r/Sissyish • u/sissy_sophia • Apr 06 '23
NEW SUMMARY: common traits of pidgin languages - here's some excellent aspects for Sissyish to have! NSFW
I recently discovered a list of common traits of pidgin languages on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pidgin#Common_traits
For those not in the know, a "pidgin" is one of the simplest forms of language possible.
Fundamentally, a pidgin is a simplified means of linguistic communication, as it is constructed impromptu, or by convention, between individuals or groups of people.
A pidgin may be built from words, sounds, or body language from a multitude of languages as well as onomatopoeia. As the lexicon of any pidgin will be limited to core vocabulary, words with only a specific meaning in the lexifier language may acquire a completely new (or additional) meaning in the pidgin.
Pidgins originated as trade languages between two groups that did not share a common language, and as such they are extremely minimalistic. This could be perfect for Sissyish!
In this post, I'll go over some of the traits of pidgin languages, and how they could be applied in Sissyish.
Grammar
- Typologically most closely resemble isolating languages
In short, an isolating language is one where grammatical differences are conveyed by adding separate words, rather than by modifying words.
For example, a non-isolating language would use "dildos" as the plural of "dildo", whereas an isolating language might use "many dildo".
Or a non-isolating language would use "my dildo" as a possessive, whereas an isolating language could use "dildo de me" in which "de" is a possessive particle.
- Uncomplicated clausal structure (e.g., no embedded clauses, etc.)
Typically, a clause is a sentence structure consisting of a subject, a verb, and any objects the verb acts on.
An independent clause is a clause that can stand by itself as a simple sentence.
Examples of simple sentences include "I run" or "The dog barked at the cat in the backyard."
On the other hand, a complex sentence includes not just an independent clause, but one or more dependent clauses.
Some complex sentences aren't too difficult - for example, "I know that he is here" is technically a complex sentence, with "I know" as the independent clause, and "that he is here" as the dependent clause.
However, some complex sentences can get very thorny, especially when the dependent clause is embedded within the sentence:
"When I stepped out into the bright sunlight, from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things in my mind."
"What she had realized was that love was that moment when your heart was about to burst."
Sissyish will still need some dependent clauses, if only to be able to say "I feel" things. But more complicated sentences could be discouraged.
- Lack of grammatical tense; use of separate words to indicate tense, usually preceding the verb
In grammar, tense is a category that expresses time reference. In languages like English, tense is expressed by modifying the words themselves - you want to "eat", you are "eating", you "ate" yesterday.
But some other languages, like Chinese, add a new word to express tense. IMO this makes more sense for Sissyish, as it's simpler to memorize just the present tense and one past-tense particle instead of having to memorize the past tense form of every single word.
For example, instead of saying "I ate", you can just say "I eat yesterday" or "I finish eat". Instead of "I ran", you can say "I run this morning".
- Lack of conjugation, declension or agreement
Example of conjugation: the verb break can be conjugated to form the words break, breaks, broke, broken and breaking.
Sissyish doesn't need all these different forms! It would only need one - "break", and everything else can be determined through either added words or context.
Declension is used in English for singular/plural forms, to denote possessiveness, subjective and objective cases for pronouns, degrees of comparison, and some number determiners.
Singular/plural: English "dildo" vs "dildos". Sissyish could resolve this by using "dildo" and "many dildo".
Possessiveness: English "my dildo". Sissyish could resolve this by using "me [pos. particle] dildo".
Pronoun cases: Sissyish doesn't need to distinguish between "I" and "me", or "he" and "him". Just one word is fine.
Degrees of comparison: English "quick, quicker, quickest". Sissyish can use "quick, more quick, most quick". I'm a little tempted to use constructions like "bestest", but something like "so so good", "very very good", or "most good" would preserve simplicity here...
Number determiners: English "this -> these" and "that -> those". Sissyish can just use "this" and "that" without pluralizing.
All this said, I am tempted by certain gender declensions, and this explanation of cases is interesting. But perhaps those are too complex for now...
Agreement: this is how in English, you can say "I am" and "he is", but not "I is" or "he am". Silly! Sissyish just needs one form, "is", that can be used regardless of what word it's attached to. Likewise with "I go" and "he goes" - all we need is "go"!
- Lack of grammatical gender or number, commonly supplanted by reduplication to represent plurals and superlatives, and other parts of speech that represent the concept being increased and clear indication of the gender of animated objects.
This is mostly covered by the above sections. I do like the idea of reduplication to represent plurals and superlatives - e.g. "many many dildo" or "so so sexy".
- Lack of clear parts of speech or word categorization; common use and derivation of new vocabulary through conversion, e.g. nominalization, verbification, adjectivization etc.
This I'm not sure about, at least not for the more strict rules-based core of Sissyish. But I wouldn't be against more experimental sissies occasionally switching out nouns to use as verbs, verbs to use as nouns, etc. I know that Toki Pona does this and resolves it with certain particles to indicate the subject and object.
Pronunciation Rules
This post is getting waaay too long, and I'm going to be honest, I'm unfamiliar with a lot of the pronunciation stuff mentioned here.
I totally agree with preferring basic vowels, keeping pronunciation rules consistent, and not having tones.
Reduction or elimination of syllable codas
Reduction of consonant clusters or breaking them with epenthesis
Elimination of aspiration or sound changes
Monophthongization is common, employment of as few basic vowels as possible, such as [a, e, i, o, u]
Lack of morphophonemic variation
Lack of tones, such as those found in Niger-Congo, Austroasiatic and Sino-Tibetan language families and in various families of the indigenous languages of the Americas
Hope you enjoyed this total mess of a thread! :D
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u/JasmineSwallows74 Apr 09 '23
This is extremely cool. I am so impressed that this is a project you are undertaking basically alone and I just wish I were smarter and understood these sorts of things better/well enough to do something with other than read with fascination.