Hulunhäle

Hulunhäle (/hulun̥a:le/) is a language spoken in the nation of Kerajamonhat'linu. It is known to be one of the oldest known languages that are still spoken by many living on the many islands on the 'All Lands' (In Hulunhäle: Atojiatowo). It is known for being, syntactically, one of the easiest languages to learn due to massive amounts of simplification, at least in its standard form. Its dialects, however, still retain many features of irregularity from its predecessor.

Classification and Dialects
For clarification, this page will be talking about Classical (Standard) Hulun'äle for simplicity (however Hulun'äle's newer dialects will be mentioned).

Classical Hulunhäle was derived from the late language Huluonasuwolasonka (Lit: Gift of speech). Huluonasuwolasonka diverged into many dialects, however the capital dialect of Classical Hulunhäle was the language most revered, as it is considered the language of the many deities. However, the capital dialect was regularised to the extent where there are almost no instances of historical spelling. The dialects (collectively known as Huluqölamonhataroke) were seen as the dialects of the common people, because they were mostly spoken in the southern island (Kerajatojiatokani) which was the island where the lower classes mostly lived in.

As a result, many dialects went extinct and the few remaining are mainly spoken by the elderly who are illiterate (the only dialect that is spoken regularly is the dialect of Höareräräräjatatoma). 'Uncivil' dialects have no official capacity in the government and are not recognised as valid by the Kats’atoma. All texts written in the Huluqölamonhaltaroke before they were seen as 'uncivil' were burnt in a fire to prevent people from reconstructing their traditional dialects.

The language is known to be fiercely against ANY loanwords. The only known loanwords that are accepted by the Kats'atoma are the simple past versions of the verb 'h'lane' (borrowed well before Huluonasuwolasonka existed) and the word 'tsawo' (borrowed from the major Eastern dialect of Hulunhale).

Phonotactics
Front and back vowels cannot co-exist in the same word unless a neutral vowel is in the next syllable or the syllable before it. In its romanisation system, an umlaut (¨) is placed over a vowel to lengthen the vowel.

Writing System
The nobility threw out the old pictographic writing system and replaced it with an alphabet called 'Ts'atekamu' (Lit. Common script). The letters were loosely based off of the old pictographic system and is written from right to left.

Nouns
Nouns usually end in an a, except if the word is a compound word. Note: 'monha' is the adjective marker. 'Täpa' is already a word, so even though 'täpamonha' should be an adjective, it is one of the rare times where the adjective acts as a noun.

Examples
Jurna - Day

Atojia - Land

Toma - Place

Fawulena - Woman

Suwonka - Mango

Täpamonha - Plant

Exceptions to the usual are when the noun is describing a part of the body, in which case the ending cannot be predicted as this part of the vocabulary was much less affected by changes from Huluonasuwolasonka to Classical Hulun'äle.

Examples
Ts'ame - Eye

Part (of body) - Ts'ï

Nouns only change their ending depending on the case. There are no such things as genders in Classical Hulunhäle, though some linguists believe that in Huluonasuwolasonka, there were three declensions, Animate person, Animate animal and Inanimate. This is hotly debated and is generally not accepted.

Verbs
Verbs are conjugated depending on their person and tense. The pronoun is also attached to the end of the word after the verb as Hulunhäle's dialects are generally not pro-drop. The only pro-drop dialect remaining is the dialect of Täpotetoma. When two or more verbs in the sentence exist, the second verb usually is placed at the back (unless not in VSO word order in which case the verb is placed after the first verb), uses the simple present conjugation and drops the pronoun.

Despite being CV, in the irregular M stem, there is a rare case of a word ending in m (making the word structure technically CV(m)) Comes from the contracted singular form of the pronoun. Comes from the contracted plural form of each pronoun. Only used in a select number of verbs that are so used that they were not replaced with the A stem conjugations. This is the fossilised conjugation from Huluonasuwolasonka.

The subjunctive mood is only expressed in a different word ending in irregular 'm' stems. In 'a' stem nouns, the equivalent simple indicative forms are used to express the subjunctive.