Changes: pronouns, the directive and words from Valarin
by Björn Axén
In the true spirit of Tolkien I cannot settle on details of the language. I have decided to change the directive suffix and the some of the pronouns. The pronouns of Zhâburi B has never been stable but I hope that the latest version will hold. For the first time in my work with Zhâburi I am content with every pronoun. For a long time I struggled with the 3 person which I wanted to contain the element of u and l because of the -ul-parts in the Ring inscription. In Zhâburi A 3 person was based on luzh and now I have settled at last on sul. But instead the 2 person has given med problems but now I discard fî inspired by Hurrian and settle for lat which the 2 person singular in all other dialects except David Salo’s. I also settled for a very conform structure for the different case forms where each pronoun has a basic stem CV; the ergative has an ending consonant and for the other cases the case suffix is simply attached to the basic stem.
| Person | abs | erg | gen | pos | dir | loc | ins | equ |
| 1 person excl. | shid | shigha | shikhu | shiba | shiza | shishi | shizi | shana |
| 1 person incl. | kad | kagha | kakhu | kaba | kaza | kashi | kazi | kana |
| 2. person | lat | lagha | lakhu | labu | laza | lashi | lazi | lana |
| 3 person | sul | sulgha | sulkhu | sulba | sulza | sulshi | sulzi | sulna |
I have also changed the directive from –bi to –na. I was not really happy with the suffix -bi (taken from Elvish). The replacing ending is taken from Hurrian –nna.
I am also planning on publishing a wordlist of the Zhâburi words taken from Valarin.
In the Shadow of Elvish - The Black Speech and Orcish 
You’ve started to borrow the words and grammar from existing dialects. But your Zhaburi dialect really shines with less used ideas to imitate Hurrian and borrow from older elven languages instead of bad fan-based linguistic inventions of 80s and calques from “modern” Quenya/Sindarin. I think “backward compatibility” is not always a good thing.
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Yes that’s an interesting question. Either I make a complete break from the old dialects or I can keep the conection. From the beginning Zhâburi was a variant of Svartiska and this is very clear in the A-version. The B-version is must less connected to Svartiska. I don’t really see ana problems with keeping the connections between Zhâburi and the other dialects as long as what I keep/borrow from the old dialects follow the other principles have work with. I think is both convinent and interesting to use words from the other dialects when I don’t have any fitting tolkien word to base it on. I’m planning to write a post on word formation were are I will elaborate on my principles and different choices. One thing I’ve been thing on is if I should use a random root-generator. That would fit Sauron’s insdustrial mind. But why not use the quite random words of the dialects in stead.
With that said i’m open for any suggestion.
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I’m just not satisfied with LOS pronouns and verb person system.
I was thinking of making random-root generator for BlackSpeech.ru. But yes, existing dialects, other languages of Arda and little creativity is enough to make new words
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What do you make of Zhâbur’s system?
I actually found the LoS-shadow intriguing but I think it’s more out of ignorance than ingenuity.
Here is a word generator. I haven’t used it yet
https://jasontank.net/wordgen.php
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Pronoun’s system is looking unified in Zhaaburi for now.
Actually Scatha’s inventions were good for dialect’s purpose. The main problem with LOS is aforementioned layer of legacy taken too seriously.
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It is of course not the directive but the Equitive
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this is some stellar work
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i meant this as a more general comment on the overall website, but this particular post is also good
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Thanks!
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