First Steps
What is this language and how do you pronounce it?
World Language
Hisyëö is a world language and art language that attempts to create a batteries-included opinionated platform for cultural expression.
It takes words from all of the world's families of languages so that there is a little of everyone's language within it. Each language family gets a proportional amount of words. The proportion size is determined by taking the percentage of the total of the square roots of recent counts of the L1 population speakers of each language. By using a square root distribution, the larger language families have a reduced proportion and the lesser families have a slightly increased proportion. These amounts are considered a tolerance marker and each family fluctuates between position and negative offsets from the tolerance amount.
This principle allows Hisyëö to have a representation of as many people as possible. Since the larger language families get a large amount of words due to the proportioning (even in a square root distribution), it ends up making their language learning experience better than others. To combat this, smaller language families always get prioritization when conflicts arise and new words need to be located. This only makes a minor impact on the major language families but greatly impacts the minor ones.
While words are being taken from languages it is important to remember that this language is not your native language, you will need to abandon any other rules or word changes that you might normally make. The word can be used as a noun, verb, or modifier so there's a good chance it will be used in a way that seems wrong to your native language's grammar.
This is okay. Try to focus on the essence of that native language word, imagine it being translated as the other parts of speech. Now think of the Hisyëö word as covering all of these words. This is why we include all of the different derivation translations in each definition, so that you can familiarize yourself with all the ways it can be utilized.
It's also an art language because it has taken the core of Kokanu and added many aesthetic, syntactic, and semantic ideas that allow it to be used as an everyday communication platform right now albeit with a starting "culture" in a similar way to how art language creators establish history to explain their language's idiosyncracies. The culture of Hisyëö is a representation of what the creators believe to be
- the fundamentals of a modern democratic society
- the necessary critical tools to authentically discuss bad things
- lastly, a fun and whimsical inclination that tries to bring some uniqueness
That being said, there are no mythological stories to anchor you like you might find in a natural society. Because of this, there's a risk that these ideas will fade as the language gains a true living culture. The community must remain vigilant that the things that make Hisyëö great never fade but they must also be ever watchful for aspects of the culture that bring negativity or fascism.
Common Expressions
One important first step to engaging with a new culture is to learn the common phrases that are the lifeblood of any encounter. These words sometimes take on additional roles as interjections and simple sentences. Learning these will make it much easier to engage in polite and impolite conversation and get your feet wet so that you can begin your immersion training.
The following are some of the current established expressions that Hisyëans use in day-to-day conversation:
- Latin
- ɽʋʄꜿɟʌ
voxo. woah!
nimü pı zık. How are you doing?
lono nimü lı si gö pı zık. How has your day been?
lı yök sonkon It doesn't matter.
küu lı yök cinzon. Don't worry!
Pronunciation
Learning how to pronounce the words requires learning how each of the 24 phonemes work and how they combine to form syllables. Each translation has a wide array of acceptable alternatives that you can use if certain sounds are too challenging. The distance between each sound can be subtle in certain words and with certain speakers but the all of the words of Hisyëö were chosen in such a way that there shouldn't be words that have a nearby pronunciation which would be too difficult to differentiate.
Alphabet
Vowels
o - open back unrounded vowel [ɑ]
- as in slot or father
- can also be other open vowels: [a], [ɶ], [ɒ],
ö - open-mid back rounded vowel [ɔ]
- as in roupe or Cambodia
- can also be other central and back rounded vowels: [ɞ], [ɵ], [o]
- slightly geminated
e - open-mid front unrounded vowel [ɛ]
- as in bed or cat
- can also be other open-mid front vowels: [æ], [œ]
ë - close-mid front unrounded vowel [e]
- as in may or face
- can also be rounded [ø]
- slightly geminated
ı - near-close near-front unrounded vowel [ɪ]
- as in city or will
- can be rounded [ʏ]
- and the close central unrounded vowel [ɨ]
- lastly, can be the close-mid central unrounded vowel [ɘ]
i - close front unrounded vowel [i]
- as in happy or ceiling
- can also be rounded [y]
- slightly geminated
u - open-mid back unrounded vowel [ʌ]
- as in run or enough
- can also be other central and back undrounded vowels: [ə], [ɜ]. [ɐ], [ɤ]
ü - close back rounded vowel
- as in lose, through
- can also be other back rounded and unrounded vowels: [ʉ], [ɯ], [ʊ]
- slightly geminated
Consonants
h - voiceless glottal fricative [h]
- as in ham or hold
- can also be velar, pharyngeal, or uvular voiceless fricatives: [x], [ɣ], [ʁ], [ħ]
k - voiceless velar plosive [k]
- as in cup or stick
- can also be the uvular voiceless plosive [q]
g - voiced velar plosive [g]
- as in gold or snag
- can also be the uvular voiced plosive [ɢ]
t - voiceless dental/alveolar plosive [t]
- as in tip or putt
- can also be the retroflex equivalent [ʈ]
c - voiceless postalveolar affricate [t͡ʃ]
- as in chore or nature
- can also be alveolar or retroflex: [t͡ɕ], [ʈ͡ʂ]
s - voiceless alveolar fricative [s]
- as in mist or ice
- can be either voiceless or voiced [z]
x - voiceless postalveolar fricative [ʃ]
- as in ash or ration
- can be either voiceless or voiced [ʒ]
d - voiced dental/alveolar plosive [d]
- as in dig or bad
- can also be the retroflex equivalent [ɖ]
z - voiced postalveolar affricate [d͡ʒ]
- as in jog or age
- can also be alveolar or retroflex: [d͡ʑ], [ɖ͡ʐ]
p - voiceless bilabial plosive [p]
- as in poke or sip
- can be either voiceless or voiced [b]
v - voiced labiodental fricative [v]
- as in valid or gavel
- can be either voiced or voiceless [f]
m - voiced bilabial nasal [m]
- as in lamb or mineral
- can be labio-dental [ɱ]
n - voiced dental/alveolar nasal
- as in nod or ban
- can be any other nasal: [ɳ], [ɲ], [ŋ], [ɴ]
w - voiced labial–velar approximant [w]
- as in weep or awake
- try to avoid realizing as [ʋ] due to similarity to voiced labiodental fricative.
l - voiced dental/alveolar lateral approximants [l]
- as in linger or ballad
- can also be realized as retroflex [ɭ] or tap/flap [ɾ]
- most rhotic phonemes are transliterated as this letter
y - voiced palatal approximant [j]
- as in yearn or mayo
- especially when preceded by a lateral approximant, this phoneme can be realized as a palatal lateral approximant [ʎ]