Yinuqat

Setting
A group Eskimo-Aleut people started to migrate westwards from Siberia or Alaska around 600 BC. Eventually they arrived in Northern Scandinavia where they stayed. Over time their isolated language developed uniquely from the other Eskimo-Aleut languages and took over loanwords and some grammatical features from other languages, most notably Finnic, but later also from Germanic and to a lesser extent also traces from Baltic and Slavic influence can be found. The language differs hugely from other Eskimo-Aleut languages because of the lack of differentiation in vowel and consonant length (even though this is also to be found in Finnic languages).

Consonants

 * 1) Allophone of [s].
 * 2) Allophone of [x].
 * 3) Only as [tɬ].
 * 4) Allophone of [l].

Vowels

 * 1) [ɪ] is realised as [i] before nasal consonants.
 * 2) [ʊ] is realised as [u] before nasal consonants.
 * 3) [ə] is an unstressed allophone of [a], does not occur before nasal consonants.
 * 4) [ɑ] is a stressed allophone of [a], does not occur before nasal consonants.
 * 5) Vowels can be lengthened when being stressed.

Phonotactics
There is only one common diphthongue: , which is realised as [ɪ̯a] or [ɪ̯ɛ] (before nasal consonants).

Consonant clusters never take up more than one consonant: CV(C), except for -nt and tl-.

, , , <ŋ> and  never occur word initially.

Orthography
The Yinuqat language uses an orthography based on the Latin alphabet with the extra letter "ŋ".

Nouns
Practically all nouns can be divided into two groups: ending on a vowel and ending on a consonant. A few nouns show somekind of an umlaut shift in the plural (and more rarely also the dual), f.e. anunt (man) -> anintet (men) and nukaq (brother) -> nikeqet (brothers).

Ending on a vowel: "qikmi" means wolf:

Ending on a consonant: "arvir" means fox:

Most nouns are treated as being neuter. Only nouns related to people (man, woman, sister, etc.), activities typically attributed to a specific gender (hunting, fishing) and animals/trees (bear, wolf, dog, oak) can be masculine or feminine.

A rather common suffix is -ka, which is used to indicate "a group of something", f.e.: napar (tree) -> naparka (a group of trees; a forest). Another common one is -(e)s, which defines nouns, f.e. pitlun (a car) -> pitlunes (the car).

Postpositions
Most postpositions are actually suffixes. For example "inlu" (house) -> "inlusatlas" (in the house): inlu- (house) + -satl- (postpositional case) + -a (in) + -s (definitive). Some postpositions however do show some number agreement. They are left overs of the older case system. The dual is constructed by using the plural form and replacing the plural marker -t- with the dual marker -k-. The dual forms are: arvirkianit, arvirkiani, arviriavkut, arvirkianut, arvirkianik and qikimiknit, qikmikni, qikmivkut, qikmiknut, qikmiknik. (originally the plural forms were "qikimitnit" and so on).

Pronouns
Personal pronouns are very rare in Yinuqat, but they exist. They are only used to emphasize something.

Possessive pronouns are suffixes that are added to the noun, f.e. inlusatla (in a house) -> inlusatlana (in my house) and arvirektut (like the two foxes) -> arvirektutinik (like the two foxes which are of you two). There are nine possessive pronouns. Words ending on -nt have the -nt dropped sometimes.

(demonstrative pronoun)

Verbs
Verbs are highly inflected in the Yinuqat language. The verb qur- means to drink. Below are the normal present, past and future tenses (indicative first, then interrogative). Masculine forms are created by adding i(s)-, feminine by adding u(s)-. Note the umlaut change in the future tense.

The gerund is constructed by adding -iatlun (quriatlun), the present particle by adding -itiv (quritiv) and the past particle by adding -tutitiv (qurtutitiv). Sometimes an umlaut form is used, though this is very rare, f.e. yit- (to wash): yetiatlun, yetitiv and yetutitiv.

The imperative forms are: qur (drink!), qurik (you two, drink!), qurit (you all, drink!), uqurit (women, drink!) and so on. The conditional mood is constructed by adding -in to the past tense, though it's actually a mixture between the past and future tense, it also keeps the umlaut: qirtitkiqeten (we should drink).

Other forms: Reflexive forms are constructed by adding -(a)n, f.e.: yitkuq (I wash something) -> yitkuqan (I wash myself) and yitva? (does he wash something?) -> yitvan? (does he wash himself?). The passive forms are constructed by adding qia(q)-. If something is evident, one can place the -ikti- marker between the stem and all other suffixes. A reason/cause is indicated by adding -us- (or -uv-), f.e.: qurtuq (he drinks) -> qurustuq (because he drinks) and qursuq (you drink) -> quruvsuq (because you drink). Optional markers are: -sup- (wish/hope/desire), -pat- (or -pav-; probability), -taq- (emotional) and -paq- (possibility).

Some verbs are irregular, like the verb m-/yu- (to be): yuq (I am), qumek (we two were), mitit (they are) etc.

Ergativity
(nominative-accusative constructions)

Dictionary
/Dictionary