Itarakoské

Itarakoské is a language, or more accurately a dialect continuum, which is spoken by the Tarakasane people.

Language Name
The name 'Itarakoské' literally means 'The Splendid Language', from i- (definite prefix), -tarak- 'splendid, brilliant' and -koské 'language'.

Diglossia
When used without qualification, Itarakoské mostly refers to the standardised written version of the language, which is mostly used in official contexts and records, and most closely approximates the pronunciation in the upper portion of what is known as the Imperial Jurisdiction - the portion of the Empire which runs between the imperial capital of Meiron and the great trading port of Eosuri. As such, the term is often qualified to fit the dialectal origin of a speaker; someone might speak Nuvailé Itarakoské (Itarakoské of the South) or Sharél Itarakoské (the spoken language in the Shar regions in the north).

The differences in written and spoken forms of Itarakoské are often very divergent, sometimes to the extent that officials can only communicate by written correspondence (which may, accordingly, not be read in anything like the way the word is spelled). This issue is further compounded by the fact that, in many peripheral regions of the Empire, Itarakoské is used as a written standard for completely different languages. Indeed, the term Nuvailé Itarakoské could well mean that the person does not speak any sort of Itarakoské, though they might well be literate enough in the script to communicate in letters.

Word Types
Words are classed according to their phonemic structure into three main groups, and five subgroups, in Itarakoské:
 * Even words follow a constant CVCVCV or VCVCVC structure.
 * Even words starting with a consonant are hard; those beginning with a vowel are soft.
 * Bridged words have a consonant cluster; ie. two of their triconsonantal roots are adjacent.
 * In a triconsonantal word, if the first two consonants are adjacent, the word is front-bridged.
 * If the latter two are adjacent, then the word is rear-bridged.
 * Singing words have a vowel cluster.

Declensions
In Itarakoské, nouns are declined according to their final phoneme. This leads to a three-way division:
 * Stone-ended nouns (after todav, stone) - any consonant
 * Water-ended nouns (after launa, water) - ending in a, é, o, u
 * Wind-ended nouns (after etolki, wind) - ending in i, e, ü

Number
There are three grammatical numbers in Itarakoské: singular, dual (for small numbers) and plural. A grammatical saying states that 'if the number is not multiplied, use the dual' (see Numerals).

For number, wind- and water-ended nouns are not differentiated.

Case
Itarakoské declines nouns for six cases:
 * Nominative: To mark the subject of a sentence
 * Accusative: To mark the object of a sentence
 * Genitive: To mark possessor and composition relationships
 * Dative: To mark the indirect object of a verb, or the consequence of an action
 * Ablative: To mark causal relationships or in adverbial uses
 * Instrumental: To mark instruments or accompanying agents ('with')

Definiteness
Alone among the declensions, definiteness is marked by a prefix i-. It can also modify adjectives, eg. in itarakoské itself.

Conjugations
There are two groups of conjugations for Itarakoské verbs, which are known as the 'inner' and 'outer' conjugations.
 * Voice, Number and Mood are 'outer' conjugations - they are marked by affixes.
 * Tense and Aspect are 'inner' conjugations - they are marked by infixes and changes in vowels, according to what the Tarakasane call the vowel cycle.

Vowel Cycle
The vowel cycle is as follows:

A-É-O-U-Ü-I-E

Inner conjugations, ie. tense and aspect, are achieved by moving the vowels within a word along the vowel cycle. The vowel that is modified changes with the class of the word.
 * In even verbs, the penultimate vowel is always the one modified.
 * In bridged verbs, the vowel after the consonant cluster is modified.
 * In singing verbs, the isolated vowel is modified. If there are multiple isolated vowels, the last one is modified.

Outer Conjugations
Number is relatively simple; while nouns have three numbers, verbs have only two. The plural is used for both dual and plural nouns, and is the suffix -méd.

Voice is also simple; Itarakoské has a passive voice prefix, khen-.

Itarakoské conjugates its verbs for multiple moods, including the imperative, hortative, potential, subjunctive, conditional
 * The Imperative, with the suffix -atad, denotes commands.
 * The Hortative, with the suffix -acin, denotes exhortation; it is therefore also known as the Weak or Inclusive Imperative.

Word Order
Itarakoské is a strongly head-final language; adjectives precede the nouns, and adverbs the verbs, that they describe.

While the use of nominative and accusative cases means that in spoken Itarakoské there is a much more fluid word order, written Itarakoské is almost always written in an SOV word order.

The most common exceptions to this rule appears to be in a group of what are called 'short verbs', such as ade 'to be', kumé 'to have' and süde 'to become', which are mostly written in SVO order.

Numerals
Besides large numbers, there are only five numbers in Itarakoské:

These five numbers are then multiplied and declined to give the other numbers. For example, 6 to 10 are as follows: