Fleburna (The Old Tongue)

7/24: Small update, just some minor editing. I'll likely post more "patch notes" like this at the top if I make small edits with no major additions.

This is the first of probably too many conlangs that I want to make for my setting. I'm not sure how in-depth I'll go into each one, but this one is one that will likely get a lot of elaboration, as it's the language for one of the three main countries in what I want to write- Tseri'otlä, a city state. It's not at all close to the only language spoken there, but it's by far the majority.

Language is currently a WIP, and likely always will be, though right now my focus is on other aspects of worldbuilding. Currently the grammar is in a done enough state for me to not really need to focus on it.

Phonology

Vowels

/ɘ e ʊ æ ɑ/ = ⟨e ë u ä a⟩(meaning, "ɘ" is transcribed as "e", "e" is transcribed as "ë", etc)

Consonants

The transcriptions/romanizations here are pretty standard: /ʤ/ is j, /j/ is y, /ʔ/ is ', and the upside-down r is just the English r sound (as in "race", "rare", etc). I don't wanna use the funky angled brackets again, they make the HTML editor freak out a little xwx.

General Grammar

• Language is agglutanitive (wide variety of affixes with one meaning); unlike most agglutanitive languages, declension involves both prefixes and suffixes rather than just one or the other (as in, not every affix in the language is a prefix or suffix).
• Verb-Subject-Object word order: "eat cows grass"
• Prepositionals follow directly after the subject, i.e. go between the subject and object: applying just this rule to English, "She tried to paint the scenery while on the flat hill." becomes "She tried to paint while on the flat hill the scenery", for example.
• No articles- so no "the", "a", etc.
• Syllable construction for roots: (C) (ʔ) (C) V (C(V)). C = any consonant, V = any verb.
• Construction for affixes: (C) (V) C (V).
• All roots must end in a vowel.
• Stress is fixed, and falls on the first syllable of a word's root (or just the first syllable of the word if it has no affixes).
• There are three grammatical genders- animate, inanimate, and neuter. The neuter gender is used primarily for (and came about to describe) the gods of the world, as they do not fit into either "animate" nor "inanimate". While niche, its use has persisted due to being used to describe things such as performances or recordings; things that are neither truly animate nor inanimate, but something "in-between".

Adjectives

Adjectives modify nouns principally by attaching to the root. If multiple adjectives modify a noun, then only the most significant one is added to the root, with the rest following with the linker word "ji". Unlike many languages, there's no fixed order for adjectives; "most significant" in this context is subjective and ultimately somewhat arbitrary. For example, if there is a coat which is old, clean, and black, then it could be described as "hevlesa'wes ji fle jufna" (a black coat that's old and clean), if its color was viewed as the most important. The use of an adjective is mandatory when describing a location, except when referring to that location by a proper noun; for example, you can say "the grassy hill" and "Mount Whatever", but you can't just say "the hill". To turn a noun into an adjective, you add a verb to the noun as a prefix; so for example, to say that something is "grassy", you could say "weslafeyë" (grass-covered).

Declension and Conjugation

Conjugation is for verbs, declension is for other parts of speech.

Verbal Conjugation

The order of affixes for conjugation is plurality/tense/evidentiality/ROOT/causativity/clusivity/gender.

Plurality:

• Singular: N/A
• Plural: j'-

Tense:

• Present: N/A
• Past: -iv-
• Future: -we-
• Tenses such as past-in-past or past-in-future are formed with reduplication/use of these markers; so, past-in-past is -iviv-, while past-in-future is -ivwe-

Evidentiality:

• Direct: -rä-
• Indirect: -rë-
• Inferred: -ro-
• Inquisative (yes/no question): -nu-
• Interrogative ("wh- word" and other non-yes/no question): -na-
• Fabrication: N/A

Causativity:

• Non-causative: N/A
• Causative: -hi-

Clusivity:

• Exclusive: N/A
• Inclusive: -ni-

Gender:

• Animate: -kë
• Inanimate: -ku
• Neuter: -ts

Gerunds: a gerund (the form of a verb that functions as a noun) consits of the raw root of the verb with the suffix -wa. Currently they don't conjugate otherwise.

Infinitives: the infinitive form of a verb, when used in a sentence, is preceded by the prefix b-.

Noun Declension

The order of affixes for noun declension is plurality/ADJ/ROOT/clusivity/case/gender.

Plurality:

• Singular: N/A
• Plural: t'-

Clusivity:

• Exclusive: N/A
• Inclusive Pronoun: reduplicate root (i.e, sësë for inclusive we)
• Inclusive Noun (which I don't even know if that's a thing that makes sense but I'd rather have a useless feature than lack a needed one): -tse-

Case:

• Nominative (subject of a sentence): -bi-
• Accusative (direct object of a sentence): -va-
• Dative (beneficiary/indirect object of a sentence): -lä-
• Instrumental (means by which a method was acheived): -ye-
• I may flesh out the case system some day. It's hard to wrap my head around besides the basics though due to how English I think almost entirely lacks one.

Gender:

• Animate: -k
• Inanimate: -b
• Neuter: -wa

Lexicon

Everything is always subject to change.

Nouns

• së: First-person pronoun
• fë: Second-person pronoun
• ko: Third-person pronoun
• tsum: work
• kla: bump
• lafeyë: grass
• snu: person
• snunë: man/male
• snume: woman/female
• nu'ta: question
• folë: cookie
• yu'neklo: scenery
• de: life
• wade: god
• jekri: something
• ka: general thing/object
• kaka: more specific thing/object
• burna: language/tongue
• mates: dream
• sa'wes: coat
• 'otlä: city
• tëklä: town
• revëkla: mountain
• vëkla: hill

Adjectives

• smä: flat
• fle: old
• vle: dark
• hevle: black, literally "definitely dark"
• hoy: bright/light
• hehoy: white, literally "definitely bright"
• jufna: clean

Verbs

• hem: to finish
• sketa: to be
• wes: to cover
• tsumi: to work
• jela: to perturb/worry
• fli: to sit
• fronu: to try
• batno: to paint
• omfe: to eat
• dede: to live
• tsne: to go. partially irregular; becomes "sne" in inquisitive and interrogative.
• nu'ta: to ask/question. slightly irregular; when used with inquisitive evidentiality, the "nu" affix becomes n'.
• rä: to see. irregular; formed by reduplicating the evidentiality affix (or simply saying "ra" if fabrication)
• metlë: to tell/inform. irregular; the root can be negated directly to form "to lie" (i.e. (with only partial conjugation), "-nerämetlë-" = "to not tell", "-ränemetlë-" = "to lie", "-neränemetlë-" = "to not lie").

Other

• kwi: there
• kwe: here
• ya: on
• mefrä: while
• he: yes, also serves as a general affirmation affix
• ne: no, also serves as a general negative affix
• hene: maybe
• väk: this
• väkma: that
• ji: links a list of adjectives with the noun it modifies; the "that is" in the phrase "an X that is Y".

Not copying over the numbers right now because I'm still not really super satisfied with how they work.

Example Sentences

räsketakë snunëbik ya weslafeyëvëklab: "There is a man on the grassy hill"
rä-sketa-kë snunë-bi-k ya wes-lafeyë-vëkla-b
DIR-be-ANIM man-NOM-ANIM on cover-grass-hill-INANIM

j'nasnenikë t'sësëbik: "Where are we going?"
j'-na-sne-ni-kë t'-së-së-bi-k
PLU-INTERR-go-INC-ANIM PLU-we-INC-NOM-ANIM

rofliko nejelatu folëbib: "The cookie sat unperturbed"
ro-fli-ko ne-jela-tu folë-bi-b
INFER-sit-INANIM NEG-perturb-ADJ cookie-NOM-INANIM

ivräfronukë b'banto fëbik mefrä ya smävëklab yu'neklovib: "She tried to paint the scenery while on the flat hill."
iv-rä-fronu-kë b'-banto fë-bi-k mefrä ya smä-vëkla-b yu'neklo-vi-b
PAST-DIR-try-ANIM INFIN-paint they-NOM-ANIM while on flat-hill-INANIM scenery-ACU-INANIM

n'nu'tako jekribib b'omfe: "Is there anything to eat?"
n'-nu'ta-ko jekri-bi-b b'-omfe
INQ-ask-INANIM something-NOM-INANIM INFIN-eat