Continuing… “Well, if that doesn’t throw the damper on things.” Dax remarks on our trip back down to the ground floor.
“Yeah. How rude. Up and deceasing your own self without bothering to tell anyone beforehand.” I noted.
“This is going to be a bloody balls-up. Trust me. This is going to be inordinately messy. A bog-standard botch job. A total dog’s dinner, just wait and see.” Cliffs adds.
“First, we have to contact IUPGS. Then what? Does Bulgaria have a consulate or embassy here? I wouldn’t think so…Then what?” I grieved. For once, I was rather low; both emotionally and on ideas.
“Let’s go back to the conference room and let everyone know. We’ll pull a brain session together. We should be able to sort out what needs to be done. The hotel already knows, so the state security forces also do as well. Be prepared for lengthy interrogation sessions, Gentlemen”, Cliff advised.
Back in the conference room, we relayed the sad information. All were taken aback and there were general notes of commiseration. However, since no one knew Iskren too well personally, it was more detached professionalism rather than overt weeping and wailing.
“Let us toast to our fallen comrade!” was accepted as both entirely appropriate and a damn good idea.
I got on the conference room phone and ordered up some more sandwiches, mixers, and bottles of booze. The moment was obviously structured that way, I reasoned.
We made our toasts to our fallen comrade and we had half a chalkboard filled with suggestions of what to do next.
The main consensus was: “Nothing.”
As in there was not much we could do. We were foreign nationals in a strangely foreign land. Our comrade was the sole member of his country, that is, Bulgaria, and the closest geographically we had aboard was Dr. Academician Ivan. No one wanted to loose Ivan on the DPRK security forces and have to deal with all that international fallout.
After some number of hours, after I suggested we all remain in the conference room as we’d (A.) be together, as in unity there is strength, (2.) we’d have each other’s backs when and if it came to interrogations, and, (iii.) this is where the free booze was.
Then there was a polite knock on the door.
I, as the den mother of this special education class, slowly got up and answered the knock.
It was a cadre of DPRK internal security forces, kitted out in their spiffy, tailor-made, and actually, quite smart-looking uniforms. Shoes and buttons polished to mirror-finishes, pants creases that could cut flesh, and enough polished brass to construct a spittoon.
“Hello? Yes?” I said through the semi-opened door.
“May we please come in? If the time is convenient.”, the head military type, very treacly asked.
“Of course”, I replied, “Please, do come in.”
Four of them entered as one. They did a quick-step, tight-march formation together and went to the head of the conference table.
“Good day, gentlemen. I am Colonel Hwangbo Dong-Hyeon of Internal State Security. First, we must offer condolences on the loss of your comrade. It must have come as a shock.” He intones.
There are mutters of “Thanks.” and “Damn right it was.”
“I have been entrusted to update you on the, ah, ‘situation’. First, Dr. Iskren Dragomirov Dinev, recently deceased, has been examined by the best medical practitioners in the country. He was obviously a foreign national and state guest, and we do not wish this to be a cause of suspicion or mistrust, especially during this auspicious Festival season.” He asserted.
We listened with rapt attention.
“I am authorized to tell you that it does not appear that the late Dr. Dinev expired of any untoward circumstances; or ‘foul play’, I believe is the western term. It has been ascertained that he expired due to wholly natural causes; namely massive myocardial infarction. Given his age, apparent health, and, ah, mass, this does seem a most reasonable explanation. This has been verified by no less than three DPRK medical professionals; one of which is the Emeritus teaching professor of Cardiology at Pyongyang Medical University. Again, you have our deepest condolences on the loss of your comrade.” He continued.
“I do remember Iskren complaining of gas pains the other night at the bar,” Joon agreed. “Thought nothing of it, given the change in all our diets.”
Colonel Hwangbo studied Joon like an entomologist examining a particularly fascinating new species of beetle.
“Which has been fine! Just rather rich compared to our usual food!” Joon hastily added.
Satisfied that Joon wasn’t making light of the ‘fine’ North Korean cuisine, Colonel Hwangbo continued, “As such, the Bulgarian Embassy here in Pyongyang has been contacted and apprised of the situation. They have taken over the case, as well as recovered the mortal remains and possessions of Dr. Dinev; all of which were conserved and authenticated by his Bulgarian national counterparts.”
“Ah, that’s good”, I said, “I’m pleased that there actually is a Bulgarian embassy here.”
“Ah. So.”, Col. Hwangbo continued, “Yes. They have already taken possession of Dr. Dinev’s mortal remains and possessions as I had noted, and will handle their repatriation to his country and family. As you can see, we have acted in the best of faith and with the utmost respect for your lately departed. Again, our condolences.”
There were some “Harrumphs”, and “Yeah, rights”, from the crowd, but since I was the team leader, it fell to me to handle this situation from here on out.
“Yes, indeed”, I replied, “We see that and do so deeply appreciate your efficiency and your keeping open the lines of communication. We have absolutely no room to complain. You, your team, your country, and your services have acted to the highest degree of professionalism and decorum. Let me extend, for the team, our heartiest appreciations in this most unfortunate matter.”
That seemed to please the Korean security forces. So much so they didn’t see the rolling eyes and smirks of grudging compliance from the crowd. I gave the evil-eye to several who were twittering quietly at my delivery of a load of over-the-top twaddle in the name of international goodwill.
“Thank you, Doctor…? Doctor…?”, he asked.
“Doctor Rocknocker.” I replied, “It’s spelled just as it sounds,”, I chuckled a knowing chuckle.
Colonel Hwangbo cracked a small smile for the first time since we met.
“As long as our orders of business are concluded, “ I inquired, “Might we offer you and your men a drink or sandwich or…”
“Cigar?” he suddenly brightened.
I smiled the sly, smirking smile of one of those used to the old duplicitous game of international diplomacy.
“Why”, I replied smilingly, “Of course.”
Col Hwangbo gratefully accepted a brace of fine Oscuro cigars. Probably more tobacco he’s seen in one place at one time since the last he rousted a snozzeled Western journalist or hammered European tourist with an overage of custom’s tobacco allowances.
His team eschewed cigars, but gladly accepted a pack each of pastel-colored Sobranie cocktail cigarettes.
It still slays me to see these battle-hardened, armed-to-the-teeth, unsmiling servants of the great state of Best Korea mincing about the courtyard smoking avocado, baby-blue, and peach-colored pastel cigarettes.
The Colonel and his team left after a couple of quick smokes, sandwiches, and surreptitious beers. I even enticed the Colonel into a couple of convivial vodka toasts when his team was otherwise occupied.
“Well, gang”, I said, closing the door, “Looks like that situation has been handled, most appropriately at that. We’ll miss ol’ Iskren, but at least he went fast and hopefully painlessly.”
I knew that last one was but a load of old dingo’s kidneys as I’ve had run-ins with cardiac disorders in the past and they are anything
but painless. In any case, that was, as I noted, in the past. What was done is done. It was as it was. It is as it is.
“So, gentlemen”, I say, “Let us get back to work. Reality calls. Now, we’ve given you landlubbers the lowdown on our seismic pleasure cruise. Now we’d like to hear what you who had stayed onshore have come up with.”
Erlan, Graco, and Viv fill us in on the regional geology of Best Korea and lay out a plan to examine the sedimentary piles closest to the few paved roads in the north and east of the country.
We’ll be traveling by bus, as my request for four or five off-road vehicles was denied due to timing and lack of availability.
Yeah. Right. What a massive pile of bovine biogenic colluvium. A country with a military as huge as Best Korea’s and they can’t spare a few jeeps or Hummer reproductions?
Truth be told, they still don’t trust us and don’t want to let us out of their sight.
However, we did manage to snag some internal publications from the Central Geological Survey of Mineral Resources, which we figured as a major coup. Never before were Westerners allowed to even know of the existence of these materials, much less be able to research (read: slyly copy) them.
That ‘personal shaver’ I carried was actually a sneaky personal copier, a Vupoint ST470 Magic Wand Portable Scanner with all the external stickers peeled off, and any serial numbers abraded away.
Hey, they photograph us from every angle on the sly, listen in on our conversations, record our phone calls…hell, turnabout isn’t just fair play, it’s almost expected.
It’d be rude to refuse to play along.
Anyways, we learned that The Korean Peninsula (KP) occupies a junction area of three large tectonic domains that are the Paleo-Central Asian Orogenic Belt, Paleo-Tethyan Orogenic Belt, and the Western Pacific Orogenic Belt.
Tectono-fascinating.
To summarize:
- The Archean Rangrim massif is divided into the Rangrim and Kwanmo submassifs, high-grade region and greenstone belt, respectively.
- Early Paleoproterozoic rocks underwent metamorphism up to granulite facies, which may be correlated to the Jiao-Liao-Ji mobile belt in the North China Craton (NCC).
- Proterozoic rift sequences in North Korea are similar to those in the NCC with rare late Paleoproterozoic strata and more Neoproterozoic strata.
- Mesozoic igneous rocks are extensively distributed in the KP.
- The main Paleozoic basin, the Phyongnam basin in NK, have a similar Paleozoic tectono-stratigraphy to the NCC.
Of most interest is item #5. The Phyongnam basin is the only sedimentary and depositional basin of mention in the north of the Korean peninsula; and therefore the center of our attention as it pertains to oil and gas.
The potential source rocks, and possible reservoirs, include the Paleozoic Late Ordovician Miru Series was identified as the Koksan Series and subsequently renamed. The 170-meter thick limestone and siltstone centered around the P'yongnam Basin have extensive crinoid, coral, and gastropod fossils. Paleogeography researchers have suggested that corals formed in the Miru Sea-a branch of the South Yangtze Sea. At the base of the Taedong Synthem is the P'yong'an Supergroup, which lies disconformably atop older Paleozoic rocks.
In the Pyongyang Coalfield it is divided into the 650-meter sandstone, shale, and conglomerate of the Nogam Formation, the 500-meter Kobangsan Formation, 350-meter coal-bearing Sadong Formation and 250-meter chert-bearing Hongjom Formation, all typically assigned to an Upper Permian shallow marine environment.
In the Mesozoic, north of Pyongyang, Precambrian basement rocks are unconformably overlain by a Jurassic limestone conglomerate ascending to layers of siltstone and mudstone. The Upper Jurassic Shinuiju Formation northwest of Shinuiju has sandstone, conglomerate, and mudstone up to two kilometers thick.
Offshore drilling in the West Korea Bay Basin indicates these rocks are the onshore extension of offshore units. It is subdivided into fluvial rocks and Upper Jurassic black shale, limestone, conglomerate and sandstone formed in a lake environment.
There are very few Cenozoic sediments are known in North Korea, likely as a result of erosion due to uplift of the peninsula. Submarine normal faults along the eastern coastline may have driven crustal tilting. The 350-meter thick Bongsan Coalfield in Hwanghae Province on the west coast preserves and coal-bearing layers dating to the Eocene.
Further to the north, in the West Korea Bay Basin Eocene and Oligocene sedimentary rocks up to three kilometers thick unconformably overlie Mesozoic rocks, formed in lakes and coal swamps during the Paleogene.
What this meant is that we’d need to travel mostly northeast and/or southwest. This was fortuitous as the paved roads in the country were created in structural valleys formed by the primary fault trends in the country. The main trans-tensional set trended NE:SW and the conjugate set trends approximately 90
0 to the main set at NW:SE.
The topography was heavily dissected by drainages and the terrain consists mostly of hills and mountains separated by deep, narrow valleys. The coastal plains are wide in the west and discontinuous in the east.
The plan was to take the bus north to Sunchon, then hang a right off towards Unsan and Yongha. There were outcrops between the last two towns and they appear to be upper Paleozoic to Lower Mesozoic clastics. Ideal oil and gas hunting grounds.
From there, we’d head north-northeast towards Yangwon. There appeared to be some fair to excellent outcrops of rocks that are as of yet, unidentified as to age. From there, we’d continue to follow the outcrop belts either to their termination at the basin’s edges or at international borders with China or Russia.
But, once we hit the field, time goes into relative warp. Put a bunch of geologists out on some relatively virgin outcrops and just stand back as they spend hour after hour after hour first looking for evidence of the formation’s provenance, it’s age and field relations. Then begin the heartfelt, stalwart, and sometimes vicious, arguments between all concerned about each and every one of those salient points.
We were all looking forward to it and wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s our intellectual and scientific equivalent of meat and potatoes.
We all agreed on a way forward and generated a document to deliver to those in charge of our logistics on this trip. There would be a total of 11 Western geoscientists, four guides, perhaps a couple of national geologists or geophysicists, and whatever cadre the shiny suit squad wanted to include.
There would also be a driver, his relief, and a couple of extra translators. Good thing it was a large bus, as it’s going to be a huge crew.
We needed to allow our handlers a full day to arrange room and board for us while in the field, as we had to be bivouacked somewhere outside our fine hotel. It needed to be secure, pass sanctuary muster, and be ‘controllable’, referring to both Western scientists and nosy locals.
One thing we found odd was the lack of concern for long-term logistics, not to mention the end of our self-ordained indentured servitude. When this trip and all the Western geoscientists were contacted, we were all assured of an opportunity to meet with the Supreme Leader, Kim Jong-Un once our trip was completed.
We were to personally deliver one hell of an international photo-op. A ‘hey look how progressive we are’ meeting and our findings in this wonderful and progressive country.
But lately, with what we thought was the fallout of the Festival washing out all the usual propaganda, we’ve heard nothing about Herr Comrade Leader Supremo, K1J1-Un. Nor had we heard one iota about our intended final meeting with him before we left for China.
Since there are “absolutely no” COVID-19 cases in Best Korea, it seemed, well, odd that Beijing was our only possible current exit port of call, and onward to our individual homes.
There were all flavors of rumors flying all throughout the basement bars and casinos of the hotel. One claimed that Kim was now receiving treatment at a villa in the Mount Myohyang resort north of the capital Pyongyang after cardiovascular surgery. That he was near death and that his sister, Kim Yo Jong, is already warming up in the North Korean political bullpen if her brother kacks it.
Others said Kim is believed to be staying at an unspecified location outside of Pyongyang, with some close confidants. It was said that Kim appeared to be normally engaged with state affairs and there has not been any unusual movement or emergency reaction from North Korea's governing party, military, or cabinet.
There was also one other that tries to cover up any conspiracy rumors by shouting over a raspy bullhorn: "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!”, “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!"; but most ignored that little crank.
We all thought that rather odd, but of fairly low concern. In the final analysis, it would have little impact on our studies and their outcome. In other words, it wouldn’t affect our pay one way or the other. We all felt like we’ve given more than what was called for on missions such as this.
And we still haven’t a clue as to when this will all come to an end.
However, we all agreed to the consultation, it would have been fun to meet with him and have our pictures taken with the Supreme Leader. Dr. Academician Ivan Ivanovich Khimik. was especially cheesed that he might miss the opportunity to make finger-vee bunny ears behind the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces of the DPRK during one of our photo sessions.
We all agree if we do somehow find ourselves in the same room with Ivan and Kim Jong-Un, we’ll form a human shield around the latter. We want to get back home; as we’ve all heard the rumors of the horrors of ‘political realignment’ camps here in Best Korea.
So the meeting breaks up and I’m left with Dax to take the final inventory. Two loads of sandwiches gone, piles of used napkins, ketchup-y table linens, bacon rinds and chicken bones, drippy ends of ice cream cones, prune pits, peach pits, orange peel, gloppy glumps of cold oatmeal, pizza crusts, and withered greens, soggy beans and tangerines, crusts of black burned buttered toast, gristly bits of beefy roasts…
“The hell with this”, I say, I grab the last nearly full bottle of vodka and hand Dax a bottle of Royal Navy dark Rum.
“Tally’s good”, I say, not really giving two tiny shits at this point. “At least, I think it is. Let’s make like horseshit and hit the trail.”
“I’m headed back to our floor and going to zone out in front of some old, looped BBC for the next few hours with a cold drink and hot cigar.” I proclaim.
“Oh, hell”, Dax says, “I agree. It’s been a weird couple of days. Let’s go.”
And so we do.
On the way, I leave the logistics concerns and itinerary for the upcoming field trips with the front desk clerk. I slip her 1000 won as its Festival! and I had a bulgy pocketful of same. She smiled and quietly said there’s be a surprise waiting for me in my room when I got there.
“Rock, you fucking old hound!”, Dax exclaimed as he punched me lightly on the shoulder. “Taking a dip in the hotel secretarial pool?”
“Dax, you surprise me”, I said in my defense, “I have been, and continue to be, happily married for the last 38 years to the most loving, most intelligent, most well-connected, and most accurate snap-shot with a Glock .380 Automatic I know of.”
“Well, me ol’ mucker”, Dax smiles slyly, “If one has been happily married for 38 years, one must have a little something on the side. Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge, ‘eh, Squire?”
“Oh, nothing like that”, I replied, while waiting the obligatory 30 minutes for the fucking elevator to arrive. “I couldn't break my word to Esme, and not because I don’t believe in a God that will send me to Hell without an electric fan or because it's not the right thing to do. I simply don't want to. A man is only as good as his word; and if he loses that, he loses too much. I couldn’t function without people thinking that I’m square and on the level. My business would crumble to dust. As would my marriage.”
“Yeah, there is that”, Dax agrees, “You say something is going to happen and God damn, it fucking happens. That’s what makes you honest and honestly scary.”
I stare intently at the annunciator that tells me the fucking elevator is stuck on 4 again.
“You’re not mob, are you?” Dax harshly whispers, snickeringly.
I turn to face Dax and smile wistfully.
“
Я с уважением отказываюсь отвечать, потому что я искренне верю, что мой ответ может обвинить меня”, I reply quietly.
“What the hell does that mean?” Dax demands.
“I respectfully decline to answer because I honestly believe my answer might tend to incriminate me”, I calmly reply.
“Oh, look. Bloody elevator’s finally here.” I note and stride aboard.
Dax gets caught up in the tsunami of the crowd and is carried bodily inside. It was so remorseless, he almost lost his grip on his bottle of Dark Rum.
Up on ‘our’ floor, I go to key open my room. Dax is just down the hall and looking around to see what special surprise might show up. I was too tired to wait so I just push in, and see all my field clothes fully laundered, pressed, and either folded or hanging.
Someone broke into my room during the day and committed a compound neatness.
“POUND! Pound! POUND!” Hmm, appears to be someone at my door.
“Yes, Dax?” I said.
“You too?” he fumed, “Everything, cleaned to within an inch if its life. They even polished my bloody field boots.”
“Oh, fuck”, I said and ran to find mine re-pristinized.
“FUCK! FUCK! FUCKITYFUCKFUCK!” I swore. They had polished my field boots and removed the fine years-of-work-to-acquire near-subsurface of the leather’s oil layer. They polished the water-proofing and conditioning out of the leather of our boots.
“OK. OK.”, I said, “Minor emergency. Cool out. I have the solution.”
I toss Dax a small can. It was brown, oily, and claimed to be “Neatsfoot oil”. It was the SPF- 500 of field leathers.
“Go ahead and oil them up with that”, I told Dax, “I’ve got another can, so don’t worry. Use what you need, don’t be shy, but if there’s any left, let me know. I’ll combine ours and offer it to anyone else in the team who had their boots steam-cleaned.”
So, a bit later, I’m sitting on my hotel room’s floor, on several sheets of newspaper, rubbing Neatsfoot Oil into my ancient, multinational size 16 EEE Vasque™ Tracker field boots.
Then there’s a knock at the door.
“It’s open. Enter carefully”, I say aloud.
It’s a bell clerk with a room service cart. On the cart are a bucket of ice, a bowl of sliced limes, I think, several gimlet glasses, some Best Korean ‘Air Koryo’ carbonated citrus drink, and a fresh bottle of “Kaesong” vodka.
“Compliments of the front desk”, the bellman says.
I stand up, tip him a few thousand won, and set a new record in mixology; a fresh brace of drinks in less than 7.3 seconds.
I offer the bellman the lighter one and he accepts with a wide smile.
I say “건배” (geonbae) literally means 'empty glass', which is similar to the expression 'bottom's up'. For you see, my Korean’s coming along a treat.
We clink glasses and send those drinks to the places that they’ll do the best.
The bellman smiles offloads the cart onto the table in my room, shakes my hand, and departs.
I finish my boots, my drink, and my cigar. After another drink or seven, I crater early. Dax was right; it had been a long, weird day.
The next day, Festival! is still going strong, but still no word on the whereabouts of
El Líder Supremo. I find that odd, only slightly interesting, and since it will impact the day’s events zero, I file it away for maybe later use.
I go to the hotel pool around 0530 and there’s no one there. I’m able to get in a good 100 laps, unburdened with either small talk or by yammering kids blocking my lanes. I go early as I don’t wear gloves in the water, obviously. Statistically, there is less chance there will be others, adults and kids included, that would get freaked out by my gnarly left hand. I really don’t feel like recounting the old Russian Rig Accident story again.
After a brisk shower and double shower-scotch back in my room, I dress casually and wander down to the casino and bar level. It’s essentially breakfast time, but with the revelers not giving two hoots to AM vs. PM, it’s surprisingly busy. I find a perch up on Mahogany Ridge and order a classical breakfast cocktail of one liter of beer and 100 milliliters of chilled vodka.
I see Mr. Ho is manning the bar. I ask him to ring the massage parlor down the hall and see if Ms. Nang Bo-Hee is free sometime this morning.
He does and reports that she has an open hour and a half at 0900. Would I like it or any portion of that time?
“I’ll take the lot”, I said. “Tell them I’ll be there spot on 0900.”
“That’s great.”, Mr. Ho says, hanging up the phone, “Doctor Rock, they tell me that with the Festival discount and you taking the full 90 minutes, they can cut you a very special deal.”
“I’ll bet”, I replied, “Like what?”
“Oh, I cannot say for they did not tell me”, he smiled, “They will tell you when you arrive.”
“Marvelous”, I exhaled tiredly. “Another, Mr. Ho; make it a double, if you would please.”
The massage center here is run by a group not employed directly by the hotel. It’s a separate entity altogether. They run specials and have different discount programs that are not only not controlled nor advertised by the hotel, but they’re also not in any way beholden to the hotel, except for rent, I suppose and run it like their own little fiefdom.
Ms. Nang, my preferred masseuse, is a little, tiny Korean lassie about 5 feet tall and probably all of 90 pounds soaking wet. However, she is amazingly well trained and could probably put me in the hospital for a lengthy visit with her wiles and methods of flesh, bone, and muscle manipulation.
She offers a whole suite of different massage genres: Swedish, hot stone, aromatherapy, deep tissue, sport, trigger point, reflexology, shiatsu, Thai, and Rolfing.
Oh, fuck. I know Rolfing. I tried that nonsense back in grad school with an old east Indian lady that could have linebackered for the Minnesota Vikings. That shit fucking
hurt. Today, it’d incapacitate me permanently. That’s a definite no-go.
I decide that it’s going to be the Hot Stone-treatment today. A geological-manipulation inquiry.
At 0900 I’m the only client at the massage ‘store’. It’s early, day two of the festival, and people are either sleeping off the previous night’s festivities or too wobbly to even think of partaking in a massage.
I’ve had several major back surgeries over the years, including one bilateral laminectomy about seven years ago that removed 7.5
kilos of overgrown bone and muscle from my lumbar region, so I’ve been very cautious about soliciting a massage. The masseuse has to know that area is strictly
verboten and will do everything to avoid annoying that particular piece of bodily real-estate.
I’ve walked or limped out of massages before where the practitioner said they understood my reticence, but went ahead and kneaded and provoked that land of keloids and deep-body scar tissue.
However, based on past experience, Ms. Nang knows full well my reluctance as well as my desires. That’s the reason I’m returning. She’s very, very good; a consummate professional and has a never-ending series of jokes and observations while she’s pummeling you into submission.
Today, we retire to a private cubicle and she hands me a small robe or napkin, not sure which, of Korean manufacture.
She tells me to get
au natural and to wear the robe while she prepares the tools of her trade.
OK, I’m not a small person; not by a long shot. This robe, however, is made for a sprite, not even for a small person.
She returns to our massage cubicle as I’m sitting there, at the end of the massage table, sipping my drink clad only in my dapper red-and-white checkered boxers.
“You need to be unclothed, Doctor. Use the robe. OK, sir Rock?” she says.
“Ms. Nang,”, I said, shaking my head, “It’s one or the other.” I show her how laughable the robe is as I can’t even get it over my upper arm. It’s not even as a tea towel when it comes to covering my expansive acres of exposed epidermis.
“I can close door.”, she says, “I’m used to it. I am professional. Does not bother me if it does not bother you.”
I lost all forms of bashfulness, timidity, or prudery long, long ago. After years and years of Russian
banya, Swedish massage, Turkish baths, and surgery; well, if it don’t bother you, it don’t bother me.
“OK”, I say, using the robe as a small two-dimensional breechcloth. She tells me to ‘hop’ up on the massage table and lie down, facing the floor.
After chuckling about the fact that I haven’t hopped for decades, I wander over to the nicely padded and extremely clean massage table and lie down. She rearranges the ‘robe’ to cover my backside and tells me to relax. She’ll be right back with the stones.
I’ve never tried this type of massage before, but as a geologist, I must; if for nothing else, progress in the name of science.
Ms. Nang returns with a large parcel consisting of many sizes of steamed stones. They were river-washed and tumbled basalt from the looks of them, all wrapped in a large fuzzy towel.
Now she finds the large towels…
She selects them one by one and places them in ‘special, strategic’ spots on my exposed back. From the lower 2/3rds of the nape of the neck, down the spine, over the fundus mountains, and down the back of each leg.
It’s a warm, almost hot in some places, but not an uncomfortable feeling. She returns to adjust them, grind them in a bit in places, and flip them to extract all that igneous lithological thermal goodness.
I have to admit, at that point, it was feeling quite delightful. Relaxed; I had my drink and was being kneaded My dorsal musculature was being de-lithified by the application of hot rocks and expert point massage.
All was going quite well as Ms. Nang was building a huge tip in her ‘job well done’ bank.
Then the rocks had all attained room temperature. She excused herself to reload with another minor outcrop’s-worth and told me to flip over for round two of the process.
“In for a dime, in for a dollar”, I said, as I flipped over and use the robe as a laughable forward-facing breechcloth.
Ms. Nang mentioned that she was always fascinated by Westerners and their surplus of bodily fuzz. With my long, shoulder-length silver hair, full Grizzly Adams beard that drooped down to my sternum, and torso that picked up where my beard left off; she was quite unprepared to see the beached silver-gray panda that awaited upon her return.
“Dr. Rock!’, she exclaimed, “You are as a bear! So much hair. And silver color!”
“Yeah, sorry”, I replied, “Just the hand genetics dealt me. I guess it’s an adaptation for ethanol-fueled organisms that never feel cold.”
“I will soon return.” She titters excitedly and almost runs out of the room.
“Hmmm. I wonder what that’s all about?” I muse as I lie largely undraped in the massage cubicle.
Suddenly, the door bursts open and every female massage practitioner there herded into the room. They simply had to see the specimen upon which the delightful Ms. Nang was working.
OK, truth be told, I was a bit taken aback. Here I am lying on an elevated, and heavily padded, massage table. I’m ‘wearing’ only a crooked, worried grin and a sheet of a cotton washcloth that measures about 12x12 inches.
They Oohed! and Ahhhed!
I did feel like some form of an alien animal suddenly thrust out into public view. It was a bit disconcerting, but as usual, I just tried to deflect any unease with jokes and idiot remarks. At my age, not much is going to bother me, and this I found all the more laughable than troubling.
Suddenly, I was fielding their barrage of questions:
“You are American? All American men so…hairy?”
“Yes and no”, I replied. I also mentioned I hadn’t undertaken a study in that particular subject.
“Why you so big?” one tiny lass asked, eyes as big as dinner plates.
“Genetics”. I replied. “Just a corn-fed Baja Canadian doofus. We grow ‘em big back home.”
“Can we touch?” one particularly brave little lass asks.
“Touch what?” I asked. Look, I might be over 6 decades old, but there are still some areas reserved for my one and only betrothed.
I did tell Esme of this whole event later that evening during our nightly call. She laughed herself silly.
“Your beard! Oriental men never have such beard. We touch maybe?” she implored.
I was going to say “Go nuts”, but I decided that a simple “Sure” would be more fitting.
So they did. They were enthralled. They had never before, from what I was told, seen such a large silver-gray ZZ Top-style beard, especially here at the hotel. That part was weird enough, but when they started in on working their way south toward the equator, I had to say something to dissuade them.
“Where were you girls 45 years ago?” I laughed.
I don’t think they got the joke. They became somewhat bolder in their austral exploratory activities.
“OK! Time out! Ms. Nang! We have an appointment to keep”, I said as I shooed the rest of the lassies away, “We need to finish what we started.”
By the time that the third syllable of that last sentence came into being, I knew it wasn’t the right thing to say.
They all laughed and tittered as Ms. Nang ushered them out of the room. I could have sworn I heard the door lock behind them.
Ms. Nang reprieved her earlier stone placement therapy, with a couple of strategic detours.
She wasn’t that type of masseuse, and I wasn’t looking for that type of massage. She did, however, knead and pummel me mercilessly.
I’ve been bruised less from barroom brawls.
Finally, she announces that she’s finished. She’ll leave while I shower, as she used essential aromatic oils, and would await me out in the lobby.
After showering, I felt like a large bowl of pummeled Jello. I felt relaxed, and for the first time in weeks, my back was silent. My head was clear as a spring Sunday morn in Reykjavik.
The full 90 minutes, plus sideshow, was 4,500 won.
I paid the owner the required sum and handed Ms. Nang an additional 15,000 for a job well done. And for another anecdote that goes into the hopper.
I left the massage parlor feeling quite fine, thank you. I wandered over to the bar to see if I could augment and prolong this feeling of harmony with the universe. The mental picture even now of all those cooing Korean lassies in the massage room never fails to elicit a laugh and head shake.
A few hours later, I’m back in my room, tidying up my field notes and making certain all my paperwork was heavily encoded and up to date. It was, so I placed a number of expensive overseas calls to catch up with everyone on the outside.
I’m thinking of calling room service to have my mini-bar repaired when my room phone rings.
“Now who would be calling me at this hour?” I wondered.
It was the tour group leader. He informed me that the itinerary had been worked out and we’d be leaving tomorrow for the field at 0600. We were to arrive with all our luggage and be prepared to check out. We would spend at least a week in the field, if not two, depending on our results, and be bivouacking in different places in the interior of the country.
I thanked him for the information and said I’d inform the rest of the team. He told me that wouldn’t be necessary as they would come up to or floor, deliver the notice verbally, or by note if they were out of their rooms. If I wanted to later call each participant and ensure they were apprised of the situation, that would be most appreciated.
I assured him I would do so and that we’d be ready, to a man, at 0600 the next day.
I whip up 10 Post-it™ notes and stick one on each member’s door.
“Leaving for the field. Check out 0530. Wheels up 0600. Bring all luggage. Road trip!”
To be continued… submitted by Japanese is a member of the Japonic language family mostly spoken in the Japanese Archipelago. As of 2010, it was spoken by over 125 million people, placing it in the top 15 of the most spoken languages.
History
The first extant evidence of the Japanese language comes from the
Old Japanese period of the language, lasting until the end of the
Nara Period in 794 CE. Older inscriptions do exist, and there are some phonetic transcriptions of Japanese words/names found in old Chinese literature, but the accuracy of these is debatable. Anything from before the Old Japanese period must be based on reconstructions. Some fossilized constructions from Old Japanese are still found in Modern Japanese.
The Middle Japanese period is divided into two time frames:
Early Middle Japanese, which lasted through the
Heian Period (794-1185) and
Late Middle Japanese (1185 - 1600) during the
Kamakura and
Muromachi periods. Late Middle Japanese is subdivided into two periods corresponding to the two periods of Japanese history. It was during Late Japanese period that the first European loan words entered the language, including
pan (bread) and
tabako (originally tobacco, now cigarette), both coming from Portuguese. Late Middle Japanese was also the first form of the language to be described by non-native scholars.
The Middle Japanese period gave way to the
Early Modern Japanese which roughly spans the
Edo period until the Meiji Restoration. Modern Japanese proper emerged after the Meiji Restoration, and continues today.
Linguistics
As a
Japonic language, Japanese is closely related to the
Ryukyuan languages which could have split from Japanese during the
Yamato period.
Japanese was long considered a language isolate before the acceptance of the Ryukyuan languages as separate languages. Since then, it has firmly been linked to them. Other theories link Japanese and Korean, sometimes with the broader Altaic family. These, however, have not garnered wide support
Classification Japanese's full classification is as follows:
Japonic > Japanese
Phonology and Phonotactics Japanese has a five vowel system, /i e a o u/, which contrasts for length, giving a total of 10 vowel phonemes. Japanese has a "pure" vowel system, meaning that there are no diphthongs. The vowels /i/ and often become voiceless when they occur between two voiceless consonants.
Japanese has 16 native vowel phonemes, including two special ones that occur with moras, /N/ mora nasalization and /Q/, geminination. Furthermore, there are 11 other vowel sounds in the language, though these only occur allophonically or as phonemes in loan words.
Japanese does not use a syllabic system for the timing of words, instead using a
mora system. Each mora occupies one rhythmic unit, i.e. it is perceived to have the same time value. Each "regular" mora can consist of a vowel, or a consonant vowel combination, sometimes with a glide before the vowel. The two moraic phonemes can constitute a mora as well. Long vowels constitute two mora, with some analyses introducing a third moraic phoneme, / to constitute this break. A table of all the mora types can be seen below (period representing a mora break).
Japanese has a standard
pitch accent system as well. A word can have one of its moras bearing an accent or not. An accented mora is pronounced with a relatively high tone and is followed by a drop in pitch. The various Japanese dialects have different accent patterns, and some exhibit more complex tonic systems.
| Mora type | Example | Japanese | English | Number of Moras |
| V | /o/ | o 尾 | tail | 1 mora |
| jV | /jo/ | yo世 | world | 1 mora |
| CV | /ko/ | ko 子 | child | 1 mora |
| CjV | /kjo/ | kyo 巨 | hugeness | 1 mora |
| R | / in /kjo. or /kjo.o/ | kyō 今日 | today | 2 moras |
| N | N/ in /ko.N / kon紺 | deep blue | 2 moras | |
| Q | /Q/ in in /ko.Q.ko/ or /ko.k.ko/ | kokko 国庫 | national treasury | 3 moras |
Morphology and Syntax Japanese is an aggulitinative language, and follows a
Subject-Object-Verb word order. The only strict rule of Japanese sentence structure is that the verb must be placed at the end of the sentence, though it can be followed by sentence-ending particles. Japanese is a head-final and left-branching language. Japanese can also be described as a 'topic-prominent' language, a feature which arose during the Middle Japanese period and the subject of the sentence is often omitted unless absolutely necessary to prevent ambiguity or to introduce the topic.
Japanese nouns do not inflect for number or gender, and definite articles do not exist (though the determiners can sometimes be translated as articles). However, Japanese does have several cases, which are expressed by
particles attached to the nouns. These are summarized in the table below:
| Case | Particle |
| Nominative | が (ga) for subject, は (wa) for the topic |
| Genitive | の (no) |
| Dative | に (ni) |
| Accusative | を (wo) |
| Lative | へ (e) |
| Ablative | から (kara) |
| Instrumental | で (de) |
Although many grammars and textbooks mention pronouns (代名詞
daimeishi), Japanese lacks true pronouns. (
Daimeishi can be considered a subset of nouns.) Strictly speaking, pronouns do not take modifiers, but Japanese
daimeishi do: 背の高い彼
se no takai kare (lit. tall he) is valid in Japanese. Interestingly, unlike true pronouns, Japanese
daimeishi do not represent a
closed-class, meaning that new members can be, and are, regularly added. Like other subjects, Japanese deemphasizes personal
daimeishi, which are seldom used. This is partly because Japanese sentences do not always require explicit subjects, and partly because names or titles are often used where pronouns would appear in a translation. Furthermore, Japanese only has one reflexive
daimeishi, with uses much different to English reflexives.
Japanese verbs do not conjugate for person or number, meaning the same form of the verb is used regardless of the subject of the sentence. However, they do conjugate differently based on the level of politness required. The basic form of the Japanese verb is the
imperfective aspect, which can encompass the present or the future and is thus sometimes called a 'non-past' form. It is the lemma of the word, and thus what will be found in the dictionary, and can stand on its own, as in (私は)買い物する
(watashi wa) kaimono suru: "(I) shop", or "(I) will shop".
The
perfective aspect of a verb generally ends in -ta (or -da), but various phonetic changes are made, depending on the verb's last syllable. This is often presented as a past tense, but can be used in any tense.
To make a verb negative, the -u of the ending generally becomes
-anai, though this changes based on formality in some auxiliary verbs, notably the copula (which has different forms based on formality).
The "
i form" of the verb is formed by changing the
-u to
-i and has a variety of uses including (among others) to form polite verbs when followed by the -ます
-masu ending, to express a wish when followed by the ending -たい
-tai and to express that something is easy or hard when followed by -易い
-yasui or -難い
-nikui.
The
te form of a Japanese verb (sometimes called the "participle", the "gerund", or the "gerundive form") is used when the verb has some kind of connection to the following words. Usages of this form include forming a simple command, in requests (with くれる
kureru and 下さい
kudasai) and to form the progressive tense as an auxiliary. Many other uses of the
te form exist as well.
To form the potential form of the verb, the
-u ending becomes
-eru. This is used to express that one has the ability to do something. Since this is a passive form, what would be a direct object in English is marked with the particle が
ga instead of を
o. For example, 日本語が読める
nihongo ga yomeru: "I can read Japanese" (lit. "Japanese can be read"). It is also used to request some action from someone, in the exact sense of the English "Can you ... ?", though this would never be used to ask permission, unlike in English.
The general pattern for the passive voice is:
-u becomes
-areru. The passive is used as a general passive, as a 'suffering passive', to indicate that something regretful was done to someone, or as a form of polite language.
The causative forms are characterized by the final
u becoming
aseru for consonant stem verbs, and
ru becoming
saseru for vowel stem verbs. This form is used for making someone do something, allowing someone to do something, with explicit actors making someone do something as well as as an honorific form.
The causative passive form is obtained by first conjugating in the causative form and then conjugating the result in the passive form. As its rule suggests, the causative passive is used to express causation passively: 両親に勉強させられる
ryōshin ni benkyō saserareru: "(I) am made to study by (my) parents".
The eba provisional conditional form is characterized by the final
-u becoming
-eba for all verbs (with the semi-exception of
-tsu verbs becoming
-teba). This form is used in conditionals where more emphasis is on the condition than the result as well as to express obligations.
The conditional
ra form (also called the past conditional) is formed from the past tense (TA form) by simply adding
ra.
ba can be further added to that, which makes it more formal. This form is used when emphasis is needed to be placed on the result and the condition is less uncertain to be met. 日本に行ったら、カメラを買いたい。
nihon ni ittara, kamera wo kaitai: "If (when) I go to Japan, then (when that has happened) I want to buy a camera." It can also be used as the main clause of the past tense and is often translated as 'when'; when used like this, it carries an emphasis that the result was unexpected.
Most of the imperative forms are characterized by the final
u becoming
e. The imperative form is used in orders, set phrases, reported speech where a request might be rephrased this way, on signs and in motivation speaking.
Volitional, presumptive, or hortative forms have several endings based on the verb class. This form is used to express or ask volitional ("Let's/Shall we?") statements and questions, to express a conjecture (with
deshō), to express what one is thinking of doing (with
omou) and to express 'about to' and 'trying to'.
Japanese does not have traditional adjectives like English, instead expressing adjectives with 'adjectival verbs' or 'adjectival nouns'. Japanese adjectives do not have comparative or superlative inflections; comparatives and superlatives have to be marked periphrastically using adverbs. Every adjective in Japanese can be used in an attributive position. Nearly every Japanese adjective can be used in a predicative position.
Finally, Japanese has many particles. Among the ones already mentioned, with identify the case of the noun, Japanese uses particles to express what would normally be expressed by prepositions in English, but they also have other meanings such as "just" in "I just ate" or "not only" when adding information ("not only did I eat it, but he did too").
Miscellany
- The oldest writing in Japan is in Classical Chinese, though some evidence points to the fact that these texts were supposed to be read as Old Japanese.
- Japan currently has three writing systems: the syllabic systems of hiragana and katakana as well as the logographic system of the kanji. All of these came from borrowings (and then simplification) of Chinese logographs.
- Japanese has had several different methods of adapting the Chinese symbols to their language. Among these are the Kojiki system of mixed writing, Man'yōgana (which hiragana and katakana came from, and is a sister system to modern day kanji).
- Hiragana first gained popularity among women, who were generally not allowed access to the same levels of education as men. And thus hiragana was first widely used among court women in the writing of personal communications and literature. From this comes the alternative name of onnade (女手) "women's writing". For example, The Tale of Genji and other early novels by female authors used hiragana extensively or exclusively.
- Japanese was traditionally written right to left, top to bottom.
Samples
Spoken sample:
Written sample:
すべての人間は、生まれながらにして自由であり、かつ、尊厳と権利と について平等である。人間は、理性と良心とを授けられており、互いに同 胞の精神をもって行動しなければならない。
Edit: Original sample below
むかし、 むかし、 ある ところ に おじいさん と おばあさん が いました。 おじいさん が 山（やま） へ 木（き） を きり に いけば、 おばあさん は 川（かわ） へ せんたく に でかけます。 「おじいさん、 はよう もどって きなされ。」 「おばあさん も き を つけて な。」 まい日（にち） やさしく いい あって でかけます。
ある日（ひ）、 おばあさん が 川 で せんたく を して いたら、 つんぶらこ つんぶらこ もも が ながれて きました。 ひろって たべたら、 なんとも おいしくて ほっぺた が おちそう。 おじいさん にも たべさせて あげたい と おもって、 「うまい もも こっちゃ こい。 にがい もも あっちゃ いけ。」 と いったら、 どんぶらこ どんぶらこ でっかい もも が ながれて きました。 おばあさん は よろこんで、 もも を いえ に もって かえりました。
ゆうがた おじいさん が 山 から もどって きました。 「おじいさん、 おじいさん、 うまい もも を ひろった で めしあがれ。」 おばあさん が きろう と したら、 もも が じゃくっ と われ、 ほぎゃあ ほぎゃあ
男（おとこ） の あかんぼう が とびだしました。 「こりゃあ たまげた。」 「なんちゅう げんき な あかんぼう だ。」 ふたり は あわてて おゆ を わかす やら きもの を さがす やら。
(Excerpt from a traditional Japanese story)
Sources
- Wikipedia articles on Japanese
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Mongolian II submitted by What's up?
The previous 2 posts (
P1 and
P2) have been a tiny little bit more theoretical than I expected, as I needed to introduce you the 3 verb forms and the 3 conjugations Evra has. And yes, Human Beings have a thing for the number 3: the perfect number, the Holy Trinity, the Hindu Trimurti, the Three Jewels of Buddhism, the Triple Goddess of Wicca, and... the Chinese Triad 🤔. But that's for another topic... in another subredit 🤣
Today, we will get our hands dirty with the first tense of the Indicative mood: the
Present Indefinite.
-|- Present Indefinite: usage... and why? -|- Let me begin by saying that the
Indicative mood in
Evra has no specific marker at all, and that's why we can deal with its tenses directly without bothering too much on what this mood is for. I call them 'tenses', because this is their
traditional name, but keep in mind that an Evra's
tense (in its broader sense) is always a
mix of a
grammatical tense (~ the
when's) and a
grammatical aspect (~ the
how long's).
Specifically, the Present Indefinite has a wide range of uses, and indicates:
- intentions and plans in a near future (e.g., Tomorrow, I*'m going to buy* some fruits at the market)
- actions and events occurring while speaking (e.g., She can't answer you at the phone now, she*'s eating*)
- actions and events occurring regularly or habitually (e.g., I take the train each morning)
- actions and events occurring in the past (historical present) (e.g., In 1848, Spring of Nations spreads across Europe)
- acquired skills (e.g., I speak Evra fluently (😍... not 😭))
- universal facts or common knowledge (gnomic aspect) (e.g., Birds fly, roses are red, and Evra is a conlang)
Why '
Indefinite'? Because the idea that lies behind this 'tense' is
not to provide a specific time frame for the action, event, or state expressed by the verb. In a sense, the Present Indefinite
can extend forward, towards a certain and planned future, as well as
backwards into the habits, into the history, and even taking on a universal connotation. And since this tense does not give you a
precise time frame, it is
indefinite, that is 'without definitions, without limits, without barriers'.
Naturally, Evra also has a
Present Definite, which will be the topic of the next post.
-|- Present Indefinite: -àr verbs... and why? -|- Below the endings:
Example, with the verb
falàr ('to speak'):
- ò falo - "I speak"
- du, el, s-el, la, se-la, i, mon, sa, er fale - "you, he/it, he, she/it, she, it (impers.), one, it/this/that, you (pl.) speak(s)" (kind of many pronouns, isn't it? 🤣)
- vi, si, Si falem - "we, they, you (form.) speak"
And yes, I did it, guys 'n' girls. I'm truly guilty of the worst sin a conlanger can ever commit! With the first verb form of Evra... I... I..., yes, I admit it, I have to say it,... I...
I RELEXED!!! Because
io mangio pizza, parlo e canto e studio in italiano! And so, I've given up to the sweetest of the temptations, me helpless before the Supreme God of Cerebral Death and Creativity Suffocation: the almighty
Relex-no-kami-sama! (traditional Japanese gong in background)
Unless, though, the first person ending in
-o is a Latin thing, actually. In fact, Italian share this
-o with Spanish and Portuguese (and surprisingly Greek, too), and so I didn't 'technically' relexed in the real sense, but still I felt a kind of discomfort in having allowed my native language to leak into Evra. That's why, in order to compensate that, I've picked up
-e as the
2F, because it's a vowel in which many Germanic words end, even though it's not specific to any Germanic verb inflections.
Finally, -
em can be analyzed as
2F +
-m. In origin,
-m was
-n to be honest, but there were a few issues with other tenses and stuff, so I've finally opted for
-m. In addition, an /m/ sound can also be found in the third person plural forms of Romance verbs (IT:
noi parliamo, PT:
nòs falamos, ES:
nosotros hablamos), as well as Greek (EL: μιλούμε,
miloùme), and so Evra
vi falem ("we talk") vaguely resembles those forms.
-|- Present Indefinite: -ìr verbs... and why? -|- Below the endings:
Example, with the verb
rundìr ('to turn'):
- ò rundi - "I turn"
- du, etc... rundi - "you, etc... turn(s)"
- vi, si, Si rundim - "we, they, you (form.) turn"
The
-i ending is just
mnemonic here, since this verb class' Infinitive mood ends in -
ìr already. And the
3F is but the
2F +
-m, just as it happens with
-àr verbs. Also, as you can notice, unlike
-àr verbs , the
1F and the
2F of
-ìr verbs is the same.
-|- Present Indefinite: -en verbs... and why? -|- Below the endings:
- 1F: -er
- 2F: -er
- 3F: ◦̀ -em
Example, with the verb
strengen ('to make strict; to make fix; to make strong'):
- ò strenger - "I turn"
- du, etc... strenger - "you, etc... turn(s)"
- vi, si, Si strèngem - "we, they, you (form.) turn"
The
1F and the
2F end in the same -
er ending. In an earlier stage of Evra, it was
-e only actually, but I've changed because it was too similar to
-àr verbs. Since I was running out of vowels that I could use, I've taken inspiration from the present tense of Swedish verbs, and given that
-en verbs recalls of German Infinitive already, I thought that a
-er was fitting the 'Germanic theme' of this verb class.
This symbol
◦̀ (which is the white bullet with a combining grave accent) before the
3F has a particular use in Evra. It serves to indicate that the vowel in the stressed syllable of the root will get a grave accents. And the grave accent in Evra marks the word stress.
In the Present Indefinite form, it is not really evident, though, but all -en verbs are largely
proterokinetic. This weird term I've stolen from PIE terminology simply means that the stress moves away from its usual position and backwards toward the root. If this doesn't make sense to you, the Present Definite in the next post will make this
proterokinetic thing much more clear. For now, you may wonder why have I added this
protero-thing to Evra. Well, the first reason is, as said, that I was running out of vowels to play with, and also because of the
co-radicals.
As said in the previous post, the same root word can belong to all the 3 conjugations, and I needed there were no overlaps between these endings, for clarity's sake.
Compare:
- strengàr ("to grab, grasp, clasp, hold firmly") - strengo, strenge, strengem
- strengìr ("to tighten firmly") - strengi, strengi, strengim
- strengen ("to make sb firm, tight, narrow, strict, sever, intense, strong") - strenger, strenger, strèngem
As you can see, even though there is no difference in the pronunciation of
strengem ("we/they grasp") and
strèngem ("we/they make (it) firm, tight, etc..."), there is still a graphical difference in how they are written. This is because, you can actually ask the person you're talking with if you don't understand something, while you can't do it with, say, a book, and that's why I've chosen the grave accent as a solution.
-|- How can this be useful to me? -|- First off, stay short!
If you focus on
naturalistic features, natural languages with an average inventory of sounds have very short endings for their verbs, especially if those endings do not have to codify many info at the same time and if those forms are used very, very often. It may indeed happen that some natural language has endings with many syllables, but they often codify more than one info at the time (e.g., take Japanese, its -masu form is 2-syllable long, sure, but it codifies both tense and politeness; the 'true' present tense in Japanese is -u, which is almost never used if not as a dictionary form).
Second, stay simple!
Forms that are used very, very often are smoothed, leveled, or toned down (I don't know which English verbs sound better here). Consonant clusters and diphthongs may tend to reduce in sounds that are easier to say, and that requires less mouth movements overall. Even though it may sound odd to you, /k g/ requires slightly more effort to pronounce than /t d/ do, because the muscles of your throat are involved in the first pair, but the second pair use just just the tip of your tongue. And because of this, /t d/ and other coronal and liquid sounds (/s z r n l ʒ ʃ/ etc...) can be found more easily as verb endings. Something like /ˈojnktə/ as a first person singular present indicative sounds plain wrong, because the mouth moves just too much for something as simple as a present tense.
Third, be creative!
Even though we may choose to deal with an inflected conlang, this does not mean we
have to use suffixes for
everything. In Evra, I move the stress around to give words different functions. Germanic languages make use of the
umlaut, to turn vowels into others and create new tenses and the plural form of some words. So, say, you can make the verb
àki /'aki/ to mean "I do" and
akì /a'ki/ "I did" or "I will do", or whatever.
And that's it!
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Next: Present Definite
Conjugation. Vocabulary. Grammar. Premium. Log in Sign up English to Spanish. Spanish to English. sé. Add to list. I know. Dictionary. Examples. Pronunciation. Thesaurus. sé (seh) A phrase is a group of words commonly used together (e.g once upon a time). phrase. 1. (I have knowledge) a. I know. Sé que eres tímido y que no te gusta hablar en público. I know that you're shy and you don't You can look up Swedish verb conjugation when you are not sure about the different persons or cases and you can also use the bab.la Swedish verb conjugation search by letter to learn new Swedish verb conjugation. When you hear a Swedish verb and you don't know the Swedish verb conjugation it is also very helpful when you write it down and look it up it in the bab.la Swedish verb conjugation Non poemos analizar con pormenoris estis siglos, pero tampoco se debi toleral que, sin fundamentus, se poña en duda algo que a Historia documentá nos lega sobre nossa terra. We can’t thoroughly analyse these centuries, but one mustn’t tolerate that, unfoundedly, something documented history tells us about our land be questioned. 'se' conjugation - Swedish verbs conjugated in all tenses with the bab.la verb conjugator. Swedish Verb . se upp (present ser upp, preterite såg upp, supine sett upp, imperative se upp) watch out. Se upp för det där hålet i marken. Watch out for the hole in the ground. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see se, upp. Conjugation . Conjugation of se upp (class 5 strong) Active Passive Infinitive se upp: ses upp: Supine sett upp: setts upp: Imperative se upp Cite this page. Harvard Referencing: Verbix 2021, Swedish verb 'se' conjugated, Verbix, viewed 28 Jan 2021, <http://www.verbix.com/webverbix/Swedish/se.html> APA The Swedish nouns are divided into two genders, neuters (n) and common genders (r). In most cases, you can't tell whether a noun is a neuter or a common gender. You'll simply have to memorize the gender for each noun you learn. However, there are a few rules, with help of which you'll easier remember it. One of them tells that all nouns having to do with people or professions are common gender. Fördjupa dig i svenska språket. Har du frågor om språk? Svar på språkfrågor om skrivregler, grammatik, uttal, stavning, dialekter, ortnamn och mycket annat finns i Språkrådets frågelåda. Close. My dashboard; Pages; Verbs; By Instructure Open source LMS User research Böjning av verbet 'se' - Svenska verb böjda efter alla tempus med bab.la Verbböjningar.
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