Neggerel

Setting
The neggerel is the main language of the zhil, the fish-like humanoid species that inhabits the world of Braq.

The fact of this people being a kind of humanoid fishes makes that the language that they speak be extremely nasal and uvular (be cause this are the sounds that they could pronounce with less effort in the sub-aquatic depths).

Because of this the language is hard to pronounce even within the zhil themselves. Is very unpopular between other races, and only the 70% of the zhil are still having it as a mother language. The others (especially those born in not aquatic planets) prefer to use foreign languages.

Alphabet
A B C D G GG I L LL M N Ñ O Q R T U Z ZH

a b c d g gg i l ll m n ñ o q r t u z zh

Vowels
There are five vowels in neggerel. They are the common vowels plus the nasal vowels of the guarani language. They’re basically the /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/ and /u/ vowels, and their nasalized equivalents. If you cannot pronounce the nasal vowels, just pronounce one of the common vowels after a palatal nasal (this would be, ɳa, ɳe, ɳi, ɳo, ɳu) and then you will immediately be pronouncing the nasal vowels with no effort. Also you can try pronouncing vowels as a guy with cold would do.

It’s important to remark that the vowels are nasalized just when are preceded by Ñ.

Diphthongs
The diphthongs are formed when a weak vowel (I or U) and a strong vowel (A, E, or O) are together, or when two weak vowels are together too. Then the diphthongs are:

It is important to remark that the nasal vowels (those that follow a Ñ) don’t form diphthongs, so in the word Añua (Week) is pronounced aɳũa, not aɳwa.

Is also important know that three vowels cannot put together in neggerel language.

Accent
The accent is always in the penultimate syllable.

Number
The neggerel don’t distinguish the nouns by gender, but number.

There are three number distinctions in neggerel: Singular, plural and another which’s best English translation is “full plural” or “totalitarian plural”.

The first two are similar to their English equivalencies:


 * Singular symbolizes one thing, person, place or whatever the object that we are talking about is.


 * Plural  symbolizes more than one thing, be it from two to “almost everything".

The question is still there, How I form the number distinction? Some full plural noun refer to singular thing. The full plural Galu (all the letters) obviously refers to the alphabet. The singular noun for "alphabet" is Gall, plural Galle, full plural Garel.
 * Totalitarian plural  is a number distinction that basically refers to everything or everyone, in résumé, a whole concept or group (it cannot be used to refer to the whole extension of a singular object, like "the whole body", but yes to all the objects that it contains, for example, "every part of the body").
 * The singular is the predeterminated form of the noun.
 * To form the plural is necessary to add a sufix. If the noun ends in a vowel, then is added a -l ending, but if it ends in a consonant that isn't L, LL or N, then is added a -al ending. If it ends in L, LL or N, then a -e ending is added. If it is a N, then it is changed for an Ñ.
 * To the full plural, first is formed the plural and then is added the full plural sufix. If it ends in L, then is added -u ending. If it ends in E, then the -le, -lle or -ñe ending is removed, and is added a new ending: If the letter that was before the ending was a consonant, then is added an -ell ending, and if it is a vowel, then is added a -rel ending, but if it ends in L then is just added another L, forming a double L.

A full plural noun doesn't mean (at least not always) all the objects of that kind in the universe. Commonly is followed by another word to indicate the place. Galu allat means "all the trees in the forest" or "in a forest".

Countable or uncountable?
Yes, the neggerel also distinguishes between both countable and uncountable nouns. But the zhil call them "pluralizable" and "unpluralizable" nouns. Is required to know that the word "usually" doesn't mean "always".
 * The pluralizable nouns are those that can be adapted to the three number distinctions above. Objects, persons, pronouns. You can distinguish them because this kind of nouns usually end in a strong vowel.
 * The unpluralizable nouns are not just the uncountable nouns in english, like "money", but also the nouns that can not be refered as more than one, like cities (in neggerel the name of a city also refers to everyone who lives in there, not just the geographical ubication), lastnames, abstract concepts, etc... This kind of nouns usually end in a close vowel.

Definiteness
The neggerel language uses articles to distinguish between definite and indefinite noun phrases. The main four articles are: The full plural can't be indefinite so is irrelevant to mark it with articles.
 * Al - Literally "a" or "an", when refer to one sole noun phrase. Example: A fish.
 * All - "A" or "an", when plural. Example: A couple of fishes, a few fishes. In neggerel it would be possible to form a phrase like *a fishes. Is like the spanish article "unos/unas" in counterpart to "un/una".
 * Ag - Literally "the", when refer to one sole noun phrase. Example: The fish.
 * Agg - Equivalent to "ag" in plural. Example: The fishes.

Case
There is not a case system in neggerel. Is basically the same as in english, changing the cases for auxiliar words, pronouns and articles.