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Opaki Aŋkuati


Internal Background:

Opaki Aŋkuati is one of the languages spoken by the Kiuri, which are a race of hominids similar to Homo heidelbergensis apart from a sagittal crest, six small horns across their forehead (kinda like the Zabrak) barrel torso and third lung. The Aŋkuati racial group specifically is characterised by their wavy dark brown hair, hooked noses, eyes of green, gold or light brown, and their larger stature, ranging in height from 6’5” to 6’9” and in weight from 110kg to 140kg. They reside in the Antuloa plains, east of the Vetē stonelands, south-southeast of the Ainaɂu mountains (which are impassable), west of the Tlahomi ocean and north of the Nutlakoi islands, and were traditionally nomadic bison herders and foragers. Hunting was only done in defense of their herds, and they never developed projectile weapons more complicated than spears. As the Aŋkuati have little interest beyond the Antuloa, and the closest other peoples are isolated by geography, they have had little influence from or on other cultures or languages.


Phonology:



Syllable structure is (C)V(V)(P/N), where P stands for any plosive and N for any nasal. All dipthongs are allowed except [aɔ].


Allophany:

[ɸ] can be realised as [f] anywhere, as [l] can be [ɬ].
[i, u] often become [ɪ, ʊ] in unstressed syllables, as [a, ɔ] sometimes become [ə].


Orthography:




Phrases:

The basic unit of Aŋkuati syntax is the phrase, which follows the pattern of phrase-marker + topic + modifiers; it varies in terms of subject, object and verb, as the topic can be any of them. Action Phrases focus on the verb, Actor Phrases on the agent, and Alternative Phrases are virtually just noun and prepositional phrases.

Action-phrase marker + verb + subject + object + modifiers
Actor-phrase marker + subject + object + verb + modifiers
Alternative-phrase marker + subject + modifiers + object + verb

Modifiers are introduced by the particle kon, and the focal topic of a phrase is marked by the infix -ká-* after the first syllable, not including obligatory inflections or conjugations.
*this infix is written with ‘á’ as primary stress always moves to this infix when it is present.


Phrase Markers:

There are a number of Phrase Markers, which inflect for tense, and match their topic in person for Actor Phrases, in noun class for Alternative Phrases. In Action Phrases they distinguish between transitive verbs or intransitive/multitransitive verbs.




Clauses:

The conjunction at is a plain conjunction used to join two nouns or verbs (actions), syntactically making them a single argument.

The particles uak, ila, noa are used to mark subordinate clauses; uak for Action Phrases, ila for Actor Phrases and noa for Alternative Phrases.


Introductions:

The formal way:

Ŋaɂan, lu tan ifan tokálo tiak! Io tan Nuat-Foarak Kui Oŋroa Koso at Turoak Kilama, tai pa Itlasipali Tasaraŋ Kito Tlaroamri iproana at pa Tukaŋ Hapikua Lanraŋ Lan nipaŋka. Io ninoluŋ tan fai tukákaŋ kon muakáraŋ, ia rufiha tan tua hiatu, ia aŋuaha tan o tlikápu, Poanu-Nianti Ralaila.

Hello, I hope you are well! I am Kui Foarak’s-son of the Koso tribe and Water clan*, born on Shrineday 37 of late Wheel** month and year 488. I am 20 years old, and have two sisters, and a wife, Ralaila Nianti’s-daughter.

*Aŋkuati have a moiety system, Tlaha (grass) and Kilama (water).
**They name their months after dominant constellations during the seasons; Wheel, Leaf, Adze, Two Snakes.

The informal way:

Ŋaɂan, io tan Nuat-Foarak, Turoak Kilama.

Hey, I'm Foarak's son, of Water clan.




2:31 AM, so I'll leave it here for now.

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PROTO-ONURE: Jutésa coconóco ga zuntús, na en rógcag ma pohús.

Interesting. I think your vowel system might be a little unbalanced, but since it isn't Homo Sapiens Sapiens, that might be ok.

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"Wait for the starvation of glaciers, chicken hamburger Noel Weber Arthur."

= | = | =

There have been weirder vowel systems.

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| | | (Nahuatl) | (Sanskrit & Pali) (Yaghan) | (Antregabua)
CrazyEttin's Lair

What? If they're really "virtually identical", I should probably inform you Homo heidelbergensis probably didn't have a third lung. Why exactly would one be needed?

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Up in blue sky silly blimp goes by
Where it come from where it go
Ziggy-Zaggy it fly high

Exactly.



I'm aware of that. Ternary pulmonary systems are a feature of this conworlds biology, and lower oxygen levels a feature of the atmosphere. Plus I just like the idea.


EDIT:
Nominal Morphology


Case:
There are five cases: Genitive, Instrumental/Vialis, Locative, Ablative, Lative. They are indicated by infixes after the first syllable.


Number and Definiteness:
Number is indicated by articles.


Proximity:
Opaki has five levels of proximity, marked by enclitics. They are only compulsory in Alternative Phrases, in Action and Actor phrases they are optional.


Noun Class:
There are four noun classes, marked by suffixes.


Inanimates are divided by their purpose, efficiency, size, origin, and their environment; the last is because no matter how efficient an object is at it’s job, if it is in the wrong environment it is useless.
For example, if you are working in a field tending crops, you would refer to an adze or shovel or plough in the High gender, whereas an X-Box 360 would be in the Low gender; if you were to take these things to teenager’s house the X-Box would then be High and the adze Low. In a butcher’s, a meat cleaver would be High and a spoon would be Low, but in a restaurant it’d be vice versa. If you’re sitting an exam and your pen runs out of ink, you’d stop using the High gender for it and start using the Low. Of course if you like the object, or it is special in some way or you recognise it’s value regardless, you might only descend by one gender class.

_________________

PROTO-ONURE: Jutésa coconóco ga zuntús, na en rógcag ma pohús.

Verbal Morphology

The categories of conjugation for verbs are: mood, aspect, and effect. Aspect and mood are indicated by a single prefix, and effect by a separate prefix.

Mood and Aspect:



Effect:


Effect describes whether the action/verb is done to the benefit (benefactive) for the topic; or the actor/subject of the phrase if there is no clearly marked topic; or not (malefactive).


Derivational Morphology

Derivations are formed using infixes placed after the first syllable or vowel.



Reduplication conveys frequency or repetition, acting like a habitual aspect.
E.g.: ‘ron’ to strike/hit, ‘roron’ to strike repeatedly.
‘mani’, to walk, ‘manimani’ to walk lots, to walk around and around.
‘ifa’, to run, ‘ifafa’ to run around.

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PROTO-ONURE: Jutésa coconóco ga zuntús, na en rógcag ma pohús.

Don't these "phrases" look more like clauses? It seems like they can express propositions.

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constructedlanguages.net

That looks nice, it has a story behind it, it's not just a lang.




Is there an unmarked syntactic noun case too? Or how do the language mark subject and object?

You could gloss some words/phrases/clauses to express how the categories work together.

Thanks :)



Nah, subject and object are only indicated by word order, which is fixed for each phrase type. You could use the topicalizer -ká- to always mark the subject if you really wanted, but that's a little redundant and would come across as almost arrogant.

I'm trying to get some example translations done, but as always, real life gets in the way.

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PROTO-ONURE: Jutésa coconóco ga zuntús, na en rógcag ma pohús.

How is evidentiality handled?

_________________
"Wait for the starvation of glaciers, chicken hamburger Noel Weber Arthur."

= | = | =

Opaki doesn't inflect for evidentiality, the closest it has is that you can add "nua anu linai _-na-_ "; "I know this by _(sight/hearing/person-who-told-you/whatever)_" as a modifier.

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PROTO-ONURE: Jutésa coconóco ga zuntús, na en rógcag ma pohús.