Sleepy and tired

The main Kazujisha word for "sleepy" or "tired" is jinsyta. It's actually a compound, jinsya "to sleep" + take "to want", literally "to sleep-want". Even though you would expect it to behave like a verb, it only does that to an extent. It's a mix of an adjective and a verb. See: Me jinsyta can mean both "I am tired" and "I sleep-want" because they basically mean the same; also Jinsyta me "the sleepy I", not "* sleep-wants me" as you would assume as me occupies object position. All -ta (< -take) derivations behave like that, like esita "hungry" from esin "to eat" + take, kirbita "thirsty" (kirbi "to drink").

I haven't got a Kazujisha grammar book, but I would assume that -ta derivations are always intransitive and cannot take an object; instead, if it precedes a noun, it behaves like an adjective, not a verb. Does this mean that you cannot use -ta derivations for things like "I want to drink water"? In a way, yes, and it's pretty logical. "I drink-want water" is quite odd. It's easier to say me take kirbi tihental "I want [to] drink water".

But! Oddly enough, they can be used with objects in a te "to do" construction: me te tihental kirbita "I want to drink water (lit. I do water drink-want)", me te kedeki esita "I want to eat bread".

So, now I've written a bit about language for you language-learners. Hopefully you've learned something! Nesh ja!

Arikea

Months; zipeven

Ira jo!

So! A month since last! And no, I haven't forgotten this at all. I've just... been out of things to write, as usual.

I met my cousin yesterday. It was fun. We talked about her new date. He's Zhytjetji. Zhytjetji is the ethnic minority group of Kazujisha. Most of them live to the west of Rahean. I know quite a few, though most have been so assimilated into the Kazujisha society they barely talk about themselves as Zhytjetji. Whereas I understand why they do so - there is discrimination against them - the old ancestry-worshiper in me still thinks of it as sad, because when a culture is no longer practiced by those born it, it dies. I celebrate religious events just because my ancestors did. It simply feels right to do so.

Anyways my cousin's date seems pretty Zhytjetji - he speaks the language, and if you haven't heard it before I suggest you try to listen to some Tjakir tsälvee ("Spirit world"). It's a great Zhytjetji folk band, and Zhytjetji is really a beautiful language. I'd like to learn it, but even though it is an officially recognized minority language, it's hard to find people speaking it and courses in it! The Library of Rahean has got two course books in it, though. Maybe I should check them out when I've got time.

Arikea

Eleven days since contact

Mou ira.

I haven't written for eleven days now and that's pretty terrible. Truth be told, I haven't forgotten about you all, I just haven't had much to say.

Hm... to find a subject... oh, right. Next year, in 2008, elections in Kazujisha. Here, we vote for different parties. I can remember at least 5 of them on top of my head (there are some more, but I'm not a politics expert!). The one with the most votes gets to rule, basically... or, it's not that simple, but I'm somewhat tired and I'll pretend it is.

Currently, the ruling ones are a coalition between three parties: Tihenkádan (The Water Party), Máfeikádan (The People's Party) and Neshtikádan (The Rising Sun Party). They represent somewhat left-wing~libertarian politics. The Prime Minister of Kazujisha is Kotaeivha Aruhikesa, a woman who seems pretty nice for being a politician. A woman, you might ask? Yes, it isn't that odd to Kazujishans. We have always been somewhat more matriarchal than most other places. After all, the Talevalean religion clearly states that women are holier than men :-)

So next year, voting. I have no clue what I will vote for... these left-wingers are pretty tough and conservative. Parts of that, I don't like. Many groups in Kazujisha still have a pretty hard time, which they haven't managed to do much about. Still I'm not a fan of the right-wingers either. Oh well, still a lot of time for decisions.

I need to read up on what good the EU would be for Kazujisha. We aren't allowed to be in it yet because we have death penalty - it's very rare and I've only seen it mentioned four-five times, because it may only be ordered if you commit serious crime (murder) at least twice. But it's still death penalty, and as far as I know it is not planned to remove it... personally, well... it's certainly not humane, but in extreme cases where no therapy can help, perhaps it is the best... it is a hard question!

Anyways, I'll go read for now. See you all later, don't get death penalized.
Arikea, law-abiding citizen

Monju and all that

Ira-ira. こんにちは.

Today I'm feeling much better. I'm listening to monju. Monju is a Kazujisha music genre which is much like the Japanese enka. Actually they're very much the same thing. My favorite monju singer is Shijaota Iljunmageitr, who is actually not that known, even though she's been singing for a very long time. Another good one is Asetarja Anarketa, probably one of the most well-known ones. There are a few performances by them at YouTube.
Also, check out Sayuri Ishikawa, a very good Japanese enka singer.

Arikea

Freedom and all that

Eshala.

The title is highly misleading today. Lately I've been all but free - I caught a nasty cold. Very typically me to get ill in warm weather... I'm feeling a bit better now, though. I owe it all to Elakou who has been a lot together with me during these headache days. Though I guess I shouldn't be that happy about it... did you read about that cat Oscar (Wikipedia) that slept in the elderlies' beds when they were going to die? A bit scary.

Anyways, I better rest some more now...
Arikea

Ran Tsiekoda #1

Ira!

Today, I have nothing to write. I'm listening to Ran Tsiekoda, which is probably the best Kazujisha band there is. They play "flamboyant euphoric rock", according to themselves, and I and tons of others like it. Check them out, if you have the opportunity to. I highly recommend the song Taepeka da lanje ja me se teha ras me va nepa se nãei aspekali ("Space is black and I know that because I've seen it") from the album Nya'! Negai seteragi!, whose title is nonsense, as is many of their other titles.

Arikea

My name is Arikea

'Ja ira.

My last post was about family names. This follow-up is about first names. Kazujishans usually have one first name. Examples could be Tabetalat, Rigu Vajata, Verahi... but, there's no John Smith in Kazujisha. Why?

An important thing regarding Kazujisha families is that no two people currently alive may share the same first name. As such, I'm the only Arikea Hargiutamá in the entire world, but I know for sure that there is at least another Arikea in Kazujisha. Another consequence is that it is very common for names to not have any special meaning, other than sounding nice! I'm an exception as arikea means "air". A negative aspect is that it is sometimes hard to remember nonsense names because they are all different! Personally I believe that is a contributing reason why we highly prefer calling people their family names instead of first names in Kazujisha... :-)

It's pretty common for families to have naming traditions. There's a quite well-known branch of the family Imnitega where all females have a double-name starting with Val (Val Marin Imnitega is a quite known physicist from it, look her up on Wikipedia). My families don't.

What else? I really can't come up with anything...
I guess I'll call it a post. Nãei!

Arikea

My name is Hargiutamá

Esha.

Well, my name is Arikea. Arikea Hargiutamá. Names are considered very special in Kazujisha. First off, there are family names. In Kazujisha, we say that you're related to everyone with your family name. It is actually somewhat true, too, with the exception of those who are married into it and adopted ones. This is because only one family line has that family name. The name Hargiutamá is somewhat old (at least 200 years), founded by the couple Tereshyajin and Avanahyraji. All Hargiutamá except the above exceptions are related to them by blood!

As I have two parents Hargiutamá isn't my only family name. I'm a Telagikonna as well. To the Telagikonna I'm one of them, but my kids won't be unless I change my family name to Telagikonna. This kind of problems regarding family "membership" can be quite a mess for those with close bonds to both their families. To me, it's not much of a problem, family politics are almost non-existant in Hargiutamá and Telagikonna, at least in Rahean. Actually the cousin I visited in my last post is a Telagikonna!

Next time... I think I'll write about first names. Arikea, for example. Nãei!

Arikea

Rain and Relatives

The rain is just as bad as it was the 15th. Yesterday, I was visiting one of my cousins in Miromonju (the west part of Rahean). We were sitting on a balcony when we suddenly saw rain clouds in the sky. A while later, the entire sky was covered. Just as my cousin was betting that it would start raining in five minutes, we literally saw the rain starting to cover the northern end of the road and spread to the south. Three seconds later, we had to hurry inside to not become drenched...

Even though we can be pretty individualistic at times, relatives and family are important in Kazujisha. We usually don't have big family gatherings, but instead visit relatives every now and then. Hopefully, you all share some common interests, or it will only be boring family talk... fortunately my cousin is a great friend of mine!

Perhaps family and relatives is a good topic to write about in the future. For now, I'll just write what is above, and go play with my cat, Elakou. Nãei, or to quote her, mjao!

Arikea

Inikyelasha

Inikyelasha, or 'religious language' is one of the terms used for the religious 'lect of Kazujisha (the other one, also common, is Rah Kazujisha 'High Kazujisha'). It's a bit different from our normal everyday language, but it's still not hard to speak! First, I'll show some examples, then I'll explain the reasons why it's simple...

A quite minor but still important difference from standard language is that shorting words is frowned upon. In my last post, I mentioned that in spoken language, monoshikaushe 'rain' is shortened to shkau. That is not allowed. As quite a bit of the common Kazujisha words are fairly long, this is annoying at times. Compare monoshikaushe and shkau, it's four syllables shorter!

The hardest part is substituting words. In most cases it's just to speak as if you were writing something, but there are some perks. 'Woman' in standard language is zhigal. In Inikyelasha, it's taeketl - these words have got nothing in common! Also, women/girls older than 13 cannot say jedan 'have'. Instead, we have to use vajen, which in Inikyelasha is a synonym for 'have', but in standard language, vajen is exclusively used when talking about how many kids a woman has. Vajen láv in Inikyelasha is 'I have a cat', but in standard language, it's 'I have a cat kid'. Fun eh?

Those are some examples. Why is it easy to shift between them, then?

Well, most Kazujishans attend religious meetings every now and then. That's one way of picking it up. I got most of it from there. Schools teach the basics of it, too, in particular the really important things to know, such as jedan/vajen (it would be quite embarrassing to not know that). Also, the long-word thing is shared with formal written language (it's funny reading formal government reports writing te 'do', one of the most common Kazujisha words, as tegedratá).

Also, these language restrictions are only in effect during the actual rituals/meetings. Afterwards and before, you speak standard language. Unless you're reading a text or something like that, you don't speak that much other than the standard stuff which is covered in the paper you get in the beginning of each meeting. Priests usually speak something in-between Inikyelasha and standard when not preforming ceremonies and stuff. (Actually, with the quite liberal view the Talevalean religion has of the world, young Priests are often just like any other young adult.)

Inikyela is modified every now and then, usually whenever new High Priests are appointed. Also, different temples have their own versions, following their particular dialect.

That's some basic facts about Inikyelasha. I now wish you all a nice week!
Kitaja pinjafei sipetasu!

Arikea

Raindrops keep falling...

Esha.
These days have been horrible weather-wise. Rain all the time, clouds in the sky. Kazujishans don't talk about weather usually, but when it's really terrible, we do. Everyone I've spoken with lately have complained about the renkahat, which is roughly 'a lot of rain during a long time'. It's still somewhat nice when you are inside, hearing the heavy rain against the window, reading a nice book... and drinking hot chocolate. I'm addicted to hot chocolate. I know the purpose of my blogging is to talk about typical Kazujishan things, not to talk about myself. But hot chocolate is great. (I know quite a few other addicts, too - maybe it is a Kazujishan thing?)

Well, today's topic was... bad weather. Kazujisha has a lot of words regarding rain. Those of the Talevalean religion really love rain - it's considered holy because rain makes crops grow, but it's a bit odd because most of the "everyone's invited" rituals, meetings and such in Talevalean religion are conducted outside. I guess this holy rain thing is the reason why we enjoy talking about rain and have a lot of words for it.

Anyways! Here's a list of some rain-related words in Kazujisha.

monoshikaushe - to rain. General term.
renkahat - a lot of rain, during a long time. Kitashikau is almost the same thing, but it's often used for shorter periods.
keimshikau - snow-rain. Snow and rain in a mix.
anshikau - the first rain of the year, not being...
usmashikau - rain during winter.
sateshikau - a small, sudden downpour ending quickly.
rensateshikau - a big, sudden downpour ending quickly.
hibeshikau - rain from a clear sky (no or few clouds).
kahteshikau - when you are sad and it's raining as if the heaven is crying for you.

Those are the ones I can remember. Monoshikaushe is a quite long word, but most of the time, in informal spoken language we shorten it to shkau. I heard that monoshikaushe was originally the religious term, which in time replaced whatever the normal language used. Of course, that's just what I've heard...

I think I'll write a bit about religious language next time. It's interesting that we use quite different registers for religious and normal language - but it's still not hard to understand or speak! How come? Stay tuned...

Arikea

The Heart of the City

Hi all! Ira ara! I've been following Nefo of Siltsu's blog, writing a comment about that it's fun being outdoors, but that it's hard seeing anything but houses when living in a capital city! I'm going to tell you about the capital of Kazujisha, Rahean.

Rahean most likely means "large town" (rah 'large' + hea 'town, city'). It's not known when it was founded, but it's most likely a few hundred years old. I've lived here for my entire life, though in different districts (called heanashpá, literally 'town/city parts'). Rahean has three main districts (rah heanashpá 'high districts'): Miromonju ('the evening Monju song'), Tôrutahetah ('the marketplace') and Varzylahela ('the east town').

a somewhat poorly drawn map of Rahean

The river that flows through Rahean is Teleian. Kaedelikae, where I currently live, is a subdistrict (vãeiheanashpá) of Varzylahela. It's basically the upper half of it. Getting to Teleian is easy, it's just a walk. That's really great because it's very beautiful in the summer. If you just keep out of the center you will be quite alone in the sun by the river. There's still a lot of houses, though. Thankfully I live in an apartment somewhat close to the edge of Rahean, so I don't have that long of a walk to the nature. There are also buses to the Zhytjetji mountains (brown on the map) every now and then, they're very beautiful and a must-see in Kazujisha.

There is a well-known and well-visited park in Tôrutahetah, called Kaku beljarahke ('four white trees'). It's free from bicycles, cars, and other disturbing stuff. Just people and ice-cream vendors (Kazujishans love ice-cream, but that's a topic for another day). On odd-week Saturdays and Sundays, young local bands play there - all sorts of genres. Metal in the north and traditional music in the south. Very recommended if you go visit Rahean someday.

Well, that's what I can think of... any questions, go ahead :-)
Arikea

Aa sahlanist kiire~!

Today I got myself two new monkeys from Kjutahme, a toy shop! They're really cute!

http://www.ty.com/3_detail?id=20363
http://www.ty.com/3_detail?id=26210

... Which brings me to another Kazujishan oddity. Ever heard about Japanese girls screaming kawaii~? Well, Kazujishan girls have their way of expressing that somethings really cute too! It's kiire (note the similarity...). It's most often heard together with aa sahlanist "oh, so ..." or aa sah, a shorter variant (sometimes, aa is more like ah).

This is somewhat restricted to girls and young women, though. Men can use kiire but not together with aa sah(lanist), at least absolutely not in written language (unless it's a joke or someone clearly being feminine). Spoken language... well, nah... it could work, but one must be really careful not to use that high-pitched voice. Male students of the Kazujishan language, beware - learn what the usages are before you delve deep into these oddities!

If asked about my age, I just say that I'm not a kid, but still young enough to use aa sahlanist kiire~!! when describing my monkeys! ^_^

That's it for today! See you! Nãei!

Arikea

Well hello there

Hi all.

I'm Arikea Hargiutamá, or, as we would write in Kazujisha, Hargiutamá Arikea. I live in Rahean, which most of you probably know as the capital of Kazujisha. More precisely I live in the Kadelikae district of Rahean, Kadelikae heanashpá or (an Anglicism) Distrikta Kadelikae.

I haven't seen that much interest from others when I tell them on irc or such that I'm from Kazujisha. Most treat it like any other nation of Europe, and well, why should they not? Kazujisha isn't that different from other Western/Northern European countries.

Nevertheless I will blog about my life as a Kazujishan, focusing on what I know is different from other countries, our traditions. If there's anything specific you want to know about, ask away :-)

So, today's July 2, Itetalizipe dora. Kazujisha months are named after religious figures and concepts. Itetali is a person of great importance in Kazujishan religion (hereafter referred to as Talevalean religion) as she and her twin sister created the material world.

"From the beginning, there was Talevale and time with its guardians, Nepa (past), Omasietu (present) and Zazhyra (future).

Talevale was the world and all its aspects in the shape of a woman. One day she wanted children to give the world and its aspects to. Said and done, she became pregnant and after a while she gave birth to the adult twin sisters Itetali and Juakatla. However, Talevale died while giving birth, as she had to give her life to her daughters for them to "receive" the world. Therefore the twin sisters were now alone with the world and its aspects.

The twins decided to honor their mother by creating the physical world - stars, planets, rivers, mountains - with her body. They worked a long time, but soon they had created the vast world, the universe."

Quoted and translated from
Vãei junshaku Talevale inikyela "A short summary of the Talevalean religion" (2006), page 4

What might appear odd is that even though Talevale was everything, there were still the guardians of time. Talevalean religion views time as something vastly different from the physical world - time and world are separated from each other but work together.

Time is eternal and always-existing, but the world and its various aspects such as life, death, light, darkness et cetera are not "guaranteed" to exist. The guardians of time are as such therefore immortal and viewed as very mighty. They usually do not interfere with other gods or the world, and therefore they are rarely worshiped despite their might.

That's today's subject. Sleep well. Jinsya ni sôbrãeti.

Arikea
(http://geocities.com/kazujishamai/)