What Happened to Dora? Part One: The Qwamaq Language.

This will serve as my journal trying to figure out what happened to Dora Lipman (my great great aunt). I decided to begin writing when I realized that there may be something to this book I found in my Grandfather's attic.

Before I elaborate on the book, I'll give a short family history to the best of my ability. I don't have access to all the details now, but I will provide an update in this journal when I have the full picture.

Some time in the late 1800s to early 1900s, Dora Lipman (17) and her parents and a few siblings fled from the pogroms of either modern day Belarus or Latvia. They landed in New York, as many Jews did at that point in time, and raised their family in Southern Brooklyn. Dora was the oldest, and the youngest was yet to be born. When he was, it was after they immigrated, and people called him "baby." It stuck like shmaltz to the bottom of a frying pan. I think someone told me once that his name was actually Jacob, but that I'm not sure should be evidence enough that he was almost exclusively referred to as "Bibi Lipman." (The only reason I know the spelling is because of two emails I was able to find from my aunt to the rest of the family talking about him and his wife in response to a poem.)

Bibi had I believe three sons, the youngest of which is my paternal grandfather. He is very old (96) and he retired just a couple of years ago. This will become relevant, but before I continue, I need to make clear what happened (or rather, that we don't know what happened) to Dora Lipman in 1953. I suppose the only way to sum it up is "nobody knows!" She just disappeared. No trace, no nothing. I don't have all the details on what happened after that, but she was gone.

I think I have a lead on what happened. After my grandfather retired, (not immediately; this was at the tail end of this summer 2024) my sister and I were invited (alongside everyone else in his lineage) to look through old books. I remember my grandmother saying very clearly "take whatever you would like! please!" When I found a very old book written in Biblical Hebrew, it was a little strange. When I opened it, there were scribbles in the margin in either Hebrew or Yiddish, written in the cursive version of script the two languages shared. I knew the book was Hebrew because I spoke a little Yiddish, and I didn't recognize any words skimming through. At that time I could only read block print and book print, so I assumed the notes in the margins were Hebrew as well. Without making a big deal about it I took the book with me and brought it back home (I live in the Midwest and my grandparents live just North of New York City).

I've been taking Biblical Hebrew at college. It was a coincidence; I wanted to take the class anyway. But I've thrown myself into trying to understand what the book is about. Hebrew is very different from Yiddish, but now that I have SOME basics down, I've been able to figure out that the word on the cover, שערים (sh'arim), probably means "gateways." The same word can also mean "title page," so at first this was my assumption. But it shows up all over the place, along with two other words I can recognize: המלך (hamelekh, "the king"), and תהום (t'hom, "abyss"). I'm going to do more research into these words.

Part of learning biblical Hebrew is apparently learning the handwritten version of the alephbet, which meant that I was able to read the text in the margins. It was clear immediately upon revisiting the book that the notes in the margin were Yiddish, and I recognized the name דאָראַ ליפּמאַן (Dora Lipman) written at the bottom of the notes on the internal cover page. The reason I'm documenting this in a journal is because next to the word שערים in the internal cover page was written "פּאָרטאַלן" (portaln), which is a Yiddish word for "portals" that comes directly from english.

As I learn more about what this book is talking about, I might be able to find out what happened to her. If she was able to open a portal somewhere, that would explain why she went missing, and especially why nobody could find her after she went missing. I know that it isn't all that plausible, but I've seen lots of weird things throughout my life, and I'm going to figure this one out.

I'll write more as I learn more.

I've made a really interesting discovery. The Hebrew word תהום (t'hom, "abyss") is, according to wiktionary, cognate with Akkadian 𒀀𒀊𒁀 (tiāmtum, "sea"), but 𒀀𒀊𒁀 is also the name of the primordial Mesopotamian goddess of the sea (known in English as Tiamat). In fact, whenever this word shows up in the Hebrew bible, it makes sense to assume that it's talking about her.

This isn't something I came up with; there are a lot of theologians who believe this is likely. Genesis 1:2 was probably "And the earth was formless and void and darkness, and the spirit of G-d was over the face of Tiamat" not "over the face of the abyss." A lot of theologians believe that this was to assert dominance over other ethnoreligious groups in the area (modern day Palestine, Jordan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, etc.).

I'm not a very strong theist. I'm still not convinced that the gateways this book is talking about are actually real. (I'm going to go with "gateway" instead of "portal" to be more faithful to the original hebrew.) But I'm going to give it the benefit of the doubt and try anyway.

So I've been skimming Dora's notebook, and this one line she wrote (apparently on a saturday morning or friday night, I know that because the entry starts with גוט שבת "gut shabes!") this:

איך װיל מאָלן אַ כּישופֿדיק עיגול -"ikh vil moln a kishefdik igl" "I want to draw a magic circle"

(this is transcribed in block script; I would have to set up a Hebrew handwriting font to display how it actually looked in the notebook. If I ever do that, I will remove this paragraph and change it.)

As I've mentioned, my Yiddish isn't great. In fact, it's pretty bad. Most of the sentences here are too long and complex for me to understand confidently, but I know enough, and I have a subscription to an online searchable yiddish dictionary. This sentence is pretty straightforward. The following sentences include stuff like "שרײַב עס אױפֿן דער שפּיץ פֿון דער עיגול" - "shrayb es afn der shpits fun der igl" "write this at the top of the circle" followed by something that resembles the common hebrew prayer "בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה אֲדֹנָי" (barukh atah adonai, meaning "blessed are you, g-d"), save that "adonai" is replaced with תהום (which, if you remember, is Tiamat).

Does this count as worshiping a lesser idol? I mean, It is quite literally a prayer that says "blessed are you, [another god that is not adonai]." But this doesn't bother me too much. The instructions are all here, I just need to decipher and translate the Yiddish. (And I am not sure how irresponsible it would be to share all of the details on the internet, so I will keep those to myself until I am 100% positive that the magic circle doesn't do anything.)

How long will it take me to finish deciphering Dora's instructions for creating a magic circle? I'm not sure honestly. But I am at this time confident that the basic concept (whether it works or not) is that Tiamat will open a gateway when a magic circle is created. I found the phrase ותהום תפתח השער "v't'hom tifta7 hasha'ar" which literally means "and the depths (Tiamat) will open the gateway." It's one of the only parts of the Hebrew I've been able to understand just reading through the book. Boy am I glad Dora wrote instructions in Yiddish, a language that is much easier for me to translate from.

Next time I write a journal entry, I may have determined that the gateway does not work.

I should note that another reason why it makes sense that the book considers t'hom to be Tiamat and not "abyss" is because it never uses the definite article "ha." If it wasn't a name (which is definite by default), it would need "ha" in order to be "the abyss" instead of "an abyss." So unless "t'hom" is a name in "v't'hom tifta3 hasha'ar," it would actually be "v'hat'hom" instead of "v't'hom." Fun fact: this is also true for Genesis 1:2! Checkmate, monotheists!

Theologically this is interesting because it shows that at one point, Jews believed in more than just one god (which is commonly accepted as very likely by theologians as far as I can tell). Stuff like this shows up all over the bible. But I've never encountered a biblical hebrew text that claims to worship a different god with rituals this specific. (Or, what I'm assuming to be this specific.)

But like, who cares. Because I spent all day so far (except for when I had to go to campus for a Hebrew class and a voice lesson) fiddling with the gateway magic circle, and I followed the directions perfectly. It says to draw the magic circle above a doorway, but I printed it out instead on sticker paper at my campus art lab. I don't know what I was expecting, but the portal has done nothing! What a waste of time!

I suppose I'll never know what happened to Dora. I thought I had a lead! What a shonda. idk what I was expecting though, obviously it wasn't going to work. This page will stand as a testament to how I thought magic was real.

I will no longer be updating this page.

Oh my g-d. LORD. Jesus Fucking Christ in a fucking Cradle. I wrote "adonai" instead of "t'hom." I remade the entire magic circle and this time I used my label maker thermal printer thing to print it out. I activated it (with a prayer to Tiamat that I am not going to share) and I am dumbfounded. It actually worked. I opened the door and instead of leading into the hallway, it led into a field filled with grass that smelled like honey.

I looked around for a little bit and saw PEOPLE in the distance. They were wearing very long sarongs. I got anxious and shut the door before they could get closer. I think they were herding animals but I couldn't get a good look. When I looked at the magic circle, it had faded entirely and when I opened the door again it led right to the hallway, and still I smelt the sweet scent of the grass from the other world.

This. This is. Like I genuinely don't know how to feel about this?? I actually don't have classes on Thursday. I will spend the night before preparing to embark into this mysterious land. I've found a quote that I am confident clarifies that these gateways work both ways, so I'll bring plenty of extra printed magic circles for myself, as well as plenty of food. I will buy a portable battery with solar panels on it tomorrow (wednesday) on my way home from school. I know the hardware store on the way sells them on the second floor. This is just so my computer doesn't run out of charge. I have NO IDEA if there will be outlets, but when I opened the door it was daytime, so I know at least they have a sun.

On second thought, I should translate more of the Hebrew to avoid getting lost in the other world as I assume Dora did many years ago. idk. I will go to sleep now and decide during the day tomorrow what the best course of action is.

A thought I had though: what language do they speak in the other world? No way in hell is it English, unless somehow the portal brought me to Ireland or New Zealand. But people in Anglophone countries don't usually herd animals while wearing sarongs to my knowledge. idk.

I'm also thinking about what this means for my religious beliefs. I have PROOF that a god that is not hashem exists. Otherwise, how would a prayer to the abstract concept of the abyss from Genesis 1:2 open a gateway to another world, but a prayer to hashem wouldn't? Not that this disproves hashem's existence. Good thing I'm a reconstructionist Jew, otherwise I would have to feel bad about cherry picking away "thou shalt not have any god before me" or whatever that commandment was.

And finally: what does this mean for me as a person who exists in THIS world? Obviously I may be crazy. Or, like, I may have a psychotic disorder. Or something. But there is no history of psychosis in my family (I checked with both of my parents). So I think my plan going forward is that besides this log on my website, I don't tell anyone about this. Maybe my roommate, Lyle, but probably not.

Going forward, I will assume that I am NOT crazy. This is all real.

I worry about what may happen if the nation states of our world find out about these gateways. Basically I'm thinking about colonialism. I don't know how well equipped the people on the other side of the gateway are to fight back against colonizers, and I don't want to let that happen to them. If you work for any government in any capacity, I AM crazy! Do not pursue this any further. I am the type of non-dangerous eccentric crazy that you can just ignore :3

Anyway I should really go to sleep. I just have so many THOUGHTS. This is kind of my stream of consciousness. Good night, interent people.

Hello, everyone! I am wezzl the weasel. lipamanka is obviously not prepared, so I have spent the morning translating a list of "warnings" from the original hebrew book. (There is a section labeled "השמר" which is like "take heed" or "be careful"). Evidently, there are no notes in the margins, so Dora prolly didn't read this part too carefully. I don't blame her, it's kind of tucked into the back of the book. It's like near the last page.

It's kind of hard to figure out what parts of this are conditionals but luckily I'm ABOUT to go to hebrew class so I can ask the professor lol. I think "אשר" (aser) is like "if" but kind of? I'm not really sure. wiktionary says it's not. There's also ים which wiktionary DOES say means "if" but I don't really get how it works because word order is so weird.

But like anyway. What I've been able to tell is

• each magic cirlce design only ever leads to one other world (and I'm not even sure if there are other known magic circle designs in the book)

• if you keep the book with you, you'll always be able to get back, but if you leave it behind, you problly wont (this may be what happeneed with dora idk I'm just a weasel

• God I really miss Jane. This isnt'r realated to the thing. maybe a little bit but. She's been gone for a while adn I really loved her

Maybe I shouldn't talk about Jane here. It's prolly a bad idea; but i don't care >:( I miss her :(

Anyway. I have scanned all the pages in both the book and the notebook and I will be packing our laptop in the bag or whatever. Good luck lipamanka. I hope you find dora's legacy. Maybe I'll be bable to help at some point.

Read back what wezzl wrote in the last entry. I'm thankful for his measured approach to moving forward and for the effort he put into making sure I wouldn't go in unprepared. I'm going to take the physical copy of the book with me and upload the scans to google drive.

I don't really know how to feel about Wezzl talking about Jane. I will. Put Off Thinking About This™.

I made myself a chicken stir fry and it's in the fridge. I'll set off into the other world tomorrow in the morning, unless I chicken out.

Usually when I get home, I cook right away before checking anything, and it didn't occur to me that wezzl might have written an entry even though I knew that he was around earlier today. But he's welcome to be as involved as he'd like; Dora is his great great aunt too. Cooking took a while. It took about an hour. The stir fry has fresh steamed and fried soybeans, a LOT of garlic, cauliflower, and of course chicken marinated in olive oil, a few spices (just peppercorns and yellow mustard seeds for this one, but I also added some carrot family staples while cooking along with some more whole spices), and also more garlic, ginger, turmeric, and some other stuff that I forgot about.

I'm also realizing that my second entry for October 1st is over dramatic and irresponsible. What a drama queen! Like, even if the portal gateway thing didn't work (which it did!! what the fuck!!), I would still have the opportunity to read through the entire notebook and try to figure out if there was a different lead somehow. Like if she went missing I'm sure I would have heard about this notebook if people knew about it, but nobody in the family could read it! Duh, it was in yiddish.

Learn from my mistakes and don't give up when the first thing you try doesn't work.

In any case, I just wanted to get this out now; I may have more to say before tomorrow (or even later today!). We'll see.

G-d. I am tired. This whole day has been exhausting. I'm heading to sleep soon, but before I do, I want to make a plan for language contact. There's a very real chance that they won't speak a language I speak. I can't discount the possibility that they speak biblical Hebrew or a descendant of it, or something like Akkadian, or some other semitic language. But I'm not going to expect that. I'm not going to expect anything! Who knows, they might speak English for some reason! And if they did, I would be very interested in figuring out how.

I guess this kind of goes into like. If it's possible to create gateways to this world (and maybe others?), how many times has it been done in the past? Does anyone else have a copy of the Hebrew book I have? I guess I'll find out. Or maybe I won't.

BUT back to language: I don't want to fall into the trap of approaching speakers of a language I don't speak with a checklist and trying to figure out what European things their language does. But I need some structure going into it.

I think it makes sense to start by describing what sounds I hear. Oh god I hope the phonology isn't too complicated. Eventually I'll be able to do like optimality theory and stuff to it. Feature geometry. All that good stuff.

I hope they're nice! Once again, no assumptions, and that includes both the "noble savage" trope and the "wild person" trope. I am not going to assume either of those! But I am going to hope that they are kind to me lol; especially because I'm not sure if I'll come through one of their doorways or not.

Now that I think about it, if I open a gateway FROM that world, where will it end up? My room? Another country? I don't have that much money in my bank account but if I NEED to, assuming I don't end up in Melanesia (well. Melanesia specifically wouldn't be too bad because I speak Tok Pisin), I can get a plane ticket back. MAYbe.

On that vein. What if the reverse is true? What if I end up in a different country in the other world each time? Or what if it's just a gateway to Melanesia? I have no idea what will happen. But impulsivity is the begetter of innovation. As I mentioned, I will not make any assumptions! But writing out my speculations is helping quell my nerves.

I hope I'm back in time for my bagpipe lesson!

I will add one more entry tomorrow before I open the gateway again. If I don't send an update making sure I'm okay, I have given one person the scans wezzl took of the book and the notebook; someone I trust, who won't share or use them unless I go missing. I am an amateur explorer of alternate dimensions! If I make it back and to a place with wifi I will let you all know! Don't come looking for me until two days are finished; I may need that much time to like, find my way to a place with wifi in Melanesia. Or cell service! I can get a friend to submit a pr on github and approve it one one bar.

Honestly getting stranded in Melanesia wouldn't be the worst thing. Well, if it was Papua New Guinea, anyway. I really want to visit Papua New Guinea, and I speak tok pisin kind of.

But moving forward, be aware that I am cognizant of all of the above. I'm going to suspend my disbelief and pretend that I can somehow decide where my gateways take me. Even though I know that that may not be true, and even if the portals take me to consistent places, it won't be because I have control over them. I digress way any out-of-the-way, as they say.

It's really getting late. At the time of writing, it's already 11 PM, and I won't have much time to do field research before having to return in time for my bagpipe lesson at 4:00. And sleeping isn't easy for me. So I will head to bed right now. Good night!

I'm about to head out! I have the magic circle placed above the door at the time of writing, and I'm just waiting to work up the nerve to just GO THROUGH THE DAMN DOOR. I can already smell the same honey scent of grass. I'm not sure if grass does that here or not. But anyway I am confident that the portal will probably take me to the same place. Which means that MAYBE, as long as I put my return portal on the same doorway, it'll take me right back to my room. We'll see!

OH RIGHT! I should probably set a timer for myself. A vibration based one, of course. I wouldn't want to freak out the locals with a strange noise. I'm going to try to be quiet.

G-d I really am stalling aren't I. Yes I am!! Let's list what I have. I like making lists. They make me feel in control. also the html tags for them are fun.

• stir fry I made last night (let me know if you want a recipe actually)

• flash light

• about a pound of dried rice and beans (in case I get stuck or something)

• water proof matches

• paracord (I'm also surprised I have this!)

• solar panel battery block

• computer

• phone

• chargers for both of the above

• my medication!

• sopranino recorder (what if I get bored and want to practice)

• like four small notebooks

• lots of various pens and pencils

• picture of my mom's cat (I love her so much her name is cloud)

• picture of myself and some friends posing in front of a landmark (I will not specify which here) so I can show the people there my friends

• Pretty high quality recorder with clip microphones! I'm surprised I could find one of these where I am, but I will leave it running the whole time. We'll see how useful it is. It is waterproof, but the clip on microphone is probably less waterproof.

• a gallon of water. (no, seriously. I get thirsty really easily and I have no idea how drinkable the water is there.)

And that's it! That's all I have! Wait, that's it? FUCK! What if I get bitten by a SNAKE?? what if- wait hold one one sec.

Okay I went and grabbed some whole spices. Maybe I can trade them for something! Or offer them as a gift for good hospitality! And I tied a sweatshirt around my waist in case it gets cold. Though i have a really good tolerance. I now have black cardamom, some ancho chiles, and saffron. (I know I shouldn't be taking my saffron with me to a parallel universe but (1) it's really good, and (2) my parents are in morocco right now and they said they would bring me back saffron. (They always get saffron when they visit morocco. Which they do.. frequently for some reason? Never really thought about it. I've never been though.)

Okay! Signing off! See you… later! I hope! I should be back in three to four hours. We'll see. Wish me luck! Pray for me! (G-d I am scared as fuck.)

I'M BACK! IT WENT GREAT!! So immediate notes:

• The gateways are really easy to set up. They lead directly to specific doors in the other world. I tried some other doors out there; they all led to different doors in the city I live in. So there's that! I even found one door that led to the same normally locked room at my college campus. They keep ingredients there; now I have a good source of free avocados! As long as I don't get caught.

• The people are really nice! I was able to get by with pointing at things, and they kept pointing at my nose for some reason and turning to each other and saying what I am transcribing for now as [ʔoɾiˈtʼaɾo]. They seemed really excited about it. Good thing I'm good at making ejectives! Still not sure if those are phonemic yet.

• The people are really generous with food. They fed me some food (a cooked fruit that was very juicy; they called it [tumpamontiˈpeɾ] (which is long, I know, but I recorded everything!)) No idea what it was but it was really good. To thank them I gave them my black cardamom but held off with everything else; I don't want to give them ALL my spices. I was going to offer them my beans too but I realized that they were pinto beans, and if pinto beans are not cooked properly, they can be extremely poisonous!

• Time is different there. It was very very very early when I arrived (like the sun hadn't risen yet), but there were already a few children playing outside, and they seemed to get.. their parents? (I have no idea how their kinship works yet). When I left the sun wasn't even overhead yet. I'd guess they're like, five hours behind us? That sounds about right. The children were both trying to help me learn the language, I think? They kept pointing at things and naming them.

• They do not, in fact, speak biblical hebrew, or another semitic language, as far as I can tell.

So far I've been able to piece together the following phones: p t k q (with ejectives and maybe labial forms for each), m n ŋ and ɴ (though I only heard ɴ twice, and maybe I misheard it? I'll have to check again later.), w (or maybe there are labialized consonants? idk.), f, ʃ, ʒ, s (I didn't hear z! but maybe it exists.), and ɾ (no l! how odd! Just kidding Japanese is like right there lol). also it seems like they have a five vowel system, though they might have seven vowels with e and ɛ and o and ɔ. so here is my consonant chart, using parentheses for things I'm not sure about yet:

Of course, this might all be wrong! I have no idea! If it is, I will come back and edit this to say "as of [date] it has become clear to me that this is inaccurate" with a link to a more up to date or more accurate chart. I doubt that won't happen.

Other than the sounds, I have some words! Especially from the children, one of whom kept pointing at things and telling me what they were called, including themselves and other people, so I have some names too. The names are, for the children: [usulamaˈpʼer] [ɾipʼiˈpʼer] and for the adults: [ʒoniˈkʼer] (though one of the adults said the same thing without the ejective, [ʒoniˈkeɾ]), [uqʼuˈmeɾ], and finally, what they called me, [tˈoɾaˈpʼeɾ] (the adults called me [tˈoɾaˈpeɾ] without the ejective?). But importantly:

all names end with "per," "ker," or "mer." My guess is that the morpheme is /-ker/ or /-per/ and has a bunch of allomorphs, but beyond that I'm not sure. Perhaps all of the names I've heard so far are irregular! I haven't really heard that many. But if my name is [tˈoɾaˈpʼeɾ], they were very quick to assign it to ME. Maybe it's a nickname?

Now that I think about it, ejectives probably aren't phonemic because I have an example of free variation. But I won't write that off just yet until I have time to analyze this data better after my bagpipe lesson later today.

Also. Upon returning, I've realized that I should have bought a water bladder. I... don't think I need to bring that much water anymore!

I'm about to head out for my bagpipe lesson! I will add more details (and list all of the words I was able to transcribe with a meaning attached) when I return home in several hours.

HELLO everyone! I have a little extra time because I INJURED MYSELF and had to leave my bagpipe lesson early. So this is coming out earlier than expected!

I'm just now realizing that השמר (hisshaamer) is probably related to שמר (sh-m-r) which is a pretty important root. wiktionary suggests that ה at the beginning is an archaic interrogative particle? But that one has a different niqqud under it than the one in hisamer (not that the book HAS niqqud, but I can't really see the translation making much sense if it was a different derivation of h-sh-m-r). I asked my professor about it and she responded very quickly and told me "It's an imperative of a binyan called Nif'al which is essentially in the passive of Pa'al. It means something like 'be warned" or "be guarded." I don't really understand that to be honest.

ANYWAY. I will list some of the phrases I have so far (mostly what I assume to be nouns), not including the names I mentioned above. note that I have no idea what the word boundaries are yet! I will indicate a long pause with | because the children seemed to try to separate words for me, but I have no idea how accurate that is.

(I know I said "all" before but. no. I do not have the energy for that and I want to get this out as soon as I can.)

If I'm being honest, for the time being, I'm not going to type up all my findings here; but I will plan out what images I want to print out for when I return this weekend. I want to have a list of nouns and test for things.

At this point I am more confident that this is the phonology. but I am still not sure at all. expect more updates.

plosives become ejectives for emphasis or when a speaker is excited OR perhaps it's like baby talk or child talk? idk. Not sure if ʔ is a phoneme or if it is appended at the beginnings of words like in hebrew. though it is actually a phoneme in Hebrew I think. idk; I'll get more info on this later.

I am pretty sure that tʃ is just palatalization because I have only ever seen it before i and I have never seen t before i. I'm going to go with that for now because palatalization is REALLY common. Reminds me of portuguese a little bit :D

I think that w is just its own phoneme. Unless I find a minimal pair between like pw and pʷ I'm going to analyze it as just a consonant cluster (or maybe a diphthong? honestly this analysis doesn't matter too much)

I am at this time not sure how phonemic the stress is. But then again, I'm not sure where the word boundaries or morpheme boundaries are. So Like™

Images I want to have printed out: iconography of a single person, multiple people, a short person next to a tall person, a sarong next to a person wearing a sarong, some fruits from my world (I can just bring these I think?), a table, a bowl, a fork (they did have forks, spoons, knives, and sticks that resemble chopsticks, so maybe I will just point at the ones that they have. They have bowls too actually. and tables.) I'm planning on pointing at the sun and having them tell me what it's called. I will ask them about rocks, I will bring water, I will ask them about fire (they had a fire going, which is how they cooked the fruit for me). I'll share more details tomorrow if I get the chance (even though it will be shabes and I think there's a service this week).

I'm thinking about how I can possibly use wifi while in the other universe. If I built a little box out of wood and attached a door to it right next to my router, could I use the door as a portal? would that door… where would that door lead? I honestly have no idea.

I'm also going to try to date the book. I do know that bookbinding (the biblical Hebrew book is bound) has been around for a very long time (since 200 AD? smth like that? at least?), so it probably isn't older than that. but it doesn't fall apart when I touch it. Maybe it's parchment? idk what types of paper are more likely to fall apart at what times. I would really love to see when this book is from!

In other news, later this Friday I'm going to do the same thing I'm trying to do with this language with Menominee for my morphology class. So I'll get some practice in trying to decode different words and morphemes and what they mean. I am not very good at this yet! This past Wednesday it took me a while to get anywhere with my group figuring out the nouns and possessives and it's a Lot.

I have transcribed some more sentences in the language from my recording. I will no longer transcribe ejectives. I do have more data but the quality might go downhill unless I am able to visit again soon, mostly because I have almost exhausted all of the examples I took notes on with timestamps! so I will not have context for anything else I transcribe. Also it's kind of hard to hear through the recording.

This time I have numbered my examples like a good linguist :)

I am. STRUGGLING A LOT. with word boundaries. Maybe I just have to Take Risks and be like, "here is a word boundary!!" or maybe there are none, because the whole sentence is one word? or maybe words are fake and don't exist !!! Maybe there's something in the phonology that can help me?

I have noticed that the glottal stop only shows up in front of vowels. But it consistently shows up after other consonants. And Hebrew does that, so that wouldn't make the LEAST sense, but maybe the language doesn't have /ʔ/ and just has epenthetic ʔ word initially like English (or something). (English does that right? or is it a phoneme? idk. I definitely think about it as epenthetic because words can't start with a vowel in English's syllabic structure.)

An alternative possibility is that stress is word initial. That would mean that the longest single phrase I have transcribed so far would be broken up like so:

fuʔakaki ˈperʃo ˈselqami ˈpelʃutora ˈpertar ˈfol | taʃo ˈselqami ˈpamtarka ˈper ˈʔepi.

But I find this unlikely because phrases usually don't start with stressed syllables. If stress is ultimate, it would be

fuʔakakiˈper ʃoˈsel qamiˈpel ʃutoraˈpe rtarˈfol | taʃoˈsel qamiˈpam tarkaˈper ˈʔepi

For this one, every "word" fits the pattern (except for ˈʔepi), so I think it's more likely. It also parses ʃoˈsel as a single word, which if we're assuming that that's a verb, checks out!

Maybe I'll have an easier time if I videotape them? But I don't really feel comfortable doing that. Do they even know what it means to videotape something? I don't think it's particularly ethical.

I think this language has a good deal of nasal assimilation, and example (2) may have good info on that!

I may be able to get more data out tonight, but maybe not.

Just getting out a quick update: I am going to try my best to juggle this project with uncovering what happened to Dora, but I still need to prioritize my linguistics degree! I have been a bit too vigerous with my field research. So expect something closer to 2-5 updates a week, instead of like, 2-3 updates a day.

I am planning on returning to the other world tomorrow! I really have to figure out what the place is called. I think it may be ˌaɴqʷamaˈqeɾ, but I'm still not 100% positive about that.)

In the future, I will be sharing less of the data I'm collecting and mostly just enough examples of language usage to demonstrate my findings. I will begin to compile a dictionary at some point that will be hosted on a different page of this website. Expect an update tomorrow when I return from Anqwamaqer! (that's how I'm romanizing the name of the place; I will probably not be romanizing the language though. Oh I wonder what the writing system is, if there is one.)

I have a lot of fun data! Mostly a long list of nouns and some analysis. I have heard the people refer to themselves and the land as several things, but the one thing in common with all of them was the sequence [qwamaq] (though it never appeared on its own). So I'm just going to call the language "Qwamaq," the people "the Qwamaq," and the place "Qwamaq land" until I learn more.

I spent over three hours among the Qwamaq today, the whole time transcribing, recording, etc. I set out very early in the morning (well. 9:00 AM is very early for ME) and got back around 2:15 PM. I got to work right away doing a morphological analysis of the language. I talked to five people this time, including the four people from last time:

• usulamaˈpeɾ - so this is one of the kids who seems to have more energy. Definitely a classic case of the hyperactive or combined presentations of ADHD, but I'm unsure how stigmatized that way of being is in this culture! People just let them climb on things though. And I think that "usala" means "to climb" because it showed up in my third example from my first visit (ˈtusala ˈepi). I don't know what t- does there yet, and idk what the -map- in the name is. But this kid sure climbs a lot!

• ɾipiˈpeɾ - I still have no idea what this name means, but this is another one of the children. Ripiper is like, the chillest kid I've ever met. They love to laugh (even if I have no idea what they're laughing at) and are super kind (this is the one that keeps pronouncing words separately for me). But they did pour water on my head, which is a little weird. But everyone laughed, and I didn't really mind. Cute kid!

• ʒoniˈkeɾ - This was one of the adults! They seemed the youngest of the adults (probably around my age, maybe a little older?), and they were a musician! I know because they played a drum while I was there. They sang too, but this song didn't have any lyrics.

• uquˈmeɾ - Middle aged, long braided hair. I don't really know what their profession was though.

• akakipeɾ - A very old person who stayed quiet most of the time and just observed me, but did talk several times. She was smiling the whole time and she had this air to her that made me feel comfortable.

Embarrassingly, I didn't consider earlier that the suffix for names may just be -er. There may be epenthetic consonants though. More on that later.

When Ripiper poured water on my head, they said "aʃaˈtekwo ʔun" excitedly, and an adult said "ʃoˈɾifi ʔun" to the kid. I wonder if "ripi" and "rifi" are related.

I have determined that most of the roots in this language are verbs, and I think I have been able to notice a bunch of derivational affixes. I think actually MOST OF the roots in this language are bound morphemes that take bound affixes. There's some conjugation going on too; roots either conjugate (with affixes) or become other parts of speech (also with affixes).

I've been able to figure out word boundaries mostly. Stress may or may not be phonemic? It's entirely predictable based on the underlying form, I think. Not that I know what that is yet (still working on figuring out the phonology of this language!), but I think some rules I've been able to tell:

• Words ending with -eɾ, -oʃ, and a few other common suffixes (I assume) always have stress on the final syllable

• Words not ending in these have stress at where I assume is the first syllable of the root

So I think even though sentences end up OFTEN having most of their words end with final stress, the rule may be closer to "the first syllable of the last morpheme." Not 100% sure on this though. I will be transcribing with stress for the rest of this entry, but I think I won't need to in future entries.

NOTE: Unless specified, everything was an image I had printed out.

Here are my words so far! The four classic elements:

People and clothes:

I still don't really know what their gender system is, but they had a full new word for an androgynous person. I think next time I will bring pictures of some more edge cases and see what they call them. Like drag queens, various nonbinary people, different gender roles around the world.

Food:

This is a topic I'm personally very very interested in! For future trips, I may bring them more food and have them talk about it.

Cutlery and Furniture:

They actually had a lot of things that resemble what we have in the west. It seems to be against their cultural customs to eat things with the hands. All of these things were things that THEY HAD that I just POINTED at.

The sky

When I arrived, it was just barely morning. The sun was just rising, which where I am is 7:15, which means … their day cycle is off? or the time works differently? Or it's a different length? It was midday when I went there and it was midnight here (that was my first time opening a portal). Or maybe it wasn't! Or maybe it's summer, and the days are really long? Not really sure. But anyway. When I arrived, i could ask them about the moon and stars, and when the sun rose, I could ask them about that too! So I didn't have pictures of any of these.

I wonder how the semantics of heat, sun, day, and light are split up. In toki pona, sun, day, and light are the same word, but heat is a different one. In English, I think they're all different? But at this point I only really know about "fire" and "sun." I don't know their word for "day."

Their stars LOOKED pretty different from ours. Interestingly, instead of one milky way streaking across the sky, their sky had two intersecting galaxies, almost like an X. It looked really cool! So definitely a completely different astronomical everything. So for "star," I'm not really sure EXACTLY what they're talking about; I just guessed.

Their moon was very different from ours. It was still small, but it was about twice as big I think. It was almost a new moon when I got there so I couldn't really see the patterns on it but I have no reason to believe it's identical to ours. I would be surprised if it was!

Analysis

I've identified some (maybe productive?) bound morphemes that I'll list:

• /-eɾ/ - some sort of agentive nominalizer (just like /-eɹ/ in English. This is a complete coincidence, and none of the other affixes I've found are the same in English!). It's used a lot in names, I think because it's animate. I think intransitive verbs are nominalized using the same affix but at this point I'm not positive on that.

• /-oʃ/ - passive nominalizer! Look through the examples that end with it, they're all some sort of passive thing. like nuˈsoʃ. That which is breathed, breath, air!

These will be VERY useful in figuring out what words are roots. Next time I post, I may have a better morphological analysis of the data I have. I think I should just look at a list of common grammatical cases and try to find things that could be nominalized versions of verbs fitting those cases. (like for example a bakery as maybe a locative derived version of /kaʃʃep/, which I am assuming is the root for "bake" if kaʃʃepoʃ is "baked thing" (bread).)

Takeaways

• There are some alterations going on with f and p. I will need to analyze them further.

• Why is nobody working? I have yet to see anybody working at all; nothing in the fields, nothing in the homes. Did I stumble in on a holiday? Do they just have that much free time? They definitely had time for ME because they were immediately kind to me.

• There is some epenthesis with p. Every time I'm like "what is that phoneme doing there" it's a p. Like clockwork! I swear to g-d! I don't think I've seen a language that epends p everywhere like this.

• I have my work cut out for me! But I'm already getting a hang of things. I hope there are no curveballs coming soon though.

• I have a lead on Dora! They called me Toraper, and they said something like Toratoraper (reduplication?), which sounds a lot like Dora. Once I learn more of the language I will have to ask them about it. Akakiper seems to know something about it.

I returned just last night. I think I figured out their gender system. When I showed them a picture of a very fem man with a beard and lots of makeup, they used both the word for "male" and "female." I asked them what they were, and Usalamaper is nonbinary, Ripiper is a girl, Zhoniker is a man, Uqumer is a woman, and Akakiper is a woman. I will be using the English pronouns associated with each of these genders, because I feel that having grammatically gendered pronouns is useful for disambiguation, and I don't really want to confuse people!

I also told them that I'm nonbinary. I pointed at myself and said "tumer." Zhoniker said "ʃotum un" which I think is "you're nonbinary" or something like that.

I spent this day with the same family, But Zhoniker took me away from the rest of the group over a hill and under a tree. We climbed the tree together and sat in the branches. He made long eye contact with me. He said, "toʃiʃɾa fol?" I didn't know what it meant so I couldn't respond. But I had a feeling it was intimate, so I turned off the microphone to respect him. I don't remember much of what else was said specifically, but he just started talking to me. With the small amount of vocabulary I had, I was able to understand the basic idea of what he was talking about, but I still didn't feel confident enough to respond.

I remember at one point he said "un kaʃupoʃ" and pointed at me. I remembered he described me as "kaʃupoʃ" the last time I was here. I'm pretty sure "un" is 2nd person, because he kept using it in all the sentences I couldn't understand.

Zhoniker was really sweet and kind to me the whole time we spent in the tree. At one point the sun set and the stars became visible, and he started pointing at constellations and naming them. I don't remember any of the names, but it was really nice. Sometimes you don't need language to get along with someone, I guess!

I remember Zhoniker saying something about Akakiper and Toratoraper, and I started paying attention to every single word when he started talking about that. From what I can tell, Toratoraper is someone who, like me, came from another world many years in the past. I am now very confident that "Toratoraper" is her name, and "Toraper" (which is what they've been calling me) is the root "tora" with the agentive /-er/ added to the end. "tora" describes someone who is crazy I think? Or someone who thinks they're from another world. Or a needle and thread going through fabric? Idk oddly a lot of his body language was centered around sewing something.

Speaking of which, I pointed to his hand motions when he did it once and he took a needle out of his pocket (which he just had I guess?) and pointed at it and said "ʃopikrif epi" And I remembered the word "ikrif" from the previous visit; it meant "person." So I pointed at myself and at him, and I asked "ʃopikrif epi?" But he responded nodding and saying "ʃopikrif ano." So I assume that's a first person plural pronoun. Next time I visit I will have to pay attention to the pronouns.

I'm wondering if my approach is wrong or not. Maybe I should just try to immerse myself into their culture and learn the language that way instead of being super analytical about it. But I don't think I've ever been able to learn a language like that. I don't know. But I do know one thing: each of these five people I've met so far are so interesting, especially Zhoniker, who just like me is a musician. And I want to be able to talk to them. I want to be able to ask them questions about themselves and their culture.

But most importantly, I want to find out what happened to Dora. And I won't be able to do that if I don't know how to talk to the people in this world.

Anyway. Phonology update! I want to explain where all the [p]s are coming from. I have two options here: syllable theory, and optimality theory (OT). My preference is usually OT, but syllable theory is just way easier to figure out because you get to write it out in prose.

Qwamaq has a CCVC syllabic structure. In complex onsets, the first C must be an obstruent, and the second one must be either w or r. This is pretty normal; Qwamaq is just following the sonority hierarchy (which not all languages do! English has a lot of words that don't, like "Axe"). There is a coda condition; it must be a place linked stop (either oral or nasal; I'm assuming that this is where geminites come from, but I don't have any examples of alternations of this.

So as a sound change, first the word gets syllabified, and then stray syllables get either p added at the beginning or i added at the end to let them fit the syllabic structure. Why p? NO idea! Why i? Well that one actually is one of the least marked (most common) epenthetic vowels out there (Portuguese does it!).

Next I want to talk about f and p alternations. I'm not 100% sure on this but for the time being, I am going to assume that they spread leftward through words. I would normally make a feature geometry tree for this but it is very late and I should be going to sleep. Expect something eventually! Something similar is happening with q and k, which I'm analyzing as backness spreading. But I am a little confused about why it isn't spreading TO vowels. Oh well; not the end of the world. q and k spread through everything (which makes sense, because moving your tongue back to your uvula can get kinda hard), but f and p get blocked by obstruents.

At this point, I'm confident I have at least 90% of the phonology down! I will talk about underlying forms in the future and I will be giving stuff in both // (underlying) and [] (surfacing), so if you have been weirded out by my lack of brackets so far, worry not!

I pointed at the the sky and waved Zhoniker goodbye. I really enjoyed spending time with him. Next time, though, I will have to pull myself away from him to talk to the others about Dora.

Hello, everyone! I returned last night. I think their day cycle is shorter than ours because it's always a different time when I arrive, and based on stopwatches I've set I know that time passes at the same speed in both worlds.

The first time I returned, it was the middle of the night. I stayed only briefly to look at the stars. It's wonderful being able to just open a gateway to a world that looked like this at night. I took the time to look around at the land I was on.

I didn't know where the cardinal directions were, but I had my phone. The compass app said that North was in the direction of some really large mountains. It was kind of like the Bay Area or Northern Italy; the mountains were pretty far away, but I could still see them because they were so huge. There are no mountains this large anywhere near where I live in our world, so I'm confident that the landmasses here are quite different to those of Earth.

I walked around the town for a short while, and all of the fire pits that had been outside the previous night had been put away.

After that I just went home. It seemed like everyone was asleep. when I got home I sat down and looked through all the data I had so far. I want to list all of the morphemes that attach to verbs:

• /po-/ - not sure

• /so-/ - not sure

• /t-/ - not sure

• /ʃo-/ - not sure, but this one is by far the most common

• /ap-/ - not sure, but maybe imperative?

• /ma-/ - not sure, but also maybe imperative?

And for pronouns I think I've noticed so far:

• /epi/ - 3rd person singular

• /ano/ - 1st person plural

• /ono/ - 1st person singular

• /un/ - 2nd person singular

This is all I've been able to figure out so far. Other things I've noticed:

• All questions so far start or end with the particle "ta" OR have the word "fol" in them. I think ta is a question marking particle, which makes me assume that "fol" is an interrogative pronoun. But of course, I can't be sure. "fol" may also just mean "no" and be used in question formation like in mandarin or toki pona.

• kaʃuˈpoʃ and kaʃuˈfaq have the same root (kaʃu). The first refers to me and beef wellington, and the second refers to a sarong. All of the utensils end with /-faq/, including salad tossers ("fafefaq"). So my guess is that "kaʃu" means "to wrap" and a sarong is that which you wrap with, and the beef wellington is that which is wrapped. (But I have no idea why they called me "wrapped thing"? Maybe it is because I was wearing clothes. But so were they!)

• Likewise, /-faq/ is an instrumental nominalizer! I'm pretty confident about this one. I'm going to test to see how productive this affix is by testing it out on other verbs I know and see what they think I'm talking about. But first I want to just get more sentence data, so I'll be returning soon.

Farewell, everyone! I intend to try providing glosses for every sentence I describe from now on, filling in the information I have so far.

I returned again! This time, I collected as many sentences as I could. I've gone through and transcribed/glossed some of them. No big picture analysis for now; just data and speculation. I didn't record every single thing that was said by hand. I only took notes on full sentences that I thought I may be able to use. The format for the following examples is: The underlying representation (the phonemic base with dashes in between morphemes), then the phonetic realization, then a gloss (I tried my best and some stuff may be wrong), and then a rough english translation that is probably incorrect but I am trying my best. Under that will be notes. Each example will have a paragraph explaining the context before it.

First, Zhoniker took me with him to do what I'm going to call "songwalking." Songwalking is when someone walks while playing a drum (that's what Zhoniker used, at least) and sing songs! Zhoniker had some things to tell me about his job, but I only kind of understand the importance? Something (that isn't the plants, I think) in the ground likes specific Qwamaq folksongs and will make the crops grow faster. Maybe some type of animal? Some material? Ghosts? A god? I have no idea lol. The following examples are things Zhoniker said to me.

(1)

• I am struggling a lot with the meaning here, but I have a good portion of it! The base syntax and morphology is kind of messing me up. I have no clue what's going on.

• urukam ends with /-am/, which is a new nominalizer I've never seen before.

• I think the -wik- thing is an infix because he said "paka" a lot to talk about his parent.

• The "an-" in "an-oriti-er" is probably the same one in "an-qwamaq-er," which is probably for an ethnic group. Zhoniker also mentioned "anolsemer" at one point, which may be a third ethnic group. This is going on the list of things to ask about once I can communicate better!

• I don't know the morphological breakdown of konoprar. I was assuming up until this point that all nouns ended in a nominalizer, but this one might not? But it also might; I just haven't seen anything that looks like any part of it. When I asked what it was he pointed southwest.

• New pronouns I think! amaʃa, paka, and oʒa! The first one I think is plural, and the third one is singular. They're both third person though. Idk what the difference is between these and epi, but there is one! I think! And as for paka, I have genuinely no clue. But it's probably first person because he pointed at himself when he said it. He's so expressive with body language.

(2)

This are the words to the song Zhoniker sang. He was walking through a field of small plants barely poking forth from the topsoil. I have thoughts on the music they use there but those will have to wait for a later date.

• I think anʃi is a pronoun. The whole song seems to be directed at the plants, so it is likely second person, but I'm not positive at all. That's just my only educated guess.

• In many languages, sung versions are different from spoken registers, so the grammar might be a little different here. That could be completely false, but for example sung english is often archaic, especially in artsong, and brazillian pop music uses the archaic pronoun tu instead of você. Sung and poetic Yiddish has much freer word order than normal spoken Yiddish. Biblical hebrew has freer word order than modern Hebrew. The list goes on!

• I actually memorized this one! Zhoniker taught it to me. I typed this all from memory and double checked with my recording and it was completely right! Very proud of myself.

• No idea what the word for grass means as a verb here; all I can say is that I am confused. If you have any idea what's going on here please let me know. Does it ALSO mean "grow"? What is /-am/?

• I actually transcribed this one from memory! He taught me the song on the way back.

• I could actually see the plants growing in real time while he was singing. Which is sick! It means it works!!

(3)

This is what Zhoniker said when he finished singing. Afterwards, we walked back together. On the way he taught me example (2).

• It's not lost on me that /-am/ could be /-pam/ but p epenthesis is just so common that I can't tell for now.

• I started marking secondary stress here to give a sense for how clear morpheme boundaries are. Each morpheme has secondary stress at the beginning except for the last one, which has primary stress. I may stop doing this because it's a little annoying but it's not the worst.

• I think I'm getting a sense for what a lot of these nominalizers mean but this /-qar/ has me thrown off completely. I thought it was locative but I don't even know what that sentence means.

(4)

When we got back, Zhoniker and I sang the song together in the garden. The Akakiper came out and said this.

• The food was really good. It had a paste that was similar in texture and flavor to the fruit they fed me the first time I went there, But it was spicy too, kind of like szechuan peppercorns. It numbed my mouth in the same way. I started feeling my tongue with my fingers (something I do when I eat szechuan peppercorns for whatever reason), and Akakiper laughed and said "tumpapalaˈper." I don't know for sure what the word means but it is very similar to tumpaper and tumpamontiper. In fact, I pointed at it and said "ta tumpamontiper?" (with what I assumed to be the question particle) and Akakiper shook her head and said "tumpasekiser." So we have /tumpa/ /-er/ and in between we have either /monti/ /pala/ or /sekis/ (or nothing at all!) I don't know what these morphemes do but these terms seem to be lexicalized. Zhoniker said "ʃoˈpalap fu peʃoˈpoʃ paˈpaka" while mimicking my little motion with his finger against his tongue.

• I think /-onta/ is PROBABLY a nominalizer for specific dishes. But I don't know what palam is. alap seems to be the same alap that's in the name of the numbing spice they have?

• "of food" is how they probably say "hungry." But it might have something to do with the nominalizer. I'll have to look at other cases where it's used too.

Okay this took so much work so for sure no further analysis for now. Feel free to contact me if you think you have any insights for me!

OKAY SO. I figured out EVERYTHING. Let me. Let me like. Let's start with the pronouns. And this chart may be confusing. I noticed that there were at least two or three of each type of pronoun (person, number). So what are they declining for? Case? And it turns out that they WERE! But only three of them.

So if you're familiar with how cases usually work in languages, you're probably asking: "huh? Is this language nominative or ergative? What the hell is direct?" "oblique" may be the only thing that makes sense to you. But very few language people have heard of trigger alignment, also called "austronesian alignment."

This is how it works: Appended to the verb is a trigger that says what kind of information the direct object is. If the direct object is the actor, the indirect object will be the patient. If the direct object is the patient, then the indirect object will be the actor. If the direct object is anything else, the indirect object will be the actor, and the oblique will be the patient.

So the affixes that attach to verbs have been these "triggers" the whole time. I can't believe I figured it out. (If you want to see a language from OUR world that does this, I recommend taking a look at Tagolog. But I suspect the triggers are different for Qwamaq.)

Tagalog has four actor triggers, three patient triggers, a locative trigger, a benefactive trigger, an instrumental trigger, and a "reason" trigger. And also a directional trigger and a reciprocal trigger. Each of these also conjugate for five different aspects. I.. don't think there's all that in Qwamaq. I think they actually only conjugate for two moods: indicative and imperative. I'm going to list the triggers I've seen so far.

• /ʃo-/ - actor/intransitive

• /t-/ - patient

• /aʃa-/ - dative

• /to-/ - ablative?

• /ap-ŋa/ - imperative intransitive(circumfix)

• /so-/ - imperative patient

• /ma-/ - imperative actor

• /m-/ - imperative patient (but only used in Zhoniker's song? and also once by Akakiper when greeting us.)

• /en-ŋa/ - imperative dative

Then there are the prepositions! I've been seeing "fu" the most; I'm confident that it marks the direct object. Next most common is "tar," and I think it marks the indirect object. The only other two I've seen have been "fim" and "emi" and I've only seen each once; one of them is probably the oblique. And the other one may also be an oblique? but more specific? there might be a difference? Either way I think it kind of makes sense that they'd avoid using obliques if they can emphasize whatever information they want THAT EASILY. Like you do not understand how easy it is to make anything the "subject" in this language.

Other morphemes/syntax things I think I understand now:

• /maf-/ - relativizer? I think? It attaches to an entire new sentence.

• /C-wik-V/ - infix that means "this." It's also used in a relativized noun.

• /pa-/ - "genetive" prefix. Turns a noun (or verb?) into an adjective. Also used in copular sentences.

• Base word order is VDI (verb direct indirect) but VID (verb indirect direct) is also done sometimes? But people usually just use a trigger to switch the information they want to being the direct object instead of the indirect object if they want to front, say, the patient. Because the most common trigger is the actor one, if we call actors subjects, Qwamaq usually ends up being VSO or VOS but thinking about it that way can be a little weird.

• Word order for copular sentences is DV where V is a genitive construction starting with /pa-/. I think.

• Word order is actually pretty free though, and people can freely front anything. before the verb (usually the direct object).

• The only time I've seen things being fronted (still after the verb) instead of switching a trigger is when the direct object is being relativized (like in example (1) from Oct 8).

• I think /sel/ is an auxiliary verb, yes, but more specifically it means "to go" and can be used for both future and past tense. And the verb it's auxilarating (is that a word?) follows it and has either /-el/ or /-(p?)am/ appended to it. Speaking of which...

• /-er/ is agentive, /-oʃ/ is patientive, /-el/ may be dative, /-(p)am/ may be ablative, /-qar/ is certainly locative, /-faq/ is instrumental, and there are a lot more that I've only seen a few times before. I have some ideas but they'll have to wait for later.

If I'm not woefully incorrect about all of this, I may be able to ask about Dora using the vocabulary I have so far. But it's going to be tricky.

Hey! Wow I have an 11 day streak for this webjournal.

After memorizing the pronouns and triggers I've learned so far, I returned to the Qwamaq and sat down with the adults in the family (Zhoniker, Akakiper, and Uqumer) and tried my hardest to explain to them what my connection to Dora was.

I drew a family tree diagram which they seemed to understand. I used the word "kelaŋ" to describe my father, and then is father, and then his father, and then HIS father. And then I went down the line to Dora. Akakiper pointed to Dora and Bibi (which if you remember is Dora's brother, my great grandfather) and said "kipipoʃ" for Bibi, and "kipiper" when pointing to Dora.

But then I said "toratoraper" and everyone fell silent for a moment. I'll just translate the next few lines instead of transcribing them.

Akakiper broke the silence. "Toraper, I knew Dora. She was very good to me." (remember that my Qwamaq name is "Toraper")

Zhoniker said "the word 'tora' in Qwamaq comes from Dora. She came from a different place."

I almost felt like I was going to cry; Dora HAD been here, and she left her mark. But also, it made sense why I was called Toraper. If "tora" is "to be from another world," Why wouldn't they call me that?

I asked a sentence I'd been preparing: "aʃasel fu fol tar Toratoraper?" "Where did Dora go?"

"Oritʃipar," said Akakiper. "qap ʃoˈkeʃi taˈtar ʃoˈkwami epi. ʃoˈʒir fuˈfu ʃoˈfaf epi ʃuˌʒaŋaˈqar."

I didn't know what half of those words meant but now I do lol, they are:

• /keʃi/ - to know

• /kwami/ - to live

• /ʒir/ - to be likely

• /faf/ - to die

• /ʒaŋa/ - to be located somewhere, to be in the past

• /qap/ - negation particle; "no"

tatar and fufu seem to be reduplicated versions of prepositions. They're followed by full sentences, so they're probably subordinators? I'm going to assume that they are. If they are, this means "I don't know if she is alive. She probably died." Which like duh she was seventeen when my GREAT GRANDFATHER was born.

But also I had my answer!! She moved to somewhere called "Oritʃipar." The place "Konoprar" ends with the same suffix as this word, so maybe they're both cities or towns?

I said "aʃaˈsel par fu oritʃipar." (I will go to Oritʃipar)

"qap," said Akakiper, immediately. Zhoniker repeated "qap" and Uqumer nodded. Akakiper elaborated: "qap enseŋŋa fu Oritʃipar."

I memorized that /en-ŋa/ was the imperative dative circumfix, so this was a command to not go to Oritʃipar. Or at the very least, a suggestion. I didn't know how to say why so I circumlocuted with an ablative construction and said "folpam" which they didn't understand. Oh well. But they continued to say things to me.

Zhoniker said, "aʃaˈwakri an tar aˌnoriˈter," Which I now know meant "The Oriti are bad to us."

Uqumer said "tʃiˈfuk an tar aˌnoriˈter" which I still can't parse super well? But "fuk" is probably a negative action because "we" is the patient and the Oriti are the actor.

I wanted to ask "why" again but I didn't know how! I tried "fim fol" (guessing that "fim" would be the oblique preposition" and they seemed to understand that.

"fimol," said Zhoniker, correcting me. "toˈsel ˈʃiʃraˈpam fu ʒaɴqar paˈʒiŋka tar aˌnoriˈter. tʃiˈkiʃ foŋŋapa fu aɴqwamaqer fu anolseˈmer tar aˌnoriˈter." Which I don't really understand but I think it's a past tense construction at the beginning ("sel X-pam" seems to be past tense, and sel X-el seems to be future tense. Which makes sense! Going from the verb vs going towards the verb). It's probably more bad things the Oriti have done to the Qwamaq (and the "olsem"?).

The whole thing smells of colonialism. But I can't tell more than that.

I said "aʃaˈsel par fu fol?" (where should I go?)

"fufu ʃoratʃi qeʃiˈqar un tar toratoraˈper ta?" said Akakiper (I think she was adding onto my sentence?) "enseŋŋa fu konoˈprar." (To know about Dora? Go to Konoprar.)

I nodded.

Zhoniker offered to guide (femi, transitive) me to Konoprar. I didn't know how to articulate my apprehension; I still have a life outside of Qwamaq land (Qwamaqqar?). I can't just move to Qwamaqqar. I can't trek to Konoprar. But...

Maybe the answer lies in the Hebrew book. Dora ended up in the same general place despite being, on Earth, over a thousand miles away. Maybe if I fiddle with the magic circle, it will take me somewhere new, and I can end up in Konoprar. Otherwise, I will have to figure out a way to make a portable door that will open up to my wifi router and make the trek without returning for a while. If Zhoniker can guide me, I could make this my project for fall break (Which starts in just one week on the 17th!)

I will try my best to figure out the portals before then, but I doubt I'll be able to figure it out. My biblical Hebrew is still like, really rudimentary, and so is my Yiddish. For the time being, it may be a better idea to work on my Qwamaq instead so I am better linguistically equipped to go to Konoprar.

IMPORTANT: I will begin working on a grammar for Qwamaq as soon as I post this. Instead of updating my journal, I will update the grammar instead for however long it takes me to get a better sense of the language. I'll start a NEW journal when I'm ready documenting my journey to Konoprar (including figuring out how I'm gonna get there and also what I do once I get there).

THIS WILL BE THE LAST ENTRY IN PART ONE.

One last thing before I sign off for part one: conceptual metaphors. Some examples of conceptual metaphors in English are "time is money" (we spend both of them, we save both of them), "an argument is war" (we defend our points and our forts and we plan out strategies so we can win), or "the future is in front of us" (we conceptualize moving through time as walking forward and it shows in our vocabulary).

Qwamaq seems to have several unique conceptual metaphors. These are the ones I've noticed just talking to them (about things I don't feel like transcribing because like. That's a lot of work):

• People are needles moving through fabric. I think you only say you've needled to a new place when you MOVE there full time, but if you move somewhere, you use the same word as the word for "to sew" to describe that.

• Lying is poisoning. This one is pretty fun. In English, we can explain the difference, but in Qwamaq, it's a little cumbersome. Imagine if all English words that talked about lying were the same as the words that talked about poisoning. That's what it's like in Qwamaq.

• We move towards the future. This one is the same as it is in english but in Qwamaq, there's just as much emphasis on that we move FROM the PAST.

This is a lot!