2nd Day of Junction: The Nun Language

Junction’s launch day is on the 10th, and I have a day off, so this is a good day for some language-constructing!

In Junction, a wormhole is discovered in the New Guinea highlands…by the rest of the world. The people who live near the wormhole have always known about it, and they call themselves the Nun.

Nun is a pandanus or avoidance language, spoken to non-Nun or when off of Earth. Thus, while its grammar is presumably similar to that of the Nun’s private (and largely unstudied) language, its vocabulary is mostly loans from neighboring Mek languages such as Ketengban, Eipomek, Nalca and Yali. Nun may also be a Mek language itself, with post-modifying SOV sentence structure, and agglutinating morphology, very much like Nalca.

Attestations (in approximate order of appearance):

Im sam e (sky in house) = (the) House(s) in the sky

Mek im sam (water sky in) = (the) In-Sky River 

Yeli im (worm sky) = the Sky Worm (mythological)

Yo Dung (tree worm) = a wormtree

Dung yo (worm tree) = a treeworm

Soko Heng Tokwey (land sun ground) = land of ground sun, Lighthouse Biome

Soko Bou Deibuna (land wind death) = Deathwind Biome

Soko Ining Eng (land blood sweet) = land of sweet blood, Sweetblood Biome, Oasis Biome

Soko Mekaletya (land toymaker) = land of toymaker(s), Toymaker Biome

Metek aleb-ti-a (small give.IT.NOM) =a toymaker

Yo sam mek (tree in water)= (the) Water (is) in (the) tree

Dan meteklyetya ub-ak do (what toymaker be.3RD.PRES.PL QU) = What are toymakers?

Yoyo Mekaletya (forest toymaker) = the toymaker forest

Daisuke adya hadya ara deb-lem-la-a okay ub-la (Daisuke erg. fish-crab abs. eat.PRS.3RD.PRS.NOM okay) = Daisuke eating the fish (is) okay.

Keb-lum (listen.IMP) = Listen!

Din-lulum! (see-pl.imp) = Look, you all!

Nun-ak ang ulu-na (we.contained with there.is.NOM) = The tribe has us

Keb tek-lum (listen stand.IMP) = Wake up!

Danya yak-nam-ak do (who come.FUT.3RD.PRES.PL QU) = Who will come?

 

A full word list may be found here.

And if you want to participate on twitter and get your very own Nun sentence, go here.

 

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