Hykidik Arakene

Hykidik Arakene (native name: Lèman Vjossa, Lèman Hykidiksesa, [lɛman βʲosa]) is the most widely spoken of all five Arakene languages. It is originally the native language of the Hykidik subgroup of the Vjos, but is used as a lingua franca by other subgroups all over Arako.

The Arakene language family
Hykidik Arakene is one of the five Arakene languages; the other ones are Lagha, Gasál, Kimó and Alaqy. Out of all Arakene languages, Hykidik is the most conservative, bearing the most resemblance to Proto-Arakene.

Consonants
¹ only in coda position   ² can be realized as voiced and voiceless; see § Phonotactics

Diphthongs
Hykidik Arakene only has falling diphthongs.

Phonotactics
Arakene has a basic syllable structure of (C)(C)V(C), but the number of initial consonant clusters is very small. These are tɸ, dβ, dz, cɸ, ɟβ, kɸ, gβ, ks, gz, st and sk.

Only plain consonants are allowed in coda position; if a palatalized or labialized consonant does end up in a coda position, it loses its palatal/labial element.

No palatal consonants (except ʑ), affricates and non-lateral approximants are allowed in coda position either. Some words may appear to have /j/ in coda position, but this is only a spelling convention; the  refers to a non-syllabic /i/.

Fricatives and affricates are very sensitive to voice assimilation; they always assimilate to the voicing of a neighbouring plosive or nasal, whether it be preceding or following it. When two fricatives or a fricative and an affricate are neighbouring each other, the second phoneme will assimilate to the first.

Example: /dun/ (hat) + -/tse/ (ten) -> [dundze], /utiβ/ (125) + -/se/ (plural) -> [utiβze]

Writing System
Traditionally, Arakene is written using the Sorsen alfabet. Sorsen is written from top to bottom, left-to-right on a straight vertical line. It has 21 letters and frequently uses digraphs.

The romanization of Arakene is a letter-by-letter transcription of Sorsen, and thus used the same spelling conventions and digraphs. The letters below are presented in the alphabetical order of Sorsen.

Nouns
Nouns are inflected based on number, in/externality (see below) and case. These inflections are expressed exclusively using suffixes. Because Arakene is an agglutinative language, these suffixes can stack up to form long words with a high morpheme-to-word ratio, such as annátutivsegytgahanka ( 'that right there which is 125 years old').

Number
Arakene distinguishes five grammatical numbers: singular, indefinite, definite and absolute plural, and negative (need a better word for this).

Indefinite plural is used for a non-specific number, in cases where the exact number is unknown, irrelevant or obvious.

Definite plural is used in combination with a number, which is inserted before the plural marker -se.

Absolute plural is used to refer to all subjects of the noun, whether that be literally all (ex. edysese; dogs (as a whole)) or all subjects of a specific group or category (ex. edysese nisa; all your dogs). ¹ 'x' is to be filled in by a number

On top of this, suffixes similar to degrees of comparison (see § Degrees of comparison).

In/externality
Arakene makes a distinction between nouns that refer to something that is in the speaker's vicinity (external) and something that is not in their vicinity, and thus referring to a thought, memory or idea (internal). For something to be external, it needs to be able to be seen or pointed at; thus, external objects can be very far away (ex. the sun, clouds, or a far-away mountain). Something that is near, but hidden or obstructed can be referred to either in- or externally depending on the situation.

On proper nouns, externality is marked with the suffix -ka, internality is unmarked. Pronouns and certain adverbs have different internal and external forms. In/externality is not marked on verbs. Internal/external forms of pronouns and adverbs

Cases
Arakene has a very high number of cases, having 30 or 31 cases (depending on whether the locative and temporal perlative are considered separate cases or not). These cases are divided in 4 classes: neutral, functional, locative and temporal. The latter three are marked by a prefix; ta- for functional, è- for locative and ud- for temporal. In everyday language, these prefixes are only used for the first word of a sentence, but in formal speech they are more common. They may also be used to emphasize a word or as a sign of respect to what is being referred to. Otherwise, only the suffix signifying the case is added to the word. I am so sorry. It was an accident I swear

Person and number
Agreement with person and number is expressed by suffixed added to the verb. Unlike with nouns, verbs cannot exist without a suffix; in fact, most verb roots do not adhere to phonotactic rules (ending in consonants that are not allowed in coda position) and rely on a suffix with a vowel to be phonologically correct.

Arakene has eight finite verb conjugations. Along with the standard three person singular/plural forms, it also distinguishes between inclusive and exclusive first person plural, and has a zero person form which has no subject. Zero person is often translated as passive voice, ex. tamed lahytwek, 'they (pl) were murdered/ someone murdered them'. Some speakers will leave out the accusative, since the zero person cannot agree with a subject. Thus, a subject-object distinction is deemed unnecessary, ex. me lahytwek.

Arakene also has four nonfinite forms; gerund, agent, nominalizer and adjective. There is no infinite form; any function an infinite verb could have is filled in by a gerund or a finite verb with an TAMA prefix.

TAM (Tense, Aspect, Mood)
Unlike noun cases and grammatical cases, tense, aspect and mood are expressed using prefixes added to verbs. Tense comes first, then aspect and mood comes last.

There is also a prefixes for negation and several auxiliary functions. These don't have a fixed place in regard to the TAM prefixes. Usually, negation is put at the very beginning and the auxiliary prefixes right before the verb stem, but changing the placement can add subtle changes to a words meaning. A good example is the difference between losèt- 'must not' and sètlo- 'don't have to'.

Dependent clauses come before independent clauses. Conjunctions are added as suffixes to verbs. Sometimes dependent clauses are inserted in the middle of the main clause; in that case it's preceded by the preposition "gwit".

Adjectives
When an adjective is attributed to a noun, it is given one of three suffixes; -i for regular adjectives (like colour or material), -è for locations and -ud for time.

Adjectives can be turned into nouns and nouns into adjectives using suffixes.

Degrees of comparison
Alongside the regular degrees of comparison, Arakene has two more degrees, as shown below.

Syntax
Arakene has a consistent OV word order. The order of the object and subject is free; whatever is placed first will have greater emphasis.

Noun phrases are constructed in the following order:

Adjective - noun-pl-internal/external-case - relative.cause

Numbers
Arakene has a quinary (base-5) numeral system.

Lexicon
Hykidik Arakene/Lexicon

Example text
"Alisese itidagah tsuhinhej o gege uhgwitu o twekjasetu dykja. Harmekai o harwai meaa dyda ne omliseal ejynwihej dyloaldaja."

"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."