(I'm not entirely sure if I'm doing this right, but let's go)

In Kethariye Orasaketh, the word keth means "fire, heat, home," and helana ("volcano") is directly derived from hela ("shelter, safety"). Everything in the language is based on this cultural conception of warmth and geothermic spaces as being home.

The word āsari ("great, powerful, respected") is directly derived from āsar, which refers to komatiite lava, which is the hottest lava type and is extremely rare (in our universe, this lava type is regarded as being extinct). Even though most of the Kethari now live in the desert, āsari is still used to denote high respect and praise, despite there being no lava in the environment.

Beauty is also directly tied to lava, with the words for "beautiful" (asami) and "flower" (asava) being directly derived from asan, "lava, magma."

Because beauty is tied to lava, which is both life-giving and destructive, the Kethari conceptualize beauty in a much different way. Flowers themselves are regarded as fierce eruptions/expressions of life, despite being delicate. For the Kethari, beauty is best personified as a mother rising up to defend her children. Someone who cares for others in the community, or who shows bravery in the face of danger, or someone who has strong mental fortitude can all be described as beautiful. There also is no distinction between "beautiful" and "handsome" like there is in English; everyone is simply "beautiful."

Additionally, the Kethari don't really have much of a pantheon, but of the deities they do believe in, the most important and beloved is Āsaravi, whose name can be very loosely translated as "Lovely Flower." She is the goddess of motherhood, love, beauty, life, strength, fire, volcanic and geothermic land, and war. She is said to watch over and protect children who have lost their parents, and is regarded as the Great Mother. She is inherently tied to home and safety as a result of being associated with fire and volcanoes.

I came across a video that called out a DID YouTuber for faking DID, and I knew it would make me mad but I clicked on it anyway, so here’s me counter arguing all the points that were made

1. ”No system would have coordinated outfits for each alter and change with switches.” Some systems do! Some systems very much change outfits based on who’s fronting, or have members do their hair or makeup in a different way because of differing preferences. It’s not actually that strange.

2. “Nonhuman alters only exist as the direct result of severe childhood trauma and are extremely rare. They can’t form at any other time!” Our many, many nonhumans who have all emerged at various points in our life all from different causes would care to disagree.

3. “This system is stealing fictional characters for their system!” So I guess we’re now just ignoring the clinical studies that discuss fictives. Cool.

4. “Fusion doesn’t work like that!” Fusion is different for everyone. We had two entire sidesystems fuse together Into one sidesystem. For us it happened completely internally, but if those members had been in front, there very well could’ve been outward expression. And the fact that the video was targeting when two members who were really close realized they were fusing and couldn’t fight it and so made a video to say goodbye, that just feels like a doubly low blow.

5. “Switching doesn’t happen that fast.” It most certainly can. I also find it interesting that the vide only focused on the quick switches and not any of the longer ones, of which there are just as many. Being a bit selective in your “evidence“.

6. “The fact that they put little notes on the screen (like “listening to so-and-so“) in editing is a clear sign that they’re faking.” So adding helpful “this is what was going on here” notes is actually rude and disrespectful??

7. “Having different accents is a clear sign of faking.” No it is. Lots of systems experience it.

8. “No one would actually be able to tell they had DID; it’s a covert disorder!” Overt presentations exist too.

9. “This alter is clearly a racist stereotype because they said the alter was black!” They said the alter had a dark skin tone when describing innerworld appearance. Also, even if they did appear black internally, that doesn’t mean they or the system is racist; you can’t control the internal race you form with anymore than you can control your source. But again: they never even said this member was black.

There’s so much more I could add, but I feel like this is a good indication of how awful the video was.

I've been trying to find information on how natlangs adapt to a whistled format, but haven't found anything that explains the mechanics of it. All I ever see is "the language maps the sounds of the language onto pitch, length, etc.", with no examples ever.

Does anyone know of any resources, or can anyone provide some advice for how I can adapt the following phonology into a whistled format? Do I need to modify the phonology any to help make it easier when adapting to whistling? I'm concerned that the number of sounds + clusters might make adapting the language make complicated than it needs to be.

	Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Post-Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	m		n			ŋ
Plosive	p b		t d			k g	ʔ
Affricate			ʦ ʣ	ʧ ʤ	(ʨ) (ʥ)
Fricative	f v	θ ð	s z	ʃ ʒ	(ɕ) (ʑ)		h
Approximate			ɹ		j	w
Lateral Approx.			l

- Aspiration: /pʰ, tʰ, kʰ/

- The palatal sounds are realizations of the post-alveolar sounds before /ɛ, a, ʌ/

Vowels:

Front: i e ɛ a
Back: u o

Syllable Structure: (C)(C)(S)V(C)(C)

S = /j, w, ɹ, l/

Onset Clusters

·        Approx. + approx.:            /jɹ/

·        Nasal + nasal:                    /mn, ŋn/

·        Nasal + glide:                    /mɹ, nɹ, ŋɹ/

·        Fricative + fricative:           /hv, hθ, hs, hʃ/

·        Fricative + glide:                /vɹ, θɹ, hɹ/

·        Sib. Fricative + fricative:     /zv, ʃf, ʃθ, ʒv, ʒθ/

·        Sib. Fricative + glide:          /sɹ, zɹ, ʃɹ, ʒɹ/

·        Stop + nasal:                      /dn, km, kn, kŋ, ɡn/

·        Stop + fricative:                  /dv, kv, kθ, ɡv/

·        Stop + glide:                       /bɹ, pɹ, tɹ, dɹ, kɹ, ɡɹ/

·        Stop + lateral:                     /tl, dl, kl, ɡl/

Coda Clusters

·        Glide + stop:                       /ld, lk, ɹd, ɹk/

·        Glide + nasal:                      /lm, ln, lŋ, ɹn/

·        Nasal + stop:                       /md, nd, nk, ŋk/

·        Nasal + fricative:                  /mz, ŋz, ŋθ/

·        Sib. Fricative + fricative:      /ʃθ, ʒθ/

·        Stop + fricative:                   /kθ, kʃ/

hekora [hɛ.kor.a]*

hot spring

Easirasaa hekorane!

OBJ.it.1-to=love-PRES.ind-SUB.me.1 hot=spring-ABS1

>"I love hot springs!"

Cultural Notes:

The Kethari treat hot springs like casual social hangout spots, or something like a spa. For Ketharu, a trip to a hot spring is similar to humans going to the lake or a beach.

Related words:

• hekorami — hot spring iguana (an iguana species that lives around hot springs, feeding off the mineral-rich algae)

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*By the way, I forgot to mention this, but I'm using /r/ instead of /ɹ/ for ease of typing. The proper pronunciation is [ɹ]

Kethariye Orasaketh is a conlang structured around seven speech levels encoding emotional closeness vs. distance and including a dedicated de-escalation register.

It is spoken by the Kethari, who are a horned humanoid species adapted to extreme geothermal and desert environments in an alternate Earth setting. They were given the exonym of "demon" by humans, who drew mythological comparison based on Kethari appearance and homeland.

Phonology

The language is intentionally minimalist and "soft," designed to contrast with the harsher imagery that "demon" typically evokes, and to produce a flowing, lava-like effect.

As a result, the phonology is extremely restricted compared to English, only consisting of /m, n, ŋ, k, v, θ, s, z, ʃ, x, h, ɹ, l, w, j/.

/k/ shows up as /k̚/ in the coda position, and in certain dialects as /ɡ/ when in a medial position in the word.

Only /m, n, ŋ, k̚, v, θ, ʃ, z, ɹ, l/ can be a coda, and even then many of these are restricted by other factors.

Vowels are distinguished between long and short (indicated by a macron over long vowels in the orthography), with /i, iː, ɛ, ɛː, a, aː, u, uː, o, oː/

The syllabic structure is primarily (C)V, with some cases of VC and certain cases of CVC.

Speech Levels

The speech levels were the first thing I created after setting up the phonology. They were loosely based after Korean and Japanese honorifics, but with more of a focus on how emotionally close the relationship between the speaker and the listener was, rather than strictly being a set of honorifics.

All pronouns, object agreement, and subject agreement have forms for each of the seven speech levels, and many emotionally important concepts (such as those surrounding family, societal values, and important environmental features of their homeland) have different word forms for different levels.

Levels 1-3

There are the lowest, most emotionally close speech levels.

The first level is the most intimate, reserved almost exclusively for familial bonds or for those who are from the same clan. The second is primarily used among friends, and the third among acquaintances.

These levels have the least amount of marking, with words often taking reduced or shortened forms, diminutive markers, and with less pressure altogether. The third level may lengthen the TMA vowel and/or the particle ā [aː] to show respect, but it functions more as a step in between Levels 3 and 4.

Levels 4-6

The fourth level is considered the "base" level, and is the one primarily used for talking to strangers. The next level is for members of society who you greatly respect, and the next is now primarily considered a ceremonial speech level.

Higher speech levels are also adopted when a situation becomes tense or uncertain, and a number of features start to show up in these levels:

- blurring between "I/me" and "we/us" (creating a gradual shift away from individual framing)

- TMA vowel lengthening

- inclusion of respect/honorific particles

- honorific prefixes that are inserted around TMA, object marking, and nominal number marking

Level 7

The seventh is reserved exclusively for de-escalation purposes. It's designed to help promote conflict resolution and to force both parties to remain calm so that arguments don't spiral out of control. It doesn't always work, but it helps.

Either party may initiate it once they feel it is necessary or warranted. Refusal to follow this lead and adjust to this register on the other’s part is seen as stubbornness or aggression.

All of the previously mentioned features are also used here, but are expanded on, and the blurring between "I/me" and "we/us" becomes a strict "we/us." Unlike Levels 4–6, which allow ambiguity between singular and plural, Level 7 removes the first-person singular entirely, forcing all statements to be framed collectively.

There is a form of Level 7 that's regarded as an unofficial Level 8, which basically takes Level 7 and throws all the respect and then some into the utterance, and it's used in cases when regular Level 7 speech isn't enough and the situation has become directly threatening.

However, given that the language originated as just being what is now Level 4 speech and expanding from there, it's possible that it could end up becoming more standardized over time.

Examples:

Level 3

"I don't want to fight."

Ā an hashkhararasazna.

3 NEG.3 to=fight-PRES.subj-I.3

Level 4

"I don't want to fight." / "We don't need to fight."

Lā shi hashkhararasazyuth.

4 NEG.4 to=fight-PRES.subj-I/we.4

Level 7

"We don't need to fight."

Mōōr hael hashkhararasazhuth.

7 NEG.7 to=fight-PRES.subj-we.7

Morphology

Words are frequently built from compounds, which gives the language a sort of poetic feel. The word for "poetry" itself is built from compounding:

asan "lava" + orasaketh "speech, language", with orasaketh being built from orasa "river, flow, current" + keth (heat, fire, home)

Asan (or the derived prefix a-) is often added to words to indicate a beauty or even affection, so asanorasaketh can be roughly literally translated to "beautiful speech."

Cultural History

The Kethari first made contact with humans several thousands of years ago. Initially, relations between the two societies were good, but over time, humans became afraid of the Kethari and began persecuting them, almost driving the Kethari to extinction. As a result, the Kethari carry a great deal of cultural and generational trauma, which has further influenced their language, especially in terms of lexicon and the connotations of certain words.

The neutral term for a non-Kethari person is ithar. As humans began to get more and more dangerous for the Kethari, they began to name them as hashthar, which was constructed from the prefix hash-, which is used to refer to threat, or unwanted circumstances, and thar ("person").

Hash- itself comes from the word hasho, meaning "death, suffocation, asphyxiation," and is used in a number of other words to indicate danger.

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I'm interested to hear what others think about this language and the features I've shared!

Unless I'm remembering wrong, it used to be "beginner/casual", "intermediate", and "advanced". The Word of the Day posts I've started for one of my conlangs would fit best under the Intermediate flair I think, but it's not there, so I've been using the "conlang" flair, but that doesn't feel like the right one since it's not the whole conlang

I'm just confused why it doesn't exist anymore

khalhevani [xal.hɛ.va.ni]

superheated steam

Zuhavasazu khalhevanine khalnaath.

OBJ.it.4-to=have-PRES.ind-SUB-it.4 superheated=steam-ABS1 geyser-PL-ERG

>"Geysers have superheated steam."

Morphology:

• khalna — geyser
• hevani — cloud, steam, smoke

Cultural Notes:

The Kethari don't get burned nearly as easily as humans, even able to be submerged in lava for a short time without damage. They enjoy khalhevani in winter in much the same way that humans do when playing in sprinklers in summer, with the heated steam helping to warm them up.

ōano [o:.a.no]

group of lines in a poem; verse, stanza

Lā zuesasashzu asanorasakethlihan i ōanoath vāra kā?

4 OBJ.it.4-to=be-PRES.stat.SUB.it.4 poem-LOC this stanza-PL-ERG how=much.formal QST.formal

>"How many stanzas are in this poem?"

Creation Notes:

This word doesn't have the same kind of morphology or cultural detail that yesterday's word had, so I'm mostly going to share how I came to create this word.

A while back, I began playing around with Kethari poetry and how it might be represented within Kethariye Orasaketh. Syllable count was pretty much immediately ruled out given how long words can be, so I began thinking of things in terms of the number of words in a line, the number of lines in a stanza, and the number of stanzas within a poem.

As I was investigating different poetic forms to get inspiration for how to structure Kethari poetry, I realized that it would be easier to talk about the poetry if I had words for things such as "quatrain", "cinquain", etc. Thus, I decided to create ōano, which I built off of orai, the word for "water", as several words for language all stem from this root. I built the contrast between oano (a single line) and ōano (a group of lines) by lengthening the first vowel.

Related words:

• oano — verse, a single line of poetry
• kavaōano — quatrain

(I have no idea if this is the right flair or not)

hanoruorasaketh [ha.no.ru.o.ra.sa.kɛθ]

the weight of words/language

Zuīnūanalasahavu hanoruorasakethha.

OBJ.it-to=remember-PRES.imp-SUB.you. weight=of=words-DAT

>"Remember the weight of words."

A warning parents give children to remind them of the harm they can inflict if they speak carelessly.

Morphology:

• hanoru — burden, weight, hindrance
• orasaketh — speech, language

Cultural Notes:

This specifically refers to how easily words can be used to destroy someone.

Kethari culture is built on community and caring for each other, so a lot of care and thought is put into how words and actions alike affect others. Misuse of language causes harm to the entire community, not just to a single individual.

Related words:

• hamokhanoruorasaketh —
  • 1. V: to kill, wear down the heart; emotionally abuse, verbally abuse
  • 2. N: emotional abuse, verbal abuse
• hanoruon — tense/oppressive silence
• mukekhēhanorusaya — the responsibility society has to bear the burdens of those in need