88 lines about 44 Demons

A little Halloween special, let's learn about some of the demons (omūkaq) and monster the kikxotians believe in. A lot might be presented in more informal ways (only the second part of a reduplication for example, or using back reduplication to represent full reduplication). This isn't meant to represent a specific dialect (though some are regional monsters), it's to fit the semi-poetry of the piece. With all apologies to the Nails

1. Vcūpa comes out the swamp to play; his stench makes me want to cry
2. Olūgaw looks mighty nice but her teeth are no lie.
3. Lālīwl feast till the sun comes up and starve throughout the day
4. Yyīpu get you what you want, but you'll never be able to pay.
5. Mrisu has an unnerving smile, with gifts that trap your soul
6. Gdīku is much simpler, he'll just eat you whole.
7. Dōkhol īkkabat looks pretty from a distance; but he'll steer you wrong
8. Jarif cannot be seen, as you flee her mournful song.
9. Pjūpō nimasat may be dead; you'd never know as you're chased
10. Āginx āpijpat is a stout old chap; you must flee in haste.
    
11. Rokāmr seems mighty harmless, as he sucks you in
    
12. Ovūmac won't give you the time, not even when you sin.
    
13. Lvutā mwomit is looking for a student, but her advice isn't prudent
14. Olūvat puthlūt needs a teacher, but he's most impudent.
    
15. Fqilu sees without eyes, his nose ensure you can't hide
    
16. Wyīúu mkoqit approaches in confidence, a presence you mustn't abide.
    
17. Omūlad bōmāshat is another sultry soul, she watches as you sleep
18. Cuwphīcu is sailors' bane foremost, and drags slow ships into the deep.
    
19. Tikat looks like a massive bat, from above he cracks your skull
    
20. Zhimar stalks from underground, your bones won't make his teeth dull.
    
21. Knupi takes things that are not his, gold is his bread and butter  
22. Āruyt tībilat prefers your blood a la carte, as it flows into the gutter.
    
23. Wixax can't move fast, so the trees are his base
    
24. Shotūr will never move at all, yet you must beware his embrace.
    
25. Thavdo literally cannot be described, an agony you can't survive
    
26. Twuwi seems to be a peaceful field, until your footsteps turn it alive.
    
27. Ksuphā is just a shadow, her presence wrecks your mind
    
28. Sōfok úyukāt is a sickly light, stare too long to go blind.
    
29. Zōtod cpuwāt teaches one thing: not every book is an ally
    
30. Awābth must not be trusted, for he's the dark one's spy.
    
31. Xsīmu īípachat walks in silence, as he sucks your life
    
32. Tbīlu tdocit stays quiet too, but she prefers to use a knife.
    
33. Khāpas rxībut is slow and meaty; hunt it and meet your doom
    
34. Brumā thāxakhat moves you fast, in her hand your life shall zoom.
    
35. Wxurā fōdāíat seeks his court, his words are little snares
    
36. Rqīnu āxudcat wants your pity, never trust his wares.
37. Karol preys on those with heart, your mercy shall be your end
    
38. Khāmfukhā prays for those alone, his companionship is pretend.
    
39. Fapōmuf has a fearsome sting, the pain will never leave
    
40. Laíōpul lies in wait, to feed on those that grieve.
    
41. Hnibu hunts in plain sight, his traps are travelers' rests,
    
42. Smufā catches those who are tired, you'll wake up as he digests.
    
43. Qcilu lives in dark caves, he makes our tunnels fall
    
44. Khluzā, cursed be his name; he's the king of them all.
    

This of course is a small sampling of the demons in their world. Some are pretty normal to our sense of monsters, like the Pjūpō nimasat (lit. running corpse) which is basically just a revenant or the Omūlad bōmāshat (forbidden beauty) which is a classic ghost lady like a kuntilanak. Others aren't so much monsters in the way we think of them so much as archetypes of corrupted people, like the Hnibu (so-called builder) who kills people in collapsing buildings, the Āginx āpijpat (killing grinder) who is basically just a serial killer who disposes of the bodies by turning them into flour or the Ovūmac (self-centered person), an eerily beautiful spirit who encourages you to give up everything for nothing in return. Some are very animalistic like the bat-like Tikat (thing which descend from the sky) or the stinging bug Fapōmuf (great wasp). Some are actually more like cursed objects like Zōtod cpuwāt (devouring ink/the devil's ink) which grant wishes at the cost of your life or Rokāmr (great heap) which is a pile of stuff that eats people. And then there's the eldritch ones, like the Thavdo (flattening) which somehow forces people into 2-dimensions, the Twuwi (so called snowfield), which is a field of snow that eats people, or the Ksuphā (thing that makes others uncomfortable) which is a presence or being that drives people crazy.

Slavery among the People of Kikxo: A President's Day Special

I'm doing this instead of homework because I can't focus on homework right now because my face is numb.  Silly dentist fixing my teeth.

I wanted to do a whole big article on the political system of the úīkmo Kīkxot, but I do have plenty of homework to do and really am not feeling up to it.  So I'll talk about something more minor but still president's day related: slavery.

The úīkmo Kīkxot are, if nothing else, xenophobic. Not necessarily in the "hatred of foreigners" way so much as the "hatred of strangers" way. You can figure out the difference for yourself. And they do love their slavery. They take from whoever sells and from the people they conqueror. Their religion proscribes only one rule: No follower of Kīkxo may enslave fellow travelers. The different sects interpret this in very different ways, with an extreme few saying that forbids all slavery all the way to the sects that think that means even enslaving members of other sects is okay. But for most people, it means non-followers of Kikxot are fair game.

Most people do not own slaves but those that do use them for a variety of tasks. Agriculture, manufacturing, running a household, teaching and whatever else. Slaves can even have fairly high status, personal wealth and other things that we wouldn't associate with slaves in our culture. They are (in theory) to be cared for and protected, sometimes even like a family member. But they are not free (whatever that means) and ultimately report and execute the will of their owners.

Slavery is a highly valued and protected institution among the Úīkmo Kīkxot, which may be hard to understand for a westerner. It stems from their religious beliefs ultimately. To them, Kīkxo is the ultimate protector in the fight between Good and Evil. One who worships and submits to Kīkxo is accepting his protection. When a follower of Kīkxo enslaves someone, Kīkxo's protection extends over that slave. To the followers of Kīkxo, slavery is a means of extending Kīkxo's good will and love to the ignorant savages who refuse to accept it on their own. To the followers of Kīkxo it is inhumane to free slaves and release them from the protection Kīkxo offers them. It is the evil one who tells slaves they want to be free, that deludes people into wanting to free slaves. Now of course, in theory if a slave converts to Kīkxo, they should be freed, though many slaveowners, reasonably fearing it is simply a deception to seek freedom and betray Kīkxo and the forces of good, do not accept such conversions. At least, that's what their reasoning is.

Theologians and scribes often debate the role that slavery plays in spreading the truth to other lands ("Are our neighbors converting just to avoid slave raids? Should such deceitful traitors be enslaved to teach them a lesson?" or "Are we really only spreading the religion as an excuse to expand and take more slaves?" Things like that) they almost always agree that it is a good thing and an essential part civilized life.

Happy Presidents Day

What is love? A Valentine's Day special

Yeah I'm a couple days late. Actually I didn't even start this post until after Valentine's Day. Didn't even have the idea until afterwards. But it's what I would have done had I not been swamped up in homework.

Anyway, in honor of that special day I detest so much, let's look at words for love in various conlangs I've made. I'll basically only deal with Toúījāb Kīkxot because I think that's the one I have the most info on this for, so maybs not various conlangs. It's not a topic I spend much time on, yannow?

The basic root for love is XYS (I) which is all things relating to the liver (think Indonesian hati, if you happen to know Indonesia). Of course in actual use it rarely is used to refer to the actual liver (xīyso) and generally means "the place where emotions are". While this could mean any emotions, the úīkmo Kīkxot use it almost exclusively to refer to love. If the heart is the base noun, love itself is xoyīs, though in informal and everyday speech many people will simply use xīyso (or given that the standard is different from most varieties, probably something like xīso or sisu or something else like that). This love is more or less equivalent to the English word "love", covering a wide semantic space. In Indonesian terms, xoyīs is kasih, cinta, and sayang all wrapped in one word, which is a bit unusual since this language usually cleaves with Indonesia pretty well, being based of it after all.

TbKt (I need to think of good abbreviations) is a language that loves compounding and this is no different when it comes to love. Xīysoāb Kīkxot (lit. "God's heart") is "charity" or the Greek "agape". It's the love that God (well, not our understanding of God, but I'll use the translation regardless) feels towards his worshipers. More metaphorically it represents an unconditional (strangely enough, considering that Kīkxo's love may seem pretty conditional to a westerner) love, a care and affection so deep that it can't be gotten rid of no matter how awful someone is. It's not pity though (that's kāral), it's a deeper understanding felt towards someone, yannow? Familial love is usually represented in two ways: with a liver+owner compound (ex: xīysoāb mīznot- "motherly love") or with a nominialzation of the roots transitive verb (ex: micna "motherly love). Usage really depends on context and user preference, the first being more likely to be used in a sentence like "Motherly love is so important" while the second in a sentence like "Motherly love makes my children happy."

Verbwise, XYS can be used in the transitive or intransitive and always has a human agent (though some particularly bigoted úīkmo kīkxot would consider it improper to use with a vīggo (tribesman) agent). Intransitive ūxiys has a general meaning of "to have strong emotions/love" and is usually used with a preposition to mark the recipient. This can be used with non-human/inanimate recipients, especially in informal registers, though the more inanimate the recipient the stranger it sounds. Without any compliment, it usually carries a meaning like "in love", "unstable", "crazy (indonesian "gila" or "tergila")" or "overcome by emotions". The transitive verb form xiysa can only be used with a human patient/recipient. It almost always takes the benefactive suffix -ī (the bare stem has a causitive meaning, which is a whole nother can of worms but would have a meaning like "X makes Y fall in love" or more naturally "Y fell in love with X", but it isn't a common construction). Like many verbs of emotion, the habitual form "C(a)-" is used, so xaxiysaī is the most common way of saying "X loves Y". Being a fairly intimate verb, "I love you" would be Yān xaxiysaī ōdan (or xaxiysaīōd) in most cases.

While xoyīs describes a variety of different sorts of love, the verb forms pretty much exclusively refer to romantic and sexual love. This is especially clear with the intensified form, which basically translate to "lust". To say that you love someone in a non-romantic sense, the transitive form of the family roots are generally. Now there is some ambiguity, as these verbs could mean "to consider [patient] a Y (with the implicit "love [patient] like a Y" built into this)" (a semi-causative in nature) or "to care for [patient] in a Yly role". It most cases, agent focus is the second translation while patient focus is the first translation, but as always context rules.  As examples, Yān dichha ōdan would probably translate to something like "I care for you like a sibling" (or more likely "I'm babysitting you/I admire you" depending on the relative ages of the speakers) while Ōdan dadaxichha yān  would be "I love you (like a sibling)" (lit. "You are considered a sibling by me"). Just like other verbs of emotion, these often are in the habitual aspect, but unlike XYS, do not take the benefactive. Unlike the familial love verbs kikxa is always treated like a causative. Humans are considered unable to love someone like God loves someone, so it would be absurd for the verb to ever mean "to love someone like God loves people". Kikxa means "to consider someone God" or more regularly (and less blasphemously) "to adore someone". It is usually in patient-focus, because why would God(-like beings) not be the focus of the sentence. Therefore Ōdan kakaxikxa yān would mean "I adore you" or "I love you fully (and unconditionally)" or even "I love you in the most platonic and totally non-romantic way" (Also, kakaxikxa is quite the mouthful considering it has only two consonant phonemes). These constructions are fairly informal (and highly intimate, though as seen previously not necessarily romantic (though it usually is despite coming from the root for God)) in nature and form a nice contrast with the intensified xiysa-xiysaī, "to lust after someone".

The normal word for "boyfriend/girlfriend/lover" is xāyas and this word is rarely used to describe one's spouse. Instead one's spouse is usually referred to as a ōmazhnzō/ōmazhnzun, which literally means "reflection". Increasingly, this is used by unmarried lovers to describe that person they just /know/ is the one, and it is also highly common for any description of a "lover" in literature and poetry. Xāyas can also mean "loving" as an adjective, and in this case is used with spouses. Which can lead to sentences like Ōmazhnzō xāyas mōnak nazinitra-nitra omazhnzunmā "A loving husband shouldn't beat his wife", though a wife saying this to her husband might use fis or even mavox instead of -mā, depending on the circumstances. One final bit of (naughtier fun). A vulgar slang word! Sasās means "horny", coming from a dialect that indicates intensity with a back reduplication (xāyas-xāyas -> saxāyas), and has sound rules that go something like this: x->s and deletion of y between the same vowel āya->ā. So saxāyas->sasāyas->sasāas->sasās. Pretty cool, huh?

I think that is enough for the valentine's special. Really makes me think about how little my conlangs care about this topic. Also, be glad that I didn't go all anthropological and talk about the complex courtship and marriage customs of the úīkmo kīkxot. Let alone their opinions on PDA.