Zainese

Zainese, called natively Zereskaoate, is the most spoken language on all of Bakatsu. The first known records of early Zainese date to the Ite Period of the Ikutsutsu (Great War). The specific dialect mainly covered here is spoken primarily in the Himatsu Zeruse, and is commonly called Zerezai.

=Setting=

The exact origins of Zainese are questionable. It is clearly related closely to the languages of Bagamaji, Stchafe, and Old Zelse (the former two still being spoken today, and the latter being a dead language). Many believe it developed naturally due to the close interaction over several decades of the speakers of these languages during the early part of the war. However, others believe it actually began as an IAL developed by the Ima Taikijitse Himatsu.

=Basic Grammar= Zainese contains several levels of polite speech, often indicated by word order and/or pronouns, and thus basic word order is hard to state simply. OVS and VSO are the two most commonly found orders, and VSO is commonly used in both the Informal and Formal levels. And example sentence:

kojo kibu ne tsushitsu.

The dog is fat.

be.PRES dog (subject) fat

Although "tsushitsu" can actually be broken into "weight-much", as tsushi means "weight" and tsu means "a lot" or "greater than".

Almost always verbs are in the present tense, so that verb conjugation seen above is almost never used, and tense is set by something else in the sentence. However, when expressing actions very far in the future, or very far in the past, or hypothetical actions, or when commanding, verbs are conjugated. The above, koyo, meaning "to be (involving physical description or mental traits)" is not conjugated, as verbs used as actions are by default in the present tense.

ne, used in the example, is a particle that sets the subject of a sentence, in the case of the example, the dog. In VSO order, it comes between the subject and the object. In OVS.

Several types of verbs exist in Zainese. The most common type are regular verbs, tsudoru, like koyo. There are also two kinds of irregular verbs, the first being kidoru verbs, which by default have the subject of the First Person, and do not require ne if the sentence subject is the First Person. However, one can set the subject of a kidoru verb to something else by using ne. The other kind of irregular verbs are kunichidoru verbs. Kunichidoru verbs have one subject set to them, and this cannot be changed, and they never use ne. For example, the verb nono, meaning "to be, involving weather" has the subject of weather associated with it, and this cannot be changed. nono dobu means "It (the weather) is sunny".

Other particles include yu, meaning "involving", je meaning "in" or "on", and na, which is used to describe a noun or action. There are many, many particles.

=Dictionary= ...

=Example text= ...