Arjâm Vâks
Background
Arjâm Vâks ("speech of the Aryâsas") is an imagined name given to a language constructed by the notable Indo-Europeanist August Schleicher (1821-1868), which is most notable as the original language of the fable Avis Akvâsas ka ("The Sheep and the Horses").
Some justification must be made at the outset for including this language in an encyclopedia of constructed languages. It must be admitted that Schleicher had no intention of creating an artificial language; to the contrary, he believed that he was scientifically reconstructing the original Indo-European languages, ancestral to the languages on which his reconstruction was based. These were Sanskrit, Avestan ("Old Bactrian," in Schleicher's terminology), Greek, Latin, Oscan, Umbrian, Old Irish, Old Church Slavonic (Old Bulgarian in Schleicher's terminology), Lithuanian, and Gothic. It will be observed that of the ten Indo-European branches for which records survive, only six are represented (Indo-Iranian, Hellenic, Italic, Celtic, Balto-Slavic, and Germanic). Hittite and Tocharian were entirely unknown to Schleicher. I am not sure why Armenian and Albanian were not considered; perhaps at the time their positions within the Indo-European family, and their distinctive characteristics, were too poorly known.
At any rate, it was not a deficiency of data that would render Schleicher's reconstruction utterly obsolete within a few decades of his death (the fatal blow would be dealt by the publication of Karl Brugmann's Grundriß, starting in 1886). It was, if anything, a deficiency of method. For Schleicher, though a keen observer and a systematizer of data, was much less scientific than he believed himself to be. His vision of an early Indo-European language, which took very definite form in his mind, reflected a belief that such a language must be phonologically far more simple than its descendant languages, and while morphologically complex, also much more regular than its descendant languages.
There were valid grounds for both beliefs, since some languages do gain phonological complexity and morphological irregularity over time; however, Schleicher may not have sufficiently considered examples in which the reverse is true. At any rate, current analyses of Proto-Indo-European show a language that is far more phonologically complex than Schleicher ever guessed, and one in which a great deal of morphological irregularity is present ab initio.
Schleicher's pursuit of an Indo-European ancestral language which fit his preconceptions required him to make many choices: which sounds to consider as subject to specific sound-laws, which to allow to be subject to random variation; which morphological variations to consider as original, and which to be regarded as falling away from an original symmetry of structure. In making these choices he was in part guided by adherence to the notion that Sanskrit and Avestan represented the most primitive recorded Indo-European languages; but he was even more guided by a very personal sense of linguistic æsthetics and elegance.
It is the manifestation of this sense which ultimately makes Schleicher's language more than just an erroneous byway on the path to a more strictly scientific reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European. It is, rather, an artistic endeavor, which is all the more remarkable for never being intended as such, and never perceived as such by its author.
Note on the name of the language
The name Arjâm Vâks appears nowhere in Schleicher's writings, though it is consistent in structure with his ideas about the language, which he simply called die indogermanische ursprache (the original Indo-European language). The use of the word Arya (Arja in Schleicher's spelling) as a name for a unified Indo-European people was popularized by Friedrich Max Müller. Schleicher himself may not have agreed with Müller's conclusions, as he uses the words arier and arisch solely in the sense of "Indo-Iranian"; nonetheless, no plausible alternative presents itself, and the name is very characteristic of the time period in which Schleicher created his language. The dismal racial baggage with which the name would ultimately be saddled did not arise until decades after Schleicher's death.
Phonology
Schleicher envisaged a very simple phonology for his language, with a small number of consonants and vowels. In his analysis of vowels he was largely guided by the structure of Proto-Indo-Iranian; for consonants he postulated an even simpler system, perhaps suggested by Greek.
Vowels
Schleicher's vowels show contrasts in height (±high) and backness (±back). There are also two series of short and long diphthongs based on the short vowels; a lengthened a is treated as a diphthong. The long a is written <â> in Schleicher's Compendium, and that usage is followed here, but it is <ā> in the first printing of Schleicher's fable.
There are three simple vowels, /i/ (+high, -back), /a/ (-high, +back), and /u/ (+high, +back), from which the short and long diphthongs are derived in two ascending grades, comparable to Sanskrit's guṇa and vṛddhi grades.
| Simple vowel | First grade | Second grade |
|---|---|---|
| i | ai | âi |
| a | aa = â | âa = â |
| u | au | âu |
Consonants
| Bilabial | Dental | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal Stop | m | n | |||
| Voiceless stop | p | t | k | ||
| Voiced unaspirated stop | b | d | g | ||
| Voiced aspirated stop | bʱ <bh> | dʱ <dh> | ɡʱ <gh> | ||
| Fricative | s | ||||
| Approximant | w <v> | ɻ <r> | j |
Historical phonology
In terms of its phonology, Arjâm Vâks can be considered a descendant of Proto-Indo-European marked by the following sound changes:
Vowels
- PIE *e, *a, *o > AV a.
- PIE *o > AV â in certain contexts.
- PIE *ē, *ā, *ō > AV â.
- PIE *i, *ī > AV i.
- PIE *u, *ū > AV u.
- PIE *ey, *ay, *oy > AV ai.
- PIE *oy > AV âi in certain contexts.
- PIE *ew, *aw, *ow > AV au.
- PIE *ow > AV âu in certain contexts.
- PIE *ēy, *āy, *ōy > AV âi.
- PIE *ēw, *āw, *ōw > AV âu.
- PIE *ṛ, *ḷ > AV ar.
- PIE *ḱṛd > AV kard, PIE *gʷṛrus > AV garus.
Consonants
- PIE *ḱ, *k, *kʷ > AV k.
- PIE *wḷkʷos > AV varkas.
- PIE *ǵ, *g, *gʷ > AV g.
- PIE *ǵh, *gh, *gʷh > AV gh.
- PIE *l > AV r.
- All PIE laryngeals are lost.
Morphology
Nouns
Nouns are declined for number (singular, dual, and plural and for case (nominative, accusative, ablative, genitive, locative, dative, two forms of instrumental, and vocative). They fall into several types:
Consonant stems
| vâk- f. "voice, speech" |
Singular | Dual | Plural |
|---|---|---|---|
| Voc | vâk | vâkâs | vâkas |
| Nom | vâks | ||
| Acc | vâkam | vâkams | |
| Inst | vâkâ, vâkbhi | vâkbhjâms | vâkbhis |
| Dat | vâkai | vâkbhjams | |
| Abl | vâkat | ||
| Gen | vâkas | vâkaus | vâkâm |
| Loc | vâki | vâksva |
| manas- n. "thought, mind" |
Singular | Dual | Plural |
|---|---|---|---|
| Voc | manas | ? | manasâ |
| Nom | |||
| Acc | |||
| Inst | manasâ, manasbhi | manasbhjâms | manasbhis |
| Dat | manasai | manasbhjams | |
| Abl | manasat | ||
| Gen | manasas | manasaus | manasâm |
| Loc | manasi | manassva |
| bharant- a. "carrying" |
Singular | Dual | Plural | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| m.f. | n. | m.f. | n. | m.f. | n. | |
| Voc | bharant | bharant | bharantâs | ? | bharantas | bharantâ |
| Nom | bharants | |||||
| Acc | bharantam | bharantams | ||||
| Inst | bharantâ, bharantbhi | bharantbhjâms | bharantbhis | |||
| Dat | bharantai | bharantbhjams | ||||
| Abl | bharantat | |||||
| Gen | bharantas | bharantaus | bharantâm | |||
| Loc | bharanti | bharantsva | ||||
Verbs
| bhar- "carry, bear" | ||||
| Present | Active | Mediopassive | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| sg. | pl. | sg. | pl. | |
| 1st | bharâmi | bharâmas | bharâmai | bharâmadhai |
| 2nd | bharasi | bharatasi | bharasai | bharasdhvai |
| 3rd | bharati | bharanti | bharatai | bharantai |
| Imperfect | sg. | pl. | sg. | pl. |
| 1st | abharam | abharâmas | abharama | abharâmadha |
| 2nd | abharas | abharatas | abharasa | abharasdhva |
| 3rd | abharat | abharant | abharata | abharanta |
| Optative | sg. | pl. | sg. | pl. |
| 1st | bharaim | bharaimas | bharaima | bharaimadha |
| 2nd | bharais | bharaitas | bharaisa | bharaisdhva |
| 3rd | bharait | bharaint | bharaita | bharainta |
| Imperative | sg. | pl. | sg. | pl. |
| 2nd | bharadhi | bharatat | bharasva | bharasdhva |
| 3rd | ? | ? | ? | bharantâm |
Text
The only extant text in Schleicher's language, thus far, is his own composition of The Sheep and the Horses, which follows:
Avis akvâsas ka.
- Avis, jasmin varnâ na â ast,
- Avi-s, ja-smin varn-â na â as-t,
- Sheep-NOM.SG, REL-LOC.SG wool-NOM.SG NEG PST be-3.SG.ACT,
- "A sheep, to whom there was no wool,"
- dadarka akvams,
- da~dark-a akva-ms,
- PRF~see-3.SG.ACT horse-ACC.PL,
- "saw horses,"
- tam, vâgham garum vaghantam,
- ta-m, vâgha-m garu-m vagh-ant-am,
- DEM-ACC.SG.M, vehicle-ACC.SG heavy-ACC.SG.M pull-PTCP.PRS-ACC.SG
- "that one, pulling a heavy vehicle"
- tam, bhâram magham, tam, manum âku bharantam.
- ta-m, bhâra-m magha-m, ta-m, manu-m âku-Ø bhar-ant-am.
- DEM-ACC.SG, burden-ACC.SG great ACC.SG.M, DEM-ACC.SG, man-ACC.SG swift-ACC.SG.N carry-PTCP.PRS-ACC.SG
- "that one, [pulling] a great burden, that one, swiftly carrying a man."
- Avis akvabhjams â vavakat:
kard aghnutai mai vidanti manum akvams agantam.
- Akvâsas â vavakant: krudhi avai, kard aghnutai vividvant-svas: manus patis varnâm avisâms karnauti svabhjam gharmam vastram avibhjams ka varnâ na asti.
- Tat kukruvants avis agram â bhugat.
Glossary to the fable
- â augment prefixed to verbs indicating past tense
- √ag- v. drive, force to go
- agam pn. I, unemphatic genitive mai
- √agh- v. be grieved, mourn
- agras n. field
- âku- a. swift (as av., swiftly)
- akvas n.m. horse
- √as- v. be
- avis n.f. sheep
- √bhar- v. carry
- bhâras n.m. burden
- √bhuj- v. bend; run away, escape
- √dark- v. see
- garu a. heavy
- gharma a. warm
- jas, jâ, jat rel. pron. which
- ka cj. and (suffixed to the word to be joined)
- √kar- v. make, do
- kard n.n. heart
- √kru v. hear, listen
- magha a. great
- manus n.m. man
- na av. not
- patis n.m. lord
- sa, sâ, tat dem. pron. that
- sva a. (his, her, its, their own)
- vâghas n.m. vehicle
- √vak- v. say
- vastram n.n. garment, clothing
- √vid- v. know
References
- Schleicher, August, Eine fabel in indogermanischer ursprache, Beiträge zur vergleichenden Sprachforschung auf dem Gebiete der arischen, celtischen und slawischen Sprachen, 5. Bd., 2. H. (1868), pp. 206-208