Introducing Sinac

Ilf (Hello),

Sinac is an artificial language created by me during my primary school and high school years. I used it for writing diaries and even taught it to some classmates for a while. It also appears in the fictional universe of a ca. 400-pages book I wrote with my friend Balázs Kerber during primary and high school years, and published it privately in 2005. The book, titled A Nagy Szívás, roughly meaning “that sucks a lot” is set in a parodistic fantasy world inspired by The Lord of the Rings, telling the story of a quest led by the half-pig-half-human protagonist McRöff against the dark lord Dardaklo. Sinac has its own grammar rules, which were inspired mostly by my native language Hungarian, and by German, which was my first foreign language, with some additional English influences. The words were mostly made up by me randomly, at times based on the distortion of words from natural languages. The grammar and phonology of Sinac was not constant, it went through gradual changes, just like natural languages. These changes were based on my preferences e.g. for shortening some words or suffixes for easier readability or making changes to the pronunciation of certain groups of words in order to create a more uniform phonological system. Here I will mostly present the latest stage of the language (“Late Sinac”).

Origin and pronunciation of the name

The word Sinac does not have any particular meaning. It came from the very first sentence I created in this language: Źinac fi nén, which means “C’est la vie” (literally “Such [is] the life”), thus it is a modification of the word źinac (“such”). As it will be introduced in the next section, the pronunciation of Sinac is quite different from English and it is more similar to Hungarian, therefore the word Sinac is pronounced more or less like “sheenots” would be in English. However, most people assumed it is pronounced like “seenac” due to the common spelling of the letters s and c in most European languages. For this reason, I created the word śinák (pronounced “seenac”) meaning “false” (in reference to the false pronunciation of the word Sinac).

The Sounds of Sinac

|Sinac letter(s) |Hungarian equivalent |English equivalent |Equivalent in other languages |

Sinac Grammar

Nouns

Similarly to Hungarian, Chinese, and many other non-Indo-European and non-Semitic languages, Sinac has no grammatical genders. The plural of nouns is formed by adding -n to their stem, in case of some letters -en to make the pronunciation easier (e.g. the plural of heśś “house” is heśśen “houses”). This was apparently influenced by German, in which -en is also a frequent suffix of the plural.
The definite article has various forms, which are determined by its position and by the words which precede and follow it. The basic form of the definite article is e. In case it is at the beginning of the sentence, or it is preceded by a word which ends with a vowel, it changes to je. In case it is in front of a word which starts with a vowel, it changes to ey (cf. Hungarian a vs. az). If both conditions are true, it takes the form jey. See e.g.:
je kástroo / jey eap / je kástroo at ey eap / jey eap at e kástroo (the school / the class / the school and the class / the class and the school) The indefinite article (the equivalent of English a/an) has only one form, ter. This comes from an abbreviation of the word muuter meaning one.

Prepositions, postpositions, prefixes, and suffixes added to nouns

While German and English use mostly prepositions added in front of the nouns (in, under/unter, between/zwischen, etc.), in Hungarian everything is added at the end of the nouns, either in the form of suffixes (e.g. -hoz/-hez/-höz) or in the form of postpositions (… alatt, között). In Sinac, I decided to mix up these two ways of dealing with nouns, and I also created the possession-marking noun-prefixes (equivalents of English my …, your …, his/her …, etc.). Most prefixes, in case followed by the definite or indefinite article, by time became merged with the article into special definite/indefinite forms (compare German in + dem = im, French de + un = d’un). Suffixes also had definite forms, which were either based on earlier basic forms or made up randomly, their indefinite forms were based on adding -r to the basic form, as an imitation of the indefinite form of prepositions.

Some examples of prepositions include:

• ni “on (top of something)”, definite form ni + je = ne, indefinite form ni + ter = nir -> ne heśś = “on (top of) the house”, nir heśś = “on (top of) a house”
• ovten “behind”, definite form ovten + e = ovtenne, indefinite form ovten + ter = ovtener -> ovtenne heśś = “behind the house”, ovtener heśś = “behind a house”
• The accusative, unlike in any language I knew at that time or I am aware of now, is expressed by putting a preposition (s) in front of the noun. In an irregular way, it follows the definite article instead of preceding it and is written separately from it (tojenda je s heśś = “I see the house”. Meanwhile, it preceded the indefinite article and is merged with it in Late Sinac (s + ter = ser, tojenda ser heśś = “I see a house”).

Some examples of suffixes added to nouns:

• -ent meaning “in / inside of”, definite form -enti, indefinite form sometimes -enter, but mostly expressed as ter …-ent -> kententi “in the city”, ter kentent or kententer “in a city”, kentenenti “in the cities”
• -śnox “to”, definite form -śneax, indefinite form -śnoxer (rarely used, mostly expressed as ter …-śnox)

The only example of a postposition:

• … knift “after”, it had no definite and indefinite forms -> je dneökkeŕ knift “after the decision”

The possessive prefixes were based on putting the personal pronouns (cá, tá, öü/det, cám, tám, öüm) in front of the noun:

• je cáheśś “my house”, táheśśenenti “in your houses”, etc.

The third person singular possessive prefix is det-, which in Late Sinac became the basic personal pronoun as well, instead of the earlier öü (she/he). The third person plural possessive prefix is dit-, which however did not replace öüm as the personal pronoun. The expression of possessive relations is based on the det- prefix in general: je tnák detheśś “the girl’s house” (lit. “the girl her-house”). Influenced by Hungarian, possessed nouns are by default accompanied by the definite article, je cáheśś (lit. “the me-house” -> “the my house”) expressing “my house” (in Hungarian “a házam”).

Adjectives

Sinac adjectives have comparative and superlative degrees, similarly to Hungarian, German, English, and other languages. The formation of comparative and superlative degrees is heavily influenced by Hungarian, the comparative degree being formed with the suffix -ff (cf. Hungarian -bb), the superlative degree being formed with the circumfix kri-…-ff (cf. Hungarian leg-…-bb).

Examples of adjectives and their degrees of comparison:

• lekto, lektoeff, krilektoeff (small, smaller, smallest)
• pnát, pnáteff, kripnáteff (beautiful, more beautiful, most beautiful)
• irregular adjective: breaś, breff, kraff (good, better, best)

Verbs

Sinac verbs are conjugated based on person (1st, 2nd, 3rd), number (singular, plural), tense (past, present, future), and mood (indicative, conditional, imperative). In Late Sinac, aspect (perfective and imperfective) emerged gradually as well. Voice (active, passive, causative) can be expressed through derivational suffixes. The infinitive of the verb is formed by combining the preposition toj (influenced by English “to”) with the third person singular present perfective of any given verb.

The conjugational charts of the regular verb toj breatt (to go) are shown below. As many other verbs in Late Sinac, toj breatt has two alternative stems, breatt- and brat-, the former being the stressed variety, the latter being the unstressed one (in cases when stress falls on an other syllable of the word). Stressed suffixes include the -enn suffix of the future tense, as well as the -end suffix of the imperfective aspect, as well as some other regular combinations of suffixes (like -enfcef meaning the past of the second person singular). Not all verbs have different stressed and unstressed stems (e.g. toj üv and toj üvend are the perfective and imperfective forms of “to do”, both being based on the stem of üv-), but in the case of those which have, both forms need to be memorized when first learning the verb. There were no stressed and unstressed verb stems in the earlier (pre-Late) stages of Sinac, only one basic form existed. The Late Sinac unstressed stem evolved from the earlier basic form of the verb (like the earlier forms of breatt were bratj -> brat).

The general suffixes of number/person are -a, -nfc, -, -un, -un, -un. Since the suffixes of the plural forms are identical, the personal pronouns cám, tám, öüm (we, you, they) need to be used to indicate person. Past tense is in most verbs formed by adding -f to the present form. Future tense is indicated by putting the -enn suffix between the verb stem and the person/number suffixes. The future tense of the second person singular merged into -eynnfc from the original -ennenfc. Conditional mood is indicated by the -g suffix which is put in front of the person, number, and past tense suffixes, but follows the future tense suffix. In first person singular -g is followed by -et of which the past form is -etaf.

PERFECTIVE INDICATIVE
|Present (I go) |Past (I went) |Future (I will go) |

PERFECTIVE CONDITIONAL
|Present (I would go) |Past (I would have gone) |Future (I would go [in the future]) |

IMPERATIVE The present imperative suffixes -ac, -, -i, -unc, -unt, un. A rarely used past imperative exists Sinac, formed by the duplication of -f in the indicative past forms. This can express (an often regretful) exclamation for a past action, e.g. Blatendaff qual det! (lit. Talk-IMPERF.-1SING.-IMP/PAST with her/him = “I should have talked with him/her” or “Why I didn’t talk with her/him?”), or Quell breattaff é kástroo ćëb! (lit. NOT GO-1SING.-IMP/PAST to the school today = “I shouldn’t have gone to school today!” or “Why did I go to school today?”. The future tense of the imperative refers to an action to be completed in the future, e.g. Blatendennunc qual det zegrum! “Let’s talk to him/her about this (not now, but some time in the future)”, or “We shall talk to her/him about this soon”.

The imperfective aspect of verbs is formed by adding the stressed suffix -end to the verb stem. Verbs with two stems change to their unstressed stem when followed by -end. The imperfective suffix precedes all other suffixes. In earlier forms of Sinac, aspect was solely expressed by prefixes added to the word, in a similar way to Hungarian (üvaf vs. páiśüvaf = “I did/I was doing” vs. “I have done”, in Hungarian “csináltam” vs. “megcsináltam”). The -end suffix originally expressed a frequentative verbal aspect, similarly to the Hungarian “-gat/-get” suffix (e.g. Hungarian “kérdez” vs. “kérdezget”, meaning “she/he asks” vs. “he/she keeps on asking”. By the Late Sinac stage the -end suffix came to indicate the imperfective aspect (actions done continuously or habitually), while the basic form of the verb, in most cases joined with a prefix came to indicate the perfective aspect (actions with a clear end point) in particular. This means that for example the perfective breatt almost never appears on its own in the Late Sinac stage, but only as pëbreatt, zëbreatt, lebreatt, subreatt, etc. “go (somewhere, with a clear end point of the action), go in, go out, go back, etc.).

The conjugation of imperfective verb forms does not differ from that of perfective ones. All suffix are added after UNSTRESSED_STEM + -END: bratenda (I am going), bratendaf (I was going), bratendenna (I will be going), bratendget (I would be going), etc.

Example of Sinac text

The following example is a translation of two sentences said by Gandalf to Frodo in Moria in the The Fellowship of the Ring movie of the LOTR series. The first translation was made in the early years of using Sinac, while the second one is based on the latest stage of the language. The differences show the tendency of moving away from the mirror translations of Hungarian texts towards the development of a separate logic and sentence structure. The Hungarian-dubbed text of Gandalf on which the translation is the following:

“Mind így van ezzel, aki hasonló időket megél, de a döntés nem rajta áll. Nekünk arról kell döntenünk, hogy mihez kezdjünk az idővel, ami megadatik.”

The original English text is “[…] so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

In Old Sinac it sounded as follows:

Dlá not cab qualz jüt s káppess blekten üv t’ páiśnén, jö e dnekkeŕ quell üv trekt nid. Dov cám znopgrum kem toj dnekk jirk s jet geunc qual e blekt jet páiśperksplennef.
[literally “All so is with-THIS who ACCUSATIVE-PREPOSITION similar times does to PERFECTIVE-live, but the decision not doest stand on-her/him. For we about-that must to decide that ACCUSATIVE-PREPOSITION what do-WE-IMPERATIVE with the time PERFECTIVE-give-PASSIVE-PAST”]

And in Late Sinac as follows:

Dlá not cab qualez jüt s káeppend bleakken pënén jö je dneökkeŕ quell trekt ni det. Dovic yrk s jet geunc que bleakk jet pëperkśplënnef kemend toj dneökk. [lit. “All so is with-THIS who ACCUSATIVE-PREPOSITION similar times PERFECTIVE-live but the decision not stand on him/her. For-US that ACCUSATIVE-PREFIX what do-WE-IMPERATIVE with-THE time what PERFECTIVE-give-PASSIVE-PAST must to decide.”]