Idr is the culmination of my many innovations when creating new conlangs. One of these innovations is the simple root system, first pioneered by Dàngak. It used a triconsonantal root system, later enhanced by Adw's shorter, simpler stems. Idr takes Adw another step further by needing only the "Standard 5" vowels (/a/ /e/ /i/ /o/ /u/) instead of ten. Another enhancement of Idr is the lack of consonants - there are only 16, for a total of 21 phonemes in all. Idr also uses RPN-like logic to create a simple, unambiguous grammar. This sort of feature was first pioneered in Dvê. And unlike many of my other languages, Idr is the first one designed from the get-go to be an auxlang.
Idr has three goals: to be logical, have only a few short stems, and have few phonemes. Idr is, to date, my conlang which best satisfies the three in a synergistic manner.
Phonology[]
| Labial | Alveolar | Velar | Glottal | |
| Nasal | m | n | ||
| Plosive | pb | td | kg | ʔ |
| Fricative | s(z) | x(ɣ) | ||
| Trill/Tap | ɾ | |||
| Approximant | w | l | j | h |
Phonemes in parentheses are allophones.
The orthography of Idr is identical to the corresponding IPA except that <’> is /ʔ/.
Allophony[]
- s in bs, ds, gs - [z]
- x in bx, dx, gx - [ɣ]
Grammar[]
Dvê-class grammar has its origins in Lojban. Originally, my thoughts were that a VSO language would be most logical, as it is the "grammar" of many programming languages. However, my thoughts quickly changed after experimenting with an RPN-like OSV language. Having a mental "stack" seems to be easier to remember than all of the previously mentioned verbs. It is quite possible to speak either, though, as shown by natlangs like Irish and Latin.
Word Order[]
So what does this mean, for the speaker? Well, it's actually pretty similar to Lojban, but judge for yourself:
Lojban - x1 V x2 ... xn
Dvê - (x2) x1 V1
The most immediate difference is that the verb is no longer in the center of the sentence. However, the most important differences to note are that the verb is marked for having either one or two arguments, and that the verb can only have one or two arguments.
One of the immediate questions you should think to yourself should be, "But how would you account for verbs like 'give', which have three arguments?!". And that is a very good question, and one which lead me to my second breakthrough, which allowed me to have caseless nouns. Here is an example to show how this is done:
i dsan ian’ kan im egb ed.
[i dzan i.anʔ kan im egb ed]
John puppy I give to.
(John,(puppy,I)give)to
"I'm giving John a puppy."
Simple enough. This can be applied to other constructions as well. Note that dog, an animal, uses the stem (can-) of the name of its genus (canis). If we wanted to be more specific, we could change kan to kanlup, although contextually this is overkill.
Monoargumental and Diargumental Roots[]
In the previous section, we discussed how we can have verbs with either one or two arguments. The monoargumentals are verbs with one argument, and are like the intransitive verbs or adjectives of most natlangs. The diargumentals are those with two arguments and are like the transitive verbs, prepositions, or conjunctions of most natlangs.
In practice, to mark the verbs, you apply one of these vowel clusters to the VToW slot of the word:
- (a) monoargumental present verb (omissible if you can pronounce the word without)
- au monoargumental nonpresent verb
- e diargumental present verb
- eu diargumental nonpresent verb
The present-nonpresent distinction is quite like natlangs. Present tense verbs are events happening now, and nonpresent verbs are those which have, will, or may happen.
Morphology[]
[VToW-Stem1]-(V2)-(Stem2)-...-(Vn)-(Stemn)
Pretty self-explanatory one I list what each of these mean, so here I go:
- VToW - "Type-of-word" Vowel. I listed the verbal possibilities, but the nominal possibilities appear later in the chapter.
- Stem1 - Main stem.
- V2 and Vn- "a" by default, but can be these:
- a - [default]
- e - -er (ie. eo. -ant-)
- i - unassigned
- o - unassigned
- u - derived material, eg. "wool" from "sheep", but NOT "mutton", which'd use the -[meat] suffix
- Stem2 and Stemn - more stems, for compounds.
"Later in the Chapter"[]
- i singular noun
- o plural noun (a bunch of like stems)
- u plural noun (a bunch of differing stems)
- oi a group of the stem which contextually acts as one entity
- ui combo of u and oi
- ai something like the stem, eg "a cat-like entity" from cat
Okay, explanation time. i is simple enough. o and u are inspired by the Discrete and Aggregative of Ithkuil. I personally thought that the grammatical numbers of Ithkuil were a particular stroke of genius, and I truly believe that this innovation dwarfs all of Ithkuil's other features, except perhaps the stem derivation, which is pretty fucking rad too. Likewise, the oi and ui are like the Segmentative/Coherent and Componential/Composite. I myself don't find the distinction between the two particularly important, and so have collapsed the four forms into two. Lastly, ai, is pretty much identical to the Multiform. You can find out about these shamelessly stolen features and more at J.Q.'s site.
If you have particular difficulty understanding the insane ramblings of a clown ingenious description on his site, you're not alone, friend. Just consider the o and u similar for now, the oi and ui to be like the -ar- of Esperanto, and the ai to be like the -ec(aĵ)- or -um- of Esperanto.
If you are unsure of whether you need to use the o- or u-type plurals, you should probably use the u-type.
Keep in mind that i, oi, ui, and ai act as singular concepts, where as o and u are "plural".
Proper Nouns[]
Proper nouns, eg. "John" are just a bare VToW followed by the transliterated word. In this example, i dsan. Suffixes and such are added to the bare VToW. If the foreign phrase has multiple words, combine them into one.
Dictionary[]
There are currently 96 stems, but more will be added (likely 20 more).
To see a list of the different words and their derivatives, please see the Category:idr at the bottom of this page.
Currently, there are few gaps in the lexicon. Generally, these are things like sensations, body parts, and species, which are all fairly large categories. If you do not see the word you are looking for in the list, I probably haven't transferred it over to this site yet.
Dealing with Named Objects[]
Species' names are transliterated from the Latin stem(s) of their scientific name. Earlier I gave the example of 'i kan', specifically i kanlup (Or even moreso: i kanlupfamiliar) for dog. This also applies to plants, eg. i pin for pines.
For elements, the root for "Base, element, root, beginning, origin", currently unassigned (Note to self: make one) is combined with a number (Note to self: continue with the numbers) to form a construction like "nth element".
For compounds, I really need to develop a more accurate system. Sorry about that.
Proper Nouns[]
Proper nouns are treated as stated previously, with i plus their transliteration.