Nyaěmu

I was inspired by the Sumerian language (in some categories, at least) and - to some extent - Tolkien's Quenya.

This language had once been spoken by a civilization of the same name, that formed a seafaring empire in the region of the Five Seas. They founded multiple colonies and gained wide knowledge about the world, stored in the so-called 'Houses of Wisdom'; unfortunately, economical crisis and accompanying political strife weakened them so much, that they fell victim to a coalition of peoples (apparently led by several Aqͣqarͤrhat colonies, intending to gain more influence in the region) that nearly wiped them out. Only a remnant lives today. They started to use the languages of the other tribes inhabiting the island, although Nyaěmu remained a language of lore (like Latin in the Reality or Quenya in Tolkien's Ea).

The Mynnayan Nyaěmu population occupies the islands's lowlands (in the north-eastern part). They live in several villages. Men are usually farmers or shepherds, and women are mostly weavers. They speak a dialect of Gauloinde, who inhabit the city of Nukka that lies near their settlements.

Although spoken Nyaěmu is now extinct, there are nevertheless large quantities of ancient Nyaěmu texts that are still preserved in a House of Knowledge in the mountainous region of the island. The local Khrit people are now guarding it and taking care of its resources; that even led to a division in their society, producing several specialized castes, with the highest one being able to converse freely in the language and to have the full access to the knowledge stored in the House.

Classification and Dialects
The Nyaěmu language is an isolate; it seems that it used to have a few relatives, but, after, becoming a koine language of its region, its dominating position eventually put them out of use. Nowadays, it's not spoken anymore; it was forgotten after the Fall (of their civilization). However, in several spots, including Munnaya, it stayed as the language of lore, which enabled some to keep a large part of their former knowledge and achievements. As such, it's rather monolithic, with few recorded variations (just some small ones; think of Noldorin and Vanyarin Quenya).

Consonants
Approximants [w] and [j] are generaly considered shorter versions of full vowels [u] and [i], respectively; if directly following a consonant, they fuse together, causing labialization or palatalization (again, respectively) of that consonant; palatalization usually causes the consonant to turn into a full palatal (thence come the palatals in the table above), though one should bear in mind that they could as well be pronounced as usual palatalized sounds. The changing patterns are as follows:

t>tɕ d>dʑ s>ɕ l>ʎ n>ɲ k>c g>ɟ

The velar nasal appears only in clusters, when folowed by a /k/ or /g/; it's not used otherwise.

Diphthongs and triphthongs
Nyaěmu had several diphthongs, these being:

/ai/ /ei/ /oi/ /ui/ /au/ /eu/ /ou/ /iu/ /ae/ /oa/

...and five triphthongs, basically being simply two diphthongs 'merged' together:

/aei/ /aeu/ /oai/ /oau/ /oae/

Vowel length and nasality
Vowels have contrastive length (short or long). Close vowels [i] and [u] are considered to be long at all times (contrasting with [j] and [w]). Also, there are three nasal vowels, that are also considered to be always long ([ãː], [ẽː] and [õː]). If a nasal vowel is followed by a stop, then it usually causes an assimilated nasal to appear between them (for example, õː + d = õːnd).

Consonant clusters
Consonant clusters cannot be formed with any two consonants, as only some are permissible. The simplest ones are, of course, geminates; also any two stops (of the same voicing) can be joined together in such a way. Semi-vowels [w] and [j] and their interactions have been decribed earlier; [s], [l] and nasals always precede any other consonant (unless it's another fricative or liquid; then any order is permitted, although only -ls, -ns and -ln may appear word-finally). Nasals tend to assimilate with a following stop in nasal-stop pairs (mb, nd, ŋg, ɲɟ and, word-finally only, mp, nt, ŋk and ɲc). Practically any consonant cluster fullfilling the above conditions can appear inside a word or at its end; only single consonants are tolerated word-initially. Thus, Nyaěmu syllable structure can be defined as CVC.

Stress and syllable length
In Nyaěmu every stressed syllable has a pitch of its own, which is contrastive; these pitches are:


 * high (á)
 * low (à)
 * rising (long syllables only) (ǎ)
 * falling (long syllables only) (â)

The location of stress in a word is often unpredictable. There might be some rules drawn, however:


 * if a two-sylable word has both syllables short, then accent the first one
 * if a more-than-two syllable word has only short syllables, then accent the third-to-the-last
 * if a word has only one long syllable (long vowel, diphthong or triphthong), then accent it
 * if a word has more than one long syllable, among which is a single triphthong, accent the triphthong
 * if a word has several long syllables and/or more than one triphthong, accent the one which is closest to the second-to-the-last position (and if the three final syllables are long-short-long, then accent the first of the two long ones).

Nouns
Nouns decline according to class (Human/ Non-human), definitness (Definite vs. Indefinite), case (Agent, Patient, Sociative, Locative, Vocative), number (Singular, Dual and Plural) and size/degree (5 level scale). As Nyaěmu is agglutinative, all these qualities are marked by special affixes (except definitness, which is marked with articles, and class, which is inherent). The order of affixes is SIZE-root-CASE-NUMBER. Nouns can also have possessive endings, inserted between the root and the case suffix.

Articles
There are 8 articles: proximal, medial, distal and indefinite, each agreeing with their noun object in class, as follows:

Articles in Nyaěmu
All articles (when directly preceding their object) are proclitics, so they acquire stress if and only if the object word consists of one to two short syllables.

Size
The size prefixes can strengthen or weaken words they modify. There are 5 levels of size a noun can acquire: Neutral (0), Amplifying (+1), Intensive (+2), Weakening (-1) and Residual (-2). Neutral has no prefix.

Size prefixes in Nyaěmu
And so, the difference between, let's say, a tower, miùn, and a fortress (gwamiùn) is simply the size prefix.

Grammarians are still unsure whether to qualify these prefixes as inflectional or derivational; it is thought that they might have served a similar purpose to that of number once.

Case
There are 5 cases in Nyaěmu; two alignment cases (Agent and Patient), two indirect object cases (Sociative and Locative), as well as a Vocative case. Each of them is expressed with an ending.


 * Agent: usually ends in -a or -an in Human class; doesn't have a distinct ending in Non-H. Marks the agent of a transitive verb, as well as the subject of an intransitive one (in some circumstances).


 * Patient: ends in -at (final n, if present, drops out) in Human and in -(e)s in N-H.; marks the patient of a transitive verb, and the intransitive subject in some circumstances.


 * Sociative: ends in -o (final a, if present, drops out) in H. and in -(e)m in N-H.; marks the indirect object in sense more metaphorical than just spatial or temporal.


 * Locative: ends in -k in H. or in -(o)to in N-H.; marks the indirect object in spatial relationships.


 *  Vocative: ends in -ae (in H. fully replaces the Agent ending) in both classes.

Number
Number in Nyaěmu is expressed with endings; to be exact, two Dual (-se for Human and -ul for Non-Human) and one Plural ending (-(i)n). Singular is unmarked.

Example inflection of a Human-class noun
goân (a man)

Note how the Dual and Plural endings in Patient and Locative cases switch places with the final consonants, respecting the Liquid-Before-Stop-Only rule. Also notive the moving accent in the Vocative, and how its pitch (in this case, the rising one) stays the same as in the stem.

Example inflection of a Non-Human class noun
mwálya (a boat)

Note how the Dual ending -ul merges with the final vowels in most cases, and the moving accent in the Vocative (as in Human class, its pitch - in this case, the high one - remains the same as in the stem).

Adjectives and adverbs
Adjectives agree with nouns they modify in all qualities, except size.

Adverbs don't decline.

Verbs
Verbs conjugate according to tense (Past, Pluperfect, Present, Future), aspect (perfective vs. imperfective), mood (Indicative, Subjunctive), volition (Voilitonal vs. Non-volitional), and voice (Active, Inversive).

Syntax
The basic word order alternates between SVO and SOV. In either case, the subject always comes first. Adjectives may stand before or after nouns they modify, as do adverbs; this language uses both prepositions and postpositions, although the former are the more common.

The language is split ergative, as it behaves like a Erg-Abs in some verb contexts, and like a Nom-Acc in the others.

Lexicon
miùn - tower

mwálya - boat

kyitá - sail (noun)