Introduction to Stonesong
This is your sneak peek at a language I constructed for my upcoming novel The Lasting Lands. It doesn’t play as big a role in the book as the Martian dialects (Gnomish, Ogrish, Elvish, and Impish), but this one is my clear favorite. It’s the product of over twenty years of tinkering, and I’m thrilled to finally be able to share it with you.
The main goal here is to simplify the grammar as far as it’ll go. It’s a bit of an experiment, so bear with me, and let me know what you think.
1. Spelling and PronunciationSyllable structure in Stonesong is much simpler than it is in English: Just an optional consonant (the onset), a vowel (the nucleus), and another optional consonant (the coda). There are also fewer possible contrasting speech sounds (phonemes) than in English, so spelling can be totally consistent with one letter per sound.
You’ll notice some variability in the following examples. Don’t worry too much about that right now. Just aim for the sound in the first example word.
p /p/ as in “pot” or “spot”
t /t/ as in “tap” or “stop”
q /k/ as in “cat” or “skull”
b /b/ as in “bat”
d /d/ as in “dot”
g /g/ as in “gap”
m /m/ as in “map”
n /n, ŋ/ as in “nap” or “song”
f /f/ as in “fan”
s /s, ʃ/ as in “sap” or “ship”
v /v/ as in “van”
z /z, ʒ/ as in “zipper” or “measure”
r /ʁ, ɹ, w/ as in “rat” or the French “rouge”
l /l/ as in “lap”
i /i, ɪ/ as in “feet” or “sit”
u /ɯ, ʊ, ə, ∅/ as in “foot” or “sofa” or silent
e /e, ɛ/ as in “bail” or “bear” or “bed”
o /o, ɔ/ as in “bowl” or “bore”
a /a, ɑ/ as in “father”
Putting these sounds together yields words like “lat” (“milk”), “qaf” (“coffee”), and “qafe” (“cafe”). Generally speaking, stress falls on the final vowel in a word that isn’t a U, so “qafe” sounds a lot like its English equivalent. The word “tabul” (“table”) also has the same stress pattern as its English equivalent, though its first vowel sound is different. (It sort of rhymes with “cobble.”)
New words in this section:
lat = milk
qaf = coffee
qafe = cafe, casual restaurant
tabul = table
2. Connecting WordsNearly all the words in Stonesong are essentially nouns. That is to say they name things, people, places, and other concepts. To think about verbs and adjectives in this way, consider their noun forms as primary (like “walking” and “slowness” as opposed to “walk” and “slow”).
So how can we put two nouns together? The clearest, most consistent way to do this is by putting a preposition between the two nouns. The English phrase “price of milk” becomes “qot du lat” in Stonesong. “Walking speed” can be rephrased as “speed of walking,” which would translate to “ve du qam.”
The word “du” (“of”) here is our first non-noun in Stonesong! It’s extremely common, but “u” (“with”) is even more basic. This particle (another term for these little connecting words) has such a special status that it’s silent and unwritten in most cases. So to say “coffee with milk,” we would have “qaf u lat,” but this can actually be shorted to just “qaf lat.” Whenever two nouns appear in sequence, you can always think of the word “with” coming between them.
Notice that “u” and “du” have complimentary meanings, so a phrase like “qaf lat” (“coffee with milk”) describes something similar to “lat du qaf” (“milk in coffee”).
The phrase “walking with slowness” would translate to “qam lag.” You might also translate this as “slow walking” or “walking slowly.” Depending on context, this same short phrase can be a complete sentence: a command to “walk slowly” or a statement that someone is walking slowly or has walked slowly in the past. When details such as pronouns and verb tenses can be understood from context, there is no need to spell them out in every sentence.
Stonesong has very few true prepositions, but it allows for the easy creation of such phrases, so learning new prepositions essentially means learning new nouns to drop into a few preset patterns. Here are some common examples:
su = being (participle)
se = focus, theme, content, topic, center
se su = about, focusing on, of (showing theme)
su se du = being the focus/theme of
lo = place, location
lo su = at, with a location of
su lo du = being the location of
te = time, moment, instance
te su = at (a specific time), in (a general time)
su te du = being the time of
oz = source, origin
oz su = from, with a source of
su oz du = being the source/origin of
go = goal, objective, target, destination
go su = for, to, toward, until, with a goal of
su go du = being the goal/objective of
ma = size, largeness, being big, magnitude
ma su = with a size of
su ma du = being the size of
mi = smallness, being little
Notice that all the particles we’ve covered so far (the words that aren’t simply nouns) follow a very specific pattern: Their only vowel is always U, which as we’ve covered doesn’t normally take stress. So a phrase like “ma su” can sound a bit like the English word “mass,” and the phrase “su lo du” can sound a lot like “slowed.” The sound represented by the letter U is so weak that it’s essentially optional.
This is a lot of explanation to take in without concrete examples of how you’d actually use these particle words and phrases, so let’s see what sentences we can come up with so far:
Qafe lat. = The cafe has milk.
Se su qaf. = Its focus is coffee.
Tabul ma. = The table is big.
Tabul lo su qafe. = The table is in the cafe.
Tabul oz su qafe. = The table is from the cafe.
Qafe su oz du tabul. = The cafe is where the table came from.
Lat qot mi. = Milk is cheap.
Tabul ma u qot ma. = The big table is expensive.
Of course, these are loose translations, and other interpretations are possible. None of these Stonesong sentences include any pronouns (“I”, “me,” “you,” “they,” etc.) or determiners (“the,” “a,” “this,” “my,” etc.), so that information has to be filled in from context. Stonestong also makes no grammatical distinction between complete sentences like “The table is big,” and noun phrases like “big table,” so either translation is valid.
Pay special attention to the last two example sentences here. When you place a word like “ma” (“size”) after something like “qot” or “tabul,” it means “with size”—in other words, “big.” And if you place a phrase like “qot ma” after a noun, it means “with a big price,” or “expensive.” Leaving “u” (“with”) unwritten, a modifier like “big” or “expensive” is taken to describe only the single word it follows. If you want it to describe a multi-word phrase like “tabul ma” (“the big table”), then you should include the “u” explicitly, as in the final example sentence. More on this handy little trick later.
A section on “connecting words” would be incomplete without translations of the most basic conjunctions used to connect words and phrases: “and” (“tu”) and “or” (“ru”). For example, you could translate “The table is big and expensive,” to “Tabul ma tu qot ma.” You can remember that “tu” means “and” by comparing it to the Latin “et,” as in “et cetera” (“and so on”).
New words in this section:
du = of, belonging to, by, being the state/attribute/focus of
go = goal, objective, target, destination
lag = slowness, sluggishness, languidness
lo = place, location
ma = size, largeness, being big, magnitude
mi = smallness, being little
oz = source, origin
qam = walking
qot = cost, price
ru = or, and/or
se = focus, theme, content, topic, center
su = being (participle)
te = time, moment, instance
tu = and, but
u = with, having a state/attribute/focus of, plus, of
ve = speed, quickness, velocity, rapidity
3. Nouns and PronounsPronouns are some of the most common words in English, so it may come as a shock when I tell you that a language can work just fine without them. For now, let’s limit discussion to third-person pronouns like “he,” “she,” “they,” and “it.” Anytime one of these words is used, it’s standing in for a noun phrase like “the boy,” “the woman,” “that person over there,” or “the main problem with our economic system.” In every case, you can boil this noun phrase (the pronoun’s antecedent) down to a single noun at the core of the phrase (“boy,” “woman,” “person,” and “problem,” respectively).
So in theory, we could say something like, “That person over there thinks person is famous,” and avoid the whole issue of which pronoun to use when we don’t know (or care about) the person’s gender. The big problem with using this method in English is that a determiner like “the” can never just be implied for a noun like “person.” If you leave the determiner off, it’s ungrammatical. And if you add it on, “the person” would indicate a different person from the subject of the sentence because English requires pronouns.
Stonesong doesn’t have this problem. As you’ve already seen, nouns can easily carry an implied determiner. Imagine an English speaker saying something like, “Cat outside,” and then “Cat just climbed up a tree.” This sounds pretty informal and perhaps nonstandard, but it’s easy enough to follow. It’s not 100% certain, but what the speaker probably means is, “There’s a cat outside,” and “The cat just climbed up a tree.” Context is important.
A central principle of Stonesong is that you shouldn’t be forced to add information (like “a” vs. “the” or “he” vs. “she”) just to meet some arbitrary grammatical requirement. If you want to be vague, be vague. You can add in all the detail you want for clarity, but this should be optional.
All that being said, here are some very basic nouns that can be used like pronouns. The only real difference between these words and actual pronouns is that you can also attach modifiers like “ma” (“big”) or “ve” (“fast”) just as you would with any other noun.
om = person, they/them
fem = woman, girl, lady, she/her
mas = man, boy, guy, he/him
zov = child, kid
beb = baby, infant
zo = animal
qat = cat
qan = dog
maq = machine
vel = vehicle, car
qop = computer
so = thing, stuff, entity, substance, matter, it
i = things, entities, matters, they/them
Except for the very last item in the list, all of the nouns here appear to be singular. But actually, they could just as easily carry a plural meaning if that were implied by context. In order to explicitly specify more than one of something, you can add “su i” to the noun you want to modify. You can also turn it around and put “i su” before the noun. The order isn’t so important when using “su” (“being”).
So the word “children” could translate to “zov su i” or “i su zov”—or just “zov” depending on context. To refer back to these children with something like a pronoun, you’d either say “zov” or “i” (probably whichever word came first in the antecedent phrase.
When you have a phrase that you want to join together so it behaves as a single word (maybe to form a name, for example), this can be done using a hyphen as in English (e.g., “zov-su-i”). But to fuse the word even more tightly together, You can use apostrophes instead. However, when an apostrophe would come between two consonants, it’s not needed since Stonesong roots never include consonant clusters. And when an apostrophe would follow the letter “u,” you can omit the “u,” so instead of “zov’su’i,” you’d have “zovs’i.” It’s clear how to break this word down into its three roots (“zov su i”), so no information is lost. For a phrase like “i su zov,” you’d need two apostrophes, but by convention, an apostrophe following a vowel can be rewritten as an accent mark. So “i’su’zov” becomes “ís’zov.”
So far, we’ve just been relying on the implied “the” meaning inherent in Stonesong nouns by default. But of course there are situations where you’ll want to specify this one, that one, some nonspecific one, and so on. These reference words behave like ordinary nouns in Stonesong and can all be used like pronouns as well.
li = this (here), here, they/them
le = that (there), there, they/them
la = that (over there), over there, they/them
al = some, something, somebody, one
qal = any, anything, anybody
to = every, each, everything, everybody, all
no = no, none, nothing, nobody, zero
We’ve pretty well covered third-person pronouns at this point, so let’s come back to the first and second person. The Stonesong word “vo” means “you,” with the number of people being unspecified, just as in English. Similarly, Stonesong’s first-person pronoun “me” can mean “I,” “me,” “we,” or “us.” As we’ve just covered, it’s possible to make either of these words explicitly plural, so “me su i” (or “més’i”) means “we/us,” and “vo su i” (or “vós’i”) means something like “you guys” or “y’all.”
Or if you want to say “we” in a way that’s clearly inclusive of the listener (i.e., both first and second person together), that would be “me vo” or “vo me,” depending on your focus. You can also combine pronouns with “tu” (“and”) just as you would in English.
New words in this section:
al = some, something, somebody, one
beb = baby, infant
fem = woman, girl, lady, she/her
i = things, entities, matters, they/them
la = that (over there), over there, they/them
le = that (there), there, they/them
li = this (here), here, they/them
maq = machine
mas = man, boy, guy, he/him
me = I/me, we/us
no = no, none, nothing, nobody, zero
om = person, they/them
qal = any, anything, anybody
qan = dog
qat = cat
qop = computer
so = thing, stuff, entity, substance, matter, it
to = every, each, everything, everybody, all
vel = vehicle, car
vo = you
zo = animal
zov = child, kid
4. NumbersIn the last section, we covered how to make nouns explicitly plural, but what if you want to make a noun explicitly singular? You’d just specify the number “one” (“o”). And if there are none of something, you’d specify “zero” (“no”). You can place the number before or after the noun it modifies, connecting the two words with “su” just as you’d do with “i” to mark plurality. So “the cat,” “a cat,” or “one cat” would be “qat su o” or “o su qat.” “No cats” would be “qat su no” or “no su qat.”
Here are the basic numbers in Stonesong:
no = zero
o = one
do = two
ti = three
qa = four
qin = five
si = six
sep = seven
oq = eight
nef = nine
deq = ten
To keep on counting, you’d say “deq o” for “eleven,” “deq do” for “twelve,” and so on.
The particle “vu” means “times” or “multiplied by.” To form the number twenty, you could say “do vu deq” (“two times ten”), but by convention, multiplied numbers like this are fused into a single word. So “twenty” would be “dóv’deq,” “thirty” would be “tív’deq,” and so on.
“Forty-five” would be “qáv’deq qin.” Notice that the “forty” part being a single word means that the following “qin” (“five”) doesn’t need an explicit “u” (“plus”) to connect it to the rest of the number. If we had the phrase “qa vu deq qin” instead, “qin” would just connect to “deq,” yielding fifteen, so we’d have “four times fifteen,” which would be sixty. This is the reason for the convention of fusing numbers with “vu” together. It preserves the normal order of operations (multiplication before addition).
For very large numbers, the word “pu” is a handy particle meaning “to the power of” or “with an exponent of.” So “pu do” means “squared,” “pu ti” means “cubed,” and so on. Large numbers proceed as follows:
sen = hundred
qil = thousand
qilp’do = million
qilp’ti = billion
qilp’qa = trillion
qilp’qin = quadrillion
qilp’si = quintillion
Following the patterns laid out here, you can construct numbers as large as you want. For example, 123,456,789 would be read as “sen dóv’deq ti vu qilp’do u qáv’sen qinv’deq si vu qil u sepv’sen oqv’deq nef.” This is quite a mouthful, but no worse than English: “one hundred twenty-three million, four hundred fifty-six thousand, seven hundred and eighty-nine.”
New words in this section:
deq = ten
do = two
nef = nine
o = one
oq = eight
pu = to the power of, with an exponent of
qa = four
qil = thousand
qin = five
sen = hundred
sep = seven
si = six
ti = three
vu = times, multiplied by
5. Forming SentencesGiven what we’ve covered so far, take a look at the following translations.
Fem qan ma u go su qafe. = The lady with the big dog is headed for the cafe.
Fem qam ve ma. = She’s walking really fast.
Can you see how everything fits together here? The first sentence would literally translate to, “Woman with dog with size has goal being cafe.” And the next sentence literally says, “Woman with walking with speed with size.” Each new “with” of this sentence adds descriptive detail to the previous noun. But in the first sentence, we have an explicit “u,” which indicates that “go su qafe” (“the goal being the cafe”) describes “fem qan ma” (“the lady with the big dog”) instead of just “ma” (“size”).
If we want to leave out the “fem” of the second sentence, that’s perfectly acceptable. It would be a little unclear whether the woman or the dog is walking quickly, but pronouns are not grammatically required in Stonesong, and vagueness is okay. We could also begin the sentence with “qam” (“walking”) and then specify who’s doing the activity later.
Qam du fem u ve ma. = Her walking is really fast.
Qam ve ma udu fem. = Really fast walking is being done by her.
We haven’t covered word “udu” yet, but I’ll bet you can figure it out. It’s exactly like what we did with making “u” (“with”) explicit to show it connecting to more than just the single noun it follows. “Udu” has the same meaning as “du” (“of”), but it describes the phrase “qam ve ma” (“really fast walking”) instead of the single word “ma” (“size”). You can extend this practice to any particle by prefixing it with the letter U (e.g., “usu,” “utu,” “uru,” etc.).
Stonesong doesn’t distinguish between nouns and verbs grammatically. It only has two parts of speech: content words (basically nouns) and particles (basically prepositions). Some words name activities (like “qam”), and others name qualities (like “ve”), and when these function as the core of the sentence they behave a lot like verbs.
To start creating a variety of sentences in Stonesong, here are some really basic verb-like words:
es = being (state), existing, existence, yes
ta = staying, remaining, standing (in place)
va = going, coming
fa = doing, performing, action
faq = making, constructing, production
av = having, possessing, possession
des = wanting, desire
nes = needing, necessity
gos = liking, enjoyment, fondness
am = loving, love
po = being able, ability, capacity, potential
qom = eating
bev = drinking
vi = seeing, watching, looking, vision
od = hearing, listening
sa = knowing, knowledge
qog = thinking, thought, cognition
di = saying, speaking, talking, telling
don = giving, donation
gan = getting, obtaining, receiving, gaining
Stonesong grammar is less about subjects and objects and more about how each participant in a given action connects to the verb-like word using a preposition-like particle or phrase. As we’ve seen, you can communicate a lot using the basic particles “u” and “du,” but these words are pretty vague, so you’ll need a bit more vocabulary to show more precise thematic roles of verbal participants:
aq = doer (of an action), actor, agent, force
aq su = by (showing authorship), being done by
su aq du = doing, performing, being the doer of
ot = instrument, means, tool, utility
ot su = with (showing means), using, by means of
su ot du = facilitating, being the means of
ep = experiencer, beneficiary (of an action)
ep su = affecting, for (showing beneficiary)
su ep du = being affected by, being the beneficiary of
qo = cause, reason, motivation
qo su = because, since (showing cause), with a cause of
su qo du = so (showing effect), therefore, being the cause of
fe = effect, result
fe su = so (showing effect), therefore, with an effect of
su fe du = because, since (showing cause), being the effect of
Bringing all of this together, here are some examples of these participant roles in action. Notice that there are subtly different ways to say essentially the same thing. It’s up to you how much precision you want to use and where you want to put the focus.
Me am vo! = I love you!
Me vi qat. = I see a cat. (Me with a view of a cat.)
Me vi se su qat. = I see a cat. (Me with my vision focused on a cat.)
Vi ep su me u se su qat. = I see a cat. (Vision with an experiencer of me and its content being a cat.)
Mas bev qaf. = The man drinks coffee.
Qaf su se du bev aq su mas. = Coffee is what he drinks.
Nes don go su zov udu qop. = We have to give the kid a computer.
Qat tu qan u gos qom tu bev. = Cats and dogs like to eat and drink.
Om od fe su sa. = The person listens, so they know.
We could go on and on coming up with sentences using this limited vocabulary, but you get the idea. Our next step is to broaden the kind of sentences you can produce by introducing the Stonesong equivalent of different verb forms (tenses, questions, modals, etc.).
New words in this section:
am = loving, love
aq = doer (of an action), actor, agent, force
av = having, possessing, possession
bev = drinking
des = wanting, desire
di = saying, speaking, talking, telling
don = giving, donation
ep = experiencer, beneficiary (of an action)
es = being (state), existing, existence, yes
fa = doing, performing, action
faq = making, constructing, production
fe = effect, result
gan = getting, obtaining, receiving, gaining
gos = liking, enjoyment, fondness
nes = needing, necessity
od = hearing, listening
ot = instrument, means, tool, utility
po = being able, ability, capacity, potential
qo = cause, reason, motivation
qog = thinking, thought, cognition
qom = eating
sa = knowing, knowledge
ta = staying, remaining, standing (in place)
va = going, coming
vi = seeing, watching, looking, vision
6. Verb Forms and NegationWhen talking about verbs, the word tense is often used very loosely. Properly speaking, it describes when an action occurs in time (i.e., past, present, or future). Related concepts are aspect (whether the action is recurring, ongoing, etc.) and mood (the speaker’s attitude about the action and whether it’s real or hypothetical). In Stonesong, all indicators of tense, aspect, and mood are optional depending on context. Take the following examples:
Qam. = I walk. (Or possibly “I’m walking,” or “I walked,” etc.)
Qam te su za. = I’m walking (now).
Qam te su pa. = I walked (in the past).
Qam te su fo. = I’m going to walk (in the future).
These are all fine ways to situate your actions in time, but even more useful are three little aspect markers: “a” (showing progress), “ab” (showing habit), and “e” (showing completion). And here, some combinations are possible.
Qam a. = I’m walking. (Or “I was walking,” etc.)
Qam ab. = I walk (regularly).
Qam e. = I walked. (Or “I’ve walked,” etc.)
Qam a e. = I was walking (but I’m done now).
Qam ab e. = I used to walk (but I don’t anymore).
Qam ab te su fo. = I’ll start walking (regularly in the future).
This brings us to mood, the most common example of which is indicative vs. interrogative, or a statement vs. a question. If I say “Des qom,” the most likely interpretation without knowing the context is that I’m hungry (literally, “I want to eat,”). If I make it a question (“Des qom?”), you’d guess purely by my intonation that I’m asking if you’re hungry. Just like you can optionally add in pronouns like “me” and “vo” to make things more clear, you can also specify whether something is a question or not using actual spoken words, not just intonation:
Re du me des qom. = I want to eat.
Qe du vo des qom? = Do you want to eat?
Vo des qom qi? = What do you want to eat? (No need for “qe” when “qi” is present.)
As you can imagine, statements about reality (“re”) are extremely common, so this marker is mostly just used for contrast or emphasis. Other common moods include the subjunctive (hypothetical or conditional) and imperative (requests or commands).
Ip du gos qaf. = I would like some coffee (if you have any).
Pe du bev tu gos! = Drink and enjoy!
The last point I’d like to cover in this very long-winded introduction to Stonesong is how to make things negative using the equivalent of the English word “not.” There is one thing I’d like you to consider first though: If I say, “I don’t like coffee,” does that mean I actively dislike coffee or that I don’t care about it one way or the other? English is ambiguous here since “not” can be used to mean there’s none of something (no liking of coffee) or the opposite of something (disliking of coffee). Stonesong has you covered here with the words “no” (zero or none) and “ne” (negative or opposite).
No su gos qaf. = I don’t (particularly) like coffee.
Ne du gos qaf. = I dislike coffee.
Remember that verb-like words in Stonesong are really just nouns, so this pattern can be applied the same way anywhere you like. For example, “no su am” would be the absence of love, and “ne du am” would be love’s opposite: hate. “No su bon” would mean “not good,” but only “ne du bon” would mean actually “bad.” “No su ami” could refer to anyone who’s not a friend, such as a stranger, but “ne du ami” would refer to an enemy.
I could go on and on, of course, but this seems like a good place to bring this introduction to a close. Please post any questions you have in the comments. I’ll make more vocabulary and grammar points available soon, but how soon will depend on how much interest I see in the language. Until then! Gós’fo!
New words in this section:
a = progress, continuous (aspect)
ab = habit, repeated (aspect)
ami = friend(s)
e = completion, unitary (aspect)
fo = future (tense), then (future), later
bon = goodness, being good
ip = hypotheticality, subjunctive (mood)
ne = opposite, inverse, negative (value)
pa = past (tense), then (past), before
pe = instruction, requesting, imperative (mood)
qe = question, interrogative (mood)
qi = what, which, who
re = reality, indicative (mood)
za = now, present (tense)
