Bekiskish (bay-KISS-kish)

Bekiskish is the language of the Bekiskapan. Though it took its final form gradually, over the course of the thousands of years the Bekiskapan conquered and absorbed the cultures of the Afro-Eurasian landmass on their iteration of Earth, Bekiskish ended up sounding a lot like the Early Modern English of William Shakespeare. That may have something to do with the nature of this universe, but we’ll leave that up to you.

 

At any rate, think of a slightly more accurate version of what Stan Lee tried to do with the Marvel Comics version of Thor, add in the nonce words of Lewis Carroll’s poem “Jabberwocky,” and throw a dash of E. Christopher Clark’s odd sense of humor on top, and you have Bekiskish.

 

Be sure to check out the Shakespearean Translator at LingoJam for just a taste of what Bekiskish has in store for you, should you choose to become a fluent speaker.

Spoken by

Phonology

Consonant Inventory

↓Manner/Place→BilabialLabiodentalDentalAlveolarPalato-alveolarPalatalVelarGlottal
Nasalmnŋ
Stopp bd tk g
Affricateʤ ʧ
Fricativef vθ ðs zʃh
Approximantɹj
Lateral approximantl
 

Co-articulated phonemes

↓Manner/Place→Labial-velar
Approximantw ʍ
 

Vowel Inventory

FrontCentralBack
High
Near-highɪʊ
Low-midɛɜːʌ ɔː
Near-lowæ
Lowɑ ɑː
 

Diphthongs

aɪ̯ aʊ̯ eɪ̯ oʊ̯ ɔɪ̯ ɛə̯ ɪə̯ ʊə̯

 

Syllable Structure

(C)(C)(C)V(C)(C)(C)(C)  

Stress Pattern

It varies so widely that the only pattern we can find is that learning this language will stress you out!

 

Spelling & Pronunciation

Eventually, maybe, this will be cleaned up. Until then, see if you can decipher any of this. A good old-fashioned Marvel No-Prize to the first person who can explain every line of this in the comments below.

 
PronunciationSpelling
kwqu
ktcked / _#
kc / !_{ɪ,i,ɛ,e,s}
oʊ̯C₁oC₁e / _#
uːC₁uC₁e / _#
eɪ̯C₁aC₁e / _#
eɪ̯ay / _#
eɪ̯a
ðth
θth
ʍwh
ŋgng
ŋ{k,c}nk
ŋng
ʧch
ʃsh
ɹr
zs / _#
juu / C_
ccck
ck / _#
{t,d}ed / C_#
aʊ̯ow / _#
aʊ̯ou
ʊə̯ou
ɔɪ̯oi
ɪə̯ear
aɪ̯i
ɪy / _#
ɪi
jiyi
jy
y / _#
yyyi / _#
yi / #_#
ʌu
ee
oʊ̯o
ʊoo
ɛe
ɑ(ː)a
ttt / æ_#
lll / æ_#
sss / æ_#
zzz / æ_#
æa
ʤj / #_
ʤge / _#
ʤdg
ɜːur
ɔːor
u
quurquir
eə̯ere
 

Grammar

Word Order

The main word order is subject–verb–object. Adjectives come before the nouns they modify, as do adpositions (prepositions). Possessors come before possessees.

 

Nouns

There are 2 grammatical numbers in Bekiskish (singular and plural). There are no grammatical genders. Most nouns do not have a grammatical case, though pronouns do.

 

Pronouns

As mentioned above, pronouns are the only class of noun in Bekiskish that retain grammatical case. This is because the gods of this universe wanted their Conan/Red Sonja tributes to sound all fancy-like and more intelligent than you would expect of barbarians.

 

Here’s a chart, so that the author doesn’t have to memorize all this crap.

 
Nominative Objective Possessive Reflexive
1st singular Ik me my/mine myself
1st plural we us our/ours ourselves
2nd singular thou thee thy/thine thyself
2nd plural you you your/yours yourself
3rd singular he, she, ey him, her, em his, hers, ems himself, herself, emself
3rd plural they them their/theirs themselves
 

Verbs

Bekiskish has two primary tenses: past and present. If you know English, you know it can get way more complicated than that—with inflections and aspects and moods, oh my!—but the author is trying to remember that he is not trying to recreate the entire language here on this page.

 

His failed weekend-long quest to do so notwithstanding.

 

So, here are some tables representing how verbs in Bekiskish usually works. Some linguist did try to completely standardize all of this shit at some point in the history of the language, but he was laughed out of the room.

 

(And yes, that in-universe historical fact is brought to you by the author gently poking fun at himself for his lost weekend.)

 

Past Tense

Regular verbs add the suffix “-ed” and so-called “strong” verbs (such as take) add either the suffix “-t” or change the stem vowel."  

Present Tense

Inflection Suffix Example
Participle -ing hating
1st Singular unmarked hate
2nd Singular -est hatest
3rd Singular -s hates
Plural -eth hateth
 

Numbers

Bekiskish has a base-10 number system and uses the same words for numbers as English:

  1. one
  2. two
  3. three
  4. four
  5. five
  6. six
  7. seven
  8. eight
  9. nine
  10. ten
 

A hundred is a hundred. A thousand is a thousand.

 

Derivational Morphology

  • Adjective → adverb = add suffix -ly
  • Adjective → noun (the quality of being [adj]) = add suffix -ness
  • Adjective → verb (to make something [adj]) = add suffix -en
  • Noun → adjective (having the quality of [noun]) = add the suffix -y
  • Noun → adjective relating to noun (e.g. economy → economic) = add suffix -ic
  • Noun to verb = add suffix -fy
  • Verb → adjective (result of doing [verb]) = add suffix -able
  • Tending to = add suffix -ing
  • Verb → noun (the act of [verb]) = add suffix -ing
  • Verb → noun that verb produces (e.g. know → knowledge) = add suffix -ledge
  • One who [verb]s (e.g. paint → painter) = add suffix -er
  • Place of (e.g. wine → winery) = add suffix -ery
  • Diminutive = add suffix -ling
  • Augmentative = add prefix uber-

Comments

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Nov 7, 2023 00:01 by Dr Emily Vair-Turnbull

Uberhouse! Houseling! I'm doing it!

Emy x
Explore Etrea | WorldEmber
Nov 7, 2023 00:38 by E. Christopher Clark

Hehehehe. Thanks for reading, and for having fun with it.

Check out my progress on WorldEmber 2024
Nov 7, 2023 13:52 by Chris L

This is fun! You should take a look at "The Wee Free Men" by Terry Pratchett, who's an author like ECCBooks, but less horny! The Feegles definitely talked like this!


Take a look at my Institutions of Learning challenge article.

Learn about the World of Wizard's Peak and check out my award winning article about the Ghost Boy of Kirinal!

Nov 7, 2023 14:54 by E. Christopher Clark

Capital idea, old sport!

Check out my progress on WorldEmber 2024
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