Classical Saretic

Classical Saretic is highly artificial language, created mainly for liturgical purposes on the basis of Old Colloquial Saretic about thousand years ago after long discussions of grammarians and theologians, who carefully purged all the "undignified" or inaccurate forms. Although the highest form of language is very difficult to understand for Modern Colloquial Saretic speakers, the clergy prefers to use Classical Saretic even in the colloquial discourse, as a mark of their priestly dignity.

The language has a rather unusual structure. All grammatical categories, tense and the numbers of both subject and object, are incorporated in one word, called morphosyntactical marker (called 'face of the sentence', in fact a paradigmatized time adverbs of Old Colloquial Saretic). In the rest of the sentence, OSV syntax is used.

Phonology
Consonants ===In Classical language, nasal fricative was required in pronunciation: [f̃,  s̃,  θ̃,  ʂ̃,  x̃ ]. Nowadays, separate pronunciation of fricative with correspondent nasal is more used, as described in the table. This pronunciation is often considered undesirable or even irreverent in the more conservative circles. Similarly, in more conservative circles [q] is used instead of [g], the latter, however, is not attested in classical sources and is probably a hypercorrection, based on the fact that all the other consonants are unvoiced. (Voiced consonants were common in Old Colloquial Saretic, but were purged during the reform as undignified.)===

Vowels
All vowels are to be pronounced unvoiced. The phoneme  is preferred in modern speech, however, more conservative circles prefere to pronounce it like < ɜ> with falling tone. The correctness of such pronunciation is a matter of discussions.

The <ɯ> phoneme does not appear anywhere except for the morphosyntactical word.

Alphabet
In this article, IPA is used to represent Saretic texts. Phonotactics

Possible combinations are: CVCV, CVCVC, CCVCVCC, CVCCVC. All common words have two syllabes, monosyllabic word is used only as a morphosyntstical word. However, only  can be a second part of the consonantic cluster.

Morphosyntactical word
Every sentence begins with the morphosyntactical word, which describes all the morphosyntactical categories of the sentence.

First element describes the grammatical number of the subject. If the subject is in the singular, it is , if in the dual, it is <θ>, if in the plural, it is .

In the earliest texts, the sequence is reversed: the second element describes the subject, whereas the first element the object (so that, for example, nɯx would not mean plural subject and singular object, but plural object and singular subject). This form is thought to be more natural and elegant by some grammarians, classical form being the newer development.

Sedond element describes the grammatical number of the object. If it is in the singular or dual, it is <ɯ>, if it is in the plural, it is . If the sentence has no object, it is counted as plural.

Third element describes the tense. Four tenses are used in Classical Saretic: past, marked with , future, marked with . Element <ʂ> is used for general truths, always valid, <θ> is used for present.

There are following possibilities:

Past:

tɯx - I ate two apples (singular subject, singular object, past)

tax - I ate more than two apples (singular subject, plural object, past)

θɯx - We two ate two apples (dual subject, singular object, past)

θax - We two ate more than two apples (dual subject, plural object, past)

nɯx - We, many, ate two apples (plural subject, singular object, past)

nax - We, many, ate more than two apples. (dual object, singular subject, past)

Future

tɯg - I will eat two apples (singular subject, singular object, future)

tag - I will eat more than two apples (singular subject, plural object, future)

θɯg - We two will eat two apples (dual subject, singular object, future)

θag - We two will eat more than two apples (dual subject, plural object, future)

nɯg - We, many, will eat two apples (plural subject, singular object, future)

nag - We, many, will eat more than two apples. (dual object, singular subject, future)

General time

tɯʂ - I regularly eat two apples (singular subject, singular object, general)

taʂ - I regularly eat more than two apples (singular subject, plural object, general)

θɯʂ - We two regularly eat two apples (dual subject, singular object, general)

θaʂ - We two regularly eat more than two apples (dual subject, plural object, general)

nɯʂ - We, many, regularly eat two apples (plural subject, singular object, general)

naʂ - We, many, regularly eat more than two apples. (dual object, singular subject, general)

Right now

tɯθ - I am eating two apples (singular subject, singular object, right now)

taθ - I am eating more than two apples (singular subject, plural object, right now)

θɯθ - We two are eating two apples (dual subject, singular object, right now)

θaθ - We two are eating more than two apples (dual subject, plural object, right now)

nɯθ - We, many, are eating two apples (plural subject, singular object, right now)

naθ - We, many, are eating more than two apples. (dual object, singular subject, right now)

In the subjunctive mood, which can be used as an imperative or as a conditional, the last consonant is nasalised.  changes into  in this case, merging past with future. If several consequent sentences would have a same morphosyntactical word, it does not need to be repeated always, but it should be repeated at least in every third sentence (one sentence with a morphosyntactical word, two sentences without). However, such omitting, even if justifiable, is considered very awkward, except in poetry.

Pronouns
Saretic personal pronouns of the first and second person have two variants used according to the social precedence of the speakers.

When a Saret talks to a person superior, he uses word θaʀeg (originally meaning "a slave"), referring to himself, and word tasne (lord, master) referring to the other one. This form is called "humble" form in Saret grammars.

When a Saret talks to a person inferior, he uses the same word, tasne, referring to himself', and the word ''θaʀeg referring to the other one. '''This form is called proud.

In the third person, word taxa is used in both variants. Talking about gods or highest clery, pronouns are never used and their names or appropriate titles must be repeated always. Women, lepers and non-Sarets use humble forms always, regardless to their social position.

(Some grammarians think that when two non-Saret males talk to each other, the use of "proud" pronouns can be justifiable when one of them has considerably higher precedence in Saret society, the other being a notable enemy of Sarets and a leper at the same time, but only enmity or only leprosy would not give him such a privilege.)

The situation where two male Saret speakers are equal is rather theoretical in highly structured Saret society. Classical grammars leave this question undecided.

The pronouns have no number, because it is already expressed with the morphosyntactical marcer.