Nolikan

Nolikan is the language of the Nolikans of Hudar, as well as sacred language of Norhabimism. It belongs to the Hacheric family.

Phonology
All syllables have (C)V(C) structure. Stress falls on one of the three last syllables of the word.

Vowels
There are five vowel phonemes: /a e i o u/. There is some allophony:


 * /e/ is realized as [ɛ] in closed syllables that don't end in a nasal consonant
 * /o/ is realized as [ɔ] in closed syllables that don't end in a nasal consonant
 * /a/ is realized as [ɐ] in unstressed open syllables

Consonants
1 - [ŋ] is an allophone of /n/ before /k g/

2 - Occurs only as an epenthetic sound before a word-initial vowel

3 - These affricates are allophones of /s ɬ/ after /r l n/

4 - The combination /hk/ is always pronounced as [xk].

Stress

 * In verbs, the stress falls on the vowel before the last consonant of the stem. The exceptions are verbs whose stems end with a vowels, for example the stem sibu 'believe' yields sibuamo 'I believe him' [sibu'amo], with stress shifted from fourth syllable from the end to the penultimate.


 * In other parts of speech, the vowel before the word's last consonant is stressed: sisu 'horse' ['sisu], koman 'feast' [ko'man]


 * The plural ending -ak is never stressed

Writing
Nolikan is written with a syllabary, which has 101 glyphs in total. The syllabary was borrowed from the Yoketi, though Norhabimists would argue that it was God Himself who has taught it to the Prophet.

Every possible CV syllable has its own glyph (janjarol). CVC syllables are written as CV-Cu, when the vowel is rounded, or CV-Ci if otherwise. For example mek 'people' is written  and sul 'sad' is written . Word-final /i/ and /u/ are written using an additional glyph. Joni 'feminine' is .

There are also three additional glyphs, representing the negative prefix al-, gemination and prenasalization. Attaf 'hero' is written  and munda 'bull' is spelled . These glyphs are also employed in inflectional endings, e.g. mevak 'legs' is  and šarbam 'I am loved' is <ša-ri-ba-N>.

Romanization employed here is rather straightforward. Postalveolars are written as <č j š>, the lateral fricative as <ļ> and /j/ as . Other letters have their IPA values.

Morphology
Nolikan is a head-final, moderately fusional, polysynthetic language. Verbs are inflected for ergative and absolutive arguments, as well as indirect objects.

Verbal inflections
Middle voice, declares that the subject of the verb is acting and the action is received by itself. Reciprocal voice is formed from the middle voice by changing -a to -i. Eg. ankidarda 'they wash themselves' vs ankidardi 'they wash one another'.

Negation of a verb is formed by prefixing al-. This morpheme has lot of allomorphs: l- before perfective verbs, an- before an initial /n/, aļ- before /p t č k/, as- before /s/, aš- before /š/ and ay- before /y/ Reduplication of the first syllable expresses intensity: vak 'big' yields vavak 'very big'. This applies mostly to adjectives, but can be used with other parts of speech as well: kikiabe 'it rains heavily', bibinat 'girly girl'.

Parts of speech are not strictly separated. Nouns and adjectives receive absolutive verbal endings instead of a copula: meriš 'you are a man', otugiš 'you are stupid'. In fact, native grammarians divide Nolikan vocabulary into yočaļak, which include nouns verbs and participles, and piraļak, which are personal verbal forms.

Nolikan has also an imperative formed with two suffixes, which are always stressed:
 * í, when the addressee is absolutive: čolí 'run!'
 * ú, when the addressee is ergative. Absolutives are treated as indirect objects in imperative sentences: matečandú 'give it to me!'

There is no infinitive. There are two participles: absolutive, which is a bare stem, and ergative, formed with -m after a vowel and -im after a consonant.

Aspect
There are no tenses or moods per se, there is only a perfective aspect formed by prefixing e- before a consonant and er- before a vowel. It is used to:
 * talk about bygone things: Enejam, maškel eneabam 'As a child, I hated milk'
 * express the fact that an event is completed before another one starts: Sokmak erankiderja va elladarka jimiš 'When you wash your teeth, you will go to school'

Irregular verbs

 * The verb meaning 'to exist' has the following personal forms: dem diš de do den deol deš dak.
 * The verbs pir 'do', ag 'can' čar 'speak, say', lin' 'see' and jat 'have' have also somewhat shortened personal forms. For example 'I say it' is čarme and linjo is 'you see her'.

Plurals
Plurals are formed by adding -ak to a noun or adjective. If the noun ends in p t č or k, the consonant becomes voiced.

There are some irregular nouns:
 * /u/ replaces /o/ before syllable-final nasal consonants. In plurals, /o/ is restored: jun 'woman' > jonak
 * epenthetic vowels are deleted in plurals: tolok 'tree' > tolgak
 * some words are unpredictable, e.g. nan 'mother' > nanok, kilis 'foot' > kissak

Relational nouns
Nolikan has no preposition, but has relational nouns instead. These form compounds with normal nouns and create together equivalents of English pronominal expressions: ben-di in a house', ettavit 'with a dog'. Relational nouns can be used alone to mean parts of the human body or more abstract ideas: jopak 'the back', gor 'the outside'. Like normal nouns, relationals have plurals and can be possessed, e.g. topan 'on him'

Syntax
The default word order is SOV. SVO is used to emphasize the object. Adjectives and possessive expressions precede nouns, but numerals and relative clauses follow them.

Schleicher's fable
The Sheep and the Horses

On a hill, a sheep that had no wool saw horses, one of them pulling a heavy wagon, one carrying a big load, and one carrying a man quickly. The sheep said to the horses: "My heart pains me, when a man drives horses". The horses said: "Listen, sheep, our hearts pain us when we see this: a man, the master, makes the wool of the sheep into a garment for himself. Having heard this, the sheep fled into the plain.

Jia va sisuak

Ečandi, kumaļup jia sisuak elinota: ļak dap samok erusorote, ļak vak šuhat erafudote va ļak mer erafudoto šufo. Jia sisubuak etačarote: mapilač dendu jete, eso mer sisuak ardota. Sisuak etosigabato: Tatiče, ya jia, nipilajak dendu jate eso linene: mer, ardim, jia tokumahil toļegetka kačiete. Tet elinote jia buškerka ečolo.