Akhaz

Akhaz is an agglutinative - inflecting language based on trilitteral roots, as in Semitic languages. There are 5 grammatical cases used in Akhaz: nominative, genitive, accusative, intrumental and vocative; 5 grammatical moods: indicative, imperative, conditional, energetic and gerundive; 4 tenses: future, present, preterite and past progressive; 2 voices: active and passive; 2 genders: masculine and femine; 2 numbers: singular and plural (although archaic dual number is sometimes used). Akhaz is VSO language, which means that in sentences first comes verb, then subject and object at last position (the same as in English questions). However, as inflecting language, Akhaz allows word order to be completly free. It's a pro-drop language.

= Setting = Akhaz is spoken by Dwarves (uli Khzurim) from world of Soil, a world where steampunk technology of Dwarves mixes with grim Human magick and Orcish tribal ancestry. Akhaz has around 50 million speakers around the globe, and 5 main dialects: Lebnaghid, spoken on the Blood Plains and in the main area of Industrial Mountains; Jorkhavid, spoken in the northern Industrial Mtns. and on Khuldun Plateau; Knushmiy, spoken by Dwarves that long ago settled in the Humanish Kingdoms; Haghistanid, which is spoken by small population in the Sand Mtns. and is the most similar to Old Akhaz; and Hlughid ("Gibberish"), spoken by savage and primitive tribes of Dark Dwarves living in jungles all over the Soil. This article generally focuses on Lebnaghid dialect, as it has the biggest pool of speakers and is used in the biggest dwarven city of Bazenkrak, where cultures from all over the Soil mixes.

= Basic Grammar =

Pronounciation
Sounds /c/, /f/ and /w/ do not exist in Akhaz.

a - as in what, usually tends towards ä

b - bit

d - door

e - met; "e" is always pronounced, even at the ends of the words

g - ago; never as in gentleman

h - head; when h is standing alone, it's articulated in throat, but when it's standing between two vowels, it's not spoken at all

i - bee

j - yacht

k - count

l - laser

m - many

n - nurse

o - ortography, usually tends towards ö

p - pin

r - razor

s - snore

sh - shallow

t - store

u - food, usually tends towards ü

v - velocity

z - zebra

Additionally, aspirated forms for most consonants exist, and for purpose of this article they will be written as consonant+h, so "th" doesn't mean the same sound as in thorn, but the aspirated "t" as in tore.

The only consonants that don't have aspirated forms are "s", "j" and "h".

Two vowels can never appear side by side in the same word. If such things is required by the grammar laws, nearly-mute "h" is inserted between 2 vowels.

Normally, consonants can't follow an aspirated consonant. The only exceptions are z, s and l, and only if they are followed by vowel.

Nouns
Nouns have 2 genders (maculine and femine), 2 numbers (singular and plural) and 5 cases (nominative, genitive, accusative, intrumental and vocative), which are marked with case endings and changes in the definite article. Nouns have different case endings depending on gender and last letter.

Role of each case
Akhaz nouns are declined – that is, the ending of the noun changes to reflect its function in the sentence. Each case has a large group of verbs and prepositions after which it must be used, the only exception being Vocative.
 * The nominative case indicates the subject of the sentence, for example "ul khzur" means "the dwarf".
 * The accusative indicates the direct object of the sentence, for example Zaki (za) dargaj means "I see a tunnel", where za is the subject and dargaj is the object.
 * The genitive case indicates mainly possession, for example "khzurak ul armad"/"ul armad khzurak" is "the gold of a dwarf " or "the dwarf's gold". It also indicates partitive nouns and have taken role of Locative case.
 * The vocative case is used for direct address, for example Khumalzadan!.
 * The instrumental case indicates an instrument used to achieve something, for example "Ruhin (khe) ultum rhinam", "he is writing with the chisel", where rhinam is the instrumental form of rhinu.

The more prepositions is connected to case, the less verbs, and vice versa. Thus one can see that there aren't much verbs connected with Genitive case.

Masculine
Masculine nouns are those that use ul as definite article and ends in all consonants except "t". There are 5 declensions types for masculine nouns.

1. Nouns that ends in k, kh, g, gh.

Last "k" in karak in genitive changes to "kh" because of general rule that consonant + consonant = aspirated consonant. This rule doesn't apply only to root consonants that stand at the beggining or in the middle of word.

2. Nouns that ends in n, nh, m, mh.

3. Nouns that ends in d, dh, p, ph, b, bh, th.

4. Nouns that ends in s, z, zh.

5. Nouns that ends in l, lh, r, rh, v, vh.

Femine
Femine nouns are those that use ult as definite article and end in vowel or "t". There are 3 types of declension femine nouns follows.

1. Nouns ending in "a" or "o".

2. Nouns ending with "u", "i" or "e".

3. Nouns ending with "t".

Definite articles
Akhaz has 3 definite articles: "ul" for singular masculine, "ult" for singular femine and "uli" for plural of both. All those articles undergo declension to correspond noun's case.

Personal pronouns
Akhaz has wide range of personal pronouns, which special feature is that they don't undergo declension for Vocative case.

Here are all forms of singular personal pronouns:

And here are all forms of plural personal pronouns:

Verb
Verbs in Akhaz are conjugated by person (first, second, third male and third female), number (singular and plural), tense (future, present, preterite, past progressive) and mood (indicative, imperative, energetic, conditional and gerundive). Indicative and conditional moods serve almost the same purpose as in English. Imperative represents direct commands and requests and is present-only. Energetic expresses something which is strongly believed to be happening or which speaker wants to emphasize. Gerundive is future-only and expresses something that speaker thinks should be done, but is considered to be old-fashioned.

Generally speaking, the main meaning of verb is created by set of consonants (called root), prefixes indicate mood (except imperative and, to some extent, conditional), postfixes mark tense (except being future), internal set of vowels indicate person, and aspiration of last or 2 last consonants mark plural form. This allows Akhaz verb to take almost 100 forms!

Present tense
This tense depicts actions that are occuring now, skills and common knowledge.

Indicative
Here is general table for conjugation of verbs in present tense and indicative mood:

C = consonant, h = aspiration or h

This looks like this when root Kh-Z, connected with talking, is added (root consonants are written in big form to separate them from additional consonants):

So KhaZi means "I talk" or "I'm talking", KheZ - You talk / You're talking etc.

Imperative
Imperative mood puts great emphasize on shortening the word to make it easier to shout. There's no form of imperative for first person, and forms for second and third person have merged long ago. Imperative still differs number and gender.

One can distinguish receiver of the command by adding personal prounoun as postfix, eg. KhoZHe! (write + you), which can be roughly translated as "I command you to write!". Also note that "h" here is written in big letter, because it's not aspiration marker, but a separate letter.

Energetic
This mood is made by adding prefix jv-, where v is corresponding vowel ("a" in 1st and 3rd female person, "e" in 2nd person and "u" in 3rd male person.) Also, in this mood verb loses its last vowel, if it had any.

So juKhuZ means "He certainly talks", jeKheZh - You (plural) certainly talk, etc.

Conditional
Conditional in Akhaz, unlike in English, have different forms based on different tenses, and can appear in present and all past tenses. Table shown here refers only to present.

Conditional mood is made by adding prefix kzv- (v = corresponding vowel) and placing -o- infix after second root consonant. If root consists of only 2 consonants, "o" ("oh" in plural) becomes postfix and thus replaces last vowel.

Here "kzuKhuZo" translates as "I would talk (now)", kzaKhaZhoh - "We would talk (now)" etc.

Preterite
This tense depicts actions that were temporary and happened in the past. These may, or may not, have connection to present.

As in English, there are 2 main types of verbs: weak and strong. Weak verbs add -u/-vzu postfix, wheter strong verbs denote preterite by doubling root's last consonant together with corresponding vowel. However, unlike in English, verb that is strong in preterite can be weak in past progressive.

Preterite weak verbs
For instance kidik - to make.

In this mood, postfix -ozu is added to verbs based on bilitteral roots.

Preterite strong verbs
nib - to take

In verbs based on bilitteral roots as this one, -o- infix replaces last corresponding vowel, thus making 3rd male and 3rd female persons indistinguishable. So, kzuNuBob means as "S/he would have talked", kzuNuBhobh - "They would have talked", in both meanings indicating past tense.

Past progressive
This tense depicts actions that were happening in the past for long time and ended in in the past. These actions may, or may not, have connection to present.

In this tense, weak verbs are conjugated by adding -vz postfix, and strong verbs are created adding V- prefix and -i postfix, where V is special corresponding vowel ("u" in 1st person, "o" in 2nd and 3rd female persons and "i" in 3rd male person). There exist also extremely strong verbs, which add V- and -vz suffixes, but they are very rare (one of such verbs is ziki - to see).

Progressive weak verbs
zibi - to sell

1st person singular is somehow irregular in this verb, because it retains "i" from present tense.

Infix -o- doesn't occur in this tense if verb is based on bilitteral root.

Progressive strong verbs
Special corresponding vowel is retained when adding mood prefixes.

kiviz - to know

Exact translation of these verbs to English would look strange, as "uKaVZi" means "I was knowing", odd declension for this verb.

Extremely strong verbs
I won't decline ziki here; instead, I'll focus on mikhi, which means "to respect, to sanctify, to consecrate". Both verbs are based on bilitteral roots and decline identically.

The same as in weak and strong verbs, -o- doesn't appear in verbs based on bilitteral roots.

Future
This tense depicts something that will happen in the future (or something that one thinks will/is going to happen).

Future tense is, along with present, one of the simplest to learn, because it doesn't have division for weak/strong verbs and only 2 moods: imperative and old-fashioned gerundive. Old Akhaz didn't have future tense, only gerundive mood that was considered part of present tense. Gerundive later changed it's meaning and evolved into tense on it's own. That's also the reason why future is marked only with prefix and not with postfix as other tenses.

Indicative mood
...is created by adding prefix d(a)-. "A" is inserted before stops and "s".

hili - to swim

All those verbs can be simply translated as "I/You/He/She/We/They will swim", only with subject changing.

Gerundive mood
It's created with adding prefix dVm-.

These could be generally translated as "should" sentences, only stronger.

Copula
In Akhaz copula (verb "to be") serves the same function as English. It's the verb with the most complicated conjugation, which retains archaic dual number. It's based on 2 bilitteral roots: z-d for present and past progressive and k-d for future. It doesn't have preterite form.

Present tense
As you can see, forms for dual and plural in both 3rd persons are identical.

Adjectives and adverbs
In Akhaz, adjectives always follow noun they modify. The same is for adverbs which follow verb or adjective they modify.

Typical adjectives
Unlike in English, adjective must be marked, i.e. it must end in suffix indicating that it's an adjective and which gender in which number it describes.

For instance, word dur, meaning black must have suffix -id to specify that it's describing something singular male, or -da to show that it describes something simgular female. If dur doesn't have suffix, it's considered noun meaning "blackness".

Typical adjectives' inflection
Yes, adjectives inflect to the same cases that modified by them nouns do.

 karak azgarid - huge fortress

karakim azgardi - huge fortresses

nazpa kashpada - beautiful girl

nazpam kashpadma - beautiful girls

Composition adjectives
Because of dwarves' fondness to masonry, smithing, jewelecrafting and engineering, over time special type of adjectives - composition adjectives - have appeared. These adjectives denote what something is made of. For instance, one can say karvu armida to say "golden ring", but this doesn't mean the ring is made of gold - only that it has golden color. To say that ring is made of gold, one has to say karvu armadat, and then all people (or dwarves) hearing this will know that he's talking about material from which the ring is made.

The inflection of composition adjectives is the same as typical adjectives - last consonant gains aspiration in Genitive and Intrumental cases.

Possession
How to say "my beer" in Akhaz? Well, you can't just use Genitive personal pronoun. Instead, attach typical adjective ending to end of pronoun, creating azid bzav - my beer. Possesion adjective, as this construction is called, is the only adjective type inserted before the noun, not after. So, the proper way of telling "My sweet beer" is azid bzav zakshid.

Adverbs
Adverbs are the same for adjectives and verbs as adjectives are for nouns - they modify them.

Adverbs are formed easier than adjectives, because nor adjectives neither verbs are considered to have gender or number in the same manner as nouns. For instance zizan, meaning "fastness" can take adjectival form ziz(a)nid/zizanda, but only one adverbial form: zizanod , used after verbs or adjectives. Thus, Kudkhuzu zizanod (ikhi) ul galomaz means "They (m) fastly made the machine", but one can not say galom zizanod for "fast machine" - s/he must use zizanid.

Comparison marker
Only one adjective changes in the same manner as English adjectives when it comes to comparison: naraz , which translates as "many" or "plenty" (noun) if unmarked. It can take typical adjective endings, but it can also change it's inner set of vowels to become Akhaz equivalent of "more" and "most". It's as follows:

naraz -&gt; nerzu -&gt; anrazo

Then it can be placed after any adjective or adverb to create comparison, so zizanid means "fast (male)", zizanid nerzu - faster (m) and zizanid anrazo - the fastest (m). When put into sentence, it looks like this:

Kadku  zizanod azid   galomaz, khen  kudku    zizanod nerzu  ekhid. - I fastly made my machine, but he made his faster.

I made  fastly  my    machine  but  he made   fastly   more   his

= Dictionary =

Numbers
0 - nekad ("nothing")

1 - ahi

2 - divi

3 - te

4 - kvir

5 - nakh

6 - rakh

7 - zri

8 - pakh

9 - ghe

10 - keh

Teen numbers are created by putting "keh" before 1-9 number, so "kehahi" is 11, "kehdivi" - 12 etc.

Numbers larger than 19 and lower than 100 are created by putting "keh" after the 1-9 number, so "divikeh" is 20, "tekeh" - 30 etc. Numbers like 44, 56 are made by simply putting 1-9 after decimal number, so "kvirkeh kvir" is 44, and "rakhakeh ghe" is 69.

Bigger numbers include:

100 - kar

1000 - zahk

1000000 (million) - milur

1000000000 (billion) - malarhu

All greater numbers end in -arhu.

Numerals

All numerals, as all other adjectives, differce between gender and number.

System of creating numerals looks complicated for numbers 1 to 7, but it can be brought down as further:

1 Ahi male numerals are created by adding -p in singular and -pi in plural, thus creating "ahip" and "ahipi". Female numerals are created by adding -pa for singular and -pma for plural, which creates "ahipa"/"ahpa" and "ahipma".

2 - 3 Those are the most irregular of all numerals. Divi in singular changes into advij (m)/ advija(fm) and in plural into advimi (m)/ advima (fm). Te takes the same suffixes, changing in singular into etij (m)/ et(i)ja (fm) and in plural into etimi (m)/ etma (fm). The -ij and -ija are remnants of archaic dual number.

4 - 7 These numerals all have suffixes -(a)hk (m)/ -(a)hka (fm) in singular and -(a)hki (m)/ -(a)hkma in plural. "A" is inserted after aspirated "k" in nakh and rakh, and sometimes also after "r" in kvir. "I" in zri disappears in all cases.

Other numerals are created by adding regular suffixes -id/-idi for male and -(a)da/ -(a)dma for female, so kehid - tenth (male), kehda - tenth (female) etc.

0 - In this case, -ad is just changed into -id(i) for male, and into -d(m)a for female.

= Example text = ...