u/ChokoKat_1100

I was recently reading a book set in Bangladesh about women who were sex-trafficked on an island (based on a real floating brothel). It was a very harrowing read, but oddly enough, out of all the horrific things that happened in it, what got to me the most was unexpected. That one of the women became pregnant, and her baby was taken away, never to be seen again.

Recently I started another book by the same author. Within the first few pages, the main character’s conflict is established—she is about to lose her two children in a few days after losing a legal battle against her late husband's family, who claimed she was too distraught to care for the two kids. I couldn't even get past those first few pages.

Reflecting on this, I realized that a mother losing her child—whether the child is taken or dies—is a massive trigger for me in literature. It felt strange to me because I’m only sixteen and obviously not a mother. I couldn't understand why this distressed me so much that I had to force myself to read it, while my own mother (who actually recommended both books to me) could read them perfectly fine.

I talked to my friend ("Cordelia") about this, and I showed her the book which I had on me. Cordelia read those first few pages and gently reminded me of something: the situation in the book exactly resembled what happened to my friend in Primary school ("Mia").

Cordelia and I went to the same primary school and so both knew Mia and knew what happened to her. Her parents divorced, her father was abusive, and he ended up taking her and her older brother away to another country without telling their mother. After a few months, the mother managed to get split custody, but she only got to see them occasionally. Eventually, it dwindled down to a phone call every few months. At this point, she hasn't seen her children in about six years. We were 9 when this all started and the last time I saw her I was 11.

Recently, I actually found the matching friendship necklace Mia's mum had bought for us when she took us out together. I always kept my half; Mia and I had promised each other we’d wear them forever and never take them off. Finding it again made me feel so incredibly sad. Looking at it and thinking of her, I can't help but constantly wonder where she is and how her life is nowadays.

Anyway, remembering Mia made me realise why books with this sort of thing happening triggers me so unexpectedly.

I think it also hits hard because a friend of mine passed away six months ago. At her funeral, I didn't cry until I heard her mother crying. I think that hearing a mother's grief is truly the most harrowing sound you can hear. There is nothing like it—it was utterly heartbreaking. It is a visceral, deeply disturbing sound that shakes you to your core because it feels entirely unnatural, a complete violation of the right order of the world. Parents are supposed to go first. Losing a romantic partner is tragic, and losing a parent is a profound grief we expect to face eventually... but a mother burying her child feels like a subversion of how life is supposed to work. I remember hugging her mother as she sobbed and just feeling completely devastated. After the funeral, I wrote a poem about how deeply disturbing and painful the sound is, of a mother's grief.

I guess I underestimated how much those real-life experiences with maternal grief and separation affected me.

I’m looking at consonantal root systems, particularly the well-known triconsonantal roots in Semitic languages (e.g K–T–B relating to writing), and I’m wondering how far that idea could be extended—specifically, could a hexaconsonantal root system plausibly function in a language that is actually speakable, especially by humans?

Asking because I’m making an artlang spoken by an alien species which invade Earth, whose cognition and culture are strongly organised around the number six (they have six limbs, three digits on each, and use a base-6 counting system). I’m toying with the idea that their core lexical roots consist of six consonants, with meaning derived from that skeleton and then modified via vowel patterns, affixes, or possibly even suprasegmental features.

But are there any real-world languages that approach anything like 4+ consonant root systems in a productive way, or is three already near a functional ceiling? From a cognitive and phonological standpoint, would six-consonant roots be too information-dense or difficult to process/retain, especially in real-time speech? Would such a system likely require simplification in actual usage (e.g. consonant reduction, templatic truncation, or heavy reliance on morphology around a smaller core)? Could this be made more plausible by distributing the “root” across different channels (e.g. consonants + prosody, tone, or even non-pulmonic/ultrasonic features)?

I’m looking at consonantal root systems, particularly the well-known triconsonantal roots in Semitic languages (e.g K–T–B relating to writing), and I’m wondering how far that idea could be extended—specifically, could a hexaconsonantal root system plausibly function in a language that is actually speakable, especially by humans?

Asking because I’m making an artlang spoken by an alien species whose cognition and culture are strongly organised around the number six (they have six limbs, three digits on each, and use a base-6 counting system). I’m toying with the idea that their core lexical roots consist of six consonants, with meaning derived from that skeleton and then modified via vowel patterns, affixes, or possibly even suprasegmental features.

But are there any real-world languages that approach anything like 4+ consonant root systems in a productive way, or is three already near a functional ceiling? From a cognitive and phonological standpoint, would six-consonant roots be too information-dense or difficult to process/retain, especially in real-time speech? Would such a system likely require simplification in actual usage (e.g. consonant reduction, templatic truncation, or heavy reliance on morphology around a smaller core)? Could this be made more plausible by distributing the “root” across different channels (e.g. consonants + prosody, tone, or even non-pulmonic/ultrasonic features)?