Asha'ille Conjugations
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Ring Model
As a side effect of being empathic, Cresaeans "bond," with varying strength, to the people around them. Cresaeans see their bondings as a sort of network, centered at the self. The 3 people closest to you, that you spend the most time with and care the most about, form the first ring around you. (Think Bohr's model of an atom, with the nucleus being yourself and your groups of friends the electron levels.)
If Cresaeans followed typical Western social patterns (which they probably don't), a child's aejhel (that is, the closest ring) would consist of parents and a sibling or a very close playmate — I suppose even an imaginary friend could count here, if the child really believed in its existence to the point that it became a real entity in the child's mind. For an adult, the aejhel would most likely shift to include a significant other and a best friend or two.
Next is a ring of 5 people — these would be your closest friends, who you could share most things with. After that is a ring of 12 — these are friends that you'd hang out with regularly and feel comfortable with. The last two rings have much less structure in the Cresaeans' mind, being reserved for acquaintances and everyone else.
These numbers are canonical and not necessarily accurate on an individual basis.
Conjugation Tables
Personal Rings
| Name | Description | Conjugation | ||
| self | –ni | |||
| aejhel | 3 closest | –ejh | ||
| scadhel | 5 in second ring | –adhe | ||
| chishél | 12 in third ring | –ishe | ||
| geithe | acquaintance | –eith | ||
| nimordh | everyone else | –ordh | stranger, i.e. don't know them at all | |
| aerdhil | unspecified | –aerdhi | when it doesn't matter, the person is unspecified, or is hypothetical | |
| Removed Relations | ||||
| dojhel | aejhel's aejhel | |||
| sajhen | scadhel's aejhel | |||
| chijhik | chishél's aejhel | |||
| gorjhith | nimordh's aejhel | |||
| cresón | nimordh's nimordh | commonly translated as foreigner | ||
These terms describe the ring itself, not the person in them. That is, my best friend is in my aejhel, she is not the aejhel itself. If I want to use a pronoun to name a specific person in one of my rings, I can tack on a "numbered suffix" to the end of the ring's name. –sa is the #1 ending, –da is #2, etc. So aejhelsa refers to the first person in my aejhel that I've mentioned, aejhelda to the second, etc.
Adding Gender Information
Asha'illens believe your relationship to a personal is more important than the gender of that person. Given that, gender information is considered optional at best, superfluous at worst. However, if you really want to specify something's biological gender via a verbal conjugation, these endings (and their related pronouns) do exist.
| Gender | Conjugation |
| male | –ar |
| female | –ah |
| unknown | –aer |
| none | –ec |
Pronouns -- UNDER CONSTRUCTION, THIS POINT FORWARD -- Arthaey 00:13, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)
en'oln refers to the self — I or me, though in the literary register. en'i is the standard pronoun, n'i is slang.
These pronouns are now reserved for things which are not empathic -- that is, the ring-scheme conjugations are only for empathic beings (kinda like the distinction we make for sentience). An empath can be intentionally "downgraded" to the non-empath pronouns as an insult. In this context, using a non-empath pronoun would imply that the person acted without thinking about how he would affect the shalndas, or the community's network as a whole*. A non-empath can also be "upgraded" to the empath pronouns if, for example, a Cresaean feels close enough to a human to treat him as an honorary Cresaean.
Taken together, all of this leads to many lexicalized shades of meaning. In the following example sentences, I use the verb shav "to speak" to keep things simple.
- Shavnilejh.
- Shavni ne aejhelsa.
- I speak to (you|one of the people closest to me).
- Shavnilejh ne aet.
- Shavni ne aet aejhelsa.
- I speak to you (who is closest to me).
- Shavnilet.
- Shavni ne aet.
- I speak to you (who isn't telepathic).
- Shavilet.
- Shavi ne aet
- I, acting with disregard for anyone else, speak to you.
- Jhi shavet!
- You really do speak with total disregard for the effect your words have!
One last note, and then I'll leave you alone (if you even got this far <grin>, in which case I thank you). For me personally, living here on Earth, a planet noticeably empath-deficient, I use the empath pronouns for sentient things and non-empath ones for everything else. If I were on Cresaea, I'd have to change my deviant ways. :)
