Part - I

The Karažun language, or conlang rather, is a project which started as a desire to, have a language which sounds Manchurian and looks Manchurian. Unfortunately, despite the Karažun language does write in the Manchurian script, it is really not possible to make Karažun to sound exactly like the authentic Manchurian language. It appears to be Manchurian in writing but, those fluent in the Manchu language will not be able to understand it.

The main linguistic resources for the creation of Karažun are, the Tungusic (Orochen, Manchu, Sibe...etc.), the Mongolic (Mongol, Kylmuk, Dagur...etc.), the Turkic (Uyghur, Salar, Tuvan...etc.), and the Iranic (Sogdanian, Persian, Wakhi...etc.). Originally, the Karažun language is desiged to write in the Manchurian script but, such will be difficult to use online; thus, a modefied latin alphabet is also designed as its secondary writing method.

The following is the Karažun Latin Alphabet:
(Unexplained letters are supposed to possess similar sounds as the English language)

A - sounds as if saying "ah~"
B
Ç - sounds as the "ts" in "CAts"
D
E
F
G
H
I
K
L
M
N
Ñ - sounds as the "ng" in "SIng"
O
P
R
S
Š - sounds as the "SH" in "SHoulder"
T
U
W
Y
Z
Ž - sounds as the "S" in "pleaSure"

A note on Karažun's Manchurian script: the Manchurian letter for "tz" is pronounced as "z" in the Karažun language. Not all Manchurian letters are used for writing Karažun words.

Part - II



These are the Karažun Numbers from one to twenty written in the Manchurian script. The followings are the numbers in the modefied latin alphabet:

01. bire
02. eške
03. iže
04. dorutu
05. pašu
06. yelide
07. yede
08. askužu
09. dokužu
10. wen
11. wen a bire
12. wen a eške
13. wen a iže
14. wen a dorutu
15. wen a pašu
16. wen a yelide
17. wen a yede
18. wen a askužu
19. wen a dokužu
20. eškewen

Part - III



The above image shows the Counting System of Karažun:

00. mori - a horse
01. bire mori - one horse, a specific horse
02. eške mori - two horses
03. iže mori - three horses
04. dorutu mori - four horses
05. pašu mori - five horses
06. yelide mori - six horses
07. yede mori - seven horses
08. askužu mori - eight horses
09. dokužu mori - nine horses
10. mori wen - ten horses

A note on Karažun grammar: In Karažun counting, all numbers beyond ten (including ten itself) are placed after the word it describes, numbers from one to nine are placed before the word it describes. In Karažun, there are no difference in form for any words between its singular and plural forms.

Part - IV



Baturu balanži arušalañ hašti, zapirita gulinži pana yañ hašti.

"A brave man is akin to a lion whilst a beauty is just like the blossoming flowers."

Awesome! I just started learning Manghu a couple days ago, what a coincidence.

I totally love the script, it's beautiful. Do you know any Manchu?

I have two questions regarding that: 1) how does one go about learning Manchu and 2) why learn a language nobody speaks.

I don't mean to dump on your choices but I have never understood why people do this. I wouldn't bother with the most fascinating language known to man if I never had an opportunity to use it. I mean, there are plenty of fascinating exotica like Korean and Hungarian to occupy my time which have lots of speakers and modern media.

1) By using the few, although high-quality and descriptive books in English (or the tons in Chinese or Japanese, but I speak neither).
2)There are speakers, about 60 Manchus speak it natively, and hundreds of people are learning it around the world. There is a Chinese forum I know (http://manchusky.qq.topzj.com/) that has quite a few fluent speakers and learners of various levels, who learn it to help bring it back to life. The reasons to learn it are few, but it is a wonderful language if you really get into it, instead of viewing it so negatively. The learners of it are Manchus that want to learn their ancestral language, culture, and history, and also people that just like the language, and culture, history, or whatever else. The reason many languages are moribund or extinct are because people like you do nothing to let other peoples thrive, and instead push their language and culture onto them, like the Americans did in the past, the Spaniards, like the Chinese do now...

I'm learning Manchu mostly because it's just very interesting to we in many ways, and that I want to help keep it alive; I don't want to see it die. Those reasons are also tho same for why I want to learn Lushootseed, since it has around the same number of speakers, but it is native to the area I live in, which makes keeping it alive even more significant to me.

You misunderstand me. I'm all for the revival of endangered languages; I'm just not sure what you personally hope to accomplish by learning this one. Do you want to be a linguist specializing in language revival, for example? That would do a lot more for the language than merely gaining a passive understanding in it.

If you were just learning it for fun that'd be a different tangent altogether.

That very well could be what I become, but I still have a few years to decide anything about what I want to do after high school/college. I do have a thing for languages not studied by many people and/or don't have many speakers (although it's mostly "and"). Most of the languages I want to learn fit into those descriptors, and the ones I really want to learn are Cornish, Lushootseed, Manchu, and Chinook Jargon, which are all well on their way to extinction except one, Cornish, which is currently being revived, with several thousand learning it, and a new generation of native speakers after its death. Lushootseed has somewhere from 60-120 native speakers, but could soon die if nothing is done, Chinook Jargon none (but there are around 10 speakers, all of which are linguists attempting to revive it), and Manchu less than 60 as I said in my previous post, but there are a few hundred more non-natives of varying levels of proficiency, and the revitalization of it is well alive.

I never said passive understanding, I'm learning to speak and write it too.


Would you mind elaborating on that?


Thanks for this, I guess, it really got me thinking about my love for those 4 languages. Perhaps I will become a "revitalization linguist".

Which ones do you think have the best prospects?And how could you best help with their revitalization?
Well yes, but without anyone to speak to or write to your opportunities are limited. You'd have to go to Manchuria to really make use of your skills (especially since there's no way of entering the script into computers, and I'm not sure how many Manchu learners use the internet.
I wish more people did. So much attention is given to documenting dying languages but not enough enough is done to help preserve them.

Anyway I don't mean to derail this thread too much. But it is about Manchu in an indirect way.