Gerodathian

A Guide to the Gerodathian Language by:

Introduction
This language is built off of mainly Thai and Korean. An important rule is that most words are simply one syllable, and more complex words are multi-syllabic that are comprised of singular words. Traditionally, words may only end in a vowel and the special-case letter N.

All throughout the story of 'The Sorcerers of Infinity' there is mention of a peculiar race far to the south, who are known colloquially as ‘Islanders’—however, many prefer ‘Gerodathian’. The Gerodathians are a people who migrated to the south from another continent—known as Talasia—and established a way of life very different from the rest of their present continent—Volante. There are many aspects of Gerodathian culture, but this article will teach specifically about their language.

Letters
There are 20 consonants in the Gerodathian language: B, C, D, F, G, H, J, K, L, M, N, P, Q, R, S, T, W, X, Y, and Z. All are pronounced as they are, except for X, Q, W, C, and Y. X is pronounced CH as in cherry; Q is pronounced SH as in shine. W and Y are known as silent consonants—W and Y are never pronounced, but change the sense of a word. C is also pronounced as CH, but softer than X—like somewhere in between CH and SH.

There are 8 vowels in the Gerodathian language: A, E, I, O, U, EU, AE and N. A, E, I, O and U are pronounced as hat, neck, idiom, October, and noon. EU is pronounced as in French eu; while AE is pronounced as hay. U can also be omitted in pronunciation, like in the Japanese language. N is considered a vowel because it is the one consonant that can be a final, and can be pronounced 3 ways: /n/, /m/ or /ŋ/. /N/ comes before any letter besides B, P, M, K, and G, and is pronounced closer to ‘un’ with the ‘u’ half-omitted rather than simply n. /M/ comes before B and P and is pronounced like ‘um’ with the ‘u’ half-omitted. Lastly, /Ŋ/ comes before M, K and G.

In total there are 27 letters in the language.

Parts of Speech
To make this easier on all of us, I decided to make Gerodathian grammar almost exactly the same as English grammar, save for the pronouns and particles. There are 7 parts of speech: Nouns, verbs, adjectives, pronouns, particles, conjunctions and interjections. Particles and verbs tend to be the hardest parts of the Gerodathian language so we will spend more time learning those first. Everything else retains the same grammatical functions.

Nouns are things that are. Places, people, and things; just as they are in English. When speaking formally, only nouns may be used instead of pronouns.

Verbs are actions. They have many of the same functions as in English, and are the most important part of a sentence.

Adjectives are words that describe. What makes them different from English adjectives is that they also take the place of adverbs. So, a word like jageung (angry) could also mean angrily. To note the differences however, adjectives come before the noun, whereas adverbs come after. When making the switch between adjectives and adverbs, the adjective undergoes no change.

Pronouns take the place of nouns when speaking informally.

Particles are words that describe different things, and supplement sentences. Specifically, they show emphasis, direction, etc. They are similar to prepositions, but they follow the verb or noun that they affect. See the Particles Expanded section to learn more about particles.

Conjunctions are simple words such as and, also, anyway, etc. They are the simplest parts of Gerodathian grammar.

Interjections are words that express feeling. There are strong and weak interjections—as well as onomatopoeic interjections. See the Interjections Expanded section to learn more about interjections and onomatopoeia.

Nouns and Adjectives
Nouns are things that are. Places, people, animals and inanimate objects are all nouns. Singular/plural tenses do not exist, and neither does gender. Nouns do not really need further explanation than that.

Adjectives described the things that are. Qualitative and quantitative observations all count as adjectives. They can also be used as adverbs to describe verbs—and that causes ambiguity among non-native speakers. To see how this ambiguity is taken care of, see the Particles Expanded section.

Verbs
As in any language, verbs can tend to be a little more confusing than they need to be, and they are no exception in the Gerodathian language. There are 3 groups of verbs: -reun endings, -ra endings and irregular verbs. The good news is, that like Japanese grammar, verbs have no indication of person (first, second, third), number (single or plurar) or gender. The properties of number however are determined by the pronoun that follows it.

Examples of -reun verbs

Examples of -ra verbs

Irregular verbs

In the Gerodathian language, there are only two irregular verbs: bareun and gara.

Verb Tense
Verb tenses are a crucial part of understanding Gerodathian verbs. Tenses indicate the time an action took place. To a lesser extent, it also indicates tone.

The -reu form

The -reu­ form of verbs indicates present tense.

The -qira form

The -qira form of verbs indicates past tense.

The -xe form

The -xe form of verbs indicates future tense. This form is the only one where the irregular verbs follow the same rules as every other verb.

That was easy so far, no? You are not out of the woods yet, though. Here comes the hard part.

Negative Tense
The -rete form

The -rete form indicates present negative tense.

The -sarete form

The -sarete form indicates past negative tense. If the infinitive of the verb ends in a vowel, replace the -reun with -sarete. If it ends in a consonant, replace the -reun with -asarete.

The -jade form

The -jade form indicates future negative. Irregular verbs change completely in this tense, so watch out for them.

Extended use of the verb gara
Gara is a complicated verb in many aspects, mainly because it is not conjugated like a normal -ra verb. If it was confusing enough before, if you did not understand the previous lessons on it, it will be doubly confusing now. I suggest going back and rereading the previous section on gara before continuing.

Ready? Now we can start on extended use of gara. Gara is an irregular verb [as you already know], and it may be added to nouns to make them into -ra verbs. Then, it will be conjugated as gara is conjugated. The noun may only end in a vowel, otherwise it will not work with gara. However, an exception is if the noun ends in -ka, in which gara can replace the final -ka.

For example:

Can all become:

Using gara at the end of a noun will turn it into a related verb, such as to water or to love.

Pronouns Expanded
In the Gerodathian language, a pronoun will take the place of a noun, but only when speaking informally or conversationally to somebody. This type of speaking, however, should not be used when speaking with your superior, or whose position deserves respect—use names. Unlike verbs that do not take gender or number into account, such things matter with these pronouns.

Note that there is no equivalent for ‘you people’ [like French vous]. That is an exception in the Gerodathian language. You cannot say ‘you people’; you must always refer to a group as gua singularly or jokua. The same goes for joku—when pluralizing joku, you must say jokua.

Now, to put these pronouns to use:

Simple, no? Perhaps for now, but let’s put some more complicated nouns and verbs into play.

Particles Expanded
The main particles you need to worry about ne and da. There are six particles in the Gerodathian language, all of them contributing to the important syntax of the smoothness of the spoken language. However, they have no definite meaning. They affect different words, and only come after verbs and adjectives. If a both are in the same section of a sentence, then it comes after the verb. Particles may only come after adjectives being used as adjectives, to clear up the ambiguity in using them.

Ga
Ga is the simplest of the particles, and it only means to add emphasis. It makes phrases stronger than it had been without the particle. It can also be used in comparative forms.

Da
Da is one of the two main particles aforementioned that I said needed worrying over. It can mean a number of things, such as emphasis, like ga. It is usually used to indicate a state of being; almost like a replacing word for bareun. It can also be used to indicate formality; as in indicating emphasis, but formally as if to a superior.

Ne
Ne generally indicates direction and place in a sentence. It is critical in, for example, telling somebody where to go or where to put something.

On
On indicates time in a sentence. It is important to tell someone when something will or has happened. It is used in conjunction with past and future tenses to specify and clarify events. There are also other forms of on which specify ‘ago’ and ‘from now’: onna and onado.

This concludes the Gerodathian language tutorial.