Language Profile: Kélojùù

Name: Kélojùù
Alternative Names: The Language of Kelo, Nilo-Saharan lang :p
Family: "Southern Family", highly diverse and spoken to the southeast of Ākoṇṭemāṟuttōm
Location: In the highlands of the southern continent, quite far from Kikxotian influence
History: The kélomèlo have been in their valley for as long as people can remember and are considered the indigenous inhabitants. I really don't have much else about them. They like to farm
Writing System: Not a written language, they use Amt for writing purposes
Typological information:

• Word order: SOV
• Alignment: Nominative-Accusative
• Morphological: Somewhere between agglutinating and fusional

Notable Features:

• Tones!
• Lots of non-concatenative stuff
• Hearty derivational morphology
• Construct State
• Productive semantic gender alternations
• Singulative system
• Some stuff with ergative verbs and antipassives

Some morphological markings:

• Verbs
• Subject
• Tense/Aspect
• "Extensions"
• Mood
• Polarity
• "Voices"
• Passive
• Reflexsive
• Causative
• Antipassive
• Reciprocal
• Nouns
• Case
• Nominative
• Oblique
• Genitive
• Number
•  Singular/singulative
• Plural/pluralitive/collective
• State 
• Absolute
• Construct
• Gender
• Male
• Female

Origins: July 2017.
History: I wanted to do another 2 hour challenge, so I looked at the old "african" languages one and chose to do Nilo-Saharan. Of course, that's not really a valid grouping (probably) and it gives a whole lot to work with, but here we are! Here's the original post
Status: In-development. I haven't touched it in a while, but I've gotten back to it after learning more about antipassives. Definitely planning some cool things with those and agentive nouns
What I'm doing with it and why: I'm doing a lots of things with like tones and
Other Notes:

4/26/18- Probably enough for now. One day I'll get a CALS page and other stuff on it (as I always say and then never do)

Scoped Derivation in Knǝnʔtəəʔ

Someone on reddit asked about having multiple infixes in a single word. I answered and then included some stuff on Knǝnʔtəəʔ, as copied below.

I have a conlang that works similarly. It has many infixes and they work sort of on a scope basis. Basically derivational affixes applied in order where each newly added one changes meaning based on the last one, and then if a verb, the aspectual inflection is added last. For example, take the root klbaa "to be clean". The prefix s- marks a causitive so sklbaa "to clean something". The infix <w> marks a location of a verb. kwlbaa "a clean place, a medicine man's house", skwlbaa "To turn into a clean place, to sanctify" swklbaa "a place of cleaning, a river bank". Now we have the prefix+infix combination m-ä- to derive agent nouns giving us mkälbaa "elder, a person who is clean". But there is also msäklbaa "launderer" and msäkwlbaa "one who sanctifies". So on and so forth. Point is that all the different things stack on top of each other, and that is how the order is determined.

Adding in the aspectual infixes (in this case the cessative as marked by infixation of the final vowel and consonant), we get things like kaalbaa "to stop being clean" vs saaklbaa "to stop cleaning" vs saakwlbaa "to stop sanctifying". With reflexive derivation based on some reduplication and infixation we get məmkälbaa "to be an elder", kǝkwlbaa "to be a clean place" səswklbaa "to be a river bank used for washing". Honestly, this root is a bad example since it doesn't have a final consonant. Anyway, with aspects we end up getting maamkälbaa "to stop being an elder", kaakwlbaa "to stop being a clean place", and saaswklbaa "to stop being a place for washing". Lots of stacked infixes, all based on how changes of the order matter.

Let's discuss this a little more. Knǝnʔtəəʔ is super fun since it straddles that fine line between Mandarin and Inuktitut, by which I mean it has minimal inflectional morphology but quite rich derivational morphology. This post really only went into a couple things. For example, you can have srkwlbaa "incense, an instrument used to sanctify something". Or swrkwlbaa "an incense holder, a pantry". Now the thing is, a lot of these would never be used outside of word games like this; instead compounds or other constructions would be used. But it is technically limitless, even if srswrkwlbaa "a tool used to make pantries" is pretty absurd (let alone swrswrkwlbaa "a place that holds the tools used to make pantries").

You might notice that the words are quite contextual. For example, you probably wouldn't guess that "one who is clean" means "elder". This points to the fact that while these derivations are productive, people seem to learn many of them as distinct lexical units than as derivations in and of themselves. Another example would be hwyrëëy "a paved (well stone paved) road, a place of catching frogs". Once again, the main meaning isn't obvious from the initial construction. It actually comes from the fact that roads (as built by the Kikxotians as they colonized the place) would often cut through areas that had lots of frogs. Since the roads were flat and not grassy/swampy, it became easier to catch frogs on the road than off. Of course, hwyrëëy can also mean "ambush point", since in anti-colonial conflicts, people would often attack convoys on the road. If asked why someone was hanging around a road, the excuse would be "catching frogs" to the point where hyrëëy came to mean "to ambush someone" and mhäyrëëy "rebel". And this of course led to the slur hrëëy "frog" for "Kikxotian soldier". All good clean fun.

And now for some sentences since those are fun. I'll supply the translations in another post!

Sɨ̈ mthäwäk thɛ̃ɛ̃n pcããʔ nɔk hwyrëëy löw cəclör thɛ̃ɛ̃n?
TOP AGENT<AGENT>-be.irritating 3P ride.wagon on <LOC><CAPT>frog 2S PLUR~see 3P?

Jɛt klbaa srjob kbə mã or Sɨ̈ srjob kbə mã jɛt so klbaa
NEG clean <INST>drink GEN 1S or TOP <INST>drink GEN 1S NEG 3S clean

More dialects and some phrases

Just some things that I have been thinking about the last few days, regarding TjKt mostly. First is that there is a dialect common along the coastal regions best known for the sound change [+syllabic, +short]->Ø/C_$, that is short vowels deleting in open syllables (of roots, ie etymologically). This preserves words like jāmah "faith" but not jimha "to believe in something" which instead would become jem(h) (I threw in a /ɪ/->[ɛ] as well :p). Of course, this leads to problems with words like jmohi "faithful", so I'll need to put in some more rules so that not only consonants are left. Maybe only word final deletion in that case, which would then result in a closed syllable. Another alternative would be lengthening word final short vowels if the previous vowel is also short. In this cases the options would end up being jnoh or jn(h)ī respectively. I'm kind of preferring the second option right now, it leads to some interesting stuff. I also need to figure out how to avoid clusters of intital CCC coming from CCVC roots, which leads to option 3, metathesis to CVCC. Then we'd have jom(h) as the word coming out. Yeah, not sure what to do yet. I think option 3 works the best overall. Hmm, maybe some sort of chain thing. Changes start from the right side of the word, which can change a open to a closed syllable and save the word. This can end up looking with case 1. When the final vowel is already long and the form is (V)CCVCV: then metathesis occurs to CVCCV: (option three). So the word jmohi turns to jnoh but jmuhā "thing which causes belief" becomes jmahā->jam(h)ā (/u/->[ə] in analogy with the short i sound change). Ujmahū "faithfully" becomes jamhū  because the metathesis eliminates the closedness of the first syllable.

Going down the whole 4th class (ignore the colors, html is hard), I think we get the following forms (bolded if different from standard): 

CāCaC

CCoC

ūCeCC

CeCC

CōCāC

aCCōC

CCīC

CaCCū

CūCaC

CaCCā

īCCōC

CaCCū

3rd:

CōCoC

īCCaC

CaCCī

CāCC

ūCCāC

CīCūC

āCCāC

CaCC

CīCoC

āCīCC

CCūCō

CCīoC

2nd:

āCuCC

CīCeC

CaCC

aCCōC

ūCCoC

CCaC

oCCīC

CCīC

aCCīCā

CaCC

CōCaC

CaCCī

CīCoC

1st:

CīCC

CūCC

eCCūC

CCīC

CCōC

CāCaC

CeCC

ūCeCC

CeCCī

CCaC

CīCaC

Somehow there are no duplicates within a class. Praise Kīkx!

I might throw in some mergers as well, like the alveolar affricates merging with the palatal-alveolar ones. I do think this one will preserve the pharyngeals, and I think the ejectives might weaken to pharyngealized consonants, with a loss of the non-stop ejectives. It also doesn't spirantize intervocalic stops, but does contrast consonant length intervocalically.

So let's compare some sentences now (though I haven't worked on semantic/grammatical/pragmatic stuff, so it's basically only applying sound changes at this point).

"People pray to Kikxo so that they are blessed"
Úīkmo nonsīnī Kīkxo mābíi gagaxātap-gātāp[wi:kŋɔ nɔnsi:ni: xi:kʃɔ ma:bjɪ ɣəɣəʃa:θəpga:θa:p]
Úīk nonsīnī Kīkx mābī gagaxātap-gātāp[wik nɔnsi:n:i ki:kʃ ma:bi: gəg̵əʃa:təpga:ta:p]

Pretty similar with that one

"The fishermen are eating dog in the lake"
Shbīmuzō fatiúja rōxub qal gfutī[sʼbi:mʊtʃo: ħəθɪwdzə ro:ʃʊb qʼəl għʊθi:]
Spīnzō fateúj rōxab qal gafthī[spi:ntʃo: ħətewdʒ ro:ʃəb ɢǝl gəħtˤi:]

That one is pretty similar too. Let's try two more.

"I have seen stars in the desert and heard wind on the island"
Yān khopihma kōkob qal thuyī ūmpa khoniyka citham qal úlunī[ha:n kʼɔfɪʔmə xo:xɔb qʼəl tʼʊhi: ju:mpə kʼɔni:kə tsɪtʼəm qʼəl u:lʊni:]
Yān khpehm kōkob qal tahyī ūmp khnek ztham qal úalnī[ha:n qpɛʔm̩ ko:kɔb ɢəl təʔhi: ju:mp qnɛxk tʃˤtˤəm ɢəl wəlni:]

"Sentient beings talk and eat"
Tiújī ūtiúj ūmpa tiúja[tɪwdzi: ju:θɪwdz u:mpə θɪwdzə]

Teújī ūteúj ūmp teúj[tɛwdʒi: ju:tɛwdʒ u:mp tɛwdʒ]

---

Outside of dialects, I've been thinking about sayings and such. Euphemism and the like as well. One root I was thinking about is NSP "to travel (in a group)". Some important words from this root are nōsup "caravan" and ansōp "to travel (in a group); to go from one point to another for trade". Now the transitive stem onsīp isn't really used formally, at least without an applicative. Well, it makes sense that this could be used as a causative "to make a group of people travel". While this could mean like "to send off a caravan" but more normally/colloquially it means "to exile a group" or even "to ethnically cleanse/force a migration".  It doesn't have to necessarily be malevolent. For example a gafto "flood" could force people to evacuate, such as in the sentence lbupī onaxsīp gafto "The people evacuated the village because of the flood" (lit. "As for the village, a flood forced it away")

Another interesting use of NSP is nōsup-nōsōp "to give a caravan to someone" (since these types of verbs always have recipients for direct objects). This, when taken literally, is a little strange. However, in actual use it means "to invest in someone's business venture (usually by supplying capital)" since rich merchants would earn money by giving up-and-coming merchants the right to use their goods and caravan in exchange for a cut of the profits. This later extended to a general meaning of "to invest (in someone)". It then later also gained the meaning of "to give an inheritance to someone" since those same goods later became the basis of many a merchant's son's inheritance.

This construction in general is known for having a large number of idiomatic meanings. A classic is sīqro-sīqri "to give give a butt to someone". This has come to mean "to kiss up to someone, to show deference to someone" since within Kikxotian culture, to bend over like this would be a sign of making yourself vulnerable to someone (specifically for their gain...they aren't a very progressive culture).  pōjop-pōjōp "to give death" is another example, here meaning "to execute" as opposed to the more generic pījūp "to kill". There's āruyt-ārāyt "to give a tongue" or rather "to claim a bounty (from someone), stemming from the tradition of cutting off the tongue of a person or animal to show that you killed them.

Ācutr-ācātr "to give a choice" is a very interesting one. At face value, this is a good thing. However in actual use this means "to threaten". Kikxotians value choices and agency. Therefore, in sentencing and other such arrangements, the criminal would often be given a choice in their punishment. In many private arrangements, "choices" are given as well even if everyone knows that only a certain option will be decided. Plenty of corrupt individuals and criminals would preface (such as in a tax shakedown or protection scheme) their demands with "I'm giving you a choice" until this became a euphemism for "to threaten". For some people, some back euphemism stuff has even happened where the original ācutr "choice" has come to mean "threat".

A few others ones. Wsuzī-wsūzū "to give a marsh" is to give someone something that is utterly worthless in order to mock them. It's like a white elephant gift but without the prestige. Tōwow-tōwōw "to give ice" is to do something to someone that has only temporary benefits before fading away. For example, a really terrible doctor might be accused of "only giving people ice" instead of actually healing them. Nōvos-nōvōs "to give a plow" is to endebt or enslave someone. 

Point is, this is a very productive but also highly context based construction. Many of these simply have to be learned, especially in the dialects where the first part is dropped. Like in any language, the meanings can't simply be learned as a derivation of common root, but instead as component of the culture. How else would we know that rōxub-rōxōb is "to invite someone on a day outing" or wxurā-wxūrū is "to be a quisling". Let alone that naxōíox-nōíōx is "to take someone in for the night" (this one is almost exclusively used in the passive, the active has a meaning like "to give thanks to a host".  Neither would be guessable from the root which means "grass").

Just a lot of musings

TbKt conjunctions

So I was reading about syntax and figured I could do a mini post on TbKt conjunctions. We'll look at about 4 or 5 today (all particles...except they can inflect so whatever).

The first is ī. This is "and" and links together multiple nouns within a phrase to a single subject/head. The key thing to remember here is that it works on a phrasal level instead of a clausal one and keeps both the noun and the verb the same. For example, the sentence Yān oxdīc rōxub ī zhōluq "I hit the dog and the cat". This also implies some sort of unity of coherence in the verb. Ī can link nouns separated by relative clauses. For example, Yān oxdīc rōxub vit anmōs-anmōs ī zhōluq "I hit the dog, which ran away, and the cat".

The second is jasā "and/or". It isn't commonly used and more or less replaces ī. Yān oxdīc rōxub jasā zhōluq "I hit the dog and/or the cat"

Then there is ocāk "and". Unlike ī, ocāk operates on a clausal level. More specifically, it links two (otherwise unrelated) clauses together, and draws attention to the fact that the subject changed. Indeed, in common usage it almost acts as a DS switch reference marker. This is very useful when the object cannot be promoted to subject position (perhaps because of indefiniteness) yet there is some sort of continuity between the clauses. Use of ocāk followed by a verb but no arguments indicates that the subject has changed, probably to the former object (though arguments can of course be added, especially for clarity of emphasis). For example Yān oxdīc rōxub ocāk anmōs-anmōs  "I hit a dog and the dog ran (away)". If the dog had already been previously referenced, then Rōxub oxaxdic yān ūmpa anmōs-anmōs "I hit the dog and it ran away" would be more appropriate.

Which brings us to ūmpa "and". This also works on a clausal level, but specifically marks the subject as staying the same between the clauses, like a SS SR marker. Sometimes it translates to something very similar to ī (despite working on different levels) but implies disunity of the verb, or some sort of sequence. This is especially true when the new "clause" is only an arugment, meaning that the subject and verb have been carried over. For example Yān oxdīc rōxub ūmpa zhōluq is literally "I hit (the) dog and (the) cat" but would be understood as "I hit the dog and then the cat" or "I hit the dog and (I hit) the cat (but with something to make the acts of hitting be considered separate)".

Agis means "but" and works as a replacement for ocāk. It simply marks surprise or unexpectedness of the next clause and can be emphasized with the suffix -(a)x. This suffix can also be added to the other conjunctions, with the same sort of meaning. Some examples. Rōxub oxaxdīc ūmpax mōnak anmōs-anmōs "I hit the dog but it didn't run away". Yān oxdīc rōxub īx zhōluq "I hit a dog AND a cat".

Anyway, that's an intro to conjunctions in TbKt. To think that I was accidentally doing pivot and pseudo-switch reference long before I ever knew them.

Dialects in TbKt

Based on a reddit post, here's some info on a couple TbKt dialects:

So island speech! First thing to talk about is the changes to the phonetic inventory, which has undergone some series changes.

• The ejectives have merged with the plain stop series (except [qʼ] which shifted to [ʔ]).
• The palatal-alveolar series has shifted to a pure palatal (under Knǝnʔtəəʔ's influence) while /ʃ/ merged with /s/.
• The alveolar affricates have lenited to the fricatives, with [z] then merging with [s].
• The pharyngeal fricatives shifted to [h]
• /ɹ/-> [r]
• The vowels have stayed relative the same, except that /i/ has shifted to [e] and /u/ to [ʉ] (with it losing rounding in some speakers as well).
• some changes in sequences and the various assimilation/sandhi rules, most notably /h/->ø /VV (if both V are of the same quality), loss of nasal assimilation and intervocalic lenition, and allowance of syllabic consonants. {+syllabic, -long}>ø/[𝛂,+long]C or _C[𝛂,+long] is also found in the dialect, for root words at least.

These changes mostly reflect that the native Kntic languages have a much smaller consonant inventory and even greater tolerance for consonant clusters. Anyway, these changes alone can result in very different words, for example bāfaw [bɑ:ħəɹ] to bār [bä:r] or zhōjos [tʃʼo:dzɔs] to zōs [co:s], but also very little change at all, like pījūp [pi:dzu:p] to pīsūp [pi:su:p] and gīsto [gi:stɔ] to gīsto [gi:stɔ]
The next important differences are morphological and include:

• Many of the imitative reduplications are instead known only by the second part of the word, that is the echo.
• Full reduplication is instead replaced with left-bound back-reduplication (very much a feature of the local languages)
• The aspects are done with adverbs instead of affixes, with the perfective taken as a default instead of the imperfective.
• Possessed nouns are not marked as such anymore, instead possession is shown simply through juxtaposition.
• Compounds aren't marked anymore

Syntax is changed as well, mostly the shift to a more topic-prominent structure and VS being used in intransitive sentences instead of SV.
Semantics is a major difference, with lots of words being loaned from the local languages, for example kwīs "seaweed" and krnaí "canoe". Other words have shifted in meaning as well, though I'm not sure how right now. Also (combined with pragmatics, I guess), the semantic differences between the human and non-human nouns and verbs (such as "to eat (human)" vs "to eat (non-human)") have been lost and replaced with one or the other.
Pragmatics is another area where the dialect differs from the standard. Much of the formality system is lost, with only the familiar pronouns being used now (or sometimes pronouns borrowed from Kntic languages, in which the Kntic ones generally act as informal and the TbKt ones as formal). As previously mentioned, it is much more topic-prominent than the standard.

Of course there are other differences as well, but that gives a decent over view. Now, some comparisons.
fīs mlodi-mlodizun [ħi:s nlɔðɪmlɔðɪtʃʊn] "she is very beautiful" demlode mā [demlɔde mä:] "s/he is very beautiful"
yānolūs khotiúja īn ryītuāb cōmum [hɑ:nɔlu:s kʼɔθɪwʣi:n ri:θʊɑ:b ʦo:mʊm] "I (formal) have eaten (formal) the ox tongue" rītu sōmum yān līrūl [ɾi:tʉ so:mʉm hä:n li:ɾu:l] "The ox tongue, I've eaten it"
Fīs fazīxūf owāxc [ħi:s ħətʃi:ʃu: ħɔɹɑ:ʃts] "S/he is reading some writing" mā zīsūnamos orās* [mä: ci:su:nəmɔ sɔɾä:s] "S/he is reading some writing"

---

The mountain dialect is mostly notable for some unusual phonological features, namely "suprasegmental semivowels". Basically, in contrast to the standard (and most other dialects), the semivowels /j/ <í> and /w/ <ú> do not turn into long vowels after consonants or put between two consonants. Instead, they have lost most of their features, including being a full segement, except intervocalically. Also, final close vowels (long and short) have turned into their respective semivowels (while /i/->/e/ elsewhere and some other vowel mergers have left it with a six vowel, lengthless system overall). For example kmuri [kŋʊrɪ] "mountain range" is kmurí [kŋurʲ] and dīkholu [di:kʼɔlʊ] "weather" is dikhålú [dikʼɑlʷ]. These are generally barely audible in isolation. However, it usually surfaces on the following word, either as a full semi-vowel (when vowel initial) or as palatalization/labialization on the last consonant of the cluster, often with /ə/ <a> or an echo vowel added where the semivowel once was. Some examples:
kmurutlíachí [kŋurutlʲətʃʼ] which is composed of kmurí and tlachí "big". The semivowel attaches right, and the CCC cluster is broken up as CVCC with an echo vowel.
dikhålúitwå [dikʼɑlwitɹɑ] "cold weather", where itwaw "weather" begins with a vowel.
lúuní "island" (which comes from úlunī [u:lʊni:], there is metathesis (or rather, segment shifting) because of the initial semivowel) combines with pozåh [potʃɑʔ] "boat (from pōzoq) to be lúumpíozåh as in "islands and boats" or more completely yan pehma lúumpíozåh "I see islands and boats"

---

Other features often found in TbKt dialects:

• changed vowel systems, especially the development of [e]
• consonant stuff, including more fricatives, loss of one of the series or things like that. The uvular and pharyngeals are especially commonly lost
• loan words (which the standard is very resistant too)
• simply different constructions
• different pronouns

It a lot of things like that. It's late and I'm tired, so I'll be done for now, but I hope you learned a bit about some of the many Kikxotian dialects.

Knənʔtəəʔ: Ergativity and Relative clauses

So last night I realized that Knənʔtəəʔ is sort of ergative and I decided to go with that. So I needed to redo its relative clauses. And uh, I ended up getting exactly what I started with. Anyway, since relative clauses are interesting, I'll post my final explanation, where I basically justify what I already have. It's not all of my internal and external dialogue trying to figure it out, but it is something

"So I think I've figured out what was going on. There's two competing rules that I did realize I had going on until some analysis...Or maybe none of this makes sense and more research is need

anguishes

Let's analyze sentences together and see what happens:
bmis [so kaalbaa] dɨwõ kwiis
bmis so=k<aa>lbaa d<ɨ>wõ kwiis
man 3S=<REL>be.clean <CONT>eat seaweed
"the clean man is eating seaweed"
So we have a head which is the absolutive argument of the relative clause (which if not relativized would be kɨlbaa bmis "the man is clean". Since the relative clause technically takes a pronoun as its head, it works on a nom-acc alignment and fills the slot that would be occupied by the ergative pronoun, resulting in the pronoun preceding the relativized verb and everything being dandy. Let's work up to the next level of relative clause: non-stative intransitive verbs.

bmis [so lutɨhut] dwõ kwiis
bmis so=l<ut><ɨ>hut d<Ø>wõ kwiis
man 3S=<REL><PROG>sleep <PERF>eat seaweed
"the sleeping man has eaten seaweed"
Once again, the head is the absolutive argument of the relative clause, which free would be lɨhut bmis "the man is sleeping". Since the relative clause takes the pronoun as the head, it once again converts to nom-acc and fills the ERG slot(edited)

So far, so good. I've been maintaining the alignment (more or less :p) that I discovered yesterday

But then things get rough

"the man who ate seaweed is sleeping"
The relative clause is headed by a pronoun, so it goes nom-acc and should look something like :
Lɨhut bmis [so dwõ kwiis] or (Sï̵) bmis [so dwõ kwiis] lɨhut so (topic marking way to do it)
l<ɨ>hut bmis so=dwõ kwiis and (sï̵) bmis so=dwõ kwiis l<ɨ>hut so
<CONT>sleep man 3S=eat seaweed or TOP man 3S=eat seaweed <CONT>sleep 3S

Anyway, the restrictions with the way pronouns work basically mean (since agent incorporation isn't allowed and there are no voices) that relativization like this is limited to subjects=agent, despite the ergativity in main clauses. I guess technically these transitive ones could be interpreted either way, but that is abnormal for the speakers. However, part of the ergativity means that the main interpretation of a possessed verbal noun is that the possessor is the patient which allowed for a nice work around of which there are many ways to do it, based on topicality:

Kɨlbaa kwiis dnwõ so räp bmis or Sï̵ kwiis dnwõ so räp bmis kɨlbaa so so on and so forth k<ɨ>lbaa kwiis d<nØ>wõ so räp bmis
<CONT>be.clean seaweed <NOM>eat from man
"the seaweed the man ate is clean"
Notice that the possessor has to be removed from the possessive phrase to make the argument of the main verb clear. Other wise it could be translated as "The man's eating of the seaweed was clean" or "the man cleanly ate the seaweed"

Well, there you have it, something I should turn into a blog post. And it was all for nothing since it ended up looking the same as what I had originally anyway"

As for other things with ergativity, I plan on having deleted arguments follow an ergative pivot (basically "I hit the man and died" would mean that the man died, not that I died).

All Star: Best song of the 90s?

I interrupt my being busy with the semester to bring you this essay on the beauty of All Star.

"As a scholar of Smash Mouth, I think there's a disagreement over what mugged means here, and we might actually have the same base idea. It's getting jumped, beat up, etc. It might not necessarily mean being targeted because he has something of value. The wise person says "Hey you, the way you're going, the world (that is life) is gonna catch you up and knock you down" to which the speaker replies "You know, I know that I'm dumb and that people think I'm dumb. But this doesn't bother me" What he knows is that he has to "hit the ground running," he needs to stay ahead of both the world and be prepared for one it does catch up (since the years don't stop coming). He may get knocked down by the world, but that shouldn't stop him from being who he is. That's why he explores the backstreets, and tries new things. Because he isn't afraid of the world. He's a rock star, an all star.

The second verse calls back to this imagery. The world getting cold is the same idea as the world rolling him. It's an unfeeling place. Yet as he says "the meteor man begs to differ, judging by the hole in the satellite picture" In the same way that he isn't afraid of the world rolling him, he is doesn't believe that life gets harder the longer it goes on. In fact, if the ice is going to break, might as well take it into your own hands and jump in the water on your own terms. It's a song celebrating individual freedom. It's an existentialist love song.

Consider the verse "Somebody once asked...all use a little change". Here the speaker encounters someone who has been rolled by the world. Yet they rather than taking the chance to swim, they try to run away from their problem. The singer is sympathetic, yet also realizes the foolishness in this action. A little fuel could do him some good, but it won't fix the problem. The change in sense of the word "change" highlights this. We could all do a little better with some "change" be it a change in scenery or the personality, but it will do us only as much good as we make of it. In the end, the years start coming and they don't stop coming, so we should adapt ourselves to it, rather than live in fear. And so in the end, this is why the singer is dismissive of the wise person at the beginning. He realizes that being smart does you no good if you don't use it. Why fear the future when you can instead prepare yourself for it and have fun while doing so?

Such must we all be."