2015/8/1 seren arbazard

Kal

Arka has many words for indefinite quantity such as foni (1-60 seconds), ask (1-5 minutes), liset (5-30 minutes). They means a length of time.
It also has some words for numbers. Such as tiu (1 or 2), fou (2 or 3).

Adults can easily understand how liset is long by consulting dk (diaklel, Arka dictionary).
But children don’t consult the dictionary. They know it’s easier to ask grown-ups than to consult the dictionary.

When Ridia ordered Luxia to wait for a minute saying “vat du ask”, she asked “ak ask et fil?” (How long is “soon”?).
Ridia told her it took 1-5 minutes. Yult, then, said “nou isk vil melk” (I don’t understand the clock). Luxia was so bright that she could easily understand the clock, taught him how to count.

Words such as liset, ask were OK, but kal (a little) was a troublemaker.

Arka has 9 words for indicating degrees such as tin (much, very) and kal (a little).
No one knows how many (much) is kal.
When Ridia said “vat du kal” (Wait a minute), Luxia asked “ak kal et fil?”
Ridia thought for a while, answered “3 via fei” (about three minutes). Luxia always started counting watching the clock.

One day, Luxia asked when they come to Japan.
Ridia answered “xi kal” (after a bit). Then she counted 3 minutes by the clock and started to cry “vi fei ik rak. kor xiit parm!” (3 minutes has past. Let’s go to Japan!).
Ridia explained “tu “kal” eks fou sel e” (This time, kal means a few days).
Luxia got angry and yelled “son ak kal et fil a! tyu rensat kal et 3 fei sete!” (Then how long is kal! You said kal was 3 minutes!)

Ridia couldn’t say anything back and Mel was laughing at Luxia saying “Ouais, t’a raison” (“Yeah, you’re right” in French).

How Far is Japan?

There were at least 2 parks near their home in France.
One day, Luxia said “non kor lan sokl flon” (I want to go to the far park).
Then Yult said “le sokl te flon. parm et flon” (That park isn’t far from our house. Japan is far from our house).

We had taught “Japan is far from France while Turkey is not”
They couldn’t understand why the far park was far while Turkey was near though actually Turkey is farther than the far park.

I told them “xalt kad, parm et flon kont xalt sokl, sokl flon et flon. tea kalt kad, sokl io et frem tisee” (For countries, Japan is far while for parks, the far park is far. If it were for countries, Both parks wouldn’t be far).

Thank You

It’s so natural that parents take care of their children. For children, it’s too natural to say thank you to their parents.
Yult and Luxia had no friends so that they didn’t need to say thank you to anybody.

We decided to have them say thank you.
There was, however, a trouble; Arka had many equals to “thank you”.

If you ask somebody to do something, then you should say “seere”. If you appreciate somebody’s action or behavior, then you should say “sentant”. “sent is the short form of sentant.
If you put “an-” to them, they’ll be more polite: i.e. ansent is more polite than sent.

The twins found it difficult that they distinguished seere from sent.
At first, they learn seere. Babies ask everything to their parents. After taking care of them, we told them “ku seere” (Say thank you).

Luxia hated green peppers while Yult didn’t. He liked to eat.
One day, Luxia didn’t eat some pieces of green pepper. Yult looked at her plate, asked her if she wouldn’t eat them. After her nodding, Yult ate them behalf of her, then she said seere.
Ridia told her she should’ve said sent instead of seere because she didn’t ask him to eat them. Luxia understood the difference between seere and sent.

Logical

For Arbans (people in Arbazard or just Arka users), it’s very important to be logical (axma, in Arka).

I heard Luxia said axma.
One day, Ridia bought a loaf of bread and gave it to them, Yult tore it into 2 same-sized pieces, and gave one of two to Luxia. At that time, Luxia stared her piece and said axma.
I thought this axma meant not only logical but also fair.

Another day, Mel gave a piece of cake to them, Yult cut it apart with a spoon, but the 2 pieces weren’t the same in the size.
Luxia looked at them, gave the bigger half to Yult saying “tyu nod non et kai ento tyu xen ax kain fein, axma?” (You’re bigger than me, so you’re gonna eat the bigger half, it’s logical, right?)
Yult accepted her offer saying “axma”.

Computer

Luxia hated playing outside because French kids always picked her on.
She loved playing inside watching animes on the Internet. She didn’t have a PC, used Mel’s PC. Mel loved watching BBS, blogs, Youtube, Nico Nico Douga and playing video games. She was always on her PC when not taking care of the twins.
Mel felt Luxia was a nuisance to her when using her own PC, so she asked Ridia to buy a new computer for Luxia.

Ridia agreed with Mel and bought a brand-new computer.
Using her PC, Luxia became very intelligent. She even gave me an E-mail by herself.

Arban

A life of children of mixed race is very hard. I, myself, was often asked by a person I met first like “your parent’s a foreigner?”
In Japan, foreigners are a bit rare so people ask me if I’m of a mixed race.

When I was little, I was watching a soccer game on the telly. Of course I rooted for the Japanese team. Then one of my classmates shouted “You don’t have the right to support it cos you’re of mixed race, I mean, not Japanese!”
I was very shocked at his shout, quit rooting for Japanese teams.
Ridia and Mel are of mixed race, too. They were bullied by local children, too when they were little.

Of course Yult and Luxia are of mixed race, too. They don’t look like a Turkish or a French. What was worse, they couldn’t speak Turkish or French at first, so they couldn’t make friends.

One day, Luxia asked me “kad lenan et to?”. Its translation is “What is our country?”, but she wanted to say “Which race do I belong to?”.
“ans et arban de” (We’re Arban), said I.
“arban et to,? freinoa” (What’s Arban, Father?)
“There is a country called Arbazard in Kaldia, another world. There people speak Arka, Tiaren, and Nagili. An Arban is a person of Arbazard”.
“So Yuutxan and I are not a Turkish or a French or a Japanese?”
“No, we’re Arban”
“We cannot go to Arbazard because it is in Kaldia?”
“No, we can’t”
And she just said “haizen. But I am proud of being an Arban”

Arka

One day, Luxia asked me who made French. We had already told them Arka was a conlang we made, she thought every language has its creator.

I told them there were natlangs and conlangs in the world and most people grew up with a natlang like French. I was afraid she’d be angry with us crying “Why didn’t you teach me French!? Nobody speaks Arka in the world! It’s so useless!”

Contrary to my expectation, she looked very happy saying “You are great, Father. I respect you who made a language. I am very proud of speaking Arka”.
And she said “That is why nobody speaks Arka on the television or the Internet”.

Around 4, thanks to education by Ridia, Luxia spoke very politely. She even called me “Father”.

Too Useful Ar

Arka has a useful word “ar”. It means “do”, “activate”, “turn on”, “use”, “work” and so on.
Thanks to the word, you don’t have to memorize a bunch of collocations. “To turn on the telly” is “ar teik”. “To smoke” is “ar yas”. “To turn on the light” is “ar pam”. “To do homework” is “ar rafel”.

Ar is so useful that the twins overused the word like “ar erx” (to take a bath). It should be “non erx” (I take a bath).
She said “ar lei” (to read the book) but it should be “non isk lei”.

Yult clang to Mel grabbing her breasts like a koala. And he said “ar mam” (*to breast). It should be “noa bikes mam” (I’m grabbing her breasts).

One day, Luxia was eating lunch.
“What are you doing?” asked I. Then “non aror hat” (“I’m doing the plate”, literally).
Yult was waiting for Luxia who was still eating. When she finished eating, he said to her “ar hat”. I didn’t understand what he was saying because she had already eaten her lunch. There was nothing left on her plate. But Luxia said “ya” (Yeah), took the plate to the kitchen.

A few minutes later, she came back to the webcam. I asked what she was doing in the kitchen. She replied “arat hat” (I did the plate). I was very surprised at her reply. I hadn’t written anything in the collocation between “ar” and “hat”. They, however, made collocations by themselves freely. They, the native speakers made collocations voluntarily!

Moreover, the meaning of ar changed every time according to situations.
“Ar hat” could be “to dig in the plate” or “to wash the plate”.

For grown-ups, overuse of ar wasn’t good. It’s a bit sloppy or untidy.
We told them “ren ku “olx hat” ist “ar hat”” (Please say “to wash the dish” instead of “to do the dish”). And all I got from my second son was the familiar word; “total” (Whatever)!

I’m Proud of My Girl

One day, Luxia told me what happened that day, she was picked on by children in the neighborhood.

She said to me, “Anyway, every word I said back to them was words of Arka which is your language, Father”.
I was very proud of my girl.

THE END

2015/7/11 seren arbazard

Mystery on Verbs

I was completely OK with their understanding of verbs with movement like “lad” (make), “lef” (run), “left” (jump). They learned these words when playing.
But I didn’t know why they could learn verbs without movement like tiia (love), siina (like), na (feel). Probably they learned these words via a lot of sentences somehow.

We, grown-ups, also learn an unknown word in a sentence. We just guess its meaning in the sentence.
Like we do, children probably guess the meaning of the word in the sentence.

Negative Interrogative

When the twins were 3, they couldn’t distinguish interrogative from negative interrogative.
When I asked “ti en siina hog?” (Don’t you like green peppers?), Luxia answered “ax” (Yes) while Yult answered “tee” (No).

In Arka, if you hate green peppers, you have to answer “ax”.
I asked “ti siina hog?” (Do you like green peppers?) to Yult. He answered “tee” again.
I understood he didn’t know how to answer to negative interrogatives.

Say Please

When the twins were around 2, they kept saying “fit bakm” (Give me milk) or just “bakm!” (Milk!).
The parents thought they had to add “ren” (please) or they were rude. So we repeated the sentence “ku “ren fit bakm”” (Say “please give me milk”).

Luxia didn’t obey us, so we ignored her orders.
Then she noticed she had to add “ren” before a verb when she asked something to grown-ups.

Want and May I?

After teaching “ren”, we taught some modality-adverbs (they are part of speech in Arka and like an auxiliary verb).
They had already known “lan” (want to). “lan” is a female form of “lax” (want to), so Yult had to say like “kui lax” (want to eat).

Arka has modality-adverbs like “ris”. It means “don’t want to”, i.e. “kui ris” is “don’t want to eat”.
It’s shorter to say “kui ris” than to say “en kui lax” (don’t want to eat), but they somehow liked the latter way.

We taught them “flen” (May I?). They only said “xen lax (lan) bakm!” (I want to drink milk), but it was a bit rude, I mean, kind of childish and selfish. So we had them say “xen flen bakm?” (May I drink milk?).

Don’t say “total”

“total” is “whatever” in Arka and it’s a very useful word for children, especially for Yult.
When Ridia asked him which did he want to eat for supper, pasta or rice, he just answered “total” (whatever).
He was passive about everything, so he always answered “total” to our questions.

One day, Ridia asked him “Oh, it’s raining, you want to wear a raincoat or walk under an umbrella?” He answered “total”. Ridia was annoyed a bit by his answer, said “ol total, xom tyu en xir io e?” (If you say whatever, you don’t need neither, right?), adding “tu tan et total xel tyu sab sap, hqn?” (It’s also “whatever” that you wear the air, right?)

A Cow and a Liar

When they were 3, Ridia asked them “lilis lax bak?” She meant “Do you want to eat beef for supper?” but Arka doesn’t have numerals, you can’t distinguish “beef” from “a cow”.
They thought mom’ll bring a cow and keep it as a pet. They were very excited and kept saying “ax!” (Yes!).
Ridia didn’t understand why they were so excited.

When having dinner, Luxia asked her “om bak san luna lena e?” (When do you bring a cow?)
Ridia was puzzled and answered “bak tis luna elf lena e” (No cows, why?).
Then Luxia got angry and said “Menteuse!” (Liar in French). She added “tyu rensat “lilis lax bak” ento non rensik “ax”!” (You asked “Do you want a cow?” and I answered “Yes”!).
Ridia realized there was a misunderstanding between them, and said “Non, j’ai dire que « tu veux manger du bœf? »” (In French, No, I said “Do you want to eat beef?”)
She understood the misunderstanding but began to weep because she wanted to keep a cow as a pet.

When I heard the story, I said “You should’ve said bakyek (meat of a cow), not bak (a cow)”.

By the way, why didn’t she say “fie!” (It’s a lie!)? I thought it was because more shocking than “menteuse”. In Kaldia, I mean Arbazard, the greatest country in Kaldia, it’s very bad to tell a lie, so she didn’t call her a liar in Arka.

Dreams

One day, I asked them “tiis em lax to im ik mav?” (What do you want to be when you’re grown up?) Luxia answered “non em lan prikyua alkalt tolis on” (I want to be a Precure until I’m ten).
I laughed and asked “alkalt yuli az malt kok, son im mav?” (Until you’re little, right? So what do you want to be when you become a grown-up?)

She answered nothing.
Then Yult said “noa siina kum xom em lax vals e kum” (I love animals, so I want to be an animal doctor).
Having heard of it, Luxia said “xom non lad lan pita, kea fan tyu, freinoa” (Then I want to make medicines and heal your diseases, father).

I said “You’ve got to enter a grande école in France or Hokkaido University in Japan”.
They answered “I will”.

Not

It was hard for us to teach them “en” (not). In Arka, “en” can be a modifier for any parts of speech.
“en an ke sokl” is “Not I (somebody) go to the park”. “an en ke sokl” is “I don’t go to the park”. “an ke en sokl” is “I go to somewhere except the park”.
The usage of “en” is so logical that adults can easily learn it.

But for native speakers, only the second sentence was acceptable. Instead of “en non” (not I), they tended to say “xe” (somebody).
It was 2011 when they began to use the 1st and 3rd sentences.

When Ridia told off Luxia saying “lala es tyu xenat xivel e yuutxan!” (Why did you eat little Yult’s chocolate!?), she lied saying “tee, non en xenat” (No I didn’t eat it) instead of “tee, en non xenat” (No, not I ate it).

Ridia repeated “en tyu sot? en tyu?” (Not you did? Not you?) I thought that was how Luxia understood the form “en non”.

Foreign Languages

When I broke up with Esta, I wanted to raise our child only with Arka. However, when the twins became 2 years old, I became anxious for their future.
Now there are 6 native speakers of Arka, but it’s not possible for Arka speaker to live without foreign languages, I mean, natlangs.

When they became 2 years old, and had nobody to play with, I had Ridia and Mel teach natlangs, too.
At that time, Japanese was out of our list, but Mel loved to watch animes on the Internet and Luxia was influenced by her, began to watch Japanese animes or play Japanese games.

When she was 2, I heard her sing a Japanese anime (or game, whatever, I don’t care) song saying “ha pi ne su!” That was the first time I heard her speak Japanese.

On January 17th 2011, I met Luxia for the first time in Shinjuku, Japan. Ridia came to Japan with her. She was 3 at that time.
I took them to a Japanese restaurant. There, she ate Janapese dishes for the first time.
There were no equals to “dengakudofu” (a kind of tofu) in Arka.
She hated it and said “non xen rin tu. tu yun bet” (I don’t want to eat it. It’s like mud).
“tu et to?” (What’s this?), said she. “an en ser…” (I don’t know…), answered I. “xom tu et bettan mil tu yun bet” (Then it’s “bettan” because it’s like mud) said she.
On this day, she made some other coinages.

Move to France

In March, 2011, Ridia and her families moved into Lyon, France.
We had already taught French a bit to them.

“arka et les tyu ladat sete,? papa. xom non siina tu nod alyuren e” (You made Arka, didn’t you? So I like Arka better than French” said she.

We were very surprised at her words; “arka et eld le tyu ladat sete? son ne ladat alyuren?” (You made Arka, right? Then who made French?).
In her world, there was no difference between conlangs and natlangs.

Her first French sentence I heard was “Il est tombé” (It fell down).
At first, I didn’t think it was French because she spoke Arka mainly.

Kax Problem

One day, Luxia showed me her diary. One of the sentences was “tu fia et kax kokko veliz” (There’re many bugs all over the world). Kokko is a caser (preposition) of Arka and means “with”. Kax is “be filled”, so “kax kokko” is supposed to be “be filled with”.

But actually kokko means “by using something” or “do something together with somebody”.
If this kax meant “by using bugs” the sentence could mean “The world is filled with something by using bugs.” or if it meant “do something together with somebody”, the sentence could mean “The world is filled with something together with bugs”.
Both ways couldn’t mean “The world is filled with bugs”.

In 2015, faras palt, a user of Arka, nias avelantis and I considered this matter.
To conclude, we agreed with making kax (full) be a new caser.
Kax became a new caser. It meant “be filled with something” or “be full of something”.
So “tu fia et kax veliz” became the proper way.

Arka has much more prepositions than English. There’re more than 100 casers in Arka. And thanks to the casers, people all over the world can communicate with each other without misunderstanding, unlike Esperanto.

2015/5/23 seren arbazard

Dad

Arka didn’t have a word which is equal to the English word “dad”. But in 2008, my 469-day-old girl made her first coinage.
A father is called “kaan” in Arka. At that time, she could call me papa (daddy) so we had her remember the word “kaan” (a father), but she couldn’t pronounce “kaan” and called me “kakka”.
It was interesting for me. I decided kakka meant “dad”. But Ridia somehow didn’t like the word.
In 2012, when I was skyping with 3 Arka users, I told the story to them. Then one of them told me “kakka” meant poop in Finnish. Ridia was born in present Estonia but moved to Finland when she was 1 and lived there by 6. That was why she didn’t like her daughter called me “kakka”.

Anyway, Arka is an a priori conlang, so I didn’t care what “kakka” meant in other languages.

Names

The twin seemed to think my name was papa or kakka. We had to teach them papa or mama were just a role, not a name.
“est e papa et seren” (Dad’s name is Seren) “est tiil et luxia” (Your name is Luxia), said I patiently many times.
Luxia understood our names, each proper noun had their own name. But she couldn’t pronounce my name correctly, saying “seen”.

After that she came to be able to pronounce my name, there was a problem; it is rude to call parents by their name in Arka. We had to have them call us like papa.

She seemed she thought she had a few names because we called her “luxia”, “xia”, “miia” (a sweet daughter) or “miva” (a daughter), I even called her “xianyan” (little Luxia). So she thought she had many names and asked “est tiil et to?” (What’s my name, though it’s a wrong sentense. You have to say “est noan et to?” She thought “tiil” meant “Xia’s”.)

Anyhow “xia” was the most popular way of calling her in our family, she thought “xia” was her name, said “xia bena” (I want to pee).

Pronouns

In 2008, when the twins were 1 year and some months old, Luxia began to understand pronouns of Arka.
Arka has many pronouns which mean “you” and “I”. I called her “ti” (you) while Ridia called her “tyu” (you) and Mel did her “moe” (you).
At that time Luxia thought “ti” “tyu” “moe” were her name, too. But she found that they weren’t her name because I called Ridia “ti”, too. However she didn’t understand what they meant.

The first pronoun she learned was “tuan” (your, yours). When she robbed Yult’s toys, mothers told her off saying “tee, tu te tuan. see tu et tuan” (No, that’s not yours, this one is yours).
Luxia thought “tuan” was mine, pointed her belongings saying “tu et tuan” (This is yours). Parents taught her “rens “tu et noan”” (Say “it’s mine”) again and again until they understand “noan” (my, mine) and “tuan”.

There are plenty of pronouns in Arka. Men usually call themselves “an” (I) while girls do “non” (I). In our family, only Yult, my father-in-law and I were male, so most members of our family would talk with Yult in the female language.
It was hard for Yult to understand male pronouns in our family.

In 2009, Luxia learned some pronouns of Arka. She came to call herself “non” properly.
In this year, she made another coinage “nonben”. It was a short form of “non bena” (I wet myself). After that, I put the word “nonben” (to wet one’s pants) to dk (diaklel, the Arka dictionary) as her coinage.

It’s very hard for foreigners to learn Arka’s pronouns because there’re many variants.
Men usually call themselves “an”, but when they talk to superiors and olders, they likely to call themselves “men”. (There’re more than 10 words meaning “I” in Arka. Thanks to them, Arka can express detailed human relationships.
There’re even pronouns for non-sexuals and non-animates.

Even native speakers of Arka had difficulty in remembering them.
The twins remembered all of them around 3 years old.

What’s This?

We thought about what we should do to widen their vocabulary. Like Shion in “The book of Shion” did, we had her remember the sentence “tu et to?” (What’s this?).
In front of them, Mel asked “tu et to?” pointing a spoon to Ridia. Ridia answered “tu et hokn” (It’s a spoon) to Mel.
The parents tried such a skit many times, exchanging the noun. The twins understood they can ask things’ name with the sentence, looking at the parents.

Now they got an amazing arms. They began to ask things’ name by saying it. From that day, they kept asking “tu et to?” to the parents.

There was a problem in asking things’ name in Arka. Arka has 4 pronouns to mean this or that. “tu” is this. “le” is that. “lu” is this for living things and “la” is that for living things.

They asked “tu et to?” pointing their cat. It should be “lu et to?” in Arka because cats are a living thing.
Moreover, “to” is “what” for non-living things while “ne” is “who” for living things. So they should’ve said “lu et ne?” (Who is he?). It was hard for us to make them distinguish these words.

They learned “tu”, “le”, “lu” and “la” respectively. It was hard to remember “la” (that person) because they hardly need to say the word in their daily life.
Anyway, they remembered many nouns with the magical sentence.

Other Pronouns

Arka has pronouns “xe”, “fi”, “il”, “vei”. They are “some”, “any”, “all”, “some of them” respectively.
They learned “il” and “vei” easily but “xe” and “fi”.
Luxia was around 4 years old when she understood them.

“yuu” (no one, nobody) , “netal” (anybody, whoever), “total” (anyone, whatever) weren’t difficult to understand for them. They tended to use “netal” and “total” instead of “fi”.
“wel” (which) was a piece of cake. Looking at their book, the parents asked “wel et ket?” (Which is the cat?), and they could easily answer at the year of 4.

I knew English native speakers around 5 found it difficult to understand the meaning of “somebody” or “anybody”, so I expected it was hard for our children to learn “xe” or “netal (fi)” but the twins somehow understand them at the year of 4.

English native speakers often say “I didn’t see no one in the park” when they were little.
The twins said “non en inat yuu lan ka sokl” (I didn’t see no one in the park), too.
The parents told them “tyu inat yuu ka sokl sete?” (Did you see nobody in the park, right?) many times until they understood their error.

Interrogatives

The twins understood “ne”, “to”, “am” (where) easily because who and what have a shape.
They had a trouble with understanding “om” (when) and “es” (why) to the contrary because time and reason are shapeless.

However, we were happier when they didn’t get “es”. “es” is a strong arms for children.
It’s easy for grown-ups to answer to “What’s this?” because they should simply tell its name. But it’s not easy to answer to “Why?”
“es jan et soret?” (Why is the sky blue?) “es maal til ins diia fien non til ins lette?” (Why mom’s eyes are green though I have brown eyes?) Ridia and I explained the reason every time they attacked us with “es” while Mel just showed Wikipedia written in French, English, or Japanese (Of course they couldn’t read it).
Every time Mel showed Wikipedia to them, Luxia argued over why there were no Arka versions in Wikipedia.

Copula

It was around 2 that Luxia began to use copulas. “et” is “be” in Arka. You have to say “tu et gek noan” (This is my ball), but she said “tu gek noan” (This my ball.)
When they were out to a park, she said “kuto ank”. It means “a cute bird” but we believed she wanted to say “The bird is cute.”

Tense

When they were 1.5 years old, she began to use the past tense. By that time, they only used present tense.
I asked her “maal xa am?” (Where’s your mom?), she answered “maal doova” (Mom bye-bye) to me. I believed it meant “mall leevat” (Mom left).
I drew pictures and showed the paper to her.
There a girl was holding a spoon, was eating a cake, and was washing the dish.
I asked her if she could arrange the pictures.
“kit, lu fian tot?” (First, what did the girl do?), said I, she pointed the girl holding the spoon.
“yan xi tu, lu tot?” (Next, what did she do?), she pointed the girl who was eating a cake. It meant she understood the past tense.

Overcorrection

In Arka, you have to put a suffix “-(a)t” to a verb when you want to refer to the past tense, i.e. xen-xenat (to drink, drank). If a verb ends in a vowel, you have to put away the vowel “a”, i.e. ku-kut (to say, said), not “kuat”.

Around 1.5years old, Luxia said “mama *lunaat ez” (Mommy came to the room). Luna is to come. It ends in a vowel, so it should be “lunat”.

I thought she was making her own rules of grammar. Even a 1.5-year-old baby can make her own rules.
They didn’t learn Arka words word by word. They were learning it systematically.

Words and Phrases

Children don’t distinguish words from phrases. They learn only chunks. When we tell them “lat a mokt” (go to bed) “olx las” (wash your hands), they do as we told. But I thought “olx las” wasn’t a phrase but a chunk to them, “It is a chunk when mom tells me before meal”, would she thought.

When we told her to “olx luwa” (Wash your feet), she, at first, found it was not a word but a phrase and she can exchange the noun freely.

Faces

I’m a French-Koren Japanese, Ridia is of mixed race, too. So the twins are of mixed race, too.
They were born in Turkey, but moved into Lyon, France when they were little.
They had no frends in Turkey nor France because they were too shy and couldn’t speak Turkish nor French.

The parents let them play with children in the neighborhood. At that time, they hardly spoke French, and they were too shy, so they were picked on.

One day, Luxia looked in a mirror and said “es eel lenan et enk laint eyo?” (Why do we look different from them?). They were around 4 at that time, I had Ridia and Mel teach French and English, too.

Mixed Language

Before moving to French, they started to learn French, English, and Japanese. I thought Japanese wasn’t necessary but Luxia loved to watch Japanese animes like Precure on the Internet, so she voluntarily began to learn Japanese.
Luxia used a mixed language. Her mother tongue was Arka, but many foreign words appeared in her language. Kawaii, a Japanese word for cute was her favorite, “precure et kawaii tiina e” (Precures are very cute), said she.
Oui, a French word for yes also entered her vocabulary like “ti kuis dunex?” (Have you eaten supper?) “Oui, non sot” (Yes, I have).

No before Yes

The twins began to say “tee” (No) before they learned “ax” (yes). That was because they heard of it much more times.

When Luxia was around 2, she was in a rebellious stage. She always answered “tee!” when grown-ups told her to do something. “You’ll be eaten by a demon if you say “tee” for 100 times”, said her grandmother.
“OK! tee, tee, … x100. see? Nothing happened”, said Luxia.

“If you keep saying No, Daddy won’t love you anymore”, said Mel.
“Oh, really?” She looked at me via a webcam.
When I nodded, she became pale and did what she was told. I thought Mel knew how to handle her.

Yult, on the contrary was obedient to us. He played with children in France and learned some French words, but they were very nasty like “merde”, “putain”.
We were shocked to hear that, told him not to say the words anymore.

Kawaii Yuutxan

We called Yult Yuutxan [ju:tʃan] (little Yult). He was being grown up with many women around so that he wore girls’ clothes and thought he should be kawaii like Luxia.

He dressed like a girl, wearing the costume of Precure which I bought for Luxia when she came to Japan with Ridia at Toysaurus at Ikebukuro, Japan.
When he was 3, he asked me if he looked kawaii, I was stunned and was able to say nothing back. So he began to weep, crying “Daddy doesn’t love me!”

When he was 4, he began to grow his hair long like a girl. Ridia was a bit angry with me for being silent when he asked if he was cute.
I said “ti et ank, yuutxan” (You’re cute, little Yult). He seemed to be very happy.

Sweet Daughter

When Luxia was 4, she asked me “Which do you love more, me or Mom?”
I answered I loved Ridia more than her. She got very depressed by my words.

After that, when talking with Mel, she said “You should’ve told a white lie”.
“I can’t tell a lie as their father.”
“Anyway, you have to tell her she is the sweetest.”

So when she was 5 or 6, I made two new words; hatiank and yuliank.
Hatiank means kawaii as a girlfriend while yuliank does kawaii as a daughter.
“ti et yuliank alka kont ridia et hatiank alka” (You’re the sweetest daughter while Ridia is the most beloved girlfriend), said I.
Why did I have to make the words? That was just because Ridia wouldn’t accept my words “I love Luxia the best”.
How childish she was.

2015/5/5 seren arbazard

March 8th, 2007

My girlfriend Ridia gave a birth to our twins, Yult and Luxia.
On the day, I worked for a publishing company called ASK which published books on English, Chinese and Japanese.
I majored in linguistics in Gakushuin graduate school. I was interested in linguistics so I decided to work for a company which published books using foreign languages. I was an editor at the company.

I lived in Japan and Ridia lived in Turkey at that time. It was a lunch time that I knew the twins were born.
It was more surprising that one of my friend’s son was born on the same day. When I called my friend to notice my children’s birth, he also told me his wife gave a birth to their son.
On that day, I was sitting on a step out of my apartment and telling him how I was happy to have our children, on the phone. The weather was fine, I remember.

With TV-phone like skype on my PC (I’ll call any TV-phone skype from now on in this book), I saw them for the first time. They were lying on a bed. They were very tiny because they were twins. Yult, our son had a blue ribbon on his ankle while Luxia, our daughter had a pink one. In Arka, red means women while blue does men.
When I saw them for the first time, I was very surprised at their — especially her — face because they seemed to be an alien.
“How would she become a cute girl with this face?” thought I.
I thought I had the right to name them, but actually Ridia named them without asking me.
My first son, Arxe was named by my ex-wife Esta without asking me. If I could name them, I’d never name them Yult and Luxia.
The name Yult comes from a god’s name Yulg. Yulg is a god in Arka world (Kaldia). He is the master of wisdom. Ridia wanted him to be very bright.
The name Luxia comes from a supreme condition in lvan (a kind of meditation). It’s Arka name, too. Ridia wanted her to be calm and relaxed.

I was OK with the name Yult but Luxia. Somehow it reminded me of the color purple, and purple reminded me of an old woman. So I called her just Xia [ʃɪa].
I felt sound “lu” reminded me of purple. I didn’t know why anyhow.
Anyway Luxia’s name in Japan is 紫亞 [ʃɪa] and the character “紫” means purple, so even if I call her Xia, I remember the color purple. Haizen (“Oh my god” in Arka).

Baby Talk

Yult and Luxia started crying after their birth. One day I saw they began to babble. I felt they said the sound “Ah” the most frequently. There are many vowels in the world’s languages but every language has the vowel “a”. “A” is the easiest and most cardinal vowel for human language.

First Word

Around 6 months after their birth, Luxia started baby talk. The sounds were like “a a a” or “ba ba ba” or “ma ma ma”. Bilabial sounds are easy to pronounce for babies because they can imitate the sounds by looking at their parents’ lips.

Most languages have words with the consonant “p” or “m” to mean a father or a mother like English, French, Japanese and Chinese do. Arka has words like them; papa means a father while mama does a mother.

Luxia’s first word was “pa” which meant “papa”. Ridia and my ex-girlfriend Mel Keetoia [mɛl keːtɔɪa] (an Ukrainian) were taking care of them, but her first word meant me. Arte! (“Oh my God” in Arka for a good meaning)
At that time, she was around 6 months old.

Baby Words

By 8 months, Luxia learned some words. We read children’s books in Arka to them. When we asked them “ket xa am? (Where is the cat?)”, they could point the cat though their pronouce was bad. Luxia kept saying “ke ke”.
They understood more than 50 words. Most of them were noun. The nouns were very usual in their daily life.
In Arka, “an” “non” and so on are the pronouns which mean “I”. There are many “Is” in Arka. But we thought it was hard for them to understand pronouns, so we called ourselves with nouns like papa (Seren), maal (Ridia) and mama (Mel).
They lived with their two mothers, grandfather, grandmother, aunt, acupuncture doctor and a male cat. The members of their family were the most important to their life. So they could easily come to remember how to call them like edan (grandma, Liiza).

The Cat

The cat was also important to their life, Luxia liked to play with the cat but he thought she was annoying, and he often slept on the belly of Yult who was very quiet and mild. Yult was so gentle that he let the cat sleep on the belly though the cat was as half size as him.
The cat’s name was Koseren. Ridia kept him as a pet in 2002. Luxia called him “Koxen” [kɔʃɛn]. She seemed to be able to distinguish animals from men. But she called a bird flying in the sky “Koxen”. For her, all animals were supposed to be called “koxen”. Of course Ridia corrected her mistake every time saying “tee, la et kuto e” (No, it’s a bird).

Adjectives and Verbs

Babies learn nouns at first. Then they learn adjectives and verbs. In our family, Luxia learned verbs before adjectives, contrary to my expectation.
The first verb she learned was “tak”. It means an arm, but it also means “to hold somebody in one’s arms”. When she wanted to be picked up, all she had to do was to say “tak!”
Many Arka nouns can be a verb, so I couldn’t judge she said a word as a verb or not, but I was sure the “tak” was a verb because she wanted to be picked up.

The first adjective she learned was “hart” (hot). When she was trying to touch something hot, grown-ups told her to stay away from it saying “tee, tu et hart!” (No, it’s hot!). So they could easily remember the word “hart”, though they were saying “ha ha!” instead of saying “hart”.

Colors

They learned “kai” (big) before learned words for colors. “Why don’t they remember words for colors? They are easy adjectives…” thought I.
One day, I asked “wel et fir?” (Which is white?) looking at their book. They couldn’t answer. Mel asked “wel et ket fir?” (Which is the white cat?). And they pointed a white cat. I recognized they responded only to the word “ket” (cat) and they didn’t understand its color.
So I drew 2 cats, white one & black one and taught “tu et ket fir, yan tu et ket ver” (It’s a white cat. And it’s a black cat) to them. They understood what “fir” and “ver” meant and the next time I asked “oma ver xa am?” (Where’s the black dog?), they came to be able to point a black dog.

I was curious about how far they can distinguish colors.
Arka has basic 10 colors, but at 8 months old, they couldn’t distinguish brown from the others. Purple, gray and brown were difficult to point out and they couldn’t draw a clear line between pink and red.

seren arbazard 2015/5/5

Jan 24th, 2015

“How do native speakers of a conlang learn their mother tongue?”

How do native speakers of a conlang learn their mother tongue?
I’d like to write on the theme.

First, what’s a conlang? It’s the short form of “constructed language.” Its antonym is a natlang (natural language). A natlang is a language which exists in the world by nature. A natlang is a language which specific people grew in their history. A conlang is a language which a person or a group made on purpose.
The most famous conlang is Esperanto. Esperanto is so famous that people might have heard of it even if they haven’t heard of the word conlang. Esperanto is not a foreign language, but a conlang. It was made by Zamenhof, a Polish eye doctor in 1887.

There’re two types in conlangs. A priori ones and a posteriori ones. In the conlang world, a priori doesn’t mean “innate” but “the language doesn’t borrow words and so on from natlangs like English, Japanese.” while a posteriori conlangs do. The definition means it is generally harder to make an a priori conlang than to make an a posteriori one because you have to make phonetics, grammar, thousands of words from scratch.

In linguistics world, a language is just as good as others, but in conlinguistics, there might be a significant difference among conlangs. A conlang which somebody conjured up in one day cannot be as good as Esperanto which has a history.
In conlinguistics world, the quality, reality or elaborateness of a conlang are appreciated. Conlinguistics is a kind of competition like sports and arts.
You can easily make a well-made a posteriori conlang because you can borrow phonetics, grammar and lexicon from natlangs. Esperanto is the most famous a posteriori conlang. A posteriori conlangs have a defect; you make a conlang from molds of natlangs so that you cannot make a conlang freely from scratch. A posteriori conlang must be like natlangs.
You can make an a priori conlang freely because you have to make it up from scratch. However, you have to compose phonetics, grammar, lexicon by yourself. If you want to make an a priori conlang which is as elaborate as a natlang, it takes a very very long time. It takes more than ten or twenty years to make a natlang — like a priori conlang, so no one succeeded in making one.
It was in the 20th century that human beings made a natlang-like elaborate a priori conlang. The name of the conlang is Arka ([aɹka] in IPA). What is Arka then?

Arka was not originally a conlang for being a natlang-like elaborate a priori conlang. The following names are names in Arka.
In 1991, a current Estonian lady called Liiza Lutia [liːza lɯtɪa] performed an experiment; what if she has children from all over the world make and use a conlang? She had her own daughter Ridia Lutia [ɹɪdɪa lɯtɪa], children of her friends, orphans and volunteers make a conlang. The conlang is now called Old Arka. Liiza was interested in conlangs when she was little. Her teacher spoke a cipher language which refers to the language of flowers. Being influenced by him, Liiza began to make a conlang with her friends in 70s to 80s. Her teacher’s language is now called First Arka and her conlang is now called Previous Arka. They are irrelevant to Old Arka, so Arka was officially created in 1991, but actually it could be back to before 1991.

Liiza had the children around ten years old make and use arka. She was the leader of the experiment until they became around fifteen years old and studied linguistics. In the latter part of 90s, more than thirty people spoke Arka, but speakers were divided into two groups. Their Arkas were so divided that a member of one group couldn’t communicate with the other group. So some of them tried to unite their Arkas. Liiza had her daughter Ridia’s boyfriend Seren Arbazard [sɛɹɛn aɹbazaɹd] (me), a French-Korean Japanese unite their Arkas.
I began to make a new Arka called Established Arka in 2001. I decided not to use ideograms anymore and to use phonograms. I cast away a posteriori words to let Arka be an a priori conlang. I began to use a computer, not paper, to make a conlang, which sped up my work on Arka. Moreover, I tried to use the Internet.

In 2002, Ridia decided to make a child with me to make a native speaker of Arka. We tried again and again, but Ridia didn’t get pregnant. That made Ridia very depressed. I felt my love for her tortured her and broke up with her. On June 27th, 2003, I became a boyfriend of a girl called Esta Akua [ɛsta akɯa] and stayed away from Axet [aʃɛt], the group which spoke Arka.
On March 6th, 2004, we got married. I grew up Established Arka with Esta.
We didn’t release Arka to the Internet because we thought it was underground. We didn’t need any more users of Arka at that time. My family including my wife Esta didn’t agree with the release, but I decided to release Arka to the Internet on October 4th, 2005.
In the same month, I made a website, “New Conlang Theory.” In the website, I released not only Arka but also how to make a conlang for the first time in Japan. I wrote about conlinguistics for the first time in the world. At that time, conlangers didn’t know what the difference was between a priori and a posteriori well. They didn’t recognize the importance of influence to conlangs by culture and climate (i.e. world). Now most Japanese conlangers know they need to think about a conworld when making a conlang but they didn’t at that time. I had to enlighten conlangers as to how Arka, an a priori conlang with an a priori conworld and a priori conusage, was great.

In 2003, I asked if Esta was OK with raising a child with Arka and she said yes but in 2005 when she got pregnant, she suddenly began to disagree with the project saying “My baby is poor if he can’t speak Japanese.” On December 19th, 2005, Esta left me. On June 16th, she gave a birth to her son, Arxe [aɹʃɛ].
On June 27th, Ridia and I got back together and she gave a birth to my second son Yult [jɯlt] and my first daughter Luxia [lɯʃɪa]. If they’d have been born in 2002, the history of Arka would have changed greatly. The twins became the first a priori conlang native speaker in the world.
More and more people learned Arka by the Internet. My best friend, Nias Avelantis [nɪas avɛlantɪs] found Arka with the Internet, too.

Established Arka was too rational and logical. You can easily learn its grammar and lexicon. The features attracted heavy users like Axtan Acma [aʃtan arma]. However Established Arka had a fault: if you miss even one sound, you can’t understand the meaning of the sentence. Established Arka had a fault in using it. Enna Vajo [ɛnna vaʒɔ], one of Arka speaker was hard of hearing and pleaded the others for changing Established Arka. On January 19th, 2008, some of the users of Arka including me made a new Arka called New Arka. Established Arka was abolished and I tuned Arka. Eventually New Arka became a conlang which was like a natlang. 17 years of experiment taught us a lesson; natlang-like conlangs are the easiest to use. We made a demonstrative experiment for conlinguistics with 17 years of languages use.

Axet broke up in 2009. So I put emphasis on activities on the Internet. But I was still corresponding to the ex-members of Axet. Ridia and I raised the twins with Arka. After Established Arka, its raison d’être was “which a priori conlang is the most elaborate in the world?” That was why Arka became the first natlang-like most elaborate conlang in the world.

The year of 2011 was the anniversary year; Arka became 20 years old, I made a group called conlinguists (levianklel in Arka).
Arka ruled at that time. If you googled for 人工言語 in Japanese, you’d find Arka’s website on the top page. Every conlanger was influenced by Arka or conlinguists.
In 2006, I wrote a unique novel “The Book of Xion” (How do you survive if you are summoned into another world where people speak UNKNOWN languages?) and published it in 2011.
I also published “Conlinguistics and Arka” to establish conlinguists. There were all kind of contents using Arka; film, movie, manga, novel, music and game.
Yult and Luxia, the native speakers of Arka were growing up and Arka users were increasing.

This book is about how native speakers of a conlang learn their mother tongue (i.e. how Yult and Luxia grew up learning Arka).
It’s the first book which is about learning of well elaborate a priori conlang in the world. So the paper is very important to conlinguistics.