Granapta

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Granapta (natively /gɾanapta/) is an agglutinative language spoken on the planet Urpaxta by the Tiognosca (singular Tiognos), a humanoid species capable only of producing speech sounds at frequencies too high for humans to hear. Granapta's only known relative is Hontor, spoken by Urpaxta's small human population. As humans are incapable of hearing spoken Granapta, it likely evolved from Hontor or a recent relative, and not the other way around. Another possibility is that the ancestor of both languages was taught to humans and Tiognosca separately, or that the language was spread through writing. As Granapta was first written in the Ultamain script however, with human writing only adopted afterward, it's likely Granapta was introduced to the Tiognosca orally, or invented without influence from external sources.

Classification and Dialects

The family Granapta and Hontor belong to is sometimes refered to as the Urpaxtan (or Kedropic, after the Hontor name for the planet) family, but has no official name. Neither Granapta nor Hontor have any known link to other language families, human or alien, making their origins difficult to confirm. The earliest records of an Urpaxtan language being spoken come from the writings of a Gozorian traveler to Urpaxta named Pinchul Cida-Taracna. He wrote of a civilisation in the north east of the planet called /ʉɾmw˔akɫəməɾm̩/, the impossible world. This name is clearly a fusion of the ancestors of the modern Granapta words irmaco (impossible) and morom (world), whose cognates in Hontor are irmakä and xorom.

Given the humans who first arrived on Urpaxta were almost entirely English speaking, and the Urpaxtan languages are completely unrelated to English or any human language, it is likely language either emerged on the planet independant of external sources (as it did on earth) or that it was brought to the planet by some unknown extraterestrial encounters.

Granapta has five dialects: Ciusmap, Chatharntu, Taxoch, Xaol and standard Granapta.

Ciusmap is spoken on the continent of Rusármrömö, and is distinguished by its unique phonology, and use of the suffixes -or and -lyg in conjunction with the prefixes olaet- and sact- respectively. The phonological differences between Ciusmap and standard Granapta are shown in the table below. For some speakers, /ɾ̥ʲ/ and /ɾ̥ʰ/ may merge and become /ɾ̥/, /ɾ̥ʰ/ or a similar sound.

Chatharntu, spoken in the city of Cothuchapa is noted for its breathy voiced vowels and especially tense stops, and for its use of the particle gǒcho before all sentences. Aside from these differences, Chatharntu is identical to standard Granapta.

Taxoch is spoken on the plains west of Cothuchapa by farmers and travelling merchants, and is significantly different from other dialects of Granapta. The phonological differences between it and the standard form of the language are shown in the table below. The suffix -su is placed on the end of nouns in Taxoch to determine if they represent an idea or concept, and the suffix -thi if they represent a physical object. There is therefore a distinction between the words naoesu (rat) and naoethi (the concept of a rat). Placing neither suffix on the end of a noun, though ungrammatical, would cause no uncertainty as to whether it represented a concept or physical object, as in almost all contexts the meaning of the noun could be easily interpreted.

Xaol is easily identifyable by its elision of final and intervocalic consonants, and by its aspiration of all sonorant consonants (/ɾ̥ʰ/ excluded since its already aspirated). Xaol speakers also use the word susá in place of all pronouns, regardless of person, gender or number, making their speech sometimes difficult for non Xaol speakers to understand.

Standard Granapta has no official name, and is spoken everywhere on Urpaxta where neither Hontor nor other dialects of Granapta are spoken (except the southern mountains, which are unpopulated). It is henceforth simply refered to as Granapta. Its grammar and phonology are described in the following parts of this article.

Phonology

Granapta uses twelve consonants, five monophthongs and one diphthong. The tables below describe these phonemes in detail.

Granapta Consonants

Granapta Vowels Writing System

The earliest Granapta scriptures were written in the Ultamain script, the ancestor of the modern alphasyllabic Cuchagya script. Cuchagya characters are each made up three separate elements: the top one representing the onset, the middle one the nucleus and the bottom one the rime of a syllable. When a syllable is stressed, the middle diacritic is larger than the top and bottom ones, while when a syllable is unstressed it's the reverse.

When humans arrived on Urpaxta from Great Britain, the Latin alphabet was adopted by the Tiognosca as a way of communicating with them, since writing the Cuchagya script in any ink other than than the ink of the Tacerothorun (which is invisible to humans) is considered offensive. The Granapta Latin Alphabet is described in the table below: Stress is shown by the accute accent on vowels. Peaking and dipping tones are shown by circumflexes and carons respectively. The character ö is placed after syllabic consonants (and before them too if they're preceded by non-syllabic consonants) to indicate that they are syllabic, but has no phonemic value itself.

Grammar

Nouns and Pronouns

All Granapta nouns are naturally neuter, and can be made either masculine or femenine by inflection. The prefix sact- is used to render them feminine while the prefix olaet- renders them masculine, eg:

Chosacyx (deer)→Sactchosacyx (doe)

Chosacyx (deer)→Olaetchosacyx (stag)

Granapta uses three pronouns: roomood (first person), cop (seccond person) and sy (third person). like nouns, these are naturally neuter, but can be given gender by the prefixes sact- and olaet-, meaning there are techniqually nine pronouns in the language. These can be set out in a table to more easily see the relationship between pronoun and prefix. All nouns and pronouns can be pluralised by the suffix -ca, eg:

Sóte (goat)→Sóteca (goats)

Verbs

All verbs in Granapta can be either transitive or intransitive, depending on their position in a sentence. Verbs placed behind nouns become intransitive, with the noun they precede becoming their object. To render this noun their subject instead, the interfix -lö- is placed between them both, eg:

Sâtche prog (the lion bleeds)→Sâtchelöprog (the lion spills blood)

Clusters like this constitute complete clauses in Granapta.

Transitive verbs are placed after the object of a sentence, with the subject placed before it. In order to show they don't relate to the following noun (and form a clause), the suffix -si is added to them, eg:

''Ince chângio thachópta rumgy slö gírǎp. (The mouse eats the cheese like a horse that can't walk.)→Ince chângio thachóptasi rumgy slö gírǎp. ''(The mouse eats the cheese and the horse can't walk.)

All Granapta verbs are naturally in the present tense. The suffix -sor is added to them to change them to the past tense, and future tense is indicated by removing their final vowel or consonant. If this leaves only a single consonant left, the suffix -ôr is also added, eg:

Ca (to speak)→Caôr (spoke)

Adjectives

All granapta adjectives have no set position in a sentence, and their connection with the noun or verb they decribe is shown by suprafixes. A peaking tone is placed on the first syllable of an adjective to show it relates to the subject of a sentence, on the seccond to show it relates to the object, and on the third to show it relates to the verb.

If an adjective is placed at the end of a sentence, the suffix -si is added to it, the same suffix placed after sentence final transitive verbs.

Adjectives can interupt clauses, even if they describe words outside these clauses, eg:

Cochnyo pagthasor rusaya chipica thasor.

Translation:

The large pig ate the rotten scraps.

Literally:

Pig rotted large (nominative) scraps ate.

The prefix gorsa- is added to adjectives to intensify them, eg:

Torpa (excited)→Gorsatorpa (very excited)

Syntax

Granapta statements use the subject object verb word order (SOV), while questions use the object subject verb (OSV) word order. The first word of a question is always given the prefix xörö-, eg:

Xöröpagthasor rusaya chipica cochnyo thasor.

Translation:

(Question marker) rotted large (nominative) scraps pig ate.

Sample Lexicon

Acen                  n. skull

''Anroc                 v. ''to escape

''Ca                     v. ''to speak

''Caosölö             n. ''death

Chângio            n. cheese

''Chipi                 n. ''food scrap

Chosacyx          n. deer

Chraomin          n. cat

Cochnyo            n. pig

Cop                    seccond person pronoun

''Cor                     n. ''loyalty; responsibility

Cosömö              n. tree

Ecpom                n. bear

Enras                  v. to grow

''Erom                   n. ''eye

Gecto                  v. to eat

Germocta            adj. large

''Gescoi                 n. ''adolescent

''Gesondo             adj. ''​​​​temporary; ​​​removable; impermanent

Gírǎ​​​​​p                  v. to be incapable of

''Gorsa-                prefix. ''placed before adjectives to intensify them

Ichpo                  n. cow

''Icto                     v. ''to move

Ince                    n. mouse

''Irmaco               adj. ''impossible

''-lö-                    interfix. ''placed between an intransitive verb and the following noun to render the noun the verb's subject.

''Mi                     v. ''to kill

Morom              n. world

Naoe                n. rat

Nöse                v. to occupy

''Olaet-              prefix. ''used to render nouns masculine

''Onaot               n. ''kestrel

''-ôr                    simulfix. ''renders monosyllabic verbs without rimes in the future tense (replaces nucleus)

Orpo                v. to rise

''Ot                     n. ''wheel

Pagtha              v. to rot

Pextora              adj. tall

''Portömöo           adj. ''thisly

''Prog                   n. ''lion

Römöt                first person pronoun

Röpoen              v. to laugh

''Rumgy               n. ''horse

Rusaya              adj. large

''Sact-                  prefix. ''used to render nouns femenine

Sâtche                v. to bleed

''-si                        suffix. ''placed after sentence final adjectives and transitive verbs

''-sor                      suffix. ''renders verbs in the past tense

Soram                  n. adult

''Sóte                     n. ''goat

''Sotönö                 v. ''to break; to ruin; to shatter

Slö                        n. walking

Sy                         third person pronoun

Tha                        v. to eat

''​​​​Thachópta             v. ''to eat

''Tiognos                 n. ''a member of the species who speak Granapta

''Tonro                     n. ''wishbone

''Torpa                     adj. ''excited; keen

Uac                        n. to resist; to defend against

Uanso                    n. old man

Urpaxta                  n. the planet the Tiognosca live on

''Uta                         n. ''courage

''Xopi                       n. ''greeting; welcome; acceptance; respect

Xom                      v. to row (a boat)

''X​​​​örö-                      prefix. ''added to the first word of a question