Qafesona

General information
The Qafesona language (Qafesona: Cyrillic: ӄафесона тил, Latin: qafesona til, IPA: [ˈqafɛˌsonǝ ˈсil]) is a small language isolate within the Slavic language. It is spoken on both sides of Georgia's borders with Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia (specifically Dagestan, Chechnya, Ingushetia and North Ossetia-Alania) and the vast majority of the language's vocabulary is of Slavic origin. However, there is also a substantial amount of words which are of clear Armenian and Georgian origin. In addition to this there are a few words that have come from Arabic and the Turkic languages. For example, "ӄаўа" ("qawa", "coffee") is from Arabic and "тил" ("til", "language") comes from Old Turkic.

Phonology and orthography

 * See also: IPA for Qafesona and Georgian and Armenian alphabets for Qafesona

Alphabet
The Qafesona Cyrillic alphabet is the writing system that is usually used to write Qafesona, however both Georgian and Armenian may also be used. The Cyrillic alphabet shown below was codified in 1955, prior to which Qafesona had no official writing system.
 * Qafesona Cyrillic alphabet; Ӄафесона кирилличи алфавит; Qafesona kirilliči alfavit; ყაჶესონა კირილლიჭი ალჶავიტ; Քաֆեսօնա կիռիլիճի ալֆավիթ; [ˈqafɛˌsonǝ kiˈriʎiˌt͡ɕi ˌɐɫfǝˈvit]

Diphthongs
There are seven diphthongs in Qafesona.

Digraphs
The digraphs below alter the pronunciation of the constituent letters.

Nota bene

 * Qafesona has a spelling rule which states that ы may not be preceded by г, ж, к, ӄ, х, ч, џ or ш, instead the letter и is used.
 * There is also a spelling rule stating that ь may not precede ы, the letter и is used here instead too.
 * Nor may ь precede й, the letter й is simply used here (rather than ьй).

First declension
First declension nouns end in a consonant (but not ь, й, ў or ӽ) and decline as below:

Second declension
Second declension nouns end in а and decline as below:

Third declension
Third declension nouns end in е or о and decline as below:

Fourth declension
Fourth declension nouns end in ь and decline as below:

Fifth declension
Fifth declension nouns end in й, ў or ӽ and decline as below:

Sixth declension
Sixth declension nouns end in мьа and decline as below:

Seventh declension
Seventh declension nouns end in и, у or ы, are foreign and decline as below:

Diminutives
Diminutives

Augmentatives
Augmentatives

Verbs

 * There are two aspects, the simple and the perfect.
 * Conjugations are governed by three persons in two numbers and two simple tenses, present and past.
 * There are present and past participles that are used as adjectives and adverbs.
 * There are also periphrastic forms for the future tense and the subjunctive mood.
 * There are two voices, the active and the passive.

Aspect
Qafesona has two aspects, the simple and the perfect. Verbs come in aspectual pairs, the perfect usually being the same as the simple just with an added prefix.

The simple aspect is not progressive and not perfect, whereas the the perfect aspect is perfect. For example, the English simple present "I play", simple past "I played" and simple future "I will play" and the perfect present "I have eaten", perfect past "I had eaten" and perfect future "I will have eaten", which all correspond to Qafesona verb tense and aspect.

Aspect in Qafesona differs from the usual Slavonic aspects of imperfective and perfective pairs. However many of the perfect verbs have similar prefixes to the corresponding perfective verb.

First conjugation
First conjugation verbs have the ending -ать or -еть.

Second conjugation
Second conjugation verbs have the ending -ить.

Third conjugation
Third conjugation verbs have the ending -ачь or -ечь.

Fourth conjugation
Fourth conjugation verbs have the ending -ичь.

Past tense
The past tense in Qafesona is formed very simply. The verb infinitive is taken and the final -ть or -чь is removed and replaced with -в. For example:
 * When an infinitive ends in a consonant + -ть or -чь then both the consonant and the infinitive ending are dropped and -в added.

To be
The conjugation of the verb "to be", быть, is shown below.

Future tense
The past tense is also formed very simply. It is formed by preceding the verb's infinitive with the correct conjugation of the future tense of быть/сбыть ("to be"), быть/сбыть are the only exceptions. For example:
 * "They will be": Оны бадьут. (Ony badǐut.)
 * "I will say": Йа бадьу говорить. (Ja badǐu govoritǐ.)
 * "We will have read": Мы бадьем прочитать (My badǐem pročitatǐ., emphasis on the fact that it will have been read)
 * "We will have read": Мы cбадьем читать (My sbadǐem čitatǐ., emphasis on the fact that it will have been done)