Deze ‘taal’ (code) heet eigenlijk Antisemitisch, maar dat staat niet zo’n netjes visitekaartje te wezen op een openbaar blog, vrees ik. Vandaar de naam maar even in het Anti-Hebreeuws.

Niets van onaangenaam bedoelde aard namelijk; slechts een woordspeling, ontstaan uit een uitwisseling die ik lang geleden met een bosje aspirant-taalkundigen had. Dat het grappig zou zijn om een taal te bedenken waarbij klinkers de hoofdbetekenis van woorden uitmaken en medeklinkers de modificaties ervan. Precies tegenovergesteld aan hoe het in de Semitische talen werkt dus. Tja, en dan kun je erop wachten dat iemand (ik weet niet meer wie, anders zou ik gepast naar hem bronverwijzen) dan opmerkt ‘Haha, ja, en dat je dat dan Antisemitisch noemt.’ Zodoende.

Nou, en zo’n uitdaging laat Drabkikker zich natuurlijk geen tweemaal door de koude kleren boren; en jawel, met wrikken en wegen is het zonder meer mogelijk om zo’n systeem te bouwen. Waarvan onderstaande akte. In het Engels, want zo heb ik het destijds op reddit gepleurd.

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Currently working on a system for Semitic languages which inverts the consonant-based principle into a vowel-based one. Using a correspondence table, a text in a Semitic language is converted into its “anti-Semitic” counterpart. As an example, here’s Psalm 114 converted from Biblical Hebrew. (Here’s me reading it.)

Mihigyas 114

Ūmonśomi Agāhēsořa ukyUgonētaku
Ūři Atōdempū uśōtu mapōřō
Itamis Ahijīs mamendīhãf
Agāhēsořa utuhammabise
Ityasu ēsos etyasābo
ItyAtēmīśā agyāpū mahosīfē
Ilisēxu ēbemmīč meořaxu
Mēhūsōvi mekūhāś mompohā
Us mames, ityasu, mex misājo
ItyAtēmīśā, migyāpū mahosīfē?
Ilisēxu mikēmemmīč meořaxu
Mēhūsōvi mēkūhāś mompohā?
Ugyakunāś ozīfā ījax osēron
Ugyakunāś orafi Atōdempū
Itipummex idonšē odētu-usaku
Idyasuxan mahutōahāf-usaku

How it works

Okay, so here’s the general idea.

A text in a Semitic language is converted by means of this table:

The red part gives the phonemes present in most Semitic languages (in addition to the transcription signs in the leftmost column, the corresponding graphemes for Hebrew, Arabic and Syriac are also given); the blue part shows their anti-Semitic equivalent.

Pronunciation of the anti-Semitic graphemes is as follows: č [tʃ]; x [x]; š [ʃ]; ś [ɬ]; j [dʒ]; ğ [ɣ]; ž [ʒ]; ř [r̝̊]. The remaining consonants are pronounced as their IPA counterparts. The same goes for the vowels, with the addition of the macron to indicate length.

Conversion

So, if you want to “translate” a word like Hebrew מַיִם mayim “water”, you look up the Semitic phonemes in the red part of the table and derive the corresponding anti-Semitic result from the blue part. In this example, m becomes u; a becomes t; y becomes a; i becomes k; m becomes u. Result: mayim > utaku.

That’s the basic principle. However, as you can see, the blue column also contains some weird stuff, like vowels with a tilde (~) and/or vowels preceded by a superscript ^m. These are explained below.

Nasal vowels

The vowels with a tilde (~) are nasal vowels. This means they are followed by a nasal consonant: a n when the following phoneme is absent, a vowel or a non-labial consonant; a m when the following phoneme is a labial consonant.

For example, Arabic أخ ʾaḫ  “brother” becomes o-t-ĩ > otin; Hebrew פְּנִינָה pnīnā “pearl” becomes ũ-ā-x-ā-s > unāxās; שֵׁם šēm “name” becomes ã-ś-u > anśu; שׁוֹמְרָה šomrā “guard” becomes ã-p-u-ē-s > ampuēs.

Voicing vowels

The vowels preceded by a superscript ^m are voicing vowels. They influence a preceding consonant, by making it voiced: tkpčsśxfš become dgbjzřğvž; when l is “voiced”, it becomes r. If the preceding phoneme is absent or a vowel, the superscript ^m is realized as m.

For example, Arabic ثلاثة ṯalāṯa “three” becomes ^mu-t-^ma-s-^mu-t > mudazut; Hebrew מַלְכָּה malkā “queen” becomes u-t-^ma-^me-s > udames.

A vowel can be both nasal and voicing; e.g., Arabic بقرة baqara “cow” becomes ū-t-^mẽ-t-^mi-t > ūdendit. A nasal vowel preceding a voicing vowel results in a double m: Arabic أخت ʾuḫt “sister” becomes o-č-ĩ-^mi > očimmi.

Colliding vowels

An optional rule concerns neighboring vowels. When a word in anti-Semitic ends up with two vowels which don’t pronounce nicely together, the translator is allowed to add a -h- in between them. For instance, Arabic عين ʿayn “eye” becomes o-t-a-ā > otahā.

Doubling

When a consonant in the Semitic language at hand is doubled, the corresponding anti-Semitic vowel is palatalized or labialized. In practice, this means the addition of a w or y before that vowel. So where y becomes a, yy becomes wa or ya. The translator is free to choose between w and y.

In case of voicing vowels that have a pronounced m, the w/y is added after that m. So where ẓ becomes ^mũ > mun, ẓẓ becomes mwun or myun.

That’s about it! Rather complex, and some details are still open to progress, but the overall principle works.