Harmony Universal
A Language-agnostic Overlay
Introduction
Harmony Universal (HU) is a simplified drop-in to any language which dispenses with verb conjugation and gendered pronouns and articles. The intent is for any two people of different languages with a shared knowledge of Harmony Universal to be able to communicate at a more advanced level than otherwise possible in any particular native language.
Using HU to carry the heavy load of complex tenses, speakers can use the native nouns, adverbs, adjectives and the infinitive (unconjugated) form of verbs (or in fact any form of the verb with which they are familiar, if they only know a single one) to convey their meaning. With time and help from the larger community, I hope that Harmony Universal will be able to work with most any language.
I started creating this language for a story I was writing, but then found the creation of the language a more compelling pursuit. It then became an intellectual exercise for myself as I worked through the nuances of verb tenses and how to re-engineer them in HU. Though I have had classes on various languages throughout my youth, I would by no means consider myself an expert in the science or art of language. In fact, HU is structured the way it is in large part due to my difficulties in learning other languages.
In the pages that follow, it is possible — probable even, that I have made some mistakes in the interpretation of tenses or grammar, or even in the translations to HU. Truly, I am just now discovering this language for myself. I welcome comments, corrections and/or suggestions. I would certainly welcome native speakers of languages other than English to participate in the exploration of HU.
As with anything as chock-full of nuance and corner cases as language, I am sure there will be bits from various languages that are not elegantly handled by HU. This is expected and okay. HU, if adopted widely, will mutate to fit the needs. My only hope is that it will stay true to its original intention of obsoleting verb conjugation and gendered words while retaining the ability to simply express complex ideas.
Perhaps it is the case that every linguistics student has to create their own language as part of an advanced degree and that Harmony Universal will offer nothing new to the world of language — should that be the case, please feel free to amuse yourself with my attempt.
Daniel D. Barber, January 2023
Edit: Join us at https://www.reddit.com/r/HarmonyUniversal/ if you find this project interesting.
The Monk’r Song
I wrote this bread-making song for a group of monks that were to make an appearance in my original story. Harmony on the left, English translation on the right.
The Utility of Harmony Universal
The following are simple examples of how Harmony Universal can allow for more complex meaning to be easily passed between two non-native speakers.
You’ll notice that the HU verb always remains in its infinitive form across all tenses with no need to conjugate.
Pronouns
In HU, both subject and object pronouns are the same words, with subject pronouns being capitalized, and object pronouns in the lowercase. By adding the suffix -n, we find the plural form, by adding the suffix ‘r we find the possessive pronoun, and by adding the suffix -ten to the possessive we find the reflexive pronoun. The rules are the same for all HU pronouns.
It is possible to gender any pronoun by simply adding the -ah or -oh suffixes. Referring to a boy, one would use ‘saioh’ and a girl, ‘saiah’, however it is completely acceptable to refer to males or females with the ungendered pronoun ‘sai’.
As well, the pronoun for Living Beings, sai, is differentiated from the pronoun, ‘saiit’, for the Non-Living. ‘Sait’ has two syllables, ‘sai-it’.
The ‘ai’ is pronounced as a hard ‘I’ in all cases.
Articles
If using the native language’s articles, however, there is no importance placed upon matching gender. A non-native HU speaker may use the male article with a female noun and vice versa. This may sound grating to a native speaker’s ear, but the important thing in HU is the communication of meaning rather than the particulars of the native language.
It is, however, suggested that when using HU the English ungendered articles be used whenever possible.
Time Tense
HU denotes the ‘Time’ tenses (Future, Present, Past and State of Being) at the beginning of each sentence. This suffices in most cases as a replacement for verb conjugation. Tense modification suffixes (-ed, -ing) are supplied for those scenarios in more complex sentences where other indicators are required. All tenses are optional if already understood by some other means, though it seems most likely that the Present tense is most likely to be left off in every day usage.
The ‘e’ in all of the following prefixes is pronounced the same as in the English word ‘let’.
‘State of Being’ tense is used to indicate attributes that ‘just are’ or are unlikely to change. The ‘be’ is implied and not needed in HU. There is some overlap between Ne and Se in some cases, depending upon intent of statement.
Se Yai play guitar or Ne Yai play guitar can both be correct, depending upon if the speaker thinks of playing guitar as an integral part of his identity, or as just a hobby that he does sometimes.
Future tense implies ‘will’ and it is not needed in HU. Other auxiliary verbs should be added for clarity if required.
Fe sai go, but Fe sai can go.
The use of the Infinitive form of any verb is completely acceptable in any verb tense as this is something non-native speakers are likely to do with any language.
He will go to the store = Fe Sai to go to the store
She ate the peanuts = Pe Sai to eat the peanuts
I had ran out of marbles = Pehved Yai to run out of marbles
Time and Compound Tense Anatomy:
The HU tense words themselves hold the key to understanding their usage, as they are built from the English equivalent phrases.
- The first two letters are the time tense, Fe, Ne, Pe or Se. These will tell you in what tense to place the following verb or helping verb.
- The second two letters indicate the following helping verb (hv or be)
- The following two letters indicate the tense of the next verb. -ed = past tense or -eng = continuous tense (-eng rather than -ing so there wouldn’t be any confusion with an English word).
- The last two letters, if there are any, again indicate the tense of the last verb (-ed or -eng).
Time and Compound Tense Examples:
- Febeng = will + be + -ing
- Nehved = present of have + -ed
- Pehvedeng = past of have + -ed + -ing
Potential Tense
In light of keeping HU as simple as possible and avoiding the need for conjugation of any type, I chose to recognize would, could, should and might as their own tense, calling it the Potential tense. The anatomy for these various tenses are similar to the basic tenses.
Potential Tense Anatomy:
- The first three letters indicate which of the English potential words they equate to: weh=would, keh=could, seh=should and meh=might — substituting k for c for clarity in pronunciation.
- The second two letters indicate the following helping verb (hv or be)
- The following two letters indicate the tense of the next verb. -ed = past tense or -eng = continuous tense.
- The last two letters, if there are any, again indicate the tense of the last verb (-ed or -eng).
Potential Tense Examples:
- Seh = Should
- Mehhved = might + present of have + -ed
- Kehbeng = Could + present of be + -ing
- Sehhvedeng = Should + present of have + past be + -ing
Tones
As one sometimes finds in online forums in the form of emojis, I thought it might be useful to include a tonal indicator at the beginning of a sentence to assist the reader’s understanding of the writer’s intent. These indicators can also be used internal to sentences in front of the word, phrase or clause that they are modifying.
The list is incomplete, I’m sure, but I think we have to be careful not to go overboard with every subtle nuance that might sometimes seem to require its own indicator.
The use of these tones in HU, may or may not ultimately be useful and how they are used may change with time. Only time and usage will tell.
Suffixes
These are the suffixes I’ve found necessary to include in order to make HU a functioning language. There certainly may be others that I’ve missed. The important bit here is that the word that these suffixes modify should not be changed at all, either in spelling or pronunciation. Instead, the suffix is enunciated clearly. Apostrophes should be used when the suffix will otherwise confuse the spelling or change the pronunciation of the root word.
Suffixes, in particular, may cause problems with certain native languages where they are difficult to pronounce or don’t mesh easily with much of the language vocabulary. It may be that, with time, these suffixes morph into endings that work better with the majority of languages instead of just English.
Punctuation
The use of any punctuation with which the users are familiar is permitted with Harmony Universal.
Sentence Structure
Used as a ‘standalone’ language, the native HU sentence structure is very simple. Tone and Tense come first to prepare the listener, followed by the Subject, Verb and Object. Subject, Verb or Object can be phrases, and suffix or tense modifiers can be used within these phrases as necessary. With conjunctions complex sentences can be created.
Examples:
Qih Fe Tain play basketball tomorrow? = Will you (all) play basketball tomorrow?
Dih Ne Tai do dishes. = You do the dishes. (command)
Qih Rih Ne Yai ready to go, sir? = (formal/respectful) Are you ready to go, sir?
Xih Ne Tai do sait! = You do it!
Xih Eih, ouch! = #&%#*, Ouch!
Sih Ne Tai very funny = You are very funny (sarcastic)
However, Harmony Universal is also intended to work within the sentence structure native to the language with which it is being used. Tone and Tense should still come first but the order of Subject, Verb and Object might differ. HU speakers working within a language with a different order should HU as necessary to work. I would welcome any input on different languages and how HU might work with them.
Example Sentences and HU Translations
Thanks for reading this far! I hope the above has stoked some curiosity and interest. If you wish to explore Harmony Universal further, please contact me through this medium account.
I have created a subreddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/HarmonyUniversal) on reddit.com for the discussion of Harmony Universal. It may be that a discord server would work better. If so, I’ll create one of those too.
I look forward to creating the future of HU with everyone.
