Learning a bit about Proto Indo-European (PIE), had this fun conversation with Claude, rejigged below.
Lets have some fun with conjugaion. This is conjugation, using the Latin word for horse:
- Nominative: EQUUS is – The horse is.
- Accusative: EQUUM I see – I see the horse.
- Dative: EQUO I give food – To the horse I give food.
- Genitive: EQUI food – The horses food.
- Ablative: with EQUO I ride – With (by horseback) I ride.
- Vocative: O EQUE! – Oh horse!
Where I’m mixing English and Latin– I won’t always do the translations, hopefully they will become obvious.
Here are some longer sentences:
- Dative: I give fresh hay to EQUO.
- Accusative: I see EQUUM running fast.
- Genetive: EQUI hay fell on the ground.
- Ablative: I ride through fields with EQUO.
- Vocative: EQUE, you stubborn beast, get out of the garden!
Proto Indo-European (PIE) had eight cases, we can invent Latinisms for them:
- Instrumental: EQUUD I plowed the field (using the horse as the means/tool)
- Locative: EQUUL they placed the blanket (meaning specifically “on the horse”)
- Allative: EQUUN I walked slowly (meaning specifically “toward the horse”)
You can obviously have more than one in a sentence:
Locative, genetive: EQUUN EQUI food I walked slowly (I walked slowly to the horses food.)
But hey, if we are making shit up, why limit ourselves to PIE? Here are some other cases:
- Abessive (Finnish): “without X” - like “I must live EQUUND” (I must live without a horse)
- Comitative (Estonian): “in company with X” - like “I traveled EQUUNT” (I traveled together with a horse)
- Benefactive (various African languages): “for the benefit of X” - like “I work EQUURB” (I work for the horse’s benefit)
- Essive (Finnish): “in the role/state of X” - like “he performed EQUUSC” (he performed as a horse)
- Translative (Finnish): “becoming X” - like “she transformed EQUURT” (she transformed into a horse)
- Partitive (Finnish, Estonian): “some of X” - like “I brushed EQUURP” (I brushed part of the horse)
- Perlative (Hungarian): “through/across X” - like “the arrow flew EQUURL” (the arrow flew through/across a horse)
- Subessive (Tsez): “under X” - like “we sheltered EQUUBS” (we sheltered under a horse)
- Superessive (Hungarian): “on top of X” - like “the warrior stood EQUUPS” (the warrior stood on top of a horse)
- Adessive (Finnish): “at/by X” - like “I waited EQUUDS” (I waited by/near a horse)
Claude tells me we can inflect any of these things:
- SPACE/LOCATION
- direction (to, from, through)
- position (in, on, under)
- distance (near, far)
- TIME
- when things happen
- how long they last
- order of events
- RELATIONSHIPS
- who owns what
- who does what to whom
- how things connect
- QUANTITY
- how many
- how much
- parts vs wholes
- REALITY/CERTAINTY
- definitely happened
- might happen
- wished it happened
- heard it happened
- SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS
- respect levels
- gender of speaker/listener
- family relationships
- formality
- BOUNDARIES/LIMITS
- complete vs partial
- definite vs indefinite
- bounded vs unbounded
Can we make up our own inflections? Lets try one for sacredness:
Mundane: “EQUUS runs in field” (just a regular horse)
Semi-sacred: “EQUUSE carries the priest to temple” (a horse used in religious service)
Very sacred: “EQUUSA leads the funeral procession” (a specially consecrated ceremonial horse)
Divine: “EQUUSM carries the sun across sky” (the divine horse of a god)
We could extend this to other nouns:
“TEMPLUSE stands in the city” (a regular temple)
vs
“TEMPLUSA glows with holy light” (a major sacred site)
vs
“TEMPLUSM exists beyond mortal realm” (a divine dwelling)
Or people:
“VIRUSE performs the blessing” (a priest)
vs
“VIRUSA speaks God’s word” (the Pope/high priest)
vs
“VIRUSM created the world” (God)
So now we can rediscover the fun in Latin poetry– you can take an idea like
“People worship in earthly temples, the Gods dwell in divine temples.”
And compress it into 4 words:
“HOMUS TEMPLUSE, DEUSM TEMPLUSM”
(Remember that this is a made up inflection– Latin didn’t have a case for sacredness!)
And now we can imagine some nationalist slogans the centurions might have thrown about:
“ROMANESE VINUSM TABERNUSM, BARBARUS VINUS TABERNUS”
((Semi-divine) Romans drink in divine establishments, (mundane) barbarians drink in common taverns.)
We could even make it more biting:
“SACERDOSE VINUS TABERNUS” - “The (supposedly holy) priest (drinks) in common taverns”
I’m actually starting to get the vibe to be honest.
So, apparently latin did this wild thing where they combined inflections into new inflections. But other languages just stacked them, so lets do that:
“O EQUEUSA, EQUOUS I sit while EQUIUS food you eat!”
(O sacred horse, I sit on a regular horse while you eat the regular horse’s food!)
Madness.
In keeping with the times, we could have one inflection for degrees of masculinity in presentation:
Gender presentation: blend of vowels showing the spectrum
- -ma (very masc)
- -me (masc leaning)
- -mi (androgynous)
- -fi (femme leaning)
- -fe (very femme)
And another for attraction:
Attraction:
- -am (strongly masc attracted)
- -em (masc leaning attraction)
- -im (all/any attraction)
- -if (femme leaning attraction)
- -ef (strongly femme attracted)
And in sentences:
EGOMAAM seek EGOFEEF for friendship. (I, a masc person into masc, seek a femme person into femme for friendship)
Was EGOMEEM, now EGOMAAM. (I was masc-presenting & masc-leaning in attraction, now I’m very masc & strongly masc-attracted)
Just in case you were wondering, this is a gay boy-horse:
EQUUSMAAM runs through field.
And this is a sacred gay stallion!
EQUUSMAAMUSA leads the pride parade.
If you want to go to the urinals, try follow the ‘Masc-presenting toilets’ sign!
LATRINAMA
and for the cubicles:
LATRINAFE
And then for modern inclusive facilities you could use:
LATRINAMI (for all gender presentations)
Better knock before you go into the
LATRINAMAAM ;)
Holy shit Claude just got a bit too excited:
> this is great. what other things can we solve this way. economic liberalism?
OH. MY. GOD. YES. Let’s create economic position inflections!
Maybe a spectrum from collectivist to free-market:
- -col (fully collectivist)
- -soc (socialist leaning)
- -mix (mixed economy)
- -cap (capitalist leaning)
- -lib (pure free market)
And then another spectrum for how much you think this should be enforced:
- -vol (purely voluntary)
- -rec (recommended)
- -reg (regulated)
- -man (mandatory)
- -for (forced)
So:
“EGOMAAMCAP-VOL believe in free markets but only by choice”
“EGOMIEMSOC-FOR demand redistribution”
Or for institutions:
“BANKUSCAP-REG operates under guidelines”
“FARMUSCOL-MAN joins collective”
You could even combine it with our sacred class system for maximum irony:
“TEMPLUSA-LIB-MAN requires mandatory donations”
(A very sacred temple forcing free market principles)
Want to try some more economic position combinations? Or should we solve another social issue through inflection? 😄
Maybe time to call it a day XD.