Dritok is a
constructed language (conlang) created by Donald Boozer in 2007. Boozer was Secretary (2012–2015) and Librarian (2009–2013) of the Language Creation Society.
Dritok is in the
artistic language genre of conlangs, specifically a
fictional language. It is spoken by the Drushek, a species residing in the mountains of the fictional continent of Kryslan. The Drushek are large-eared, long-tailed leaping sciurine sapients with no vocal cords, who value solitude and quietness.
[Arika Okrent (2010) '' In the Land of Invented Languages: Adventures in Linguistic Creativity'', p. 289] The Drushek are culturally and linguistically homogeneous, but there are other languages spoken on Kryslan, including Umod and Elasin, by two other sentient species,.
In Dritok, the name of the language is , with a labialized click at the end. 'Dritok' is its pronunciation in Umod, which renders the click as ''tɔk''.
Phonology
Dritok consists of both oral speech (transcribed in lower case) and sign (transcribed in capitals). The syntax is heavily dependent on sign, but sign is used for some lexical words as well, typically for physical verbs such as 'hold'.
indicates that morphemes are sequential, whether they are signed, oral or both.
indicates that a sign accompanies an oral word – that is, that two morphemes are simultaneous. For instance, in 'my foot/leg' and 'your foot/leg', the pronouns (fist touching chest for 'my', flat palm facing interlocutor for 'your') are signed while the oral word is uttered. (For clarity, the sign is sometimes transcribed after the oral component, e.g. when both a prefixed and a simultaneous pronoun occur, as in 'I shelter them'.)
Oral phonemes
All oral phonemes in Dritok are
unvoiced.
[ The language is a gallimaufry of hisses, ]click
Click, Klick and Klik may refer to:
Airlines
* Click Airways, a UAE airline
* Clickair, a Spanish airline
* MexicanaClick, a Mexican airline
Art, entertainment, and media Fictional characters
* Klick (fictional species), an alien race in the g ...
s and fricatives. [ The loudest phoneme in the language is a porcine snort,][Okrent, p. 288.] transcribed with a "double-dot wide O" (Ꙫ) at '' Speculative Grammarian''.[ The velar click is described as being pronounced with the lips closed.
There are no vowels. However, when Dritok words are adopted into Umod, vowels are inserted to break up the consonants. is the default vowel, An ejective is followed by or , depending on whether it's labialized. "Semivowels" are or when interpreted as Umod consonants, and as or labialized when interpreted as vowels.
In transcription, a period may be used to clarify syllable boundaries.
]
Manual phonemes ( cheremes)
There is also an element of sign
A sign is an object, quality, event, or entity whose presence or occurrence indicates the probable presence or occurrence of something else. A natural sign bears a causal relation to its object—for instance, thunder is a sign of storm, or me ...
to the Dritok language with various syntactic
In linguistics, syntax () is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituency), ...
functions conveyed through the use of sign. Signs may be one- or two-handed.[ At night, the sign component is conveyed by touch. They same may occur with intimate conversation by day.
;Dritok handshapes (and orientation)
The Drushek have three fingers and a thumb, so the ring-finger may be ignored in these images.
The hand is held in one of five basic orientations: palm in (typically against the chest), out (facing the speaker), up, down or to the side. For any of these, the fingers may be inverted (point in the opposite of their usual direction for the basic orientation).
There are also motion elements:
: circling the hand (the circling motion is in the plane of the hand)
: motion to the flank (to the side away from the centerline)
: motion across the body (to or past the centerline)
: downward motion (usually eye level to neutral space)
: upward motion (usually neutral space to eye level)
: change from one handshape to another. E.g. means a flat hand, palm up, closes to a fist.
For two-handed gestures, the two hands may have various relative positions:
: A over B
: A and B side by side
: A and B are facing each other side by side
Thus I1@!/D3 is a downward-pointing index finger brought down to (and generally touching) a palm-up flat hand. Q4+Q4 would be two fists, palm down with the knuckles facing the interlocutor; in Q1#Q1, the palms are toward the speaker and the knuckles of each hand are touching.
]
Grammar
Oral nouns and verbs do not inflect for number or tense. Word order is Subject-Verb-Object, though one signed pronoun may be simultaneous with the verb.
Script
The Dritok script is inspired by Tibetan
Tibetan may mean:
* of, from, or related to Tibet
* Tibetan people, an ethnic group
* Tibetan language:
** Classical Tibetan, the classical language used also as a contemporary written standard
** Standard Tibetan, the most widely used spoken dial ...
. It does not have Unicode support.
Sample
The North Wind and the Sun in Dritok, along with a fairly literal translation, and using a version of the Latin transcription a few years older than that described in the previous section (for example, it joins signs to oral words with and , one of them perhaps in place of hyphens):[
1. V2&=sx:w.q't. s'.s' pr.np'. D5^Q5=V2&=zn.t'.z* P4&^D1>>tf.p*.o.
Those two, the Great Wind and the Sun, with respect to their strength were arguing.
2. P4=sx:w.q't. P4=D1>>s’.t*.ql. Q1=zn.t'.z*. D4/Q5=D2
The Great Wind he said: "My strength is superior to yours."
3. P4=pr.np' P4=D1>>s'.t*ql. Q1=zn.t'z*. D4/Q5=D2
The Sun he said: "My strength is superior to yours."
4. P4=tr'w.cq. V2&=D1>>xws.ql. P4=hr:.zp.th. I2>>lt'.q'.
A Drushek, the two of them saw, (he was) leaping along the path.
5. P4=sx:w.q't. P4=D1>>s'.t*.ql. P4=pln.t'. tr'w.cq. P4=D5((f.t'.q'.
The Great Wind he said: His cloak, the Drushek he will remove.
6. Q1=P4=D5((zp.p'tl. f.t'q'. Q1=D1((t'.qsx:n. D5^Q5= zn.t'.z*.
I him will compel the removing. I will be the winner with respect to strength.
7. sx:w.q't. P4=x:wn.hr:. P4=D1>>z*.z*.n. P4= D1>>x:wn.hr:. Q5/Q5
The Great Wind, his exhaling it began. He blew harder and harder.
8. tr'w.cq. P4=D1>>t'n.qxn.=P4 Q5/Q5 D5^Q5=P4=pln.t'.
The Drushek, he wrapped himself tighter and tighter in his cloak.
9. sx:w.q't. P4= D1>>px:w.zn P4=x:wn.hr:. P4= D1>>x:t.t'
The Great Wind, he was tired. His blowing he stopped.
10. pr.np' P4=pr.qt.px. P4= D1>>z*.z*.n. P4=pr.qt.px. Q5/Q5
The Sun, its "shining" it began. He shone brighter and brighter.
11. tr'w.cq P4=pln.t'. P4=D1>>f.t'q'.
The Drushek his cloak he removed.
12. sx:w.q't. P4=D1>>s'.t*.ql. D2=pr.np'. D2=zn.t'.z*. D4/Q5=Q1.
The Great Wind said, "Sun, your strength is superior to mine."
]
Real-world history
Boozer first entered the world of conlanging as a child, when he read Dr. Seuss' ''On Beyond Zebra
''On Beyond Zebra!'' is a 1955 illustrated children's book by Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss. In this take on the genre of alphabet book, Seuss presents, instead of the twenty-six letters of the conventional English alphabet, twenty ...
'' and traced the Seussian alphabetical extensions in this author's constructed script (conscript). He became enamored of creating languages after reading J. R. R. Tolkien's " The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, and being introduced to such languages as Quenya
Quenya ()Tolkien wrote in his "Outline of Phonology" (in ''Parma Eldalamberon'' 19, p. 74) dedicated to the phonology of Quenya: is "a sound as in English ''new''". In Quenya is a combination of consonants, ibidem., p. 81. is a constructed la ...
and Sindarin.[
In high school, Boozer created his own conscripts. While in high school, he created the constructed world (conworld) of Kryslan for an illustrated book as part of an art class project.
This conworld went on the backburner when Boozer focused on starting a family. Then, a few years before the date of the Elvish, Esperanto and Beyond exhibit at ]Cleveland Public Library
Cleveland Public Library, located in Cleveland, Ohio, operates the Main Library on Superior Avenue in downtown Cleveland, 27 branches throughout the city, a mobile library, a Public Administration Library in City Hall, and the Ohio Library for the ...
, Boozer took it up again.[
Boozer came up with this sciurine language by speculating what sapients without vocal cords would sound like, and decided they would sound like chipmunks][ then explored whether one could make a language composed entirely of unvoiced sounds.][
]
Reception
When Boozer presented this language at the 2nd Language Creation Conference,[LCC2 – Donald Boozer – Drushek: The Sound of No Voice Speaking (2007)]
/ref> he was regaled by such questions from the audience as: "How do he Drushekyell?", "Do they make art?", "Can they use whistling?", "Can they throw objects to get someone's attention?" and "Do they have thick skin?"[
Arika Okrent described the audience's reaction to Dritok as the samples sending "waves of glee through the audience – they sounded so strange, so inhuman, but there was a detectable structure or system that gave Dritok a sense of 'languageness'."][
]
References
External links
Kryslan Wiki
An Introduction to the Language of the Drushek
Donald Boozer, rev. 2010
"Are We Alone" podcast 30 March 2009
– interview with Donald Boozer
Artistic languages
Constructed languages
Constructed languages introduced in the 2000s
2007 introductions
{{constructed languages