The machi are mantoid beings about the size of a large dog, with an insect's tripartite body structure and six legs (one pair for walking, one pair terminated by a seven-digit hand with three thumbs for grasping, and the pair in the middle usable for either). Their most remarkable anatomical feature (after their endo/exoskeleton, which enables them to grow to such a fantastic size for an "insect") must be their lung/windpipe structure (see "Machi Physiology").
The machi windpipe extends downward from the neck region beneath the thoracic carapace, issuing at the juncture between thorax and abdomen. At the top of the windpipe is an epiglottal flap, perhaps intended originally to seal the windpipe from the entry of water as the proto-machi foraged in the shallow seas of Amaterasu. Along the length of the windpipe are small stomae, or holes, which can be opened or closed voluntarily, and which open automatically during extreme exertion to pump more oxygen into the lungs. By partially closing the epiglottis, the machi create a vibrating column of air in their windpipe, and by opening or closing the stomae, they can vary the pitch. By a remarkable coincidence, the average machi's tonal range and scale of pitches are approximately that of a terrestrial alto recorder.
Since the machi do not speak their language in any way corresponding to our own tongues, it is not possible to write, in any standard terrestrial orthography, their own names for themselves, their languages, or the places on their planet. Humans, specifically the Japanese discoverers of Amaterasu, have given all these things labels that we can use, sometimes as calques of the machi terms, but often arbitrarily.
A visit to a machi market or town square can be delightful or a trip to Pandemonium, depending on how many machi are piping at once. Since the fundamental pitch of each machi's "voice" is determined by the length of their windpipe and the harmonics by the unique pattern of ridges within it, no two machi have exactly the same tone. One or two machi speaking at once can have a beautiful effect, but several can be an earful, especially if they are arguing and overblowing their pitches in their excitement.
Yet they are capable of harmonious blendings. Music is understandably popular among the machi (including the terrestrial piano, which they have adopted and which they play with 4 hands). Machi vocal works are highly developed, and blur the distinction between speech and song. The machi are able to vary within a narrow range the fundamental and derived pitches of their vocal instruments by lengthening or shortening a small section of their windpipes, and so they are able to bring their individual pitches in harmony with others. Not every machi is equally skilled at this, and the best are prized like renowned opera singers on Earth.
Communication between humans and machi has always been problematic. Few humans are able to follow a machi utterance of any complexity, and few machi can reliably distinguish all the sounds of a human utterance. The first researchers on Amaterasu communicated in writing. But the real breakthrough occured when it was discovered that the machi have their own versions of sign language, gestural equivalents of the spoken language for use by hearing-impaired machi. This sign language, suitably modified for 2 hands and 5 fingers per hand, is today the preferred method of human-machi interaction.
The basic phonemic unit of Machi is a two-note syllable. Since the machi voice encompases a little more than an octave, and since the eight stomae of the thorax can be "cross-fingered" to produce sharps and flats, there are about 15 notes available for use (machi actually can produce sounds over a range of about an octave and a half, but the top pitches are not used in speech). This makes 224 two-note syllables, although it is not clear if every combination is actually used. Individual notes of the syllable can be replaced by a triplet, moreover, each note or triplet of the syllable can have a long or short duration. Finally, each note can be either staccato (abrupt) or legato (joined). All told, there seem to be about 14,300 note combinations available to Machi. Syllable breaks, when needed, are supplied by rests of short or long duration.
Since a machi can theoretically have any fundamental pitch, it is customary for strangers to precede at least the first few utterances with a "reference" syllable consisting of the speaker's lowest pitch, first in long, and then in short, duration. Since the windpipe and stomae of machi are never identical in size or location, in theory derived pitches would also vary, but in practice the machi unconsciously modify their pitches to bring them into a standard scale for their fundamental pitch. Learning to perform this modification is part of language acquisition, and differences in scale patterns mark different languages and dialects of the same language.
One of the difficulties of discussing Machi in electronic media is representing music in print without recourse to standard musical notation. The system developed to cope with Machi is perhaps non-standard, since the first researchers were linguists and not musicologists, but it seems to serve. In this system, the notes are indicated by letters of the alphabet, F G A B C D E f g. Flatted notes are followed by a lower-case b (sharps are not used). Rests are indicated by a lower-case r. Duration is indicated by a dash - for short duration, and a plus sign + for long duration. Staccato notes are indicated by an exclamation mark ! preceding the note. Triplets are indicated by a 3 before the note (but after the staccato sign).
Some conventions were adopted, as well: although machi voices can begin on any pitch, and hence the scale can appear in any key, we represent the "average" machi voice in the key of F, with a range of F above middle C to G above the staff (the sound represented by lower-case g in transcription): F Gb G Ab A Bb B C Db D Eb E f gb g. Moreover, the durations of machi tend to vary even more widely than pitch; we adopt the convention that the short duration is equivalent to a quarter-note and long to a whole note.
Useful as this system is for accurately recording the sounds of Machi, it is nevertheless still a chore for the student to decipher. For this reason, human phonetic equivalents of the machi musical transcription have been devised. Machi recognizes only three parts of speech: objects, labels and parsers. Objects are basically nouns, and these are generally just written as translated in the target language. Noun compounds are common. Those noun compounds which have simple English equivalents are usually written as the equivalent. Other compounds are ad-hoc formations; these are usually written as two words separated by a hyphen. Labels define the relationship of objects in a phrase, and have also been translated, but into Japanese, not English. Parser words serve to structure the objects of utterances into phrases; these have been arbitrarily assigned names of the form pab, pach, etc. The 'reference' syllable is represented by the word um. (In this scheme, the rests of Machi are considered parser words.)
There is yet another way of representing Machi, in which the parser words are given orthographic equivalents instead of spoken forms. The whole-rest, for example, is represented by a period, the 'reference' syllable by an exclamation point (not to be confused with the staccato symbol). It is possible, then, for any given Machi utterance to be depicted in one of three ways:
Objects can also be compounded, usually with 2 syllables (i.e. 4 tones). A compound can be recognized because its elements are not separated by a quarter-rest. Compounding is a very productive method of word formation. The regular formation for objects referring to agents, for example, is a compound with the word 3G-Ab- 'person': !3D+Eb-3G-Ab- speaking-person 'speaker'; E+A+3G-Ab- teaching-person 'teacher'.
Objects can also be used in ad-hoc, temporary compounds, and this is the typical way that Machi expresses simple demonstratives, indefinites, possessives and interrogatives: 3C+E-A-Ab+ proximity-book 'this book'; D-D-A-Ab+ me-book 'my book'; 3D-Db-A-Ab+ uncertainty-book 'a certain book' (in a positive assertion) or 'which book?' (in a question), E+A+3G-Ab-A-Ab+ teach-person-book 'teacher's book'; 3C+E-f+g+ proximity-day 'today'; G-g+f+g+ predecessor- day 'yesterday', etc.
Subordinating associations always come last in an utterance. All the objects within a subordinate association are considered like a single object to the rest of the utterance. The first object in the association is considered the topic, that is, the object within the association to which the outside phrase of the utterance refers.
This type of association has many uses in Machi. When the topic of the association is also the outside reference, the topic takes the label appropriate to the larger phrase, and the other objects in the association are understood to refer to it. This has no direct semantic equivalent in English, but is just a way to cluster object references: me-wa ( dog-mo hunger-na. 'I have a hungry dog' vs. me-wa dog-mo hunger-na. 'I have a dog and I'm hungry'.
However, it is possible to refer to entire phrases within an association. In this case, the phrase within the association has an independent existence, with all the objects in the association taking the labels appropriate to the association, not to the outside phrase. Again, the first object of the association is the topic, although it may or may not be the focus, as well. This association is referenced from the outside phrase by a placeholder object Eb+G-, 'that', which takes the label appropriate to the outside phrase but always refers to the topic of the association.
This construction has many equivalents to English syntax. When the placeholder 'that' receives the -na label, the association is equivalent to a relative clause: sight-wa me-ga (book-o that-na (desire-wa you-ga. 'I see the book that you want' (Note the first association, used to link 'book' and 'that', and the second association, used to reference the quality 'that'.); sight-wa me-o (man- ga that-na (man-wa dog-mo. 'The man who has a dog sees me'. This pattern of nested associations is always present with a relative construction.
When the placeholder takes some other label, the phrase is equivalent to a verbal object or purpose clause: desire-wa me-ga that-o (you-ga destination-wa store-e. 'I want you to go to the store'; purchase-wa me-ga food-o that-ki (preparation-wa dinner-o. 'I buy food to prepare dinner'.
As seen above, subordinating associations can be nested, but only to the right: (nnn(nnn)), not *(nnn(nnn)nnn). The end of the utterance (either a whole rest or the coordinating parser) terminates all the nested associations: desire-wa me-ga that-o (you-ga destination-wa (store-e that-na ( = multiplicity-book multiplicity-recording-mo. 'I want you to go to the store that has many books and recordings.'
A feature of Machi syntax is the tendency to link many independent utterances with 'and' into very long sentences. This is most common when the utterances all have the same context and that context is understood. Because of this, many long Machi texts will be transcribed as a single utterance, but translated as many independent sentences.
This formation parallels the interrogative form of a quantity statement: desire-wa you-ga indefiniteness-book-o question-ki. desire-wa me-ga trio-book-o. 'How many books do you want? I want three.'
Ordinal numbers are formed simply by associating the numerical object with another object by the label -na: book-wa three-na 'the third book'. Similarly, number of repetitions can be indicated by the context label -ki: sight-wa me-ga referral-person-o three-ki. 'I've seen that person (we're talking about) three times.'
Questions are rendered by the word 3Ab-3A+ 'question,query' with context label -ki applied. Questions are of two types, those which ask for information (the who, what, when, where, why questions) and those which ask for confirmation of a fact. Both types use the same context construction. The question words, 'who, what,' etc., are compounds formed from 3D-Db- 'uncertainty' and the appropriate object; they take the label appropriate to their use in the utterance. They do not take topic position unless desired for emphasis. Note that words formed with the 'uncertainty' object have an indefinite meaning if not placed in the 'question' context: speak-wa uncertainty-person-ga. 'Someone speaks speak-wa uncertainty-person-ga question-ki. 'Who speaks?' you-ga speak-wa question-ki. 'Is it you speaking?' (Lit. 'Do you speak?'; but moving -ga to the topic position changes the emphasis).
Time stamps are generally used with the context label -ki . Location stamps are generally used with the location label -ni . Duration stamps are generally referred to by the quality label -na : These are frequently moved to the head of the utterance in topic position for emphasis. successor-day-ki destination-wa we-ga city-e. 'Tomorrow we will go to the city.' referral-city-ni multiplicity-bazaar-wa. 'There are many bazaars in that city.' three-day-na destination-wa we-ga (city-e distance-na. 'For three days we travelled to the distant city'.
Requests are phrased in Machi using the context object 3Ab-3C+ 'request': me-wa book-mo request-ki. 'May I have a book?' This is a polite request. A more insistent tone can be adopted by using the context object Ab-!D- 'need': me-wa book-mo need-ki. 'I need a book = Give me a book!' Requests for permission follow a similar pattern: destination-wa you-ga store-e food-ni request-ki. 'Would you go to the store for food?' ; you-ga destination-wa store-e food-ni need-ki. 'Go to the store for food!' Related to this is the use of the object Ab-3D+ 'desire' as a context: destination-wa me-ga store-e desire-ki. 'I want to go to the store'.
Discourse is treated within an association, with the placeholder 'that' used with the patient label. There is no distinction between direct and indirect discourse; the reported utterance is given exactly as if being spoken for the first time: destination-wa me-ga store-e. 'I'm going to the store'; predecessor-day-ki speaking-wa person-ga that-o (destination-wa me-ga store-e. 'The person said yesterday that he went to the store'.
Thanks to Tom Breton and his AllNoun for the inspiration for Machi.
© 1997, Terrence Donnelly