Kartuwale

Consonants
Glottal stop exists only in compound words between two roots with adjacent vowels, and is not a grammatically a phoneme.

Phonotactics

 * Possible syllable structure is (C)V(C)
 * Plosive and approximant can not occur in syllable coda position
 * Palatal approximant can not occur in the same syllable with the front vowels
 * Bilabial approximant can not occur in the same syllable with the back vowels

Writing System
Latin orthography follows almost perfectly the phonemic principle and has one-for-one correspondance. Only exception is the apostrophe, which is used to distinguish between different roots in compound words. It doesn't have any phonemic value, except between two vowels, where it is pronounced as glottal stop.

Kartuwale is also written using Kartu Alphabet. Kartu and Latin orthographies have one-in-one correspondance, except for numbers, which are written with letters in Latin orthography and with special symbols in Kartu orthography. The absence of capital letters is a result for maximising the correspondance between the writing systems as Kartu Alphabet has only letters in one size.

Nouns
Nouns can be declined to eleven cases, but not according to number or definiteness. Kartuwale makes very extensive use of this case system.

Verbs
Verbs are formed by attaching "tu"-suffix to a noun. This creates a verb that is closely related to noun. For example, "tawil" means "life" in Kartuwale, and when the "tu"-suffix is attached to noun "tawil", there is a verb "tawiltu", which means "to live"

The meaning of the verb changes in accordance with the case of the subject and transitivity of the sentence

kur rultotu "I'm working"; kurko (kol) rultotu "I create (something)"

I-ABS work-VRB; I-ERG (something-ABS) work-VRB

Auxiliary verbs, such as "nuketu" or must, "murtu" or want, "towemtu" or could, can be used like in English. In this case, only auxiliary verb is marked with a suffix and the main verb follows unmarked the auxiliary verb

Kur nuketu rulto

I-ABS must-VRB work

Syntax
The word order of Kartuwale is S-O-V, although the case system allows a considerable variation. Only forced rule is that subject and object, if they are marked either with absolutive or ergative, must always be before the verb in a sentence. This occurs because when using adverbs (which are derived from the nouns and un marked), one can mix them up with the subject/object if they occur after the verb.

There is no rules about alignment of qualifiers in Kartuwale and they can be used according to personal preferences. Nouns, that are declined in other cases than ergative or absolutive, can be placed anywhere in the sentence except between the auxiliary and main verb or verb and adverb.

Text
"ulekartu sawapote pe watete kartuwatu arotu lawarekul pe relinkul. kenko nirto pe wendorestu uljotu, pe ken nemewatu kartukul malnetu tawil."

Text with cases and suffixes separated
ule-kartu-∅ sawapo-te pe wate-te kartu-watu aro-tu laware-kul pe relin-kul. ken-ko nirto-∅ pe wendo-restu-∅ uljo-tu, pe ken-∅ neme-watu kartu-kul malne-tu tawil.

Gloss
all-people-ABS free-GEN and equal-GEN people-EQU occur-VRB fame-COM and skill-COM. they-ERG sense-ABS and justice-knowledge-ABS posession-VRB, and they-ABS sibling-EQU people-COM must-VRB live.

Translation to English
"All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood."