Star worship became a central element of the Tathela religion, particularly from the Classical period onwards, when the influence of Khana Mapita Rhi and other philosophers and poets turned it into the primary focus of the religion for the cultural and political elites.

Roughly 200 years later, renovation works in the imperial palace unearthed forgotten underground chambers where the palace elites performed mystery rites, carving ritual chants and formulas onto votive tablets, which they then buried beneath these chambers.

This discovery, and the subsequent publishing of these hymns and chants, prompted many poets of the time to initiate a fascinating game of pretense. Modern authors produced collections of works in the style and language of the Classical carvings, dressing them up in the mystique of being "newly found" works, purportedly discovered by the authors themselves or by "trustworthy" sources.

A great master who delved into this style was Mila Thia In, a minor imperial officer, great poet, and fervent devotee of the astral religion. In this post, I will show three of these purported fragments "discovered" by Mila, which she then used as the basis for a hymn to the 17 foremost stars, a work widely considered one of her most important and beautiful.

Before presenting the texts themselves, I want to point out some aspects of the language used here. It is Classical Tathela, which differs from the Tathela of Mila’s time in two main respects:

• The Great Verb Shift: By Mila’s lifetime, the Great Verb Shift was already underway. It transformed the closed verb class of Classical Tathela into an open class by promoting verbal adjuncts into verbs and relegating the original roughly 40 verbs to subject-role indicators attached to the subject of the sentence.
• Phonology: The phonology of the language had shifted noticeably. Being only 200 years removed from the Classical period, it was easy for Mila to reproduce the language faithfully, though to a native Classical speaker, some of her word choices might have seemed non-standard to Classical speakers.

Hymn to Mes̞ɹ̝̊an

mes̞ɹ̝̊an, my blood drawn to your sap,

my essence is called.

My heart faints, my eyes close, my breath stills.

My blood is fire, my mind is charcoal, my soul is ore.

My legs are the fine sands and my speech is the waters.

Formless, shapeless, full of voids I ascend to you 

Incomplete I was, without completion I am

In your domain I am your subject

In your abode I am your host

In your essence I am myself

>
mes̞ɹ̝̊an, akal̪ˠe-ne     makrasta-n     ʎ̥˔enente  
star.name, blood.POSS.(I/II.1.SG>I.PL)  sap-POSS.I/II.2.SG>II.PL)  towards.I.PL>II.PL.dist

kartaskeʎ̥˔i-te-xe   mai-ke-l̪ˠe-na  paninte    
essence-POSS(I/II.1.SG>III.SG)-OBJ.    displace.smth-PRES.-PROG.-MIDDLE      attract/call

k͡xinatre-ne         ame-l̪ˠe-ʎi     poɹ̝̊an        t̪θonkan-te   kli-re   imkaɹ̝̊an  kore-ne    ʀ̥in-ʎi  al̪ˠokirse 
heart.POSS.(I/II.1.SG>I.PL)  fall-PROG-PRES weaken  eye.POSS.(I/II.1.SG>IV.PL) go-PRES  shut breath.POSS.(I/II.1.SG>I.PL) become-PRES stopped

>akal̪ˠe-ne       s̞t̪e     krol̪ˠu                     usanθi-n         s̞t̪e         kranst̪θa            akol̪ˠu-te  s̞t̪e   marsi 
blood.POSS.(I/II.1.SG>I.PL)  be  fire     mind.POSS.(I/II.1.SG>I.SG)  be  charcoal soul.POSS.(I/II.1.SG>IV.SG)  be ore

ʎ̆omta-ne     s̞t̪e             prudra-ni  s̞t̪e-re muni             ɹ̠̊i             sani-te     s̞t̪e                ɹ̠̊una-ni
leg.POSS.(I/II.1.SG>II.PL)  be  sand.PL be-PRES fine  and     speech.POSS.(I/II.1.SG>III.SG) be water.PL

s̞t̪e-re         putro-l̪ˠue-ʀ̥-a                                                 -nuki-l̪ˠue-ʀ̥o                      padra-l̪ˠue
be-PRES form-NEG-and-1st.vowel.of_next_noun         shape-NEG-and               solid.mass -NEGù

l̪ˠu                      ame-ʎ̆ɪ̆                           t̪θaka   t͡ɹ̝̊e-ʎoi
emph.1.SG       move.vertically-PRES.   above  emph.2.SG-loc.obj

uni       s̞t̪e-ru        at̪θane-l̪ˠue         s̞t̪e-re              at̪θan-poki
1.SG.  be-PAST   complete-less     be-PRES      complete-PRIV

rukka-ʎ̥˔a-ka                uni            s̞t̪e-re                                       moxeso-si
star.domain-POSS(2.SG>II.SG)-LOC  1.SG  be-pres                subject-POSS(2.SG>I.SG)

t̪θe-nʎe   uni   s̞t̪e-re   t̪θrano-si
2.SG-assoc.loc. 1.SG   be-PRES  host-POSS(2.SG>I.SG)

kartaskeʎ̥˔i-xe-ka uni s̞t̪e-re       un-on-i
essence-POSS(II.SG>III.SG)-LOC   1SG be-pres  1.SG.-refl-1.SG.

Beyond its context, this text shows a careful use of the "rhyming" technique preferred in Classical times, a style that had faded by Mila’s era in favor of more freeform poetry, to which the next two poems are much more similar.

The scheme is not standard rhyme but an intertwining of assonance and consonance across subsequent lines. It involves the last two syllables of the final word of each line, interrupted in the middle by a "breaking line" that deviates from the scheme. The poem then continues with pure assonance in the second half. This structure was known as ad̪ðaran-kad̪ðoren ("full mouth-partial mouth"), referencing the terms for vowels and consonants introduced by Khana:

• ʎ̥˔enente → paninte → al̪ˠokirse → marsi → ɹ̠̊unani
• (Break) padra-l̪ˠue
• t͡ɹ̝̊eʎoi → at̪θanpoki → moxesosi → unoni

Another detail you may have noticed is the length of the lines. The prevalence of words of similar length creates a monocord tone when read aloud. While this is not a typical characteristic of Classical poetry, this was a deliberate choice by Mila in order to capture the same tone as the ritual chants that strived for this specific, hypnotic, and monotonous rhythm.

Regarding the subject matter, the most characteristic element is the conception of the stars themselves. They are not merely objects in the sky, but are instead viewed as realms that can be visited, structured spaces populated by creatures that act as incarnations of the star's own essence.

Hymn to Pad̪ðanke

pad̪ðanke, seated on you my self I find 

Beautiful,  grand, strong, I feel and are

Knife in hand, blood in my mouth

I kill you and  [...]

>
pad̪ðanke  d̪ðormi   l̪ˠuʀ̥e-θ̠i-l̪ˠue        l̪ˠu pal-ke it̠͡ɹ̠̊˔an partaskeme-n-xe
pad̪ðanke, saddle stay-PRES-PROG     1.SG.emph  see-PRES discover self-POSS(I>I.SG)-obj

armak-o-ʀ̥o                            kiθ̠an-o-ʀ̥o                   ʎ̆an-o
beautiful-I.SG.DEF-and      big/heavy-I.SG.DEF-and   strong-I.SG.DEF

at̪ara      axi       aθu-te                                        akal̪ˠe  axi          asʊ̆te
knife       hold   hand-POSS(I>IV.1.SG)      blood  hold     mouth

uni     kel-θ̠i                k͡xolid̪ðre          t̪θe-ti              ɹ̠̊i       
1.SG break-PRES    mortal.wound    2.SG-obj     and

Here, and in the hyms that follows, we encounter much shorter pieces that terminate in incomplete sentences, constructed with the intention to give the appearance of partially recovered hymns whose continuation was either never found or remains unreadable.

Hymn to Pad̪ðamira

pad̪ðamira the spirit of my soul soars towards you

I have no arms yet you sever them

I have no legs, yet feel your talons in them

I have no skin, but you shred it

I have no mind [...]

>pad̪ðamira        bβartaske-ʎ̥˔a                akol̪ˠu-te                             ame-l̪ˠe-ʎ̆ɪ̆          uθre   ʀ̥etenta       t̪θe 
pad̪ðamira     spirit-POSS(IV>II.SG)   soul.POSS.(I/II.1.SG>IV.SG) move.vertically-PROG-PRES smoke (it expresses soars)   towards.distal.II   2.SG 

uni   θe    apaʎut̪θ-ana  t̪θe    muɺa-ke      kudɹ̝an     arri-to                            kuna
1.SG be  arm-less       2.SG   cut-PRES   separate  3.PL.III-POSS(I>III.PL)  but/yet

uni    θe kater-ana,     kater-eperika          umi-θ̠i                  sapat-aki-xo                   kuna      
1.SG be leg-less         leg-away.PROX      feel-PRES         talon-PL-poss(II>IV.PL)                   but/yet

uni  θe peʎ-ana      t̪θe       kel-θ̠i-le                      kukra           kuna
1.SG be skin-less   2.SG   break-PRES-OBJ.III.PL   shred           but

uni θe usanθ-ana,   
1.SG be mind-less

In this piece, Mila uses the image of the main creature of pad̪ðamira, giant black crow, as the star itself. This leds to a vivid, visceral image of talons penetrating the author's flesh and depicts the other horrific ways the star dismantles her body, essentially shattering the barrier between them.

This is a recurrent motif in Classical and Post-classical star hymns, which can reach even more disturbing levels of detail and torture, peaking in the extreme violence found in Mila’s own Hymn to the Seventeen Foremost Stars.

I hope you have found this post interesting if you have read it up until this point. If you have any questions regarding the poems, in particular their content or language, I would be more than glad to answer them.

I am also planning to compile a more comprehensive document where I delve much deeper into these analyses if there is interest, but I suspect I will end up doing it regardless lol, possibly covering the full breakdown of Mila’s Hymn to the Seventeen Foremost Stars.

t̪θikaxeʎe, kaxept̪θaʎe, kaxest̪θaʎe,  skaxeʎire, pikaxeʎe , kat̪θaxeʎe, axeʎe, kaxe, axeʎu, xeʎe, axene, kaxel̪u,  k͡xeʎe, pixet̪θe, sixeʎe, k͡xaxeʎu, k͡xoxeʎu, k͡xuʎ̥˔e, kathalarelaxuʎe, minkaxuʎe, perkaxeʎe, t̠͡ɹ̠̊˔okaxeʎe, kaxeʎon̪o, kaxeʎiʀ̥u, t͡ɹ̝̊axiʎe, t̠͡ɹ̠̊˔uʎe, kaxiɺe, kaʎ̆u, kaxl̪ˠu, kaxeʀ̥u, θaxeʎe, mopixut̪e                        

This is an example of a glaring phenomena in the Tathela lexicon, there are some words, like t̪θikaxeʎe (pheasant) here, that have an unbelievable amount of synonyms (even though many may be regional or really context specific).

Modern Tathela exists as a partially unified continuum of three major dialectal areas that converged after the unification of the Tathela Empire. While some synonymy is expected given such a history, certain semantic clusters have blown up to unreasonable proportions: 

• There are roughly 25 different possible synonyms for person, 14 for king/sovereign, 12 for ruling family/dynasty, 16 for village/city.
• Another interesting cluster for these sprawl of words happens with birds as you have already seen, where there are 32!!! Words for pheasant, 12 for crow, 19 for goose.

Why? The answer lies in the ritual sacrifice of words. 

The Tathela were originally a nomadic population who seasonally inhabited the great Karandra Plateau during the summer and the vast Karla lowlands during the colder season. During this nomadic period, the first layer of Tathela religion developed and the harsh reality of their environment resulted in a significant usage of sacrifice, both animal (among which birds were the favorite sacrificial victims) and human, to contact, bargain with and appease spirits and deities.

The ancient Tathela may have been desperate but they weren’t fools, a sacrifice is a privation of something concrete in the hope of supernatural help, so they sacrificed animals in the summer, when food was somewhat plentiful and resorted to sacrificing people only during the winter, when one less person meant one less mouth to feed.

In the spring and autumn season, unless the occasion truly called for it, they sacrificed neither, using substitution practices where figurines, drawings or other symbols were sacrificed, other symbols, like words.

When the Tathela underwent their great migration toward the southern coast of the continent, it gradually led to their sedentarization. Influenced by the established civilizations thriving in this portion of Kralenna, Tathela society and its religion underwent significant shifts. In particular, the brutal practices of animal and human sacrifice were phased out, extending the usage of the existing substitution practices.

Word sacrifice developed along different trajectories across the various polities that arose after Tathela sedentarization. These practices generally fall into two broad categories: Erasure/Avoidance and Sacralization.

Erasure and Avoidance Practices

These practices involved banning a word, either within a specific social group or directly at the state level as a ritual decree.

In the Taria Kingdom, this practice reached a high level of institutional development. A list of seventeen words (10 where bird names, 4 of which were already at the time existing synonyms for falcon which were regarded as one of the best offerings that could be given to a deity) was cycled through cyclically, with one word banned from usage each year. The upcoming ban of a word was met with elaborate preparation, including sacralization practices.

The end result was that the forbidden word was either replaced with an existing synonym, but often speakers would coin an entirely new word or phonetically distort the original.

Resulting in the case of falcon, with the creations of avoidance synonyms of the different already existing synonyms, an headache. 

Thus we have the group for  akrama, that in time  acquired synonyms like paklama, apkalama, aθrama, or the one for ʎakasi, that resulted in  parkasi,  ʎakane,  ʎamapi.

One significant reason why many synonyms actually survived up until today, is that different avoidance words were used for different contexts, Parkasi for instance was reserved for talking about the falcons when out hunting, ʎakane was the one preferred for use in official documents and declarations etc.

This partitioning was not devoid of religious connotations, since Tathela priests called it kelθ̠i atrum (dismemberment) and considered it as a sort of metaphysical and linguistic substitution for the dismemberment of the actual animal.

Sacralization Practices

Sacralization was not entirely divorced from erasure; often, a word was gradually sacralized up to the point of its formal temporary or definitive removal from the language (and in some cases the distortion of the words adopted during this process became the substitutes for the avoided word).

 In this sense, the word was prepared to be sacrificed, adorned much like a living sacrificial victim.

• Morphological Adornment: Honorific or elevating morphemes and descriptors were attached to the word.

Many of these morphemes remain productive in the current language like the prefix m- used for people of high rank, but that can also be found fossilized in many words referring to birds like m-l̪ˠuʀ̥ko, m-antraθ̠e (both goose).

• Liturgical Companions: The word could be paired with a votive companion word, an associated word that changed at different stages of the ritual calendar, accompanying it throughout the steps of the sacrificial ritual, an example of which we’ll find in a following example (kupalan dinasty)

Following the preparation phase, a ceremonial "killing" of the word took place. In some traditions, the word was banned or permanently substituted. In others, the word was sacrificed by being physically altered or suffixed with canonical morphemes that mirrored actual methods of execution, to then be returned to its original state:

Ritual Sacrificial Method	Linguistic Equivalent	Example
Impalement	Infixation / Circumfixation Often with fricatives and affricates	/kulman/ (duck) ->/kularman/ or /skulmanir/ */*θukulmaneθ/, /t̠͡ɹ̠̊˔akulmanit̪θ/
Decortication (Flaying)	Peeling away peripheral phonemes	/artulmat/ (human)-> /ulma/
Death by Knife	The morpheme -in-	/kulman/ (duck) ->/kulimman/
Decapitation	The morpheme per- Or elimination of initial syllables	/artulmat/ (human)-> /artupermat/ /artulmat/ (human)-> /tulmat/

Another fascinating practice symbolized sacrifice by fire (either as the execution method itself or as a post-sacrificial offering). This was represented linguistically by vowel reduction into short vowels, then were often subsequently lost, resulting in complicated consonant clusters often reduced, resulting in words much different from their original blueprints in a very brief time.

Scapegoat Words

On the southwestern coasts, words related to death, destruction, burning, and ascension were attached to the sacrificed word, that was sacrificed with the intent to stave off or avert catastrophic things happening to the thing it represented.

For example when a series of diseases and accidents befell the reigning dynasty of the Kupala Kingdom, the  word for "dynasty" was offered as a proxy sacrifice to absorb the misfortune. Over the course of the ritual cycle, the word evolved through a series of euphemistic stages:

Dynasty: rad̪ða 

Sacred dynasty  rad̪ða  tas̞t̪uk

Most beautiful dynasty  rad̪ða pad̪ðoxo

Well-considered dynasty  rad̪ða patroxo kisanke

Gone-beyond dynasty  rad̪ða ak͡xine klire

Once it reached "gone-beyond," the word was dead, and the bad luck was considered transferred away from the physical royal family, who kept the title as a remembrance of the sacrifice.

In time, other minor kingdoms of the area started using the same word to refer to their reigning lines as imitation of the more influential state, resulting in the title of rat̪θak͡xinre used today to refer to the local nobility.

While we are primarily looking at the linguistic data, it is vital to remember that "word sacrifice" was distinct from a standard linguistic taboo due to the extensive material rituals surrounding it. These included for instance:

• Writing the adorned word on paper and physically burning it.
• Formally inscribing the word into a state register of banned/exalted vocabulary.
• Planting flowers and trees in the pattern of the written word at the start of the sacrificial period, and then destroying or burning the garden when the ritual culminated.

How so many of these words survived?

I think and hope to have made somewhat clear and manifest to you the vast world of ritual word sacrifice in Tathela culture, a practice that is somewhat still alive today, albeit in a much more restricted manner in mystery cults and royal practices.

A question though deserves to be answered, why so many words survived and have not simply been discarded once new synonyms emerged?

First of all, I was a bit clickbaity when for instance saying that there are 32 synonyms for pheasant, I mean that is true but virtually nobody would know them all or would be expected to.

Many of them are restricted to certain geographic areas, certain professions or activities (like butchers vs merchants vs people raising pheasants).

This kind of partitioning is something that I’ve already discussed and is one of the reasons why so many words survived, because while they refer to the same thing they do so in different contexts.

Moreover, these ritual practices were both a state and a private religious affair, for instance members of a given family could perform such a ritual of word sacrifice in order to aid in the cure of one of their members and the resulting words would fade into history, or maybe not if the family was an important one and servants and other peoples that had contact with the family adopted the new word to respect and/or participate in their ritual. 

There were thus a lot of occasions and contexts for the banning, avoidance, decoration and or sacrifice of a word and the ones that have survived are just a small, a very small subset of all the words that have been developed through this phenomenon.

Often then, a word substitution or modification remained confined to a certain group or region and when a Tathela speaking group encountered a word that had undergone sacrifice in another region, they usually could understand its root meaning or its ritual significance, if it were adorned and modified  or if it were a modifier and in certain cases picked it up, giving it a different nuance.

A prime example of this is how the modern Tathela word for religion developed. In eastern Tathela varieties, the word kathalarela was a common sacrificial adornment meaning "invisible" or "no longer visible" (borrowed from the Kwakka language kathe ela, meaning "visible was"). When western Tathela speakers encountered this eastern ritual term, they adopted it into their own varieties as a general term for sacrificial practice. Over time, this specific ritual term generalized further, ultimately becoming the standard, macro-level Tathela word for religion itself.

A last factor that has probably contributed to the survival of so many variants, is that Tathela speakers were already used to having many synonyms for basic number words, with different usages depending on context, like I’ve detailed in this post.

I hope you had at least a fraction of the interest or fun I had in writing this post (well inventing and writing all synonyms for pheasant was not that fun) while reading it and let me know if you have some questions on this practice and the resulting words!

In this post, I want to take a first look at Naskwez, my third well developed conlang, alongside Kèilem and Tathela, these three languages have become my main conlanging and worldbuilding setting.

Today, I’m showcasing what I think is the most peculiar and perhaps interesting feature of the language: Weak Nouns. We’ll explore how they differ from "Strong" nouns and how while being called weak, they are really a force to be reconed with in Naskwez.

I'll show also how they differ from other parts of speech whose function they have with time at least partially taken on (mainly adjectives and adverbs).

In a next post I'll try to go more in depth on the different relationships they can have with names they modify, and other specific behaviours.

Nouns

The Naskwez nominal system is defined by a fundamental split between Strong Nouns and Weak Nouns. To understand the unique behavior of Weak Nouns, we must first look at the "Strong" baseline.

Strong nouns are categorized into five classes (declensions), determined by their Nominative Singular termination:

I t͡s d͡z

II kʷ gʷ

III ɬ rr ll

IV  t̠͡ʃ 

V k͡x q͡χ or geminated consonant (tt, kk being by far the most common examples)

Strong nouns are declined for case and number through suffixation, as shown in the table below, plus quite common cases of  morphophonological irregularities, such as vowel shifts or consonant mutations within the root.

case/class	I	II	III	IV	V
Nominative (plural)	e	i	a	e	a
accusative	or/ore	(k/g)egʷ/(k/g)egʷi	akʷe/akʷa	et͡s/et͡se	aʃ/aʃʃi
dative	or/ore	at͡ɬ/at͡ɬa	ar/ari	ont͡s/et͡se	arʃ/erʃʃa
instrumental	eri/ere	ar/ari	ari/ari	ert͡s/ert͡se	iri/ir
possessive	aðe/aðe	aðe/aðe	aðe/aðe	aðoi/aðoi	aðoi/aðoi

To see these rules in action, let’s look at the word for "tree," kkat͡s. As a Class I noun, it undergoes several internal shifts alongside suffixation:

• Nominative: kkat͡s (SG) / kkat͡se (PL)
• Accusative: kkat͡sor (SG) / kket͡sore (PL)
• Dative: kkert͡sor (SG) / kket͡sore (PL)
• Instrumental: kkat͡seri (SG) / kkat͡sere (PL)

As you can see, the root itself is quite volatile. Additionally, a small subset of nouns retains traces of an ancient split-alignment system, featuring unique case endings for transitive subjects in perfective sentences, though that is a complex bit of history for a future post.

Strong nouns are usually accompanied by articles that are marked for definiteness, number, and case (with a Nominative vs. Oblique split).

	Nominative singular	Nominative plural	Other case singular	Other case plural
definite	e(I,II) en(III) a (IV-V)	i (I,II,IV,V) in (III)	e	in
indefinite	t̪͡θa(I,II,III) o (IV,V)	t̪͡θan (I,II) on (III,IV,V)	sʷa,	sʷa

•  e kkat͡s  The tree (Definite Nominative Singular)
• t̪͡θa kkat͡s  A tree (Indefinite Nominative Singular)
• in kkat͡se  The trees  (Definite Accusative Plural)

Adjectives

So far, so good. But before we can truly appreciate how Weak Nouns differ, we need to look at how adjectives normally function in this language.

In Naskwez, adjective placement is determined by the nature of the adjective: the prenominal position is reserved for "basilar" adjectives, simple, natural properties such as size, color, dimension, weight, temperature, and flavor. The postnominal position is used by all other adjectives

To signal agreement, adjectives attach at their end the case ending of the noun they modify, remaining in their base form only when the noun is nominative singular

>The red apple

>e t̠͡ʃakʷ karat͡s

>ART.NOM.SG apple-NOM.SG red

>The red apples 

>i t̠͡ʃakʷ-e karat͡s-e 

>ART.NOM.PL apple-NOM.PL red-NOM.PL.I

When multiple adjectives modify a single noun, Naskwez speakers can use two distinct morphological strategies depending on the desired register and context.

• Full Declension (more formal): Every adjective in the sequence takes the full case and number endings of the head noun.
• Coordinative Form (less formal): Only the final adjective in the string carries the full agreement suffix. All preceding adjectives are put into a shortened coordinative form using the suffixes -ta-, -dʷ-, or -(V)n (the choice depends on the adjective's phonology and the noun's class). This is seen as less formal and is common in subsequent mentions of a noun after its first introduction.

Example: "The big red apples" (ACC)

Coordinative Form (Less Formal) 

>in t̠͡ʃakʷ-ain gʷar-rore karat͡s-ore

> ART.ACC.PL red-coord.I big-ACC.PL apple-ACC.PL

Full Form (More Formal) 

>in t̠͡ʃakʷ-ore gʷar-rore karat͡s-ore 

>ART.ACC.PL red-ACC.PL big-ACC.PL apple-ACC.PL

As a general rule, if you are introducing the "Big Red Apple" as a primary subject in a story, you use the full declension; once the reader is familiar with the object, you shift to the coordinative form.

Why are they called "Weak"?

The term "Weak" refers to their grammatical erosion. Unlike Strong Nouns, they lack the "strength" to pull other words into agreement or to support a full case system.

1. No Agreement: Adjectives modifying a Weak Noun do not decline; they remain in their base form.
2. No Articles: Weak nouns are never preceded by the definite or indefinite articles (e, t̪͡θa, etc.).
3. Eroded Case System: They lack an Instrumental case and use a highly collapsed set of endings known as the wI and wII declensions.

Strong Noun (Apple):

>in gʷar-rore karat͡s-ore

> ART.ACC. PL big-ACC.PL.I apple-ACC.PL.I 

>The big apples (ACC) 

Weak Noun (Knife):

>gʷar t͡sarrekk-ard͡ze 

>big knife-ACC.PL.wI 

>The big knives (ACC) 

This example shows also the weak nouns different case endings:

case/class	wI	wII
Nominative (plural)	ai	e
accusative	ard͡zai/ard͡ze	es/esi
dative	ard͡zai/ard͡ze	erd͡z/erd͡z
possessive	id/id	id/id

As we can see from the declension table, the most glaring omission in the Weak nominal system is the Instrumental case, besides an higher tendency of conflating some case endings.

When a Weak noun is used instrumentally, it is placed directly before the verb in its nominative singular form, essentially acting as a verbal adjunct or a pseudo-incorporated noun.

He stabbed with a fork (strong noun):

> gʷan sr-ermanit͡se muid͡z-ari 

>3SG 3SG-stab.past.IMP.3SG fork.INSTR 

 He stabbed with a knife/knives (weak noun):

> gʷan ssarrekk ermanit͡se 

>3SG 3SG.knife stab.past.IMP.3SG 

In the Weak noun example, notice that ssarrekk is a phonological contraction of the 3SG prefix sr- (that is a preverbal clitic) and the weak noun t͡sarrekk, showing that it has been really incorporated in the verbal complex.

This last fact is a hint of a much more relevant characteristic of these parts of speech: the fact that they can be used  as modifiers. As I mentioned, in this post I’ll focus on their adjective-like use.

When used as modifiers of other nouns, Weak Nouns are always preposed to them.

Unlike standard adjectives, they do not adopt the specific case endings of the nouns they modify. Instead, they use their own native case endings to agree in case and number with the head noun (when modifying a noun in the Instrumental case, they generally use the dative)

>t̪͡θan gʷar-rore muid͡z-ore

> IND.NOM. PL big-NOM.PL.I fork.NOM.PL.I 

>"Big forks" 

(The adjective uses the Class I plural ending to match the noun)

>t̪͡θan ðint͡s-ai muid͡z-ore

>IND.NOM. PL gleam-NOM.PL.wI fork.NOM.PL.I

> "Shiny forks"

(The modifier uses its own native wI ending, while the head noun retains its Class I ending) 

When is a noun weak and when is it strong?

We may ask whether Is there a semantic criterion at play or not?

One of the examples I used, the weak knife and strong fork, may make you think that no, there is no rime nor reason, but in fact there is.

While a word like t͡sarrekk (knife) refers to a concrete object that might seem ill-suited to being a "modifier", most weak nouns are in fact much more reasonable.

We can see a first main split between weak nouns:

• Deverbal Weak Nouns: These are the gerunds and participles of verbs. Which are a can of worms on their own, but maybe I'll discuss this in another post.
• Non-Deverbal Weak Nouns: These are typically abstract concepts, property like nouns (like colors) or objects less on the material side of things, such as ðint͡s (gleam/spot of light). However, this category also includes a significant number of ordinary, concrete objects, like our knife.

There is also a fundamental division in how these nouns exist in the lexicon:

1. Weak-Only Nouns These nouns have no "Strong" counterpart.

2. Nouns with Dual Versions Many nouns exist in both Strong and Weak forms. When a noun has both, the Weak version is typically reserved for when it acts as a modifier. A Strong noun and Weak noun pair can be related in three main ways

• Zero Derivation: The Strong noun when used in a modifier role, is simply declined following one of the two weak noun declensions, this is the only way in which an otherwise Strong noun can be used as modifier of another noun.
• Suppletion: The Strong and Weak versions use completely different roots.
• Morphological Derivation: The Strong noun is transformed via umlaut, internal modifications, or (less commonly) suffixes.

While most "Dual-Form" nouns only use the Weak version only as a modifier, in the case of nouns with suppletive weak and strong versions often have some kind of semantic nuance in them.

A perfect example is the pair sʷarat͡s (Strong: "foreigner") and sʷant͡segʷ (Weak: "stranger"). While both refer to someone from outside, only the weak sʷant͡segʷ can be used attributively to mean both "foreign" and "unknown".

Why weak nouns have "strong ambitions"?

As a last part of this post I want to point out, why I chose this title for the post.

The fact is that, while the adjective class in Naskwez is still an open class, the situation in the last centuries has radically shifted in favour of the usage of weak nouns, in fact if we were to take a look either at adjective-like neologisms or to the actual usage of modifiers when both an adjectival and a weak noun form are used we would see that most (up to 90%) or neologisms are weak nouns and in most cases the speakers will prefer to use the weak noun instead of the adjective.

Thank you if you've followed the post until the end and let me know if you have some comments/suggestions.

In this post, I want to take a first look at Naskwez, my third well developed conlang, alongside Kèilem and Tathela, these three languages have become my main conlanging and worldbuilding setting.

Today, I’m showcasing what I think is the most peculiar and perhaps interesting feature of the language: Weak Nouns. We’ll explore how they differ from "Strong" nouns and how while being called weak, they are really a force to be reconed with in Naskwez.

I'll show also how they differ from other parts of speech whose function they have with time at least partially taken on (mainly adjectives and adverbs).

In a next post I'll try to go more in depth on the different relationships they can have with names they modify, and other specific behaviours.