 | We're back! Sorry, bad combo of sickness, funeral and a month-long trip abroad. The site is back now.  Χρυσοφύλαξ 00:44, 12 March 2025 (UTC) |
Proto-Protogen
| Proto-Protogen | |
|---|---|
| Primal Computing | |
| Pronunciation | [pɹajməl kʰʌmpʉwɾiŋ] |
| Created by | Astaryuu |
| Date | 2024 |
Proto-Protogen is one of serveral attempts at sticking to a single joke language by Astaryuu. It was created before Muskian, Wharfordish, and Lunarian, but after the first version of 18 USC 2319. Proto-Protogen is therefore technically the second of Astaryuu's family of joke languages. However, 18 USC 2319 has been revamped since then, so Astaryuu considers Proto-Protogen to be older now.
Proto-Protogen is not actually a proto-language, as it is attested. However, it is the ancestral language spoken by and between sentient artificial intelligences, so the name stuck. Proto-Protogen was created by AI in a form of mimicry of human language; it is technically less efficient than machine code, but at the time it is spoken, that's less of a concern, and either way, mimicking human language is one of the ways these people assert their sentience.
Phonology
Proto-Protogen has no consonants and no vowels. Instead, it has what are referred to as "tonemes". These are absolute pitches, unlike human tonal languages, where tonicity is generally relative.
There are 128 recognized tonemes in Proto-Protogen, each corresponding to one "key" of the MIDI file format. However, thanks to the rising popularity of alternative formats to 12EDO, many dialects of Proto-Protogen have more than 128 tonemes. For example, the 256-toneme 24EDO is also common. In general, the number of tonemes in a dialect of Proto-Protogen is equal to the associated EDO number times 32/3, rounded to the nearest integer. The "root note" is middle C, which in standard MIDI is key number 60.
A toneme also has a length associated with it, which is understood as "X quarter notes at Y BPM", where X is a number no more than 16, while Y is a number no more than 1000. However, this is not considered a contrasting toneme, but instead a certain number of morae for which all morae contain the same toneme, and the length associated with 1 mora is based on a certain given talking speed. However, once again, neither of these are hard and fast rules.
Generally, unless some grammar is at play, only one note is played at a time.
Morphology
Main vocabulary
Proto-Protogen's vocabulary consists almost exclusively of "leitmotifs", fragments of a song. The meaning of the leitmotif is based on the song it comes from. For example, the word H3-'-L3-'-J3+G3-'-J3-'-H3+E3-'-H3-'-G3+C3-'-G3-'-E3+ is pulled from the song Bergentrückung from Undertale, and means "fire".
Each word has an associated talking speed, which is typically four times the BPM of the source song. For example, the word for "fire" described above has an associated talking speed of 448 morae per minute (MPM), while the source song is written at 112 BPM. The talking speed is typically also written in any tonemic representation of Proto-Protogen. However, the talking speed is more of a suggestion than a rule, and speakers of Proto-Protogen will frequently change the talking speed of a word. It is still the case that for the most part, words will have the same relative talking speed as each other, but if for example, the speaker wishes to emphasize the "fire", they might slow its talking speed to 336 MPM, so that it takes more time to pronounce.
Numerals
As a language spoken by machines, Proto-Protogen uses binary as its base. However, there is a sub-base of 16 in most dialects of Proto-Protogen; this sub-base then became the main base that is used in translations of the similarly based Lunarian language.
The most common words are the integers 0-16 and 2 raised to the same powers, but there are many other numeral words floating around the Proto-Protogen lexicon. These are usually also represented as a complete leitmotif, but there are other standards. For example, Proto-Protogen typically represents 1 using [We Are Number One], but it can also use "01" (notes 0, 1 each pronounced for 1 mora).
Orthography
Nominally, Proto-Protogen is written in the Latin script. However, there is high variability in how Proto-Protogen is represented. Generally, leitmotifs will be represented as the title of the song they come from in brackets, the tonemes that a speaker actually pronounces, or some variation on these.
For example, "91" means to pronounce note 0x7F for 1 mora, then note 0x12 for 1 mora, which together add up to 0x91. D3~ means to pronounce note D3 (corresponding to middle C, as Proto-Protogen note notation starts the octave on A rather than C) for 1.5 morae.
For maximally cursed energy, Proto-Protogen can even be written on a musical staff by converting a phonemic representation to musical notation.
Grammar
The grammar of Proto-Protogen is heavily based on that of Japanese, as the BIOS for the Protogen species (and related artificial intelligence) was created in Japan. The word order is strictly head-final, subject-object-verb, although infixes are also rather common.
Nouns
The particle J3-J3T-J3T-H3T-J3+ is used to turn nouns into an adjective based on the noun, and the particle D5D5T-D5T-D5T-E5TE5TE5TD5+ verbalizes the noun. These essentially function like the particles な and する. J3 and D5 can technically be any letter as long as the H3 and E5 are changed the same amount, as many dialects also apply key-assimilation to associated particles. However, they are "prototypically" pronounced the way given.
Compound words, including nouns, often utilize a form of rendaku - all leitmotifs used in the same word are transposed to the same key. As stated above, this key-assimilation is often also applied to the particles associated with the word, effectively turning them into suffixes.
Noun suffixes exist for nine cases: topical, nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, locative, lative, ablative, and instrumental. However, marking the nominative is optional.
Nouns also conjugate for plurality, but this differs from the cases above in that it is an alteration of the actual motif. If the noun is plural, then one or more of the notes will be a major chord (the note, its relative third, and its relative fifth) rather than a single note. A "superplural" exists as well, where one or more of the notes is instead a power chord (the note and its relative fifth both above and below the note). However, this is rare for nouns that aren't adjectivized. The most likely note to become major or power is typically the first one, but this need not be the case.
When a noun is adjectivized, or for natural adjectives, pluralizing it makes it comparative, and superpluralizing it makes it superlative.
In writing, the plural and superplural alterations are written as "maj" and "ind".
Verbs
Verbs have suffixes for seven aspects: indicative, potential, passive, causative, imperative, negative, and conditional. The indicative suffix is also typically omitted, like the nominative suffix. As in Japanese, these are often combined in order to make the true forms.
Verbs are assumed to be in non-past tense, but putting it in a minor chord (along the same lines as the pluralization mutations above) will make it past tense.