Congratulations on 53 years of life on earth!

I’d be happy to help, but I’d prefer to respond to you via a reply to your having sent a mail to the address on the Contact • Mestau page. Please go find that address and ping me there directly. I will need to send you a file enclosure with the artwork in it and I prefer to do that via regular e-mail addresses.

s’Briht’uhn

I very much want to have this phrase in ceremonial vulcan as this script looks beautifully musical.

I sincerely hope you can help me with this request.

Kim Mawdsley
Brisbane
Australia.

I should really write up an article on the “dialect” here. This is an excellent question and shows that you really are studying and UNDERSTANDING the language. The prefix ‹n’› is theoretically linguistically evolved from ‹na’›, but it is not just a shortening of ‹na’› and it does not mean the same thing. It exists to make the language a tad bit more ‘logical’. Since Golic Vulcan is ‘pro-drop’ (meaning it allows or encourages the dropping of pronouns when they might be considered redundant) it is very easy to end up with a sentence in which it is not precisely clear who/what the subject of the sentence it. For example. “Stal Stonn le-matya.”. Stonn killed the le-matya. is unambiguous. The verb is there (first, stal), the subject is there (second, Stonn), and the object is there (third, le-matya). This is normal Modern Golic Vulcan word order (VSO). It is also possible to say “Pustal le-matya (bai’Stonn)”. The le-matya was killed (by Stonn). This is possible due to the existence of a specific verb in the passive voice for “to be killed” (pustau). However, it seems that adding the prefix ‹pu.› productively to just any verb is not done. Certain verbs have a ‘passive voice’ form, but not all of them. So, this is where the mysterious ‹n’› comes into play in the language you see written here at Korsaya.org. It marks the OBJECT of the verb when the subject has been dropped.

A: Ki’ro’fah fan-veh tu pa’Stonn, ha. (Lit: (Perfective)’inform anyone you about’Stonn, yes?) ››› Has anyone told you about Stonn?
B: Ri. Ra. (Lit: No. What?)
A: Stal n’le-matya. (Lit: killed (obj.)’le-matya) ››› (He) killed a le-matya.

If this sentence were to be rendered without the ‹n’›—because the language is pro-drop—it could mean “A le-matya killed (him)”.

This prefix ‹n’› would also come in very handy for the first Question:

A: Ki’ro’fah n’du pa’Stonn, ha. (Lit: (Perfective)’inform (obj.)’you about’Stonn, yes?) ››› Has anyone told you about Stonn?

It’s shorter and still means the same thing.

This object-marking ‹n’› prefix is pronounced one of 3 ways depending on what it bumps into:

1) just n (n’odu ››› /nodu/, n’yon ››› /nyon/)
2) with a schwa [ə] (n’vel ››› /nəvel/)
3) as a long or double nn (n’nash-veh ››› /nnash-veh/)

You should just think of it as a dialectal variation. It is NOT used when the subject is stated overtly in the sentence. Marking the object is never obligatory (even when the subject is dropped). There are scenarios in which the nature of the conversation clarifies the object unambiguously thereby negating the value of ‹n’›.

Rok-tor ta gol-tor n’du. (Lit: Hope that help (obj.)’you). ››› I hope that I am helping you.