female) elf sees a dragon"). Accusative and dative pronouns are also attached to the verb (zídv-ie-mi-o-e-tha [give-it-ACC.-I-he-DAT.] "I give it to him"), although they are omitted when an accusative or dative noun phrase follows (zídv-o ist nénil-tha relní tísil-mi [give-I the elf-DAT. dragon-GEN. star-ACC.] "I give a dragon-star (a kind of crystal) to the elf").
Verbs also have four tenses: present (no suffix), past (-íss), future (-ídr), and conditional (-íps). The tense suffix, which is always stressed, is added before the personal pronouns (ist-íss-o ist rélni-mi "I saw the dragon"). There are also suffixes for forming passive and active participles, which follow the tense suffix if any (íst-ar "seeing", ist-ídr-ath "about to be seen", etc.) The infinitive is formed by adding -et (a borrowing from Russian?) (Ipsíl-ikhthar ín-ie nelé ésk-et [ishling(GEN.)-language(NOM.) be-it easy learn-INF.] "Ipsílikhthar is easy to learn").
dílet to explore e he éo he-and-I, we ésket to learn i she ie it, he/she íeo he/she-and-I, we ío she-and-I, we íkhthar language íkhthet to communicate ínet to be ípsil ishling (winged cat) ipsílikhthar Ipsílikhthar, the ishling language ist the ístet to see iv you ívin you (pl.) ívo you-and-I, we káikhthis relative kalníta unicorn kharáyet to move kóilme color médet to come mlíme metal náilozin often nelé easy nélni river nénil elf nenílikhthar the Elvish language nívset to live o I -ót not rélne vithrin (miniature dragon) rélni dragon relníikhthar Käläthsithäthe, the language of the dragons relníyorva Draconia rókhat cat sith that (conj.) slére crystal sórlat order sórlot chaos sórnil region tísil star -ú not vrásan universe yass from yórva planet ze and zetá more zídvet to give
