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recUrtan D’nE
te Domare
CONTENTS
UNIT 1
Introduction
Lesson 1:
Lesson 2:
Lesson 3:
Lesson 4:
Lesson 5:
Lesson 6:
Lesson 7:
Lesson 8:
Lesson 9:
Lesson 10:
Lesson 11:
Lesson 12:
Lesson 13:
Lesson 14:
Lesson 15:
Lesson 16:
Lesson 17:
Lesson 18:
Lesson 19:
Lesson 20:
Lesson 21:
Lesson 22:
History of D'ni Linguistics
Alphabet and Transliteration
Penmanship
Greetings
Plurals and Agreement
Articles
Numbers
How Verbs Work
Simple Present Tense
Simple Direct Objects
Subject Complements
Adverbs
Converting Particles I
Word Order
Present Progressive Tense
Negative Statements
Imperative Mood
Converting Particles II
Demonstrative Adjective and Pronoun
Coordinating Conjunctions
Introduction to Prepositions
"beh" and Quantifiers
UNIT 2
UNIT 3
Under development...
Under development...
Introduction
We all, during our journeys through the worlds of the D'ni, have come across it. Scrawled on a fragile bit
of parchment, inscribed on a monumental building, or even casually spoken in greeting, the words of the
D'ni language carry a certain power, a sort of magic. Not just in the sense that they were instrumental for
writing the all-important descriptive and linking books, which nourished and supported the D'ni
civilization for so many centuries. The language of the D'ni carries its own charm; it is a beautiful
language, flowing on the page, pleasing on the tongue, and fascinating in its mechanics. It has provided us
some of the most important primary documents about the D'ni, and continues to reveal its mysteries as
study pushes ever forward.
Whether this is your first encounter with D'ni or if you are returning to refresh your knowledge, you are
about to embark on a rewarding exploration — one of the greatest puzzles the D'ni ever devised.
This series of lessons is designed to walk the beginner through from the basic fundamentals of D'ni to the
more advanced aspects of the language in a sequential manner. The initial lessons will help to orient you
with respect to the history of D'ni linguistics, as well as some of the basic concepts of the language. As
they progress, the lessons will tackle more and more challenging material. Each lesson will have
accompanying vocabulary, summary, examples, and exercises in the Workbook (still under construction)
to help you understand and learn.
Unit 1 covers all the basics of D'ni; after completing it, you should be able to express yourself in simple
conversation with a variety of sentences. Unit 2 continues where Unit 1 leaves off, and will introduce you
to more advanced aspects of the language such that, upon completion, you will emerge with a
comprehensive knowledge of its known properties. Unit 3 introduces you to those topics currently under
discussion among the linguist community, offering different theories and accepted hypotheses. There, you
will find the cutting edge of D'ni studies, open for your consideration!
It is not mandatory to complete this entire sequence of lessons to speak D'ni. The basic knowledge you
learn in Unit 1 will suffice for simple conversation and expression, and you may wish to stop there.
However, the further you persevere, the better you will be able to express yourself clearly and accurately.
(For an optimum learning experience, be sure that you have downloaded and installed Quicktime or
another plugin to play .mov and .mp3 files, as well as all necessary fonts.)
Of course, the D'ni Linguistic Fellowship is an excellent resource for asking questions and practicing your
D'ni with other students and seasoned D'ni linguists alike. Check our website at the beginning of each
semester to see what classes are offered - many D'ni classes will incorporate this text into their
curriculum, offering a dynamic and collaborative environment in which to learn.
As the D'ni said,
.lena biv Kenen erTbåntE me KElentE
May your first step be simple, and may every step following prove enriching and fun!
— Domare
Lesson 1
History of D'ni Linguistics
The Birth of D'ni Linguistics
The study of the D'ni language began in the mid 90's, shortly after the release of Myst and the publication
of the first novels treating the history of Atrus and his family. Specifically, the reproduction of Aitrus'
map meD'nE bretalEo (From D'ni to the Surface) included in many copies of the Book of Ti'ana was
the first D'ni document to be released to the public. Cyan, Inc. (now Cyanworlds) created a website that
provided English translations of the various D'ni texts on the map. A handful of groundbreaking linguists,
among them Telanis, Erithan, Sne'vir, and Coronus, worked to decipher the D'ni alphabet and make sense
of the translations. Primarily assisted by Richard Watson, a full understanding of the texts was soon
reached. Contact with Watson, affectionately dubbed RAWA by the small community of linguists,
allowed for an early flowering in D'ni linguistics, as RAWA was (and remains to this day) Cyan's primary
D'ni historian and the foremost expert on the D'ni language.
The linguist community, in pursuing their studies, organized themselves into a group known as the Circle
of D'ni. The group was small in number and carefully tended its knowledge of D'ni; its philosophy held
the language as a worthy subject of learning and education, rather than a collection of trivia. To gain
access to the privileged information acquired from RAWA, one needed to demonstrate a genuine interest
in D'ni. The language that the Circle had worked so hard to discover, to decipher, to cherish, could be
easily degraded if an unknowing public mishandled it.
Just as rumors surrounding Myst's upcoming sequel, Riven, began to circulate in earnest, one of the
members of the Circle of D'ni broke from the organization's discretion, and the Circle's wordlist soon
appeared on a public website. The repercussions were significant: wordlists took root across the Internet,
simple (and often incorrect) D'ni began creeping into the common parlance, and the Circle eventually
dissolved. With the memory of an intimate, devoted passion for a common language and a unique
relationship with Cyan strong in their minds, most of its members retreated "into the woodwork,"
pursuing D'ni more privately.
Populist Renaissance
Riven saw its phenomenal release in 1998, and the interest in D'ni exploded. The language had been
incorporated so naturally into the immersive game that fans wanted to understand just what was being
said. A new generation of linguists emerged, populist in its philosophy and ambitious in its goals. Simon
and Josef Riedl founded the Guild of Linguists, which soon became a center of learning and reference for
all D'ni linguists. The Writers of D'ni MOO, an interactive role-playing environment based on the D'ni
world of 7500 DE, also became a haven for linguists, with an active guild life under Guildmaster
Do'vahth. A few tried their hand at designing a D'ni font, including Coronus, Tekis, and Jehon, and a new
standard for transliteration was established with a one-to-one correspondence to eliminate the ambiguities
of the original standard, in use since the language's birth.
A critical eye was also turned to the D'ni alphabet; in short order, an undeniable connection to the D'ni
numbering system was discovered. Gordon Currie, founder and maintainer of popular Rivenguild website,
revealed details about his recent visit to Cyan headquarters and about the mysterious MUDPIE project in
his GRID web series, which employed a number of D'ni language puzzles. The bar for wordlists was
raised with Kh'reestrefah's Dictionary of the D'ni Language, which remains to this day one of the best
vocabulary resources available.
For a while, a great deal of attention was devoted to the texts appearing in Riven and the game's
soundtrack, but once these materials were thoroughly digested, few new discoveries were made and
linguistic interest began to diminish. Rivenguild closed its doors, a great loss for the fan community, and
Cyan remained tight-lipped about its MUDPIE project. With only a short resurgence upon the release of
Exile, D'ni studies stalled.
The Modern Revival
Then, in 2003, invitations from a mysterious figure named Jeff Zandi began appearing in inboxes across
the web. Sworn to silence, members of the fan community were slowly invited to test Cyan's new game,
Uru. Beta testers knowledgeable about the D'ni language voraciously tore through new texts - the old
linguistic fire was stoked in many a student of D'ni. A number of testers discovered errors and offered
corrections to inaccurate in-game texts, which were duly corrected before Uru's public release. At about
the same time, Leenay recognized that no spot on the web had been established for D'ni language
discussions, and so founded the languagelyst, where many of the Uru texts were first publicly discussed.
Another result of beta testing was the emergence of common interest neighborhoods and organizations.
First among those was the Guild of Greeters under Guildmaster Tijara, which became a model for many
others, among them the D'ni Linguistic Fellowship. Co-founded by Jerle and Domahreh, the DLF aspired
to create a welcoming community in UruLive for all who took an interest in the D'ni and ahrotahn
languages, with the ultimate goal of offering in-cavern classes. When UruLive was cancelled, rather than
abandon its already sizeable community, the DLF offered resources and support to its members with
various projects, including this set of lessons.
Lesson 2
Alphabet and Transliteration
The D'ni Alphabet
The D'ni alphabet consists of twenty-four characters:
v
t
s
j
y
k
a f
i
e r
m T d h o c
w u x
l
å z
n
eleven of which can be accented:
b
S g
K I
p E A
D
O
U
to give a total of thirty-five individual sounds. D'ni is a phonetic language, meaning that spelling doesn't
affect pronunciation; every D'ni character will always be pronounced the same way. Most of the sounds in
D'ni also occur in English, save the r and k sounds. The D'ni characters, though, do not resemble Roman
letters. Some have compared them to Hebrew or Arabic writing systems. Because a number of characters
look alike and can be easily mistaken, it is an important first skill to be able to easily identify and
differentiate the various D'ni characters.
Transliteration Systems
One useful tool for helping us understand D'ni characters is transliteration. In order to more easily discuss
D'ni sounds in English, we can approximate them with roman letters that produce the same sounds. There
are two commonly used systems of transliteration in use today: the Old Transliteration System (OTS) and
the New Transliteration System (NTS).
OTS uses both single and double letters to approximate D'ni sounds in a manner that can easily be read
but sometimes results in ambiguities. The phrase meaning you're welcome, meUr, is transliterated in
OTS as mehoor. It is unclear by simply looking at the transliteration whether to pronounce this as mehoor (incorrect) or meh-oor (correct).
NTS resolves this problem by establishing a one-to-one correspondence between each D'ni character and
its transliteration. Since the English alphabet has only twenty-six letters and D'ni thirty-four sounds, NTS
uses diacritical marks and non-standard characters to create enough characters. meUr would be written
meúr in NTS, a more rigorous but, for some, less legible way to transliterate the word.
Table of D'ni Characters
Now, read the description of each D'ni character below and study the characters themselves. Pay special
attention to the distinguishing features of each, and look at how each character resembles those characters
it is commonly mistaken for. You will also find transliterations in both OTS and NTS, followed by a
rendering using the International Phonetic Alphabet, a character set used in linguistics to specify phonics.
(More info on the IPA can be found here.) The sound of each character is then described with example
words in English, and you can click on the link to hear a recording of each sound followed by a D'ni word
that features that sound.
Be sure that you take enough time to thoroughly learn the D'ni alphabet and its sounds; these truly are the
building blocks of the language, and their importance cannot be overstated. Flashcards may be useful.
You will also find transliterations of D'ni words in both OTS and NTS for the next couple lessons, to help
familiarize you with D'ni characters in context as you continue to learn.
D’ni
v
b
Distinguishing Features
two sharp angles at top and
bottom
accented v
Commonly
mistaken for...
twa
I
s
full curve at top halts midway
down, full curve at bottom
mTw
accented s
mTw
g
y
k
K
a
I
f
p
i
E
e
A
r

voice, five
v
v
Recording
Dova
b
b

bad, lab
bAk
baikh | béx
angled curve at top, sharp angle
at bottom
j
Sounds like
dovah | dova
t
S
OTS NTS IPA
vw
t
t

tea, get
tagam
tahgahm | tagam
s
s

sun, miss
sel
sehl | sel
sh
š

she, crash
SEga
sheegah | šíga
E
g
g



simple, short downstroke at left,
flat base with angled upswing
hx
y
y

y base with straight flag
ol
flat at top, curved upswing at
bottom
accented j
i
j
j
just, large
yes, yellow
v'ja
v'jah | v'ja
give, flag
gor
gor | gor
yavo
yahvo | yavo
kh
x
 Bach, German doch
Korvak
korvahkh | korvax
accented k
O
k
k

cat, truck
Kera
kehrah | kera
angled curve at top, flat base with
angled upswing
accented a
full curve at top halts midway
down, flat base with angled
upswing
accented f
tv
ah
a

arm, father
ano
ahno | ano
b
z
I
f
á
f



five, eye
vIlE
vIlee | válí
find, if
fa
fah | fa
p
p

pet, map
pax
pahts | pac
flat at top, flat base with angled
upswing
j
accented i
g
i(h)
i

hit, kitten
gilo
gihlo | gilo
ee
í

see, heat
rEs
rees | rís
short downstroke at left, two
sharp angles bookending
upwards curve
accented e
mh
e(h)
e

met, bed
sev
sehv | sev
ai/ay
é

say, eight
Atrus
aitruhs | étrus
e base with straight flag
r
r

No English
rov hEbor
m
T
d
D
h
o
O
c
w
u
U
x
l
å
z
n
angled curve at top, two sharp
angles bookending upwards
curve
full curve at top, upwards curve
with sharp angle at left, full curve
at right
flat at top, base bookended by
two sharp angles
m
tT
m
equivalent; between
madder and matter;
a "flipped" r

man, lemon
rov heebor | rov
híbor
ram
rahm | ram
th
m
þ

think, both
ziT
zihth | ziþ
dh
ð

this, mother
Dormad
dormahdh | dormað
accented d
d
d

dog, lady
DevoKan
dehvokahn |
devokan
full curve without any angles
h
yx
h

how, hello
har
hahr | har
h base with straight flag
o
kul
o

go, home
Kor
kor | kor
accented o
h base, flag curves to left
two full curves at top and bottom
oy
U
ch
oå
w
vta
ó
ç
w





boy, join
DOha
doyhah | dóha
check, church
cir
chihr | çir
wet, weather
tiwa
tihwah | tiwa
h base, flag curves to right
u(h)
on
u

cup, luck
toKitu
tokihtuh | tokitu
accented u
oo
O
ú

blue, food
tUl
tool | túl
small hook at left, flat base with
angled upswing
x base with straight flag
ts
ya
c

acts, bets
xav
tsahv | cav
l
kon
l

leg, little
lena
lehnah | lena
x base, flag curves to left
a
cln
æ

bat, black
irvån
ihrvan | irvæn
full curve at top, base is flanked
by sharp angle at left and full
curve at right, flat stroke at
bottom with angled upswing
x base, flag curves to right
z
fmT
z

zoo, lazy
zu
zuh | zu
n
u
n

no, ten
nE
nee | ní
Two punctuation marks are also known to us that are frequently used in D'ni.
D’ni
'
Function
accents characters; separates otherwise
unpronounceable consonant or vowel
clusters
OTS NTS
'
IPA
Sounds like
'  cinema, away
Recording
m'la vAxU'on
m'lah vaitsoo'on |
m'la vécú'on
.
marks the beginning of a sentence
.
.
n/a
n/a
n/a
While there is strong suspicion that other punctuation marks exist (namely, an interrogative marker, like
the question mark), they have not yet been discovered. In its absence, the . mark will always indicate the
beginning of a new sentence.
The Pitfalls of D'ninglish
By far, the most widespread mistakes that get made with new D'ni writers are mistakes of transliteration,
especially with proper names. The temptation is to take an English word and simply change the font to
D'ni characters, to take each letter of the English word and swap it out for a D'ni character. For example,
the name Dianne might be incorrectly transliterated as dianne. Since D'ni is a phonetic language,
however, the proper method of transliteration is to first sound out the English word, then find the
appropriate characters for those sounds, not for the English letters themselves. Dianne would thus be
broken down into the sounds d I a n | d á æ n, and properly transliterated DIån.
Lesson 3
Penmanship
The D'ni Script
One of the best ways to learn the D'ni characters is to practice writing them yourself. Though it may look
daunting, D'ni is actually a relatively easy script to pick up, as long as you go slowly and concentrate.
Similar to cursive penmanship in English, it is written from left to right, slanting slightly to the right, in a
long, continuous motion. It is also a beautiful script to write, flowing smoothly from the pen in strong,
dark strokes.
Writing Technique
Proper writing technique is essential to learn from the beginning; it is much easier to learn to write
correctly to begin with, rather than re-teach yourself after years of bad habit. Formal D'ni is written with a
square-tip calligraphy pen, but informally it can be written with a simple point-tip pen. When writing with
a calligraphy pen, remember that it should be held at around 45º from the horizontal, as shown in the
diagram below. Be sure to maintain the angle of the pen at a constant position, so all of your characters
are consistently shaded.
Left-handed writers often face additional challenges when learning to write D'ni. Some resources are
available in print and online to assist with left-handed calligraphy; a variety of techniques, such as overor underwriting, turning the paper at an angle, using left-handed pen nibs, and angling the writing surface,
may prove useful.
When writing more than one letter, we first complete all of the characters' bases, then go back and add in
all the flags and accents. This is how D'ni writing gains its fluid, unbroken look. Flags are always drawn
from the base upwards.
Stroke Order of the Alphabet
Study the stroke order of each character as diagrammed below; click on the link to see a demonstration of
how each character is drawn. Green indicates where each stroke begins, yellow where the stroke turns
back on itself at an angle, and red where the stroke ends. Once you are comfortable with individual
characters, we will write some simple words so you get a feel for how D'ni is written in practice.
D’ni
Transliteration
v
v|v
v
b
b|b
b
t
t|t
t
s
s|s
s
S
sh | š
S
j
j|j
j
g
g|g
g
y
k
y|y
y
k
kh | x
Stroke order
Demonstration
K
k|k
K
a
ah | a
a
I
I|á
I
f
f|f
f
p
p|p
p
i
ih | i
i
E
ee | í
E
e
A
r
eh | e
e
A
r
m
m|m
m
T
th | þ
T
d
dh | ð
d
D
d|d
D
h
h|h
h
ay | é
r|r
o
o|o
o
O
oy | ó
O
c
ch | ç
c
w
w|w
w
u
uh | u
u
U
oo | ú
U
x
l
ts | c
x
l
å
a|æ
å
z
z|z
z
n
n|n
n
l|l
Stroke Order of Whole Words
Here are some simple words to practice writing. Remember, the bases of all characters in the word are
written in one long stroke, then the flags and accents are added in. As you are writing each character, try
to think ahead to the character that comes next, and how it looks and connects to the character you are
about to complete. Write slowly and deliberately, concentrating on the distinguishing features of each
character, until you reach the end of the word. Then, go back to the beginning of the word and spell to
yourself as you review the characters you've just written, adding flags and accents as you go along.
D’ni
Transliteration
Sora
shorah | šora
Sora
zu
zuh | zu
zu
Stroke order
Demonstration
cir
chihr | çir
cir
SEga
sheegah | šíga
SEga
b'Ken
b'kehn | b'ken
b'Ken
Lesson 4
Greetings
Before we jump into the real nuts and bolts of D'ni, let's learn some easy phrases you can use in greeting
your friends and fellow explorers. All of the phrases here should be properly addressed to one person; in a
few chapters, we will learn how these greetings can be modified so they are appropriate for addressing a
group of people.
Sora
Sora b'Sem
yar ram
Kenen ram b'yim
Sem
gorven boyim Sem
Toe Kenem
Ken ago
Ken ziT
Toe Kenem tagamij
Ken tagamij te N.
cev Sem
meUr
shorah | šora
Hello, goodbye. Literally, "Peace."
shorah b'shehm | šora b'šem
Hello, goodbye. (formal)
Literally, "Peace to you."
Good day.
yahr rahm | yar ram
kehnehn rahm b'yihm
shehm |
kenen ram b'yim šem
gorvehn boyihm shehm |
gorven boyim šem
thoeh kehnehm | þoe kenem
It's good to see you.
kehn ahgo | ken ago
I am well.
kehn zihth | ken ziþ
I am bad. Literally, "I am low."
thoeh kehnehm tahgahmihj |
þoe kenem tagamij
kehn tahgahmihj teh N. | ken
tagamij te N.
chehv shehm | çev šem
What's you're name? Literally,
"How are you known?"
My name is N. Literally, "I am
known as N."
Thank you.
mehoor | meúr
You're welcome.
I'll see you soon.
How are you?
Lesson 5
Plurals and Agreement
Nouns in D'ni are very similar to nouns in English: they name a person, place, thing, or idea; they can be
singular and plural; and they do not have a gender or case, as they do in other foreign languages. A
singular noun names just one of a thing, while a plural noun names more than one. In D'ni, as in English,
the singular noun is the root word; to make it plural, we add the suffix –tE (-tee | -tí), the same way that in
English we add -(e)s.
Examples:
ter (tehr | ter), tree, becomes tertE (tehrtee | tertí), trees
Kor (kor | kor), book becomes KortE (kortee | kortí), books
Some D'ni nouns only have plural forms. The same sorts of nouns exist in English, words like pants or
scissors, which never occur in the singular and always end in -e(s). In D'ni, these kinds of nouns will
always have the –tE suffix — the word DantE (dahntee | dantí), for example, will always end in –tE,
whether referring to just one pair or more than one pair of tweezers.
D'ni adjectives are also very similar to adjectives in English: they describe nouns and have only one form.
That is, in order to agree with the noun they modify, they do not need to change to reflect singular and
plural. The same adjective can modify both forms of the noun. The one significant departure from nounadjective agreement in English is that adjectives always follow the noun they describe in D'ni; in English
they can come before or after the noun.
Examples:
ter para (tehr pahrah | ter para), great tree
tertE para (tehrtee pahrah | tertí para), great trees
DantE prin (dahntee prihn | dantí prin), small tweezers
D'ni adjectives can do many things in addition to modifying nouns, things that we will learn more about in
future lessons. For now, it is important to remember that adjectives do not need to change to agree with
singular and plural nouns, and that they always come after the noun they modify.
Lesson 6
Articles
Articles are the small words that let us indicate or "point to" a specific noun. In many ways, D'ni articles
are like the adjectives we discussed in the last chapter: they describe nouns, and they do not need to
change in order to agree in number.
Definite and Indefinite
English has three articles: a, an, and the. The first two, a and an, are called indefinite articles because,
even while they "point to" a noun and distinguish it from the abstract, they do not identify a definite
instance of that noun. A rock could be this rock on the ground, or that rock on the mountain, or that rock
in the cave. Since we're just talking about a rock in general, it could be any of these rocks in front of us, it
is indefinite which rock we mean. The rock, however, doesn't leave the question "Which rock?"
unanswered — I am referring to a single rock, one that can be identified, since it is "the" rock. For this
reason, the is called a definite article; it refers to a definite thing, while an indefinite article could refer to
any number of things.
Articles in D'ni
D'ni has only two articles, one definite — re (reh | re) — and one indefinite — erT (ehrth | erþ). What's
unique about D'ni articles is that, like adjectives, they can be used for both singular and plural nouns
without changing to agree. For example, we can say repråD (rehprad | repræd) or repråDtE
(rehpradtee | reprædtí), the same way we can say the rock or the rocks in English. Similarly, we can say
erTpråD (erthprad | erþpræd) or erTpråDtE (erthpradtee | erþprædtí) in D'ni; however, we can't use
the same indefinite article a for both in English. We certainly can say a rock in the singular, but we
cannot say a rocks. This is because there is no indefinite article in English for plural nouns; the closest
equivalent expression in English would be some rocks.
Notice as well that an article is attached to the front of the noun it describes. Whether singular or plural,
modified with an adjective or standing by itself, the article will always be a prefix.
Examples:
erTcirtE (ehrthchihrtee | erþçirtí), some organisms
renavatE ram (rehnahvahtee rahm | renavatí ram), the good masters
erTzu ziT (ehrthzuh zihth | erþzu ziþ), a low end
Rarely, re is contracted into a shorter form, r' (r' | r'), most often when the first letter of the noun it
modifies is a vowel, especially e. The ' lets us know that letters are missing and also helps clarify
ambiguity. When we see r'erem (r'ehrehm | r'erem), we know that re has been contracted, and,
especially since the first letter following the ' is e, that the noun is erem (ehrehm | erem). If the ' were
absent — rerem — it would seem that re modifies the word rem, which is incorrect. This said, it
pays to be cautious when reading D'ni texts, as sometimes the ' is left out of the contracted r', too, at
which time we must rely on vocabulary and context to see us through.
Lesson 7
Numbers
The Arabic Number System: Base-10
The D'ni number system is very different from the one we're used to. In our Arabic system, we can count
up from zero to nine with single digits. To count higher than nine, we need two digits. The digit in the
tens place tells us how many times we've cycled zero through nine, that is how many times ten is in the
number, while the digit in the units place tells us where we are in the current cycle of zero through nine.
Once we've hit ninety-nine, to count higher, we need a third digit for hundreds; then a fourth for
thousands; and so on. This number system that we're used to is called base-10 — that is, each place in a
number is ten times larger than the previous one. The tens place is ten times bigger than the units (10 = 10
x 1), the hundreds place ten times bigger than the tens (100 = 10 x 10), the thousands place ten times
bigger than the hundreds (1000 = 100 x 10), and so on. For a practical example, let's look at the number
9017.
We see that each place is ten times larger than the previous one. The digit that is in each place tells us
how many times that place occurs in the number: there are 9 thousands, 0 hundreds, 1 ten, and 7 units.
When we multiply out (as in the diagram) and then add together, we get the number itself: 9000 + 000 +
10 + 7 = 9017.
The D'ni Number System: Base-25
Unlike our Arabic system, D'ni uses a base-25 numbering system. This means that each place in a number
is not ten but twenty-five times bigger than the previous one. To illustrate like we did with Arabic
numbers, we start with 1 , 1. If we increase the number so that it requires two digits, 10 (0 is the D'ni
number for zero), this new number is not equal to 10, as we would think within the Arabic system; the
newly introduced place is twenty-five times bigger than the previous one, 25 x 1 = 25. Thus, the D'ni
number 10 is equal to 25 in Arabic terms. Introduce a third place, 100 , and it's twenty-five times bigger
than the second, twenty-fives place: 25 x 25 = 625. Introduce a fourth, 1000 , and it's twenty-five times
bigger yet again: 625 x 25 = 15,625. And so on.
Since D'ni is base-25, that must also mean that there are twenty-five basic digits to work with, the same
way there are ten basic digits (0 through 9) in base-10. These D'ni digits are:
0=0
5=5
) = 10
% = 15
[ = 20
1=1
6=6
! = 11
^ = 16
] = 21
2=2
7=7
@ = 12
& = 17
\ = 22
3=3
8=8
# = 13
* = 18
{ = 23
4=4
9=9
$ = 14
( = 19
} = 24
Let's look at a practical example, like the one above:
We now see that in D'ni, each place is not ten but twenty-five times larger than the previous one. As with
Arabic numbers, the digit in each place tells us how many times that place occurs in the number: there are
9 fifteen-six-twenty-fives, 0 six-twenty-fives, 1 twenty-five, and 7 units. If we multiply out and add
together as we did before, we get the value (in Arabic terms) of this D'ni number: 140,625 + 0000 + 25 +
7 = 140,657.
In transliteration, we usually represent these D'ni numbers between square brackets, with each digit
separated by a vertical bar: [9 | 0 | 1 | 7].
D'ni Number Words
In English, every number can be written out with words; so too in D'ni, in a pattern that closely mirrors
the logic that undergirds the number system. The numbers 0 through 4 are all simple words:
0
1
2
3
4
rUn
fa
brE
sen
tor
(roon | rún)
(fah | fa)
(bree | brí)
(sehn | sen)
(tor | tor)
Multiples of five are also simple words:
5
)
%
[
vat
nAvU
hEbor
riS
(vaht | vat)
(naivoo | névú)
(heebor | híbor)
(rihsh | riš}
To fill in the numbers in between, we abbreviate the word for the closest but not exceeding multiple and
combine it with the word for one through four. Thus, the number six ( 6 ) breaks down into the closest
multiple five plus one, vat plus fah: vagafa (vahgahfah | vagafa). (The ga means and, thus the word
literally means five-and-one.) Similarly, the number fourteen ( $ ) breaks down into the closest multiple
ten plus four, nAvU plus tor: nAgator (naigahtor | négator); and twenty-two ( \ ) is twenty plus two,
riS plus brE: rigabrE (rihgahbree | rigabrí).
Find below a table of the D'ni numbers from 1 through | for quick reference (| is an alternative way of
writing 10 , 25, when the number carries a special significance):
D’ni digit
Arabic digit
D'ni word
Transliteration
English word
0
1
0
rUn
roon | rún
zero
1
fa
fah | fa
one
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
)
!
@
#
$
%
^
&
*
(
[
]
\
{
}
|
2
brE
bree | brí
two
3
sen
sehn | sen
three
4
tor
tor | tor
four
5
vat
vaht | vat
five
6
vagafa
vahgahfah | vagafa
six
7
vagabrE
vahgahbree | vagabrí
seven
8
vagasen
vahgahsehn | vagasen
eight
9
vagator
vahgahtor | vagator
nine
10
nAvU
naivoo | névú
ten
11
nAgafa
naigahfah | négafa
eleven
12
nAgabrE
naigahbree | négabrí
twelve
13
nAgasen
naigahsehn | négasen
thirteen
14
nAgator
naigahtor | négator
fourteen
15
hEbor
heebor | híbor
fifteen
16
hEgafa
heegahfah | hígafa
sixteen
17
hEgabree
heegahbree | hígabrí
seventeen
18
hEgasen
heegahsehn | hígasen
eighteen
19
hEgator
heegahtor | hígator
nineteen
20
riS
rihsh | riš
twenty
21
rigafa
rihgahfah | rigafa
twenty-one
22
rigabrE
rihgahbree | rigabrí
twenty-two
23
rigasen
rihgahsehn | rigasen
twenty-three
24
rigator
rihgahtor | rigator
twenty-four
25
fasE
fahsee | fasí
twenty-five
D'ni Numbers Larger Than 24
When we write numbers larger than nine in English, we indicate the place of each digit in words: four
thousand eight hundred and ninety three. In similar fashion, D'ni uses suffixes to indicate a digit's place.
These suffixes are:
– ra
100
625's place
– len
–mel
1000
10000
100000
15,625's place
390,625's place
9,765,625's place
– blo
Thus, the D'ni number for twenty-five ( 10 ) is a fa in the twenty-fives place: fasE. (Note that we never
write out the 0 .) Three hundred twenty-five ( #0 ) is a nAgasen in the twenty-fives place:
nAgasensE. We can also write out numbers with digits in both places — one hundred twenty-one ( 4]
) is a tor in the twenty-fives place and a rigafa in the units place: torsE rigafa.
Lesson 8
How Verbs Work
By now, you should be comfortable with D'ni letters and sounds, know a few simple phrases, and have
some familiarity with nouns, adjectives, and numbers. The next big topic to tackle is verbs, one of the
more complex aspects of D'ni, simply by virtue of its differences from what we're used to in English.
Because of these differences, it is useful to spend a little time reviewing how verbs are put together in
general, before delving into D'ni verbs in earnest.
Infinitive
An infinitive verb is a verb in its most pure form. It doesn't say anything about who or when or how, it
simply gives the action or state of being that the verb describes. In English, we recognize an infinitive
when the verb is preceded by the preposition to.
Examples:
to move
to see
to write
to be
In D'ni, much the same pattern is observed; if the verb is preceded by b' (b' | b'), a contraction of the
preposition be (beh | be) which means to, it is in its infinitive form.
Examples:
b'Kro (b'kro | b'kro)
b'sel (b'sehl | b'sel)
b'yim (b'yihm | b'yim)
b'Ken (b'kehn | b'ken)
From the infinitive, we can find the root of the verb as we do in English, by dropping the b', to. This root
is the kernel of every conjugated verb, it is always the central part to which prefixes and suffixes are
attached to indicate the who, when, and how.
Person and Number
When we conjugate a verb, we change it with prefixes and suffixes to take it out of the abstract infinitive
and apply it to a particular subject at a particular time. Let's first look at how to specify the "who" of the
verb, the subject. Traditionally, the subject of a verb is classified by its person (1st, 2nd, or 3rd) and by its
number (singular or plural)
1st
2nd
singular
I
you (singular)
3rd
he, she, it, Atrus
plural
we
you (plural)
they, Atrus and Catherine,
the Rivenese
The first person always indicates the person speaking the verb, whether it's just that sole person (I) or a
group including that person (we). The second person always indicates the person spoken to, whether that
is just one person (you sing.) or a group of people (you pl.). In English, we don't distinguish between the
singular and plural you, except in slang where "y'all" could be said to be a second person plural. You'll
soon see that D'ni does make this distinction (as do many other modern foreign languages). Finally, the
third person indicates the person spoken about, whether just one person (he, she, it) or a group of people
(they).
For each of these persons and numbers, there is a corresponding D'ni suffix that is attached to the end of
the root verb. This is very different from verbs in English, which remain virtually unchanged regardless of
person and number: I write, you write, she writes, we write, you pl. write, they write (the 3rd singular
is the one exception). In D'ni, we should conjugate the same verb, sel (sehl | sel), as sel, selem,
selen, selet, seltE, selEt. Notice that the root, sel, doesn't change from one form to the next, and
that different suffixes correspond to each person and number. We will study these suffixes in depth in the
next chapter.
Tense
Now let's look at how to specify the "when" of the verb. Since verbs describe actions or states of being,
they necessarily take place in time, in the past, present or future.
Examples:
I wrote
I write
I will write
Within the past, present, and future tenses, verbs can also describe the quality of an action — Is the action
of writing completed? Is it in progress? — and thereby indicate the location of that action in time more
specifically. All of these combinations of tenses are expressed in D'ni with prefixes that are attached to
the root verb. For example, the simple past tense, I wrote, is written Kosel (kosehl | kosel) in D'ni; the
present perfect, I have written, lesel (lehsehl | lesel); the future progressive, I will be writing,
boDosel (bodosehl | bodosel). Note how different prefixes are attached to the same root verb to indicate
different tenses.
A general guideline to remember, then, is that prefixes indicate tense and suffixes indicate number and
person.
Mood
The mood of a verb doesn't have anything to do with feeling happy or sad when you speak or write it.
Mood, in the grammatical sense we mean here, is a way of categorizing the intent behind the verb, the
force that motivates it. Most of the verbs we come across in English are in the indicative mood; they are
simple statements of fact: I am hungry, she will write a letter, they went home. The same is true in D'ni
— an overwhelmeing majority of the verbs you see are indicative.
Sometimes, we'll come across commands, like Say thank you! or Don't go! These commands are said to
be in the imperative mood, and since they usually address someone or a group of people directly, they
most often are 2nd person verbs. D'ni imperative verbs work the same way as in English, only instead of
relying on an exclamation point, D'ni uses an additional suffix attached after the 2nd person ending.
(We'll study imperative mood in a few chapters.)
We unfortunately know much less about the two other traditional moods, interrogative and subjunctive.
Interrogative mood is used for asking questions. While we do know that questions can be asked in D'ni,
we don't have enough evidence to say exactly how. The accepted theory is that, like in English, there is a
punctuation mark that indicates a question. The subjunctive mood is all but dead in English, but still
commonly used in many other languages; it expresses wishes, desires, doubts — things that are not
factual but rather hypothetical, potential, relative. Certainly, D'ni can express wishes, desires, and doubts,
but evidence seems to indicate that, like English, it does not have a separate verb form for the purpose.
Other Verb Elements
There are other important aspects of verbs to consider — things such as active and passive voice, modal
auxiliaries, and verbals — but these are advanced topics that can be difficult to master and that we won't
encounter for a while. For now, it is important to thoroughly understand person, number, tense, and mood
before we start working with verbs in earnest.
Lesson 9
Simple Present Tense
Now that you know how verbs work in general, let's look at how to conjugate a D'ni verb in the simple
present tense. As you learned in the last chapter, tense is indicated with prefixes, person and number with
suffixes. The simple present tense is perhaps the simplest to learn, as it has no tense-indicating prefix and
uses the suffixes, also known as personal endings, that you were briefly introduced to in the last chapter.
To review, those personal endings are:
singular
—
– em (-ehm | -em)
– en (-ehn | -en)
1st
2nd
3rd
plural
– et (-eht | -et)
–tE (-tee | -tí)
– Et (-eet | -ít)
Remember that these suffixes are attached to the root verb, which we obtain by removing b' from the
infinitive. Also, note that the first person singular does not have a suffix to attach to the root — that is to
say, the first person singular conjugation of the verb is the same as the root verb. For all tenses, the first
person singular is identified by the absence of a suffix. It is therefore easy to confuse this unsuffixed verb
with the infinitive, which also never has a suffix; remember that infinitives always have a b' attached to
the front of the root verb.
Here's an example of how a conjugated verb looks:
b'mEs (b'mees | b'mís) – to speak
1st
2nd
3rd
singular
mEs (I speak)
mEsem (you speak)
mEsen (s/he speaks)
plural
mEset (we speak)
mEstE (you pl speak)
mEsEt (they speak)
Because English doesn't have personal endings to identify each form of the conjugated verb, it needs to
specify the verb's subject if we are to know who the verb refers to. Speak tells us nothing of who speaks;
only when we specify I speak or you speak or the men speak do we have an idea. In D'ni, because each
personal ending designates a specific person and number, we can figure out who the subject of the verb is
even if that subject is not mentioned. Simply by looking at the suffix, we know that the subject of the verb
mEsen is s/he.
In fact, many D'ni verbs are written this way, without any mention of a subject. The rule is that when the
verb's subject is a pronoun, it is implied by the personal ending and omitted. Pronouns — I, you, he, she,
it, we, you plural, they — are "placeholder" nouns that stand in for other nouns, often names of people.
Examples:
Atrus speaks.
.Atrus mEsen (aitruhs meesehn | étrus mísen)
The student speaks. .recUrtan mEsen (rechoortahn meesehn | reçúrtan mísen)
He speaks.
.mEsen (meesehn | mísen)
(Remember that the . mark indicates the beginning of a sentence.) In the first two sentences, the subject of
the third person singular verb speaks is not a pronoun — Atrus is a person's name, a proper noun, and
student is a standard noun, like pen or mountain. The third sentence, however, has a pronoun, he, for its
subject. He could be standing in for either Atrus or the student; because it's a pronoun, a placeholder, we
don't know for sure which one.
Looking at the D'ni, the subjects in the first and second sentences are specified, and so they are written
out. Since the subject of the third sentence is a pronoun, however, it is implied by the personal ending and
thus isn't written out. The same way that we don't don't know whether he refers to Atrus or the student,
we can't be sure what the subject of mEsen is. To be precise, all we do know for sure about mEsen is
that its subject is third person singular; thus, it could be translated as he speaks, she speaks, or even it
speaks, since the subject of all three is a third person singular pronoun.
Lesson 10
Simple Direct Objects
Verbs generally fall into one of two categories. Some of them are intransitive. This means that the action
the verb describes applies to just one person — the actor. That is, the action is incapable of transferring to
another person or thing. This may sound a little complicated, but it should make intuitive sense after a few
examples of sentences with intransitive verbs.
Examples:
The plant grows.
.regilo tUlen
The ancient Ages live.
.reDovatE oglan xavEt
The guildsman works.
.retelrov tEgen
In each of these sentences, the verb is intransitive because the action applies only to the actor of the verb.
When we read regilo tUlen, we recognize that the action of growing applies to the plant alone; the
plant isn't growing leaves or flowers, it itself grows. Similarly, retelrov tEgen tells us that the
guildsman himself is working, and not that he is working a machine or a crowd; the action of the verb
works refers solely to him.
Alternatively, verbs can be transitive; this means that the action of the verb extends or transfers to another
person or object in addition to the actor. The person or object that receives the action of the verb is called
its direct object (because it is a direct recipient of that action). Since the actors of transitive verbs act on a
person or a thing, direct objects will always be nouns. Some examples of sentences with transitive verbs,
and direct objects, include:
Examples:
.renava SokUen erTcUrtantE
The master instructs some students.
.miStaet erTpax nE
We construct a new city.
.retelrovtE tUlEt gilotE
The guildsmen grow plants.
Here, we see that the action of the verb is not only performed by its actor, but also extends to another
person or thing that is affected by that action. In renava SokUen erTcUrtantE, the action instructs
is performed by the master but extends also to his students, who receive the benefit of that action. Some
students, then, is the direct object of the verb instructs. In the same way, the verb miStaet is enacted
by an implied we while extending its action to erTpax nE. In the third example, we see that the same
verb can be both transitive and intransitive, depending on the way it's used. Where before, the verb tUl,
grow, was intransitive and didn't take an object, here in a new context, it becomes transitive and does take
an object, plants.
Lesson 11
Subject Complements
If we look back at some of the simple phrases we've learned up until now, we find a handful that may
look like sentences with direct objects, but are actually a very different kind of sentence. Take Ken ziT,
which we learned in Lesson 4, for example. We know that Ken means I am, and ziT, low, looks like it
might be a direct object. Remember how direct objects need to be nouns, though? ziT is an adjective —
which means it can't be a direct object.
In fact, ziT is what we call a subject complement. Subject complements add to or complete (i.e.,
complement) a sentence's subject, unlike direct objects which relate not to the subject but to the verb of a
sentence. Also unlike direct objects, subject complements can be both nouns and adjectives. Sentences
with subject complements always occur in a set pattern:
subject + copula + complement
The copula, also known as the linking verb, is the verb that connects subject to complement, most of the
time a form of Ken, be, but also at times other verbs of existence, appearance, or becoming, like tUl,
grow.
This kind of construction works like a mathematical equation, where the copula is an equal sign telling us
that the subject and complement correspond to one another, are equal to one another. In our example
sentence, .Ken ziT, the implied subject I is equated with the complement low: I am low. When the
subject complement is an adjective like low, it is called a predicate adjective. When the complement is a
noun, Atrus Kenen erTseltan, Atrus is a writer, for example, it is called a predicate noun.
I
(implied)
subject
subject
+
am
+
low
Atrus
+ Ken +
+ copula +
=
ziT
Atrus + Kenen +
complement
predicate adj.
+
subject +
subject
is
copula
=
+
+
a writer
erTseltan
complement
predicate noun
Subject complements, like subjects themselves, can be simple — consisting of a single word as in .Ken
ziT — or complex — consisting of multiple word elements and modifiers as in .Ken erTseltan para.
Complex subjects and complements can become very elaborate, but all such sentences will always boil
down to the subject + copula + complement construction.
Examples:
.retelrovtE vagasen KenEt cUrtantE
The eight guildsmen are students.
.renava tUlen oglan
The master grows ancient.
.Kenet garo ga Kera
We are mighty and brave.
Lesson 12
Adverbs
Just as adjectives can describe and modify nouns, adverbs cab modify verbs, adjectives, and many other
sentence elements. Like adjectives, adverbs usually follow the word they modify and have only one form.
Examples:
.xaven yartE nAvU blo
It lives approximately ten days.
.Kenen Kera b'riS
She is very brave.
.recUrtantE selEt ago
The new students write well.
Adverbs answer the questions "how," "when," "where," and "to what extent." Asking these questions is
often one of the best ways to figure out what word the adverb modifies, if it's unclear. If we turn the
sentence Kenen Kera b'riS, she is very brave, into an appropriate question, "How brave is she?", the
answer, very brave, gives us both the adverb and the word it modifies. Thus we know that the adverb is
b'riS, very, and that it modifies the adjective Kera, brave. We can ask similar questions for the adverbs
in the other two examples as well — How do the students write? They write (selEt) well (ago). How
are the ten days that it lives, in other words, to what extent are the days that it lives ten? Those days
amount to ten (nAvU) only approximately (blo).
One important class of adverb is an exception to the placement rule: temporal adverbs, those that express
an aspect of time or frequency. Unlike most, these adverbs are generally placed before the word they
modify rather than after.
Examples:
.renava preniv mEsen
The master speaks again.
.gaT Ken erTtelrov
I am still a guildsman.
.Atrus xan selen sevtE
Atrus always writes Ages.
Lesson 13
Converting Particles I
Suffixes hold a special place in the D'ni language. We've seen how important they are for verbs, where
they function as personal endings. Suffixes are important for other parts of speech as well, where they
most often function as what are called converting particles. We call them this because they are pieces of
words, what grammarians call particles, that convert between parts of speech. In this lesson, we'll look at
three converting particles that allow us to switch between nouns, adjectives, and adverbs.
Adjective to Noun: –(e)T
Say we have an adjective in English, good, which we want to transform into a noun, a word that means
the quality of being good: goodness. By adding -ness to the English adjective, we end up with a noun
form of that adjective. -ness is thus what we might call a converting particle, for English. Similarly, if we
begin with the D'ni word ram, and add the converting particle –(e)T, it turns into the corresponding
noun, rameT.
Note that there are parentheses around the e of –(e)T. This means that the e will only be used when it is
required for pronunciation. When we turned ram into a noun, we needed to use the optional e because
without it, the word would be difficult to say. (D'ni generally frowns on two consonants in a row.) For
other adjectives, many of which already end in a vowel, there is no need for the e and it is left out.
Examples:
para (great) becomes paraT (greatness)
garo (mighty) becomes garoT (might)
Kera (brave) becomes KeraT (bravery)
Some English "converting particles" in addition to -ness that often transform adjectives to nouns, and
might be helpful to associate with –(e)T, are: -ity (secure vs. security) and -ry (brave vs. bravery).
You may have also noticed that KeraT is the name of the last King of D'ni. This is no coincidence;
sometimes these adjectives-become-nouns serve as epithets, names of honor and respect. It certainly took
a great deal of bravery for Kerath to step down from his throne and institute a whole new form of
government for his people. Other kings of D'ni history — Solath, Demath — have similar epithets for
names, though we don't yet know what they might mean.
Noun to Adjective: – ex
Where –(e)T turns adjectives into nouns, the converting particle – ex goes the other way around, turning
nouns into adjectives. Note that for – ex, the e is not in parentheses; it will always be included,
regardless of whether the noun ends in a vowel or consonant.
Examples:
vog (nature) becomes vogex (natural)
bonU (acid) becomes bonUex (acidic)
ter (tree) becomes terex (arboreal)
nava (master) becomes navaex (masterful)
pråD (rock) becomes pråDex (rocky)
Some common English suffixes that serve the same noun-to-adjective function are: -ic (acid vs. acidic),
-ous (cavern vs. cavernous), -al (nature vs. natural), -ful (bounty vs. bountiful), and -y (rock vs. rocky).
The – ex converting particle plays a special role when applied to number words. Numbers can be both
nouns — yim sen, I see three, where three works like a pronoun standing in for three rocks or three
people — and adjectives — cUrtantE sen, three students. But what if, instead of saying three
students, we wanted to say the third student? This is where we would use a number word with the – ex
suffix: recUrtan senex. We call sen, which tells us a quantity, a cardinal number, while senex,
which tells us the order in a sequence, is called an ordinal number. This use of – ex applies to any
number, no matter how big or small.
Adjective to Adverb: –(e)S
With a firm grasp of how –(e)T works, this last converting particle should be easy to use. Like –(e)T, –
(e)S is always suffixed onto adjectives; instead of changing them into nouns, though, –(e)S changes
them to adverbs. These adverbs are never temporal, and so always come after the word(s) they modify.
Examples:
ten (simple) becomes teneS (simply)
garo (mighty) becomes garoS (mightily)
Kera (brave) becomes KeraS (bravely)
There is really only one English suffix, -ly, that plays a similar adjective-to-adverb function.
Lesson 14
Word Order
D'ni is an SVO language
A number of the D'ni constructions we have met so far rely on a strict ordering of words. We learned, for
example, that the sentence with subject complement always occurs in the set pattern subject + coupla +
complement. The rigor of this pattern is essential for us to identify the various parts of the sentence and
the way they fit into a meaning.
This kind of rigorous word order is an important and far-reaching feature of D'ni. In fact, the sentence
with subject complement technically comes from a more general construction that governs all D'ni
sentences: subject + verb + object. Linguists use patterns like this one to classify languages; D'ni is thus
an SVO (subject-verb-object) language just like English. If we pull apart a simple sentence, we'll see what
this classification means.
Example:
The machine makes tweezers.
We should be able to easily identify the subject, verb, and object of this sentence: the machine, makes,
and tweezers respectively. If we write this sentence in D'ni, we see that the same word order is
maintained:
Example:
.reDOha barelen DantE
The subject, reDOha, comes first, followed by the verb, barelen, and after that the object, DantE.
This standard subject-verb-object word order applies to all D'ni sentences. When the subject is a personal
pronoun and implied by the verb, it obviously doesn't appear, but SVO word order is still upheld: the verb
then comes first and is followed by any objects. Similarly, when the verb has no object, the subject (as
long as it is not implied) comes first followed by the verb.
Modifiers and word order
But if we could only make D'ni sentences out of subjects, verbs, and objects, they would be very boring,
simple sentences indeed. Modifiers — adjectives, adverbs, and phrases serving the function of adjectives
or adverbs — help make sentences interesting and complex by qualifying, characterizing, or describing
the main words making up the sentence's framework. As we've learned already, adjectives and adverbs
follow the word(s) they modify, except for temporal adverbs, which come before. Phrases function like
adjectives or adverbs and also follow the word(s) they modify. We'll learn more about them later on.
When a word has a bunch of modifiers, the closer a modifier is to that word, the greater its significance.
Single-word modifiers always come before modifying phrases. This is different from the ordering of
modifiers in English, where they can be distributed on either side of the word. Here's a phrase that
demonstrates these differences, adapted from Aitrus' map From D'ni to the Surface:
DOhatE
pråDtEgal
tor
garo
b'riS
tregan D'nE
noun
adjective
number
adjective
adverb
phrase
four
very
mighty
rock-working
machines
in the D'ni empire
number
adverb
adjective
adjective
noun
phrase
You can see how different the D'ni and English ordering of modifiers is. While English has them scattered
on both sides of the noun, D'ni arranges them all afterwards in descending order of significance, singleword adjectives first, then adjectival phrases.
The bond between verb and object is very strong and can never be broken. Thus, when adverbs are
introduced into a sentence that has both verb and object, they don't come directly after the verb as would
be expected but rather are placed after the object. A slightly modified excerpt from From D'ni to the
Surface provides us with an example of this as well:
rEsloen
erTmarg
gixaS
mrepråD
verb
direct object
adverb
phrase
(it)
safely
dissolves
a layer
from the rock
impl. subj.
adverb
verb
direct object
phrase
We might expect the two adverbial elements of this sentence, gixaS and mrepråD, to come directly
after the verb rEsloen, but because a direct object, erTmarg, is present, it takes precedence and
comes first. Note too that, as with adjectives, single-word adverbs always come before adverbial phrases.
Lesson 15
Present Progressive Tense
Similar to how suffixes indicate number and person for D'ni verbs, prefixes indicate different tenses. So
far, we've been working with verbs in the simple present tense. This is the most basic tense in D'ni and we
recognize it by the absence of prefixes. When we place Do– in front of a conjugated simple present tense
verb, the tense changes to present progressive. Do– may appear as a prefix on any verb, as long as that
verb is conjugated; it will never appear in the infinitive.
The simple present tense is a plain statement of action or being: lonEt, they discover; reano remen,
the water flows. When the present tense verb becomes progressive, it describes an action that is currently
in progress, that is happening right now in the present: DoselEt, they are writing (at this moment);
Atrus DoeDeren, Atrus is sleeping (right now as we speak). These present progressive verbs, when
translated into English, will always take the form of subject + to be + verb-ing — the -ing ending in
English is often a clue that you have a progressive tense.
One common mistake that is made when translating from English to D'ni is to see a present progressive
verb — you are dying — and try to translate it as a form of Ken, to be, plus another verb, resulting in
something like Kenem DomanSU. This is an incorrect translation — you are dying cannot be
separated out into two verbs, you are + dying. Where English needs to use helping verbs, forms of to be
and to have to express complex verb forms, D'ni is capable of doing so with a single word.
When translating complex verb forms like our present progressive example, You are dying, it is best to
step back, figure out the verbal idea (second person singular, present progressive tense) and then translate
into D'ni: DomanSUem. This is the proper translation; the root of the verb is manSU, die, the
personal ending – em tells us the verb is second person singular, and the tense prefix Do– tells us that
the tense is present progressive.
Lesson 16
Negative Statements
All of the sentences we've worked with so far are affirmative statements. That is, they all express
something that is, or something that happens. What if, however, we wanted to say that something is not,
or doesn't happen? We would then be constructing negative statements, which in English is accomplished
by using the words no or not.
Examples:
Gehn is a great writer. (affirmative)
Gehn is not a great writer. (negative)
The master instructs. (affirmative)
The master does not instruct. (negative)
There is peace. (affirmative)
There is no peace. (negative)
D'ni has a similar, powerful little word that turns affirmative statements into negative ones: ril. ril always
comes immediately before the verb it negates; it is always adjacent to the verb and no other word will
ever intervene between the two. Where English differentiates between constructions that use no and not,
the D'ni ril covers all forms of negation.
English also often uses the helping verb do in negative statements formed with not, the second pair of
statements above, for example. D'ni has no need for this helping verb and it should never appear in
English-to-D'ni translations. It may be helpful to think about these kinds of sentences — The master does
not instruct — in an archaic English form that eliminates the do/does — The master instructs not.
Such rewriting may also help keep the negating word and complicated verb tenses clear and distinct.
Examples:
.gen ril Kenen erTseltan para
.renava ril SokUen
.ril Kenen Sora
Because ril is modifying the verb, we know that it's an adverb, and this means that it can be applied to
other elements of a sentence, too: adjectives, other adverbs, phrases, etc. We'll soon learn about these
other uses, but before we do so, it is important to have a firm grasp on how verbs are negated and the
changes in meaning that result
Lesson 17
Imperative Mood
Most of the sentences we write in D'ni are in the indicative mood: they state facts and make observations.
Sometimes, though, when we make a direct address, we don't want to tell facts, we want to instruct what
to do, to give a command. In these cases, we use the imperative mood, which in D'ni is expressed with an
–a suffix after the verb's personal ending.
Traditionally, the imperative mood is limited to the second person — you, go! or you all, go! — since
commands usually need to be directed at others who are intended to enact them. However, we can make
similar statements with reference to a first person subject — we go! meant not as a statement of fact, but
as an injunction to action that includes the speaker — or even a third person subject — they go! meant
similarly as a command. D'ni considers all of these verb forms to be imperative in mood; indeed, there is
strong evidence to suggest that –a can be suffixed onto verbs of any person or number. However, since
commands are also a demand for an event that has not yet occurred, imperative mood can only apply to
verbs in the present tense. Since commands tend to be direct and straightforward requests for action, most
sentences using the imperative mood will be relatively short and simple, focusing on the verb.
Examples:
.rEsema
Eat!
.eDertEa
.eDereta
Sleep! (Go to sleep!)
.ril glasema reano
Don't drink the water!
.xan Dolonema
Always be discovering!
We sleep! (Let us now sleep!)
Lesson 18
Converting Particles II
We've already learned about three converting particles that switch between nouns, adjectives, and
adverbs: –(e)T, –(e)S, and – ex. There are two left to learn which resemble each other in both form and
function: –tav and –tan.
Both of these particles convert verbs into nouns. –tav produces common nouns which express a
completed realization or result of the action of the verb. These nouns can be abstract or concrete; some are
easier to translate than others. marntav, the completion of the act of creating, is a creation, the same
way that manSUtav, the result of dying, is death. But what is bareltav, the completed act or result of
making? This would best be rendered as a made thing in English, which has no word of its own to
designate this concept. Common English suffixes which may be associated with
–tav are: -ance, -ment, -tion, and -sion.
Examples:
Krotav
movement
seltav
writing
mEstav
speech
bAktav
link
–tan, on the other hand, produces what we call solidary nouns. Solidary nouns denote a class or group of
people (think solidarity). In other words, –tan changes the verb into the person who does that verb, who
performs its action. You may notice that we've been using some of these words for a while now: cUrtan
(student), seltan (writer), tEgtan (worker), etc. Corresponding English suffixes include: -er/-or and ant/-ent.
Examples:
mEstan
speaker, orator
SokUtan instructor
bareltan
Maker (another name for Yahvo, the D'ni deity)
lontan
discoverer
Lesson 19
Demonstrative Adjective and Pronoun
Similar to articles, demonstrative adjectives — this and these, that and those — "point to" specific
nouns. We know for sure of one demonstrative adjective in D'ni: the word met which is the equivalent of
the English this and these. Like re or erT, met doesn't distinguish between singular and plural; the
same word is used for both forms. Placement, though, is a more difficult matter — source texts show met
in a variety of positions, before and after the noun, attached to and separate from it.
Some general guidelines for placement have emerged, though. When the noun is not modified by any
adjectives, met usually comes immediately after the noun as a separate word. When the noun is
modified, met usually comes immediately before the noun as a separate word. There is one special case
where met is attached to the beginning of the noun as a prefix (when it is a material direct object) but this
is an advanced grammar point we won't learn about for a while.
Examples:
.baxanatE met toKituEt rerUA
These maps determine the route.
.met Dova pråDex Kenen oglan
This rocky world is ancient.
In addition to being a demonstrative adjective, met is also a demonstrative pronoun. Remember that
pronouns are "placeholder" nouns that stand in for other nouns. The pronouns we've encountered already
— subject pronouns like I, you, we, and they — are all implied in the personal endings of verbs. met as a
demonstrative pronoun is always third person, singular or plural, and stands in for an explicit noun
subject. Take for example the two full sentences above. The subjects of these sentences are baxanatE
met and met Dova pråDex respectively. If we replace these subjects with met, we end up with:
Examples:
.met toKituEt rerUA
These determine the route.
.met Kenen oglan
This is ancient.
Note how met is used in both sentences, even though the subject of the first is third person plural, and
that of the second third person singular. We can tell whether met is meant to be singular or plural by
looking at the personal ending of the verb. Note too that when it is a pronoun, met follows SVO word
order and comes before the verb as a separate word.
Lesson 20
Coordinating Conjunctions
Simple statements like we've been studying are excellent for expressing clear, concise, and
straightforward ideas. Their adherence to a consistent SVO word order always provides us with enough
information to determine the sentence's actor, his or her action, and the recipient (if any) of that action.
Sometimes, though, we want to express not simply straightforward ideas, but the relationship between
multiple ideas. One way of forming such complex sentences is connecting together simple statements
with what are called coordinating conjunctions (so called because they conjoin two independent sentences
of relatively equivalent, or coordinate, value). Let's look at an example in English.
Example:
Bravery is good, but he is not brave.
Here, we have two simple statements, bravery is good and he is not brave, that are linked together with
the coordinating conjunction but. Taken individually, each statenebt us a complete and functional
sentence on its own. When they are connected together by but, a logical relation is established between
them: as a general condition, being brave is a good thing — he is an exception, though, he stands in
contradiction to the general condition and is not brave. But tells us that the relation between the two
connected sentences, technically called independent clauses, is one of opposition or contradiction.
In D'ni, we would write the same sentence this way:
Example:
.KeraT Kenen ram rUb ril Kenen Kera
As in English, the two independent clauses — KeraT Kenen ram and ril Kenen Kera — are
connected with a coordinating conjunction, rUb, meaning but. Notice that there is no punctuation, such
as the comma we use in English, to separate the two clauses; D'ni has no such punctuation.
Another D'ni conjunction is pam, or, which connects two clauses that are mutually exclusive
alternatives. For example, it might be said of Riven that Atrus is always writing the Descriptive Book
or the Age dies.
Example:
.Atrus xan Doselen reKorman pam resev manSUen
The sentence offers two distinct possibilities. Whichever alternative comes to be true, the other one must
necessarily not be true — either Atrus keeps writing and the Age lives, or the Age dies because Atrus has
stopped writing.
ga, and, is the most frequently used coordinating conjunction. It indicates that the two clauses are
connected together because of their similarity, association, or consequence. In Aitrus' From D'ni to the
Surface, we read about a curious lizard:
Example:
.met m'la tornen poant bonUex ga
rEsloen repråDtE
These two independent clauses are connected together with ga because the second is a consequence of
the closely associated first: This lizard spits acidic saliva, and as a result it (the saliva) dissolves the
rocks.
Of course, coordinating conjunctions be used to string together more than two independent clauses:
Example:
.met m'la tornen poant bonUex ga
rEsloen repråDtE rUb rem'la ril Doglasen
D'ni coordinating conjunctions thus work very similarly to how they work in English, by connecting
together simple statements and telling us something about the relationship between those statements, with
the one significant difference that there is no punctuation to set the statements apart.
Lesson 21
Introduction to Prepositions
At this point in our studies of D'ni, we've learned about and worked with many parts of speech: nouns,
verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, and conjunctions. There is one remaining part of speech left to
introduce — prepositions. These little words enrich the D'ni language with phrases that, like adjectives
and adverbs, modify other parts of a sentence. In fact, these phrases can be classified according to whether
they play an adjectival or adverbial role in the sentence.
Like adjectives and adverbs, prepositions have only one form and do not change to agree with the word(s)
they modify. However, unlike most D'ni words, English prepositions and D'ni prepositions do not
translate one-to-one; a single D'ni preposition may cover a number of English ones, while a single English
preposition may translate into any number of D'ni words, depending on the inflection in meaning.
Phrases formed with prepositions, called prepositional phrases, always follow a common pattern: first
comes the preposition, then a noun, then any modifiers. A verb will never appear in a prepositional
phrase.
Examples:
in the house
with a powerful machine
among friends
A number of D'ni prepositions take the form of a consonant plus e: te, be, me, ke. When this kind of
preposition opens a prepositional phrase, it often is turned into a prefix and contracted, such that the
preposition is attached to the noun and a ' replaces the e. The one exception to this is when the
preposition occurs in front of the article re, where the ' and/or e are dropped altogether.
Examples:
me erTKElen
from a step
t'yar fa (te yar fa)
in one day
krehevtE ( ke rehevtE)
for the words
Other prepositions not of this form, like ben and xo, are never contracted and predominantly stand as
full, independent words in the sentence. Regardless of how the preposition is written, the phrase it forms
should always be considered a closed unit — the phrase in its entirety will obey modifier word order and,
while adjustable internally, should never be split up with words external to the phrase itself.
Lesson 22
"beh" and Quantifiers
As a standard preposition, be means to, generally in the sense of motion or impulse towards.
Examples:
.marentema relena bretalEo
Follow the journey to the surface!
.rebaro KenEt ram be yESa
The bahro are good to Yeesha.
.DoKazEet b'erTpax
We are detouring to the city.
The sense of motion towards is clear in the first and third examples; in the second, the bahro direct their
goodness towards Yeesha. We can also recognize that the prepositional phrase in the first sentence is
adjectival (it modifies lena) while in the others it is adverbial (be yESa answers the question, "how are
the bahro good?", and b'repax answers the question, "where are we detouring?").
b' should look familiar to us, since we met it very early on — as how we identify infinitive verbs. This
follows English practice, where the infinitive — to write — is also identified by the presence of the
preposition to.
be has one final use that is idiomatic to D'ni, and a very important feature of the language. Rather than
using adverbs like very or minimally to express intensity, D'ni uses the construction b' + number word to
precisely express that degree of intensity on a scale of one to twenty-five; as the number increases, so
does the intensity of the modified word. Called quantifiers (or sometimes adverbs of degree), these
phrases always play an adverbial function and are most commonly applied to other modifiers and to
verbs.
Examples:
poant bonUex b'rigasen
very (to-twenty-three) acidic saliva
.sel D'nE b'hEbor
I write D'ni passably well. (to-fifteen)
.rem'la DoKroen b'vat
The lizard is moving just a little. (to-five)
Translating quantifiers requires a bit of creativity which often depends on context, since there are no set
English words for each degree of intensity. Note how the quantifier in the first example modifies the
adjective bonUex, while in the other two it modifies the verb. Notice, too, how the rules for word order
are still observed: the quantifier comes after the single-word adjective or after the verb's direct object as
we would expect.
Sometimes, if we wish to exaggerate the degree of intensity, we can use number words greater than
twenty-five.
Example:
.Kenen Kera b'fasEvat
She is extremely brave.
When a quantifier sits at either extreme of the number scale, either b'fa (meaning least) or b'fasE
(meaning most), care must be taken to translate correctly. When a word is modified with b'fa, this
indicates that that word's intensity is very low, present to only the smallest degree — not that it is not
present, or that it is an opposite word. That is, erTtelrov ram b'fa does not mean an evil or bad
guildsman, but simply a guildsman who is good to the least degree, just a little good; he might be very
pragmatic and withdrawn, only exhibiting his good side very rarely, but this does not make him evil or
bad, just remote.
A different kind of difficulty may be encountered with b'fasE. To consider a slightly modified recording
of Keta's speech:
Example:
.xan tAgan gen b'fasE
This sentence could be translated as I always love Gehn the most, which suggest a comparison not in the
original D'ni. A better way to translate might be I always most dearly love Gehn; again, some contextual
liberty in translation is often required to accurately render these D'ni quantifiers in English.