Eqtalissa

Eqtalissa is a rather posteriori conlang inspired by a number of Semitic and Indoeuropean languages. Its major inspiration and influences are Arabic and Greek, followed by Portuguese, Polish, English, Maltese and Hebrew. Eqtalissa is supposed to be an easy-to-use yet exciting conlang, at least for its creator, who is its alpha user. Eqtalissa features mostly exceptionless and straightforward grammar and fairly accessible phonology and spelling rules.

Consonants
The voiceless velar plosive /k/ may be realized as uvular plosive /q/. This realization may occur in any position, but predominantly in stressed words. There is no phonemic distinction between these two consonants.

The voiceless uvular fricative /ꭓ/ is usually realized as glottal fricative /h/ at the beginning and at the end of the word. There is no phonemic distinction between these two sounds.

The lateral alveloar approximant /l/ is often velarized to /ɫ/. This change occurs predominantly in intervocalic and final position.

Please note that Eqtalissa lacks voiceless bilabial stop /p/. Words of foreign origin with this sound usually feature voiceless labiodental fricative /f/ in place of /p/.

Another prominent feature of Eqtalissa consonant system is the lack of affricates, like /t͡s/ or /t͡ʂ/.

Vowels
The vowels /a/, /ɑ/ and /ɐ/ are allophones.Open vowels /a/ and /ɑ/ occur in stressed syllables, while central vowel /ɐ/ occurs predominantly in unstressed syllables.

Stress
1) In words ending with a consonant*** and also with the vowels -i and -ji stress falls by default on the last syllable (aqfar, senhid, arji)

*** This rule doesn´t apply to consonants that are (part of) suffixes. Hence, words ending with the accusative suffix -n are stressed on the same syllable as without the suffix: ''Nom. misadda - Acc. misaddan''

2) In words ending with the vowels -a, -e and -u*** stress falls by default on the last but one syllable (xiqa, ahatu).

*** Plural forms of adjectives (they always end with -u) are stressed on the last but one syllable when there is no vowel reduction in the plural (amwad - amwadu). When the vowel reduction occurs, they are stressed on the last syllable (mavur - mavru).

There are a lot of exceptions from rule 2. Lots of words ending with -a, -e and -u are stressed on the last syllable. In all these cases (except adjectives) the stressed vowel is marked with a macron (raqmā, eqnū, ihē).

Writing System
Eqtalissa has seven digraphs, which represent single phonomes. They are considered individual letters and have their own place in the alphabet.

The letter r is realized as a flap /ɾ/ with the exception of plural noun endings -ra, where it is realized as a trill /r/.

The approximant /j/ occurs only in word endings - ia /jɐ/, -eia /jɐ/ and -ea /ijɐ/.

Letter ş substitutes x at the end of the word. They are both realized as /ʃ/.

The glottal stop /ʔ/ occurs only in intervocalic position (leïad /le´ʔad/). It is not represented in writing if one of the adjacent vowels is i (sair /sɐ´ʔiɾ/).

Please note there are no letters c, k, p and y in Eqtalissa. Their use is not allowed even in words of foreign origin. Letter j occurs only as a digraph ji.

Nouns
Nouns are the only part of speech in Eqtalissa that has genders. The gender assigment is determined by humanness. Nouns denoting people are of human gender. All other nouns are of non-human gender. The only grammatical feature that reflects the division of nouns into two genders is the formation of plurals.

The only vowel that singular nouns are allowed to end with is -a (nihta, qahvā, leforia). They are also allowed to end with any consonant (axol, davatjir, urrun).

THE PLURAL OF NOUNS

The plurals are possibly the least straightforward part of Eqtalissa grammar. The rules are as follows:

1) The plural of all human nouns is formed by adding -u. When the noun ends with -a, it is replaced by -u. See examples in column 1 below.

2) The plural of non-human nouns ending with a consonant is –eia [jɐ]. See examples in column 2 below.

3) The plural of non-human nouns ending with -ia [ja] is –ea [ijɐ]. See examples in column 3 below.

4) The plural of non-human nouns ending with -ā is -eiā [jɐ]. See examples in column 4 below.

5) The plural of non-human nouns ending with - a is -ra [rɐ]. In this type of plurals, changes to the stem occur when there is a double consonant in the stem (in plural, it changes into a single consonant), when there is rr in the stem (in plural, it changes into h) and when there is a non-initial r in the stem (in plural, it disappears). See examples of the plural of non-human nouns ending with -a without stem changes in column 5 and with stem changes in column 6.

Note that there are no articles in Eqtalissa.

Adjectives
Adjectives always end with a consonant (lalit, żhamm, howud, etc.) They are inflected for number and case (if not accompanied by a noun).

THE PLURAL OF ADJECTIVES

The plural of all adjectives is formed by adding -u. When the adjective has only one syllable or has more than one syllable and ends with -CCVC, there are no changes to the stem when adding plural ending. When the adjective has at least two syllables and ends with -VCVC, the final vowel is suppressed when adding -u.

Pronouns
Pronouns are genderless in Eqtalissa, therefore mahji stands for both he or she.

Please note that formal pronouns arji and arnū are used with the 2nd person of the verb. Examples:
 * Eq mehdiq taïad. - I'm a doctor.


 * Min mahnū elad? - Who are they?

Possessives
Possessives have the same forms as both determiners and pronouns. They are inflected for person, number and (only as pronouns) case. Possessive determiners are subject to agreement with the noun they modify (eqtā djim - my house, eqtū djimeia - my houses). Examples:
 * Afti djim naxā leïad. - This house is ours.


 * Owun intā aman leïad? - Where is your husband?

Demonstratives
Eqtalissa makes a two-way distinction between demonstratives - they are proximal (used for objects close to the speaker) or distal (used for objects distant from the speaker).

Examples:

''Aftā qarrā żhamm leïad. - This car is pretty.''

''Hol anqū elledu elqoll? - What are those boys´ names?''

Mad afti leïad?- What is this?

Adverbs
Adverbs of place are ilqen (here) and ilbin (there).

Postpositions
Eqtalissa has postpositions instead of prepositions. They are always separated from the word they relate to with a hyphen.

Some postpositions:

Numbers
Numbers are not inflected. Ordinal numbers are formed by adding -(a)ş to the cardinal: umm - ummaş, atfā - atfaş, eter - eteraş, etc.

Examples:

''Umm hiraman taïuf. - I have one sister.''

Eteraş anddar-xjin tahal.- I live on the third floor.

Verbs
Verbs in Eqtalissa are inflected for person, number, tense, mood and voice. All verbs consist of a stem, which is unchangeable. Verbs are conjugated by adding prefixes, suffixes or inflexes to/into the stem. All conjugations are regular.

Verbs are divided into three categories according to their frequency of use:

1) Very frequent verbs. Their stems are composed of two sounds. This category includes only three verbs - adjim (to be), eljim (to go) and ufjim (to have). The pattern of their stems is VC (vowel + consonant)

2) Frequent verbs. Their stems are composed of three or four sounds. This category includes 100 verbs, like fasjim (to do), xerjim (to know) or aqamjim (to come). The patterns of their stems are CVC, VCVC, CVCC or CCVC.

3) Infrequent verbs. This category includes all other verbs. Their stems are composed of five or more sounds.

Infinitive is formed by adding suffix -jim to the stem (adjim, fasjim, qolljim, arafjim, etc.)

PRESENT TENSE

The Present Tense is formed by adding prefixes to the stem: xatjim - taxat, umxat, lexat, atxat, muxat, elxat When the prefix ends with a vowel and the stem starts with a vowel other than i, a glottal stop (ï) is introduced between them: adavjim - taïadav, umadav, leïadav, atadav, muïadav, eladav