Cu

Author

George Lovitt

Cu is a constructed language for a fictional situation in which a deific snake has created mankind and has given them the gift of language. Cu is a descendent of a language that’s much more restricted by serpentine vocal anatomy that has humanised over time. Since snakes can’t produce many different types of sounds, the proto-language phonology was impoverished, and was characterised by low information-density strings of difficult-to-pronounce fricative clusters. As the language has humanised, the phonology has expanded, with more places and manners of articulation, as well as statistically common features like voicing, which has allowed the language to become more efficient. This culminates as a still very snake-like language that has strayed quite far from its roots. A primary creative feature of the language is its extensive polysynthesis, that requires all clauses to be a single word.

θsȧmȧCḁ̇chxciȧtsaCiȧθȧkrȧkhk

θ- sȧ -mȧ- -Cḁ̇ -chxci -ȧtsa- -Ci -ȧθȧ- -krȧkhk

PST- COP -TRANS- -Cḁ̇ -scared -DAT- -Cu -GEN- -safety

'Cḁ became fearful for the Cu’s safety,'

θaknknascfulumahθlucksaθstsuschmtʃuʃlakhc.

θa- ∅- knkn- a- scfuluma- h- θ- lucksa -∅ -θstsuschm -tʃu -ʃlakhc

CONJ- ACC- wall- ACT- DEFR- PFV- PST- create -NOM- -3SG.ANI.DEFR -INSTR- -body

'so they created a wall from their body.'

Grammar (PDF)